In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy) (18 page)

Kerra was in the Saxon camp when the men returned from the second day of battle before the walls of Pen Marhas. They were exhausted and bedraggled, covered in mud and blood. The wounded groaned as they limped to the fires, leaning hard on the shoulders of their comrades. Some were tied to the backs of horses that were as weary and as gore-spattered as their masters. Even Wulfweard, to whom battle was a drug, trudged on heavy feet, his bonze helmet dangling from his hand. A long, ragged tear ran down one cheek. The blood dried darkly against skin and beard.

“My husband.” She knelt before him as a proper wife of his people would do, taking both his hands in hers. “Let me tend your wounds.”

Wulfweard grunted and suffered her to lead him away. His eyes were dull with exhaustion and anger, and something else which she had not seen in him since she had made him one of hers — fear. Kerra held open the flap of his tent so that Wulfweard could enter easily. As she did, she caught sight of Harrik dropping himself down beside the fire and pulling at the straps on his helmet. He met her gaze and she saw the same stunned weariness in him, and fear as well. Not fear of what he had seen on the field, but fear that he would disappoint her.

Then let him stew in that fear awhile yet
. She held her face still and blank as she followed Wulfweard into his tent.

The tent was fragrant with the special resins and incense she laid on the fire. She had anointed herself with the necessary perfumes for her work as well. Wulfweard threw himself onto his bed of sheepskins and breathed deeply as she took his helmet and began to wash and dress his wound. She doubted he was even aware that he smelled something exotic anymore.

“What happened, my husband?” she asked softly as she laid the wet cloth against the gash in his cheek.

“That damned whoreson from Camelot, that’s what happened,” he growled, keeping his voice low, knowing as well as she that the whole of the camp was straining its ears to hear what their war leader said to his woman. “Yesterday, he fights like one of their city men, careful, controlled, doing no more than is needed. He knows he’s got the walls and we’re sitting in the open. Time’s on his side. Today, though. Today, he’s gone mad as any berserker. Turned red butcher on us. No plan, no care for who was behind him or with him … I thought he was going to chase us all the way back to the hills on his own!”

His wound was bleeding freely now, and Kerra laid a clot of cobwebs and peat over it. “What held him back? You could have had him.”

“Wotan himself knows, I do not,” muttered Wulfweard. “We were running back, and I was thinking, ‘come on up, you bastard, we’ll give you the welcome you want,’ because I swear on my head, he was acting like a man who didn’t want to see moonrise. But he turned back before I could put thought to deed.” Wulfweard closed his eyes. “I tell you wife, we lost fifteen good men today to Arthur’s cubling out there. Another day of this, and we’re done.”

“And the messengers to Camelot?” she asked, patting her medicines into place. It was a shallow cut. The scar would be a mere thread.

Wulfweard grunted again. “I’ve had word we got two of them. The men think there may have been a third. They’re still hunting him.”

Which meant there might be very little time indeed.

Kerra stood. “There will not be another such day.” She kissed his craggy brow, and cradled his head close to her bosom so he might breathe in the perfumes that lulled his suspicions and raised his lusts. “If you listen to my counsel, and bide by what I say, Pen Marhas falls before the next dawn.”

“Listen to your counsel,” repeated Wulfweard dully. “Always. Always.”

“Yes, beloved,” she smoothed his hair down. “Always.”

It was only a few moments before he was fast asleep and Kerra lowered him onto the skins. She had to hurry before he started to snore. She left the tent, and stepped up to Harrik’s side. “Your master would speak with you,” she said, softly enough to make it sound like a confidence, but loudly enough to make sure it was overheard. There was more than one set of suspicions to be lulled among these men.

Harrik followed her nervously, like a child who knows punishment is coming. Inside the tent, he dropped at once to his knee, head bowed. Kerra let the flap fall behind him, cutting off the daylight. When he heard no command to rise, Harrik risked a look up and saw his lord and master sprawled on a pile of sheep skins.

“He sleeps,” whispered Kerra in case it was not obvious, but then, a man in Harrik’s state needed all the help that could be had. “We need to speak, you and I.”

Harrik stood, his eyes wide. Any minute he would start shuffling his feet. If the matter had been any less urgent, Kerra would have laughed.

Instead, she hardened her face and put as much steel as she could into her whisper. “I am most angry, Harrik.”

“We underestimated the woman. But she is trapped in Pen Marhas.”

Yes, the woman. You, at least know how to keep your mind on essentials
. “I know what happened today. Pen Marhas will not be cut off for long.”

“Your husband …” Harrik began heatedly.

Kerra raised her hand to silence him. She could not risk him getting so angry he raised his voice. “Is my husband, Harrik,” she replied gently. “And I may not speak against him,” she lowered her eyes, and let out a soft sigh.
Breathe deeply, Harrik, my own. Breathe deeply
. “It does not matter that my heart lies elsewhere.”

Now Harrik knelt to her, pressing her hand to his lips. “Gawain and his woman will die. We will take this place.”

She tilted his chin up so that he might look into her eyes. “You will, if you will heed me.”

“Tell me what to do.”

Kerra smiled for him. “Choose four of your best men. Tonight, when the moon sets, take them up to Pen Marhas’s walls, to the place where you see the raven sitting. When that raven caws three times, scale the walls. You will be able to find your way through the streets, and open the gates.”

For a moment, Harrik’s face clouded. The man inside, chained by her magics struggled against his bonds for a moment. “It is witchcraft, Kerra.”

She leaned close, she spoke for him and no other. She belonged wholly to him. She was all his need and desire. There was nothing else in all the wide world. “It is what must be done, Harrik,” she told him. “You will do this for me, for our love. Once you have left the camp, the men will follow you down in twos and threes, and they will wait ready for the gate to open. Darkness will aid them, I can promise you.”

He caught her face in both hands, and kissed her long and desperately. She permitted the gesture for a time, and then pulled gently away, her hands capturing his wrists.

“It will be as you say, my heart,” he told her with all the force of a man taking a blood oath.

She touched his head in benediction and acknowledgement. Harrik rose and there was nothing more than obedience and smoldering desire in his eyes. The man was still once more.

Kerra smiled behind him as he left the tent. She would yet succeed in her aims. It had been humiliating to have to stand silent before Euberacon while he castigated her for failing to bring him Gawain and Risa. It had been past comprehension to learn that they were still alive. Morgaine had warned her she believed too strongly in her own powers, and that she looked too little toward the possibility of failure. Again, her mistress was proved right. Euberacon had gone off without telling her where to take measures of his own to reclaim his little treasure. Probably he was going to bully the girl’s father into handing her over.

But all was far from lost. Pen Marhas was more than vulnerable to Kerra and her friends. She had thought to open the gates by her own means, but the wood of those gates was banded with iron. There was no magic to which iron would yield. So, it would have to be Harrik, and after him, Wulfweard could do his work.

Kerra stared in the direction of Pen Marhas, as if she could see through the tent’s skin walls. “I would rather you had been killed on the hills, Gawain, but perhaps this is best. Now there can be no suspicion as to why and how you died.”

She smiled then. This must be what it was to be queen, this unquestioning loyalty, this feeling of power in one’s hands. The satisfaction of watching one’s works set into motion. The knowledge that one ruled hearts as well as hands. Such things would wash away even the memory of hunger and hiding. She would enjoy her ascendancy to the great hall at Camelot. In Arthur’s fall, she would pay all her debt to Morgaine, and in the power that came with sovereignty she would finally know true freedom.

Kerra reclined in the tent’s one chair, and prepared to wait for darkness.

The mood in Bannain’s hall that night was almost celebratory. Even the wounded men drank toast after toast to Gawain’s boldness. Tomorrow would be time enough to worry that the fields outside, so newly plowed and planted, were nothing but mud and blood. It would also be more than time enough to worry that the Saxons still nursed their wounds in the hills and that there had as yet been no word from Camelot. Today, Pen Marhas had dealt a telling blow to her attackers, and her people would cheer, even though the night’s supper was nothing more than stew and bread. Tomorrow, Bannain promised at the top of his lungs, there would be roasts and pies to welcome home the victors after they had chased the Saxons back into the sea!

That speech earned another thunderous cheer, and another round of beer and wine. Risa, seated at the high table, raised her cup with the rest, but kept her silence. She was sure of only two things. One was that on the field today, Gawain had been nearly out of his mind, and the other was that although darkness was settling in, he had not yet returned to the hall.

There was only one other at the table who seemed less than triumphal, and that was Lady Pacis. She scowled down at her meat, stabbing restlessly at the stew with her knife, but eating nothing.

“Was that a sigh, Lady Risa?” Lady Cailin asked over the rim of her own cup.

Risa collected herself hurriedly. “Forgive me, my hostess. I am tired.”

“I am not surprised,” put in Lady Pacis, each word as sharp as the knife she held. “There will be themes sung on your courage as well as Gawain’s.”

Risa had to stop herself from asking where Pacis had spent her day. “I only did what I could.” It did not seem to Risa that there was anything particularly courageous about sitting out in the wind and the sun, holding an arrow ready until her fingers ached, and praying to God that Gawain did not decide to try to chase the Saxons all the way back to their hills single-handedly. It had taken Bannain’s orders to stop him.

“As do we all.” Lady Cailin looked hard over Risa’s head at Pacis. Something akin to a silent scolding passed between them. Pacis, however, was undeterred.

“Oh no. Lady Risa has done so much more than was needed. She is a heroine from ancient Rome, such as are spoken of inhabiting the imperial palaces. A woman of uncommon perseverance and endurance that all men may marvel at.”

Her words were pitched to carry, and the others at the table were beginning to look up from their feasting. Risa felt her cheeks flame crimson with anger as well as embarrassment.

“Someone must work when there are wounded men. What use were you today?”

Pacis shot to her feet, and all at the table turned to stare.

Risa waited to hear what remark Pacis would make now, her heart in her mouth, but Lady Cailin spoke first, and bluntly.

“Pacis, you are making a fool of yourself. Sit down.”

Pacis glowered at her aunt and then without another word, turned on her heel and whisked out of the hall.

Risa swallowed, the knowledge that she was alone among strangers coming down hard over her again.

“Lady Cailin,” she said. “Please believe me, I meant no offence against your niece, nor any …”

But Lady Cailin waved Risa’s words away. “Pacis would be better served if she could keep better count,” she said tartly. “Pay her no heed, Lady Risa.”

Risa picked up her goblet and took a long swallow of the small beer to keep from staring at her hostess. There was only one thing Lady Cailin could be inferring. God and Mary, if Pacis had cuckolded her husband, why did she need to try to embarrass
Risa
in public?

Unwelcome reasons stirred in the back of Risa’s mind, agitated by the fact that Gawain was still nowhere to be seen. Bannain moved about his hall, speaking to his men, both the ones at board and the ones lying on their makeshift beds among their families. There would be another toast soon, and more cheer.

Does no one see this is not over yet?

As this thought came over her, she also saw that the ladies on the other side of Cailin were in a whispered conversation of their own. Risa set her cup down, feeling suddenly ill.

Lady Cailin gave a small sigh and patted Risa’s hand. “Perhaps you should retire, Lady Risa. Water is being heated. You can wash if you wish.”

“Thank you, Lady Cailin.” Risa stood, keeping her eyes modestly downcast so that she would not have too look at her hostess, or anyone else for that matter. Cailin’s words were tolerant, underscored with impatience. It seemed to Risa that she was saying,
if you are going to sin, you could at least be brave about it
.

Pray for patience
, Risa counseled herself.
And pray that tomorrow brings the victory everyone says it will so that we can leave here before the wings of rumor have a chance to fly ahead of us
.

She hoped the women’s sleeping chamber would be empty so she could have a moment’s peace to collect herself. The dim room was silent when she reached it, and she sighed in relief. It was not until she had closed the door behind herself and turned toward the fire that she saw the other woman standing as still and white as an alabaster statue.

Risa opened her mouth, but Pacis stalked forward like a hunting cat. “This is your fault! You drained the vitality from him!”

What on God’s green earth is she talking about?
“Lady Pacis …” Risa spread her hands, trying to find something to say that was both conciliatory and sensible in the face of the other woman’s rage.

But Pacis grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. “I need a son! What right have you to keep him from me!”

Even as understanding solidified, Risa’s patience shattered. She stepped back, striking sharply at the lady’s wrists to break her hold. “Lady Pacis,” she said evenly. “I am sorry you are in distress, but it is no fault of mine.”

Risa had heard of marriage contracts that were contingent on the wife bearing a son. If no male heir was forthcoming, the wife could be set aside. Pacis evidently had been written into such an agreement, and when God, her husband and her body had failed to keep the bargain, she had sought other help, in the form of Gawain.

And Gawain had turned her down, or had failed in some other way. Risa did not want to know any of this. She most certainly did not want to be standing here.

“I will be turned out without even my portion, sent in disgrace back to my father’s hall with three useless daughters in tow, because you have blushed and simpered your way into his heart!”

“Lady Pacis.” Risa began again, trying to remain firm although she felt as if the very ground were shifting under her feet. “I do not know what complaint you have against me, but I will not be insulted, nor will I be made to answer for the actions of another.”

It was a thing Lady Pacis was most unwilling to hear. She circled around Risa, looking for an opening, a place she could stab with her hatred. Risa did not turn to face her. She stood as she was, her eyes forward.
Be still. Be stone. She is nothing
.

“Listen to me, you little whey-faced Messalina,” Pacis sneered. “You think you’ve won Gawain? He is fickle and faithless as the winds. He goes from woman to woman because he can’t have what he wants. I own him. His heart is mine, and it is my will it obeys, do you hear me?”

Which was too much. Risa pivoted on her toes and faced Pacis. Her beautiful face was creased in fury and for a moment Risa thought she could see the bitter crone the woman was to become. Risa spoke, and her voice was light and calm. “I hear you and your words are perverse as they are poisonous,” her tone was almost pleasant. “If you own Lord Gawain as you say, why are you wasting breath on me? Why are you not with him even now?”

In answer, Pacis drew back her hand and delivered Risa a ringing slap. For a moment Risa was stunned, and could only cover the place with her hand. Then, seeing the impotent fury in the other woman’s eyes, Risa very deliberately turned her head, offering up the other cheek.

For a moment she saw murder in Pacis’s eyes, but she did not flinch. She had faced a black sorcerer and a Saxon raiding party. She could face this one heart-sick woman. Pacis raised her hand again, and Risa remained as she was, waiting for the blow. Pacis’s open hand balled into a fist and she pressed it against her mouth as she rushed from the room.

For a moment, Risa stayed as she was, swaying on her feet. Then, she collapsed onto her narrow bed and pressed her face against her palms, Pacis’s words ringing in her head louder than iron bells.

It means nothing
, she told herself.
Nothing. She’s a liar and a schemer and understands nothing beyond her own wishes. Such a one could never own Gawain’s heart … There were no promises, no understandings. Only dreams. You knew you would have to wake when you reached Camelot. It is just a few days sooner. That’s all
.

And it might all be lies start to finish
.

But it might not
.

Risa lifted her head, and realized her face was wet. She wiped at it quickly. The place would soon be filling up with women. Pacis’s shouts had most certainly carried. She was not ready to face the curious stares and polite, veiled inquiries as to the state of her mind, and yet she couldn’t leave. Pacis might have gone anywhere.

No, not anywhere. There was one place in the hall where Risa could seek the solace she needed and where Pacis in her current frame of mind was highly unlikely to venture.

Risa hurried from the room, heading down the darkening corridors to the hall’s chapel.

The chapel was small but beautiful. The walls were painted with bright images: the disciples kneeling at the feet of the solemn Christ, Mary holding her infant son, and rather more of the glories of Heaven than the punishments of hell, an affectation Risa heartily approved of.

It was also occupied by a broad-shouldered man kneeling at the altar rail.

Gawain
.

He did not turn at the sound of her footsteps. His prayer held all his attention as he bowed before the carved and painted crucifix, with the Lord’s arms stretched out over him in suffering and benediction. His whispers filled the painted room like a soft wind.

“Give me strength,” he prayed. “Father, take this thorn from my side.”

Risa fled in silence, but there was nowhere left to go. Even God’s house was closed to her. She could not stay under this roof. The honest and unguarded night was preferable to these stifling walls. Her breath was already coming in short gasps.

The kitchens had a door to the herb gardens and the animal pens. Ignoring the stares of the servants, Risa ran out that way and down the narrow path, her heedless passage stirring up sleepy complaints from geese and chickens. The wind blew hard against her face, drying her sore cheeks, and loosening her breathing. Her footsteps slowed, and her vision cleared.

Mindful of what had happened the night before, she turned her path away from the stables, although she would have liked to visit Thetis, to take some comfort in a fellow creature. If there was any comfort to be had in this night where the stars shone down placidly on dangers without and within.

I’m so tired
.

Perhaps she should not have run away. Perhaps this was all punishment for defying her father, and the fate God had set for her.

No. She could not believe God would be so cruel. Despair was a sin. This was a trial, a trial only. She could stand it. She must. There was no one else to stand it for her.

There in the yard, Risa knelt. Surely the whole world was God’s house. Surely a prayer could be heard anywhere. She bowed her head and clasped her hands.

“Our Father …” she began the pater noster ferverently.

It was then Risa heard a raven’s harsh call.

Her tongue froze to the roof her mouth, and her skin prickled sharply.

No. Even the birds that feasted on the dead were sated and asleep in the ruined fields.

The call came again, faint but clear on the cold night wind.

God and Christ, I’m losing my mind
.

But the call came again, down the gentle slope outside the hall’s defenses, to the west, she thought, although it was hard to tell. Risa hesitated for a handful of heartbeats, and then, murmuring a far different set of prayers, ran back to the chapel.

Gawain was still there, and still kneeling before the altar.

She called his name and he turned on his knees as if he’d heard a sword being drawn.

“Risa …” he went utterly pale at the sight of her. There was no time to let him speak another word, and Risa found secretly glad.

“Gawain. I heard a raven out by the walls.”

The confusion on Gawain’s face quickly cleared, and he leapt to his feet. “Did you see anything?”

“No, but … I do not like it. Will you come with me?”

Risa realized she was placing a trust in Gawain. They had both seen what they had seen, and knew that hidden arts and powers worked around them. He could deny it, though. It would be difficult to explain to Bannain why he was going out in the dark to chase a bird.

But Gawain wasted no time on questioning her eyes or intuitions.

“I will get my arms. Fetch your bow and meet me at the hall doors.”

Risa nodded and hurried down the corridor. She burst into the sleeping room, sending a flock of women and ladies of the hall fluttering from her path.

“Where are you going, Lady?” asked a sly, cultured voice as Risa caught up her bow and quiver from under her bed.

“Hunting larks,” she answered sharply and left before any other query could follow.

Gawain stood ready by the hall steps, watching the darkness alertly. The sentries moved with steady strides around the inner palisades. Torches and rushlights flared, driving the dark back just a little.

As soon as Risa descended the steps, Gawain nodded, and side-by-side they crossed the yard.

The guard on the portal beside the inner gate was clearly loath to let them leave, but was, fortunately, even more reluctant to closely question the lord-and-hero Gawain, and they were allowed out with only a minimal delay. Beyond the inner walls, night turned Pen Marhas into a maze. Although the moon was high, there was not enough light pick out any more than the roughest of shapes. Risa strained her ears. Random noises — the bleating of a sheep, a pig’s grunt — drifted on the wind along with the smells of wood smoke, animal pens and faintly, of the dead still unburied beyond the walls. It was as impossible to tell the direction of any one sound as it was the origin of any one scent. Risa wished in vain that she had her hounds for this strange hunt.