by Sarah Zettel
‘Sire, what is it? What happened?’ gasped Ruadh.
‘She brought it. I told her not to, I commanded her, but she brought it.’ The holy thing, the humble thing lay in his hands.
‘But what …’
‘Worth ten of the sword. He who carries it will not bleed. She brought it to this place, and laid it here.’ Agravain looked up at Ruadh. ‘God stood beside her while she worked, and I did not see it, Ruadh.’
Ruadh stared speechless, and crossed himself.
Agravain stood. He carried the scabbard to the altar and laid it there, then stepped back, around his father’s bier. All that he had remembered, all he had thought, all he had done that hellish day came back to him with a clarity that cut through his soul.
He had been deceived by Morgaine’s spy. Laurel had only been trying to do as he himself had bid her. And she had sought the aid of Heaven to protect him, and his father.
And he had not seen. She had walked so proudly from this place, unbowed by all his words, all his violence. He was the one who had been struck down then. Struck deaf and blind.
Agravain knelt and crossed himself. He clasped his hands to his chest, and struck his breast.
Forgive me. Forgive me.
He struck again, and again, and again. Pain warmed his blood with its fire. Pain’s fire burned him black and red.
Forgive me. Laurel. Tania. Laurel. God and Christ and Mother Mary. Forgive me. Laurel.
Again and again. One blow for each sight of Laurel. One blow for each wrong, for each slight, for each word heard and not believed. One blow for Arthur, and one for Gawain. A blow for Father, for Tania, for Mother. Blows for all the dead, Morgaine’s dead, his dead, called back and cast aside.
Agravain beat his breast until he crumpled senseless onto the stones. It was Ruadh who caught him before his head could crack against the floor.
EIGHTEEN
It was cold.
Despite the layers of leather and wool that Mordred wore, the dew had already soaked through to his skin where he lay flat on his belly among the heather and bracken staring across the great valley that cradled his prize. Beside him, Durial shifted restlessly. His remaining captain had been against the idea of going uphill, on foot, under cover of darkness, to overlook a land they could see next to nothing of. As a reward for his protest, Mordred had made him come along. They must do whatever scouting they could, whenever they could. Their fractious allies would not hold together for any more long encampments.
Although the sky brightened steadily, he could still see precious little. Thick, patient mists filled the valley. From here, Din Eityn looked to be floating in a sea of clouds. Away on that island, Agravain mach Lot, King Agravain now, made his preparations to prevent Mordred’s progress.
What are you about down there? Mordred’s jaw worked back and forth. You and your hundred men. What are you planning?
He could see no spark from any fire, but he could not believe Agravain was wasting a single heartbeat’s worth of daylight. Birdsong and the far distant rush of waves punctuated the still morning, and something else. Mordred strained his ears until they ached, and heard something like the faintest ringing of bells. A forge at work, hidden by mists, and perhaps by walls.
No, King Agravain was not idle.
Mordred considered. If he were the one rattling around in the shell of Din Eityn, he would station part of his host at the base of its pass. He would try to begin the battle in the broad lowland and then retreat slowly up the narrow, rocky way to the fortress. He would sell every inch of ground dearly, take as many enemy lives as possible to make maintaining a siege that much more difficult. According to the spy, Agravain had all manner of folk up and down that pass. They piled stones and dug traps for both horses and men.
No. I think we will not come to your doorstep so easily, Sir Agravain.
Agravain expected Mordred to be impatient. Expected him to go directly for Din Eityn, knowing it was weak and being eager for the prize. Yes, he was impatient, but not to the point where it clouded his judgment. He Would not loose his hounds until he knew for certain what his enemy was doing.
There were only so many places where Agravain could advantageously make his stand. He must keep Din Eityn at his back to secure his retreat. Cut him off from that single safe haven, and the battle was ended.
Agravain, would, of course, know this and take precautions. Mordred’s task would be to make Agravain spread himself too thin, and then to cut off that retreat before he knew it was gone.
‘Well, my lord?’ inquired Durial impatiently. ‘Your eyes surely see farther than mine. What are we to do?’
‘We divide the men into three,’ replied Mordred softly, gazing at the mists, willing them to roll apart and show him Agravain’s fortification. ‘One third to march along the shore and take the landings. Loot what’s there. Burn the ships, if possible. It will be footwork mainly, so I think we can leave it to the Dal Riata. I’ll put them in your charge. You know this country. Once the boats are dealt with, you must find the back way up over the rock. We know there’s a bridge there. You must take it as quickly as you can.
‘Our second host will be the main force, and will have most of the horsemen. I will lead them around east of Lucifer Hill, up the valley. Agravain will have a signal and a watchman there. Let’s let him get a good look at us. We’ll take the village and whatever else we find there, bring Agravain and his hundred men right down to us, thinking we’re about to fall into their trap.’
Durial grunted. The plan was settling into shape in his thoughts, and he was not displeased. ‘And the third?’
Mordred felt himself grin. ‘This will be the task for the Pict men. They will come in from the north, climb the back of the ridge onto the pass. That’s quiet work for knife and hammer. Kill the defenders, wreck whatever engines he’s got stationed there. Burn them if they can. We can trap Agravain between the sea, and stone and fire. Even if they cannot hold it, they can destroy some of these careful preparations, and draw at least some men out of Din Eityn to die defending their king’s retreat.’
Duiral gazed out over the heavy mists toward Din Eityn, considering, seeing the plan Mordred had given him, turning it over once, and again, looking for flaws. Despite the cold numbing his face and the dew soaking through his sleeves, he did not hurry Durial. This was what he had brought the man up here for.
‘What about these engines?’
‘Catapults, trebuchets. Terrible, but not overwhelming. If he wants to lob stones at us, we can always withdraw and wait, until his men are gnawing on beams for food.’
‘And the lady?’ Durial inquired softly. ‘Where will she be?’
Durial was one of the few who would speak to him openly about the depth of his mother’s role in the work they pursued.
‘Where her secrets take her,’ he answered. ‘But I think she’ll want to be with the horse, to meet Lot’s son face-to-face.’
Durial nodded again thoughtfully. If there was the smallest sign of distaste in his expression, Mordred pretended not to see it, much less understand it.
‘It’s sound,’ Durial said at last. ‘It’s a risk to divide your men in the face of the enemy, but in this case it may win us the day. If nothing else, it’ll help keep those fools from each other’s throats.’
‘Well, let us get back down and tell them the news. Their wait is over. The war begins tomorrow.’
Quietly, cautiously, Mordred and his man crept back down the hillside to rejoin their force and give them the orders.
The war begins tomorrow.
‘Majesty, the runner from the north is come.’
Agravain looked up from the map table he had caused to be set up in the great hall. A rangy young man came forward from the corridor. He was gasping, dew-wet and dishevelled. He – Eadan, that was his name – had been picked for his duty because all in the village agreed there was none to surpass him for speed. He made to kneel, and Agravain gestured for him to keep his feet.
‘Wh
at did you see?’
The youth shook his shaggy head. ‘Not much, I fear, Majesty. The mists are bad. But a host comes out of the hill, down the near bank. They’ll be here by noon, at the latest.’
‘Down the shore?’ Agravain turned again to his map, laying a finger on the deep, crooked, blue intrusion that the firth made into the coastline. His hand was still sore and weak from his penitence of the night before. Scabs blossomed on its side and on the knuckles. The pain of movement found a bright, eager answer in the centre of his chest each time he breathed.
He ignored all this. ‘How many?’
‘A hundred men, maybe more, but not many more.’
Agravain pictured the shore in his mind, the lay of the land, and the hazards it offered. These were few, but they were hidden by the mists that showed no signs of lifting. ‘Horse or foot?’
‘Foot. There are only a dozen horse with them, if that many.’
‘Do we give the word, Sire?’ asked Pedair. He stood beside the fire, rigid and correct. Agravain did not miss the wariness with which the old chieftain watched him though, nor could he blame him for it. He had been right. Disaster had come too close, and it was Agravain’s fault.
If he was glad to hear his king talking like a warrior, Pedair still cast too many black looks at the stained and empty scabbard Agravain had strapped to his back. Agravain had not found the words to explain this. It was Laurel’s last gift, one of the great and holy mysteries in most humble guise. Unrecognized for what it might truly be. Like the word of a faithful woman. He would not reject what she gave him, even if he could never see her again.
Do not think on that.
‘We do not give the word yet,’ Agravain looked down to the map again. ‘With only a dozen horse coming that way, there will be another runner coming soon.’ He set his jaw. ‘They’re dividing themselves. The question is how. Eadan?’
‘Sire?’ The boy straightened himself. He was clearly tired and chilled, but he still offered the fastest means for getting over the rough ground that could easily take down a rider on horseback.
‘Get down to the ships. Tell the guards they’re to get up here, and the sailors they’re to put to sea, round the point and wait there. If they do not hear from us in seven days, tell them to set sail south to take the news to Camelot.’
Eadan blanched to hear his king planning for the possibility of defeat, but he swallowed his qualms with reasonable speed and straightened his slouching back. ‘Yes, Sire.’
Agravain nodded and Eadan hurried out the door, leaving himself, Pedair and Ruadh with the maps and the knowledge that the war was coming closer. The air was heavy with the cloying damp the fires could not dispel. People came and went in as much silence as they could manage.
Pedair stood still beside the table. Though he looked down at the broad map, Agravain wondered what he really saw. Ruadh, by contrast, paced. He circled the fires, not questioning the orders Agravain had given, but plainly not wanting to wait.
Agravain did not want to wait either. The need for movement was like an itch inside his veins. He also wanted to pace, to be outside with his engine men and his smiths, urging them to their work. But he did not move. The men were already working as quickly as they could. They knew full well their own lives depended on being finished in time. Devi oversaw them, and Devi could be trusted absolutely. There was no word he could add that would make them work more quickly.
But more than that, Agravain could not now show himself less than calm and in control. His heart was shattered, but his mind could not be. He could not, he must not, fail in this thing, whatever came afterwards, be it Judgment Day itself. This much Laurel would understand. He was certain.
Agravain saw Laurel’s face before his mind’s eye again and his fists clenched. He needed to show his people what he truly was. Show her. She waited out there somewhere. He had no one to spare but boys who should have been hiding behind their mother’s skirts, but they were out looking. She would be found. The war would not wait for him and his wrongs, but when it was done … when it was done he would beg forgiveness, from her or from God, whichever would face him first.
Sandals slapped rapidly against stone, and Agravain turned. A lean boy, barely old enough to be called a youth, rushed into the hall to drop to his knees before Agravain could move to stop him.
‘I saw the signal off the hill beacon!’ the boy cried. ‘A host of men come up the valley. Near two hundred of them!’
Agravain nodded, and waved the boy out. The boy gulped air, bowed his head quickly and ran, no doubt to tell father or uncle or brother what he’d seen and so spread the news like wildfire throughout the fortress. It didn’t matter.
‘There is it,’ he said to Pedair and Ruadh. ‘They mean to flank us, draw us down and then cut off our retreat. If they separate us from Din Eityn they carry the day, and they know it.’
‘And if we sit here any longer, they will converge outside the wall and lay their siege. Then we may sit here until King Death comes to fetch us,’ said Ruadh flatly.
‘Aptly spoken, my lord Ruadh.’ Agravain looked down at his map. He had studied this parchment for years on end, working through every scenario his imagination and training could invent. In mind and in sinew, he felt the lay of the land around him.
‘Who do we choose to meet?’ He tapped his aching palm against the table’s splintered wood. ‘We cannot let ourselves be divided for long. We are too few. And we must draw them within range of the pass. So, on which side of this scale do we throw our weight?’
‘Better to face a hundred than two hundred,’ said Ruadh. He looked old, as if he was feeling each and every one of his years. He was not afraid, Agravain was sure of that, but he was tired. He wanted to find hope, but the strangeness of the engines and their masters had bewildered him. The stinking, poisonous jars that now waited in neat lines beside the trebuchets filled him, and many others, with fear.
Agravain had no comfort to give him nor any time to explain more than he already had.
‘Facing the smaller force will put us on the backside of the rock, and we’ll have to double back against our own force in retreat.’ Agravain tapped his hand again, making a rhythm for his thoughts. ‘As it is, we cannot trust that all of us could make it back across the bridge.’ And what’s the reason for that? Ruadh was plainly thinking. Agravain chose not to answer that thought.
‘If we face the greater force, we have the straightest line back,’ he went on. ‘Which no doubt the Black Knight has also considered. So, he’s doubled his numbers there to frighten us off.’
‘And has made a fine job of it,’ remarked Pedair mildly. A rebuke for Ruadh, or just the plain truth?
‘So, we meet them in the valley.’ Agravain pressed his fingertips against the place on the map, as if he thought the pain in them would burn some mark on the lined parchment. ‘Let their other men break against the cliffs and try as they might to open our back door. It will bring them what they deserve.’
‘We will have only one chance,’ said Pedair. ‘If we cannot keep the course of the battle as we need it, they will slaughter us.’
‘I did not ask if this would be easy. I asked that it be done.’ Agravain lifted his hand from the map again. The pain filled him, reminding him of how much he had done, and of all he had yet to do to atone.
It ends here and begins again. God help me. ‘It all depends on how much the Black Knight knows. We had a spy with us a long time … did she really understand the engines? What exactly did she see?’ He lapsed again into silence.
‘Shall I give the word?’ asked Pedair.
Agravain nodded. ‘Let it be done.’
Pedair bowed and left to give the orders. Agravain’s fingers curled, trying to dig into the wood beneath them.
So, we know where Mordred is. Where is Morgaine?
And where are you, my wife? Now that war has come, where have you gone?
He could not believe she had gone meekly away like some disgraced daughter sent to a nun
’s house. That was not Laurel’s way, not even now. But what had she done? Where had she gone?
That he had no way to answer these questions tightened his jaw and gut. He could only make his first moves, and wait until Mordred countered, and pray with all his heart and soul that Laurel would not hate him so much that she would turn against him.
This was to have been his moment of strength, but Agravain found he had never felt more weak. He could only see half the war arrayed in front of him. All around there was a second field that he could not even begin to chart.
He felt the scabbard press against his back, a warning hand, urging him on. Her last gift to him.
Agravain closed his eyes. ‘Laurel,’ he whispered. ‘Laurel, where are you?’
The shadows made no answer.
Darkness whirled about Laurel. She could see nothing but a chaos of blackness cut by silver light. The rush of icy wind, the bunch and release of the kelpie’s muscles beneath its cool hide combined to form a single flowing current. She could hear nothing but the wind in her ears. It tore away her breath and forced itself into her throat. She was drowning on air and motion.
There was no time. There was only the struggle to hang onto the slick mane that cut into her fingers and the struggle to keep breathing. Blind, deaf and cold, she held on. Were it not for the current rushing over her, Laurel would have feared she had died.
Then, unthinkably, the current lessened and stilled. Hearing and vision returned, and Laurel was able to drag in long, gulping draughts of air. They stood on a stony hilltop. Stubborn grass and lichen grew between great, grey boulders. At the hill’s crest waited a single thorn tree. Though it was summer, the twisted branches bore no leaves, only scraps of cloth and ribbon that had been tied there by people seeking blessing or to avert curses. The moonlight glinted on coins and silver pins tucked in between the tree’s roots or into the cracks of its bark.
The wind blew hard around Laurel’s head. She felt the trickle as her blood eased itself from the stinging cuts in her hands to run down the length of her fingers and drop onto the exposed earth and stone.