Maybe I should have felt I had lost. Indeed, Alys called Accolon’s elevation “a disaster”—especially when Tressa informed us that his new castle chamber was only two corridors and one small stairway from ours—but all else was going too well for me to dwell on it.
Arthur was happy; he had told me so that afternoon as we walked the rows of hooded birds at the falconry competition we were judging. During the banquet, after the formalities, my brother called me to his side and we spoke at length of his satisfaction with the tournament and our hopes for the future, and I felt his contentment as my own.
“There is also good news from Gore,” he said. “Yvain reached Castle Chariot safe and well a few days ago, and by all accounts is thriving.”
To hear much-awaited news of my son so casually threw me for a moment. “When was this?” I asked. “Was it from Urien, or the nurses? Did it come by letter or messenger?”
“A messenger came with letters as the bell rang to dine. He brought a missive from King Urien to myself saying all is well, and two for you from the nurses, I assume containing a full report. We must meet and view them together.”
“Tomorrow?”
“As soon as I can.” He put a hand on my shoulder, his grey gaze reassuring. “I promise you, all could not be better. I know to tell you like this is not ideal, but I assumed you’d want to know the essential points with haste.”
“I appreciate it, brother,” I said. “Was anything else said? Has Yvain—?”
Arthur glanced up, cutting me off as the Queen glided into our vicinity. She lay a proprietary hand on his arm, and he beheld her in adoration.
“My lord, the first dance is due to begin,” she said. “The musicians wait upon our presence, and I await my husband’s embrace.”
“And I yours, my beautiful wife.” Dropping his hand from my shoulder, Arthur put an arm around Guinevere’s waist and cast his happy light back on me. “You know what I know, Morgan, and I’m sure everything else will be in the letters. But for now, this night is so glorious, I wish all of those closest to me to enjoy it. Sister, we must have you dance!”
Such was his aura of joy, even Guinevere offered me an encouraging smile. She didn’t realize I had avoided the tournament’s fashionable formal dances because after storming out of her solar, I still hadn’t learned them.
“Alas, brother,” I said. “I have no partner.”
“That’s easily solved.”
“Suitable partner, for such a ceremonious occasion,” I added. “As a married woman and Queen.”
I felt a mild shame at my invoking Urien as an excuse, though I supposed he might as well be useful for something.
“It’s a consideration,” Arthur mused. “Darling, whom do we have befitting my dear sister’s grace and status?”
“Oh, I’m sure no one would be good enough for Lady Morgan,” Guinevere said.
Arthur failed to catch the tartness in her voice. “You are generous as ever, my love, but I’m not yet defeated.” He stepped away, casting his eyes over the room.
“What a shame,” Guinevere said. “It seems you will not be joining us after all.”
“It’s kind of you to spare me,” I replied. “Given I didn’t waste time on Your Highness’s dance lessons.”
Her eyes flashed, but before I could enjoy her affront, she went directly to Arthur’s side and murmured in his ear.
“How perfect!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of it myself?”
The Queen spoke to a page, and within moments a tall, familiar figure strode up and bowed to the King and Queen. He wore a blue silk tunic crisscrossed with silver thread—his favoured shades and a reminder of his sporting success.
“Sir Accolon,” Arthur said. “I have a request to make.”
No no no. I looked frantically around the room for escape, but my brother’s gaze held us trapped. Guinevere smiled like a cat in a milking parlour, though she had little concept of how thoroughly she had bested me.
Accolon bowed. “Of course, my lord King. What do you wish of me?”
“My noble sister seeks a suitable dance partner, and you are a man who dances as well as he rides,” Arthur said. “My esteemed Guest of Honour and his Lady of Luck—what could be a worthier pairing?”
“My lord, I’m not sure––” I began.
“I’ll hear no refusal!” Arthur’s tone was both genial and defied argument. “Come, it will please me greatly.”
Offering Guinevere his arm, they walked regally down the dais’s central steps and to the rose-garlanded dancing area, Accolon and I following in unwitting obedience. Other pairs crowded the floor, eager to dance the same round as the royal couple.
My brother pointed us to a place near the musicians’ stage. “There, now we may begin. I commend you both to God.”
Arthur and Guinevere glided off to the centre spot, minstrels awaiting his command, as the participants shifted into dancing hold, entwining fingers and moving close. I looked up at Accolon’s grim face. This would never work; aside from anything else, he wouldn’t be willing to take me into his arms for all the sunken treasure in God’s blue oceans.
He sighed. “Know that I would not have chosen this.”
“As if the thought ever crossed my mind,” I said. “What should we do?”
“I don’t think either one of us wishes to disappoint our King.”
“Not that,” I hissed. “I never learned this dance and don’t know the steps.”
“I do,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course. It’s all very well, you knowing.”
“Sang de Dieu.” He exhaled in impatience, then looked at me. His eyes were so dark within our shared shadows that I caught my insolent, upturned face in their reflection. “What I meant, my lady, is if you hold on to me and allow me to take you…”
“I hardly think so––” I began.
“…then not only will the King be pleased, but no one will wonder why we are disobeying a royal request. We are already delaying the entire dance.”
He wasn’t wrong; the music waited on Arthur’s command, and my brother was awaiting our readiness with a look of confusion. We were the last couple not in hold. If we walked away now, there would be no stopping the whispers, and I was so close: to being rid of The Gaul’s distracting presence, to Arthur’s council table and my entire future. Still, to touch him felt like a bridge I did not know how to cross.
“Do not misunderstand,” Accolon said softly. “I will weather it—we both will—if the answer is no. I do this only with your full consent.”
I looked back at him and within his honesty, his mirrored doubt, I found my path.
“You have it,” I said.
Swiftly, he took hold of me, his warm nearness a surprise as he threaded his fingers through mine and raised our arms into the first dance position. Arthur observed with a satisfied nod, lifting a hand to the stage, and all at once the music was upon us, swooping, rhythmic, irresistible, and it was far too late to do anything but dance.
Led by Arthur and Guinevere, dancing pairs fanned outwards to stand side by side, splayed towards the centre of the room. Starting with the Queen, each lady was drawn towards her partner in an elegant crescent, following an order I could not discern. I had never felt the lack of a dance lesson more.
“Alors,” Accolon said. “Follow me and watch your feet.”
“Yes, thank you,” I said sarcastically. “I am perfectly capable of––”
His firm tug on my arm caught me unawares, and I spun too fast, feet tangling with the hem of my gown. I careered inwards in a half fall and collided with Accolon’s hard torso.
An involuntary gasp escaped my lungs. We stared at one another, stunned at the impact, the sudden heat of our bodies touching from collarbone to thigh. Our eyes held the same stricken thought: that the last time we were this close was nine years in the past and we were—well, it did not bear thinking about.
“Pardon, my lady,” he said, quickly stepping back. He put his hands to my waist and held me at bay, picking up the music with a deft corrective step. “Place your palms against my chest and follow me—south to north, west to east. It stays this way for a while.”
Cheeks burning, I did as instructed, resting my hands on his silken chest and following his feet. This phase of the dance was slow and intricate, but we found our rhythm with astonishing quickness, our movements instinctive, natural, even enjoyable. Like celestial bodies we wove in and out, and for that long, flowing moment, he and I were luminous, all we needed to be.
“There, it’s not so difficult,” Accolon murmured. “Even for us.”
The notion ached unexpectedly in my chest. After all these years, I thought, we are finally dancing together for the first time, and it is under these circumstances, when we can hardly bear it.
Accolon glanced down with a slight frown, as if feeling my mood shift.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, and I found myself wanting to tell him the truth, to acknowledge the strangeness of this current moment and the star-crossed events of our past. I reached inside, seeking the words, but they were too far away, caught beneath the impossible pain in my sternum.
“Nothing,” I said. “I was only thinking that you do know this dance as if you were born to it.”
It was the best I could offer, inconsequential small talk that said nothing, meant nothing. Accolon studied my face a moment longer, then offered a smile of concession that fluttered within my gut more than it ought.
“Tomorrow we conclude, Lady Morgan,” he said. “I assume your favour resides with my opponent in the final joust?”
It was a relief to return to my idle scorn. “I have a bet to win, and Sir Gawain is my nephew. I hope he grinds you into the dust.”
The smile widened to a grin. “Then I’m afraid I may have to disappoint.”
“I am well accustomed to that,” I said archly. “You are a man of many mistakes.”
“Indeed?” he exclaimed. “How so?”
“Your beard,” I said. “It does not become you.”
He laughed aloud, and it rang through me, bright and liberating like a bird’s wing catching the air. “My lady, you wound me! With a sin so grave, how will I ever atone?”
“Well, when I win our bet and you leave, I’ll never have to see your inadvisably barbered face again. The thought of you atoning elsewhere will be enough.” How was it we were speaking without venom, our former sharpness translating into an exchange of jest?
“Bien sûr, Lady Morgan,” Accolon replied. “But can I ever truly lose if you admit you will still be thinking of me?”
My breath caught, and before I could retort, the music changed, holding us suspended for a long moment, and I was once again thrown away from his warm hold. This time, I anticipated the swinging movement, returning to him with smooth ease.
Accolon smiled at our perfect rhythm, softly, privately, as if nothing outside this serene moment existed but his assured touch at my waist, and his heartbeat, fast and strong under my hands. Again, it occurred to me that perhaps there was another way, a new world of cordiality where our fraught and desperate deal ceased to matter, and no one was the victor, or had to live in defeat.
I could do it—we could—if he managed to find the words I needed to hear. A simple, honest apology, spoken aloud, to release me from my fury and heartache. Maybe then I could begin to forgive.
I spoke before I could change my mind. “Have you ever thought that neither of us needs to lose? That perhaps it…wouldn’t be fair?”
Accolon’s step took a slight hitch, but he quickly recovered. “You mean a sort of truce?”
Apologize to me now and we can move beyond this was what I wanted to say, but I was not as bold with him as I once was. “If the conditions were favourable, possibly,” I said. “The right words, spoken in the right way, and I think it could settle things. Don’t you?”
He gave me a long, discerning look. “ ‘The right words’ meaning?”
“An apology,” I said.
“Prepare yourself,” he said, to my confusion. Abruptly, he stopped and slid his hands up my back, tilting me backwards in what I realized was the dance’s closing flourish. His body arched over mine, our faces so close I could almost see the thoughts whirring behind his eyes.
“Of course I agree,” he said. “If it’s truly what you wish.”
The motion and his reply made me feel as though I had been plunged underwater. He eased me back up and I nodded, a door swinging open to our new path. “It is.”
Accolon drew a deep breath. “I appreciate the gesture, Lady Morgan, but in truth, it wouldn’t be knightly of me to belabour this concession. You needn’t speak it aloud—I accept your apology.”
“You…what?”
The music trounced its final note to immediate applause, drowning out my exclamation. Accolon took my questioning expression to mean I hadn’t heard him.
“I accept your apology, my lady,” he repeated. “You’re right—honest words are fairer. Manassen said engaging with you would be a waste of time, but I knew if I was patient and allowed us to converse enough, we could end this. Now you are unburdened, and I am free to join the court. This truce can signal our conclusion, once and for all.”
“Once and for all?” I echoed, wondering if I had misheard him amidst the applause still ringing out for the musicians.
“Of course,” he went on, “whatever happens tomorrow, you’re no longer under any obligation to speak to the King on my behalf. My dancing with you should shore up his approval. But in truth, I’m impressed. I never dreamed you would apologize. I didn’t think you believed it owed to me.”
This I heard clearly enough. “Are you mad?” I exclaimed. “I owe you nothing!”
I pushed his hands from my waist, breaking away from his confident hold. “Is that what this was—accepting the joust token, offering greater civility, this dance—it was all a ruse to curry favour with my brother then never speak to me again?”
His brow clouded in apparent confusion. “It seemed the only way,” he said. “I thought this was what you––”
“My God,” I cut in. “To think I was almost persuaded you might have changed. Apologize, to you?”
“I don’t understand,” he began, but I’d had enough and made to storm off.
Accolon caught hold of my sleeve. “Morgan, wait,” he said.
Standing as we were in the middle of Camelot’s Great Hall, I could not slap his hand off me, but turned on him fiercely. At the sight of the cold fury in my eyes, his faint grip fell away and he recoiled, stiffening like I held Medusa in my stare.
“Don’t you dare speak my name,” I said, and stalked away, wishing I too could turn into stone.