CHAPTER 54

They could see the smoke above the trees from miles away. As they drew near, the smell of burning was overlaid by a sweeter, sicker stench. Kay tried unsuccessfully to ease his bad leg in the saddle, and exchanged a look f foreboding with Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere. They had all been on too many battlefields not to know the smell of bodies rotting to decay.

At the head of the troop, Arthur picked up the scent like a dog, and spurred his horse on to a breakneck speed. His face still wore its waxy sheen of dread, and he had kept up this punishing pace for hours. Still, it had to be over soon, Kay thought in dread. Any moment now they would learn the worst.

Yet nothing could have prepared them for what they saw as they rode through the convent gates. In the courtyard the bodies of half a dozen nuns lay sprawled where they had fallen, grinning cadavers black and crawling with flies. At the entry itself, what had been the Sister Gatekeeper still sat at her post, her ruined mouth open in a silent scream. All around the central square, charred walls and roofs lay open to the sky. Ahead of them, the chapel had burned out. Nothing remained but a heap of smoldering stones, with a thin column of smoke rising overhead. In the midst of the ruin, a broken cross lay at an unnatural angle, its tortured Christ seeming to live His final passion once again.

Arthur dragged his sweating horse to a violent halt. “Morgan!” he howled.

Morganmorganmorgan cried the echo around the walls. Arthur sat sweating and trembling on his exhausted horse. Sir Lucan vaulted lightly to the ground.

“You!” he commanded the men with Sir Sagramore. “Take the northern block.” Sagramore raised his sword, and they were gone.

“Sir Dinant!” Lucan went on. “The west range, and you, Sir Tor, the south.” His voice followed the knights and men as they galloped off. “Whatever you find, bring it straight to the King.”

“Good, Lucan!” Arthur’s eyes were glittering. He tried for a normal smile. “And now—” He raised his sword and pointed to the building ahead, a low white cloistered structure slumbering in the westering sun. A harsh laugh racked him. “Let us see what the eastern block holds.”

The answer was nothing, Kay agreed with Lucan and Bedivere afterward, just as they had suspected from the start. Nothing but festering bodies in every cell, as the search of all the other dormitories found. Nothing but the cold remains of the Father Confessor, with the tears of his passing still wet on his face. And only an abandoned nun’s outfit on the floor to give any hint of where Morgan might have gone.

Arthur stood over the crumpled black gown and white headdress with murder in his face. In a spasm of rage he drew back his booted foot and kicked the empty wimple into the air. The great white shape soared up and fell back flapping like a wounded bird.

“Gone!” Arthur spat. “She’s gone.”

And we won’t find her now, went through every mind.

Arthur laughed savagely. “But she’ll be back, I know.”

“Sire—” The gentle Bedivere stepped forward and picked up the nun’s gown. His light Welsh lilt gave a sad music to his words. “Your sister suffered here cruelly as a child. Perhaps her sorrows are all paid for now.”

“He could be right, my lord.” Kay pointed to the dead monk on the bed. “Their leader’s gone. She’s destroyed the chapel and all the buildings too. The Christians will never keep women here again.”

Sir Lucan nodded. His handsome face creased with unpleasant memories. “Queen Morgan always knew what she wanted, sire. Surely she must have finished with this place now.”

“Ha!” Arthur’s ravaged features showed the shadow of faint hope. “Perhaps. At all events, there’s nothing to keep us here.” He squared his shoulders, and gave a ragged grin. “And if my sister’s revenge is not complete—well, Madam Morgan knows where to come for me.”

A chill fell on the group. Lucan cleared his throat. “Sire—”

“No matter.” Suddenly Arthur was calm and smiling again. “But I have one last peace to make on this earth before Morgan and I meet again face to face.”

His gray eyes brightened, and his cry rang around the cell. “To Camelot!”

GAWAIN STEPPED OUT of the tent to breathe the clean night air. All around him the forest slumbered, hushed and dim. Grimly he scanned the clearing where they were encamped. Weeks already on the road, at the pace of the slowest horse. Well, however long it took, they would all endure. And at least he did not have to suffer what Agravain did.

“Stay with him, both of you,” he threw over his shoulder as he left the tent. He did not wait for a reply. Neither Gaheris nor Gareth would leave Agravain’s side, he knew. Both were well aware that they would pay with their lives if Agravain lost his.

For the pursuers were always with them, night and day. Not so much as a hoof fall or the cracking of broken twig, not a sound in the darknor passing scent on the breeze had reached them to suggest that others were near. But with the certain instinct of an Orkneyan, Gawain knew that Leif and his two followers tracked their every move. He knew that they rode ahead, beside, and behind, spinning an invisible web around them every day.

And he knew why. Sir Lamorak had been the queen’s champion and her chosen one. They were the knight companions of the throne. Agravain had killed Lamorak. So Agravain had to die.

Gawain gritted his teeth, and shelved the terrible thought. It must not happen; he would see to that. Leif and his companions had their code, he knew. But a prince of the Orkneys had his, and no man on earth would take his brother’s life. Every mile of the way, then, Gawain had stood guard over Agravain, or left Gaheris and Gareth as sentries in his place. But with every mile Agravain had defended what he had done, and loudly justified himself with every breath. Arrogant and vain as ever, he had showed neither sorrow nor remorse for their mother’s grief, and at the end of the first day on the road, Gawain would gladly have killed his brother himself. But an Orkneyman stood by his kin. And he had sworn an oath to bring Agravain to justice, to the judgment that only Arthur could provide.

Well, a few more days in the saddle, and they would be there. And Agravain’s punishment was already under way. To be in the power of his brothers, night and day, was Agravain’s deepest nightmare come to waking life. To be forced to obey Gawain’s slightest whim, to have to sleep, eat, breathe, and fulfill all nature’s functions under the hostile gaze of Gaheris and Gareth too, had been the purest form of torment to his heart.

Yet he knew, too, that it was his only hope of life. For Agravain also had noticed the close pursuit, and lived every moment in fear. Already his hands were trembling, and his haunted face showed what he endured. In the weeks on the road, a strand of his hair had turned white, and now his dense black locks were scarred with a streak running back from his forehead, like the mark of Cain. There is some justice, then, Gawain mused heavily. Blood will have blood; there is payment of the debt.

The night air was sweet and soothing on his face. Lost in thought, Gawain drifted away from the clearing and the little camp till he came to rest under a mighty oak. Through the thick thatch of leaves and cloud above he could still see the love-star shining through the night. He breathed deeply, and sent his spirit into the void. Lamorak, Lamorak, he called silently, may the Great One speed your voyage through the Beyond. Hear my pledge as you wait for my mother to join you there: You will be avenged. On the oath of an Orkneyman, Agravain will pay for your death.

The love-star dipped its light, and blazed up again. Far away he heard the hooting of an owl. Then, from a nearby copse, he caught the soft whoop-whoop of a nightjar calling its mate. His broad face creased in a smile.

“I hear you,” he chuckled. “Come!”

From the depths of a thicket to his left, the shaggy form of Leif materialized. Behind him Gawain saw the shadow of Leif’s two companions, the fellow knights chosen to accompany him south. But behind them was another, a knight Gawain knew at once as the best horseman of the Orkneys, fleet and fearless, and able to ride night and day. There could be only one reason why he was here.

“News, lord,” said Leif, in a voice like the raven in the night. He squinted his one eye at the horseman. “Tell.”

The newcomer stepped into the moonlight. He was white with the dust of the roads, and wore the look of a stranger from the Otherworld. “Our lord Sir Lamorak has been calling the queen every night. Now she is with him, and they are both at peace.”

Gawain fixed his eyes on the love-star and watched it glow. He could not speak.

Leif shouldered up to stand beside the messenger, with the knight companions closing in behind.

“She has gone to the Islands of the Blessed,” he grunted softly, “to the kingdom beyond pain.”

He signaled to the horseman, and the two knights. All three drew their swords and offered Gawain the hilts.

“You are our lord now,” Leif breathed through the night. “We follow you.”

Gawain nodded. “You are my knights,” he said brusquely. “Now hear my command. You will abandon the pursuit of Prince Agravain. He will live to face trial at King Arthur’s court.”

Three pairs of eyes flared in the night like wolves’. Gawain fixed a frowning gaze on Leif, and the knight companion stared back unblinkingly.

“We have a debt to our lord,” Leif said at last. “And to our lady too.” His low grunting cry was full of pain. “You saw her. You know.”

Gawain paused. It was true. He saw again Morgause raving in her granite hall, her face and hair all torn, her life destroyed. He saw her ending her days broken and alone, in the madness of despair, and made up his mind.

“A death is a debt”—he nodded to Leif and the knights—“and it must be paid. Tonight you will find Prince Agravain alone. Tomorrow he will continue his journey with me, and you will go back to the islands until I return. But what happens between those times, I do not wish to know.” He glared at Leif. “Understand me, though, he is not to die. Nor to be injured. You may not shed his blood.”

A hungry grin was spreading over Leif’s face. “No death,” he promised. “No blood.”

The horseman nodded, his thin smile chilling the night. “No blood,” he echoed with a wide-eyed gleam. “No knife, no blade, no blood.”

The knight companions behind him snickered softly as they thought of what was to come.

“So then,” Gawain said softly, “he’s yours till dawn. Then I want him back.”

“In one piece, lord,” Leif promised solemnly.

Together they followed Gawain back to the camp. They waited in perfect contentment as Gawain approached the tent and lifted the flap at the door.

“Gaheris,” he called, “and Gareth. Leave Agravain. Come here. I want you now.”

Now.

There was no need for speech. Leif and his three companions stood in the shadows of the trees till they could have been trees themselves.

Now, lord and leader, companion, knight and friend, your death will be avenged. Now your soul will be free to slip its shell, and wander in the world of fires and flowers.

One thought possessed them all.

Now the young wolf will pay for the death of his dam.