Laurel

by Sarah Zettel

  Mordred let his voice drop, almost to a whisper, making all strain forward to hear him. ‘He has been patient, but there are signs that that patience is at an end, and I am afraid. If I do not prepare myself to meet him, if I do not gain allies who can stop him, my people, and I myself, will be pushed into the sea. I cannot reach south to where the Saxons wait, so I must reach north, to you. Without you …’ he sat back, and made his voice go cold, grim, final. ‘Without you, I go home to die.’

  He had them. He could feel it. These men might sing of the glory of thievery, of death in the course of honour, but when it came to the moment, they would all lay down life and limb most readily to save their families, their wives and sons and broad clans. They all knew what it was to live in an enemy’s shadow and to fear his tread on the hilltop. He had just told them the enemy was in the next valley, and they believed.

  It was the silent Pict men who made the first gesture. Brude Cal, their chieftain, and Fidach, his brother rose smoothly to their feet, clearly in some silent accord and came towards him. Together they drew the stone hammers from their belts and laid them at Mordred’s feet. Mordred bowed deeply, humbly before these two in their leather kilts and they bowed silently in return. But Mordred’s inner smile trembled when Brude Cal caught his eye, and he saw in the mountain chief a spark of edged humour. It said plainly that though the Dal Riata didn’t see they’d just been herded into this alliance by some clever talk, the Pict men did.

  The moment passed in a heartbeat, and the Picts backed away to make room for Tean of the Brinath, and Shora of the Dan Tuegh, and all the rest. One by one the Dal Riata’s lords rose and laid their weapons at Mordred’s feet.

  Last of all Lord Olcan of the Fionan put his great axe in Mordred’s hands.

  ‘We are your men now, Mordred Morgaine’s son,’ Olcan said. ‘Use us well or the gods themselves will know of it.’

  Eanna watched from her shadows and said nothing at all.

  There was more talk afterwards, of course. Hours of it, of men and numbers, of how the new allies would work together, and how the command and resources would be distributed among them. It was past noon before Mordred stood to receive Olcan’s embrace and to clasp hands with the other lords. To Brude Cal he bowed, and received a consenting nod. Mordred told himself that would be enough for now.

  Olcan himself led Mordred and his men through the camp. This time, everyone they passed stood to watch. Loud cheers raised up to shake the low clouds and sandalled feet stamped on the ground. The sight of the two of them together meant the wait was over. There would be action. There would be victory and treasure, and all the gauds and goods that came with war.

  As he mounted his horse alongside his men, and once more donned his black helmet, Mordred looked out across the milling camp, hearing the shouts and the cheers. Beneath the noise of celebration, though, he still heard the echo of his own words.

  I am afraid … without you, I go home to die.

  He had begun the speech as a tactic, a move in the game of bargain and diplomacy that was necessary to persuade the Dal Riata chieftains to fight willingly. But as the words had fallen from his mouth, he felt the deeper truth of his admission.

  He was afraid. They had laid their plans carefully, and had backed a score of battles and more secret deaths, but never had an open fight. That had until now all been left to others.

  Until this moment, Mordred would have sworn all he felt towards Arthur was hatred. He would have spoken of what had been done to his family; the treachery of Uther that laid his mother low and raised up the Bastard and his supporters, including the fickle and honourless woman beside him now as queen, rewarded for betraying her foster sisters. It was not right that such treachery should hold the throne of kings. Without vengeance, he would have no rest in the world to come, no honour to pass to his own sons, and be condemned to live his own days in hiding and poverty, perhaps even hunted, from the shores of the land of his birth. No. It would not be.

  But now the war of arms would truly begin. War against the High King Arthur, who held the South Lands so long with the aid of his rich and well-trained knights. Who had won twelve battles begun when he was still younger than Mordred.

  Fear is part of courage, his mother had told him, and he must remember that now. He had his alliance, and they must set all things in motion or he would meet dishonour by his own doing. The only choice was how to face the battle to come.

  Mordred turned his horse’s head south and rode down the slope. It was time to tell the Lady of their success.

  Laurel woke alone. Aghast, she sat up at once, to see Agravain, dressed only in his undertunic and stockings, sitting on the broad sill of the shuttered window, watching her. He had one leg crooked up and rested his elbow lightly on it. It was the most at ease she had ever seen him. She marvelled at this for a moment before absurd modesty returned and she gathered the bed coverings around her with one hand and smoothed back her hair with the other.

  ‘God be with you this evening, my husband’ she said.

  ‘And with you, my wife.’ He inclined his head as if they were meeting in the most public of places. But there was a subtle warmth she could feel across the room. Whether anyone else would have noticed this, she did not know, but to her it was as bright as the shaft of sunlight that streamed between the shutters.

  ‘And how was your sleep?’ Laurel inquired.

  ‘Most pleasant, an’ I thank you,’ Agravain replied soberly.

  They looked at each other for a moment, but only a moment, before Laurel had to clap her hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter that bubbled out of her. Agravain chuckled, low in his throat, and a thin, but real smile spread across his lean face.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am most … unfamiliar with how to greet the morning after …’

  ‘We will become used to it in time, I should think.’

  ‘It is my hope,’ he answered softly.

  ‘And mine.’ They met each other’s eyes again, and again Laurel could not help but be amazed by the simple warmth so new and unfamiliar in his dark brown eyes. Had this man, relaxed and easy, with his dry humour and his thin smile, been inside the closed and forbidding Sir Agravain all the while?

  Then, Agravain sighed, and laid his hand on the shutter slats. ‘I am inclined to stay here awhile yet,’ he said. ‘Most likely, these are the only pleasant words either of us will hear today.’

  And we have kept the world at bay as long as we could. A strange bereftness crept over Laurel. She realized she did not even know where Meg was. ‘It is no good asking, I suppose, whether you must leave.’ She climbed out of the bed, smoothing down her skirts, setting her bare feet on the rush-covered floor. Her laces were loose, some might be torn. Her stockings were not anywhere to be seen.

  He shook his head. ‘There are preparations that must be set in motion. I must find out if any here are willing to come with me, as things stand. If nothing else, I must go down into the city and hire messengers.’ He swung his long legs down, getting ready to stand.

  Laurel took a deep breath, trying to put her determination in order as she had her clothing. If she was to take part in this, she must begin, and begin now. ‘My husband …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I … I must speak with you about something you said yesterday.’

  ‘I said many things yesterday.’ Wariness crept back into his voice. Laurel hated the fact that she had invited it there, but she did not let herself falter. ‘That you entered into this marriage in part to have an ally against Morgaine.’

  His gaze did not flicker, nor his expression change. ‘It is so.’

  ‘Then there are some questions I must ask you.’

  ‘Very well.’ Agravain settled back, leaning against the window frame and folding his arms. His permission was given, but his ease was gone. He was already retreating from her.

  Part of her said she should have picked her time better. She was dishevelled, undignified, still flushed. But there could be no
other time. There was no knowing what would come next. ‘I need to know why you left Din Eityn. No one else can tell me.’

  Agravain held his peace for a long moment, deciding. She let the silence stretch. The floor was cold beneath her feet.

  ‘I left because the king, my father, banished me,’ he said softly towards the writing table.

  ‘That is not the whole of it.’

  ‘Do you say I lie?’ he snapped.

  It was a reflex. He was glad to be angry because it might prevent him from having to speak the whole of his memory. Laurel’s certainty of this made it easier to hold her ground.

  ‘No, my lord,’ she repeated calmly. ‘I have been told of your sister’s death, and your father’s madness. But it does not explain why you, the heir of Gododdin, left your kingdom when the king fell mad instead of taking the throne, a move that would have been supported by Arthur, as well as by your own lords and chiefs.’

  Agravain looked at his writing desk, at his piles of maps and letters, scowling at them, when they offered neither answer nor shelter. She could see him considering his options. He could leave. He could order her out. He could maintain this silence. But none of these things would make the question go away. It would hang in the air between them until he did. answer. A draught worked its way thought the window, smelling of cooling earth and approaching night.

  ‘After … after my father … threw my sister down, Gawain left. I don’t know that I have ever forgiven him for that.’

  And with this between them, he cannot tell Gawain what he’s doing now. Was that Arthur’s idea? God and Mary, kingship is cruel.

  Laurel did not speak this thought. Agravain was forcing himself to speak, convincing himself one word at a time that he should continue. She could give him no reason to change his mind.

  ‘Some nights later, Geraint came to me and said he had seen our mother walking the corridors. Our mother had vanished utterly five years before. We were certain she was dead.

  ‘I remember hoping that he was lying, or dreaming. After all, he was a boy, and had been our mother’s favourite. He doted on our sister. At the same time, I feared he was showing signs of the madness that consumed our father.

  ‘I sat watch with him the next night, so I could find out for myself.

  ‘I did not see her. I did not … do not have such gifts. But Geraint did, and he described her carefully.’ His fist curled as he spoke the word, clutching that fact to himself, as if he might have to protect it from grasping fingers. ‘What I did see was our father grovelling where Geraint said she stood. I saw him curse and swear and cry out in his torment while Geraint, tears pouring down his face, repeated to me her mocking of him.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘He was a boy. He would not have thought to invent such things as she said.

  ‘But this … thing that mocked and abused our father was not our mother’s shade.’ Agravain crossed his arms again, shielding himself from the truth that he must speak. ‘It was her sister, her twin. It was Morgaine.’

  Laurel had been expecting this, since the moment he spoke of a shade, but expectation did not keep her throat from tightening around her breath as he spoke the name.

  ‘I knew then it was she who was to blame. She had driven our father mad, or deepened the madness brought on by our mother’s disappearance. It was she who had killed our sister as surely as it is the man holding the sword who slays his enemy. And she who was driving our father towards his own death.’

  Her father’s bloody corpse on the floor, the knife in her brother’s hand …

  ‘I sent Geraint and Gareth away,’ Agravain went on. ‘Down to Camelot and safety. They were boys. They could do nothing.’

  And what were you, Agravain? You could not have been more than fourteen when this happened.

  ‘I swore I would find a way to save our father. I knew what was happening now. I would not fail him, as I had failed Tania. But what was I to do? There was no one I could consult, no warrior, priest or sorcerer whom I could reach. The malaise that had taken hold in Din Eityn had made it difficult to tell friend from foe. What was I to do?’

  For the first time since he had begun his narrative, he looked at her, openly pleading. She did not know whether he was hoping she had an answer for his tormenting question, or to see that she had none, and would have had none then.

  ‘I waited, and I watched. He had lucid moments sometimes, most often at midday. At this time his melancholy would be at its greatest, but his wit would also be most clear. So, it was at midday I went to him. I told him I knew what nightmare was riding him, and I begged him to tell me how she could be fought.

  ‘He grasped my hand so tightly I thought he would crush the bones. But he looked at me, and he knew me, and I saw all the terrible fear in my father’s eyes.’ He saw it again now, as clearly as she saw him. Agravain’s whole frame tightened, trying to stand against the memory of these horrors.

  ‘He said, “You think I do not know what I have done? Whose hands struck Tania down? I am lost. I am damned. Leave me.”

  ‘I answered I would not leave him to her. “You must,” he said. “You and your brothers must grow to be men. It is only as men you will be able to defeat her. She means to destroy us all. While I live, she stalks me. While I live, you have some shield. Go. Live and keep our secret. She must never hear how much you know.”

  ‘I left him at dawn the next day.’

  These last words were spoken in a rush. This was the real pain, the knife that dug most deeply: that there had been no other choice.

  ‘You never told anyone,’ she murmured. ‘That your father was standing between you and Morgaine. Not even your brothers.’

  ‘How could I?’ He flung out his hands. ‘The very wind could be her spy. And even if I could speak in safety, what then? Gawain would go charging back and get killed for his pains. Geraint would follow because his sense of duty would override his judgment. Gareth was little more than a child.’

  Laurel did not remember crossing the room, but she found she was suddenly beside Agravain, taking his hand and holding it between her own. They stood like that while he collected his wits again. In truth, she also needed time to let the pieces of his narrative fall into place in her mind.

  It changed everything. Everything. She had seen Lot as a villain, a barbarous northern lord driven to madness by overweening love for his wife, without the faith or wisdom to cling to polity and reason. She had thought to hear that Agravain had left after cold, hard words had been exchanged. Perhaps Agravain had been driven out by a torrent of insults and, left alone by all his sons, Lot had been seduced by Morgaine.

  She had been wrong. Completely wrong.

  Agravain pressed her fingers gently before he withdrew his hand. ‘May I now ask why you needed to know this?’ he inquired with studied blandness.

  ‘Because you said Morgaine had some long hold over Din Eityn.’ Do not say over you, or over the king. ‘To secure the fortress, that hold must be broken. I could not do this unless I understood the nature of it.’

  ‘Can you break her hold?’

  How to answer? ‘I will do my best, I promise you.’

  To Laurel’s utter surprise, Agravain kissed her fingers lightly. When he raised his head, she saw, all unlooked for, that she had given Agravain hope. Her heart swelled with emotion, unfamiliar and tremulous, but also with fear. Should she fail … should she wipe that hope from him …

  I will not. I cannot.

  ‘Thank you, Laurel,’ he whispered. He straightened then. ‘And now, I must go to play my part. What will you do, my lady?’

  ‘I will go to visit Merlin.’

  Laurel did not know what she expected in response, but it was not Agravain jerking backwards as if he had been stung. ‘Merlin? Why?’

  ‘Because he once trapped Morgaine, but did not kill her. I would know why. It may become important to us.’

  With obvious effort, Agravain brought himself back to some semblance of calm. ‘Of course. Of course, you are right.
I …’

  ‘What is it, my lord?’

  Agravain watched his hands flexing for a moment. What are you trying to grasp? ‘Do not inquire too deeply there, my lady,’ he whispered. ‘Do not … do not stray from your path. Merlin’s knowledge is not all … wholesome.’

  Something had happened to him last night. It occurred to Laurel he might have spoken to Merlin, and got more than he had bargained for. The thought chilled her. ‘I will be careful. These ways are not unknown to me.’

  ‘No.’ He was looking at her afresh, but he was not reassured, and she did not know how to make him so.

  ‘Forgive me.’ Agravain straightened and lowered his restless hands, bringing himself fully back to the task of the moment. ‘Now, perhaps you should wish me luck.’

  ‘Good luck, my husband,’ replied Laurel gravely.

  Agravain bowed in solemn reply. As she watched, he schooled his face into its habitual sour expression, closing himself away behind his sturdy shutters and lowering the latches into place. Within a handful of heartbeats, he was Sir Agravain once again; cold, alone, acerbic, inscrutable.

  Without looking back, he strode from the room.

  Alone, Laurel blew out a sigh and looked around Agravain’s spartan room, shoving her disordered hair back from her face. It was all so strange that for a moment she did not know what to do. Then, she caught a glimpse of her rumpled sleeve.

  First I must get decently clothed. She too had this day to face, this role to play. She could not fail to see it through.

  Back to my own room. Get washed and some order made from this disarray. Make sure Meg and the others are all right. Her responsibilities to her husband did not negate her responsibility to her own women, and this she had neglected over the past several hours. Cryda and Elsa at least, would be going out of their minds wondering what would happen next.