Camelot's Blood (38 page)

“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 sliver 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.

Pit. Pat
. Her blood fell.

This was an ending place. This was death. The tree was dead and dry with no water to feed it. The hard, pitiless wind should have broken it long ago, but here it stood. Something stronger than the wind kept it there.

How is it this place is not guarded?

But it was. By dry silence and dry wind and the boundless reaches of the night. There was nothing to grasp here, nothing to strive against. Only the isolation, and the dry thorn tree. Nothing to reach towards or for. No sign of trap or tomb.

Tick. Tick
. Her blood fell onto stone.

The thorn tree rattled its branches. Laurel lifted her head.

The wind fell away, leaving behind silence as thick and binding as any shroud. It was cold, cold as the grave and dry as a bone. The stars shone overhead, hard, brilliant and distant.

Tick. Tick
. Her blood fell onto stone. Nothing moved but her blood dropping down. The kelpie stood like a statue. Time had ceased. There was nothing and here would be nothing here but darkness, and the drops of blood.
Tick. Tick
.

Blood. Blood to blood the strongest call. This whole, long nightmare had been about blood. Goloris's blood, shed to free Ygraine, Morgause's blood that ran through the veins of her sons. Morgaine's blood burning with the need for vengeance against the world.

She never died, not really. But she was kept forever apart. Morgause had not killed Morgaine, and Morgaine had not killed Morgause. But she had trapped her where she could not hear, could not answer.

What call would be strong enough to reach her? The call of blood.

“Morgause,” said Laurel. “Morgause, Ygraine's daughter, I am come from your son Agravain. I am come to aid all your sons; Gawain, Agravain, Geraint and Gareth. Morgause, in their names, will you speak to me?”

Laurel felt light as a feather, and dry as dust. There was nothing for her to hold here, no way for her to find purchase on the dry, dead stone. No cloud, no mist to bring her the water of life and hold her in place. There was only dust and stone, and nothing more. Nothing at all.

“Morgause, I come in your son's name. Will you speak to me?”

The thorn tree shifted.

Laurel blinked. There was no wind.
A trick of the light?

No. The branches moved, but not like a tree's that is blown by the wind. They drooped and bent. They bowed in to wrap around the trunk which hunched and thickened. The ribbons tied to the twigs blurred and stretched, darkened and lengthened, until they were an ancient woman's white hair and black robe, its hems spreading out around her feet, and yet somehow remaining the roots of the tree she had been, held tight by the dry stone.

“Who calls me?” she rasped, her voice rattling like dead leaves. “Who can call me?”

Laurel stood frozen. She had spoken to the dead, but the sight of this captive robbed her of the power of speech. She could still see the tree this woman was. Part of her heart wanted to believe that this was a dream. The ribboned tree had to be the truth, not this old, worn woman, her blue eyes gone cloudy with despair and the dry chains of enchantment that held her.

“I am Laurel Carnbrea, daughter of Morwenna, who is the daughter of the sea.”

“Ahhhh!” sighed Morgause. Her arms waved vaguely. Her clouded eyes searched the heavens, the hilltop that sloped away into shadow.

She's blind
, realized Laurel numbly. Had Morgaine blinded her deliberately, or was that just one more curse leveled by her imprisonment?

“You call out the names of my sons.” Like the movement of her body, her voice was vague, almost careless. Each word seemed to stretch up like a child, reaching for some object it wanted, but could not understand. “What are you to my sons?” The question was light, not amused, but vacant, empty, as if she could not believe it was real.

I want her to be a dream. What does she want me to be?

“I am wife to Agravain.”
Despite all, I remain so
.

She did not answer for a long time. Her blind eyes moved, this way and that. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, as if tasting the air. Her crooked fingers stretched out to nothing. Did she know where she was? What had happened to her? Was her prison some terrible dream Morgaine had laid upon her from which she could not wake?

Or had she gone blind trying to see through the tangled web of the invisible countries to where her flesh was trapped into the mortal world?

“Yes,” Morgause said at last, letting the word fall slowly as a sigh. “It would be Agravain who would cleave to such a one.” She cocked her head and smiled just a little. The sadness of that smile went straight to Laurel's battered heart. “How does my son?”

Laurel swallowed, licking her lips, and trying to find the strength to speak words that would be true. “He is sore pressed, my lady,” she said. “He goes to battle against Morgaine and her son Mordred.”

“Then …” Morgause reached out with one hand, stretching it to its limits, caressing the empty air in front of her eyes. “Lot is dead.”

“Yes.”

Morgause held still for a moment, eyes, hands, mouth all frozen. Then, she sagged down, her head slumping to her chest, her body curling and buckling. In unfettered flesh, she would have fallen to her knees, but her transformation, her prison, held her upright.

“Ah! Ah!” Morgause wailed. “My husband. My husband!” She lifted her head up to the star-filled sky, straining her blind eyes to see what was gone. No tears shone on her cheeks. This place was too dry even for tears.

“Wait for me, Lot!” Morgause pleaded. “Wait for me!”

Laurel hardened her heart. “There is a question I must ask you, Morgause.”

It took some time for her words to reach through the fog of grief and enchantment. But Morgause did lower her face, turning an ear more closely to Laurel. “What question?” It was as if she could not help herself.

What use has Morgaine made of you here? Have you been made to be her oracle for all these years? Oh, Mother Mary preserve us, did she make you tell of the downfall of your husband and sons?

“What is Morgaine's weakness? How can she be defeated?”

“Ahhhh! Ahhhh! It's come to that. It would come to that.” Morgause's pale eyes darted back and forth, seeing phantoms of nightmare and memory. “I tried. I tried. But I was too slow and far, far too late.”

“Please, my lady,” Laurel took a step forward, holding out a hand that could not be seen. “I must know, so I can tell your son Agravain how to strike.”

“It cannot help him. But it can. But cannot.” Morgause shuddered and twisted, her arms swaying, buffeted by tormenting winds that came from nowhere but her imprisoned heart. “My heart is gone. I have nothing left. Lot is dead. Lot is dead!” Her voice broke piteously upon the words. “I had so much,” she whispered. “But it is all gone now. My fault,” she whispered and the words were the sound of heartbreak. “My fault.”

“No,” said Laurel. “Not gone. Stolen. Your sons live still, Morgause. Let me help them. Let me help Agravain.” She stretched out her hands, pleading, for every good moment they had shared, for every glimpse of the man he was and the king he could be.

Morgause wavered, swaying back and forth, a woman who wanted to faint and fall in her weakness but could not, a tree that would bend and break, for its heart had long ago rotted away, but could not. Trapped. Trapped and made to serve until she was uncertain whether she could, or should, defy her captor anymore. The thought of failure sickened her heart as badly as the sight of so much pain. At the realization that she had been willing to do this much to Lot Luwddoc.

No, no, I would have let him go at once
.

But for how long? Surely I would have needed him again … Oh, power was a dread thing
.

Laurel took the queen's hand, kneeling down in supplication, in remorse. She felt bark and stem, and she felt a woman's bones. “Do not leave Agravain to her.”

It was as if a storm shook her. Morgause threw her head back, twisting and turning, caught in an invisible gale. She would have screamed, but she could only whimper. Laurel heard her limbs crack, saw the pain contorting her face as her joints bent and turned, cramped and crabbed. Her gnashing teeth bit her withered lips. Laurel held her hand, held tight, not daring to let go, to break the cord of human sympathy, the only such that had come to Morgause in ten years.

Remember your sons. Remember your husband. You say their suffering is your fault, then act now to end it
.

But to save the sons, to avenge the husband, she must again betray the sister whose suffering was caused by the death of their father, caused by their mother. Suffering that Morgause must feel as keenly as if it were her own, for that sister was her other self.

Which treason would she choose?

Morgause slumped down in her cage of enchantment, borne up only by confinement. She lifted her head, and for the first time, her blinded eyes turned towards Laurel.

“It was early days,” Morgause said, and she laid her other dry, light hand over Laurel's and Laurel at once remembered the touch of her mother, wasted by illness and ready to die. “The twelve battles were won. The Britons were safe at last. But Merlin gave Arthur one last prophecy. Merlin told him his unlawful child would bring all the Britons to their knees. But it was not only Merlin who learned this truth. My sister, my twin, her soul broken and bleeding after all the long years, she also knew, and she acted.”

Vision gripped Laurel, and she saw a war-ravaged town, its surviving people, all of them Britons, swarming about to greet the bloody and mud covered victors. They shouted their praises, and fell at their feet, and … and … and …

“Great king. Great king, will you have me?”

Black-haired and black-eyed, older than she had been, he did not recognize her. Her dress was torn, but nothing of her
manner was broken. She was full of life, and the lust that is raised by battle made it easy. He grabbed her hard by the waist and she came with a laugh to press against his chest and answer his kiss boldly, bawdily. The soldiers around cheered, as he pressed her against the wall, and then swept her laughing through the doorway
.

In a fever pitch, he took her there on the dirt floor, tossing aside his armor and his restraint. She laughed hard and urged him on, crying out his name. When it was done, he backed away on his knees, suddenly ridiculous in his nakedness and shaking with spent lust
.

“Are you … did I hurt …”

She smiled at him and rose gracefully. “You did magnificently.” She crossed to him, drawing his head back and kissing him. “Great king.”

And she left him there in the darkness of the hovel, to gather his armor and wonder why he was so afraid
.

“Arthur didn't know where the child was or who he might be, but he would not take the risk. Flush with his victories he lost caution, but not all mercy. He thought … he thought he could do an evil which was no evil.”

Merlin she saw now, his beard shorter, his face less lined, but the beginnings of the sadness that would carve those lines deep in his eyes.

“You have fathered a son,” said Merlin flatly. “That son will be your death and the undoing of your life's work.”