Though Accolon had said I should keep company and not shut myself away with my agitated thoughts, I spent a few days in complete solitude in my study, aside from his dog, uninvited, watching mournfully from the doorway. Every time I returned from downstairs to retrieve the food left for me, she lifted her head from her paws as if he might be behind me, before laying her chin down on the floor again, her grief vaguely accusatory.
“You’re not the only one who misses him, you know,” I told her stiffly on the fourth day. I could not speak to her as he could, with his easy assumption that she understood. The brachet looked up from under hooded eyes and gave a thin whine. I sighed and clicked my fingers. “Come on. Avec moi.”
The hound reluctantly got to her feet, padding at my heels through the echoing house. I walked her along the riverbank as he would, but with an air of awkward politeness between us, like a pair of acquaintances who knew each other only due to their bond with one person. The thought struck as ridiculous; if Accolon ever found out about my lapse into sympathy with his canine companion, I would never hear the end of it.
“Company, that’s what you need,” I said. “Other animals.”
The stableyard was quiet, the lads and grown hounds joining the huntsman in the woods. A few of the brachet’s younger descendants were roaming the courtyard, some wrestling, or harassing the stable cat hissing from a high sill, and another pair lying flat out in a patch of sun. The brachet jogged off to greet them, tail waving.
A contented familiar whistle echoed from somewhere within. Seeking it, I promptly bumped into Robin on his way out of the main stalls. A box fell from his hands, scattering various grooming implements.
“Lady Morgan, I’m very sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect you.”
He stooped, gathering up horse brushes, and I knelt to help him. “I expected you even less,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be with Sir Accolon?”
Robin frowned with understandable confusion; Accolon had left days ago, after all, and he had probably been as much around the house as anyone. “Er, no, my lady.”
“Why not? You’re his squire.”
He retrieved the last hoof pick and placed the box on a nearby sill, then offered me a kerchief to dust off my hands. “I wanted to go, my lady, but the day before he left, Sir Accolon came to the stables and said he would rather I stay. When I asked why, he said, ‘Alors, who else would I trust to oversee the horses?’ ”
To hear Accolon’s direct words was a momentary comfort. I imagined him speaking them, brisk and easy, never hinting at whatever serious reason he must have had.
“It makes sense he wanted you here as his proxy,” I replied.
“I will do my best, my lady. All I want is to make him proud, but when he said I couldn’t go with him…” Robin ducked his head, sinking down on a hay crate. “My first thought was that there was something wrong. I don’t know why—it seemed strange he wished to go alone. I told him I was worried for him—that we all were.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“We were in the stable, next to his chestnut travelling horse,” he said, eyes softening with memory. “He put one hand on the horse’s nose and the other on my forearm, how he does when I’m supposed to listen. He said, ‘Robin, tell the household not to worry about me, or anything at all, because they are under the care of Lady le Fay. When I leave, she will brood alone for a few days, but know she is there and is everything you need.’ ”
Of course Accolon knew exactly what I would do, despite his advice, and his deep, accepting knowledge of me made me miss him so powerfully for a moment that I couldn’t speak.
At length I said, “Lady who?”
Robin stared at me in alarm. “I’m sorry, my lady. I forgot you didn’t know. It’s just something I…we…” He took a deep breath, crimson to the roots of his pale-red hair. “Lady le Fay. It’s what the household calls you. It’s a term of affection, upon my honour.”
I laughed. “Then I am grateful. Where does it come from?”
He still looked stricken, so I placed an encouraging hand on his arm, as was Accolon’s way. “You can tell me. Please.”
He relaxed under my touch and smiled. “When I broke my leg and you healed me, some believed it was God’s plan—the horse kick—and there was no right to fix me beyond the will of the Lord. I couldn’t have explained what you’d done if I wanted to, but there were whispers, suspicions. A few said you might be a witch. I’m so sorry to even say it, my lady.”
“Oh, Robin!” I smiled and squeezed his hand. “So what if I am?”
“It shames me to admit it now, but at the time I was afraid. I feel awful because you’ve always been so kind to me, but back then, I was half-terrified I was cursed.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “You were a child, and there were a lot of whispers about me in Camelot. Still are, I assume.”
He hung his head, shaking it at himself. “I should have known better. And when Sir Accolon came to see me, I…I told him. All he did was ask me about my leg, and I burst into tears like a baby and confessed that though I was so happy I was fixed and could maybe be a squire one day, perhaps I was doomed to suffer some worse punishment because I had been healed by…well, you know.”
“A witch,” I supplied with a smile.
“Yes,” Robin said guiltily. “But right away, before I’d even stopped crying, Sir Accolon asked if he could tell me a secret, and that’s when he said it. He told me that you were special, yes, but to think of you more as une fay—a woman of great skill, with knowledge vast and well earned, and a part of her that is wondrous. He told me that nothing you did could ever be cursed—it just…is. That it’s a gift we are lucky you share. He said you were the cleverest person he’d ever met, and deserved the utmost respect, never fear.”
Robin sat straighter. “He made it all make sense and gave me back the happiness I first felt when you healed me. You saved my life, and he told me to believe in it.”
We sat in silence for a short while, Robin contemplating a time that for him felt so long ago, and for me felt like no time at all. Accolon’s absence, the weight that I had been holding off for days with solitude and silence, all at once became tangible, settling across me like a thundercloud. But storms had always been part of our strength.
“And the name?” I asked.
“The next time he saw me,” Robin continued, “he asked if I had seen Lady le Fay—so I thought. Later I learned I got his language slightly wrong, but he never corrected me because it was something we shared. After that, it became how Sir Accolon spoke of you. When he brought me to Fair Guard, the household heard it, and they had their own wondrous stories of you—a time with the river they speak of?—and the name stuck.”
He blushed even deeper and ran a hand through his curls. “I hope my lady doesn’t mind. But it was Sir Accolon who gave it to you, and we all use it in fondness, loyalty and great respect.”
My heart felt like it had grown with his every word. “How could I mind such a thing as that?”
He smiled in relief. “It means we know you protect us, that you care about Fair Guard and our happiness. Most of all, it means we believe, as Sir Accolon always has, that you can do anything.”
The thought of Accolon’s undying faith hit as a sudden, fierce injustice. His forty days had barely begun; how would I last, this year and hereafter, knowing where he was and that he would prefer to be at home? If I could do anything, surely I could fix this? With the scabbard I had kept him safe, but there must be a way to set us both free.
The scabbard. That was the answer—the one thing Arthur wanted that he didn’t know he lacked. For its return, he would do anything.
I would follow my Gaul and retrieve Excalibur’s missing piece, then make one final deal with my brother: release Accolon from service without prejudice, assure Sir Manassen’s place in court, and take the Crown’s iron-clad threats off my existence if I swore never to cross his path again.
Swiftly, I rose, Robin following automatically.
“Ready the horses and gather the household,” I told him. “It’s time for me to return to Camelot.”
“Of course, my lady.”
We nodded at one another in reassurance, then I moved off in the direction of the house. Pausing, I turned back to see Robin watching me with a face of wonder.
“Morgan le Fay,” I said. “It has a certain ring to it.”