In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy) (9 page)

Mollified, but still wary, Kerra stretched out her hand. As she did, a gleaming black raven alighted on the window sill. It croaked once and then hopped obediently onto her wrist, its claws lightly pricking her flesh. She wore no glove to separate herself from the bird. She stared hard into the raven’s dark eyes, seeking the slippery touch of its awareness. Pictures, colors, half-understood images flitted through her thoughts. Slowly, her mind began to make sense of what the bird had seen and add to it her own knowledge. “They tell me the pair keep to the old Roman road. That they are seeking speed rather than stealth. This is to our advantage. Were they to take to the woods they might come across Harrik and his men. But ‘ware, for they will stop at Pen Marhas.”

“Could Gawain turn the tide there?” muttered Euberacon. “For all his prowess, he is but one man.”

“But where Gawain is, Arthur will be.” Kerra deposited the bird on the back of the sofa. It glared at Euberacon with one round eye and fussily began setting its feathers in order.

“That much is the truth.” Euberacon’s eyes narrowed, seeing something beyond the tower walls. “Has Harrik enough men to take them? Is he that firmly your man he would fight against Gawain?”

“He would fight against God Most High if I asked him to now.” She smiled, remembering how that had come to pass. Most men turned clumsy in their desperation, but he had the controlled power of a warrior. There had been an unusual pleasure in making Harrik one of hers.

Her thoughts must have shown in her face, because the perpetual disdain of Euberacon’s expression deepened.

Kerra laughed and waved that disdain away. “In Harrik my ‘husband’ Wulfweard is secure and well-advised. Harrik is in many ways the better man,” she mused, and made sure Euberacon saw exactly what she was thinking of. “We should have begun with him.”

“We would have failed,” said Euberacon bluntly. “Our task needs weakness, not strength.”

Kerra shrugged. “It is well for you then, my lord, there are so many kinds of weakness.”

“Yes,” he murmured more to himself than to her. Kerra felt her own eyes narrow. Had he been scrying the future? What had he seen? One day she must find the way into his tower and his secrets. They would compliment her own most sweetly.

“Have you use for my men?” she prompted. “Or for me?” She gestured once more to her couch, moving her ankles just a little as if to make room for him.

Euberacon did not move. She had not truly believed he would. Still, one day he might. There were so many kinds of weakness.

“I need Gawain and the woman separated,” he said. “I need them afraid. It is fear that will make them useful. The fear in their hearts that will give them to us.”

Kerra sat up, leaning close. “What have you seen?”

Euberacon smiled. “I have seen Arthur’s fall, and I have seen mighty Constantinople. It burns, Kerra. If Gawain fails and Arthur falls, then all Byzantium is mine.”

Kerra smiled, pretending to share his glee. Underneath it, she felt only irritation. It seemed he saw little else for all his learned necromancy and dark mutterings. He could at least come up with a new lie.

Suddenly, she could no longer bear having him in front of her where she would have to smile and play the seductress.

“Then I had best begin my work, hadn’t I, my lord?” She stood, inviting him by word and gesture to leave her room.

But Euberacon was not quite done with her yet. “Go carefully. The girl is not without power, and Gawain is on the watch. It will not be so easy to take them from each other without rousing their suspicions.”

“You may rest assured, my lord, that I will keep myself and my purpose well hidden.”
It is, after all, something at which I am quite practiced
.

That answer seemed to satisfy him and Euberacon left. When he shut the door, the raven perched on the couch let out a single derisive call and flew to her shoulder, running its beak familiarly through her hair until she reached up to stroke its feathers.

In response to its call, first one then another of the great black birds glided in through the window, settling themselves on chests and chairs, on the bedstead and the couch and any other surface where they might find room. Soon they were as thick as autumn leaves, filling the air with their raucous conversation, and filling her mind with their mischief and impressions.

“Yes,” she murmured to her friends, and to the man who had just departed. “I have had much practice at keeping myself concealed.”

Euberacon knew little of her past and cared less, or so he had said. She had told him her grandmother had been a slave in a sprawling villa when the Romans still ruled the island. For the great family, Grandmother had been herbalist and bonesetter and had been well-rewarded for her work. She had also been fair on the way to teaching her own daughter her arts.

When the last of the Romans fled back to their own hot land before the fast-approaching Saxons, Grandmother had simply dressed herself and her daughter up in traveling clothes and set them on the road. They would walk until they found a village or other settlement. A healer’s talents were always welcome, she reasoned, and would be well-rewarded — perhaps with a cottage and some goats or pigs.

What Kerra had not told Euberacon was how badly Grandmother’s plan had failed. He believed Kerra had been raised in the bosom of a noble house and come honestly by her bearing and manners. But the truth was, the Saxons had raged across the country like a wildfire, taking what they wanted and burning the rest. It was only slowly that they began to think of staying in this rich new land. As Grandmother walked on, she found great need for her skills, but none who could afford to keep her and her swiftly blossoming daughter, so they continued to walk.

In time, the daughter had a daughter of her own. By then, mother had grown to love the roving life, and gave no thought to settling down. She walked contentedly from place to place, plying her arts, taking whatever payment in coin or kind she was offered, and moving on again.

All might have gone well, but as Kerra grew, it soon became clear that all was not right with her. Voices no one else could hear whispered in her ears. She suffered violent headaches, and would sometimes fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth, her body writhing uncontrollably. At such times, she saw visions and uttered prophecy in strange tongues.

The attacks became more frequent and no amount of prayer or physic seemed to help them. Mother found herself less welcome in the villages. Here and there a voice muttered ‘witch’, and pointed at Kerra. Once, the people drove them out with stones and clubs, the priest leading the way, his cross held high.

After that, mother started telling Kerra to stay behind, to hide in the woods until she could determine if it was safe for Kerra to come inside the walls of the town or the limits of the croft. Sometimes Kerra would be smuggled in after dark and hidden in a barn or pantry. Other times, she would be left in the woods with mother venturing out to bring her food when she searched for the plants and herbs that were her cures. These times became more frequent and Kerra began to fear the day that mother would decide to walk on and leave her mad, bedeviled daughter to fend for herself.

The dreams only made it worse.

At night when she closed her eyes, Kerra began to see a black-haired woman. At least, sometimes she was a woman. Sometimes she was a flock of ravens, or a great, black mare. The woman promised Kerra she could take away the fits, and make it so the voices only came when Kerra wished for them. All Kerra had to do was help her.

At first, Kerra tried to block out the dreams. She prayed herself to sleep and made herself a cross to clutch through the night. But gradually, she began to listen to the dream woman. No one else had ever said they could help. The midwives and cunning men mother consulted had done little more than shake their heads. The priests had laid their hands on her head and raised their eyes to Heaven, and nothing had changed. This woman swore she could help, and all she wanted in return was a healer. Her infant son was ill with a fever in his lungs, she said. The sickness had spread to her. She was weak. He was dying. If Kerra helped them, saved their lives as her mother surely would had she but known, then Kerra would be taught to control the power that was within her.

Kerra could not long resist such a promise. It was harvest time. They were staying with a cluster of fishers on the ocean shore who agreed mother’s ‘halfwit’ daughter could stay in the drying shed as long as mother played midwife for the two bearing women and healer for the men who worked with lines and nets.

At the dark of the moon, Kerra crept from her warm, stinking shelter and fled inland to where the woods began. There she found the woman who named herself Morgaine and the infant boy, her son, saved from drowning she said. His lungs were bad, and his fever was high, and his mother had little milk to give him. Kerra built them a shelter of branches such as she and her mother used when they were on the road. She brought them goat’s milk, and fish and mussels she searched out from the tide pools. She brewed them strong teas using her mother’s recipes and herbs she filched from her mother’s bags or ferreted out from the woods.

Slowly, the babe improved. His cough subsided and his limbs grew round and strong again. When it became clear that he would live, Morgaine began to keep her promise to Kerra.

Kerra, Morgaine said, was not cursed, but blessed. It was only because she was untutored that her natural powers threatened to run wild. She taught Kerra the rites that would summon the voices and the visions, and send them peaceably away. Her fits faded away to memory and all her dreams were of the normal kind. She learned how to call the ravens to her as friends, and how to work with bone and poison to achieve her ends when the healer’s art was of no use. She learned the names of the powers that inhabited land and sea, their natures and which were to be avoided and which might be plied or pressed into service.

In time, she also learned manners, dress and bearing. She learned the ways of men and women and how they might be enhanced with her other arts. To all these studies and many more she applied herself willingly, until the day came when it was she who walked away. Leaving her mother to her roving, Kerra set herself firmly and finally to Morgaine’s campaign against the king in Camelot and his helpmeet and fellow conspirator, Guinevere.

The voices of her companions roused Kerra from her bitter reveries. Their thoughts pushed against hers. They did not like this place. They wanted her to come with them, to fly, and to sport on the winds.

Kerra smiled at the great flock gathered around her.

“Yes, my friends,” she said. “Yes, we will fly.”

Kerra retrieved her sewing basket. From under the meaningless pieces of fine work, she drew out a great black cloak. The basket itself was far too small to conceal such an object, but it came to her hand nonetheless. She shook it and the sunlight glinted on the rich black feathers borrowed from one thousand living ravens. Kerra settled the cloak over her shoulders, closed the bone clasp, drew the hood up over her hair and steeled herself against the pain.

Kerra’s bones began to shrink. Her legs lengthened and her joints buckled, feet and toes split and splayed. Her body solidified and her neck thickened even as her face lengthened and bone split skin to form a sharp, black beak. Feathers sprouted from every pore and from the tip of each finger as her arms reshaped themselves to become her wings and all around her the ravens voiced their approval.

Then, one bird among many, she took to the air, beating her wings joyfully until she was able to catch the wind and soar with the rest of the flock over the tops of the trees and away out into the countryside.

As Euberacon watched, the ravens one — by one left their perches on the roof and in the trees beyond the fortress walls, joining Kerra in her eyrie.

He knew she had her own plans that she kept carefully hidden from him. She thought she was using him, just as she thought it was his carelessness that led Gawain to take Risa from him. She was wrong, but that did not mean she should not be treated with great caution. Even a barbarian could be dangerous. The pike and the axe could kill as thoroughly as the sword. It was as well to trust her no farther than absolutely necessary, and when he left these shores for Byzantium, it would be wise not to leave her alive.

For now, though, she was most useful. She would lay the traps that would drive Gawain and the girl apart. Her mischiefs would bedevil them and make peace of mind a stranger. It was likely she would fail, but the attempt would have the effect of making them cling more closely to each other, and that closeness would breed the weakness he needed for his own work.

Euberacon crossed his beautiful courtyard, returning to his tower and his carefully laid plans.

The day was clear as crystal and at least as cold. Risa was glad Sir Gawain kept the pace brisk, for although the wind stung her cheeks, Thetis’s motion helped keep her warm and distracted her somewhat from the lack of food.

And she needed every distraction she could get. They were still in the wooded country, with the great trees gathering close to the road, waving their branches in salute to the morning’s wind. This was not a well-traveled section of the road, and the ruts and holes had become puddles the size of young lakes. Twice they had to dismount and lead the horses through the trees to avoid burgeoning bogs. Sunlight and shadow shifted, spread and scattered like foam on the sea. The world filled with the rush and creak of the tree’s song, a constant accompaniment to the calls of birds and the hundred nameless noises of the newly-wakened forest dwellers, all of them seeking shelter somewhere away from the disturbance made by three horses and two human beings. It took all Risa’s strength to keep from starting at shadows ahead that might be a dark man with heavy-lidded eyes, or from turning constantly to see behind. Were the only hoofbeats she heard truly from the three horses of their party? Or were there others? Their tracks were plain in the mud and the soft earth along many long stretches where the stones the Romans had laid down were broken and gone. Anyone, certainly any of father’s men, would only have to look to know where they had passed. How much more would a sorcerer be able to do?

It did not help at all that the words from one dark ballad had begun to beat their time through her mind again and again and would not be shifted.

“Light down, light down, Lady Isobel,” said he
,

“For we are come to the place where you are to die.”

That all ended well enough for the lady in that tale gave her no comfort. Her mind could not reach that far.

“For we are come to the place where you are to die.”

“I see my lady favors a bow.”

Risa nearly jumped out of her skin. Thetis whickered and broke stride. Risa had to pat the horse’s neck and prod her to continue before she could look up at Gawain, whose face was all casual inquiry.

“I do, yes,” she answered, trying to warm to the idea of polite conversation. What was that in the trees? Was it only a bird?

“Do you hunt?” he went on.

“When I can.” How many sets of hooves drummed on the road? Mud muffled and confused sound, turning steady drumming into wet and uneven plodding. The way ahead rose steeply. They were leaving the lowlands for the hills, with their dells and valleys and deep folds in the land where anyone might conceal themselves. She could see next to nothing. She could not hear properly.

“Lady Risa.”

Again, Risa jumped. Again Thetis complained of it and had to be soothed. When she was able to look up at Gawain, his fine face was all sympathy.

“Take heart, Lady Risa,” he said. “We are alone on this road.”

Risa dropped her gaze. “I know it, Sir,” she said. “It’s just that … if I … if …”

At her stammering, Gawain gave a small smile and Risa felt a blush blossom across her entire face. “Lady Risa,” he said again, as gently as he had before. “Last night I said you were under my protection. I will not permit any harm to come to you. If an oath is necessary to make you believe this, then I swear it.”

“Sir, please believe that I do not doubt your word. But if my father …”

“Your father is the king’s man and needs must obey the king’s word. Until the king himself appears, that word comes from me, and I say you are going to Camelot.”

Risa looked away, trying not to scan the budding underbrush for movement. “Would ‘twer that simple.”

“It is that simple, Lady Risa. It is law.”

He spoke the words so plainly. Did he not understand? Churlishness rose in Risa and would not be dismissed. Before she could guard her tongue she said, “You have slain dragons, my lord. The rest of us know rather less of such legendary battles.”

Sir Gawain stared at her blankly for a moment. “God in Heaven,” he said at last. “Is that what they say of me now?”

“Every year at the feast of Christ’s Mass.”
I’ve told it myself
, she added in her mind, but decided not say so aloud.

A spasm crossed the knight’s face, as if he was not certain whether he wished to laugh or curse.

Laughter won out. “Well then, my lady, if you can believe I have slain dragons, it should be a matter of no moment to believe I can stand up to your father!”

Much to her surprise, an answering laugh bubbled out of Risa. It felt surprisingly fine, like a spring morning, and Gawain’s smile had returned in truth, turning his face again to that picture of a man’s beauty she had seen so briefly before, even with the dark stubble dusting his chin.

After a moment, his face grew thoughtful again, studying hers. Risa fixed her gaze on the rising narrow way ahead, on the shifting patterns of light and shadow from the branches waving in the spring wind. Thetis did not like uneven ground and was growing nervy so that Risa had to concentrate on keeping her seat and on guiding her mare, which was just as well. She needed to think of something else but Sir Gawain’s eyes studying her so closely.

“It is good to see you smile, Lady Risa.”

It is good to believe I will smile again
, thought Risa, but that was hardly a thing she could say to this man. She concentrated instead on keeping the reins loose in her fingers. It would not do to have Thetis betraying her moods.

Perhaps in my next flight into the wilderness I should go on foot
.

Gawain was not content to let her keep her peace, however. “May I ask your thought?”

“Oh, it is nothing of importance, Sir.”

At this, Gawain reined his palfrey back, bringing himself as close beside Thetis as the broken road permitted so that he could look her directly in the eyes. “Lady, you asked this morning that I speak plainly to you. Grant me the courtesy of doing the same for me. We are not, after all, in your father’s hall, nor my uncle’s. Out here, I am only a knight errant and you are the daughter of a thane. Shall we then be Gawain and Risa, you and I?”

Risa felt her tongue freeze to the roof of her mouth. It was too presumptuous. She was not sure she could do such a thing. Yet, at the same time, she longed to.

Mother Mary, I’m becoming a stuttering fool
. “I will try.”

“I can ask for nothing better.” He was smiling again, that smile that lit and filled the world and suffocated sense and senses. Part of Risa knew she had better take hold of those same senses, or she was in severe danger of making far worse than a fool out of herself, be this man ever so refined and politic in his manner. Part of her did not care and only wanted to see him smile again. During the few heartbeats she was basking in the light of that smile, she no longer had to be afraid of what followed her, and she felt no nightmares resting on her shoulders. She greatly yearned for that relief.

“So, Risa,” he stressed her name and the smile flickered about his lips as he did so. “If you will not tell me your thoughts, what shall we talk about instead?”

Curiosity itched at Risa’s mind, and she decided to dare his disapproval. “Can mmm …” deeply ingrained habit made her tongue stumble. “… you tell me what brought you to the borders of my father’s land?”

Gawain looked at her carefully, weighing and judging some quality Risa could not guess at, and he made his decision. “The Saxons plan to start the wars again,” he said. “I am carrying that warning to the High King.”

His words at once dropped fear into Risa’s heart, making it beat slow and heavy and filling her with the sharp and sudden longing for the stone walls of her father’s hall. All her life, she had heard tales of the Saxon invaders, of the raids and rape, sacking and burning. She had also heard, and told, how High King Arthur had broken the invading forces, sending them scurrying back to Gaul, or leaving them clinging to the eastern coasts muttering to themselves in their dark fortresses behind wicker fences.

That they would come again … that they would be
here
… In the light of day it was comparatively easy to shake off the immediacy of magic and sorcerers, but the spear, the knife and the torch — those were far more solid things. In an instant, the trees were once more the home of terrors, and Risa had to swallow hard against her fears.

“How close are they?” the words came before she had time to worry about discretion.

“Two days ride.” Gawain looked to the distance. They had topped the rise and ahead the wood seemed to be thinning, but Risa was no longer sure of her bearings, though Gawain seemed to be.
How much time has been lost already?
she could practically hear him thinking.

Risa bit her lip. “Is there any way to get word to my father? He should know.”

Gawain looked genuinely shocked. “After what he has done to you, you would care?”

“Does my mother deserve to suffer for what my father has done?” snapped Risa. “The men and women of our holding?”

Gawain looked quickly away. “Forgive me, that was an unworthy thing that I said.” The apology was smooth and courtly, as perfect as all his other manners, but there was something more underneath it, a trace of some old wound or faded nightmare of a memory. Whatever it was, Gawain shook it quickly off. “It would not do to let the invaders know yet that we have word of their plans. As soon as I have taken counsel with the king, I am certain he will send out messengers to his liegemen to stand in readiness.”

But will that be soon enough?
It was all Risa could do not to look back down the twilit road again.

“I do not seem to be succeeding in reassuring you, Lady Risa.” Gawain said wryly.

It was indeed lighter ahead. She should concentrate on that, see it as a sign, behave properly and forget her curiosity. “If I want reassurance, perhaps I should simply stop asking questions.”

“I think that such silence would ill become you.” Was he simply being polite once more, or did he truly mean that? His face had softened, particularly around his eyes. “It might make the road more smooth.”

That brought him out of reverie into philosophy. “And where is the glory the in smooth road?”

I wonder, Sir, if you’ve forgotten who you are speaking with
. “I have been told glory is not for ladies.”

“I know of at least one lady who would argue that point.” Gawain’s eyes took on a knowing glint.

Risa drew her shoulders back and set her face in a fussy imitation of Aeldra. “What lady might this be to say such an unladylike thing?”

“The High Queen, Guinevere,” replied Gawain matter-of-factly.

Risa found she was not ready for that answer. She concentrated on keeping seat and hands steady while Thetis picked her careful way down the slope between the stones, gouges and damp drifts of leaves. The day had warmed and clouds of midges swarmed around Thetis’s ears. Perspiration prickled Risa’s scalp under her veil and the lack of food was beginning to have and effect on her.. She wondered if Gawain had any bread in his bags that they might stop and share. The last swallow of watered wine seemed a long time ago.

“What is she like, Queen Guinevere?” she asked instead, not wanting to complain or slow their progress. “I have never been to court.”

Gawain smiled then, and for a single heartbeat, Risa thought he looked more like a man thinking of his lady-love than one thinking of his aunt. But as he spoke, she told herself firmly that she was most mistaken.

“A more loyal and virtuous lady is not to be found. She is wise in her counsel both public and private, and generous to those in need. Her appearance is noble in all aspects, and her grey eyes are justly famous.”

The words rang unbidden through Risa’s memory. She wondered if Gawain knew that particular poem. He certainly seemed ready to confirm its praises. She should have felt reassured by this. She was certainly in need, and she could think of nothing she had done to deserve what she had come to, but she could not bring herself to take heart.

“She is learned, as well,” Gawain was saying, warming to his theme. “Schooled in Greek and Latin, and familiar with poets and writings in both languages. She is perfectly matched with her husband in this respect. Arthur seeks to rule with learning and follow the Roman traditions of laws and letters. It is a good way. It is a better way …” but his words trailed off and all at once, the road ahead seemed to take all his concentration. They had come to level ground again, and the trees here were younger and thinner. Patches of meadow grass sprang up between the gnarled trunks and the bird calls grew softer and at last, they broke the treeline, emerging, blinking into the sunlight of a marshy meadow land dotted with white and yellow flowers and smelling of damp grass and warmth.

Risa opened her mouth to ask Gawain to continue, but then he reined his palfrey back, causing Gringolet to check his step. Risa pulled Thetis up as well, and she followed Gawain’s gaze. Ahead, where the trees began again, there rose a thick column of dark smoke, dispersing to a black mist on the faint breeze.

“What is it?” she asked, seeing how Gawain’s face had grown suddenly grave.

“That smoke is too heavy for a camp or a charcoal burner.” He said. The palfrey danced impatiently under him, and Gawain patted it automatically, but he did not look away from the smoke. “There is no village or town in that direction. I do not like it.”

Without another word, Gawain urged the palfrey forward, leaving the road for the muddy meadow and taking his direction from the smoke plume. Gringolet lifted his hooves high and fastidiously to follow. Risa and Thetis had little choice but to do the same.

The trees soon closed in around them once more, making it impossible to ride, and they both dismounted to lead their horses, pushing aside whiplike branches and directing their paths around decaying logs and pools of standing water. Risa could not see the smoke now, but she could smell it, strong and acrid, and wrong somehow. It did not smell like a friendly hearthfire, nor did it carry the tang of the forge or the kiln. The birds overhead had all gone silent, and the only noise was the squash and crackle of their passage.