The next evening brought the Queen’s procession to the edge of Bodmin Moor; mile after mile of rolling, open country with ragged, lonely heights and deep bowl-like valleys. In fair weather, it could be deeply beautiful, an unspoiled meadow without end. Once this was part of the great wood that had surrounded them for so many days, but generations had gnawed away at the forest’s reach and left this open, treacherous land behind. Even in the clear light of day the moor could not be trusted. What looked to be solid ground could swallow men and horses whole and leave no trace. In foul weather, the mists rose sometimes for days at a time and there were no land marks or any other means to find direction. A traveller could wander lost in the openness until they died of cold, exhaustion, or the hidden bogs dragged them down.
But on its opposite side waited Cambryn and home. Another day away, perhaps two, since they must go carefully. Three at most. Three days to home, and Laurel, and an end to all this struggle. Three more days.
Lynet had ridden all day beside Brendon’s litter. Sir Lancelot had clearly struggled with the decision to bring him. If they had been more certain of the Rosveare they left behind in the valley, the knight would have shed this latest impediment to their progress. There was, however, no guarantee he would not simply become hostage again, and the Rosveare were not kind to their hostages. She felt a pang about moving him at all, but the twin necessities of making all speed to Cambryn, and getting the queen away from an untrustworthy place removed the choice. She did note that Sir Lancelot spent a great deal of time at the rear of the procession rather than the fore today.
So, she trotted along beside Brendon, who, thankfully, spent much of the day asleep, despite the jolting. The fever stayed low, the swelling receded, and as often as she was able she gave him bread sopped in watered wine, and it was all staying down. That, as much as his ability to speak the names of those around him those brief periods when he woke, told her he’d no unseen hurt.
She wore her relief like a cloak all that long day. Since she had left Iseult, she had done such healing as was required in Cambryn. She had closed wounds, set bones, nursed illness, but each recovery caused this astonishment in her, and each death raised the fear that her skills had been tainted by her sins. She could still feel her father’s blood on her skin, and his belly heaving under her hands as she tried to staunch his wound in the moments before she helped end his life. To know that at least she would not be punished for that act, that her skills were not gone from her was priceless.
She even regained enough humor to realize Brendon was probably not happy about being the instrument chosen to restore her confidence in her physician’s learning.
The other good the day brought, she told herself over and again, was Squire Gareth’s silence. She saw him as he rode up and down the length of the procession, making sure all stayed relatively together, and assisting with any problems, but he did not stop to speak with her. Once, she caught his eye as he passed, and he only made her a solemn and silent salute, and rode on.
He had heard her. He had understood. Good. One of them at least understood. She had no business dallying with any man, for man was a safe companion for her, most especially one of Camelot. He was at least honorable enough to see that.
Such reasoned and goodly thoughts, though, did nothing to ease her heart ache each time she saw him ride past, tight-lipped and looking straight ahead.
It will be over soon. We will be home. Matters will be settled. He will go back to Camelot, and I will go about my life.
What life would that be though, with her and Laurel? What did the queen mean to do? She would have to appoint a new steward, and what would happen to them? Marriage was the most likely possibility, to strengthen the ties between Cambryn and Camelot. Marriage for Laurel anyway. Perhaps there was a man of the north who would take Lynet, or perhaps she would finally be allowed to take the veil.
None of these thoughts brought more comfort than Gareth’s silence did. Yet she could not make herself approach the queen and ask what was in her mind. Lynet could not ask difficult questions of the woman whose appraising grey eyes seemed to know she was concealing so much.
It does not matter. I am doing as I must. I cannot leave Laurel alone. I cannot leave my home unguarded. She touched her purse. The light was fading in the leaden sky. She would be free again tonight, and she would know what was happening. Something nagged at her, something more than the silence and suspicion around her, or even the knowledge that they would be spending the night on the edge of the great moor. It dried out her mouth and made her skin creep under the touch of the gentle wind. She had to get to Ryol, had to leave her confining flesh and know.
Soon. She told herself. Soon.
Camp was made on the rise above the empty moor. Lynet saw Brendon, more awake now, a little hungry and very blasphemous, installed in the squire’s tent. Lionel swore faithfully to watch over him and to give him only thin pottage and well-watered wine. Stronger food would only strengthen the fever he still carried. Gareth was nowhere to be found, which pleased Daere, and should have pleased Lynet. Instead, it only added to the nagging that grew stronger the closer the sun sank to the horizon.
Something was wrong. Something at home. She was certain of it. Ryol was trying to reach her, to warn her, and she had to sit still under the eyes of the queen and all her ladies in the pavilion. She had to listen to the light gossip and small complaints, trying to be interested and quiet, and concentrate enough to answer their questions. She wanted to scream. She wanted to snatch up the mirror and shout for Ryol to bring her to his side immediately.
She wanted the queen to stop looking toward her.
At last, however, the light began to fade, and the beds were laid out. Daere relieved her of her overdress, and handed her back her girdle so she could bind it about her, reclaiming her purse and her keys. As soon as her fingers brushed the leather purse, a flood of urgency filled her, rocking her back on her heels.
“Are you all right, my lady?” gasped Daere as she put out a hand to steady Lynet.
The queen turned her head inquiringly. So too did every other woman in the tent.
“Yes, yes, thank you Daere,” said Lynet hastily, trying to avoid every eye by reaching for her bed coverings. “My feet ache.”
This they were all willing to believe, her broken feet having been made a public spectacle. Slowly, they were all willing to go back to the business of getting ready for their bed, including the queen. Lynet lay still and let Daere draw up the covers so no one would see her hand grasping her purse so tightly the mirror’s edges dug into her hand, even through the leather.
Something was wrong. Lynet closed her eyes, turning over to face the canvas wall, so no one could see her distress. Something was blindingly, terribly wrong and she could feel it with each beat of her heart. Light flashed behind her eyelids, like a silent storm of omen. Yet the braziers flickered and cloth and covers rustled, and the queen laughed softly at yet another jest told by one of her useless, gossipy, feather-brained city women.
At last, when Lynet’s teeth ached from being ground so hard against the screams that threatened to burst forth, the last light was covered, and darkness fell. Around her came the familiar rustling, sighing sounds of women trying to get comfortable on pallets now damp and lumpy from too much hard travel and not enough airing. Lady Mavis dropped off first as usual. She had a trilling kind of snore. One by one, the others followed her, and last of all, the queen’s breath deepened and slowed, and Lynet was able to take one free breath herself.
Carefully, stealthily, she slipped out from under her coverings. No sound of breathing or soft snoring changed. Her groping hand found her cloak and she hugged it close. One cautious, agonizing step at a time she made her way to the door, giving Daere as wide a berth as she could. At last she reached the canvas flap and picked at the knotted lacings with impatient fingers, her ears straining all the while for any change in the sound of restful oblivion behind her.
Since the queen had found her that first night, Lynet did not dare try to use the mirror again inside the pavilion. At least if she were found creeping outside, there might be another explanation. She could buy herself some time concealed in the fringes of the wood, and if she cried out, it was less likely that anyone would hear.
She had to do this, and do this now. The urgency of it filled her. She had to bite back a cry of gladness as the final knot came loose and she was able to creep out the pavilion door.
Fortunately, the queen did not insist on guards beside the tent. Lynet could see the torches of their stations out at the edges of the camp. Soft talking and laughter rose from here and there, along with stray clanks and clatters. The whole camp settling to sleep, but not quite there, not yet. That was as well. This way she was one only more carefully moving shadow, trying not to disturb her fellows, just trying to find her bed, or a spot to relieve herself, at the edges of the light. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to question.
“I wondered if you would come out again tonight.”
Lynet whirled around, her fist stuffed in her mouth to stifle her startled scream. A shadow moved out from all the other shadows, and there stood Squire Gareth.
She stared at him. He made no apology for frightening her. He simply stood there, his hands loose at his sides, waiting to see what she would do next.
Lynet lowered her hand. “Squire Gareth,” she croaked.
“My lady,” he replied gravely, inclining his head. “What brings you out at this unseasonable hour?”
She swallowed, trying to remember her dignity, and all the plausible lies she had stored up.
“I have asked you a question, my lady,” said Gareth. There was something new in those words. A reminder that he was a man on the verge of knighthood, a man loyal to his knight and his queen and above all his high king. He had seen something. He was suspicious. This was what had kept him silent and apart from her all day, not her scathing words. He was afraid of the outland lady and her strange movements that had called himself and his people out into danger.
There was not a plausible lie in all the world that he would believe. What was more, Lynet realized as she looked up at his sad, stern visage, she did not want to have to lie to him.
You cannot stand here! You have no time to waste!
“Squire Gareth, I swear on the memory of both my mother and my father, I do nothing that will harm anyone here. Please, let me go.”
He flexed his hands. She could hear his breathing, harsh and uneasy for a long time before he spoke.
“My lady, listen to me,” he said softly. “There is something gravely amiss here. How am I to know that by my silence I do not jeopardize my comrades, my knight and my queen? Give me some explanation that I can understand, and I will hold my tongue. Continue in your own silence, and I must raise the alarm.”
He meant it. She could tell that easily. He would feel regret, but he would do exactly as he said.
And for good reason, admitted Lynet to herself.
But he was giving her a chance. All of Ryol’s warnings rang in her head, but no lie came to her, and the urgent warning within her. She must risk the truth. If she did not, she was lost already.
“We must not be seen.” She ducked into the nearby copse of trees and bracken that was surely where Gareth had watched her progress before he decided to confront her. Gareth followed more slowly, and when he did, she saw his hand was on his sword.
His sword. He had come to her armed. She wanted to find some blame in this, to ease her own guilt, but again she could not.
When she was certain they were as hidden as the could be, she drew the mirror from its purse. “This was a gift from the sea to my mother,” she told him, holding it out flat on her palm. It shone faintly in the darkness, as if it carried its own light within. “Through this, I may see my home and speak with Laurel. I do not want the queen to know, that is why I have tried to hide it.”
She waited for him to laugh, or cross himself, or to call her mad. He did none of these. He stretched out one cautious finger and touched the cool, smooth glass. “Why should you fear the queen’s knowing?” he whispered.
“Her Majesty distrusts all things of the invisible countries, as well she should,” she added, thinking of Morgaine and all that had been done already. “If I were not desperate, I would have nothing to do with it.” Is that true? She put the question aside hurriedly. “But my sister is in danger, and it is only the visions I receive from the sea glass that keep her alive. I beg of you Squire Gareth,” she breathed softly, as she curled her fingers around the mirror. The sight and touch of it was maddening, driving her blood hard in her veins and sending it pounding to her temples. “Do not give me away.”
He was silent, watching her out of the darkness that cloaked him. “It is dangerous,” he said flatly.
“Only to myself.”
“How can you know?”
“On this you will have to trust me, Gareth.” She heard the quaver in her voice. “I am the only one in peril from this glass and what it holds.”
He regarded her for another long moment, his jaw working back and forth. Lynet held her breath, but did not let her gaze leave his. She longed to be able to reach out as she did when she was a shadow. As a shadow she could have gathered up his distrust and returned her own belief and sense of understanding.
Then, Gareth said, “You cannot lie a night out here alone. You will sicken from the cold.”
“It will not be that long this time.”
“You are sure of that?”
She bowed her head. “No.” It seemed that now that she had begun to tell him the truth, she could not stop.
“Then I will stay with you.”
That startled her. “No,” she said immediately.
He did not let her speak another word. “I cannot permit you to come to harm,” he said. “And if I am to keep my silence about this, I must see for myself what happens.” His lips twitched into a smile for an eyeblink. “I have been told many strange stories in my life, lady, some by my own brothers. If you want me to believe what you say, you must also let me be witness to it.”
A long and painful history lay beneath those words. She could feel it, even trapped in her separate skin. There was no way around it. Her urgency would burn a hole through her if she did not look into the mirror at once.
Anger sparked in her, but gratitude as well. for she knew that despite all his doubts, he had trusted her as far as he could.
But Gareth mistook the reason for her hesitation. “My Lady Lynet,” he said solemnly, formally. “I swear that I will remain to protect you. You will come to no harm while I watch over you.”
“Thank you, Gareth,” she murmured.
He drew himself up with a sigh, acknowledging their strange and awkward circumstances with no more than that gesture. “What must you do?”
“Sit down,” she said, and she suited actions to words. She brought the mirror up, seeing her own ghostly reflection in its smooth and perfect surface. All thought of Gareth, of queen, of any danger flew away as she saw her other self waiting there.
“Ryol,” she said. “Ryol!”
Lynet fell into darkness.
The fall this time was short and sharp. The world opened around her almost before she had time to blink, and Ryol was there at her side in the bright sun of the garden. But Ryol had changed yet again. Silver streaked his dark hair, and the petals of the roses and the blossoms strewn the garden’s fading grass.
She opened her mouth, but Ryol did not give her time to speak. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along behind him as he swept out his hand to shift the shadows and change the daylight garden to the dark reflection of Cambryn at nighttime. Clouds gathered thickly, scudding across the half-moon, but as before, Lynet found she could see as well as if the moon had been full and the night clear. Ryol was all but running now and it took all her concentration to keep beside him as the shadows rushed, bent and blurred around her.
When her vision cleared, she found herself standing in Colan’s chamber. The fire and the rushlights had both been doused. The room was utterly black. With her shadow sight, she could make out Colan’s hunched form crouched on the low sill of his narrow window.
She thought he meant to jump, to kill himself and end his blood-stained life. She felt the guilt in him. It rolled off him like waves of ice water, cutting through the shadow of herself, threatening to wash her away with its strength. It seemed as if he must be wading through it up to his neck. But no. Whether she drifted forward or pulled him close, she neared him, and she found she could feel beneath the guilt, discern its foundations, understand them.
He was going to kill Laurel. He was going to scale the old, time-pitted wall and creep across the roof slates. He could do it. He had done it in secret as a boy. He had waited here quiet and meek, waiting for the men to become bored and complacent, waiting for Laurel to become disgusted or distracted so that she did not visit him anymore.
Lynet knew all this, as surely as she knew he had killed their father. He was going to kill Laurel and offer up the death to Morgaine, a sacrifice, to show her he was still loyal, that he was still useful.
That he was still hers and that she could not abandon one of her own.
“No,” whispered Lynet. “No!”
But he could not hear her, she could not reach him. She was less than shadow now, she was nothing more than witness.
Without even looking to Ryol, Lynet gathered her strength, and reached out for his. It flowed into her like honey, thick and warming. She focused thought and will, and forced herself into being. Pain filled her with its unbearable fire, and she stood and she held. When her eyes could see again, she turned them on Colan and reached with the shadow that was herself. She caught up her own pain, and that cold, rolling guilt rushing from him, scooping it up like ocean water into an ewer, and with all her strength, she flung it back at Colan where he crouched like some great insect, waiting for his time.
His fingers gripped the stones hard for a moment and he toppled backward, barely catching himself in time to keep from sprawling on the floor. He turned, looking about the room, his face pale as death. His hands shook and he wrapped his arms to himself, doubling over as if suddenly sick. He did not move. Lynet let herself drift a little closer, still solid, still strong, wading through her brother’s guilt, collecting it as she went.
“Father?” Colan whispered.
That single word told her what she must do, what she could do. She was an ethereal shape, and shapes could shift. She called up memory of her father, whom she was said to be so like, the height and breadth and strength of him, the set of his shoulders, the carved hollows of his cheeks, the hard, square hands of a warrior. And the blood, the blood she had last seen pouring from his torn belly.
All this she made herself, and in a final wrenching act of will, all this she showed to Colan. She knew at once he saw and saw clearly, for he screamed in utter horror, throwing up his hands to ward off the bloody ghost before him.
The door burst open, and Lynet let herself vanish, let the pain and the tide of her brother’s guilt wash her away, back into the thinnest breath of shadow, back to passive witness as the men of Colan’s guard ran into the room to find him crouched on his floor, his head in his hands, trembling and weeping like a babe.
Lynet looked down on her work and felt the tears stinging her eyes. “Take me to Laurel,” she told Ryol.
Gareth sat beside Laurel’s body. She lay on the ground, her eyes closed, as peacefully as if she was asleep, save that her flesh was as cold and as pale as death. Only her fingers around her mirror kept their life. The mirror was cold as ice, but her hands were warm, almost fiery. He drew her cloak over her. She did not breathe. Did not stir. He sat back, biting his lip, wondering what he should do.
Watch. Wait. Do as you promised.
The night turned slowly over them. The sounds of the camp gave way to snores and mutters. Cold crept into Gareth. He stood, stretching creaking joints, and paced to the near edge of the woods, as much to try to get some warmth into him as to make sure no patrol or wanderer approached.
Gareth froze. Out in the dark, he saw movement; a black shadow by the soft grey outline of the queen’s pavilion. He stared hard. It was Sir Lancelot. Even in the uncertain light of the waxing moon, Gareth knew his knight’s form. Sir Lancelot stood beside the pavilion door, leaning in, just a little. Was he saying something? Gareth couldn’t hear. He glanced down at Lynet lying cold and still. He could not leave her, but what if something was wrong? What if the camp would be roused in another moment?
The flap of canvas folded back from the pavilion’s entrance and a woman’s silhouette emerged.
It was Queen Guinevere.
Sir Lancelot bowed low. He was speaking. Over the breeze in the trees, Gareth could hear the soft rise and fall of the knight’s voice, although he could not make out a single word. The queen answered him, but she was too far away for him to make out any tone or timbre in her voice. Sir Lancelot took one step closer, and the queen drew herself up tall. Whatever she said then, it caused the knight to step backwards and bow again. The queen let the canvas fall between them. Sir Lancelot stood there a moment, and then strode away, jauntily, as if well satisfied with himself.
Gareth just stared. The queen? Queen Guinevere, wife to Arthur the High King. The queen and Sir Lancelot!
A state close to panic seized hold of his guts and twisted. No. No. It is not possible. I did not see it. It could not be. She would not. Not even with Sir Lancelot. She would never betray King Arthur. She would not!
Memory crashed against him. He was a boy again, his head tilting up to look at Geraint who looked as sick as he felt. His hands shook, his voice quavered and tears spilled down his cold cheeks.
“Why Geraint?” he was asking, his voice high and plaintive with a child’s pain and confusion. “Why did he kill her?”
“There was a man, Gareth,” answered Geraint, as gently as he could. “She was with child. She would not name the father. Father grew angry …” Geraint said no more. There was no need. They all knew father’s anger, father’s vicious, sudden, reasonless anger.
Gareth threw himself into his brother’s embrace trying to crawl inside Geraint’s very skin, to hide from that wrath, the confusion and betrayal, to hide from the truth that his sister was dishonored, betrayed and betrayer, and that his father had killed her for it. Killed her, killed her, killed her …
Movement brought Gareth back to himself and he saw the tent open once more, and the queen emerge again, looking this way and that. His first broken and furious thought sneered she must be looking for Sir Lancelot. Then he realized he was wrong.
She was looking for Lynet.
God’s Legs.
Gareth crouched beside Lynet where she lay, corpse cold, and he shook her. “Lynet! Lynet!” he called, softly, urgently. He looked over his shoulder. The queen still stood before the pavilion, her hands on her hips. He knew by her stance that worry and anger were at war within her.
“Lynet!”
Slowly, slowly, Lynet began to stir. Her eyes blinked heavily and a low, wordless groan escaped her.
“Lynet, wake up!” He grasped her arms and pulled her into a sitting position. Her face turned toward him but she did not see him. He shook her hard. “Lynet, Lynet Carnbrea, wake up! See me!”
Animation returned painfully to her face and her gaze, and she thrust her hands between his arms to break his hold. He let go even though she swayed where she sat. He looked back at the queen. They had but moments.
“No!” she moaned. “No, I mustn’t leave, not yet …”
“Lynet, hear me!” bawled Gareth in her ear. “The queen is looking for you! Lynet! Queen Guinevere is awake and she’s looking for you!”
Those words brought Lynet all the way back. She grabbed hold of his arm and used it to lever herself to her feet. He was not sure she’d be able to walk, but she squeezed his hand with some semblance of strength, and staggered forward, shoving her mirror into its pouch. Gareth stayed where he was, watching her, his breath coming fast and ragged.
By the time she emerged fully into the moonlight, Lynet was walking normally. He hung back in the trees, watching her move forward with only her usual slight limping.
“My queen!” she exclaimed as she began to kneel.
Queen Guinevere stopped her with a gesture. “God of Mercy, Lynet, where were you! I was thinking you’d wandered off …”
“Forgive me, Majesty. I was only relieving myself.” Lynet waved vaguely towards the woods. “I … I do not like to do so too close to the pavilion …”
The queen was still for a moment. Because he could not see her face, Gareth could not tell whether she believed Lynet’s story or not.
“Well, come inside before you wake anyone else.” The queen held the pavilion door open. Lynet bowed her head meekly and vanished into its shadows.
For a moment the queen stood there alone, looking back toward the main camp, back along the way Sir Lancelot had walked. Then, she too retreated inside the pavilion, and all was quiet again.
Gareth put a hand on the trunk of the nearest tree. His breathing would not calm, but instead grew louder, more painful against his throat gone dry and raw. Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot had come to the queen in darkness, and she had answered him. They had stood there together, so close, spoken so softly.
Gareth pushed his knuckles into his eyes so hard the pain ran back through his skull. Pluck them out, he thought ridiculously. Before you have to see more.
He swung around, striding away from the camp to he knew not where. Anywhere. Anywhere but back to where Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot were.
The queen.
Not the queen.
Never the queen.
The queen.
His foot skidded on the grass, and the jolt made him look outward again. He stood on the sloping hillside. Below him spread the vast, black expanse of the moorland. He threw himself down on the sodden grass, not caring for either damp or cold, and drew his knees up to his chest like a boy. Like a boy who learned far too young that woman’s betrayal meant death and madness and vanishing.
There was a mist rising out there, filling the bowl of the moor valley, as thick and uneasy as the thoughts filling him.
He had not seen it. It was something else. Something different. Some problem or potential danger that Sir Lancelot had to alert the queen to.
But the camp is quiet.
The queen would not betray her king, their king. She loved him.
She was the one to answer Sir Lancelot, not a serving maid …
No. No. It had not happened. He was wrong.
Gareth sat hunched there on the hillside, his arms wrapped around himself and his thoughts barging back and forth so hard and sudden he felt his skull must split open from the force of them. The mists crawled up the hillside. There’d be a real fog soon, all around the camp. He should get up. He should go back, before someone had to come looking for him out here. How can I face the queen again? He bowed his head, running both hands hard through his hair and scrubbing at his scalp, as if he could shake loose some new thought from his suddenly too-tight skin. But nothing came, and he stared out at the deepening mist again.
The fog had formed in earnest. It even seemed to reach up to the sky to draw down the clouds and the stars beneath them, for he could now see tiny pinpricks of light shining within the soft grey blanket of mist. No. He looked again. Those were not stars. They moved. What were they? Gareth leaned forward. They were gold. No. Bright white. No. Blue, like the heart of the fire.
Without realizing he had moved, Gareth was on his hands and knees, leaning forward, his eyes straining into the mist, trying to see the lights. They were blue and green, white and gold. There were four of them. Now five. Now six. They moved in a dance he could not understand or explain, but if he looked a little closer, got a little closer, he would see it plainly. It was important. He knew that. He had to understand.
He was on his feet and two steps down the hill. Warning rippled through him with the touch of the cold air on his face, but it was quickly gone, and all that mattered was reaching the lights that moved in their solemn dance. He had to get close enough to understand what it was he saw.
The lights moved slowly away, and Gareth, stumbling over stones hidden by the mists ran toward them.