Under Camelot's Banner

by Sarah Zettel

  “Such names are not for me, my daughter. Save them for their proper owner.”

  “But … but then who …”

  “One who cares for your mother’s children and answers their call when she can.” The lady smiled a smile of love and deep sorrow. “You will learn my name when you are ready to hear it.”

  She knelt then, and touched Lynet’s wounded feet.

  “I can heal you, but I cannot make you whole. It is your heart alone that can make that miracle. But accept this much child. Accept it and let it bide. The rest will come when you forgive yourself.” She laid her cool hands against Lynet’s feet, and she kissed Lynet’s brow with a brush like the touch of sea foam, and she was gone.

  With her the pain was gone. Lynet’s feet were sound, but as she said, they were not whole. They were toughened, mottled and scarred and the toes splayed and curled under. But it was blessing unlooked for and Lynet gave thanks, and on her healed feet, she walked home, and though they pained her badly, there was no sickness this time.

  Accept this. Let it bide. She knew now who that shining woman was. It was not God’s mother, but her own grandmother, the bucca gwidden, the white spirit of the sea who had come to her then.

  Accept this. Let it bide. This touch. This kiss. This moment, whatever comes next. This much is blessing. Accept it.

  With a sigh, Lynet slipped into dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lynet’s peace did not last beyond the blessedly clear dawn.

  From the time she woke, Lynet felt the pull of the mirror. While Daere dressed her and helped her to eat when her trembling hands and aching arms refused to hold bowl and spoon any longer, Lynet watched the queen. Guinevere carried herself as she always did, easy and graceful. She laughed at her ladies’ jokes, and dispensed orders calmly, lightly. Lynet tried to find some shade of the tears she had seen the day before, some crack that she might be able to reach through to beg for the mirror back. But there was nothing. The weary woman had been laid away with the overdress from the day before. There was only the queen.

  But Queen Guinevere had the mirror with her. Lynet could feel it tucked in her girdle. It sang to her, and it pulled at her, restless as a child tugging at her sleeve. She needed to reach within it, to find out what was straining for her attention. Something must be wrong, and she needed to know what it was.

  It only grew worse when Daere changed her bandages and the queen came over to inspect her wounds. The flesh was healing cleanly without smell or sign of purification. She felt the mirror like a piece of ice being brought near her skin. It burned coldly without even touching.

  “Can you grip my hand?” the queen asked.

  Dutifully, Lynet squeezed Queen Guinevere’s fingers as tightly as she could before the pain became too much. “Majesty …” she murmured.

  Queen Guinevere looked at Lynet, her cool, grey eyes making a far different kind of mirror. There was no getting past that surface now that it had hardened. The queen knew full well what she wanted to ask, Lynet was sure, and she would not relent.

  “Thank you,” Lynet said, the words ringing fragile and hollow.

  “You’ll ride with Daere today,” said the queen as she straightened up. “You will not be able to work the reins with those.”

  Lynet bowed her head, unable to find the polite words of obedience to answer with. All will be right, she told herself, biting her lips against her pain and her fear. I will be home tomorrow. The queen will not refuse Laurel when she asks for the mirror back.

  Holding firmly to these thoughts, she was able greet the anxious Captain Hale when he came to her, assuring him that she was well and growing stronger, and send him back smiling to reassure the rest of Cambryn’s men. She was able to stand on her own feet to leave the pavilion with the other ladies to stand in the clear morning light while the serving women helped the soldiers strike their tent and load it into the carts.

  “My lady?”

  Gareth. Lynet opened her eyes, which she did not realize she had closed. The squire stood behind her, leading the steady brown mare she had ridden this whole long, weary way. He was trying to smile, but worry prevented that smile from reaching his eyes.

  “Thank you, Squire Gareth,” she managed to say. “I will need some assistance today I fear.” She lifted her bandaged arms.

  He bowed and made to assist her, but Daere, somehow, got there first, shooing Gareth back to hold the mare’s head. They shared a smile over the maid’s head as she bent down and with a surprisingly strong motion, hoisted Lynet into her saddle. She firmly took the reins from Gareth to tie to her own horse’s saddle. Gareth bowed to her with such solemn courtesy, Lynet had to duck her head and suck on her cheeks to keep from laughing out loud.

  It was to be the only relief she had. As she could not ride for herself, she could not move about the procession as she was used to do, going back to talk with Captain Hale, or to check on Brendon. Daere, perhaps afraid Lynet might slip in a word or two to Gareth, kept her firmly in the middle of all the ladies who rode behind the queen as their slow, deliberate procession crossed the emerald green moorland. Every step brought her closer to home, but never closer to what she needed. She needed the mirror to find out what was happening to Laurel, to know what happened in Cambryn. Maybe they would be home tomorrow, but there might easily be another day’s delay. Mesek, Peran, Colan and Morgaine could bring an end to everything in another day if she were not there to give warning. There was nothing she could do without the mirror. Not even Gareth, riding up beside her whenever he could find an excuse could aid her. He could not rush this endless march, and he could not bring her to the mirror the queen had stolen from her.

  She tried to continue telling herself it didn’t matter, that she would be home tomorrow, that Laurel would be well and all would be right. This chorus chanted hourly into the halting chaos of her thoughts helped stave off the worst of the fear and longing, until they came at long, long last to the heights of Rough Tor. Lynet surveyed her own country with a relief that flowed like honey in her veins.

  Then, Sir Lancelot turned his horse slowly down the northern slope, and all the procession made to follow, the queen included.

  The blood drained from Lynet’s face. “Daere, I must speak with the queen!” she cried.

  Daere, obediently, urged her mount forward. Lynet’s horse followed as it must, until they walked beside the queen’s tall grey mare. Queen Guinevere looked down at her, calm and expectant.

  “This is not the road to Cambryn, Majesty,” she said, forgetting all courtesy in her confusion. “We need to turn south.”

  Queen Guinevere cocked her head, but did not rein her horse in. She continued down the slope, holding her mount to a careful pace so it would not step in a hole or turn its hoof on the rough ground. “We do not go to Cambryn, Lynet,” she said. “We go to Tintagel.”

  The last word dropped into Lynet’s understanding like a stone and for a moment all she could do was stare. The queen did not look back, she watched the way in front of her. Lynet’s mare stumbled and snorted hard before righting itself.

  “Why, Majesty!” Lynet cried at last. Heart and calm shattered to jagged pieces. They were not going home. They were not going to Laurel. They would leave Laurel alone for two days, more days, all those long days, and she could reach out and snatch the mirror and shout a warning that would carry all the way to Cambryn …

  “Because before any other thing can be done, we must make sure that King Mark stands strong,” the queen was saying.

  “But …” Lynet stammered. Pain lanced down her arms as her hands strained to move, to tear the girdle from the queen’s waist, even as her mind recoiled in horror from the thought of such an act.

  “But what, Lady Lynet?” asked Queen Guinevere.

  “Why did you not tell me?” she asked weakly.

  The queen only looked at her, and it seemed to Lynet that every word she had spoken, and everything she had done flashed between them. Because I cannot be
trusted. Because I have made one too many mistakes.

  Because I begin to run mad.

  “I must ask you to bide in patience and trust me, Lynet,” said Queen Guinevere. “It is for the good of Cambryn and all the Dumonii that I do this now.” For the briefest moment, Lynet saw a trace of the sympathy that had overcome Queen Guinevere yesterday, but then it was gone, locked away inside the casket of the queen’s heart. Queen Guinevere nodded to Daere, who in turn let them fall behind, and Lynet could only watch the queen descend the wrong side of the rolling green tor behind Sir Lancelot.

  They were returning to Tintagel. She had not imagined such a thing. In her mind’s eye, she saw the fortress on its island rising cold and hard-edged over the sea. She saw the castell and crofting that sprawled across the rolling headland. And she saw Colan and her father riding before her, leading her to meet Queen Iseult, to begin her fosterage, and end the life that she had known.

  She saw the gates swing shut in the rain. She saw King Mark with his red hands dangling between his knees.

  Why are you doing this! she cried within her mind. Why!

  The mirror would tell her. Ryol would show her. That was why the queen had taken the mirror. She did not want Lynet to know what was happening and what was wrong. Ryol cried out to her now, getting further away with every step, and she could do nothing. Nothing at all.

  No. That was not true.

  “Bring us close again, Daere,” she ordered.

  “But my lady …”

  “Do as I say!” she snapped.

  Daere closed her mouth, pressing her lips into a thin and disapproving line. Nonetheless, she obeyed, leading Lynet forward so that once again they rode beside the queen, and the queen was plainly not pleased to see them there.

  “Majesty, at least let me send two of my men back to Cambryn, so my sister knows what is happening, and where she can get word to us.”

  The queen considered this. Shadows that were all of her own making shifted behind her grey eyes. “Yes,” she said in the end. “You may send word to Cambryn that we are to be found in Tintagel. That would suit well.”

  Lynet bowed her head and ordered Daere to take them back along the procession. She met Captain Hale coming up to consult with her. He had, of course, noticed the change of direction as soon as she. After a certain amount of wrangling, they agree that Lock and Stef Trevalian would go to Cambryn and warn Laurel. She watched her men riding fast toward her home, and Lynet thought her heart would break. But she could not go that way, not yet. She must try to find a way to endure.

  Lynet passed the rest of the day in the fog of her own despair. They moved in and out of woods she knew, passed the huddled stone houses of clans who had held the lands for generations. Folk ran out to hold up their hands, or kneel, or just stare, as the procession rode past. But none of it could reach her heart. Her uncertainty teased and nagged and whispered, providing a feast of horrors for her imagination to gnaw on while her anger at the queen simmered hot. But above all, she felt the mirror. It pulled at her without ceasing. She felt Ryol within it hovering, stretching but unable to reach her. The pain in her arms, which had subsided, now redoubled as if drawing strength from her unrest.

  Then, as the sun began to sink toward the horizon, the wind blew hard, and Lynet smelled salt. She lifted her head and clearly saw the sloping rise before them, dotted only here and there with trees, but sprouting stones as thickly as if they had been sown there. She knew the shape of the land it like she knew the shape of her chamber walls. When they topped that hill, they would look out across Tintagel’s headland.

  The queen, however, did not mean for them to do so tonight. She ordered a halt, despite Sir Lancelot’s frowns, and said they would pitch camp where they were. The only reason Lynet could fathom for taking this course was that despite her refusal to send out advance messengers, the queen did not truly want to surprise Tintagel. She wanted them, wanted Mark, to know that she was come, and that she was unconcerned about him and what he might think to do about that coming.

  So once more the pavilion rose, and Lynet was shepherded inside with the other ladies. She looked about for Gareth, but could not find him for all the activity of readying them a place to sleep for the night. There was more than a little grumbling about having to do this within an hour’s ride of a castell that could have taken them all in, but nothing that might come even close to rebellion. All here trusted the queen and were willing to serve her pleasure.

  All save Lynet.

  In the pavilion, the ladies made preparation to eat their evening meal. Lynet sat in her chair, her throbbing and useless hands in her lap. Her eyes strayed again and again to the queen, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of the concealed mirror. She still carried it in her girdle. Lynet could feel it as the queen moved to and fro.

  I will find a way to speak to her. I will find a way to make her understand it is mine and I have need of it.

  “My lady?” whispered Daere in her ear. “My lady, you must wake up. You must eat something.”

  Lynet opened her eyes. Once more she had drifted away without realizing it, and this added yet one more worry to her growing tally. Daere stood before her with a bowl of steaming broth. It smelled delicious, full of meat and wine and herbs. Her mouth watered and yet her stomach twisted inside her. The queen sat with her ladies at her table, so far away. Her hands twitched and her fingers curled.

  “My lady?” said Daere again.

  “Yes, Daere,” she managed to say. “Yes, I will eat.”

  The maid helped Lynet hold the bowl to drink. She tasted nothing as she swallowed. There was only a trail of warmth tricking its way down her to a void that did not want to be filled. Queen Guinevere glanced toward her once, and their eyes met. Do you feel it? she wondered toward the queen. Do you feel the weight of what you’ve taken from me? Give it back, give it back. It’s mine, and I cannot abandon my sister!

  If the queen divined any of these thoughts she did not show it. She only looked at Lynet with a calm that reminded her sharply of Laurel. Laurel alone in Cambryn, waiting for her to come back, to say what was happening within their home so she could know how to keep herself safe.

  Daere’s bowl bumped her lips and Lynet turned her face away. “No more,” she said.

  It seemed for a moment Daere might argue but in the end she only said, “As you will, my lady,” but she was clearly both disappointed and disapproving. It didn’t matter. Daere helped Lynet to her pallet. She sank back down on her pillows. Nothing mattered but that there must be a way to reach the mirror again, to reach through to Ryol and to Laurel. There must be.

  The light was fading around her. The talk growing softer in here, although out beyond the thin cloth wall, it was still lively. The noise pounded against her ears, intolerable because it was not what she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear Ryol’s voice, and Laurel’s. She grit her teeth to keep from crying out. Bootsteps grew closer to the pavilion, and for one wild moment, Lynet hoped it was Hale. She could order Hale to take the mirror back for her, to put it into her useless, useless hands …

  The violence of her thought’s froze Lynet. What is happening to me?

  “My lady, what is it …?” said Daere. Lynet knew she had gone white. She felt it. The pain pulsed hard in her arms.

  I’m going mad. Oh God and Mother Mary. That’s what the matter is. But she could not say that. She could not say anything, even to ease the worry creasing Daere’s face. Beyond her, there was movement around the door, and Lynet looked up mutely, half-afraid now that it would be Captain Hale, and she would not be able to stop herself from telling him to take back what the queen had stolen, to give her back the door to Ryol who was too far away.

  Stop!

  But it was not Captain Hale. It was Sir Lancelot, with Gareth behind him once more. Knight and squire knelt before Queen Guinevere, and did not seem to see the consternation in the queen’s face as she bid them rise. What was she really thinking? Lynet itched to know, to reach out with force of
will and pour her understanding into the queen, to flow past Sir Lancelot taking up a cup of wine for himself without, Lynet was sure, having been bid to drink. The queen frowned, but settled back with a cup of her own.

  Her hands hurt and itched. Only weakness kept her still.

  Help me, she cried out in her thoughts, to God and to Ryol and Laurel. Help me!

  “My lady,” said a voice. Her whole body jolted and she saw Gareth standing over her.

  Help me! Her hand scraped across the bed coverings, but her voice would not come, because she could not find which word she wanted to speak, the polite words of greeting she must say to keep back the glances and whispers of the ladies around her, or the plea for succor that was rising over the swirl of need and madness that filled her.

  Gareth glanced at the ladies, and the frowning queen and back at Lynet’s straining form. Daere, for once not sniffing or disapproving brought him a stool.

  “I thought you would wish to know that Brendon is doing well, and if his curses are anything to judge by, gaining strength steadily.” He said as he sat. This was for the ladies around them, so they would know the conference they held now was innocent. But more softly he added. “What is it, Lynet? What pains you?”

  Lynet licked her lips. Gareth, just a little faster than Daere picked up a cup from beside the pallet and held it for her so she could drink the small beer. The tang of it steadied her a little. Or perhaps it was the urgency and care in Gareth’s brown eyes. She could not tell. “The queen has taken the mirror,” was all she could say.

  Gareth set the cup down. “Daere, my lady is warm, I think. Perhaps a cloth for her head?” Daere, worried enough to accept a recommendation from the squire retreated. What did Daere see? What did any of them see? She didn’t know, she couldn’t know, and it terrified her.

  “We are but a two days from your home, Lynet,” he said soothingly. “You have done enough. All will be well. The queen will return the mirror as soon as we reach Cambryn.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” she shook her head frantically. “I mustn’t … I can’t …” Mustn’t what? Can’t what? She didn’t know herself. She only knew that this skin she wore was too tight, that it separated her from too much. She could not remain here, helpless and ignorant while Colan plotted against Laurel, while Mesek and Peran between them decided how to plunder Cambryn. A few days was more than enough time.