Lancelot (15 page)

T
HE village was afire. People fled screaming from their cottages, and the air was thick with smoke shot through with flame. There must have been a battle, Lancelot thought as he fought his way through the press. He could not remember which battle it had been, but that didn’t matter now. The village was burning, and he had to find Elaine. As he rounded the corner, he saw the tower of Corbenic, smoke pouring from the highest window.

Wresting the door open, he plunged into the smoke-filled hall, where Torre sat alone at the high table.

“False knight,” Torre said, “you stole my youth and strength.”

“No—no, it wasn’t my fault you weren’t good enough—”

“You knew he wasn’t good enough,” a deep voice said behind him. “No earthly knight can defeat you.”

Lancelot spun around and found himself facing the Green Knight.

“Welladay, here we are again,” the Green Knight said, “I
had thought to be rid of you by now.” He gestured toward the wall of the tower and a portion of stone fell away, revealing a dark passageway. “Go on, manikin, that way is yours.”

“Where does it lead?”

“A good question. But I fear you must find the answer for yourself.”

Lancelot took a few steps toward the entrance. Far, far away, flames licked against the walls and a faint echo of anguished wails was carried up to him on a searing blast of air, along with the foul stench of rotting flesh.

“I told you the Lady kept you in Avalon too long. You have no soul now.”

“I do!” Lancelot drew his sword and advanced on the Knight, but he only laughed and said, “Prove it. Find the Grail.”

A whirl of green grew and swirled about the hall. Fire licked at the beams, and from a great distance, Lancelot heard a woman scream.

“Elaine!” he cried, “I will find you—”

And he raced up the stairway to the tower, flames licking at his heels. Through the smoke, he glimpsed Elaine—or no, it was another maiden, holding something in her hands that shimmered with a light too bright to look upon. He flung an elbow across his eyes, shielding them from the terrible beauty of that unbearable light . . . And then the maiden was gone, and he was alone in the burning tower. He turned back, but the steps were gone, there was no way out, he was trapped, choking, burning beams crashing all around, and the floor gave way beneath him.

When he woke again he was cold, so cold that knew he must be dead. He tried to open his eyes, but they were weighted shut. He remembered the corpses in the crypt at Norhaut with coins upon their sunken lids. There lay his
tomb, buried in the earth beneath the enormous marble slab he had once lifted with no effort. Now he was inside it, lying on the marble bier, and at his feet was a silver plaque he’d read on the day he had discovered his name. “Here will lie Sir Lancelot du Lac,” it proclaimed in letters silver bright, “son of King Ban of Benwick.”

This,
he thought,
is hell
. Not the fiery pit, but this frozen emptiness where he would dwell alone forevermore.

“Sir Lancelot!” a voice called urgently, but it was too late; Sir Lancelot was dead. Why would they not let him rest? They slapped his cheeks and waved burnt feathers beneath his nose, and though he felt the blows and breathed in the acrid stench, he could not move nor speak. A deep voice intoned unfamiliar words, pausing now and then while they renewed their efforts, urging him to answer questions he did not understand, but in time they gave up and went away.

“
I
T was meant to be a jest,” Guinevere said, the words coming thickly from her numb lips. Her bower was filled with people, all staring with avid curiosity from her face to the king’s. Never had they seen Arthur in such a fury. Only rarely did he lose his temper, and then it was a quick, hot flash that soon subsided. And never, never had he been angry with his queen. Guinevere did not know the man who stood before her, his face stern and his light eyes burning with an icy flame.

“A
jest
?”

“You said—his reputation—not fair to the others—do you not remember? And so he wanted to prove . . . We thought you would be amused,” she whispered.

“Did you? Well, Guinevere, I would have been far more amused had I been let in upon the joke.”

“Lance—he w-wanted to surprise you.”

But he hadn’t wanted to. That had been Guinevere’s idea, not Lancelot’s at all.

“Did you give him your sleeve?” Arthur demanded.

“My sleeve?” Guinevere repeated blankly. “No, of course not.”

He had not asked for one. He never had. And he surely would not have broken with his custom on the day she’d sent him out to fight disguised. He had been too angry. But she hadn’t cared.

“He wore a lady’s favor yesterday,” Arthur said, but Guinevere scarcely heard him. She was too busy remembering how she had not thought of Lancelot at all, but only of herself and her own need. Now he was wounded, perhaps dead, and she would never have the chance to tell him she was sorry. She had killed him.

And Arthur would never, ever forgive her for it.

The way he was looking at her now, as though he hated her—she had lost him, lost him forever, and through her own selfish folly. She could not bear the cold contempt in his eyes. She raised shaking hands to cover her face, tears sliding between her fingers.

The slam of her bower door told her that Arthur was gone. She rose and stumbled blindly toward her chamber. Most of her women followed, communicating surprise and sympathy and in some cases, satisfaction, in silent glances.

Only one stayed behind. She slipped out the door and found Sir Agravaine waiting in the corridor.

“Well?” he demanded. “How did she take it?”

“She had her story ready,” the damsel answered with a shrug, “and not a bad one, either. She managed to shift the blame—or part of it, at least—to the king himself. Apparently he’d made some jest about Sir Lancelot’s reputation unmanning his opponents.”

Agravaine laughed unwillingly. “Isn’t she the clever bitch? And did the king accept her story?”

“He seemed to. He was still angry, but I think she might
have talked him round. But then—” She smiled slowly. “Guinevere made her mistake. Apparently the red sleeve was not hers at all. When the king told her of it, she went dead white and burst into tears.”

“Did she? Did she really?”

“And then the king slammed out of there—”

“With a face like thunder,” Agravaine finished happily. “You did well, my dear. Very well indeed. I shall remember you to my mother.”

“When will Queen Morgause be here?”

“Soon, I think. Once she learns of this, I believe she will decide the time has come to visit Camelot.”

L
ORD Pelleas greeted Will Reeve with courtesy. Though they had met only a few days before, when the reeve had come to supper, Pelleas seemed to think he was here this morning to discuss a stallion sent to him for shoeing.

“You must mind the off foreleg,” Pelleas said. “He’ll bite, you know, if he’s handled roughly.”

“Father,” Elaine began, but Will Reeve was smiling at his overlord.

“Ah,” he said. “That would be Jupiter?”

“Yes, of course.” Pelleas stared at the reeve as though he’d just stated something too obvious for words. “Jupiter.”

“Aye, my lord,” Will said. “I know all about that off foreleg. Thass naught for you to be vexed about.”

Pelleas nodded and returned to his perusal of the heavy volume open before him on the trestle table.

Elaine regarded the reeve with approval as she gestured the page to fill his cup. From the first, Will’s manner to her
father had been just right: respectful without a touch of servility, and he had a trick of following Pelleas’s rambling conversation with no sign of disturbance or surprise.

“Many’s a time I helped my da shoe old Jupiter when I was nobbut a lad,” Will said with a reminiscent smile. “A fine, fettlesome stallion that one was.”

Elaine waited until he’d taken his first sip before asking, “What of the north field? How long until you are finished?”

“Give it four more days,” he said.

The man went up another notch in her esteem. And if he looked a trifle smug, she could not blame him, for she had expected the planting to take at least another week. They must have worked hard to achieve so much in such a short time.

Will cleared his throat and set his ale down. “Lady, what of Planting Day?”

Elaine rested her chin in her palm. It was tradition to mark the end of spring planting with a day of revelry, with food and ale provided by the lord and dancing on the green. The people were within their rights to ask for it. It would put a heavy strain upon their almost nonexistent resources, but that was not what held Elaine back from agreeing.

“I don’t know,” she said. “After . . .”

She glanced at Torre, seated below the dais on a stool before the fire, his hands busy with a bit of harness he was mending. He did not
seem
to be listening, but one could never be quite sure, and she had been at great pains to keep him in ignorance of what had happened in the fields the week before. The Day, she always thought of it, for it was the day on which her life had changed forever, and the less the Torre knew of it, the better.

Will followed both her glance and her thought. Really, he was most extraordinarily adept at reading the currents running amongst the family of his overlord.

“I say we do it,” he declared. “Thass custom, see? Best to keep going on as even as we can. They know they don’t deserve it,” he added, lowering his voice, “mortal sorry they are, lady, for what befell that day, and they’ve done their best to show it. ’Twas a kindly thing you did, ordering food for all who worked—and a canny one, as well.”

Their eyes met in a conspiratorial glance that brought a warm glow to Elaine’s cheeks. It was very pleasant to know that
someone
understood what she had done, and why, and approved of it wholeheartedly.

“Very well, then, if you think it best. Four days until the planting is done; shall we say next—” She broke off, half rising at the sound of a horn winding in the courtyard.

“Is that Lavaine?” Lord Pelleas said, lifting his head and gazing expectantly toward the door.

“No.” Torre let the harness fall as he stood, and Elaine realized that like her, he had been waiting. “No, that is not Lavaine’s horn.”

Elaine’s fingers clenched the edge of the trestle table. She wanted to run out into the yard but could not seem to move.

When the door opened at last, she knew at once the knight who stepped inside, for he was so precisely as she’d imagined him: Tall and broad of shoulder, fair of face and noble of bearing, with hair that shone like falling rain. His gray eyes flicked over the hall, across the dais, and fastened upon Elaine.

“Sir Gawain,” she said, “you are very welcome here. Please come in and refresh yourself.”

“Thank you, lady.” He bowed gracefully and stepped before the dais. “I fear I cannot linger; an urgent errand from the king has brought me hither.”

Elaine’s legs began to tremble. “What—what is it?”

“Five days ago the king held his great tournament—”

“Is it Lavaine?” Pelleas cried. “Is my son—”

“No, my lord,” Gawain said quickly. “I have no news of Sir Lavaine. It is Sir Lancelot I seek.”

“Why, has he gone missing?” Torre inquired, his tone just short of insolent. “What a pity.”

“I fear he has. But—” Gawain ran a hand across his jaw, looking suddenly exhausted. “On second thought, I would be grateful for a cup of ale.”

Elaine gestured the page over and turned to Will Reeve. “I think we are finished for the day,” she said, softening her dismissal with a strained smile.

“Aye, lady.” He touched his brow and stood, looking sideways at Sir Gawain. “Now, don’t vex yourself about Planting Day, I’ll manage everything.”

This time Elaine’s smile was more genuine, as were her thanks as she bid the reeve farewell.

Gawain took the seat beside her and drained his cup in a single draught. Only when it had been refilled did she send the page away, bidding him to leave the flagon on the table.

“Now, Sir Gawain, if you would . . .”