by Sarah Zettel
‘I had wondered how it would be.’ The words were harsh, breathy, and he looked up. He tried to give her his ironic smile, but his mouth would not shape it. ‘For you, so far away from all you knew, without family. I felt some pang about taking you so far away … and that was right. I know now. We are both alone.’
‘No.’ She crossed the space between them swiftly, without pause for thought. ‘No, Agravain.’ She laid her hand on his. ‘We are not alone. Not now.’
He stared down at her white hand where it lay across his brown one: His hand was cold beneath her palm. He was trembling.
Slowly, he reached up and cupped her chin with his free hand. His touch was weaker than it had been. His strength was drained away by what he had done, what he must do next. Gently, his thumb stroked her cheek while his gaze met hers, not holding it, there was no strength there either, just searching, looking for the truth of what she said, needing to the depths of his soul for it to be true. For this one moment, he had lost the ability to hide.
She lifted her own hand, mirroring his gesture, cupping his rough face, feeling the hard line of his jaw, feeling the muscles taut beneath the flesh. She kissed him. She wanted nothing more. To kiss him, to bring him close, to wrap her arms around him and ease the tremors that shivered through him.
Slowly, he was able to respond. He answered embrace and kiss, awkwardly, each movement, each hesitating touch, a confession from one whose ingrained habit was silence. She could not lead him. She did not know this road. Blind together, they clung to each other, restoring strength, restoring warmth, beating back years of determined loneliness with a new torrent of feeling. For how could either of them have expected anything but loneliness? There was no one who would take so much danger and uncertainty, so much secrecy and fear, into themselves. It was too much to ask. There was no one who would, who could, answer that asking. But such a dream was now made real, and lay clasped in the embrace of arm and heart and aching need.
There was no grace to this. Need left no room for courtesy or play. His weight bore her down onto the bed and his hands – warm now, and filled with the strength she remembered from the night before – shoved up her skirt to caress her bare legs. She burned bright with her own wanting, with the heat of his body that she drank in through her hands, through her mouth. The scent of him, the salt taste of his skin, only fuelled the fire in her blood. Giddy with the power of it, she gave herself over to all; to Agravain, to herself, to the moment she took him inside her and felt the pain, and the ending of pain. She held him tight, able to answer his strength with her own, able to kiss and cry and press and hold, to exalt in this tumult where nothing was forbidden and nothing was withheld. They were both free here, finally free.
When all was spent, and they both were at last able to be still again, Agravain gathered her into his arms. They were completely dishevelled. Their clothes hung off them and were crushed up between them. His sweat was harsh on her skin, and she was flushed and out of breath. Her hair trailed in damp elf-locks about her face.
And she did not care. All she cared for was that Agravain cradled her close, gentle for the first time since they had begun. She closed her eyes, resting in the warmth they made, listening to his breath, feeling his heartbeat.
With the hesitant caress of Agravain’s hands against her shoulders, Laurel drifted into sleep.
SEVEN
The morning sky hung low and grey overhead as Mordred and his men rode up to the edge of the Dal Riata camp. Two spearmen, dressed for war after the fashion of their people, with striped cloaks and bare chests and bronze bands on their arms and legs, round shields in their hands and bronze helms on their heads, stood guarding the rough trail. They crossed their iron-tipped spears in a show of barring the way.
In keeping with that show, Mordred, encased in his gleaming black armour, swung himself off his stallion and came up to them on foot.
‘We are summoned by Lord Olcan to his council,’ he intoned in the Dal Riata’s own lilting tongue.
The spearman who stood at the right, a hulking, ungainly fellow with moustaches so long he could almost tuck them in his belt, looked over Mordred and his retinue of five horsemen. His weathered face showed in equal measure how he both coveted the animals and cursed the trouble it would be holding onto such mettlesome beasts while the high and the mighty held their conference.
Mordred let him look. There was no harm in it, and the greater the impression they made on these men, the better.
At last, the spearman remembered his manners and bowed. ‘You’ll follow me, my lords.’
At Mordred’s nod the men dismounted. In a neat double column, they followed the moustached spearman through the camp. Fragrant smoke rose up from the many fires. The men at leisure hunched over them, their striped cloaks pulled close against the damp. They talked in the low, grumbling voices of men forced to wait with ill patience. They gnawed bread, or attended to the hundred small tasks of living beside their raw-boned women who tended the food and the fires, or stood in knots, exchanging their own grumbles and gossip. They glanced up at Mordred’s passage, and then turned straight back to their own business. The Britons had become a familiar sight. If they were cause for any comment, it was the wish that the mighty chiefs would get their bargain struck so they could move out of this mud hole.
We will have to hope Lot has the sense to die soon. It rankled Mordred that nothing could be done until that moment came, but it would rankle these already impatient nomads more. He would have to press his case to mother more firmly. It was not often Mordred felt the lightness and unsteadiness of his youth, but it came to him now as he thought of facing her down again. That too would have to end soon.
If Mordred strained his eyes to the east towards the hills, he could see the forms of the Pictish watchmen standing dark against the grey sky. These two peoples might agree to fight together, but they would not live together.
It was the clearest sign, if any were needed, that no alliance formed today would outlast the war, if it even lasted that long. One more reason to press for haste.
There was only one real pavilion in the whole of the Dal Riata encampment. It was a crude construction of wicker and mud, closed over by a length of tanned leather. Smoke rose through a hole in that low roof. Dogs nosed around in the trampled mud outside.
Because of the formality of the day, no less than four men stood guard, also in full warrior’s regalia, with broad knives hanging from their belts in addition to the spears in their hands.
Olcan is in a mood to show his teeth.
‘The Lord Mordred, son of Morgaine, answering the summons of Lord Olcan of the Fionan,’ announced their guide, who spoke up clearly and proudly now that he was in earshot of his chief.
The first of the guards bowed his head in curt acknowledgement of the rank of the visitors. ‘And you come in peace, be welcome here.’
‘We come in peace.’ To demonstrate this, Mordred removed his helmet, and then unbuckled his swordbelt, passing both arms and helm over to the guards. All his followers did the same. Only then did the guard step back from the door and allow them entry.
Mordred stooped as he crossed the low threshold into the pavilion’s twilight. A fire burned merrily in a central ring of stones. Warriors and witnesses stood by the walls. Their masters sat on piles of fur close to the fire: four Dal Riata chiefs, grim, hirsute, greasy men; and two sleek brown Picts with their raven-black hair limed into the likeness of spikes and feathers and their bodies traced with bright blue ribbons. Only Olcan had a stool for his use.
For his kind, Olcan was a quiet and subtle man. He was powerfully and flawlessly built, as a Dal Riata chief must be. The clay noggin in his dirt-stained hand looked as fragile as an egg. Unlike most of the others here, he wore a woollen tunic beneath his blue and brown cloak. Though his torque and clasp were worked bronze, the cuffs on his wrists were simple tooled leather. He’d gone bald many years before and his pate was as tough, bronzed and mottled as his hands were. His innate
vanity showed in his moustaches that were well groomed, twisted and tipped with bronze beads where they hung down past his chin.
He lifted up the hand of friendship as Mordred entered, and Mordred clasped it. ‘Welcome to you, Mordred Morgaine’s son. Sit and be my guest.’
Mordred settled himself cross-legged on the thick pile of fleece. His men arrayed themselves along the walls with the followers from the other chiefs gathered there.
Thus far every motion was familiar ritual, but that did not lessen their importance. If anything, today it was more vital than ever that all formalities be observed.
Olcan’s wife, Eanna, was there too. She was a woman worn as hard as her stone and leather man. Her eyes glittered as she handed Mordred a welcome cup brimming with clear liquor, showing something very like hatred.
He nodded to her, acknowledging both the welcome cup, and what he saw in her. Her eyes remained hard as she turned away.
Mordred raised his cup to his host. ‘May blessing be upon this assembly, and may strength, honour and wisdom flow from the words we speak here today. I give my thanks to Lord Olcan of the Fionan for the good welcome we have been given here.’
He drank the cup off smoothly, although it was like downing a measure of pure fire. The men he now sat with grunted and nodded giving their approval for his words and his conduct.
‘Now, honoured chiefs, honoured friends.’ Olcan rested his hands on his thighs. ‘We come here to make our final answer to Mordred, Morgaine’s son, in his offer of alliance, of war, of treasure and of land. Let him say his final words, and then he will have our answer.’
Mordred inclined his head in thanks. He had thought to stand, but he stayed seated. He did not want to appear at all agitated, and he did not want to display before these men the measure of his youth any more than absolutely was necessary.
‘There is little I can say here that I have not said before. While Lot remained strong, it was prudent to leave the fortress rock and the firth of Gododdin in his hands. But he is dying now. We have a moment, a single heartbeat during which we may decide whose hands that fortress shall pass into.
‘The southern men, of course, want it for themselves. They want to use it as a base to harry lands they have not yet conquered, and they want to use it to spy upon those peoples of the north who still remain free.
‘I say we do not permit this. We are enough here to overwhelm Lot’s little force and take the rock for ourselves. In so doing, the Dal Riata secure for themselves and their friends the North Lands from shore to shore, as well as the means to defend them. We will keep the southern men from harrying us any further, and we will bring to ourselves the chance to push them back onto their plains where they belong.’
Mordred paused for breath, looking around at his audience. They listened intently, making no sound, either of approval or the reverse. He could have wished for more show of agreement, but at least they listened.
‘It will not be without cost,’ he went on bluntly. ‘Even now, Arthur the Bastard sends the sons of Lot, who he has held hostage these long years to Camelot’s greed. He means for these false sons to take the rock for him. They will fight, and they will fight hard.’
No one moved. No one made any sound at all, but Mordred felt the change in the air. They wanted action, these men, after all this waiting, and that was what he promised them now.
‘Each man who joins in this effort will be sung of in glory and in honour. Each man who lives to see the victory will have his worthy and equal share of the treasure. That treasure will not just be what Lot hoards in Din Eityn, but the riches and arms that Camelot sends to secure what they would steal from us.’ One of the Picts stirred at this, his thin mouth turning up in the smallest smile. Some of the Dal Riata, though, frowned in scepticism, having been cheated by their allies one too many times.
But Mordred was ready for that too. ‘Lest any think they will be cheated of what they and theirs will bleed for, I promise now that this council will oversee the division of the spoils, and no other.’
There. He was done. He wished he had more words, grander words, of glory and bravery that might bring the heat to men’s blood, but he was no bard or orator. He could only make his case in the plainest terms. But they were fair terms, and spoken honestly.
It had to be enough. It had to.
‘Well said, Lord Mordred,’ said Olcan. ‘You have treated with us openly, and with wisdom beyond your years. We have consulted the gods. The oracles speak favourably of your victory. The promise of taking the rock is a fair one. A risk, but a grand risk and the gain will be great if we succeed. We will rid ourselves of Lot who has worked so much grief upon us, and deal a blow to the Bastard that will make him think twice about coming up here to trouble us. It is much in my mind to give you the pledge of the Fionan.’
A loud snort sounded from the back of the pavilion, and all heads turned. There Eanna stood with her round arms folded. As gloomy as the pavilion was, the shadows were in no way thick enough to hide the disapproval stamped hard on her weathered face.
Mordred expected Olcan to censure her, but he just cocked his brows towards Mordred.
So. Not ready to leave this bargaining to your men. ‘You do not like this decision, Eanna?’ Mordred inquired mildly as his mind raced, searching for the best answer to this unexpected challenge.
‘No, Mordred, guest of my husband, I do not,’ she said flatly.
Mordred opened his hands. ‘Share with me your wisdom. Why does this undertaking not have your approval as it does your husband’s?’ After years of his mother’s tutelage, Mordred understood how heavily a woman’s words could weight a man’s decisions. He had no real pledge from Olcan yet, only the pledge of a pledge. Eanna could still make trouble.
Eanna shifted her gaze to the assemblage. Both the Pict men were grinning, nudging one another at the prospect of hearing this outlander – either Olcan or himself, it didn’t matter – taken apart by the sharp tongue of a woman.
‘Oracles and omens may also be just bones and flame,’ she said flatly. ‘The gods speak to their own purposes. So too do allies. And hate,’ she narrowed her eyes to keen slits as she said this last word, ‘is a poor reason to go down a hole after a badger.’
Which seemed to be as much leeway as Olcan was ready to permit. ‘Enough, Eanna. If your heart is weak for this, you can stay behind.’
At this, the woman all but reared back. She was tall enough that her braided head brushed the leather roof.
‘When has my heart ever been weak, Olcan?’ she demanded. ‘Where you go, I go, but it does not follow that we will be alive to enjoy the victory our blood will purchase.’ She folded her arras across her breast. ‘In four generations, no one, no one has been able to take the rock. Even though it has been held for ten years by a madman who doesn’t know an enemy from his own shadow. Bands of men break like water against those cliffs, and they leave their blood splashed on its sides while they creep away in shame!’
Mordred spread his hands again. He needed to stop this. The Dal Riata were looking towards each other uneasily and the Picts had stopped smiling.
‘What you say is true,’ he acknowledged, inclining his head. ‘It will not be easy what we intend to do.’ Satisfaction glinted in Eanna’s eyes. ‘But it is not impossible. Din Eityn has never been so lightly defended. They have few spears, and fewer horse. Their storehouses are near empty. Should they try to wait out a siege, they will not survive. Should they come down and meet us on the valley floor, we will outnumber them. Should the day go badly, we can withdraw, reassess, regroup, and return like the fall of the smith’s hammer, again and again. They have nowhere to go but an empty fortress that can give them shelter, but not the sustenance of life.’
‘A pretty story,’ muttered Eanna.
This pricked Mordred’s temper, but he held it tight. ‘Have we not been generous with you?’ he asked. How much gold and how many swords and rings had they poured out over these people? Enough to buy a hundred cows and more.
What more do you want? ‘Have we broken faith with the Dal Riata?’
‘Oh, you have been generous with all manner of things,’ she acknowledged in a sneer. ‘Save perhaps the truth.’
‘Eanna, do you call our guest a liar?’ There was anger in Olcan’s voice, but not, perhaps as much as there should have been for the insult offered. Mordred looked from one of them to the other, and it occurred to him that this could be a game. Olcan using Eanna to say things he could not, or would not say himself, to judge Mordred’s reactions, and those of his own men.
‘I wonder how it is he can know so much about what goes on inside Din Eityn.’
Very good. Very clever. But now Mordred knew how to answer. ‘Do I guard my secrets, Eanna?’ he inquired, keeping his words soft, his tone filled with reason. ‘So I do. So do the Dal Riata. But I do not ask after those secrets. I do not ask what missives you send back to the kings of Eire. I do not ask what your plans are for the day when you hold this land from the east to west, although perhaps I should.’ He let himself glance at the Picts as he said this. The pair of them sat as still as two stumps, listening. ‘I know that your people are strong and that you are the best of fighters. Beyond that, I care not.’
‘Why, Lord Mordred?’ she demanded. ‘If you believe we will be here tomorrow, after we have all heaved Lot’s body over the cliffs, why do you not care what we might mean to do next?’
‘So now I will tell you my secret. It is because I am desperate. There.’ He sat back, keeping his gaze on hers, speaking to her alone, though he did not forget for one moment all the others who listened to his words. ‘That is the truth. Arthur the Bastard has been readying himself to move against my lands for a year and more. His father killed my grandfather, and he cannot bear that our family, our nation, did not fall when he fought his twelve battles to wrest the island from its ancient peoples. He has built himself a treacherous kingdom in the south, buying and bribing what alliance he could, slaughtering kings and putting in his puppets where he could not. I could tell you tales of the lands just south and east of us, once proud and free, now conquered and divided up for Arthur’s closest kin.’