4. The Siege

Lynet

For the first time since she had been trained as a sorceress, Lynet regretted that she hadn't learned any curses. Her preceptress, Morgan Le Fay, had been very willing to teach her, and had even forced her to listen to a lecture on the basic patterns behind all hexes and malevolent charms, but Lynet had taken little note and had promptly forgotten whatever she did hear.

The reason for her inattention was something Morgan had said early in the training. "Every power that you learn," Morgan had explained, "has an opposite power held in balance. As you master one skill, your capacity for the opposite skill diminishes. So, for instance, the better you are at making things grow, the worse you'll be at making things wither and die."

"So," Lynet had said, "the better I get at curses, the worse I'll be at helping people?"

Morgan had not seen this as much of a loss, but from that moment Lynet had lost any desire to master curses. Only now, looking from the castle walls at the army that had encamped around them for the past two weeks, did she wonder if she had been a bit shortsighted. It would be lovely to lay some sort of blanket curse on the lot of them—nothing deadly, of course, but something disabling. "Temporary blindness," she muttered. "Or horrid great bottom swellings."

"I beg your pardon?" asked her husband, Gaheris, beside her on the wall.

"Just daydreaming," Lynet said.

Gaheris raised one eyebrow. "About bottom swellings?"

"Pustules," Lynet explained. "Hemorrhoids. Boils with scabby bits and oozing drainage."

Gaheris nodded. "I see." He edged slightly away from her.

"On them, ninny."

"Oh, right. That wouldn't be so bad. Say, that's a thought! You're a witch, aren't you? I don't suppose you know how to—"

"Enchantress," Lynet said shortly. "And no, I don't. Although if they actually had great gaping sores on their sit-upons, I'd know just how to cure them."

"Wouldn't that be nice of you?" Gaheris said.

"I wouldn't, though. I'd let them fester."

"That should teach them a lesson," Gaheris said. "Shall I send them a threatening message telling them that if they don't lift their siege at once, my wife won't cure their scabby bits?"

"It's as useful a plan as any other I can think of," Lynet said soberly. "Oh, Gary, what are we going to do? All these people..." Turning, she looked over her shoulder at the main courtyard of Orkney Hall, where nearly a hundred men, women, and children lay clustered under makeshift shelters. When the White Horsemen had swept through the north, burning farms and slaughtering livestock, all the Orkney tenants who had escaped the first attacks had fled to the shelter of the hall, bringing their families and precious little else with them. The castle food stores had lasted barely a week, even on short rations, and now they had butchered and eaten all the livestock except for the fastest horses and a few milk cows that they kept to feed the youngest children. Now the animals' fodder was gone, so even the milk would dry up.

"I don't know," Gaheris said. He squinted to the south, then said grimly, "That'll be the oats."

Following his gaze, Lynet saw a haze of smoke rising just above the level of the forest and then hovering low over the ground in the oppressive air. "The new field," she said.

"All the fields, I should imagine," Gaheris said, "with that much smoke."

"Why are they burning crops?" Lynet asked. "It makes no sense. We have no fighters here, no army. We're a knight, a lady, and a castle full of farmers. They must know that we have no hope of driving them away. Why destroy the land?"

"I've been wondering that, too," Gaheris said. "If they were trying to steal the estates for themselves, they'd take care to keep the fields in good condition. But as far as I can tell, they're setting out to make them worthless." He shook his head. "Twenty years of good husbandry gone. Every barn burned, every fence torn down, every field torched, every animal butchered and left to rot on the hills. There's something evil here, something personal."

"You mean someone's trying to get at you? But what have you done to anyone?"

"It might not be me," Gaheris said. "After all, the estates officially belong to Gawain. Someone could be taking revenge on him."

"Or on me."

"Or all of us. I don't know. But we need to find out. We can't stay here to starve, and we don't have a chance in battle. I'm going to signal a parley."

"Can't we wait a few more days? They might realize that they've already destroyed everything of value and move on."

"If it were just us, maybe. But what about those children?"

"Arthur might send help."

"We don't even know if our messengers got through. If they had, Arthur would have sent someone by now."

"Then we should send more messengers. Listen: you call a parley. Hear their terms and ask for time to think about it. While you're keeping them busy talking, I'll send one of the young men out the back on my horse to take a message to Arthur. We'll use the Ivy Gate."

Gaheris considered this briefly, then nodded. "All right. If he gets away, I'll stall a few more days to give him time to look for help and guide them to us." He left the wall, then reappeared ten minutes later with a white cloth tied to a stick. He waved it from the wall until there was a shout from the siege camp and an answering flag. Then he set down the flag and waited.

They had more than enough time to find a volunteer messenger and get him ready while they waited. It was almost an hour before a knight in black armor strolled nonchalantly up to the wall. "Why isn't he on a horse?" Lynet asked. "I thought knights always conducted battlefield negotiations on horseback."

"They do," Gaheris said. "It's a calculated insult."

"What do you want?" called the black knight.

"To whom am I speaking?" Gaheris shouted back.

"Sir Breunis Sans Pité," the knight replied. "Who are you?"

"Sir Gaheris of Orkney, fellow of King Arthur's Round Table."

Sir Breunis snorted loudly. "Former Round Table, you mean."

"No," Gaheris replied. "I'm pretty sure that wasn't what I meant."

"The Round Table had its day, and now that day is past. What do you want, Gaheris?"

"I was about to ask you the same question. What do you want?"

"Oh, is the knight of the proud Round Table asking for terms?" Sir Breunis sneered.

Lynet didn't hear the rest of the exchange. As soon as Sir Breunis appeared, she slipped away and ran to the stables, where the volunteer waited. "Go as fast as you can at first, Douglas," she said. "Put the county behind you. The mare will last longer than you think. After you're well away, you can rest her. Stay near the Great North Road; if the king has sent help, it will be coming that way."

"Ay, milady," the youth said. He smiled, clearly looking forward to doing something, instead of waiting around inside the walls.

"Take no chances, Douglas. This isn't a lark." He nodded, and she led the horse out of the stable to the back wall of the castle, which was covered with a mass of ivy. Lynet glanced wryly at young Douglas. She had always been careful not to do magic in front of the people of Orkney, not wanting the name of enchantress, but there didn't seem to be any way to hide it this time. "Don't tell anyone what you're about to see, all right?" she said.

"Milady?"

Lynet uttered a few guttural words, and the ivy began to coil and curl and writhe like snakes, slowly pulling away to reveal an ancient wooden door set into the wall. The door swung open. "Through there, and fast. You'll have a furlong in the open before you reach the woods."

Douglas showed no particular surprise at Lynet's spell. He simply grinned again and booted the mare into a run. Lynet watched for a second, then spoke again. The door closed, and the ivy slithered back into place. Hurrying up the nearest stairs, she looked over the open field behind the hall. She saw no movement; Douglas had gotten away.

A minute later, breathless from running, she arrived back at the front wall of the castle just as Gaheris was stepping down to the courtyard. He looked a question at her, and she nodded quickly. Gaheris almost smiled. "Good."

"What does that Sir Breunis want?" Lynet demanded.

"He says he'll let all the women and children go—you included—as well as every man who's not of noble birth."

Lynet frowned. "But none of the men are of noble birth, Gary."

"Except for me."

Lynet blinked, and something jolted inside her. "You."

"It seems that I was right: this is personal. Someone has taken a keen dislike to me."

"So ... you give yourself up and everyone else goes free?"

"If you can trust his word, which I don't. Still, it's more chance than they'll have, waiting inside here to starve."

"Gary, no!"

"Fortunately, we have a few days. We'll give young Douglas a chance to find help."

But the next morning, after a restless night, Lynet was roused from her bed by a cry from the front wall, followed by a shriek and a wail. She hurried to the main gate, where Gaheris was already directing some men to raise the portcullis just enough to drag a shapeless bundle under the gate. Lynet knew what it was even before they turned it over. It was Douglas, dead.

Gaheris shook his head. "No," he said. "Stalling for more time only makes sense if you have something to wait for. Since we've no reason to think there's any help coming, then stalling is just putting off the inevitable and making people hungry in the process. If it's to be done, then let it be done, and 'twere well it were done quickly."

"What does that mean?" Lynet snapped in a surly voice.

"I don't know. It just sounded dour and cryptic. It's not my fault; I'm Scottish. But I have to do this anyway, lass. You know that."

Lynet stared over the wall at the siege camp for a long minute without seeing it. "I know," she said. "Why do you think they want you?"

Gaheris shrugged, and Lynet forbore to ask the next question, What will they do to you? She didn't want to think about that.

Gaheris placed the shaft of a white flag into a slot on top of the wall, to request another parley. There was no immediate response from the camp, and Gaheris shrugged. "I'm not going to stand here and wait for them again. They're getting their terms; let them wait for me. Come on, lass. I need to go talk to our people."

He led the way down from the wall to the main courtyard. At one side a carpenter was putting together a rough box to serve as a coffin for Douglas, and on the other, Douglas's mother and a young woman kept silent vigil beside the young man's body. "My friends!" Gaheris called out. "I need to speak with you." The huddled crowd rose and gathered at the foot of the stairs where Gaheris stood.

"I have negotiated a truce," Gaheris said.

There was a murmur of relief and excitement, but in the midst of the hubbub a village elder named Daw raised his voice. "What terms? What do they want?"

Gaheris smiled crookedly. "You all go free, back to your homes."

"What's left o' them, ye mean," Daw said promptly.

"Ay. But you'll be free to rebuild."

"And what do they want?"

Gaheris sighed. "Me. I give myself up, and you go free."

The crowd was silent. Then Daw spoke again. "What do they want wi' ye?"

"They didn't say. Maybe they want a hostage. I'm King Arthur's nephew, after all."

The gathered people murmured among themselves for a few moments, digesting this information. Then another old man moved forward to stand beside Daw. Lynet recognized young Douglas's grandfather, a venerable old man called simply Mak. Mak looked at Lynet. "Beggin' yere pardon for speakin' plain, my lady, but these people don't seem hostage-taking types. They're killers. Animals. If they want Sir Gaheris, it's my thought they mean to kill him."

In the tightening of his jaw, Lynet read Gaheris's concurrence with this, but he said, "We don't know that. But even if we did, it would still be better for one person to die than for all of us to stay here and starve."

Now old Daw looked at Lynet. "What do you say to this, my lady? What will you do?"

"I'll be staying with Sir Gaheris," Lynet said quietly.

"Lynet—" Gaheris began.

"I recall," Daw said meditatively, "the blight. Maybe some o' ye don't remember it so well. It was nigh twenty year ago."

"Seventeen," corrected Mak.

"We none of us had enow to eat," Daw continued, ignoring the interruption. "And Sir Gaheris fed us from 'is own storehouses and ate the same thin gruel as the rest of us. And we knew he wasn't givin' us everything, and there was some as muttered about how he was holdin' back, but then the next year he opened up the rest o' the barns and gave us seed to start over."

At this point, Mak added, "And milord and milady rode about the fields and villages as grand and tall as the noblest landowners in England, makin' us proud, even as they wore the same one suit o' clothes, patched up and mended, like the rest of us did."

A woman spoke up now. "Lady Lynet nursed my Tommy back to health when I was took wi' the same sickness. She sat right by my hearth all night. I remember. I couldn't get out of bed, but I could see."

Gaheris cleared his throat. "I've some fine memories, too," he said, "though I don't know that I'd pick the blight as the thing to dwell on just now. But I think we're straying from the real point. I'm not asking your advice. I'm telling you what I've decided. In a few minutes, I'll go out and give myself up. I want you to gather your families and things and get ready to leave. Lynet, that means you too."

"I say we fight," cried a man's voice.

"If you fight, you'll die!" Gaheris snapped.

"Could be," agreed Daw.

"Ay," said Mak, nodding. "Seems a likely bet."

"And if you do what I say, you'll live!" Gaheris added.

"Ye think so?" asked Mak. "Runnin' off and goin' on wi' your own life, knowin' that ye left the best man ye ever knew to die—that's what ye call livin'?"

"Maybe he's mixed up livin' and breathin'," suggested Daw.

"Nay!" Mak protested. "Sir Gary's not a simpleton. Shame on ye, Daw!"

"What about your women and children?" Gaheris demanded.

"I'll see to them," Lynet said. "When you and the men go out to fight, I'll take them out the back way to hide in the woods. I'll do what I can to keep them safe."

Gaheris shook his head with frustration. "What are you talking about, Lynet? Who said anything about going out to fight?"

"Nobody had to, milord," said a tall villager named Coll, the man who had been making the coffin for Douglas. "We won't let you go out alone, and that's all there is to it."

"You would disobey the direct command of your liege lord?" Gaheris demanded.

"Ay," said Daw. The other men nodded among themselves.

"See?" Mak said to Daw. "I told ye he wasn't a simpleton."

"Maybe not, but he did seem to think at first that we'd go along wi' this daft plan," Daw replied. "So he's not what ye'd call quick-witted, either."

Gaheris sighed. "Let me think about this for a minute." He glanced at Lynet. "Well, Miss Helpful? You want to suggest something else?"

Together they made their way back up to the wall and looked out at the field before the castle. Sir Breunis had seen the white flag, and he had gathered three knights on horseback to accompany him to the parley. "Looks as if he's planning to take you prisoner right away," Lynet said. "He's bringing reinforcements."

"Three knights to take me prisoner," Gaheris mused. "Either he hasn't heard about my skill with weapons, or he's an amazing coward."

"The coward theory seems most likely," Lynet replied.

"Any one of those three could take me without breaking a sweat. Especially that big fellow in the..." He trailed off.

"The one in the middle?" Lynet finished. "On the big black?"

Gaheris was silent.

"What is it, Gary?"

"Lynet, my love," Gaheris said after a minute. "I know you're the most hopeless duffer at casting hexes, but do you by chance have a spell for changing people's appearance?"

"What do you mean?"

"Could you change my features, for instance, to look like someone else?"

"If I could, do you think I'd have left you looking like that all these years?" Lynet said at once. Then she shook her head. "Sorry; that was reflex. You did leave quite an opening. What do you have in mind?"

"Is there such a spell?"

"Not really. I can change hair color and add or take away birthmarks, but not much else."

Gaheris turned his back to the approaching knights. His face was thoughtful. "Sir Breunis has seen me only once, for a few minutes yesterday and from a distance. Do you think that if you changed his hair and dressed him up, you could make young Douglas's body pass for mine?"

Lynet stared, uncomprehending, but at last said, "You're about the same height. It might work. You want us to tell Sir Breunis that you died during the night and give him Douglas's body?"

"No, if he's got orders to kill me, he'll want to see it happen. But I might see a way out of this. Go work on Douglas. Make him look as much like me as you can and then put him in one of the matched suits of armor. One of the silver suits, I think."

"What are you going to do?" Lynet demanded.

"Challenge Breunis to single combat."

"What? He'll never agree to that."

"I hope not," Gaheris said. "Can't talk now. Here they come." Lynet glanced away from Gaheris to see Sir Breunis and his three companions at the foot of the wall.

"Well, Sir Gaheris? Have you decided to give yourself up?" shouted Sir Breunis.

"I have concluded that we cannot defeat your army, at least," Gaheris replied. He had stepped back from the wall and had one hand up to partly obscure his face. "But you must realize that a man of honor cannot simply give up."

Sir Breunis guffawed. "What makes you think I would know or care about your notion of honor?"

"Right, my mistake," Gaheris said. "Just take my word for it. A knight of Arthur's table doesn't just surrender. Instead, I challenge you to single combat. If I win, you spare us all. If I lose, the castle is yours, and all the people inside go free."

Sir Breunis roared with laughter. "You must be mad! I hold every advantage now. Why would I give you a chance?"

"Then make it harder! I challenge the greatest and most skilled of all your knights to single combat! Whoever you choose! I'll even take on one of those big fellows behind you!"

"No!"

"Then I hope you're not in a hurry, because we aren't coming out. We have food enough in here for months!"

At that point, the large knight in the middle leaned from his saddle and said something in a low voice. Sir Breunis shook his head and replied, but the large knight persisted. Gaheris turned to Lynet and said, "Go, Lynet! Get Douglas dressed and ready."

"Gary, I think you're the most wonderful man in the world, but I also know you're hopeless with a sword. I don't see that you fighting a single combat is any different from just letting them kill you. I still think you should take the rest of the men out with you. In a battle, who knows what will—"

"Listen to me, lass. I've no time to explain it right now, but I want you to trust me. I've no intention of dying here today."

Lynet searched her husband's eyes and saw in them a lurking flicker of anticipation, even amusement. She knew his every mood, and if he were lying, she would know it. "What is your plan?"

Gaheris shook his head. "No time," he said. "Go! And have someone get a second suit of silver armor ready for me."

Lynet nodded and descended to the courtyard. Behind her she heard Gaheris shouting something at Sir Breunis and his companions as the negotiations continued, but she paid no attention. Walking up to where Douglas's mother wept over his body, supported by a village maiden, Lynet said, "Elspeth?"

Douglas's mother looked up. She was no more than forty. "Yes, my lady."

"I am sorry for your loss. If I could restore Douglas to you, I would in a moment."

"I know, my lady."

"But I can't. And now I have to ask something else of you." Elspeth looked blank, and Lynet said, "Sir Gaheris has a plan. I don't know what it is, but I know he wants to make the soldiers outside think that your Douglas is Sir Gaheris."

"Eh?"

"They want Sir Gaheris dead. So, Sir Gaheris wants to pass off Douglas's body as his own to make them think they've won."

Elspeth still looked blank, and Lynet felt her heart breaking for the young mother stupefied by her grief. Then she received unexpected support. The young woman whose arm still encircled Elspeth's shoulders said, "And if this plan works, then we'll all live?"

"Sir Gaheris thinks so," Lynet said.

The girl leaned her head on Elspeth's shoulder. "Let her do what she has to, Elspeth. This way Douglas will still be saving us all, like he meant to." Elspeth said nothing but nodded weakly. The village girl looked up at Lynet. "What do you need us to do?" she asked.

Lynet smiled a thank you. "I'm sorry. I know you're Coll's daughter, but I don't remember your name."

"Rowena, my lady. I was to marry Douglas next month."

"Oh!"

"Shouldn't we be making haste?" Rowena asked.

Lynet shook herself, then looked into Rowena's steady young eyes and began giving directions. For the next few minutes they and those nearby were busy, fetching two identical suits of armor and putting one of them on Douglas's corpse. Elspeth had to leave during these preparations, but Rowena stayed beside Lynet through it all. At last the armor was on, save for the helm. Lynet sent everyone away, but Rowena stayed. "My lady," Rowena said. "Will it work? Douglas has black hair, and Sir Gaheris is red-haired. Even if they don't know his face—"

"Rowena," Lynet said. "I have to tell you something that may frighten you."

"What, my lady?"

"I am an enchantress."

"Yes, my lady."

"No, Rowena, I'm serious."

"Yes, my lady, I know. Everyone knows that." Rowena's eyes lit up suddenly. "Oh, do you know a spell for changing hair color?"

"Er ... yes. What do you mean everyone knows?"

"Well, maybe not the babies," Rowena admitted. "What, did you think it was a secret?"

"Well, yes."

"My lady, there isn't a family in the shire who doesn't have someone in it you've healed."

"But ... I never healed anyone in front of witnesses."

"Do you think we're idiots, then?"

"No, of course not, but—"

"Shouldn't you be saying that spell now?"

Lynet nodded dumbly. She could have saved herself a great deal of worry if she'd known that all her tenants knew who she was and didn't care. Kneeling beside Douglas, she placed a hand on his hair, feeling the cold skin underneath. Slowly and clearly, she spoke briefly in a language from a distant time, and beneath her fingers Douglas's dark hair began to glow and then lighten.

"A little more, I think," Rowena said. Her voice was empty of expression. Lynet glanced up into the girl's face. Her jaw was clenched, and the lines on her forehead were deep, but her eyes remained fixed on Douglas's face.

"Good God, Rowena, you've got steel in you!" Lynet couldn't help exclaiming.

"The only steel in me is in place of my heart," she said softly. "Go on. It's still too dark."

Lynet turned back to Douglas and repeated the process. When she was done, she nodded. "It won't fool anyone who knows Sir Gaheris, but it's better than I expected." Raising Douglas's head, she placed the helm over it and closed the visor.

"Is it done?" asked Gaheris's voice. Rising to her feet, Lynet turned to see Gaheris approaching. She nodded. Gaheris looked intently at her face and said, "I'm sorry, lass. It didn't even occur to me until you'd gone how hard this would be for you."

"What about you? Did you get what you wanted?"

"Ay, I'm fighting at the front gate in a few minutes. Help me with this armor."

"You're fighting Sir Breunis?" she asked, buckling one of his greaves.

"Of course not. A coward through and through. I'm fighting that chap in the middle of Breunis's party."

"The largest one, of course. And you think you can beat him?"

"I'd better not. I feel sure that Breunis will have his archers at the ready to shoot me if I look to be winning."

Lynet looked up sharply. "Gary! Then how—"

"Don't worry, lass. I won't win." Gaheris turned to the assembled farmers and townspeople. "Listen to me!" he called out. "I'm going out to fight a single combat, but don't worry. I'll be fine. As soon as I'm gone, I want all the women and children to follow Lady Lynet to the back of the castle. She'll let you out a secret door there, and you'll all go to the forest. Make your way to the caves on the coast, and the men and I will join you there when we can."

There was a moment of confusion while the people absorbed this command and gathered their families together. Some women protested, but the men repeated Gaheris's instructions. "Go on, Nellie," a man beside Lynet said to his wife. "You heard the lord. It'll be all right. Just follow Lady Lynet to the magical door in the ivy."

Lynet sighed and looked up to find Gaheris's eyes on her. "It seems that everyone knows I'm an enchantress," she said at last.

"I know, lass," Gaheris replied. "But keeping it secret seemed so important to you that I didn't have the heart to tell you." He raised his head again. "Now, men! When I go out, I want you to stand by the front gate and be ready to open it, and fast. Bring whatever weapons you can find. They may try to rush the castle when the gate's open. I don't think they will, but let's not take chances. Ready? Let's go."

Lynet rose to her feet and looked into Gaheris's eyes. She didn't completely understand his plan, but she knew that plans go awry as often as not. "Goodbye, my lord," she said. "I love you."

"Nay, lass," Gaheris said, smiling. "I'll see you soon." He touched her cheek with a gauntleted finger, then turned and walked with the men toward the front gate.

They had no trouble getting through the Ivy Gate, which Lynet left covered with ivy but unlocked, and all through the next hour of trudging through the deepest part of the forest they saw no one. At the craggy coast, they came to the caves that Gaheris had spoken of and hid in them. Outside, the gray sea raged, broke against the rocks, and sprayed foam, making the air damp and cold even in the back of the caverns. Rowena led a group of girls out to gather wood, and when they came back and piled it up at the mouth of the largest cave, Lynet started a roaring fire with a word. But not even the warmth and glowing light of the fire could dispel the cold darkness that gripped Lynet's heart.

And then, after two hours, there was a scuffle of dust at the cave entrance and Coll the carpenter walked in, followed by a steady stream of other men. For several minutes, there were tearful reunions on every side, but Lynet saw no Gaheris. Slowly she walked to the very mouth of the cave and stared into the growing darkness. No one.

Then Gaheris was before her. "Miss me, lass?" he said.

The dizzy world seemed to right itself, and for a second she could only stare. "He didn't kill you," she said at last.

"Nay, of course not."

"But I'll tell you this," added another voice from behind Gaheris. "It was dashed hard not to. I mean—good Gog, Gary!—that wasn't the best you could do, was it?"

It was Gawain.

"No, really, Lynet," Gaheris said. "You didn't recognize him?"

"I don't know what Gawain's armor looks like!" Lynet protested.

"It wasn't his armor," Gaheris said. "It was that blasted man-eating black horse of his."

"Guingalet hasn't bitten you in years," Gawain said calmly. "He's a right pussycat now in his old age."

"And besides," Lynet said, "why would I be looking for Gawain among the soldiers besieging his own castle?"

"It was all I could think of," Gawain explained.

Gawain had arrived the night before, found the White Horsemen encamped around Orkney Hall, and without hesitation had ridden right among them, claiming to be a messenger from King Mordred come to see what was taking them so long.

"Weren't you afraid you'd be recognized?" Gaheris asked.

"I counted on there not being too many of the knights of the Round Table in Mordred's armies," Gawain said. "But, yes, it was a risk. So you recognized me the next morning and thought of this single-combat idea just like that? How did you know you'd end up fighting me?"

"I trusted you to take care of that end of it. I figured you'd not want me fighting anyone except you."

"No joke!" muttered Gawain.

"The rest was easy," Gaheris said. "While Gawain and I pretended to fight, I told him what we were doing. He drove me back against the front gate and killed me with a mighty blow. By the way, that hurt, Gawain."

"I didn't think Breunis would believe it if I killed you with a gentle tap, brother."

"Still, I'm going to have a nasty bruise."

Gawain shrugged. "Behold my remorse."

"Anyway," Gaheris said, "when I fell at the gate, the men opened it, dragged me in and out of sight, and set Douglas in my place. Then I went out the back way. Thanks for leaving the door unlocked, by the way. I hadn't thought of that."

Gawain took up the story then. "I took off my helm so the men inside could see it was me, then called for their surrender. They raised the gate and produced the body, which I identified as Gaheris. It took a few minutes for me to persuade Breunis to let the men go free—his orders had actually been to kill everyone, but I told him that King Mordred wanted people alive now so they could pay taxes."

"Don't say 'King Mordred,'" Lynet said.

"Sorry. Then I rode away, found Gary in the woods, and here we are."

"Now what?" Lynet asked.

"Tomorrow I head back to Arthur. You two should come with me."

"Gary?" Lynet asked.

"I think so," Gaheris said. "At least at first. Leave someone here in charge of the castle and send everyone else to their homes. I don't think they'll be bothered anymore. This was all about killing me, and that much they think they've done."

"But why would Mordred want you dead?" Lynet asked.

But neither Gaheris nor Gawain could answer.

Lynet rose to her feet. "All right. We leave in the morning. I'll go speak to someone about the castle." She found Rowena at the mouth of the cave, sitting beside Elspeth. "Rowena?" Lynet said.

"Yes, my lady?"

"Tomorrow Sir Gaheris and I start for Camelot. This is only the beginning of a great war." Rowena nodded. "I need someone to leave in charge of Orkney Hall. Will you do that for me?"

"Me?" Rowena asked, startled. Lynet nodded. Rowena looked out at the black sea for a moment, then back up at Lynet. "I'll take Elspeth with me. We've decided I'll be her daughter now."

Lynet smiled.