Camelot's Blood (23 page)

Sifred shook his head. “You're a brave man, Agravain of Gododdin, to threaten a slow death to the one who holds your life in his hands. Still, it is better to die with words of courage in your mouth.”

He raised Laurel's knife in salute and in signal. That briefest of pauses was long enough for the new sound, the frantic pounding of hoofbeats, to penetrate Sifred's hearing. The Saxon whirled around in time to see the red roan bearing down on him. Laurel threw herself forward, tearing free of his loosened grip the instant before the horse reared up and came down, and Sifred fell hard.

Devi.

Agravain's squire wheeled the horse clumsily around, and charged again, screaming like a madman, galloping straight for Sifred, groping and struggling in the mud. Agravain's surprise lasted only an instant. He launched himself forward, diving for his sword and coming up again, spinning as fast as the mud would let him. Laurel was standing on her own, the torch held in her fist. The boy had vanished.
Smart boy
.

Sifred, bowled down by Devi's charge, lay still and bloody in the mud. Agravain dismissed him. The two other barbarians had jumped back, and were spreading out at arm's length in front of Laurel, deciding how to dodge round her makeshift weapon.

Agravain gave them no warning. They deserved none. He charged silently, knowing exactly what he would do before he struck. The right-hand brute he sliced through the side, letting the blood and guts spill out of him. With the backhand, Agravain blocked the blow from the other, grabbing his long beard and jerking him forward, ruining his balance and his ability to stop Agravain's sword arm as he swung it down and stabbed deep between the ribs. The man fell in a fountain of black blood.

Agravain stepped back, breathing hard, his mind calm and settled as he watched long enough to be sure that none of the three was going to rise again.

When he was sure, he turned to see Laurel beside Devi, holding onto his horse's bridle. She appeared quite calm, holding the torch high to give Agravain light. They were not alone. Two other men, two of the old sailors Devi had recruited, waited with them, also on horseback, their faces grim and, for all their age, their eyes bright and ready.

Voices rose around them. Of course, this had not passed without notice. They could not stand here a moment longer.

“Quickly.” Agravain wiped his sword roughly on the hem of his cloak and sheathed it. He took the torch from Laurel and gave it to one of the stout old men, what was his name? He'd have it from Devi later. What mattered now was helping hand Laurel up to the his mate, and then swinging up in front of Devi. Agravain touched up the horse, which did not like the idea of another quick run through the dark, especially now that it had two men to carry. He did not give the beast the opportunity to protest, but dug in with knees and heels until it gave a squeal of protest and cantered forward.

The quay was but moments away at this pace, and a good thing too. Shouts filled the darkness now, and more torches and fires were blazing up high. Agravain dropped onto the stone almost before the horse halted.

“Wake up! Wake up!” he shouted, adding his own voice to the growing din. “Get ready to sail! Now!”

To his great relief, he soon saw his words were unnecessary. Lamps and lanterns were hoisted up so Devi could lead the horse forward to join the others hobbled and roped on deck. All the sailors were already busy with the anchor ropes and oars. The old man handed Laurel down to him, and she had wit enough to clamber swiftly over the side of the nearest ship. He followed at once, turning back to the shore.

“Dead!
Jarl
Sifred's murdered!” came the shouts.

An answering cry went up, much closer and far more welcome. “Pull, you whorsesons! Pull for your worthless lives! Pull!”

“Camelot's treachery! Stop them! Stop them!”

But they were already too late. The pull of the oars sent the ship lurching away from the shore, where the current, sluggish as it was, could catch them. The master angled his oar, heading them straight downstream. Torches lit the bank, showing a growing crowd of Saxons, staring after them. A few feeble shouts went up to the nearest boats, but the oarsmen were strong, and they wanted to live.

Before any of the Saxon boatmen could make any sense of the shouting and the sudden light, Agravain's fleet was gone.

Agravain let out a long, shuddering breath as the darkness wrapped around them. Thanking God for the full moon, he leaned over the rail and strained his eyes to count the ships following them. Five dark shapes sailed in the darkness. Five. They'd all made it. Probably they were not fully loaded, but they would have most of what they needed. And they were alive and underway.

For now, it was enough. Or almost. There were questions remaining.

Agravain picked his way amidships to where Devi sat among a pile of ropes, clutching his withered arm to himself. He struggled to stand, but Agravain bid him stay as he was.

“How did you know to come and find me?” he asked, squatting down beside his squire.

Devi shook his head. “It can only have been God's grace, my lord. I was waiting with the boats, and I … I can barely describe it.” His face creased, searching for words. “A restlessness seized me. I was sure, down to the pit of my soul, that something was wrong. The feeling would not leave me, no matter what I tried. In the end, I took your horse, and followed my nose. I … am glad that I did.” His smile was bashful, as if Agravain had caught him making some shameful admission.

“As am I, Devi,” replied Agravain, utterly serious. “When we reach Din Eityn, you will be knighted for all the work you have done. That is my promise.”

Stunned rapture slackened the squire's face. “Thank you, my lord,” he managed to stammer.

Agravain nodded once more and left him there. The oarsmen had all found their stroke, and the oars struck the water in perfect time, setting the ships timbers to a rhythmic creaking as they glided into the night. He moved carefully, lest a misstep send him toppling into one of the men, walking towards the prow, and Laurel.

She sat on the bench nearest the prow, straight as a willow wand, staring into the night ahead. She must have caught his movement in the corner of her eye though, for she turned her face towards him, watching silently as he sat beside her.

In truth, he was not sure how to break that silence. He settled for a direct question. “Did you bring them?”

She inclined her head once, ducking her eyes and hiding her face as if in shame. He breathed out again. He had suspected, but there had been no time to think on it. He should feel something, think something. He had known she had the blood, and the power, of the invisible countries in her, but now he had seen it at work. And he could feel nothing, nothing at all. It was as if it was beyond him, and he had no desire to reach for it at all.

So, he did not ask after it.

“Sifred said he had another offer,” he remarked, casually, as if it were nothing more than the day's smallest business. “I would I knew who it came from.”

“I know.” Laurel's voice was hard. “I saw it on his hand. He wore a ring with a black stone, and that was carved with a raven. I told myself I was being a fool. How could that be her device, worn so openly? She does not permit such carelessness of her secret allies.” Laurel rubbed her hands together. “If I had spoken. If I had told …”

“It would have done very little. They would still have tracked us. They had the whole long way to the river to stalk us and pick their ambush.”

She looked up at him, mute. Then, slowly, her face crumpled and twisted as if in great struggle with herself. Two tears slipped from her eyes, and in the next instant she buried her face in her hands, her sobs shaking her shoulders.

Agravain found himself staring, helplessly stunned as he had never been in battle. Laurel, his wife, was sobbing beside him as if her heart would break, and he did not know what to do. His mind had gone utterly blank.

After what seemed like an eternity, he thought to put his arms out, to draw her close against his breast. She pressed her face into his shoulder now, still weeping. He stroked her shoulders, wishing frantically he knew what to do or say that would end this. He had nothing to give her, nothing at all to offer this need.

Despite that, her sobs gradually eased, and she was able to sit up.

“Thank you,” she whispered, mopping at her flushed cheeks with her hands. “Forgive me, my lord. I don't know what came over me.” She was trying to hide behind her hands. She did not want him to see her face.

He caught her hands and gently lowered them. “It does not matter, Laurel. You did right. You acted bravely. It is over, and we are still here.” He brushed her wet cheek with his fingertips, and found himself wondering again at its softness. She was smiling and the sight of it went straight to his heart. “I have seen grown men weep over far less.”

She leaned towards him and he gathered her once more into his embrace. He held her close, letting the motion of the ship rock them both, lulling the last fear of their escape from them.

You are safe now, he promised silently. God and Mary be my witness, I swear you will always be safe beside me.

It was twilight when Morgaine emerged from her pavilion. She wore a simple gown of rich blue girdled with a chain of silver. A silver band circled her brow, holding back the waterfall of black hair that was otherwise as loose and uncovered as any maiden's.

She came without any announcement, without anyone to cry out her name and open the way before her. She walked silently through the camp on her slippered feet, seemingly unaware of the damp, or the cold wind blowing down from the northern mountains. She trod gently on the stony ground, looking neither left nor right. Her face was tranquil, as one in a dream.

All the people who saw her stopped their tasks and their talk. They turned their heads to see where she went. Their neighbours also stopped what they were doing to better see what distracted those nearest her. In this way, silence spread out from around Morgaine's path.

Almost without thought, her people laid down their tools and moved to follow her. They did not question their actions. They only wanted to follow where she went, and see what she would show.

Slowly, the silence and strange motion spread from the westerners' side of the camp. A few Dal Riata lifted their heads to see what extraordinary thing made their allies so quiet. As they looked, they saw the lady of whom they had heard so many rumours, but only distantly. To them, she was a vague figure of blue and silver gliding through the world of green and grey.

Curious, the Dal Riata stood, first one, and then another. They craned their necks, and began walking forward, inquisitiveness turning to fascination as they drew into the silence trailing in Morgaine's wake.

The Picts noted the spreading silence as it lapped up against their own encampment. They glanced uneasily at each other, and at their headman, Brude Cal, who was methodically smoothing the head of his stone hammer with a curved whetstone. Brude Cal looked up sharply, as if catching some familiar but unwelcome scent. Ponderously, he got to his feet. He motioned to his brother to stay where he was. Looping the hammer's thong around his belt, he ambled down the hill.

A bonfire burned at the crux between the various camps. Mordred had ordered it to be established as a place where the leaders of the uneasy alliance could all meet without any having to stand under the shadow of another captain's banner. This was the place to which Morgaine directed her soft steps. The fire had burned low over the long day, and a pile of brush and tinder waited beside it to feed new life into the coals as the slow summer darkness deepened.

Mordred waited there in his gleaming black armour, a figure cut from the fabric of the night. Where before he would have knelt to her, she now curtsied to him. She wanted no misunderstanding from those who witnessed this. Her son would lead. He must lead. He was the keystone of promise and prophecy.

Mordred inclined his head, accepting her gesture. Morgaine straightened, turning at once to the fire. The heat from the coals made a mask for her face while the cold wind wrapped around her shoulders. The contrast made her skin shiver, but she held herself still. She gazed unblinking at the coals, letting their heat sink into her, letting the orange glow dazzle her. She breathed in the heat and the scent, drawing it into herself, making it part of her.

Willing it to grow.

One coal broke open with a snap and a shower of sparks. A flame leapt up, then another, and another. Petals of gold and white unfurled, stretching up, swaying in the wind. They danced over the bed of coals, multiplying and melding into a single mass of flame without a hand or a breath being raised to aid them. They fed on their own coals, on the very air. They rose, knee high, waist high. Head high, cracking and roaring and vibrantly alive. Heat and light tumbled over the gathered crowd.

Morgaine lifted her head, stretching beyond the fire. She let her expanded and expanding self seek beyond the scrawny trees scattered throughout the encampment, down to the thicker forest, until she touched there the slow, hungry thoughts she needed.

Morgaine bid these to follow.

Back in the blood and bone of herself, Morgaine lifted her right hand. As she did, the brown owl descended. Around her, she heard the sharp intake of a breath. Owls foretold death. The cry of a hunting owl meant sacrifice and prayer to try to ward off the disaster that was imminent.

The great bird settled heavily on her wrist. Its claws dug nervously into her flesh, sending the heat of pain to join the heat of the fire burning in her blood. The owl blinked its round, yellow eyes at her, confused to find itself here. Morgaine took her free hand and wrapped her fingers gently around the hooked beak.

“Hush,” she said, clearly, so that all the assemblage could hear her. “Now you carry no message but mine.”

Sighs and whispers filled with furtive wonder flitted through the crowd.
No message but mine. She's forestalled death's harbinger
.

She let go of the beak and raised her wrist. Silently, the owl flew away.

Do you see how she commands the gods' messengers?

Then, Morgaine raised her left hand. She hardly had to stretch at all. The raven, her raven, was always within reach. Her ambassador, her familiar and her second self when she required its shape. It waited hidden in the oak tree growing at the edge of the encampment. It was not silent like the owl, that was not its nature. It dropped out of the encroaching dark with a rattle of wings, alighting comfortably on the familiar perch of her wrist. It cocked its head towards her and made no protest as she curled her right hand lightly over its eyes, though she could feel its amusement at her sudden need for such display, and gave a croaking laugh.

“Hush!” Morgaine commanded. “Now you spy for no one but me.”

The raven, naturally mischievous, bobbed its head, and took wing immediately. Every eye watched it fly westward, toward Din Eityn, toward the coast where Agravain would be landing.

“Do not fear.” She spoke softly, but she had no doubt that everyone heard her. She stretched herself out to them all now, letting her will carry the words as far as they needed to go. “Do not fear. The enemy comes in darkness. He thinks he is unobserved, but we see him. He thinks his swords are sharp and his allies strong.

“But we are greater than he, our numbers far more than his. He comes to establish an outpost for the invader, to betray his own ancestors to the southerners. This will not be permitted. Together, we will defeat this traitor and we will cast him into the sea that bears him onto our waiting knives.”

There was no cheering, nothing but the rustle and sigh of a people breathing out their wonder and breathing in her words. She could feel their spirits lifting, their fears and their struggles calming. They remembered, all of them, that this was a holy cause. What they did was right and their vengeance was just and warranted.

More than this, they saw that she would not abandon them to any fate. She stood with them, and she brought the blessing and the power of all that was unseen to their side.

Morgaine had no more need to dismiss the assemblage than she did to call it. All her folk drifted away of their own accord. They went almost as quietly as they had come, walking in close knots of threes and fours. Some held hands. Some wrapped an arm around the shoulder of a brother or comrade. Some walked alone, their heads sunken beneath the weight of their thoughts.

Even the Dal Riata wandered away without questioning, their whispers brushing her with excitement and warmth. Morgaine let them all go, drawing her spirit back into the confines of herself, releasing wind and fire to make their own way in the world again. Mordred alone stayed beside her, watching his followers disperse and holding back his own smile.

But one among them did not leave. Morgaine felt him unmoving like a stone in the middle of a stream. She lifted her gaze to the hillside, watching until her eyes became dark adapted. There, she saw the square, brown figure standing above her with his thick arms folded across his chest.

So
. “Do you have something to say to me, Brude Cal?”

The Pictish man chucked low in his throat and made his easy, confident way down the hill. He was a full head shorter than she, and had to look up to meet her gaze. He might have been moulded from the earth itself, he was so small and so brown. White lime made twisted peaks out of his thatch of hair and the flicker of the fire made the blue tattoos which obscured his face writhe eerily. But there was no mistaking his clear cunning as he met her gaze without fear, and without reverence.

“A good show, Morgaine,” Brude Cal said softly, speaking in his own tongue which he knew she well understood. “I see why you are a great priestess. Few would dare the gods' wrath so casually, and with so little reason.”

Disquiet rippled through Morgaine, and a little anger. “My reasons are my own, Brude Cal.”

“I am sure.” His smile was indulgent, and it was brief. He took a step closer. Morgaine smelled earth, sweat and stone. “Hear this, Sleepless One.” He raised his hand. “I and mine have come to enrich our clan, and to rid ourselves of an enemy who would steal our herds and their grazing land. That is reason enough for us to fight. Let it be reason enough for you.”

So
. Morgaine let her brows rise. “Your words are too deep for me to follow, Brude Cal.”

“Then I will be more plain.” He laid his hand on his stone hammer. She felt Mordred start forward, and then think the better of it. “Morgaine, do not try to awe my people. Do not try to take them into yourself. I will not permit it.”

She nodded, acknowledging the truth of the accusation. She could not, would not hide from it. “You see far, Brude Cal. But is it far enough?” She opened her eyes wide. “Do you understand what we truly do here, you and I?”

His curiosity was roused by her words. She could feel it. He wanted to understand this little riddle she posed.

If you wish to see, come closer, Brude Cal. Look deep
. She smiled just a little, showing him the challenge, and in less than a handful of heartbeats, he accepted, and he looked into her eyes.

For a long moment, Brude Cal met her gaze fearlessly. Indeed, he was slightly amused. Caution held him aloof, but pride and curiosity both prodded him. He reached with his spirit, testing his limits and striving to find hers, like the warrior he was. She fell back before him, retreating slowly, one tremulous step at a time. He followed, going ever deeper, farther from himself, into a familiar warmth that held no fear for him. He was strong. He was well-guarded with the charms and wardings impregnated into his very skin. He understood the ways of god and man. He had held himself steady while all others had been fascinated by a little trickery, by the most paltry of magics fattened and gilded for show.

She depended on his strength. He knew that. She needed him. He could leave in a moment, and ruin her hopes, her plans. She bowed before that reality, yielding to it now in spirit. He felt her weakness and it drew him on, like the touch of a hand, the press of lips. The depth of her need of him and all he could bring her surrounded him. It was a warm cloak, a woman's willing embrace. It lulled and excited, soothed and enflamed.

It wound around him tighter than any iron chain, but Brude Cal did not feel that. Against iron he would have struggled. Surrounded and soothed, filled with the certainty she poured into him, he never felt the shackles close.

Satisfied, Morgaine took his rough, fire-warmed hand in hers. “Do not desert me, Brude Cal,” she whispered. “I need you.”

She kissed him then, softly, chastely, the kiss of peace and friendship.

When she drew back, Brude Cal bowed his head. “I will not fail you, Sleepless One.” He smiled at her. With that smile he acknowledged the depth of her dependence on him, but told her this knowledge would go unspoken, for the sake of her dignity and for the sake of the promise he believed she had given.

“Thank you.” Morgaine let Brude Cal's hand go, and watched, as it strayed first to his cheek, then to the hammer at his belt, then to the blue ribbons on his arm. Perhaps he sensed vaguely that their charm had unravelled, but that thought did not take hold. He turned, dazed, but not hesitating. He had been dismissed, and he would go now. Back to his people, where he would speak in awe of the Sleepless One.

Morgaine smiled at his back. “Now you truly understand, Brude Cal.”

Around them, the noises of the camp revived themselves. Fires sprang up, lifting their smoke and light to the lowering clouds. Voices also lifted up too, a noise as easy and reassuring as the rustle of leaves and the creak of branches in the woods. Morgaine sighed, suddenly tired. She turned her gaze towards the clouds and found herself wistfully wishing for a sight of the crescent moon they obscured.

“Well done, Mother.”

Mordred. Morgaine sighed again. There was one other thing to be done tonight. “Thank you, my son.” She faced him. He was smiling, the confidence she so loved to see filled him. “They are yours now. I trust you to make good use of them.”

That smile broadened as he savoured the possibilities, and betrayed his eagerness for the beginning of the open battle. “Oh, I will, you may be sure.” He gave her a sweeping, showy bow that at another time would have brought her own smile out.

Not tonight. “Mordred?”

“Yes?” He looked up without straightening. It was a vaguely ludicrous position, and she found it easy to frown.

“I know what occurred in Londinium,” she murmured. “Your plan failed. Sifred, who might have otherwise become an ally, is dead in the mud.” Slowly Mordred straightened. The golden firelight did nothing to restore colour to his white cheeks.

“Do not question me again, Mordred. We stand on a knife's edge. If we stray in either direction we can still fall. Do you understand me?”

Mordred swallowed hard, the disguise of manhood cracking open to show the boy who still waited beneath. To his credit, he did not try to argue or make any excuse, he just bowed low to her, a spare and serious obeisance devoid of all his previous foolishness.