Lancelot (23 page)

“Did it not please you?” he added.

“Oh, it did, very much. It’s lovely. Only . . . I would like to see the crop in.”

“Then we shall. Joyous Gard isn’t going anywhere.”

“Do you mean it?”

One broad shoulder moved in a shrug, making the muscles move like liquid beneath his sun-browned skin. “I’m in no particular hurry to take up residence. After all, it’s where I’ll spend eternity.”

“What do you mean?”

“My tomb is already built, complete with a plaque that bears my name and lineage.”

She drew back a little, a chill touching her neck. “You’ve constructed your tomb?” He hadn’t had anything else done to the keep or lands; indeed, she’d been a little shocked at how run-down the castle was. She covered her discomfort with a laugh. “How frightfully practical.”

“Practical? Me?” One dark brow lifted. “No, it was there already.”

“But if you did not—then who made it? Why?”

He smiled, drawing her down so her head rested against his shoulder. She traced a finger across the curling dark hair upon his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart.

“I’ve told you before that when I came to Camelot,” he said, “I did not know my own name or who my parents were. The Lady presented me to King Arthur and asked him to make me one of his knights. He agreed—though he didn’t look very happy about the whole business. I was quick to take offense in those days, so I said he needn’t bother until I could present myself to him properly.”

Elaine nodded, lulled by the music of his voice. This was nothing she hadn’t heard before, but it was the first time since he had been ill that he had spoken of the past at all.

“Instead, I asked for an adventure,” he went on, “and soon enough he found me one—a good thing, too, as I wasn’t getting on very well with the other squires. Well,
that adventure led to another, and so at length I found myself riding to Norhaut to aid a lady in distress.”

Elaine knew
this
tale; she doubted there was a person in all of Britain who did not. It was Lancelot’s first adventure, the deed that won him both spurs and fame . . . and by the time it made its way to Corbenic, it had been so twisted and embroidered as to be completely unbelievable. Elaine had a hundred questions, but the first one springing to her lips was the foremost in her mind. “Was she a beautiful lady?”

“Not as beautiful as you,” he said, his lips brushing her temple. “But passing fair. Well, once the battle was over—”

“Wait!” Elaine interrupted, laughing. “You can’t just say, ‘once the battle was over’!”

“Another time—”

“But that is what you always say! You never talk about your adventures, and I’ve heard such fanciful things—you would laugh if you knew what they said of this one. I want to know what it was really like.”

He heaved a martyred sigh that she thought was only part in jest. Her small pang of guilt was quickly stifled by her curiosity, and she promised herself she would not laugh, no matter how far the truth varied from the tale. “Very well,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything! To begin, how many knights fought with you?”

He gazed up at her, his expression as resigned as a man who had just offered himself to be tied upon the rack. “None.”

“You had the sole command? But you were just a lad!”

“Yes, but I had been preparing all my life.”

“Still, an untried squire?” Elaine shook her head. “Poor lady, she must have been quite desperate.”

“She was that,” Lancelot agreed.

“How many foot soldiers did she have?”

“There were none.” She gave him a sharp look, but he merely shrugged. “Men-at-arms?” He shook his head. “Squires? Not even a one-legged soldier or an incredibly brave page?”

“Norhaut had been occupied for years,” he explained. “The defenders had all been killed or run off long ago. I fought alone that day.”

“Oh.” Elaine regarded him in silence, half expecting him to burst out laughing. But he merely went on watching her with patient resignation, as though he knew how ridiculous the whole thing sounded, and was sorry, but could not do anything about it.

If she could have dropped the subject there and then, she would have done it. But she had gone too far to retreat; no matter how little she might like the answers to her questions, she had been the one who insisted on asking them. “Next you’ll tell me there really were two giants,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “And six score knights defending the gates.”

Then, at last, he smiled. “Of course not,” he said, and she laughed, a bit surprised at the strength of her relief.

“There was only one giant,” he went on. “Poor fellow, he wasn’t very quick—and three score knights, not six, none of them particularly brave or skilled.”

Elaine stopped laughing. “You—wait a moment, I want to be sure I understand you. You defeated a giant and three score knights? Without any help at all?”

“Oh, no, I did have help. Just before I reached Norhaut, I met a damsel—”

“Another one?” Elaine smiled to show she was not jealous in the least, though she feared her smile wasn’t terribly convincing.

“This one came from the Lady of the Lake. She gave me three shields; each was meant to increase my strength by ten.”

Elaine was starting to feel ill. She’d forgotten the shields, which had figured largely in the tale. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” she said with a brittle laugh. “Let’s see . . . thirty times your strength against sixty knights, is that it? So really, it was two to one, almost an even match. That’s leaving the giant aside, of course, but we’re not counting him.”

“I used two of the shields,” he said, his face as stony as if she’d just given the rack another twist. “The third I cast aside.”

Now she had joined him on the rack. His story was absurd, impossible. Elaine might not understand much about knights or battles or giants, either swift or slow, but what she knew, she
knew
. And included among those few, indisputable facts was that a shield was only as good as the materials that went into its making and the strength of the man who wielded it. To believe otherwise was folly . . . or . . .

“Why did you cast it aside?” she asked quickly, before she could follow that line of thought to its logical conclusion.

“I did not need it. The giant was no trouble; as I said, he was dreadfully slow. And many of the knights turned tail and fled. I doubt I fought more than half of them.”

Ah, well, that explained it. How foolish she had been to doubt! Single-handed, he had defeated only
thirty
knights, not sixty. No wonder he had tossed the last shield away!

Had it been anyone else, she would have laughed, certain he was either a braggart or a liar. But she refused to believe that Lancelot would lie to her, and he had never once attempted to impress her with his deeds. Even now, he had done his best to avoid the subject, and she was quite sure he wasn’t jesting. Which meant that he was telling her the truth.

And still it was impossible.

“Lancelot,” she said carefully, “are you quite certain that is how it was? Not that I doubt you,” she added quickly, “I’m sure you fought bravely that day. ’Tis only . . .”

“Only what?” He sat up and brushed straw from his damp skin.

“Well . . .” she drew a swift breath and plunged ahead. “No boy of eighteen years, however doughty he might be, could possibly defeat thirty knights. Even if they were hopeless, utterly unskilled, and cowardly into the bargain, the sheer numbers would have been enough to overcome a single challenger.”

“Yes, but I had the shields.”

“The shield does not exist that can increase its owner’s strength tenfold! It simply isn’t possible; it isn’t in the natural order of things! Listen to me,” she said urgently, sitting up to face him. “The sun rises each morning in the east. Every night it sinks into the west. That is God’s ordering of the world; it can never change, no more than a seed of rye, planted in a field, might yield a turnip—or an onion or a rose—if rain falls upon a Tuesday or the wind blows from the north!”

“Or that killing a spider at harvest time brings rain?”

“Of course it doesn’t! That is just a silly superstition, and only the ignorant believe it!”

“So I am ignorant?” he retorted, his eyes flashing.

“No!”

“Oh, I am a liar, then!”

“Not that, either. Please don’t be angry, I only want to help. The Lady of the Lake—she isn’t who you think she is.” Quickly she told him of her conversation with Father Bernard. Lancelot did not interrupt but sat quietly, his head bent. “So you see,” she finished, “it isn’t your fault at all. You were just a child; of course you believed everything they told you.”

At last he raised his head. “So what you are saying,” he said slowly, “is that I am mad.”

She flinched as though he’d struck her. “No! You are . . . confused.
Mistaken. Oh, Lancelot, there is no such thing as magic.”

“No such thing as
magic
!” He laughed a little wildly. “Do you honestly believe that?”

“It is not a matter of belief; I know it for a certainty. My love, I would not lie to you, not about anything and surely not about this. If only you will trust me, together we can find the truth.”

He stared at her as though he had never really seen her before. “Then what do you think happened in Norhaut?” he said at last.

“You fought and won a battle. That much we can be certain of, as the castle is now yours. As for the rest, it could be that the damsel—the one from the Lady of the Lake—made you believe things that were not real. Father Bernard told me once such a thing was possible, he had seen it for himself in his travels to the east, in the days he was a knight.”

Lancelot shook his head, not in denial but as though to clear it. “Elaine, if what you say is true . . . then I
am
mad, for I remember fighting every moment of that battle. And my time in Avalon—it was not as you say.”

“Are you sure?” she asked gently.

“Yes.” He put a hand to his head, rubbing the space between his brows. “Or . . . how can I be sure of anything?”

“You can be sure of me,” she answered, resting her hand upon his shoulder. He seized it in his own and brought it to his lips.

“Yes. I am sure of you, Elaine.”

“Then all will be well,” she said simply. “Now, tell me what happened after the battle.”

“When it was finished, the lady who had brought me there said the castle was to be mine. Apparently some old seer had predicted the whole thing, and it was writ upon a scroll.”

“There, you see? That is quite impossible.”

“I saw the scroll, Elaine. It is still in Joyous Gard if you care to examine it yourself.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it exists. But it must have been some sort of trick, or—”

“A lucky guess? I suppose it could have been either, though why they would go to so much trouble to present me with a castle is a mystery. Still, let’s call it a guess—a particularly lucky one, for the scroll specified a nameless knight as their savior from the tyrant. It went on to say that this knight would find his name inscribed below the castle. Before you ask, the ink was dry,” he added wryly. “I checked. In fact, the scroll appeared to be quite old, though I imagine there are ways to manufacture the appearance of age. But again, why would they bother?”

“I don’t know,” Elaine admitted. Frightened, she reached for his hand. “It’s such a very odd thing to do.”

“Not nearly as odd as what happened next. The lady led me down through the crypts. Do you know, I’d never seen a crypt before, or a corpse—save for men new slain in battle, which isn’t the same thing at all . . .”

He was silent for a moment, his eyes dark with some deeply unpleasant memory, then went on, “She took me to a marble slab set into the floor. I lifted the slab—easily, though it must have weighed half a ton—and went down the steps beneath. It was all dust and cobwebs, and at the bottom was a small chamber with a marble bier. At the foot was a plaque that read, ‘Here will lie Sir Lancelot du Lac, son of King Ban of Benwick.’”

Elaine frowned. “I don’t believe it.”

“I assure you it is there. I will show it to you if—”

“Oh, I believe
you
. But someone arranged it—they must have.”

“Yes, of course. The Lady of the Lake.”

Elaine shivered, wondering at the mind that could plan such a thing so far in advance. “How cruel!” she said, very low. “And to what purpose?”

“That I cannot say.” He lay back in the straw as though exhausted. “I only brought it up in the first place because I wanted you to understand that Joyous Gard is not a place to which I am overly attached. In fact, I haven’t been back since that first time until we went together. It is only joyous when
you
are in it, Elaine.” He cupped her chin in one hard palm and turned her face to his. “I would as lief stay here, an it pleases you.”

“Thank you.” She kissed him gently and lay down again, their bodies curling together. “But Lancelot,” she said after a time, “I wonder what purpose it served to keep you in ignorance of your identity for so many years? And why choose such a complicated way to—”

His mouth came down on hers, silencing her questions. When his hand moved down her neck to cup her breast, she decided they could wait. Only later, when they lay entwined again, the sweat cooling on Elaine’s body, did she remember what she had meant to ask.

“Lancelot,” she began, and when he did not answer, she raised herself on an elbow to find he was asleep. Sighing, she lay down beside him and rested her head on his chest.

There was something very peculiar going on. Not magical, of course, though someone had gone to a good deal of trouble to make it look like magic. This was some complex web of intrigue, carefully planned, meticulously executed—but to what end?

She was certain of only one thing: Lancelot was an unwitting participant in whatever intrigue was being carried out. He looked so young, so innocent, with his hair curling round his sleep-flushed cheeks. For a moment she could see the child he had been, stolen from his grieving mother
and denied even the knowledge of his name. All part of a plan, she thought, and suddenly she knew that they—no,
she
, the Lady of the Lake—was not finished with him yet.