by Sarah Zettel
No reason, save that you wish my lord’s destruction. In her own secret mind, Laurel strained her will. Look about, look about. She reached for the wind, sending the wish on. Find me some landmark, some sign to show where she is.
I wish Agravain’s destruction? False surprise filled Morgaine’s reply. Never. We are blood kin, he and I.
Anger bit at the edges of Laurel’s concentration, almost opening her eyes. Do you believe I came here ignorant, Morgaine?
Ignorant, no. Only naive.
Laurel felt her nerve and patience shiver. This was a mistake. It gave the sorceress a chance to joust with her, to plague and play with her, as the morverch had. Morgaine loved her games, and Laurel must refuse to enter into them.
Get you gone from here, Morgaine. This place is closed to you.
Is it? asked Morgaine. Because you say?
Yes. Because I say.
Foolish, foolish child. Morgaine’s insult grated on Laurel’s mind. You think this is some strange dream. You believe you can banish it just by willing it so. You know nothing of the sacrifice to be made for power. You think your mortal heart and immortal blood will grant you strength enough to face me. You have never stood before true power, never had to fight for your self and what is rightfully yours against those who have turned traitor against you.
Words only, Morgaine. You do not frighten me.
Then I must teach you fear.
The raven in front of her laughed, and launched itself at her. Laurel raised her hands to shield her face, and in a moment, she was seized tight. Not in body, but in spirit. Her innermost soul was clutched tight in a force beyond her ken. She struggled, frantic, but it was no good. She could not discern the force that held her. She could not touch it with any force of her will, though her thoughts flailed wildly. It was like trying to touch panic itself. She tried to call to the sea wind, but she was mute and helpless.
The pounding of the bird’s wings filled her and surrounded her, a living, throbbing wall between her and any help. Her spirit eyes, blind before, were now forced open. She saw all the land below her, wrinkled green and stone grey.
See what is to come for you and yours, little girl.
It was not Gododdin she saw spreading beneath her with its frozen waves of earth and stone stretching out from the ocean’s shore. She knew this land like she knew the shape of her own bones. This was the high tablelands and sheer valleys that belonged to the Dumonii. This was her home.
Battle raged below. Knights on horseback clashed together, wielding sword and spear amidst a sea of men on foot with their poleaxes and cudgels. The roar, the heat and stench; the mud and blood and death and confusion; the screams and the shouts; the endless clash like a thousand blacksmiths hammering at once, it all surrounded her, shattering all hope of thought or struggle. All her senses were smothered over by the terrible morass of war. Horses danced and reared, torn between their master’s commands, and trying desperately not to tread upon the bodies of the falling already sinking into the mud. Overhead, the ravens laughed, urging on the battle, cheering for the slaughter.
Then, for one instant, the unfathomable riot of war receded, and Laurel was able to discern a single knight in the middle of the bloody storm. He was a bright, bronze man, on a huge, red horse. His blue and white shield had been splintered and battered. A second man strode towards him, a young man with black hair and red arms. His face, though contorted by rage, was familiar but she couldn’t remember why.
Gareth. God above, it was Gareth, Lynet’s husband, who charged the bronze knight. He swung his sword wildly, crying out like a man driven insane. The bronze knight blocked the first blow and the second. His face was almost languid as he thrust once, and Gareth looked surprised for a single instant.
Then, Gareth fell back from the horse to sprawl in the mud.
A howl rang out, torn from some maddened throat. Now Laurel saw Agravain urging his lean brown charger forward. His sword high; Agravain bore down on the bronze knight, who only smiled to see who came now and raised his own sword.
All Laurel’s spirit struggled to scream some warning, but Morgaine’s power held her mute. The battle blurred before her, and cleared, to be replaced by the aftermath of carnage. The bodies of men, broken and mauled beyond recognition, lay in the drying mud. The flies and ravens swirled around, looking to drink their fill before the worms came wriggling out of the earth for their share.
Gareth was there, but not alone. Oh no. Agravain’s corpse lay beside his brother’s, his head lolling loose on the red and black stump of his neck. Laurel’s mind swayed and swirled. Had she been fully in her body, she would have fainted.
A woman’s scream tore the world. Lynet, Laurel’s sister, whom she had left flushed with love for her new husband, struggled across the muddy field, stumbling over the dead, fighting to reach Gareth, stone cold and dead beside Agravain.
Where am I? wailed Laurel. Where am I in this madness?
Long gone, Lady Laurel, came Morgaine’s cruel whisper. You fled back to the sea ages since.
Laurel felt herself sinking into terror and heartbreak. This was the future. This death, this blow. This was the end of the world, and she, Laurel, had run away.
No. No, Laurel told herself desperately. This is only Morgaine’s future. Only Morgaine’s wish.
No. This is my work. I spun this destiny before your birth, little girl. It is wrought of blood and fire, and the stuff of my very bones. My hands spun its threads, measured its length and tied its knots. My knife will cut its threads. Every step your man takes, every breath he breathes, binds him more tightly. I have him already, and having him, I have all the rest.
You were too late already when you took your vow of marriage, when you lied and told him you had the strength to stand against me. It would have been better for him had you put a knife to your throat than his ring on your hand.
But even as despair crushed Laurel down, warmth touched her, distant, but real. It flowed through her, reminding her of another place, of time outside this bloody vision. It spoke of life and hope, and the freedom of self. It snaked through the deathgrip that held her, prying it open, as if a shaft of sunlight had thrown open a locked shutter.
What is this! cried Morgaine. What have you done!
Laurel fell. The whole of her spirit dropped into the waiting warmth as suddenly as if she were a stone cast away. Her eyes flew open.
She was where she had been, on the hillside with the busy sounds of the new encampment swirling around her. Cait hovered over her, holding her hands closed. Laurel felt the slick, cool touch of silk against her palms, and she knew by what blessing she had been freed.
Humbled Laurel bowed her head at once.
‘Thanks be to God,’ she whispered. ‘And to you, Cait.’ Her hands shook. With an effort, she made herself let go of the silk, handing it back to her maiden. ‘You may return this to its chest. Carefully.’
‘Yes, lady.’ Puzzled but obedient, Cait did as she was told.
Could Cait feel it? Laurel wondered as she watched her maid returning to the pavilion. Could she feel the blessing she held and the power that had coursed through this place; power of despair, and of hope, of death and life? The reverberations still shuddered through Laurel’s bones.
‘My lady?’
Agravain. Coming up the darkened slope with his long, swinging stride. She stared, relieved, confused, her thoughts teetering between reality and nightmare. Here was Agravain, whole and unbloodied, but the horrors Morgaine had forced on her were so fresh in her heart, she could barely see him as he was.
‘You are pale, my lady,’ Agravain said as he reached her side. ‘What is it?’
Laurel drew in a breath, gathering all the strength she had left to her. It was only Morgaine’s lie. Laurel’s fingers knotted in her skirts. It is nothing but a lie. I need not burden him with it.
‘It is nothing,’ she whispered. ‘It is only the cold.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Are you certain?’
He did not believe her. But what could she tell him? Not what she had seen. She could not tell him she had met Morgaine, and failed utterly, that it was only because she had disobeyed his express wish and brought Excalibur’s scabbard that she survived sane and whole. Pride, cold and comfortless, but inseparable from the rest of herself, would not permit so much.
‘Forgive me if I worried you,’ she murmured.
‘There is no need. Our pavilion is ready. That will give you some shelter from the wind at least.’ Agravain extended his hand and she took it, letting him help pull her to her feet. Together they picked their way between the rocks and puddles left over from the recent rains to the little leathern shelter waiting for them.
Hidden among the looming stones, Morgaine’s spy watched them walk away. Hidden in her distant valley, Morgaine the Sleepless smiled in her waking dream. The girl had escaped, but not unscathed. The seeds of fear were sown in her heart. She would not forget what she had heard and seen. It would colour every move she made in the coming days, and blind her to the truths that might have saved her and her so-beloved husband.
In the thread of her mind, Morgaine tied another knot.
TWELVE
Morning came, late and grey with mist. Laurel woke alone, her breath steaming in the damp air. Now she could clearly hear the clashes and thumps of the encampment, accompanied by staccato shouts, and the grumbling of sleepy men.
Packing to travel already.
Sparrow Jen had woken before Laurel, but just barely. The girl was still yawning prodigiously as she helped lace up Laurel’s sleeves properly, brush down her woollen dress and pin up her braids. As soon as she was decent, Laurel pushed her way out of the tent.
The sun was barely over the horizon, and the place was already a hive of activity. Laurel easily picked out Agravain sitting above the purposeful chaos on horseback. If he had slept at all last night, it was only a little. She had been aware of him a few times, coming in to sit beside her, but not to lie down in their makeshift bed.
To her shame, she had been glad. She needed the night to regain her composure, to understand what had truly happened when Morgaine had taken possession of her. She had made the gravest mistake. She had underestimated the Sleepless One. No more. It would not happen again. The kernel of fear that nestled beneath her heart would not have the chance to grow. She would never leave Agravain to the nightmare future Morgaine had planned for him. There was no disaster that could drive her into the sea.
Looking at Agravain now, a wave of pure wifely concern mixed liberally with annoyance swept over her. He surely has not eaten.
Cait stooped beside the fire, tending an iron kettle. Devi and Ros hovered beside it, torn between wanting whatever smelled so appetizing, and wanting to rejoin Agravain. They shuffled aside politely when Laurel approached, and Cait handed her a bowl of plain pottage and a hunk of bread. Bowl in one hand and hems in the other, Laurel picked her way through the swirl of activity to Agravain’s side, where he looked up towards Din Eityn as if he thought it might have moved under cover of darkness.
‘Has there been any word, my lord?’
He looked down, startled to see her there, and she handed up the bread and pottage. For a moment he stared at them, as if they were foreign objects and he did not know their purpose. When he did take them, she saw a flicker of gratitude.
‘I am hoping word comes now.’ He nodded up the slope, and scooped up some pottage with the bread.
The mists had lifted enough that Laurel could see a column of tall shapes moving deliberately down the rocky path. After some straining, she counted four men, all on horseback. One carried a long pole that might have held a banner, but in the dank, still morning it was impossible to make out its sigil.
Greeting or warning? Agravain’s face was creased and his gaze never left the approaching column, even while he shovelled his hasty breakfast into his mouth. They had not spoken of it aloud, but they both knew it was possible that the fortress had already fallen to internal strife, and that there was no welcome for them there.
Laurel took Agravain’s bowl when he was finished, handing it off to Jen who had come up beside her. Her own hunger stirred uneasily inside, but she could not make herself move. Whatever was coming, she would not wait for the news any longer than necessary.
Slowly, slowly, the little procession wound its way in and out of the dissipating mists. Then, all at once, Agravain stood up in his stirrups.
‘Pedair,’ he breathed. ‘Thank Christ. Devi!’ Agravain shouted. ‘Devi!’
The squire had just accepted a hunk of bread from Cait. He shoved the morsel back into her hands and ran up the slope, bowing hastily.
‘Get Ros to carry the banner, and run up to greet Lord Pedair and bring him to me.’
‘My lord.’ Relief loosened Devi’s brown face, and he hurried to put the orders into action.
‘Pedair would not have left if there was not at least some semblance of order in the fortress,’ murmured Agravain, not looking down at Laurel. ‘That is something, at least.’
Laurel nodded. She had known he was worried, but she had not guessed how frightened he was of what he was walking into. Seeing him relax, sit back on his saddle and wait with something approaching patience allowed her to breathe more easily.
Pedair and his three men-at-arms rode into the camp on sturdy dappled horses with blankets striped blue and grey beneath their plain saddles. Huge, heavy-jawed hounds trotted beside the horses and laid down obediently at their master’s commands. The smallest of them stood as high as Laurel’s waist. These were more than hunting dogs, these were war hounds.
Lord Pedair himself was an old man, his hair and moustaches gone fully grey and his eyes nearly lost in the weathered folds of his face. His blue tunic and leather trousers were worn, and his striped cloak had seen hard use and little washing. But he dismounted his horse easily and bowed before Agravain.
Agravain also dismounted, and grasped the man’s forearm to raise him up.
‘Pedair,’ he said, warmth and relief plain in voice. ‘Thank you for being here.’
‘It was my honour. Your Highness.’
Highness. There it was, and for the first time; Agravain greeted not as Arthur’s man, but as the king’s son.
This did not seem to give Agravain any pause. He turned at once to her. ‘This is my wife, the Lady Laurel Carnbrea of Cambryn and the Dumonii lands.’
Pedair bowed to Laurel. ‘I am sorry we could not give you better welcome, my lady.’
‘It is of no matter, my lord.’ Inwardly, Laurel cursed herself for allowing her greed for news to cause her to neglect her proper duties. She should have had welcome cups prepared for these men.
Agravain, however, seemed in no mood for the delays of courtesy. ‘We are almost ready to leave here. How does the king?’
‘He lives,’ replied Pedair with a glance up the slope to the looming fortress. Laurel thought she saw him shiver slightly.
If Agravain saw this, he gave no sign. He only nodded curtly. ‘We will go at once.’
‘Yes, Sire,’ said Pedair. There was a martial acceptance in his reply, but there was also a small hesitation. ‘You should know, much has changed since you and your brothers left.’
Agravain’s expression did not change. ‘For the worse, I am certain. What loyal man would stay to serve madness?’ The tone was neutral, but he was holding back a flood of feeling, Laurel was certain.
Pedair dropped his gaze, unable to make any answer, and hiding his own feelings of shame.
How many failures and how much desertion have you faced these ten years?
‘Who have you left behind?’ Agravain was asking.
‘Ruadh mach Keill. He is a good man.’
Agravain nodded curtly. ‘We should delay no further, unless there is something more you would tell me before I enter the fortress?’
‘No, Sire.’
Did Agravain see how far the other man’s eyes were sunken in, and how he swallowed hard be
fore he spoke? Oh, yes. He surely did. He was watching this chieftain as closely as he would an enemy who challenged him. With his searching gaze he hunted for lies, or for hidden truths.
Agravain nodded once more. He was not satisfied, but he was not in any mood to delay further so he could quiz Pedair more completely. Whatever waited at Din Eityn, they would find it out soon enough.
‘Let us go.’
And it was done almost as quickly. Three of the captains were detailed to supervise the remaining decamping, and Ros formally given the role of messenger which he had already carried out so ably. Laurel sent Jen running for a horse, and turned back to see Agravain gazing down at her thoughtfully. But he made no objection, and by the time his chosen guard was formed up in a processional line, Laurel was on the back of a steady grey mare, stationed immediately behind Agravain. Neither Jen nor Cait were happy about her order for them to stay behind and accompany her chests up along with the main body of men, but they acquiesced when she gave them no choice.
Lord Pedair went before them, the hawk banner of Gododdin fluttering weakly on its staff. The drumming of the horses’ hoof beats on earth and stone was the only music to herald their march.
The way up to Din Eityn was no smoother than it looked. Though the valley was broad, it remained stony. The earthen blanket was thin and torn in many places. There were many homes here, but nothing Laurel would call a village, let alone a town; just scattered clusters of houses made of thatch, wicker and stone, joined by strange sunken walkways, some of which were roofed over as scant protection against this land’s harsh weather. The fields looked to be little more than gardens between the stones, but the sheep and the goats were well fleeced and well penned. Beside every house waited at least one boat, or the frame of a boat, all turned over to keep out the frequent rains.
Their passage was not unmarked. Folk came out of every doorway to gawp at them. Murmurs passed between the people who stared in slack-jawed in surprise. Then, slowly, here and there, one began to kneel. A shout rang out. Then a cheer. The cheer drew yet more people out of the scattered dwellings, and in from the scanty fields.