In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy) (4 page)

He sat and listened for a moment. No sound of pursuit cut through the small rustles of wind and the forest life. Harrik forced himself to get to his feet and take his bearings. As soon as his knees had stopped shaking enough that he could be sure of his footing, he made his way back to his horse.

The animal was still there, chewing thoughtfully at the undergrowth. Harrik led it back to the road and slung himself into the saddle. To his shame, he found he had to work to keep himself from taking the horse to a gallop to escape as quickly as possible from what he had seen.

You are a fool. A fool!
He admonished himself.
You have seen far worse things in battle
.

But the truth was, he had not. He had heard stories of such horrors, of course, and told a few himself, with great relish. Witches and wizards had their ways and everyone knew it. Did not Arthur have Merlin to advise him and keep watch over his captains and capital? But to see so unnatural a thing …

I grow old. I grow dull. Perhaps this role of spy and traitor is all I am fit for anymore.

The forest thickened around him. The sound of his horse’s hooves became muffled by the unbroken carpet of leaves. The wind freshened and Harrik tried to catch a glimpse of sky between the leafy branches overhead. There might be rain before long, but without a clear view of sky there was no telling. The prospect of concluding his business in a downpour, further darkened his mood, but he rode on.

Up ahead, the road forked, one branch bearing west, the other continuing north. At their crux, a man tended a small fire. A great, pale horse was tethered nearby. Green trappings hung from its reins. A bay palfrey stood beside it, nuzzling a patch of fern. Its reins were also hung with green. The studded shield propped against a tree was green as well.

The man himself was no longer a youth, but neither was he old. He was dark in hair and eye. His beard had been shaved clean off. His shoulders and arms were powerful. Here was a man who had not led an idle life. He could not be taken for anything but a Briton lord. He looked up at Harrik’s approach and raised a friendly hand.

“God be with you this day, good sir.”

“God be with you,” Harrik answered. “I’d be glad of a rest. May I share your fire?”

“You may,” said the man. “If you can tell me my name.”

Harrik gave a show of consideration. “I think you are my Lord Gawain, captain of the Table Round and nephew to Arthur, the High King.”

Gawain smiled and got to his feet. “My Lord Harrik,” he bowed deeply. “You are most welcome.”

“And I am most honored.” Harrik dismounted and tethered his small hairy horse next to Gawain’s animals. “I was stunned to receive word Arthur would send his nephew to me.”

“He means it as token of his good will.” Gawain opened one of his saddle bags which lay on the ground beside his shield. He pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. “As you will find written here.” The document was sealed in red wax impressed with the dragon rampant that was Arthur’s sign.

“You may assure His Majesty that I will read this with great attention.” He tucked the document into his shirt.

“But now you have other news for me?” Gawain folded his legs and settled by the fire again.

“I do.” Harrik sat beside him. He watched the fire for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words he wanted would not come.

“I have a son at Camelot,” he said awkwardly. “My only boy. They have taken him well in hand there. I visited him not three months ago. He has been taught to read and write Latin. He can use a sword and ride better than I could at his age. He grows into a strong and reasoned man.” He paused. A stick in the fire snapped in two. “Not a brute. Not a barbarian. Not like the men I knew when I was a boy, a world away from here.”

Gawain nodded. “I think you will find word of your boy in His Majesty’s letter. I believe my brother Geraint intends to take him as squire.”

Harrik touched his shirt. “I like this peace of Arthur’s. I like this land. I do not …” He clenched his fist. “I will not see it die to feed Wolfget’s blood lust.”

“You too are a strong and reasoned man,” said Gawain softly. “I ask you, of your courtesy, tell me what you have seen.”

Harrik spoke slowly, sketching the events of the council. Gawain listened attentively. When Harrik named each of the men he saw there, Gawain asked pointed questions about where there lands were, how many men they commanded, and who their allies were. Harrik could see the knight sketching a map of the treachery in his mind.

Then, Harrik told him of the woman and the raven.

Gawain’s eyebrows lifted. “That, friend, is an unwholesome thing.”

Harrik gave one short bark of a laugh. “Those are milder words than I would use, my lord.”

Gawain smiled. “You have not seen the inside of Merlin’s work room. No,” he held up his hand. “Pray do not ask me. I was a youth when I had my glimpse, and more of a fool than I knew.”

Harrik dismissed the suggestion with a wave. “I have no intention of questioning you. As it is, I know more of magic than I care to.”

“That shows your wisdom as clearly as anything you have yet done,” said Gawain soberly. “My Lord Harrik, it was my intention to linger in this land for a day or two to see what else I could learn, but what you have told me, both about Wulfweard and his nameless lady, shows me I must return to the High King without delay.”

Harrik stood. “Let me take my leave of you then.”

They clasped hands and each commended the other to God. Harrik rode away feeling moderately better. The High King’s letter crackled in his bosom. His old loyalties sold for new safety and peace, and his son’s life.

All at once, his horse stumbled. A curse slipped out of Harrik. The animal recovered its gait, but not completely. It limped now, favoring its left foreleg.

“God’s legs,” muttered Harrik, as he halted the beast and climbed to the ground. He bent down and with a practiced hand, coaxed the horse to lift its hoof and show him the bottom.

There, a round stone shoved deep into the soft frog of the hoof. Harrik retrieved the hoof pick from his pack and swearing in each of the three languages he knew, finally managed to pry it loose. There was no question of being able to ride any further, though. The animal was lamed. He would have to walk the rest of the way.

He let the horse drop its hoof and looked at the stone. It was a round-bottomed, sharp-edged chunk of flint that had done the damage.

How does such a thing come to be in a forest? This belongs on some low riverbank
. He drew his arm back to hurl the thing into the bushes.

But as he looked where he aimed, he saw a huge black raven sitting on the branch of a maple tree. The bird gave a rough, mocking croak and flew into the air.

Harrik’s fist closed around the stone. His heart grew chill and inside him a small quiet voice told him the horse’s lameness did not matter now. Harrik, Hullward’s son, would not reach home after all.

The evening meal was a mostly silent affair. Risa, still disturbed by the events of the day, had no appetite. She could only force down a piece of bread sopped in gravy from the mutton, and for once her mother did not chide her for it. Father attended to his drinking and little else. At last, Risa excused herself and fled the hall. Aeldra rose primly to follow her, but Risa waved her maid back to her seat. She did not want that nosing, talkative presence now. She wanted to return to her chamber, to sit alone and try to regain some composure. But as she mounted the narrow, spiraling stairs she paused, one hand resting on the cool stone of the wall, and she remembered what her mother had told her.

She did not want to spy on her parents to find out what it should have been her right to know. But mother had spoken truthfully. If, after turning down five separate suitors, father had not told her what his reasoning was, he had left her with no choice but to gain that understanding by artifice.

At the top of the stairs, Risa turned right instead of left and entered her mother’s sitting room.

The room was empty. All were still at board. The great embroidery frame with its partly completed scene of a lion and a unicorn kneeling before the Virgin waited for its mistress’s touch. Other tapestries, some completed by her mother’s hand, some by ladies gone before, hung about the room. Scenes of hunts, pastoral weddings and orchards blocked out the worst of the drafts and dressed the bare stone with summer colors. After a heartbeat’s indecision, Risa lifted the corner of the orchard tapestry and ducked behind it, drawing her hems in close to her body so they would not peep out and give her away.

She felt completely ridiculous; a naughty child at some mischievous game.

Think of Vernus
, she counseled herself as she attempted to find the patience to wait. The tapestry smelled of old dust, and the crowning of this whole nonsensical affair would surely be if she gave herself away with a sneeze.

Think of finally knowing why you are being forbidden to marry. Think of becoming mistress in your own house
. Vernus was kind, and had beautiful eyes. He would be good to her, as mother swore father had once been. But Vernus would not change as father had. Surely he would not.

Risa bit her lip and tried to compose her agitated spirits.

Fortunately, she did not have long to wait. Light footsteps soon sounded against the floor, signaling the arrival of Jocosa with her faithful maid, Una.

“Una, please ask his lordship if he will attend me here. Then you may retire.”

Cloth rustled, indicating, Risa was certain, Una’s small curtsey. “Yes, my lady. Are you sure though …?”

“I will send for you if I have need.” Jocosa’s voice was tired.

“As you wish, my lady.” Risa thought Una sounded a little hurt. It was a day for bruised feelings.

Risa did not directly hear Una’s departure. She inferred it from the sound of her mother’s sigh, from the brush of cloth as she crossed the chamber, the gentle scrape of her fingers against the uncompleted tapestry, the soft pop of a needle through cloth and the drag of thread behind it as she completed a single stitch. Risa wondered if she should reveal herself, but decided against it. There was no telling when father would walk in, and should the unthinkable happen and the scene turn truly ugly, she wanted to be able to say mother had no idea she had concealed herself in the room. That much, at least, would be true.

Boots slapped against stone. Hinges creaked. Risa held her breath.

“You sent for me, Jocosa?” Father’s voice was heavy with more than just an overindulgence of ale.

“I did, my husband.” Mother’s voice was crisp, efficient, as when she was giving orders to the servants. “I am told that young Vernus was sent away with his hat in his hands.”

Wood creaked sharply as father dropped himself into a chair. “It is not time for our Risa to marry.”

“Tell me, pray, when will it be time?” Each of mother’s words took on a sharp edge. “She is fully nineteen and a grown woman. She is ready to be mistress of her own house and mother of her own children.”

“Vernus is not for her.” His reply was dull. Risa wondered if he even looked at mother.

“Why not?” Risa imagined mother throwing up her hands in wonderment. “His rank and heritage are good, his father’s standing with the High King …”

“I say Vernus is not for her! Be content!” roared father, his fist thumping hard against the chair’s arm.

“How am I to be content?” demanded mother. “When I watch my daughter sink into melancholy and my husband sink into a pitcher of ale?” Cloth rustled and Risa knew mother strode across the room. “What has happened to you, Rygehil? Where is the man I loved more than life itself?”

Silence stretched out, long and heavy before her father spoke again in his thick voice. “I did not think it would be thus. I thought there would be other children.”

“God has left us Risa,” said mother, puzzled.

“No.” To her shock, Risa heard tears in her father’s voice. “He has not left her to us.”

Again, a rustle of cloth. Did her mother kneel? Retreat? Risa longed to see, but forced herself to hold still.

“I do not understand,” said mother.

“I … she … oh, Jocosa …” emotion made father’s voice tremble. “I made a promise, Jocosa. I did it for you, I swear, I thought there would be other children. I did not know. I would undo it if I could, I swear. I have tried …”

“Husband.” Mother spoke the word firmly, but Risa heard the fear in her voice. It echoed the fear causing Risa’s breath to flutter in her throat. “Contain yourself.”

Father, what have you done?

Neither drink nor grief permitted father to gain coherence. “We were returning from Arthur’s coronation. I didn’t know you were with child or I never would have taken you on the road. You were sick to death, Jocosa. I was so afraid I would lose you. You were everything to me. I was weak, and afraid. I …”

“Rygehil, what are you saying?” Risa thought mother must have shaken him then. “I cannot understand you.”

Risa listened, her heart growing cold and tight with fear, as her father told of taking shelter in the old Roman garrison, of finding the sorcerer there, and of making his bargain. Risa’s life in exchange for Jocosa’s.

“No,” whispered mother, her voice trembling as badly as Risa’s hands at these impossible, terrible words. “Say this is not true. Say it is the drink, some madness. Anything but that you sold our daughter away to a black sorcerer.”

“I did it for you, Jocosa. You were going to die!”

“Better I had died!” shouted mother in return. “Better Risa had never been born than you should do so impious a deed!”

“You will not so speak to me!” bellowed father. “Ungrateful woman!”

“No!” screamed Risa, unable to contain herself a moment longer. She shoved the tapestry aside to see what she had suddenly feared; father towered over mother, his strong hand raised to strike her pale face.

“Risa,” he breathed. He truly was very drunk, the effects of the ale causing his emotions to ebb and flow without warning. In a heartbeat, he had gone from rage to guilty pleading. “Daughter, you should not be here. This is not for your ears.”

“Then for whose is it?” Risa was too afraid, too infuriated to be placated. She interposed herself between her parents and squarely faced her father, turning her face up so he could strike it if he so chose. “Can you at least tell me what I have done that I should be sold off in this manner? Have I ever been unfilial or impious? What crime could I have possibly committed that you would thus condemn me out of hand?”

“This is no fault of yours, Risa.” His breath smelled of the excess of ale he had drunk but he was struggling to rise above it. It was a terrible sight, as if she were watching him drown. “I acted as I thought best. Look at your mother. It was her life I sought to save.”

Risa did look at her mother, the gaunt, lined woman who had spent years trying to understand why her husband held himself at such a distance from her.

Now she had her answer, and her gentle brown eyes were full of the horror of it.

“We must seek this man out,” said mother, twisting her hands together as if attempting to rip a solution out of thin air. “We must offer him some other bargain. Any other …”

Father shook his head. “I cannot find him. I have searched the countryside for him, thinking to trade my life to break the bargain.”

“Then go to the High King,” urged Risa. “Tell him what has happened. Surely, he will not hold you to so evil a contract.”

But father just turned away. “This is not a matter for the laws of men, not even for kings. The sorceries here are too deep for that.”

Risa thought of her vision in the forest and shuddered.

“Return to your room, daughter,” said father without looking at her. “The bargain is made and may not be undone. Ask no more after marriage and commend yourself to God. Only He can help you now.”

Stunned and sickened to her core, Risa found words died in her throat. She looked helplessly to her mother.

“We cannot leave it at this,” mother said.

“We will, because we must.” With those words father departed from the room, the tread of his boots echoing off the stone walls.

“No!” cried mother. “No, Husband …” Gathering her skirts, Jocosa ran from the room, following her husband, to cry, plead or threaten.

For a long moment, Risa found herself unable to move, and when she did, it was as if her body had undertaken the decision of its own accord. She walked down the cold, stone hall, past the stairs and into her own chamber. There, Aeldra stood among so many familiar things; her spindles and threads, her sewing and embroidery, her paints, the small inlaid table that held her jewelry box, the carved bed she had slept in since she was a child. It all seemed hollow, drained of substance, as her life had suddenly become.

“Mistress?” said Aeldra, tentatively. “Are you well? Shall I fetch you wine? Or a cloth for your head?”

“No.” Risa managed to say. “I want nothing.”

“At least sit then.” She felt Aeldra tugging at her arm and permitted herself to be guided to a chair and made to sit.

Her mind was too full to perform these simple actions without assistance. The same thoughts rang over and over, like church bells on the Sabbath. She was promised, to a sorcerer, who had asked for her before she had even been born, and her father, her father whom she had loved and trusted all her life, even when she did not understand him, had given her over, and had done it for love.

She tried to understand a love that would make such a bargain, that would demand so much. It was passion such as the bards sang of. It knew no limits. It would sacrifice all for the beloved.

And in the ballads, it sounded very fine and noble, but what of the one who must be the sacrifice? What of the child she had been and the maiden she was now? Was it her duty to go meekly with this stranger who had demanded so evil a price from a desperate man and a dying woman?

That thought broke the paralysis that held her.

“No,” she said, looking up at Aeldra. “It is wrong and it is wicked.”

“What do you mean, my lady?” asked Aeldra, confused.

Risa’s mind felt as clear as it had been cloudy before. She would not be handed over like a bribe to a corrupt seneschal. She would not stay and watch her father do this, nor would she watch her mother break her heart over what her husband had done.

“Aeldra.” Risa gripped her maid’s hand. “Aeldra, are you my friend?”

Aeldra stiffened, shocked at such a question. As she looked into Risa’s eyes, however, a measure of understanding came to her. “I hope my lady knows how well I regard her.”

“Then as a friend, much more than as my maid, I am asking for your help. You must bring old Whitcomb here to my room. Neither of you must be seen, by anyone, but most of all not by my father, do you understand?”

She did not. The expression on her lean face said that plainly enough. She folded her hands primly before her. “I am sure my lady knows what is best …”

“No, she doesn’t.” Risa shook her head. “Your lady is terrified, for her life and her soul, and she is trying to save both. Will you help her?”

Again Aeldra searched Risa’s eyes, looking deeply. “Very good, my lady.” She curtsied. “I’ll see to the matter.”

Aeldra shut the door behind her. In the silence left in her wake, Risa fancied she could hear her own heart beating like the hooves of a galloping horse, spurred on by the temerity of what she meant to do.

Whitcomb was her dearest friend among her father’s servitors. Where her father would not, or could not love her, Whitcomb had. He was the one who had taught her to shoot and to ride. He had helped her train her hounds and taught her to hunt. He told her all manner of stories he’d learned from the freemen and serfs, most of which Risa was quite certain her mother would have been appalled that she knew. But despite years of such daring secrets, Whitcomb was always the first to insist she learn to be a proper, God-fearing lady and be a source of pride to her parents.

But at the same time he was staunchly loyal to his lord. Risa bit her lip. There lay the danger, but she needed him. He could go without question where she could not, no matter how dark the night or how thoroughly she disguised herself.

Rather than simply pace about, Risa sought action. She pulled a square of fine linen out of her sewing basket. She had meant to broider it into a veil. Now she upended her jewelry box into it. She did not have much, but she had some gold, a string of amber beads, a brooch of pearl and rubies, and several rings, one set with a square emerald the size of her thumbnail her mother said had come all the way from Rome. The whole of her wealth. She tied the cloth tightly and stowed it in the leather satchel she took with her when she went out shooting.

She’d have to leave her hounds behind. Risa’s heart twinged at the thought. Odd — it was a small thing compared to leaving her parents. She rubbed her forehead. She must not distract herself with such thoughts. She must keep her wits about her, or she was lost.

A soft knock sounded on the door.