“He is going to die sooner or later.” Perceval groaned, passing his hand through his hair. “He is no match for Lancelot! Not wounded as he is, and blind with rage!”
Sir Kay was using a knife to clean his fingernails. “Put him under lock and key. He is disobeying your express word, sire.”
“Blanchefleur is right,” Perceval said. “He would die more surely in confinement.”
“Or perhaps he would come to his senses.” Agravain, the last of Gawain’s living brothers, lounged against the wall with his arms crossed.
The King said, “Have each of you pleaded with him?”
“Sir, all of us.” It was Sir Bedivere who spoke, the King’s marshal. “He refuses to hear.”
“There must be something we can do,” Perceval said.
The King looked at him with infinite pity. “Not always, fair son.”
Perceval looked at his hands, clasped loosely before him. His had been Prince Alexander’s key to all mortal woes: cut the knot of troubles with a blow of steel. But this knot was of adamant, and no steel would break it.
The King said: “I commanded him not to seek his revenge. I gave my word, and must enforce it.”
Perceval shook his head. “What can you do? Fine him? He would laugh.”
There was a knock on the door. Heilyn entered at the King’s call and one look at the squire’s face brought Perceval to his feet. Had Caradoc returned? He excused himself with a murmur and went out into the passage.
Heilyn waited for Perceval to pull the door closed and said: “Sir, be well.”
“Out with it, man.”
“We went to Lady Lynet to buy a horse.”
Perceval saw Branwen also standing in the hallway, knotting her fingers together with an eager nervousness. Since her marriage, she had ceased to attend Blanchefleur, and Perceval had seen little of her. “Salve, mistress. Yes, I recall. I told you to go to Lynet first. She has Gareth’s horses to dispose of.”
Heilyn nodded. “Since the fight with Odiar, near Astolat, I have looked at every dun horse I see.”
“And?”
“The Unknown was riding one of Gareth’s horses.”
“Are you—”
“It’s the same horse,” Branwen assured him eagerly. “We both agree. A rouncey, maybe six years old, with one white sock and leg bars. The mane has been cut, but it is the same beast.”
“Are you saying that Gareth—”
Two heads shook in unison. Heilyn said, “Branwen thought to ask when the mane was cut.”
“Lynet said it was after the King returned from Joyeuse Gard.”
Heilyn cut in again. “Sir Agravain had it done. He told Lynet the mane was damaged and the horse would be more likely to sell without it.”
“Agravain,” Perceval whispered. The idea had occurred to him, but the fact struck him like a boot to the stomach. “Had Gareth loaned him the horse?”
“No one has ridden it for months, to Lynet’s knowledge. But I asked in the stable, and one of the hands said it was missing just about the time of the Queen’s trial. When the weather turned colder, the horses were brought in from pasture. The dun could not be found. It strayed in three or four days later.”
Perceval pulled at his chin. “Agravain must have taken it, with the idea of throwing suspicion on Gareth if it was recognised. When Gareth died, the risk was of the horse being sold and identified. Therefore, the attempted disguise.” Another thought struck him. “But this means that Agravain is more than Mordred’s tool…”
He slapped Heilyn on the shoulder. “Well done,” he gasped, and slipped back into the solar in time to catch the tail-end of Bedivere’s words:
“—uphold the King’s word of judgement in the matter.”
Perceval wasted no time on speech. Drawing his poniard, he took Agravain by the elbow and set the blade at his throat.
“Agravain of Orkney, you are arrested for treason…”
Agravain said nothing. Only a dull flush spread across his face, and he looked at Perceval with something like reproach. Then he covered his eyes.
Others in the room rose to their feet. Blanchefleur lifted shocked hands to her mouth. But the Queen only smiled with thinly-pressed lips.
“Surely not,” said Sir Bedivere.
Perceval said to Agravain, “Confess it, sir. We have the horse.” He lowered his poniard and pressed it wearily into Bedivere’s hand. “You are the King’s marshal. I pass this man to you for examination. I have had my fill of hunting down my kin. I beg you’ll let me leave, sire.”
The King stopped him by a gesture. “Sir, we have determined to imprison your father if he tries to leave Camelot again.”
Perceval stared at him for the space of five heartbeats before his unwilling mind made sense of the words.
“Any of us are prepared to meet him,” Sir Kay said, and the jeering note was altogether gone from his voice. “But you have the right of refusal.”
Perceval looked from one sombre face to another. “Meet him. You mean—fight him.”
The King’s head dropped in assent. “I doubt he will come willingly.”
Even in the misery of that moment he knew why they asked him. Gawain would outmatch any of the other men here. It would be done by him, or not at all.
And yet— “Strike my father?”
The King’s gaze did not falter. “Surely I may administer justice through you.”
He stole a glance at Blanchefleur, but although she looked up at him with soft and pitying eyes, he read no answer there.
As fit. It was his own decision.
Perceval drew a long breath and closed his eyes. “I’ll do it.”
8
He that like a subtle beast
Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne,
Ready to spring, waiting a chance.
Tennyson
BLANCHEFLEUR LET A NIGHT PASS BEFORE she went to the chambers on the north side of the castle where noble prisoners were kept in comfort under lock and key. It was in awe mingled with doubt that the guard unhitched the key from his belt at her command.
“Well, lady. But I’ll come in there with you.”
She had spent much of the night thinking it over. Should she bring Perceval?—Too great a show of force. Heilyn, then? But even the squire might put him on his guard, and she needed Agravain to trust her.
So she smiled blandly and said, “Good fellow, no. Hold the door and be ready to come if I should call.”
For a moment she thought he would refuse. Blanchefleur lifted her chin and held his gaze. But at last he yielded the door, glowered at Agravain as he announced her, and closed it again behind her.
“Good morning,” she said.
Agravain came bolting to his feet and then stood very still, watching her with narrowed eyes.
She said to him, “Sir, will you do me the honour of hearing me?”
He thrust his thumbs into his belt and said ungraciously, “If I must.”
“I only come because I know that you love Logres.”
He gave no reply. She went on.
“You know that you have provoked the King to wrath, and that he has the right to deal with you as a traitor.”
“Have you come to gloat?” He took a step forward and his hands flexed by his sides. “I wonder you do not fear to come and taunt me thus, alone, to my face.”
“Fear you?” She smiled. “No indeed, you are no Morgan of Gore,” and she saw him recall who she was and come to his senses. “But I say only the truth, and I do not come to taunt. Last time the King sat in judgement on one of his own, there was war.”
“As there will be if he attempts it again,” Agravain muttered.
“Neither of us desires that, cousin. You know what it is like. Destruction of land and life, with every kind of evil and cruelty. There is much I would do to prevent it.”
“Yet it may be the lesser evil.”
“It may. And yet no king should readily spill the blood of his own subjects… You know t
hat I have influence with the High King.”
Under the glassy stubbornness of his eyes, she saw a flicker of interest.
“You know that he loves mercy better than bloodshed. If I can show him a way to pardon you, cousin, with no injury to his honour, he will take it.”
He came forward another step, eagerly this time, and then caught himself. “Why? What does it profit you?”
“The peace of Logres profits all of us.”
“And say we preserve this peace. Who sits on the throne?”
“Why, the King—”
“You know what I mean.”
She lifted a hand. “The King’s appointed heir, chosen in council. I. And Perceval.”
Agravain’s face darkened. “So. You think the people of Logres will stand by while the true heir is disowned—in favour of a cursed fraudulent cuckoo?”
She never heard the insult. The true heir. It occurred to her, with a force that took her breath away, that the prophecy made by Merlin at her birth referred to the Pendragon’s heir.
Not to the Pendragon’s daughter.
And if Mordred was the King’s son?
She swallowed and looked back up to Agravain. “If Mordred is the true heir, then let him have Logres. I have no wish to set myself against the will of Heaven.”
He blinked, taken aback for a moment by her evident earnestness. “Prove it.”
“If I may, I will. Let it suffice for now that I prove my friendship to you.”
“Well?” The sulky note was back in his voice.
“You can still save yourself, cousin. Show the King that you’re willing to make amends.” Blanchefleur came a pace closer to him. “My mother means to appeal the verdict that condemned her to the fire. By her account, she never spoke with Lancelot in the garden, and she never sent him her ring. She didn’t, did she? You are the only one who can tell us what really happened.”
He looked at the floor near her feet and opened his mouth. There was something so evasive in his face that she lifted a hand.
“Don’t lie to me.”
He closed his mouth again.
“Decide whether your life is dear enough to you that you’ll tell us the truth in exchange for mercy.”
Agravain chewed on his lower lip. At last he said, “Very well, I will. But tell the King I want to leave Camelot tonight. I want my horse and arms and food for five days.”
According to her plan sketched out in the dark hours last night, Agravain would leave Camelot with watchers on his trail. But this was too good an opportunity to miss. Five days’ journey? Could she narrow it down further? “Where do you mean to go? The King may ask.”
“Orkney, I suppose.”
He looked into her eyes unblinking, unmoving, and she knew it was a lie.
“I’m sure the King will have no objections.” She went to the door, knocked for the guard, and turned with a smile. “Mind you, Agravain, if the King grants your petition and grants you parole, use your freedom wisely. Don’t lose your wits, and run off to join Saunce-Pité.”
A sudden panic, beating in the air. A fractional hesitation. A laugh.
“That’s hardly likely, is it?”
That was a lie, too.
The door opened and she went down the passage with her blood drumming a victory march. No need now to send a spy with Agravain when he left. She knew where he was going.
More than that. She knew where to find Mordred.
PERCEVAL WAS STANDING IN HIS CHAMBER before breakfast, working the stiffness out of his hip with a series of lunges, when a sharp rap came on the door. He must have moved quickly to open it, but those few footsteps passed like an age.
Not already.
It was Heilyn. He said, “Sir, Sir Gawain has sent word to saddle his horse. I left word for them to prepare Glaucus, and came to help you arm.”
“Well done,” said Perceval, wishing for the first time that Heilyn was less meticulous in his duties. He went back into his chamber and took up the blood-red shield with the golden pentacle and the golden label. Near it was a leathern cover which he had taken from the armoury after the council in the King’s solar yesterday.
Behind him, Heilyn was shaking out his hauberk and testing the straps on his spaulders. Then he heard the whisper of silk.
“Leave the surcoat,” he said, tightening the cover around the shield and fitting it to his arm to try its heft.
Heilyn looked up. From the faint worried crease between his eyebrows Perceval knew the squire understood. But he explained it anyway, not just to Heilyn but also to any powers that stood by and watched what Sir Perceval of Wales, Knight of the Round Table, chose to do this day.
“I am going to take in my father, and I have not the nerve to do it wearing his device.”
Perceval was ready and waiting on the Camelot bridge when Gawain rode down from the keep. His father spent no time on defiance, only laid his spear in rest and spurred his horse Gringolet to a gallop. Glaucus leaped forward, scenting war. But Perceval could not shake off a dazed, almost tipsy sense of unreality. The golden pentacle of Gawain filled all the field of his vision, reproaching him for what he meant to do. He seemed to be looking through the eyes of someone far away, and all his reflexes felt muffled by distance.
At the last confused moment his body remembered its old skill, and the wild boy of Wales flung himself headlong from the saddle of his horse as he had on the first day he fought a knight.
Gawain’s lance swept through empty air. He yanked Gringolet around, dropping the spear-point, and his voice echoed in amazement within his helm.
“Perceval?”
Perceval climbed to his feet. “Sir, it is I.”
“Why are you here?”
“The King sent me.” Perceval wished he could see his father’s face. “He begs you to return.”
Gawain sat unyielding and cold as stone. At last he said: “And if I refuse?”
“Sir, then I must compel you.”
“You dare?” The words exploded out of Gawain, and his hand clenched on the lance. Perceval lifted appealing hands.
“What shall I tell my mother?”
The lance pointed. “Do not name her.”
“I know she never ceased to love you,” he went on desperately. “Shall I go to her in Avalon, and tell her that you killed yourself in pursuing this feud with Lancelot, and that I stood by and did nothing?”
“Your mother would be wise enough to know there are some things a man may not leave unpunished.”
Perceval stared at the iron front of his father’s helm. “But you are killing yourself by inches.”
“I have heard it.”
Perceval gripped his saddle-horn, pulled himself up, and drew back a little for the charge. “Will nothing move you?”
“I told you once before,” Gawain said with dangerous calm, “that I am content to go my way and let you go yours. But do not think to stand in my path.”
Perceval said: “Forgive me. The King sent me.”
Gawain’s spear crashed down like a gate. Gringolet surged into a gallop. Perceval couched his own spear, but weariness had sunk into his bones. There was a sickening jar as they met, and Perceval rolled in the dust of the road among the splinters of his lance.
He scrambled to his feet and saw that Gawain had already turned.
“Remount,” said Gawain.
Perceval caught his horse and climbed back into the saddle, wincing from his bruises. At the other end of the bridge, Gawain looked for a moment as if he were about to forget the rules of war and use his spear on a knight who had none. Then he struck the lance headfirst into the ground and drew his sword.
This was Perceval’s weapon, and for years he had been unbeaten with the blade. But it was a killing weapon, and he feared to wield it to his full strength. Instead, as they closed on the bridge, Perceval yanked his reins aside, forcing Gawain and Gringolet against the parapet. His left knee ground into Gringolet’s shoulder, hooked against Gawain’s knee, and thus wedged, held.<
br />
Gringolet snorted and tried to kick, but there was not room enough even for that. Perceval spoke. “In the name of the King, I am to commit you to—”
Gawain rose in his stirrups and his elbow lifted. Perceval realised what he was doing even as the steel-clad elbow smashed into the side of his helm. His teeth jarred together as he reeled sideways in the saddle; obeying the lurch, his horse stepped out, releasing Gringolet. The next moment Gawain caught him in the ribs with the pommel of his sword. Perceval tumbled onto the bridge with a crash of steel.
Sir Gawain snatched at one of Perceval’s stirrups, worked it off the hook, and flung it into the river. Then he paused, looking down at his son lying on the road.
“Whelp,” he said, and his breath was loud through the slit of his helm. “Since you have declared yourself an enemy and a traitor to your own kin, take this last counsel of me: See to it that your path never crosses mine again, for one of us must die if we meet. I swear it.”
He spurred Gringolet into a gallop and was gone. Perceval rose to his feet and took off his helm, catching his breath as the icy winter air struck his face. Down below, Gawain dwindled on the forest road and at last vanished into the wood.
With one stirrup gone, there would be no following him.
A man trudging alongside an oxcart came up the same road and began to cross the bridge, stealing anxious and furtive glances at him. Perceval called, “Ho, fellow. Travelled far?”
The man nodded, ducking his head to look at the ground. When he spoke, it was with an accent Perceval dimly recognised—from somewhere in the north, Sorestan or Estrangore.
“This Camelot?”
“It is.”
“The High King?”
“You have an errand to the King?” Perceval glanced at the cart. Within, under a blanket, lay something like a human body. Then he caught the smell, and his stomach clenched. “Who sends you to the High King, fellow?”
The man looked up. Fear clouded his eyes. “The Silver Dragon.”
Perceval twitched the blanket back to reveal a headless body. From the crook of his own elbow, Sir Caradoc stared sightlessly at the sky.
Perceval gave a wordless cry. Not Caradoc. Not now. Not like this, stripped naked and spitefully used, with the blazon of Saunce-Pité scored into his chest.
The Heir of Logres Page 10