by Sarah Zettel
“There are times, Agravain, when the likes of you and I must trust that the heroes are doing their best, and we must stand beside them as they do it.”
“And if we know they are wrong?”
Kai shrugged. “If we can save them, we must. But we must ask ourselves, what will we ruin by that salvation? If we break them in our attempt to rescue them, is it worth it?”
Agravain threw himself onto the stool in front of the writing desk. It was bare and ready for work. What work? What next? He could not think beyond the next heartbeat. “What do you advise me?”
“Stand beside him or go home to your father’s hall and take your place there early. But remember, if you leave, he loses your help for all time, and if he marries the woman, he will be in desperate need of all the help he can get.”
Agravain’s mouth opened and closed. He could not seem to find the breath to ask the next question. “Do you think he will return?”
“I think he has as good a chance as any man save Arthur.”
Agravain looked up and saw tears shining in his uncle’s eyes. “How can you bear it, uncle?”
Kai’s smile was small and sad, and Agravain could not ever recall seeing such an expression on the man’s face before. Nor did he think he was ever likely to again. “Why do you think my tongue is so sharp, nephew? It eases some sorts of pain wondrous well. But you in your own way know this.” With a jerky but practiced motion, Kai shifted his crutch and used it to push himself up until he stood as straight as he was able before Agravain. “Honor demands much of us, Agravain, and the love of our brothers even more. Use your judgment, use it hard and harshly as you must, but do not give way to pride or jealousy. Let men say you have done anything else before they can say you have done that.”
Agravain watched his uncle’s departure but said nothing. Then he turned back to the window and struck the sill with his naked fist, telling himself it was the pain that wrung the tears from his eyes.
Chapter Seventeen
To her surprise, Risa slept for a time. When she woke, the light coming through her tiny window had faded. Evening then, or late afternoon. To her embarrassment, hunger cramped her stomach. In the face of the danger that trapped her here, something as mundane as hunger seemed out of place.
But that danger did not seem inclined to come for her. Risa rose and paced her cell, touching the stones to satisfy herself that they were solid and not merely some illusion of Euberacon’s. They felt cool and rough and heartbreakingly solid beneath her fingertips. No one moved in the dimming courtyard. No sound issued from any direction. Boredom, fear, and frustration flooded through her, and Risa kicked at the wooden door.
Slowly, the portal swung open on silent hinges.
Risa remained frozen where she was for several loud heartbeats. The door had been barred when the witch left her. When had it been opened? Who had opened it?
Does it matter? Risa snatched up her skirts and ran.
The corridor outside was dark and straight, well-lined with stones and smelling only faintly of damp. There might have been other doors along its length, but Risa did not stop to examine the shadows. To her left waited a cramped staircase leading upwards. The remains of the daylight illuminated an arched doorway at its top.
Risa flew up the uneven stairs and through the door. No one appeared to stop her. No voice cried out. She was in a dim corridor. Another doorway opened just in front of her to show a beautiful courtyard. A marble fountain splashed in the center. It was this that she had seen from her cell. The walls and ground were tiled in many different colors, turning them into tapestries. In the left-hand wall, she could see the doubled portal of a great gate.
Every fiber in her moved to run, but caution gripped Risa and she hesitated in the shadows. The gate looked to be closed for evening. In any other hall, it would also be locked. She had no reason to believe it would be otherwise here. Even if it were as unbarred as her door had been, to run across that broad and open court would mean being seen by whatever eyes lurked about this beautiful, silent place. She needed to find another way, a scullery leading to the work yard, a pantry with a small window, perhaps a place she could hide until her absence was noticed and she could creep out the gates after all had gone in pursuit of her.
If there is anyone here.
The silence was beginning to unnerve her. The halls she knew were bustling places, always filled to the brim with people, not to mention with the noise of every sort of creature from children down to dogs and chickens. She had never been in a place built by human hand so full of stillness.
But was it human hands that built this place?
Risa bit her lip. This was no good. Whatever this place was, she needed to be free of it, and freedom would not come if she just stood here. Gripping her skirts tightly, Risa slipped down the shadowed corridors behind the courtyard walls, flitting past doorways as quickly as she could, blessing the soft boots Guinevere had given her. She strained her ears hard for any sound, any sound at all. But there was only her breath and her heartbeat.
On her left hand, doorways opened onto the fantastically tiled court, on her right, they opened onto rooms. She had vague impressions of complexly woven carpets and wall hangings and furniture carved of wood so dark it was almost black. There was nothing that appeared to be a kitchen or workroom.
She turned a corner. Ahead waited more doorways on left and right, but this time, in the first doorway that opened on the right, she saw a flicker of light. With it, she caught a bright and delicate scent she had smelled only once before in her life, but had remembered always. Lemons.
“Lady Risa.”
Euberacon.
Run! she screamed to herself, but in the next heartbeat she asked. Where?
“You may enter, lady,” the sorcerer continued. His voice came from the lighted room. He sounded calm, even content. She could see nothing, not from where she stood.
The gate was closed. She could not scale a marble wall. She had no glimpse of outside light coming from any of the rooms she had passed. Would she return to her cell and try to barricade herself inside?
Mother Mary protect me. Risa knotted her fingers into the cloth of her skirt, and forced her reluctant feet to move forward.
Through the doorway lay a dining hall lit by white candles that filled the air with the clean scent of beeswax. That was the least of the fragrances that filled the bright room, for on its long table had been laid such a banquet as she had never seen. Not even the May Day feast at Camelot could compare. There were towers of fruit, both fresh and sparkling with sugar. Plump pastries had been arranged on dishes as white as marble. Savory stewed meats and whole silver fishes lay on beds of rice the color of gold. There were dishes of figs in honey, bowls heaped with all varieties of nuts, jellies and gelatins in all the colors of summer. Her empty stomach roiled painfully as she breathed in the warm air, for all the dishes were fresh and steaming, and everywhere was the scent of spices — pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and others for which Risa had no name.
At the head of the table, almost obscured by the fairy landscape of food, sat Euberacon Magus. He was cutting into a scarlet fruit with a silver knife.
“I had wondered when you would appear.” The sorcerer sounded mildly affronted, like a lover kept waiting. “Sit with me.” With his knife, he pointed at an empty chair by his right hand.
Risa stayed where she was.
Hands grabbed her arms and shoulders. She could see no form, but she felt the press of palms and fingers and long nails. They held her more tightly than any human could have. She could not even struggle as she was propelled forward, and forced into the chair. Those same hands pressed her arms against the chair arms.
Euberacon spoke a word she did not know, and the touch of the invisible hands lifted away. Risa raised her wrists to stare at the place she had been held. Her skin, already scabbed and scraped from the ravens that had swarmed to bring her here, was now marked with a half-score of tiny red crescent moons where the unse
en talons had pressed.
Fear shook her, and anger, but she struggled to keep her face still.
“You have questions,” said the sorcerer. He finished cutting at the fruit and split it open to reveal sparse white flesh filled to bursting with seeds coated in blood-red pulp. “Speak.” With tapered fingers, he pulled free several of the seeds and placed them in his mouth, sucking them dry.
Risa’s first thought was to remain stubbornly silent, but there was one question that had followed her through all the days since she had learned of her father’s bargain, and here might be her only chance to find the answer.
“Why?”
Euberacon spat out the seeds, now white and dry into a separate dish. “Why?”
“Yes. Why do you want me? Why destroy my father, my family, to get to me?”
“Because you are what I require. Because you have the eyes that can see, and I have need of them.” He took three more seeds into his mouth.
Strained and unreasoning hope rushed into Risa’s mind. “And if I do what you want? Then will you release me?”
Again, he spat out the seeds. Risa could not rid herself of the image of the life being sucked away, blood being drained dry. “You believe there is release for you? An ending? Oh, no, Lady Risa. You are mine. You serve me. That service may be pleasant, and may bestow upon you a measure of power, or it may be vilest slavery. That is the only choice you have left to you.”
Risa made no answer to that. The sorcerer’s smile was sly and thin. “You do not believe me, do you, little girl? You think you will find the way to free yourself. Or,” he paused and made a great show of pointing into the air with his red-stained finger, as if he stabbed some piece of truth there. “Perhaps you believe your Gawain, your gilded knight, will come for you. You believe his love to be true and that he is a gallant of unstained honor and pure intent.”
Risa held her peace. She would not be so trapped. Even an ordinary being could twist words to create doubt where none should exist, how much more could a sorcerer do?
“Would you know the truth, lady?” he said. “Would you know what manner of man your Gawain is behind his pretty words and fair face?”
Risa remained silent, and had the cold pleasure of seeing the sorcerer’s confident smile flicker.
“No matter. You are a child, and like any child you must be taken in hand for your own good.” His hand shot out and grabbed her by the upper arm. He propelled her from the hall and across the tiled courtyard. She gazed with longing at the heavy gate. She could struggle. She could bite. As he pulled her up the winding staircase of the southeast tower she could throw her weight backward and take them both down the stairs, but what then? This place had only one egress that she knew of yet, and she was not Sampson that she could break down the walls surrounding her.
Still holding her fast, Euberacon stopped on the second floor of the tower. He reached inside his black robe and drew out a silver key that hung on a silver chain. Euberacon unlocked the door and opened it. The breeze it made carried scents the smells of herbs and rare essences, along with the tang of rot and blood. Risa’s throat tightened and she forced herself to swallow. Euberacon pushed her into the darkness ahead of him.
The room had no windows. The door closed, cutting off all light, so that although the sorcerer let her go, Risa did not dare move. Behind her, she heard the clanking of delicate metals. A moment later, light flared, making shadows blossom on the bare walls before her. Euberacon had uncovered the brass brazier by the door and dropped fuel into the smoldering coals so that the flames sprang up providing a flickering light. This was without question the sorcerer’s workroom. Bags and bundles hung from the ceiling. The shelves were crowded with bowls, jars, caskets and strange devices of bronze and steel that she could not give any name to.
A black cloth lay on a round table of inlaid wood. Euberacon pulled it away to reveal a silver mirror as clear as a pool of water. It drew the eye almost irresistibly, promising to show any who looked in it a clearer image than they had ever before seen. Before she was even aware of what she did, she took a step toward it.
“Look, Lady Risa.” The sorcerer held the brazier high, casting a wide circle of golden light over the mirror. “I have readied it for you. Look and see.”
Risa turned her face away, staring resolutely at the wall.
Which was not something Euberacon was prepared to tolerate. Before she could move, he grabbed the back of her neck, forcing her head around however much she might resist.
“You will look.” His voice rasped in her ear. “And you will see. Close your eyes and I will forget that I need you alive and snap your neck.” His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her neck until Risa had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out at the pain.
Before her, the surface of the mirror had clouded, as if a haze passed over it. But that haze gradually took on color — scarlet, black, emerald and sapphire. Those colors broke apart and settled into the image of a hall with stone walls and great wooden beams gone black with smoke from years of fires. Leather shields with strange devices hung on the walls between tapestries of golden lions, ivory unicorns and green crosses. In a heavy chair draped with scarlet and silver sat a bear of a man, his grizzled black hair and beard sticking out in all directions and his blue eyes burning with an anger such as Risa had never seen.
Before this great bear stood Gawain. But not the graceful, hardened knight Risa knew. This was Gawain as a stripling boy, tall and thin, his hands too big and his neck too long for the rest of him. The boy, however, had Gawain’s earnest face, its expression shifting to one Risa had never seen him wear — that of fear.
As she looked, Risa lost all awareness of where she stood. All sensation of pain or her own fear left her. She was wholly in this other place, a silent spirit beside this young Gawain.
The man shot to his feet. “Who did this!” he bellowed. “What man defiled my daughter!”
Gawain held up both hands, trying to placate the man. “Father, calm yourself. It’s not …”
Father? This wild man was King Lot Luddoc? And what was this of a daughter? Gawain had never spoken of a sister.
“You bid me be calm, boy, when my name, my honor, is so disgraced!” The man reared up before Gawain. His heavy hand lashed out and came down on the boy’s ear. Gawain must have been well used to such blows, because he barely flinched. “Who did this! You tell me who or by God’s teeth I’ll break you in half.”
Gawain held his ground. “I promised her you would be fair. I told her if he was a man of name especially you would bless the marriage.”
“Her marriage is made! I have given my word to Cinuit of Strathclyde that she is his. Does she say he did this?”
“She does not say, Sir, and she will not until you promise …”
“Until I promise!” bellowed Lot. “Until I promise!” He shoved Gawain aside so hard the young man staggered and almost fell. Without waiting to see what he had done. King Lot strode from the hall, his face crimson with his fury.
As soon as Gawain recovered himself, he sprinted after his father, but as he dashed for the threshold, he knocked against another youth with black hair and a long nose.
“Gawain, what …?”
“Later, Agravain.” Gawain ran ahead, not looking back to see that Agravain had turned to follow him.
“Tania!” bellowed Lot as he stormed down the narrow wooden hall. “Tania!”
Gawain stretched his thin legs, trying to catch up with him. “No, father, do not do this. If you will stop a moment …”
But Lot did not stop. He barreled down the corridor that he seemed to fill with his wrath. At last, he burst through a pitted door.
There was a workroom on the other side, filled with ladies of all ages engaged in tasks of spinning and sewing. Tapestry frames and looms decorated the well-lit chamber. As the king barreled in, all the dozen or so of them gasped and leapt to their feet, too startled to make any sort of curtsey.
All did so, except one. She
had pale skin and raven-black hair, just like Gawain. She held herself proudly where she sat on a stool with a drop spindle and a cloud of carded wool in her hands. The bright blue eyes in the delicate face that gazed cold and hard at the enraged king were a match for Gawain’s.
“Whore!” shouted Lot, leveling a dirty and calloused finger at the slender lady. “Who is your man! Name him or go to the devil!”
But it was not Lot the lady answered. Her gaze flickered to the young Gawain who appeared, pale and out of breath in the doorway behind his father.
“You told him,” she said, her voice flat and weary. “After I begged you not to, you told him.”
“Tania, I could not …”
“You will speak to me, slut!” Lot took two steps closer to her, his hands clenched into fists. They were large hands, Risa saw, strong and hardened by work and war. “Do you deny you carry a bastard child in your belly?”
Tania set down her work on the table beside her, taking care that the thread should not tangle. She stood and came forward so that she stood less than an arm’s length from her enraged father. No! Risa wanted to scream as she saw the sinews bulge in Lot’s neck. Don’t go near him!
“Yes, gentle father. I am with child.”
The blow caught Tania on her face and knocked her sprawling onto the floor. She did not cry out, she only lay there, panting as a great red welt spread across her cheek.
“Who! Who is the father of your bastard! Name him!”
Slowly, shaking her head to clear it, Tania pushed herself up onto her hands. The ladies stood by, aghast, but not one of them dared to come to her aid. “And if I do name him? What then?”
“Then he will die for this deed, you whore!”
“Promise of such a great reward will surely make me speak.” The woman was ice. Where did such courage spring from? Or was she simply past caring? She knew that blow would come and she went to meet it.
It was Gawain who stepped between her and their father. “Sir, it does our name no honor for you to threaten Tania like this. Come to the hall with me. Let me call your chiefs. Cinuit of Strathclyde can be given some other prize.”