by Sarah Zettel
‘That was not what he said.’ It was strange how certain she was.
Risa lifted her eyebrows. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But he did tender his apology.’
Laurel made no answer to this as she pushed back the covers so she could climb out of the bed. The roses and ivy had been taken down at some point, much to her relief. This was no longer a celebration of marriage, but a crisis between kings. Summer’s flowers had no place here.
Neither do bare feet and a thin, linen underdress. ‘I must get decent. There is a long day ahead.’
Risa wasted no more time on conversation. Instead, she summoned Cryda and Elsa from their work with the fire and kettles. Soon, Laurel’s face, hands and feet were washed, and her hair was brushed and braided. It was strange to feel the air on the back of her neck as her braids were coiled and pinned in a style befitting a married woman. She was dressed in a rich but sober gown of forest green trimmed with brown and white ribbons. A matching veil was secured over her hair. Meg arrived shortly after that, leading a trio of kitchen girls who carried trays loaded with frumenty, milk, honey, fresh strawberries, stout bread, salt herring, small beer and cider. As soon as she smelled the food Laurel realized she had an appetite. She had been able to eat almost nothing at the feast the night before. Now, she sat herself willingly at the trestle table. Meg, as had become her habit it seemed, vented her personal worries by harping after Cryda and Elsa, who in turn passed the frustration down to Camelot’s fair-haired kitchen daughters as they laid the cloth and the dishes.
As Laurel opened her mouth to invite Risa to sit down with her, a footfall in the corridor made her turn her head.
Agravain stood in the threshold.
‘Forgive me, my lady,’ he said, bowing. ‘I heard you were awake.’
Laurel rose, taking in the sight of her husband. Agravain had dressed, but not slept. His eyes were hollow and dark, and his hair disordered. Black stubble turned his chin, and much of his throat, sooty. Their eyes met. She saw there the memory of all that had, and had not, passed between them the night before, but what ease they had created between them had vanished with the night.
Which left Laurel feeling nothing so much as frustration. ‘There is no apology necessary, my lord,’ she said. ‘Will you break your fast with me?’
He looked at the table and its fragrant burden. Emotions she could not read flickered across his pinched face. For a heartbeat, she feared he meant to refuse.
‘An’ I thank you,’ he said at last, taking a step into the room.
‘Meg, a place for my lord.’ Laurel looked past her waiting woman towards Risa, hoping the other woman was as quick as she seemed.
She was not disappointed. ‘You are well looked after here, I see,’ Risa said briskly. ‘And I am required elsewhere. God be with you, brother.’ She nodded briefly to Agravain as she swept past him.
While Meg bustled about helping retrieve a chair and an enamelled bowl, Laurel took the silver cup and jug from a waiting tray. Her mother had always served her father’s first drink of any meal with her own hands. She could think of nothing better than to revisit this courtesy now. Laurel poured out a measure of fragrant cider and set the cup before Agravain as he sat down. He watched her with a mild surprise, but accepted the cup and drank deeply.
Like Risa, Meg understood there was a need for privacy at this time. She saw to it that all the bowls and cups were filled and that all the necessary implements and comforts were at hand, and dismissed all the other maids. Without another word, she retired discreetly to sit beside the fire with her own bread and porridge, waiting to be needed.
The food was warm, fresh and good. Laurel found it easy to help herself and eat with relish. Agravain ate in silence but with deep appetite. If he did not quite enjoy the repast, it was plain he at least appreciated it, and the colour strengthened in his sallow face.
But for all her careful watching, it was not until the meal was almost completed that Laurel could move herself to speak.
‘May I ask what further word the night has brought?’
Agravain set the last bite of bread down in his bowl, as if suddenly unable to finish. He looked towards the door, and the window. Searching for listening ears or looking for his words?
‘There is … much debate as to what should be done next,’ he said slowly.
Laurel felt herself frown. ‘Surely you must return to Gododdin.’
Agravain pushed his bowl back, scowling at some memory. ‘Nothing is sure. I hope … I hope that I will be given permission to go within three days. There is war to come, but there is disagreement over how it should be met. The king has his doubts …’ He stopped himself. ‘Should I leave to return to Gododdin, it is my wish that you should come with me.’
That startled Laurel. She had assumed her role would be to wait in Camelot and be sent for once the throne was secured.
‘If that is your wish, I will come,’ she said. ‘But I do not understand. You tell me there is a war to fight. I can do nothing to help in this, and may weaken your side.’ I am your outsider bride, and rumoured to be a witch as well.
‘That I bring my bride will show that I mean to make Gododdin my home. It also …’ He stopped once more, and for a moment watched his own hands flexing open and closed. When he spoke, it was clear he had reached some decision. ‘There is also one of the reasons for which I agreed to this marriage.’
Laurel’s throat tightened, and she felt suddenly cold. ‘What reason is this?’
Agravain raised his eyes. He had closed himself away again, as if that would make it easier for him to speak. ‘You have almost as much reason to hate the sorceress Morgaine as I do. The heritage of your blood may give you ways to stand against her that others lack.
‘It is Morgaine’s army I go to face.’
Morgaine. A flood of memories tumbled through her thoughts, sweeping them all away; a black-eyed woman standing before her in the great hall, Laurel’s brother in chains at her feet, that woman beside her father’s grave, offering her … offering her all that she thought she wanted and the power to keep it.
Blood. The itch and stink of blood on her hands, which could not be removed for the weight of that memory. Her father’s blood. Her father killed by her brother, at Morgaine’s urging and instigation. Her sister white with exhaustion, reclaimed from the death Morgaine would have purchased for her.
The thought that the sorceress had entered into the calculations Agravain had made in accepting her was like ice in Laurel’s veins. He had accepted her not in spite of her heritage, but because of it. And he was not telling her everything. There was more waiting in that closed-off part of him. It had aged him overnight, this unspoken thing, and it waited silently in this room with them now.
Set it aside. Speak to what was said. ‘You see Morgaine’s hand in this?’
Agravain nodded stiffly. ‘Her sigil has been seen, and even if it had not been … Her hand pressed on Gododdin for a long time, on the king most of all.’ The king, not ‘my father’.
Grimly, Laurel willed her hand to reach for the cup in front of her and lift it to her mouth so that she could swallow the cider down and clear the way for her voice again. ‘Why? Gododdin is far from her lands, and farther from Camelot.’
‘Because of the war between herself and her sister, who was my mother. I am Morgaine’s nephew as well as King Arthur’s.’ Agravain’s brown hand curled up on the tablecloth. She was not sure he even knew he had made this new fist.
‘If it is true she is responsible for this new war,’ began Laurel, setting the cup down carefully, ‘how can there be disagreement about whether you should return to Gododdin? The fortress and the land must be made ready.’
Agravain grimaced. ‘Because it is Morgaine, and because it is my uncle.’
‘The High King …’
‘Can do nothing,’ said Agravain flatly, harshly. ‘Nothing.’ With that last word, he slammed his fist against the table so the dishes rattled. Meg started up and Laurel waved he
r back.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. It has been a long night.’ He glanced towards the door. ‘I should leave you.’
I should not speak at all. She heard this in the current of feeling underneath his words. I should not trust anyone with this counsel.
Secrets. New secrets come from somewhere. He did not yet know how to shut them all in. If he dwelt on them another moment, he would leave, and she could not let him go yet. It would be that much harder for him to speak next time.
‘What is the nature of this disagreement over tactics?’ she asked, praying she did not sound too hasty. ‘If you do not return home, what other course is there?’
Agravain did not answer immediately. He only watched her, deciding. He would either speak, or leave. Inwardly, and absurdly, Laurel cursed Lot, and Morgaine. They should not have been talking like this. Not this soon. They should have been strolling through the orchards, speaking of small matters, beginning to learn each other’s natures and ways.
In the end, Agravain chose to speak. Methodically, he laid out the three separate plans, his own, the king’s, and Sir Kai’s. Laurel listened in silence. It clearly nagged at Agravain to have to admit his uncles disagreed with his wish to assemble a small retinue and leave at once. It was a reasonable and obvious plan. It was, perhaps, the only plan he had ever had for the time when this message should come. But there was deep merit in Sir Kai’s plan. It could be made to work, if Morgaine’s all-seeing eyes could be deflected for long enough. The war itself might not be enough …
An idea came to Laurel then, fully formed, and audacious. She sat frozen for a moment under the weight of her thought. Seeing how rigid she had gone, Agravain paused in his narrative and his brow furrowed.
‘Meg,’ Laurel’s voice rasped as she spoke. ‘Leave us.’
Agravain’s brows furrowed more deeply, as did Meg’s, but the waiting woman did not question the command. She made her curtsey, and walked out of the room. When the door shut, Laurel still kept her silence, to give Meg time to remove herself a little down the corridor.
Agravain waited, not with good humour, but he did at least wait.
‘There is another way,’ Laurel said. ‘To claim Din Eityn and lay a trap for Morgaine.’
‘What is that?’ Agravain narrowed his eyes, suspicious, surprised, and something else she could not name.
‘Let it be seen that you leave in opposition to the king.’
Agravain drew himself up. It was strange to see the anger, and the relief at being able to be angry at the same time. ‘You say I should stand out against my uncle?’
‘No,’ replied Laurel calmly. ‘I say you should be seen to. Let it be rumoured, and talked over and descried, that you quarrelled with King Arthur, and then returned home without his permission.’ She swallowed. Agravain had gone hard as flint. But she was right. This was the way. ‘If Morgaine has any strategy, it is to create dissent.’ Dissent and death. But secretly. Let any hand get bloody but hers. ‘She works by dividing people from each other and annihilating trust.’ Even between father and son, and brother and sister. ‘Then, she lets those she has split in two destroy themselves by whatever means comes most easily to them.
‘If she believes there is a break here in the heart of Camelot, she will not watch it as critically. She will rejoice over any dissent and believe it must work in her favour. Believing you will arrive already weakened, she will turn her attention to this war for Gododdin, to be ready to properly welcome you. That will give Lynet and Gareth, and your brother Geraint, time to determine where her western lands are the weakest.’
Would he dismiss her out of hand? No. His eyes flickered back and forth, hearing her words repeat inside his mind, weighing and considering, adding them to what he already knew and seeing how the totals stood.
‘And if this contrived rumour reaches Geraint and Gareth before the truth does?’ he asked.
‘I will send Meg home to Lynet. She was nurse to Lynet and myself, and lady to our mother before that. Lynet will know she can believe any message Meg carries. It need not even be written down. Gareth can then send word to your brother Geraint by whatever means he thinks best. No other instruction need come from Camelot. King Arthur will be seen as disregarding any counsel save his own, and send his army north, to try to meet the Dal Riata, who will hasten to take Din Eityn, before they are fully ready, the better to meet Arthur from inside Din Eityn.’
‘And while they are rushing themselves, Arthur can swing west as soon as Gareth and Geraint have useful intelligence,’ murmured Agravain. His fingers drummed against the table cloth, making a sound like muffled rain. He looked past her, to the wall, to the fire, to how this plan might play out in the waiting future. ‘Were we to do this thing, you must be seen to choose where your loyalty lies.’
Strange that this is what should concern him now. ‘Yes.’
‘If you stand by me, it will open you to great censure.’ He was thinking of the rumours Sir Kai had alluded to at the welcome feast. Those would come back, and double, and redouble, including the allusions of witchcraft.
‘It is better than leaving Gododdin and Camelot open to conquest by Morgaine.’
He was watching her closely, adding her to his calculations. What is it? What are you thinking of?
Then she saw it, slowly, that opening behind his shuttered eyes to show her the thin thread of self that was trust inside Agravain. It was fragile and new, the tiniest green shoot of spring, but it was trust nonetheless.
‘I will speak to my uncle,’ he said softly. ‘You will know which way it is decided when you hear the outcry.’
Laurel. inclined her head. ‘I will be ready,’ she said and she hoped that was the truth.
She expected him to get to his feet then, but he hesitated. ‘Will you go to Din Eityn or stay here?’
Laurel blinked. ‘I have already said, my lord …’
Agravain waved his hand dismissively. ‘You spoke dutifully, my lady, without all the facts in hand. Now that you know more of what surrounds you, it may be that you would make another choice. If this is so, please speak. I will not require you to go.’
Trust waited. Fear waited. This was a test of sorts, and she knew it. That angered her, even though she understood why he put her to it. It was not the wife he doubted. It was the new ally he was uncertain of.
As he should be. Laurel smothered that thought as quickly as it came to her.
‘Thank you,’ she answered. ‘But I will go. Gododdin is my land now. I will not neglect it when I may be of service to its peace or to the king, my husband.’
One muscle in his cheek twitched. ‘Thank you, my wife.’
For a moment, she wondered if he would make some mention of their night which had been so swiftly and thoroughly interrupted, but he did not. He got to his feet.
‘Please excuse my haste. I must confer with the king. If your … plan is put into action, there are many things I myself will have to arrange.’ He bowed, and once more he left her there.
As the door closed, exasperation, irrational to the point of being ludicrous, swirled through Laurel. Was this what it would be to be queen of Gododdin? A series of hasty exits that left her agape? Laurel rubbed her eyes.
Patience, she counselled herself. He goes to meet a dying father and a kingdom at war.
And what do I go to meet?
To her shock, Laurel found her hands trembling. One way or another, she would be leaving. She would go farther from home and family than she had ever been. No ally waited for her there, only strangers, and war, and enmity in the shadowed form of Morgaine the Sleepless.
Laurel had been born with the power of the unseen in her blood. She had always known it was there. But her mother who might have taught her the ways of the invisible and the divine had died when she was eight years old. So, she was left alone. She could hear the voice of the wind, and she could use it to carry word for her, making someone go or stay, though they knew not why they did so. Men spoke in her presenc
e sometimes things they would rather keep silent about. She could see what was hidden if she tried, and she could bring fear if her anger reached deeply enough, and the sea would answer her if she spoke.
But for all that, she was not learned, not practised, not truly, not as Morgaine, who was as skilled in her art as any master smith or veteran soldier.
Laurel closed her eyes, and swallowed hard.
If you have no stomach for action, you should have kept silent, she chided herself. It is too late for your qualms now. You have begun. You must go on.
But how?
Laurel licked her lips. Steeling herself, she walked gingerly to the window, undid the latch and folded back the shutters.
The day beyond was bright. All the smells of the yard rushed in: straw and animals, hot metal and the distant stink of the tannery. The wind brushed her face. She smelled rain, and earth on it. Cold to come, perhaps, even at the height of summer. She reached within, opening the doors of her mind, letting the wind pass through, pass through blood and spirit and self. Let it see her questions, let it carry answers as it carried the scents and sounds of the wide world all around.
Too far, the wind and her own quieting heart told her. She looked too far. She needed to look closer. Look to herself, look to her own, to the woman of her home, the man at her hand, the one whose eyes had seen the most of this war that had been brewing for decades now.
Laurel closed her eyes, letting understanding and relief both seep in. The woman of her home. That was Queen Guinevere. The man at her hand. Agravain. The one whose eyes had seen the most … King Arthur? Sir Kai? No. That last meant the oldest of the players in this deadly game. The one she had not seen since the eve of her wedding.
Merlin.
Laurel breathed the fresh breeze deeply, thanking it, releasing it.
‘My lady?’
Laurel opened her eyes. Meg stood behind her. Annoyance flashed through Laurel that Meg would have come back without being summoned. But in the next heartbeat, she realized Meg would have seen Agravain leave, and rightly assumed that she might be needed.