Lynet Carnbrea stood beside her siblings atop the watchtower in the first light of spring’s chill dawn, listening to the bishop proclaim the holy words, and trying not to shiver.
“For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills!” Bishop Austell’s voice rang out in the crystalline air of dawn, lovingly drawing out the long and stately Latin. “A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil, olive, and honey!”
It was crowded on the watchtower’s heights, with Lynet, her brother Colan, their older sister Laurel, Father Lucius to hold the Holy Writ and the Bishop to declaim the verse. Laurel tucked a strand of pale hair back under her hood and pressed close to Lynet so they might better share their warmth. The salt winds whipped around their heads, forcing their way under fur-lined hoods, woolen cloaks and even between laces and seams. At the horizon, the sun’s light stretched out red and gold above the distant moor. She could just barely make out the glowing remains of the bonfires that had burned all night. Men and women still moved sluggishly around the pools of glowing coals. They stretched, they embraced, some still danced, having tread the fires down to ash already.
Day had come, spring had come. The waters were clear of ice, and all the world would live again. In other places this rite was not held until the first of May. But in the land above the river Camel, their rite was for the thaw when the river ran free of ice and the tinning could begin again.
Every spring, Lynet had come up here with her family to greet the dawn and hear the call to work the turning of the year and the quickening of the season.
They were a widely varied group, the children of Steward Kenan and Lady Morwenna. Laurel, the oldest of them, was so pale she might have been a wraith of dawn. Her braid of white-gold hair hung over the shoulder of her substantial brown cloak and the warming morning light shone in her pale green eyes. Colan, Lynet’s long-limbed, sparsely-bearded brother was darker than Laurel, but not by much. He stood with one foot on the parapet, looking over the rocky country that spread around them. His hair was tarnished brass, and where Laurel’s eyes were as green as the sunlit sea, his were like that same sea under a storm cloud. Indeed, there were those who said that it was not Steward Kenan who had fathered these children, but one of the morverch, the women of the sea. No one, however, said it where the steward could hear.
Of them all, only Laurel resembled their solid father. Like him, her hair was a rich chestnut, her eyes summer hazel and her skin golden in the winter and brown in the summer.
Steward Kenan did not stand with his children this morning, and Lynet found her gaze drifting toward the west, toward Tintagel where he had gone.
How do you fare, my father? she wondered. What do you speak of with King Mark? Does he speak to you at all?
Bishop Austell drew in a final breath and cried, “A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. Amen!”
The prayer shook Lynet out of her thoughts, and she was grateful. She had no wish at all to dwell on what might, or might not be happening at Tintagel. Beside her, Colan raised his great hunting horn and blew long and hard, sending the curling note out across the countryside. When the last echo died away, the bishop smote the stones with his crook, and called out, “Rise up! Rise up! Rise up all you men! Rise up all you women! The waters run clear, and the Lord of All the Earth calls you forth!”
In this fashion, Bishop Austell led them all down the tower’s twisting stairs: Father Lucius and the great Bible first, then Laurel, Colan, and Lynet. Together, they marched out into the sprawling cluster of dwellings that formed the castell called Cambryn.
“Rise up!” they cried. “Rise up you men! Rise up you women! The Lord of All the Earth calls you forth!”
Cambryn had grown out of the soil over many generations. The paths between the stone and thatch houses with their little courtyards spread out like old roots. They delved into earth and stone to reach the cellars and storage chambers that were also hiding places in times of war or great storm. Then, they pushed up to meet the great timbered hall with its central tower, second story and roof of pale slate.
Any other morning, if someone had marched through the castell bellowing at the top of his lungs, the people would have risen slowly from their beds, rubbed the sleep from their eyes and cursed them mightily. Not this morning. Cambryn’s folk surged out of their houses, beating sticks, pots, kettles, stones, whatever might add to the joyful riot of noise. Some wore holly crowns on their heads, or the first of the snowdrops tucked into belts and hoods. Some hoisted leathern bottles of strong drink. Children skipped between their elders, adding their own piping voices to the racket. The bishop’s cry was fast drowned out by the song taken up by each and every new voice.
“Rise up, all you women!
“All in your gowns of green!
“Rise up and greet the morning!
“Rise up for Heaven’s Queen!”
Another procession snaked down from the heath. This one carried the king and queen of the day hoisted high on two chairs. It was Deane and Nance this year. Both strong and fair, they had been clad in loose robes of red and green. Garlands of holly and ribbons twined in their hair and about their waists. Each carried a stave decked with tin bells that they shook to add to the clamor. They clasped hands over the heads of the crowd, their faces flushed with dance and drink and celebration. There was some noise that they’d been out the night before, not merely treading the fires down to bring luck and health, but observing an older practice which would stretch the bishop’s patience to its limit. The thought made Lynet’s own spine stiffen, but she prayed they’d come to their senses, and the altar, if that were so.
“Rise up all you young men!
“All in your tunics red!
“Rise up and greet the morning!
“Greet the Lord of All the Earth …”
The procession descended the steep river valley. They stormed into the forest, their singing shaking the branches that made a living roof overhead and causing the birds to cry out in angry response to this racket. At last they reached their destination. Up ahead, the river Camel ran chattering down the rocky hillside, as clear and cold as the morning around them. The weirs and sluices waited open and empty. The great kettles of ale that had been warming all night with wrinkled crabapples bobbing in the amber brew stood on the bank. The ale’s smell lung heavy in the air, mingling with the scent of the warm bread that had been brought down from the hall.
Lynet’s stomach growled, but she hung back with the others, waiting for Bishop Austell. The sturdy churchman marched into the stream. As the frigid water lifted up his robe’s hems and swirled around his knees, he raised his holly-twined crook once more.
“For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.” he cried. “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table! Behold! That thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord!”
Laurel stepped forward, took up a ladle full of the warm ale from the nearest kettle and passed it to the bishop. He poured a long libation into the river waters, and then drank down the rest himself. When he had emptied the dipper, he lifted up his head, ale still dripping down his beard. Lynet then moved to stand beside her sister, handing Bishop Austell a honied cake from the basket of breads. He crumbled the cake into the river.
“In nomine Patre, et File, et Spiritus Sancte.” Bishop Austell drew the sign of the cross over all.
At this sign, the folk of Cambryn surged forward, lowering their festival king and queen to receive their own offerings. Laurel refilled the ladle so they might drink. Lynet popped pieces of sweet, sticky cake into their mouths. With each motion the crowd roared its approval. Deane and Nance kissed again, clasped their hands and shook their bells. The folk cheered once more and planted the king’s and queen’s chairs on the riverside, so “their majesties” could oversee the work and celebration, and give blessing or pass judgment on what they saw. The rest of the folk danced in and out of the river, barefoot, never minding the cold. They swung their shrieking, giggling children from bank to bank. Lynet and Laurel remained by the massive kettles and baskets, offering food and drink to all who demanded it. The people kissed and laughed and partook eagerly of what was offered.
In the midst of this revelry, the men stripped off their shirts, took up their picks, and began attacking the ragged hillside, loosening great chunks of earth and stone down into the sluices and the baskets. There were not as many of them as there had been in years past. War and raiders had carried off husbands and sons alike. So a number of the goodwives and their daughters waded into the stream beside their men, their hems tucked into their waistbands so they could wield the baskets and the sieves.
Colan stepped briskly up for his ale and his cake. He gave Lynet a broad wink before he stripped naked to the waist and waded into the river with the rest of the men. He’d toil beside them all day, adding his sweat to the libations already offered for the river, the tin and God’s blessing.
The great sieves rattled as hands shook them hard, sifting out the dirt and the dust. Then, one woman dipped her hand in and pulled out a rock with silver flecks that glinted in the rising sun. The first of the ore had been found.
Another mighty cheer went up. The festival king and queen kissed long and lustily. Lynet added her voice to the cheering and raised a dripping ladle. Bishop Austell drank deep once more, and Lynet sipped. The brew was warm and welcome, but she had only had opportunity to eat a mouthful of bread as of yet, and she did not need the strong drink’s dizziness added to the effects of a sleepless night.
All at once, a man’s voice rose up over all the clamor and the laughter. The tone of command and warning was so clear and so different from the merry riot about them that all went silent in an instant.
On top of the fell stood a small host of men, ten in number, Lynet counted. Two on horse, the rest on foot. She did not know any one of them. All of were dirty and windblown. Their hair stuck out in all directions where it was not braided tight, and travel had heavily stained their dull woolen cloaks. The men on horseback had swords and knives at their belts, and those on foot carried pole-arms that had been used at least as hard as the men.
The two leaders rode their horses forward to the very edge of the hillside.
“We seek the Steward of Cambryn!” boomed the right-hand man. He had the coloring of a fall fox, all dark red hair with keen black eyes. His chin was stubbled by only a traveller’s scrubby beard, but his mustaches hung down almost to his waist.
Colan, soaked to the knees, his dripping arms filthy with mud straightened up. He surveyed these newcomers, and saw, Lynet was sure, how they all went armed.
“Steward Kenan is not here,” he said. “He has gone to Tintagel to take council with King Mark.”
Discreet of you brother, thought Lynet, half with admiration and half with irony. Gone to plead more like, and all Mark’s other vassals with him.
“I am Lord Colan, the steward’s son, and I stand here for him at this time.” He hoisted himself out of the stream, mustering what dignity he could, filthy, dripping and half-naked as he was. “I do bid you welcome, Chief Mesek Kynhoem, and you Chief Peran Treanhal.”
Kynhoem. Treanhal. Now she could place these men. Their peoples lived to the north and east on Cambryn’s boarders. They lived by their kyne mostly, growing some small crops to feed the beasts and themselves. They did come up from the moors from time to time, to trade and reaffirm their loyalties to the steward and the absent queen. There had been trouble between them recently, she remembered hearing. A raiding that had left some men dead. But she thought the blood-price had been settled before Lord Kenan had left. What brought them here now?
The second man, Peran Treanhal, was the taller of the two. His brown hair was thin on top, letting his speckled pate show through, but still long enough behind to make a stout braid that hung down his back. His hawk-like face had been horribly burned on its right side. The flesh was pebbled and puckered and his eye and mouth both twisted and pulled. The back of one long, raw hand was mottled red and white as well. The whole sight made Lynet wince in sympathy.
“I am here for justice, Lord Colan,” Peran said. His voice was painfully harsh, and Lynet looked again at the burns. He was well in the fire that had caused that, and breathed its smoke. “There has been murder done.”
The word dropped heavily from him, and one of the women behind Lynet gasped. Lynet herself went cold. The charge of murder, of death dealt outside the law of God and Man was as vile an accusation as could be levelled. If it were judged true, far more than blood-price would be paid. The shame upon family and clan would follow down the generations. The guilty man might even be declared outlaw, a sentence that was the same as death, only more slow.
Mesek sighed. “It was no murder, Lord Colan. It was the mischance of a young hothead’s impatience,” he said in a tone far too reasonable for words bearing a clear insult.
“This is for my son’s life, and I will be heard!” Peran’s raw shout tore from his heart and made the sinews of his neck stand out like knotted cords.
Mesek barked in laughter, as if this was some bitter jest. At this, Peran’s wounded face flushed red and he looked as though he might have struck out, but only just remembered to stay his hand.
“This is no place to hear such hard business,” said Bishop Austell in a voice of quiet reason. “And no place to make weary travellers comfortable.” He climbed the bank as easily as a much younger man and stopped on the slope before the two chieftains, resting the butt of his crook on the ground before him. It showed his office plainly, and also made a barrier between the new comers and the increasingly uneasy crowd behind him.
Colan moved to the bishop’s side and picked up the bishop’s theme. “You find us here on our feast day. Will you accept a drink in welcome?” He spread his hands gesturing to the kettles. “Then let me take you to the hall where you can rest and be refreshed.”
Laurel scooped up a dipperful of the ale and strode smartly up the slope. Lynet did the same, so there would be equal welcome for both men. The crowd parted for them, murmuring to themselves. The elders pushed the children behind them, but none spoke. Misrule might be the game of the festival day, but this thing was out of bounds. All of Cambryn’s people saw the pikes and the swords. If it came to blows, shovels, picks and numbers might eventually cause the armed men to give over, but there would be a river of blood shed first.
Mesek gaze swept over them all, counting, calculating. His fingers rubbed the leather of his reins and his horse danced uneasily under him. Then, his thin lips twitched beneath the moustache, as if he did not know whether to smile or frown. But, he did slip from his saddle, bow his head to Laurel and drank from the ladle she offered up to him. It was an informal welcome cup, but it would serve. By accepting the drink, Mesek bound himself to the rules of hospitality and guestship. Colan, acting as Cambryn’s lord, must now protect Mesek and his men as he would any of the folk of Cambryn, but Mesek could not now shed blood or offer violence in their home.
“Master Peran?” Colan inquired.
Peran only scowled at the dipper Lynet held out. Fire had made him a fearsome sight. But even beneath the burns she could tell he had been a hard-bitten man. He did not bother to measure the crowd on the river bank. He instead looked at Lynet, looked and wondered. Lynet bit her lip and made herself hold steady under his gaze.
“I will not drink with my son’s murderer,” rasped Peran at last.
“You do not drink with him, Peran Treanhal,” said Colan quietly, taking the dipper from Laurel. “You drink with me.”
Peran’s brows lowered until his eyes were almost lost in their folds, but he did at last dismount to accept the ladle from Lynet’s cold hands. He raised it to Colan, who nodded in return, and watched closely as the chieftain sipped the amber liquid. With that single act, the tension that sang in the air eased. Lean Meg, always the quick one, came up behind the sisters with a bucket of ale drawn from the kettle. She and Lynet moved among the other men, offering each the dipper, welcoming and binding them all to the law with each draught.
Lynet tried not to notice how many of them eyed her with the same hard, thoughtful gaze as their chief.
By the time all had drunk, Colan had reclaimed his tunic and his cloak and, for all he was still soaked and mud stained, looked much more the young lord.
“Now, Masters,” he said pleasantly. “Will you walk with me?”
Mesek looked to Peran, his head cocked and his air so plainly mocking that Lynet shivered to see it.
Who can so calmly make mock of murder?
Colan stepped between the two chieftains, carefully not taking notice of at the hard-eyed men who accompanied them. Those men who shifted their weight, clutched their pole-arms, and eyed each other with the pure and burning anger that came from nothing less than a bloody hatred.
Mesek and Peran both found accord enough to fall into uneasy step with Colan, leading their horses alongside. Their men walked behind, clustering close to their fellows and chieftain and keeping well apart from those of the other clan. Lynet cast a worried glance at Laurel, who only handed her dipper off to Meg, hiked up her skirts and followed their brother.
Lynet, having no other choice, did the same.
Behind them, voices rose and the sounds of work began again, but muted now and more sporadic than before. The arrival of Kynhoem and Treanhal had drained the joy from the celebration, at least for now and it was a stranger and far less merry procession that trooped through the empty castell to the great house.
Cambryn’s great house sprawled on the hilltop with the smaller dwellings spreading around it like a woman’s rumpled skirts. Like the rest of Cambryn, it had grown up unevenly over uncounted years. It was by now, Lynet admitted to herself, a strange and ungainly place. Two separate halls thrust out at right angles from a round tower, which looked as if it stood between two disputing neighbors, keeping them from coming at each other. The oldest hall had stood in its place across a hundred generations, being constantly rebuilt on stones laid down in times too ancient to be remembered. The tower at the ancient hall’s eastern end had been meant as a defence against the Romans, who never did manage to cross the moors to conquer the Dumonii. Instead, the Romans had sailed around the coast to buy their tin openly, and a flood of wealth had come to Cambryn. That wealth had built the second hall in an imitation of the Roman style with tiled floors, limed walls, many rooms, and many hearths to try to keep those rooms warm and dry against their land’s cold and frequent rains.
As they crossed the open fields, Colan kept himself as firmly between Mesek and Peran as their tower kept itself between the two mis-matched halls. Not much talk passed between them, or their men, only black or worried looks. Lynet found herself watching her brother’s broad back, trying to divine some hint of what he was thinking from his posture. Something nagged at her, but she could not have begun to say what it was.
Once they passed the first ring of ditches and earthworks, the horse paddock came into view. Colan paused, bowing in apology to Mesek and Peran both. “I fear our stablemen are down at the tinning,” he said. “For the moment, you must care for your beasts yourself. Darney can show you the stables.” He pointed at the lone boy with his withered arm who had come to hang over the slatted gate and gawp at the strangers arriving with the high family.
Mesek grunted his assent and gestured to two of his men who took charge of the beasts. Peran did the same. Men and horses followed the stooped and openly curious Darney to the muddy yard and thatched stables. Colon eyes narrowed. That much is done, Lynet could all but hear him think. Four men separated. The threat, if there was one, had been reduced by that much.
Once inside the second ring of earthworks, Lynet could not help but feel a little more at ease. Cambryn’s high house had in its time been home to kings of legend, to Roman traders, and to the lesser kings and greater kings that came in the four generations after the Romans left, and finally to Lynet and her family. This was their place and their people. There was only so much mischief ten strangers could work here.
Colan led the remaining party around to the old hall pushed back the great, black-timbered door. The hall echoed in its emptiness. Only Ross, Dai and Bram, three graybeard brothers, sat around the central fire. The old men all rose stiffly to their feet and made their bows, their dim eyes and deeply-lined faces frankly stunned to see strangers today. Still, Lynet could understand why Colan had brought them all here. This place was the seat of law in Cambryn, empty or full. The dais stood in the middle of one long wall, with the empty throne waiting on its top stair, and the steward’s seat only one step below.
While Laurel directed the brothers to bring extra chairs and benches for their guests, Lynet checked the kettle hanging over the second fire and found there was enough of the milk posset left to share around as a decent warming drink for the men. She sent Bram shuffling off at his best speed to fetch cups, and one of the women who were still at the ovens to help serve.
Peran, however, was in no mood to wait for formalities, or comfort.
“When will the steward return?” he asked bluntly, folding his arms across his chest and nodding toward the dais.
“I cannot tell you,” replied Colan. “Lord Kenan hoped he would only be gone a week, but it is going on ten days since he left. His last message said he did not know when he would return.”
Mesek shrugged. “I don’t know why you dragged us here, Peran. If Kenan’s at Tintagel, then that’s where we should go.”
Peran only looked blackly at him. “Tintagel would suit you well, Mesek, with King Mark’s mind so distracted he hasn’t spoken sense in a year or more.”
That was not entirely true. Lynet ducked her head to hide her thought, pretending to be engrossed in stirring the kettle. “So, you’d you have us wait here on our steward’s pleasure?” Mesek spat into the fire and wiped his moustache. “I have cattle to tend, Peran, and cannot be wasting the spring holed up here with you.”
Peran’s face darkened, his body stiffened and his hands clenched, not over his sword but near enough. Behind him, his men gathered, and every one of them still had their pikes in their hands. Mesek’s men moved too, though their master did not. Suddenly, the guesting laws seemed no more than idle fancy and Lynet found she could not breathe.
Colan held up his hands. “Masters, as I told you, I stand here for my father,” he said, a forced calm in his voice. “If judgment is required, I will hear you.”
At this, Mesek though smiled, a long, thoughtful, unpleasant grin. “Lord Kenan’s son to judge,” he said, drawing the phrase out, giving weight and consideration to each word. “One hears stories of the sound judgment of the Steward’s children.” Mesek looked directly at Lynet, making no pretense of his gaze.
Lynet froze, rooted to the spot as the blood drained away from her face. Her heart squeezed in painfully and she felt the old, sick tremors begin.
“Of what do you speak, Master?” Colan inquired. He held himself too still and too carefully. His hands remained loose and ready. It was a fighting posture, although he had made no observable move.
Mesek eyed Colan appraisingly, judging the seriousness, and the strength of the younger man. Shame twisted itself deeply into Lynet’s belly.
“I beg your pardon, Lord Colan,” he said, although his tone made it plain he did no such thing. “I misspoke. It was nothing.”
“No. Nor was it,” answered Colan pleasantly, relaxing so far as to sit on the nearest chair, gazing up expectantly at his guests. One by one, reluctantly and without any sign of relaxing, they also took their seats. Laurel walked between them to add fuel to the fire, without turning a hair.
Lynet, though, could not move. Mesek was looked at her, his eye twinkling with knowledge and mischief. Footsteps sounded against stone. Lynet forced her head to turn. Bram came through the tower door, with Jen behind him carrying a tray of wooden noggins. Lynet’s hands shook as she filled the cups with the milk posset. She bit her lip and made herself attend to her task. If she could not have pride, at least she could find dignity for her family’s sake.
But the ladle slipped from her fingers and fell clattering to the floor, splattering milk across her hems. Shame burned her as she stooped to retrieve it. When she straightened Laurel was beside her. “My sister, we still have the midday meals and tonight’s feast to attend to. Will you go see how the women get on?”
Lynet knew her cheeks were as red as fire, and as ashamed as she was of her inability to govern herself, she was grateful to Laurel. She left the hall and fled through the inner door to the old round tower. The great, curving chamber was hung with tapestries and shields. A mosaic of fish and the morverch, the mermaids, had replaced the old flagstone floor in an attempt to bring the tower into better harmony with the other, newer wing. She did not, however, go out toward the garden and the ovens. She strode into that newer wing where the chapel waited.
It was a small chamber, but lovingly painted and above the altar hung a wooden crucifix was a breathtaking work of art. It had been made by Yestin the Joiner, whose hands had also crafted the Round Table for King Arthur. It showed the Son of Man with his eyes turned toward heaven, his mother kneeling at his feet. His anguish and hers had been made to look exactly alike and both were so real Lynet sometimes thought she could hear the distant sound of their breathing when she knelt in prayer.
Now Lynet knelt before them at the rail and folded her hands over her breast.
Grant me strength. Grant me strength. Oh, Mary Mother of God, steady my hand …
She had hoped after so much time her transgression might have meant less to her family and to the people of Cambryn. But Mesek’s sneer told her it was not so, and never would be.
Five years earlier, when Lynet was just thirteen years old, she had been sent to the court of King Mark for fostering. There, she was put into the care of Mark’s wife, Iseult.
Lynet could still remember the first time she laid eyes on Queen Iseult. She’d heard so many contradictory stories about the red-haired lady from across the water that she’d trembled like a leaf as she was conducted to the solarium. Lynet knew the bones of her history of course. Iseult was part of the peace treaty made between the kings of Eire and those of the Dumonii. King Mark had wrested the Dumonii lands from Eire’s overlordship, aided principally by Sir Tristan, who was his nephew and a knight of Arthur’s Round Table. In gratitude for the aid given by Tristan and the other men and treasure Arthur had sent for the war, Mark had placed the Dumonii under Arthur’s lordship, gaining him peace with Eire by the gesture. To help set the seal on the great and complex treaty, Iseult had been given over to Mark.
But she had also heard the lady was a witch, that she’d enchanted the king, that she could brew love potions and poisons, or draughts of eternal youth.
What Lynet saw when the door opened for her was a woman sitting on a plain stool. She was so pale she might have been made of snow except for her eyes that shone blue as the August sky when she looked up to see Lynet enter. Her hands, long and slim and yet having the appearance of great strength, paused at their needlework. Her hair was the red of late autumn, rich and warm. She wore it looped and braided beneath a embroidered veil as was the style of the great city ladies.
Queen Iseult smiled and rose at once to take Lynet’s hands and welcome her in a soft, lilting voice filled with the rhythms of her own distant land.
Between one heartbeat and the next, Lynet fell in love.
Lynet had never known her mother, and Laurel had already been gone a whole long year to her own fosterage in Camelot. Lynet’s greatest fear at going to Tintagel was finding herself alone among strangers. Queen Iseult seemed to understand her well, for she was more a stranger in Mark’s court than Lynet. She took Lynet under her wing at once, teaching her to read in Latin along with the vulgar tongues. She expanded Lynet’s understanding of the mysteries of courtesy and proper conduct, and the mysteries of scholarship. The queen was as fair as could be, but she was no fainting, posing beauty for a Romanish city man to admire. She was a physician of such skill that the touch of her hand could find an unseen hurt or detect poison deep within the body. She was quick in laughter and understanding, and she shared what she knew readily.
Lynet also remembered the first time she saw Sir Tristan.
She had thought no one could be so fair as the queen, but the young man was Iseult’s match in every respect. Next to him, King Mark, for all his ancient blood and warrior’s prowess, looked gruff and clumsy, a figure of dross beside a man of fiery gold.
After the peace with Eire had been concluded, Sir Tristan stayed at Tintagel as Arthur’s ambassador to his liege lord Mark, and his representative to the Eire-landers. Lynet remembered the sweet sound of his harping the night he came back from an errand for King Mark at Land’s End. Music of any kind was an unexpected skill for a man of war, let alone such expert skill as he showed. She could still feel the warmth that poured from his fair glance and his fair voice whenever he so much as glanced at her.
Oh, she remembered well those looks, those secret words and swift touches. She remembered how each time she turned, Sir Tristan seemed to be beside her, beseeching her to bear some word or token to the queen. He pressed her constantly for news of Iseult’s manner, her conversation, her very look. It was dizzying to be so sought after by a man of such beauty and fame, even if it was because of another, much greater woman, and Lynet had succumbed to this too.
Succumbed? Mother of Mercy, I drowned.
It was she who ran ahead to make sure their meeting places were empty, and she who stood watch to be sure they remained unobserved. She also bore tokens Tristan to Iseult, and back again. With a child’s heedless and infatuated willingness, she helped to cuckold a king.
The secret was not kept, though Lynet had never knowingly betrayed it. There were no true secrets in any court, especially not about a queen who was not popular with all the people, despite her beauty and her skill. Too many could not forget that the men of Eire had killed and carried off so many of Dumonii. As it came to be known that they met, it came to be known that Lynet was their go-between. So, when the whispers finally reached Mark’s ears, it was Lynet he followed.
She had checked the cellar. She always did. She was careful. Some part of her recognized the danger in what she did. It was empty, and she ran back, flushed and breathless to the queen, who smiled so sweetly and pressed her hand. The king must have slipped in while Lynet was gone. Lynet took up her station in the drying room, sorting and bundling herbs while Queen Iseult went down the stairs, a wax tablet and stylus in her hand as if she meant to take note of her supplies.
Sir Tristan winked at Lynet as he passed, and whispered his thanks, brushing his fingertips against her shoulder. She could still remember the heat of them, and the blush that rose in her cheeks.
King Mark did not kill Tristan until later, until he found him alone beneath the cliffs. The king of dross beat the golden knight to death with his bare fists. He did not tell Iseult what he had done. He let her find the body when she went that way to collect the seaweed she favored for some draughts and poultices.
Lynet had not seen any of this, but she did see what came after. It came to her still at night and sometimes even in the day when she caught the scent of blood from the animals slaughtered for the table, or saw the blood on the hands of a man back from the hunt.
She had been with the brewers, overseeing the great steaming kettles in the grey morning air. The wind was heavy with the scents of hops and rain. One of the women had called out, and Lynet had looked up, the great, dripping paddle in her hands, to see Queen Iseult striding across the yard, her hands empty of even the basket she had taken for her work.
Lynet shoved her paddle into the hands of the nearest woman and ran to Iseult. “Majesty, Majesty, what …?”
But Iseult did not answer or even seem to see her. She strode through the door of the great keep, and there beside the fire, on a plain trestle bench, sat King Mark. His hands, his ochre-red hands, dangled between his knees.
He lifted his heavy head and met Iseult’s gaze. And Lynet knew. She knew with a sick and utter certainty what turned Mark’s hands that particular shade of red.
“How could you do this, Iseult?” Mark asked, the tears running down his face. “I loved you. I gave you all that I had. I treated you with courtesy, with tenderness. What was there that I forced on you that you would not …” His voice broke and he rose up then, a mountain of a man casting his shadow over them. “How could you do this!” The raw rage in his shout shook the stones around them.
Iseult made no answer, she just stood there, her eyes cold and glittering. In answer, Mark struck her, knocking her back against the wall as if she were no more than a toy so that her head cracked sharply against the stone. Lynet ran to the queen, grasping her, trying to support her before she slipped to the floor. The queen staggered, but straightened and managed to stand on her own. As she did, Lynet saw the broad streak on her face where fresh her blood had been smeared with the ochre ash that was Tristan’s blood.
Mark looked at Lynet. “If you want to live, you whore, you’ll take her to her room. I’m sending her back to her father, and he can lock her in a plague hut for all I care.” But he did not look at Iseult as he said this, and Lynet saw the way his whole body trembled.
Queen Iseult gripped Lynet’s hand, still looking after Lynet, the bruise beginning on her white, white face. “Come, Lynet.”
They went to the queen’s private chamber then, the sunny room where she and her women did their weaving and their needlework. Right behind them came Wellen, King Mark’s own steward, an ox of a man who stood as solidly beside his master as a cliff stood beside the sea.
The women in the chamber saw their mistress’s state and ran up to her, crying and lamenting and wringing their hands. They lead her to her stool, but before they had any chance to do more, Wellen said, “Out, all of you. Any who stays except the little whore will be held to be guilty of the aiding treason against the king.”
They stared. They saw the dried blood smeared across Queen Iseult’s face, and they all understood. They’d known, or most of them had, Lynet could see that now. She had thought she’d been so crafty, but she’d been deaf to the whispers and blind to the winks and the long looks.
They left the queen then, all the women. Not one stayed beside her. Then Wellen walked out behind them, and barred the door.
Lynet couldn’t stand anymore. She collapsed at Iseult’s feet, fear overwhelming her. She wailed like the terrified child she was while the queen stroked her hair and murmured soothing sounds. When at last she was able to look up, Lynet saw that for all the time she had sobbed, tears had streamed silently down Iseult’s cheeks.
Ashamed, she rose and fetched water and washed the queen’s face, dabbing at the ugly bruise that spread across her cheek. All the while, one thought repeated itself in her mind. He could kill them. He had the absolute right of king and husband. He could kill them anytime he chose, and no one would do anything about it.
“What can we do, Majesty?” she asked hoarse. “What …”
Iseult patted her hand. “Never fear, Lynet. You will be allowed to go home. My lord husband is not cruel in that way.”
“But he will send you away? He said …”
“Yes.” Iseult rose, resting her hands on the window sill. “He will send my to my father for punishment.” Her long fingers gripped the stone ledge as if she meant to break it to pieces. “Beware your own heart, Lynet. Beware the blindness it can throw over you. Beware …” but she shook her head and could not finish. “Build up the fire, child. The night will be cold.”
The night was cold, and it was long and dark. Lynet huddled on her pallet beside the queen’s bed, hungry, terrified, and filled with a sadness so intense it dug its claws into the center of her being.
Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, she did, eventually fall asleep.
She woke befuddled, shivering, and parched to a dead fire and Wellen shouting curses out in the corridor. The door was open. She was alone. The queen was nowhere to be seen.
They found her on the shore beside Sir Tristan who had been left for the carrion birds. She was as dead as he, without a stain upon her. A broken heart some said. Poison said others. It hardly mattered. She was dead, and he was dead, and the whole court was in a frenzy from all of it, and suddenly Lynet found herself in the midst of a nest of furies who called her foul names and struck her face, pinched her body, and pushed her into the mud. She hid trembling in the cellars until Wellen found her there and dragged her out by her hair and tossed her down in front of King Mark and his men in Tintagel’s hall. She grovelled at his feet, too afraid even to plead for her life.
“Let her go,” was Mark’s sentence. “Let her go back to her father’s house and tell him what she has done, and let me never see her face again.”
Wellen himself hauled her to the gates and shoved her through them. Lynet stood outside the keep with no cloak and only slippers on her feet. As she wept, her face pressed against her hands, the rains began. Only the kindness of one of the horsemen saved her from having to make the journey on foot. He loaned her a broken-winded nag that would not be missed too much, so at least she could ride.
But the rain and the blows and the sorrow were too much, and by the time Lynet reached Cambryn, she had a raging fever and could not even stand. For weeks she lay insensible. By the time she woke, her family knew all that she had been and done.
So too did the rest of Cambryn, and all the lands of Dumonii.
It was this that had been behind Mesek’s smirks and sneering slights in the old hall. The judgment of Lord Kenan’s children, her judgment, was such that it cuckolded kings and killed queens and knights. And who knew what else she had done? Lynet bowed her head until her brow pressed against the knuckles of her clenched hands. Who knew what favors she had accepted from Sir Tristan to be his errand girl? The rumors ran wide and deep that her virtue was in every respect long gone.
For two years now she had lived with all of this — memory, guilt and shame and the desperate need to protect her family’s pride. She had learned to wear a mask of dignity and calm, but sometimes it slipped, like now. And when it did, the pain showed through and there seemed to be nothing she could do but weep a fresh river and hate herself that much more. Her folly had trapped her and she would never be any more than the tainted creature she was now.
So she knelt and she prayed and the stones bit her knees through the cloth of her skirt, and she could do nothing else. Nothing at all.
“Laurel thought you might be here,” came Bishop Austell’s soft voice.
Lynet opened her eyes and wiped hastily at her tears. Her fingers ached from being clenched so hard and so long. Bishop Austell knelt beside her, crossing himself and bowing his head. His lips moved in silent prayer. Lynet bowed her head once more too, not to pray but to collect herself. By the time the bishop had breathed the “amen,” she was able to stand with him. She brushed her skirts into some semblance of order and faced him with dry eyes and reasonably composed countenance. This all elicited a surprisingly gentle smile from the bishop. Bishop Austell had a hard visage. It was a tinner’s face; craggy and pitted, seamed and brown. He’d been a tinner, in fact, before God called him to the monastery. He’d been a little surprised, he told her once. He had thought the Lord predisposed toward fishermen, of which the Dumonii had a gracious plenty. But for all his coarse exterior, there was deep kindness within him, and an understanding of the mercy of the Divine, as well as the wrath.
Today, mercy was plainly in his heart. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me, child?” he asked kindly.
“Nothing new, good Bishop.” Lynet rubbed her brow and temple. Her eyes ached, and her head felt too heavy for her neck.
“Did one of the men say something to you?”
Not yet. “Nothing openly, no. They hinted. It was enough.”
Bishop Austell took her hands between his own and gently folded them together in an attitude fitted to prayer. The gesture warmed her chill, making it somehow easier to breathe at the same time. “You are of stronger stuff than this, Lynet.”
Which was more than Lynet could bear. She drew away from his kindness, pulling back her hands, drawing down her knotted sleeves as if to hide them. “No, Bishop Austell, it seems I am not.”
But the bishop was not prepared to let her be. He laid his big, hard hand on her shoulder, turning her so she must face him. “You have done your penance, Lynet,” he said gently but firmly, ducking his head to catch her eye. “God has forgiven you. It is a sin not to accept that forgiveness.”
“I know it,” her voice quavered and her feet twitched painfully at the memory. She did know. She knew in the depth of her heart, but that heart was so frozen in its own darkness that it would not move. “But until I can forget, how can I forgive?”
“We are told the greatest virtue is charity. Spare some charity for yourself.”
Lynet wanted no more of this. “I will try, Bishop.”
“Will you?” Bishop Austell straightened as far as he was able. Age and prayer had stooped his back. Neither, however, had dulled his wit, and he saw easily she wanted to make her escape. “It’s a sin to lie to your confessor, Lynet.”
She turned her face away. It was no help, for now she looked into the strained and sorrowing faces of the Christ and the Holy Mother, carved to show such delicate poignancy, and remind her what true suffering was.
She dropped her gaze to the flagstone floor. “Should you not be down at the tinning? Lest celebration fall into debauchery?”
With this not so subtle hint, Bishop Austell sighed. “Father Lucius has a sharper eye for debauchery than myself. He will hold the line. I judged your brother more in need of help.”
Lynet cursed herself silently. All her wallowing in self-pity had left Laurel and Colan alone. “How is it in there?”
“Calm. Polite, in a rough fashion. Strained.” The bishop looked toward the door, seeing something distant. “It has been agreed that Colan will hear this plea in the morning.”
Lynet swallowed. “God help us.”
Bishop Austell nodded. “That is my prayer. But I think it bears repeating.” He appraised her with his bird-bright eyes. “Are you ready, Lynet? There will be much asked of you today.”
She straightened her spine. Much asked, and she must meet it. Her only future was in aiding this house and its holders. She had set her feet on the path, and though they ached, she must not turn from it.
“Yes, Bishop, I am.”
Bishop Austell stood aside to let her pass. Lynet walked into the corridor, but even as she did, she felt the weight of his gaze on her back. Not just his, she felt all the Divine that waited there in the chapel watching her, and she shivered.
But Lynet could do nothing except to keep walking.