Camelot's Blood (44 page)

“Yes?” Too tired. Too many long days. The fires were still burning, there were a thousand details to be seen to in victory that did not come with defeat. He was just too damn tired.

“Sire … they … they've found the queen.”

• • •

Devi led him to the shore. He had to. Agravain moved like a blind man. He could not make out the trail in front of him enough to guide his pony. He could not tell whether night had fallen or whether this was the darkness of his soul. He could not tell the roar of the sea from the roaring of his own blood in his ears.

But then, the sea shimmered in front of him, and his vision cleared. He raised his eyes, and there, there she lay. Just beyond the touch of the waves like any bit of flotsam, tossed aside carelessly. By the sea. By him.

Agravain all but fell from the back of his pony. Someone caught him. He shook them off. He felt the turn of stone and sand under his boots. He could not see. There was only Laurel, her white hair spread on the sand, her skin whiter than it had ever been, her face so still, too still.

Agravain dropped to his knees. With his two hands he lifted hers where it was flung out at her side. He pressed it against his forehead. Cold. So terribly cold.

No. No. Your time is not yet. God is merciful
.

He scrabbled at the strap that held the scabbard to his back. It had saved him. God's grace borne here by Laurel's hands, her greater understanding. It would save her. It must. It could not be that he was meant to live and she to die.

“Sire …' said someone. Devi. “Let us … ”

“Do not touch her!” he shouted. His numb fingers finally found the trick of the strap and he tore the scabbard from his shoulders. He laid it onto her still breast, and carefully, gently folded her arms, so that her hands were laid on top of it.

“Live,” he whispered. “Laurel, live. Death is not for you. It is too cold, too dark for you.” A wave surged up wetting his boots, teasing her hems. “God, I beg you. Take the life you have given me. I do not need it. Only let her live.”

Another wave came, rolling over her, wetting her to her breast. Agravain wept, his tears falling into the salt water. He could not move her away from those taunting waves. He had no strength left.

“Please. Please. Let her live.”

“Sire …' began Devi again.

Agravain gripped her hands, pressing them against the scabbard. A third wave, cold and salt, surged around them. Agravain dug his boots into the earth, the earth that had known his family down the generations, that earth that claimed him and called him back to the service of his land, the earth that was his very bone. Agravain cleaved to it and reached with all his heart and soul to the retreating sea. With all the love that could be held in the chambers of a broken heart, he reached towards the final darkness.

He reached and he reached, and he prayed, and he believed he touched the softness of his wife.

Laurel. Laurel come back. Come home
.

And underneath his hands, Laurel's breast stirred. Her hand moved, and lifted and grasped his.

A wordless cry escaped him. All his strength returned in a rush and he pulled her back from the salt sea, back to the land, to life, to his arms. And as he knelt there, her eyes opened.

“You came,” she murmured.

He wrapped his arms around her, bowing his head, suffused with gratitude beyond the ability to pray. “Forgive me, Laurel. I was wrong.”

“Agravain.”

He kissed her, and she returned that kiss, and there was nothing else in the whole world as he held her, warm from the sea, warm from the sun, warm with life and love.

Neither of them noted the scabbard, now sea wet and salt scrubbed. Neither of them saw then, nor for a long time to come, how the dark stain on it had been washed clean away.

I, the monk Elias, least of the brothers in Christ, write these words and ask forgiveness from God Most High. For in so doing, I commit the sin of pride, and I defy the orders of my father abbot
.

Today we found the body of the old man, Kai ap Cynyr, once called Sir Kai, who had long lived in sanctuary here among the holy brethren. He lay in the orchard, peaceful and at rest, with the fallen leaves of the hawthorn lying on his breast. He has now been laid in his grave to await the Day of Judgment which must come to all. Father Gildas ordered that I should write the day of his passing in this last record of his, and nothing more
.

But I will write what I saw, even as Kai did
.

Kai's mind has been wandering of late. He was often seen in the orchard talking and laughing with himself as the oldest of men will. We left him alone at these times, for he did not seem inclined to violence or fits, although we prayed frequently for the ease of his mind and soul. He spoke sometimes of a holy brother who came to visit him, a man with stout arms and a warrior's build who wore a monk's plain habit. No one else could ever say they had seen this monk
.

But I have
.

I was fetching water from the river and as I straightened up with the yoke on my shoulders, I saw a broad man in monk's habit. He carried a white staff in his hand and came striding down the hill towards me. Beside him walked another man, a young man so tall that the monk's head came only up to his shoulder. They made no answer to my hail
.

They only splashed across the river and began to climb the hill on the other side
.

On the top of that hill, I saw yet another man, a man of straight and noble form with a king's crown on his head and a golden torque around his throat. He held out both hands to the tall man, and that man broke into a run, leaving the monk far behind. They embraced, the king and the tall man, and the monk leaned on his staff and watched them fondly
.

Then, that tall man turned to me, and gave me a broad wink, and I saw it was Kai ap Cynyr
.

This was in the instant before they all three vanished into the sunlight
.

A great fear came upon me. I dropped my buckets and ran back to the monastery, where all had discovered the mortal shell of Sir Kai
.

I have read his writings, as has Father Gildas. Father Gildas has pronounced them an old man's dreams, but despite that, it is plain he is more than a little afraid of them. He has ordered they should be burned
.

God and Mary forgive me but I disobey my father abbot. I will wrap these pages up in leather. I will take them to the town. I will give them to the first trustworthy sailor I can find to take across to Gododdin. I think the king there will look on them more kindly than Father Gildas, for his name is Gawain, and his father's name was Agravain, and his father's name was Lot
.

It is the sin of pride I commit, but I will do this thing. For it seems to me that dreams and miracles are close cousins. If such men as Arthur Pendragon, Agravain ap Lot, and Kai ap Cynyr can be declared merest dreams, and word of them burned away, what then can become of the rest of us?

Brother Elias

At the Monastery of Gillean
,

Eire

This edition published by
Prologue Books
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Copyright © 2008 by Sarah Zettel
Cover images
istockphoto.com
/©Dean Bertoncelj
All rights reserved.

Published in association with Athans & Associates Creative Consulting

Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 10: 1-4405-4373-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4373-9
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4372-0
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4372-2