Kay was saved by a sudden shout from the head of the line. "Castle Sweyn up ahead, sir, still a good way off. But the scout says we'll be there before noon."
Kay smiled sourly. "There you are, Gawain. The castle, the Earl, and doubtless the daughter, too—you can ask them yourself."
~~~
The sun high in the sky, not a breath of rain, all the pathways clear now that spring had come—any man would be glad to ride out on a day like this. And any horse would be dancing about on its toes, snuffling the sweet air with delight at the chance of a gallop through the woods. Any except this sorry bunch of nags, dull-eyed and stark in the coat, hanging their miserable heads over their stable doors as if it were their last day on earth.
Yet what could he do? Cursing, the stable master patted the last hairy rump, and stepped out of the stable with a sense of defeat. This one had been the last hope and now it was gone. Bad enough to have no horse in the stable for any master, but worst of all for Earl Sweyn.
Trembling outside in the yard was the groom, a runt of a youth already too friendly with the Earl's heavy hand. Meeting the huge, fearful eyes in the pale, starved face, the stable master jerked his head toward the barn.
"Hop it, lad," he said not unkindly. "Make yourself scarce till the Earl's gone. The mare's lame, all right. No sense in letting him take it out on you."
Twitching like a rabbit, the boy bolted for cover and the stable master watched him go. Even the grooms here were the worst to be had. Oh, the place was fine enough for a king, with its handsome cobbled courts and an array of towers and battlements any lord would be proud to call his own. Only a man like Sweyn would think of trying to run a nobleman's castle like a tightfisted churl.
"Wake up, man!" came a harsh, cawing voice behind. "Where's my horse?"
"My lord?" The stable master turned as slowly as he dared. "Cast a shoe, sir, and torn her sole. She can't be ridden today."
"Cast a shoe?" The lean, choleric figure in front of him slapped his whip balefully against his boot. "She was shod only last week."
The stable master kept his gaze steady and made no response. Every lad in the yard knew that the Earl used the worst farrier for miles around, in his eternal quest to pinch a few pence. Only the best of everything for himself, of course—the finest leather for his boots, even for his whip, and burnt velvet for his habit with a rich cloak to match—not bad for a man who couldn't spare a farthing to keep a good horse on its feet.
The Earl read his silence and glowered, hunching his short body like a crow about to strike. "What about the gray?" he said menacingly.
"Spavined, sir. Like I told you, he shouldn't have been sent out in the fields."
"Well, the big bay then, that great useless brute!"
The stable master stared stolidly ahead. "Got the bots." He lifted his hand and began to count on the fingers of one hand. "The chestnut's shoulder-shotten and the gelding—"
"Shoulder-shotten, spavined, they'll have the staggers next! Keep your horse cant to yourself, dolt, and hold your tongue. Are you telling me there's no horse to ride today?"
"Yes, sir."
And that'll mean old Tom gets another night in the hovel where he's lived for the last forty years, thought the stable master with satisfaction, watching the same realization pass over the thin face with its beak of a nose, clenched mouth, jutting cheekbones, and cold black eyes. All the castle knew that the Earl was going to cast out the old herdsman and his wife and not a soul dared defend them for fear of sharing their fate. But the Gods had given them a reprieve today. "My lord! My lord!"
It was one of the guard, running from the lookout tower. "There's a troop of men coming, sir," he cried, "a hundred knights and more, with a great lord at their head and a lady in white and gold." The Earl stood thunderstruck. "What banner?"
"A red dragon rampant on a white ground—it's the King, sir, with Queen Guenevere!"
"King Arthur? Gods above, no!"
The Earl bunched his hands and bit back a scream. The King and a hundred knights, coming here? Blanching, he saw a month's provisions gone, every living thing slaughtered to fill a hundred hungry mouths. God's blood and bones, he might as well have a flock of gannets in the place.
His mind reeled. Desperately he tried to master his sense of doom. Think, man, think—"Father!"
Raising his eyes, he shuddered and groaned again. Hurrying out of the main door of the castle was a figure in rose silk and velvet, her gown and veil streaming in the wind. "Father," she called, "is it true? The King and Queen coming here?"
"Lienore, not now!" he bellowed furiously. "Get back to your quarters, and stay there till they've gone!" If the King meets a family welcome, he groaned inwardly, we'll never get rid of him. "Go back, I tell you!" he screeched. "I want you out of the way!"
But the shapely figure did not check her stride. Shaking with rage, the Earl watched her coming on. How was it that he could make boys faint and soldiers weep, and have no control over this bitch of a girl?
Look at her now, he screamed silently, knowing that the stable master and the men-at-arms were watching her raptly, too, taking in the wide eyes, the moist lips and open mouth, the gown straining across the bobbing breasts—
"Get about your business, fools!" He scattered them with a snarl, fighting the urge to take after them with his whip.
Behind Lienore now he could see a waiting woman following her out of the doorway, with a child in tow. God's blood and bones! A fresh burst of rage battered at his heart. "Take the bastard away," he howled, "and lock him in his room!"
"Your grandson, Father!" Lienore returned with sublime indifference. "Your own flesh and blood."
She came to a halt before him, stroking down her rosy skirts. In repose her pink cheeks, delicate skin, and round, girlish eyes looked soft and cherubic, tempting to any man. But Earl Sweyn knew how deceptive her softness could be. His gaze turned to the boy, a tall, sturdy child of seven or thereabouts. "So it's not enough to bring a bastard home? You want to shame us now in front of the King?"
"I only did what every woman does," said Lienore. She raised her lovely eyes in an innocent look. "What your mother did to give birth to you."
Oh, the impudent slut! Earl Sweyn's fingers itched. If he hadn't known his departed wife so well, he'd have doubted this trollop could ever be his child. But he'd married Lienore's mother for her Christian piety, and got more than he expected, a wife unhappy from the first to come to his bed. Their struggles between the sheets had convinced her that sex with him was an unrepeatable sin, and as soon as Lienore was born she had withdrawn to a nunnery, where she lived to this day. Nothing he could say had been able to change her mind. And the girl gets that stubbornness from her, he thought venomously. But at least his wife knew who had fathered her child!
"My mother," he said with cruel emphasis, "had a ring on her finger when she lost her maidenhead. She didn't get so befuddled with drink she lay down with a stranger in a Gypsy's tent!"
"It wasn't drink," said Lienore, with what he would have sworn was a sly relish. "It was the fumes the fortune-teller raised." She closed her eyes. "Fumes," she repeated. "The rarest scent you ever smelled—"
"Fumes, you harlot?" He was yelping with rage. "I took you to that tournament to make a good match! I thought you'd come back with a husband for our house, not a babe in your belly and a cuckoo for our nest!"
Lienore reached out a velvet-covered arm and coolly plucked the child away from his nurse.
"He's not a cuckoo," she said carelessly, "he's a big fine boy." She tousled the child's thick, fair hair and treated the Earl to a smile every bit as cruel as his own. "Whoever his father was, he was a lusty lad. He could keep any woman happy all her life." Unlike you, Father, her innocent blue eyes said.
The Earl felt the child's bright gaze on him and suddenly did not care that his wife had left him and his daughter had proved a strumpet. His grandson was indeed a big, handsome boy, fair and open-faced, one any grandfather would be proud to call h
is own. The Earl secretly rejoiced that the lad had long, strong limbs, a clear gaze, and a fearless air, and nothing of his own dark, crow-like features and unimpressive build. When the time came—and now he was seven, it would come soon—the boy would leave the house of women to become a squire, a knight, and his grandfather's heir. And at that same time his dear mother, Lienore, to her great surprise, the Earl promised himself with a silent vengeful smirk, would find herself singing Hail Marys in the same nunnery as her mother, dispatched with an endowment large enough to make sure the good sisters kept her there all her life. He sighed with anticipation. Oh, it would be sweet, so sweet.
But until then… He turned back to Lienore and composed his features into a contemptuous sneer. "You call him a fine lad, when the shame he's brought on us keeps us at home? When the King has to track us down here, because we can't go and pay our respects at court?"
She played with her veil, teasing out a small curl at her temple and smoothing it down beside her full, pink cheek. "You're not shamed, Father," she said with an easy shrug. "I know you. You're just too mean to take us all to court." She pointed a sly white finger over his shoulder to the yard behind. "Which is why they have come to you."
"What—?"
The Earl whirled round. At the foot of the courtyard, a great gatehouse gave onto the forest beyond. Coming through the trees was a troop of knights on horseback, escorting a finely dressed couple in royal red, white, and gold. Behind them came another body of knights and a war band of fighting men.
"Find the chamberlain!" he shouted at the dumbstruck nursemaid. "Tell him to scare up all the servants and get ready for the King!"
The procession was emerging from the forest and making its way up the castle mount with the King in the lead. The Earl stared like a man at the stake. Arthur's tall, broad-shouldered physique was finely displayed in a scarlet tunic and a gold cloak. His Queen was a perfect foil to the great bear-like shape, a womanly figure radiant in white and gold.
Now the glittering entourage swept into the courtyard, with Guenevere riding beside Arthur, a warm smile on her lips.
"My lord Sweyn," called Arthur, "forgive our unheralded descent. A war alarm calls us to Cornwall to relieve King Mark, and we would not pass by your lands without greeting you."
"You are most welcome, sire," the Earl cried with desperate gaiety. "You and your knights."
He nodded to the King's four companions and a new danger seized his unquiet mind. The sallow, sardonic Kay and the mild Bedivere did not trouble him, but the smiling Lucan was too handsome by far, and that brute Gawain was already eyeing Lienore with open interest on his beefy face. So! Earl Sweyn's gut tightened. Not only the boy but his loose-loined mother, too, would have to be put under lock and key till the visitors had gone—
"Father—"
He felt an urgent tugging at his sleeve. "Your Majesties," he pressed on, ignoring her, "will you feast with us tonight?"
"You and your daughter, I hope," returned Arthur courteously, bowing to Lienore.
Guenevere gave a kindly smile. "And is this your grandson?"
She signaled to the maid to bring the boy forward, and both the King and Queen leaned down from their saddles to make much of him.
"Father—" came Lienore's voice again, with a raw edge of excitement this time.
"Peace, will you?" Earl Sweyn hissed. "Sire," he called, "my poor house is yours."
Arthur bowed. "For this night only, my lord, then we must be on our way." He glanced round the castle, following Guenevere's gaze. "I look forward to hearing about your estate."
The courtyard was slowly filling with excited servants, the chamberlain at their head. The Earl watched Arthur and his knights and felt the first dawnings of pride. The King and Queen here, under his roof—it was the greatest honor to the house. The cost would be terrible, of course, but was not their family motto Noblesse oblige?
"Father—" came Lienore's tense whisper again.
Death and damnation, would the girl never cease? He turned, twitching with the urge to knock her down. But a cunning joy was written in her eyes and wide, knowing mouth. She pointed to Arthur as he lifted Guenevere down from her horse, and her head was nodding like a flower loose on its stem.
"It's him, Father," she said.
"What?" The Earl caught his breath. "Who?"
Lienore stared at him, excitement leaking from her like sweat. "The man at the tournament. The one who fathered my child."
Chapter 8
Tristan stood in the mouth of the tunnel, hardly daring to breathe. Stretching before him was a great hall of gleaming rock with many chambers, each bigger than the last. A swift rush of water ran through the center of the cavern, finding an unseen passage to the sea. Torches of sea fire flickered round the walls in tongues of green and blue, and pillars of crystal rock held up the roof. Wreaths of white spindrift blossomed round the pillars, and an Otherworldly light shone everywhere.
He looked around in awe. As his eyes softened to the mystic light, he saw alcoves in the rock piled high with all the riches of the sea. Seaweed-hung chests spilled over with silver and gold, and gold chains and jewels lay in tumbling piles. His gaze roved over emeralds and sapphires alight with hidden fire, and rubies glowing with their own heart's blood. Scattered among them were branches of white and red coral, hoards of dusky jet, and pearls like angels' eyes.
Amazed, he ran his fingers over some of the stones. Here, a rainbow of glittering quartzes in yellow, mauve, and green; there, heaps of ambergris, filling the chamber with its distinctive scent. Who lives here? he marveled. Then he heard a sudden cascade of sound, a tinkling fall of notes above the torrent rushing through the hall, and there she was.
At the far end of the chamber, where the stream emerged from the cave wall, was a figure muffled in sea-like draperies from head to foot. Outlined against the black and gleaming rock, she seemed to float above the water around her feet. Her gauzy veil rippled with the rushing torrent, and her foaming robes ebbed and flowed with the roar of the sea. A moon-shaped diadem crowned her head, set with great pearls shading from midnight to dawn, and the mother of all pearls adorned the Goddess ring on her hand. She bore a wand of coral as red as a sunset at sea, an he knew then he was seeing the Lady herself.
The lofty shape raised her arms. "Sir Tristan, approach!"
As she spoke, it came to him that he had heard the low music of her voice long ago, at the dawn of time. As his sight cleared, he could see that the tall, still form was not floating on the water, but enthroned on a foam-flecked rocky platform in the midst of the stream. The air was full of the zestful tang of breaking water, and a slender shape rose like a fountain from its midst. The spray bejeweled her cloudy robes, and tiny drops of sea dew hung on her like diamonds on a queen.
Tristan found his voice. "Are you the Lady? She who sent for me?"
A tender chuckle took him by surprise. The mellow voice had seen all the seasons of life, and was rich with love. "Ah, Tristan, your fate brought you here. And that was written when the stars were young."
"But are you the Lady?" Tristan persisted, unafraid.
The veiled form inclined her head. "I answer to that name, but not alone. The Lady of the Lake holds Avalon, and the Lady of Broceliande keeps the lake in Little Britain, where Sir Lancelot was reared." He could hear the deep voice softening as she spoke. "They are my younger sisters on this plane of earth. The sea was here before the lakes were born."
It was more than Tristan could grasp. He looked around. "Where are we?" he demanded.
The gauzy figure held out her long, sinuous arms, embracing the teeming waters and the rocky cave. "In the womb of life—in the place where our race began. All our people once came out of the sea, and beneath its surging main lie the lands of youth."
"You are the Mother." A strange delight pierced him, bringing a warmth and sweetness he had never known.
"I serve the Mother," the Lady corrected gently. "But the Great One Herself is above us all. It was She wh
o girded our world with the sea, and the great ocean is the circle of life itself. You entered the circle when She brought you here. She wishes you to go to Castle Dore."
Tristan tensed. "The castle of my uncle King Mark?"
The Lady nodded. "And your cousin Andred, your mother's brother's son. You have not seen King Mark for many years, but he has never forgotten his sister's son. If you choose, you may do him a dear service now.
He is under a challenge he cannot win, while your deeds of arms are known far and wide."
"So I may take this battle on—defeat his opponent and restore peace to the King?" Tristan's eyes glowed like moons, and he felt an animal power surging through his veins. "Lady, thank you," he said abruptly. "When I went away from Lyonesse, I never meant to lose my only kin. I must go to King Mark now!"
"Then go with this."
The Lady gestured toward the stream flowing around her feet. Tristan saw a long shining shape borne along on the torrent, a great sword in a scabbard of gold, richly engraved and emblazoned with the signs of power.
The deep autumnal tones rang around the cave. "Take it, Tristan. It was sent for you."
He plunged into the stream. He did not feel the shock of the ice-cold water, only the strange warmth as the scabbard came to his grasp. Seizing it with both hands, he hauled himself back onto the rocks and, trembling with joy, drew the sword from its sheath.
In his hand lay a weapon such as warriors only dream of. It was a massive broadsword, worked to perfection by Otherworldly hands, with a deadly sheen and an edge keening for blood. The hilt was set with all the stones of the sea, cabochons as pale as pearls and jasper and agate gleaming like salmons' eyes. A skein of crooked marks ran down the blade. My name is Glaeve, he saw written in runic script. She who was and will be sent me to you.
"Glaeve!" he murmured, entranced. Reverently he passed it through the air, and could hear the sword humming in a high, etherial tone. He brought the blade to his lips in a cold kiss. "Welcome, brother. You are mine till death."
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