Camelot's Blood (35 page)

Agravain stared at the old man as if he had suddenly become a stranger. He saw Pedair's crooked hands and his narrow eyes, his pinched face and his trembling shoulders hunched up like a hooded crow's.

“Do not speak of what you do not know, Pedair,” he said softly.

“Very well. I will speak only of what I do know.” If Pedair noted Agravain's barely contained fury, it did not deter him. Pedair came forward, moving in close to his king, whose coming a handful of days before had left him weak with relief. Now, Agravain could see the bitter disappointment in the old man's eyes. “I know that by your actions we are weakened. I know that by your actions we may suspect that the madness that haunted your father has got its first claws into you …”

Red, red anger swamped Agravain's reason. He could barely cling to the memory that this was a friend before him.

“Pedair, use the wits I credit you with having and be silent.”
Be silent, do not force me to strike you down. Do not force me to call you traitor as well
. “You have work enough to do.”

Pedair stepped back, his body trembling as he straightened it. “As it looks to be the last work of my life, yes, Your Majesty.” Pedair turned, without obeisance or acknowledgement, and walked away.

Agravain looked up and found the crowd staring at him again. They dropped their gazes, turning away hurriedly, but he heard the whispers, and the breath of them fanned the anger burning in him.

For Agravain, anger had always been a cold thing. It lent precision to thought and to word. It calmed his blood and made him still. He did not understand this fire in him that made him want to lash out, to scream and curse and destroy whoever or whatever was nearest at hand. It sent his frame shuddering and drove out the reason he so desperately needed.

Agravain looked towards the gate again, and saw Laurel standing in its shadow, swaying, trying to gain her stride. Not looking back.

What have I done? What have we done?

With all the strength brought by years of keeping his heart and his counsel absolutely to himself, Agravain drove down the flame in his blood. He could not quench it, but it would be contained. He had a war to win, and it must be won. Too much depended on this for him to doubt his eyes or his actions.

He strode into the crowd of his people, trying not to hear the whisper of that part of mind and self that lingered behind, gazing at the gate, whispering one word.

Laurel
.

Laurel did not know how long she walked. She only knew her path led downward, following the slope of the hill to the plain of the valley. She thought she passed clusters of houses and pens for animals. Perhaps people spoke to her. She could not hear them. She could only walk on, passing through the green and silver world like a ghost.

She felt the sun on her skin, felt the wind wrapping around her. Her sandals turned and skidded on the stones, making her stumble. She righted herself and walked on. There was only one place left for her to go.

The long shadow of the rock fell across her shoulders as she stood at last on the curving shore of the sea. Salt filled the air, stinging her throat and lungs. The setting sun turned the restless waves opaque silver and blinding gold. The sound of the waves pounded against the walls of her mind, bringing them down, releasing the flood of emotion so that the tears could run freely.

Laurel collapsed onto the salt-crusted stones, weeping out her fear and rage to the eternal sea. Unchanging, the sea rushed and roared, the tide pulling back, laying bare sand and stone. She felt its retreat in her blood, and longed to follow, to fall into her other home. She could dissolve with the foam into the living waters, be forgiven and accepted.

You are gone to the sea years since
.

The burning chaos of the war spread out before her mind's eye, blotting out the silver sea. She saw again Agravain's corpse upon the bloodied earth of her home, and that sight was nowhere near so terrible as the sight of his shuttered eyes in the chapel as he sneered at her protestations and called for the guard.

And so why not go? I am bid to go and never to return. In my failure, where else is there for me?
The foam crested the retreating waves before her, cool as snow, ephemeral as dreams. It wore away the world, and yet lasted no more than a moment. It was a byword for weakness that water, and yet no stone, no steel, could stand before it.

Gone to the sea, years since
.

Laurel drew her knees up under her chin, huddling on the stone, watching her grandmother, her other place. She could not move. She could not go forward or back. The land's shadow crept across her flesh, stretching out past her, moving towards the sea.

After a time, she felt a change in the air behind her, a little warmth that had not been there before.

“Majesty?” said a soft voice. It took her a moment to place it.

“Bryce,” she said without turning around. She could not take her eyes from the dimming waves and their wordless roar. They did not compel, nor did they call. It was she who yearned. “What brings you here?”

“Word from Din Eityn, Majesty. I have kin there.” He walked around into her field of vision and went carefully down onto one knee. “Let me take you to shelter.”

The wind from the sea blew hard, whipping laces of hair back from her stinging cheeks. “Why would you do that?”

He pulled back, honestly surprised. “Because you have been wronged. Because I would have men know what sort of man calls himself our king.”

Slowly, she shook her head. “No.”

Confusion flickered across Bryce's face, and wariness, like a man who felt the sands shifting beneath him. “You say the charges are true?”

“No. But I will not go with you.”

Setting his jaw, Bryce reached out and laid his work-hardened hand over hers. The chill in her skin went too deep, and she could not feel the warmth of his touch. He spoke fervently, willing her with all his might to understand. “This is not justice. This is madness. We cannot let another mad king take the rule over us.”

She lifted her face to him for the first time, and she knew the cold lights now shone in her eyes. He was the one who did not understand. “And the one who brought on this madness is waiting on the other side of this night. She will not spare you, Bryce, nor any other man of this place now that you have failed her.”

He swallowed, his words lost to him. He drew his hand away from hers, as if he could no longer bear the touch of her flesh.

As if the corruption of death clung to her.

“Go back to your home, Bryce.” Laurel said turning her face once more towards the sea. “Sharpen your sword. Either fight with Gododdin, or slit your own throat. It will be kinder than what Morgaine will do to you.”

She could hear his breathing, even over the rush and crash of the waves. She did not look at him. He had ceased to be important. Eventually, he walked away and left her sitting there in the twilight, watching the sea.

Will you do as I said?
She wondered idly. He was a good man. She felt it. Agravain could use him.

Why should I care?
She had no answer. She could still feel the ache against the back of her skull where she had hit the wall, could still taste the blood in her mouth where she had bitten her lip. Rage blackened her heart with its heat. She had trusted him! Had given all she had and all she was to him, and this was how he repaid her! After all they had done and seen and been, how could he think …

But there was something else, something shining like a broken coal, its heat making it dangerous to grasp.

Gone to the sea years since
. The words Morgaine spoke over the vision of Agravain's corpse. Her future in red and black.

She is still here. Her work … was a distraction …

Laurel's head lifted. It was not her own thoughts, nor Morgaine's taunting words. That was another voice, another memory.

Byrd. Wizened, black-eyed Byrd.

Byrd convinced her to speak with Lot. Byrd laid a hand on her head just before the vision assailed her. The vision that told her it was Lot who held the one piece of knowledge she could not remain in ignorance of.

Byrd who said she made too many of her own bargains. She, her mind full of empty stores and fish and cows, had thought Byrd meant the kind of earthy bargains a woman might make with the least objectionable men around her, the sort that could help her keep her place and stay alive. Even as Byrd had spoken of the other ways, the ways that skirted the invisible countries, Laurel hadn't thought of what the true nature of those bargains might be.

And there, alone with the sun setting against her back and the sea retreating in front of her, Laurel remembered Byrd's round, red-rimmed eyes and remembered where she had seen them before.

They were the eyes of the raven who had carried her soul for Morgaine to make sport with.

Byrd was Morgaine's spy, her hand in the fortress that was held against her. When Laurel could not be defeated, Byrd had contrived to disgrace her. Byrd had told Agravain she was speaking to his father.

Byrd was still inside the fortress. Byrd now held Agravain, her husband, in the palm of her crooked hand.

Byrd had the scabbard.

Laurel was on her feet, but did not remember having moved. Her lungs strained and pulled and her ice-cold hands knotted into fists.

She must run. She must fly. She must get back to the rock and warn him, warn him …

And who would listen to her? She had made her own appearance of guilt with her thoughtless obedience to a false vision.

Why should I care? He banished me. He would have struck me. He betrayed me in the end. Why should I care?

Because it was not he who did these things. Because he had been used and played with as she had been, for Morgaine's games and Morgaine's hate, and Morgaine's end.

She has taken my father and my brother; she will not have my husband!

But there was only one way to gain the strength to meet this promise, and Laurel saw again the battle and the death it must bring. Even if she did not care for Agravain, going to the sea would mean she destroyed her sister, destroyed her home …

But it was Morgaine's vision, and it clouded her own, as it was meant to. Laurel faced the memory before her.

I am gone to the sea. I am not in this future you spin. But you are not there either
. The thought moved slowly, almost sluggishly against the tide of her despair.
You did not show me your triumph. You did not show me yourself, not at Camelot, not in Din Eityn
.

If I have gone to the sea, Morgaine, where have you gone?

The moon was rising over the waters, a perfect crescent against the blue-black of the sky. It lent her enough light to see where to put her feet, as she finished making her way down to the foaming waves.

Laurel had often thought of her mother's choice. She wondered how her mother felt in that moment when she chose to take on the cloak of mortal flesh and leave the sea, to give her love to an earthly man and give life to his children. Did she know it must only be for a short time? Did she feel it was worth the sacrifice?

Laurel reached the water's edge, but she did not stop. She waded on. The waves swirled around her hems, cold and harsh.

How did one measure the worth of such a sacrifice? Christ on the Cross, soldier on the battlefield, or woman in labor, how did one measure the worth of giving of one's own life?

She did not know. She could not know. She could only choose.

Laurel waded deeper. The waves surged and sighed, pushing and pulling at her. The spray drenched her face, throat and arms. Laurel raised her hands, holding them out in supplication and in so doing she opened her soul.

The immensity of feeling staggered her: anger, wariness, sorrow and love. They dragged her spirit under, rolling it over in a flood-tide stronger than any force the physical waters might produce.

Be sure. Be sure. The waves said.

“Grandmother,” Laurel called out. “Grandmother,
please
.”

Slowly, her blood yielded. It was as if a wall battered by the sea began to buckle, then crack. At last it crumbled apart while the flood rushed into the breach. The force of her heritage, the whole of the other, invisible world that Laurel had held at bay for so many years tumbled freely through her. Laurel cried out in pain and in shock at the wild freedom pouring through her veins.

Then, the ocean's song changed. The roar and rush dimmed, and the cresting waters slowly stilled. Flat and silver as a pond in the moonlight the ocean pooled around her knees. The silence and beauty caught her breath in her throat.

In the next heartbeat, a horse climbed from the waters.

Awkwardly, it emerged snorting and panting as if mounting a steep hillside. It stood before her, silver rivulets cascading from its gleaming black hide, and looked down at her. It shook its black mane, scattering diamond droplets everywhere, and snorted again. Its eyes were so dark they might have been holes in the great beast's head. No light of moon or star was reflected there.

“Kelpie.” Laurel breathed the word.

The creature regarded her from one black eye and stamped its heavy hoof. Laurel felt suddenly cold. She should have been brimming with relief, and gratitude that her grandmother had sent such an answer to her. She should be pouring out her thanks, but she could not. In her bones, she understood the deeper message. Where Laurel went now, she went of her own will. There was no more shelter, no more blessing from the sea. For her, there was only power, and such power as she possessed would take fully as much as it gave. She had been warned, and she had made her choice.

But where could she go, to learn what she must know? Laurel closed her eyes, stilling the tumult inside her. She had to think. She had to hear the truth, not the lies, not the fear.

She heard the voices, all the voices, all the answers she had already been given. They coursed through her mind, unknotted and rewoven with the sound of the tide and the cold touch of the moonlight.

Why didn't you kill her? … She never died, not really … I took you — do you remember? — up to Jove's Seat above
us, so you could see the whole country you were queen of now … she never died … Why didn't you kill her … my mother vanished … why didn't you kill her? … Stone and son prevent you … This stone, this place, this is mine … up to Jove's Seat so you could see the whole country you were queen of … Never died, not really …

Why didn't you kill her?

Laurel swallowed and walked around the kelpie. The great black beast held still while she clumsily heaved herself up onto its bare back. The kelpie's hide was cool and smooth as river water and the strength beneath was just as great.

Laurel knotted her cold fingers in the kelpie's wiry mane.

“Kelpie, take me to Jove's Seat.”

The kelpie snorted once and sprang forward. The rush of icy wind, the bunch and release of the muscles beneath the cool hide combined to form a single flowing current to carry her away, and all Laurel could to was hold tight and pray.

• • •

Stillness came at last to Din Eityn.

Reluctantly, Agravain ordered the men to sleep. The forges were quiet and the powerful, angular war machines waited still in the darkness. There remained much to do to prepare the defenses. He needed to review the preparations for the bridge, and the pass. It was still not sure that all the engines had been correctly aimed …

But this battle could not be fought with his men worn past endurance. They had more than earned this one night of sleep. One more night before the war came on them.

Agravain stood on the parapets, and willed the morning to come. He did not want stillness. He did not want to have to fight the fire still burning in him. He wanted to give it free rein, let it pour out of him to overwhelm his enemies. He did not want to stand here and burn, and think on where and why this had come to him.

Laurel
.

She would not leave him be. No matter what task he turned his hand to, no matter who he stood with, her eyes watched him, confused, betrayed, though she herself was the betrayer. She brought forth every memory of every moment they had shared to nag and whisper in the back of his mind, incessantly distracting him, and making him see again and again how she had walked away without looking back.