Ruins of Camelot (3 page)

"What does it mean to be a princess?" Gabriella asked that evening, leaning on the side of the tub.

"Chin up," her nurse, Sigrid, instructed, hefting a small bucket of foaming water.  Gabriella lifted her chin dutifully, and Sigrid poured the water down the back of Gabriella's head.  It was warm, pasting her hair to her neck and shoulders in dark blond ribbons.

"It means being the daughter of the King," Sigrid answered, clunking the bucket to the floor and retreating to the vanity.

"That's a boring answer," Gabriella said, leaning back against the slope of the tub and flicking her finger at a raft of suds.  "That's not what I mean."

"Pity it's the truth," Sigrid commented, selecting a tall bottle of perfumed oil.  Gabriella grimaced at it and stuck out her tongue.

"Everyone thinks it's so grand to be the Princess, but what's so special about it?  Father says that in the old days, princesses didn’t even get to go to school with the noble children or anyone else.  They learned everything from tutors and barely even left the castle.  Even now, I’m lucky if I am allowed to walk to the school with Treynor, rather than ride in a carriage with four guards.  All the ceremony and pomp, it’s all just like a mask I wear.  It doesn’t have anything to do with me.  I could just as easily have been born to the potter or the miller.  I could have been born a peasant."

Sigrid returned to the tub and settled her considerable bulk onto a stool.  She tugged the stopper from the oil, dabbed some onto her palm, and began to rub her hands together briskly.

"Do you wish you'd been born a peasant?"

Gabriella turned in the tub so that she faced the tall, mullioned window.  It glowed dusky purple, almost the same colour as the oil in Sigrid's bottle.  She didn't answer.  After a moment, Sigrid began to stroke the oil onto Gabriella's hair and comb it in.  There would be one more washing after that, removing most of the oil but leaving the scent of it.  It was nice to be taken care of this way, but it was also strange.  Gabriella knew that none of her schoolmates had such luxuries.  It should have pleased her, but instead, it gave her a vague unease.

Sigrid spoke as she combed Gabriella's hair.  "Being a princess is not all baths and perfume, darling," she said in a mildly chiding voice.  "You are afforded such luxuries because you are expected to bear great burdens.  You will carry weights and responsibilities that your friends will never know."

"What responsibilities?" Gabriella asked.

"You do not need to know such things now, dearheart," Sigrid said, and Gabriella could tell by the sound of her voice that her nurse was smiling.  "Your concern, I think, is much simpler."

Gabriella frowned.  "Ow," she said as the nurse tugged at a tangle in her hair.  "Tell me then.  What is my real concern, Sigrid?" she asked doubtfully.

Sigrid hummed to herself for a moment.  Finally, she said, "Your true concern is not what the burdens of a princess will be.  Your true concern is… will you be worthy of them?  Will you rise to the challenges presented to you?"

Gabriella thought about this.  She turned in the tub again and peered gravely back at her nurse, the woman who had known her and cared for her since birth, the woman that she knew better than she knew either of her own parents.

"Will I?" she asked seriously, studying the older woman's face.  "Will I be able to do what a princess must do?"

Sigrid lowered the comb in her hand and met the girl's solemn eyes.  She nodded, and then shook her head faintly.  "You may," she said with a shallow sigh, "if you choose to."

Gabriella nodded to herself and turned around again.  "I will.  I will choose to."

Sigrid did not reply.  Instead, she hummed some more and resumed combing the Princess's long hair.

Gabriella’s
bedroom was on the third floor of the castle.  It was large, still filled with the toys she'd played with when she was a baby.  She
considered herself
too
old
to play much with them any
more
,
but
not too old to still keep them nearby, comforting her with their familiarity
.  Her rocking horse stood by the hearth, casting its long shadow in the glow of the coals.  Her dolls dozed atop the cupboards.  A tiny table beneath the window was set with a miniature silver tea set, complete with doilies and lace napkins.

Gabriella rolled over and stared at the tall window.  Beyond it, the moon hung like a sickle, thin and sharp.  She blinked slowly, not sleepy in the least.  After a minute, she flung the covers off and slid over the side of the bed.  The floor was smooth and cold to her bare feet.  She crept to the door, listened for a moment, and then eased it open.

Her father was in his library, as always.  She heard his voice echoing dimly along the outer corridor as she crept down the stairs.  He would not be angry if she slipped in to see him, even if he was in the middle of an important meeting.  He would beckon her to him, chide her dutifully, and allow her to climb onto his lap for a moment.  But then he would send her back to her bed of course.  He was the King, and he had weighty matters to attend to.

"You would not be interested, Princess," he would tell her with a weary smile.  "Fill your head with pleasant things.  I will handle the rest."

And he was right.  She was not interested in the matters of state.  But she was interested in her father.  She liked to hear the deep rumble of his voice.  It lulled her and soothed her on nights like this, when sleep seemed far away and her toys no longer beckoned her.

The corridor was empty and dark, lit only with a sliver of firelight from the mostly closed library doors.  Her father was meeting with his council, although not all of them were present.  They rarely were nowadays.  They were important men themselves, with their own affairs to attend to.  In truth, it seemed to Gabriella as if the Kingdom ran itself.  Her father and his council simply oversaw it.  It did not seem like a fun task exactly, but neither did it seem difficult, despite what Sigrid had said.

Gabriella crept along the corridor, dragging one of her blankets behind her.  There was a tall cabinet next to the library doors, meant for the coats of her father's visitors.  In wintertime, the cabinet was often full of heavy furs, dripping with melted snow and smelling of night air and reindeer.  Tonight the cabinet was dry and mostly empty.  Gabriella slipped inside and lay down, tucking her blanket around her and resting her head on an old, folded cape.  There, she lay blinking in the darkness, staring at nothing and listening to the timbre of the voices beyond the nearby door.

She couldn't remember the first time she had hidden there, drifting to sleep to the drone of voices and pacing feet.  She only knew that it was one of her favourite places.  Her father, the King, sometimes found her there once his councils were through.  He was never angry.  He would merely lift her into his arms and carry her back to her bed, kissing her once on the cheek as he lay her down.  Gabriella always awoke at these times but never allowed her father to notice.  She liked the silent comfort of his arms and the kisses that he gave her even when he thought she was asleep.  Of all his kisses, those were the ones that meant the most to her.

The voices rumbled from the library, and she listened.  She didn't pay attention to the actual words, but they drifted into her thoughts anyway, skipping like stones on the valley brook.

"There are at least forty of them, Your Highness," a high, nasally voice said.  That was Percival, the chief of the castle guard.  "They do not meet in the same place, nor in such numbers, but keep council in desolate areas and in small groups of six or seven."

"We could arrest them," another voice suggested.

"No," Gabriella’s father, the King, said.  "No need to overreact.  Some fires burn out better on their own.  Stomping on them only spreads the coals."

There was a murmur of mingled agreement and dissent.

"They speak against you, Your Highness," a deep voice warned.  "They may be few and remote, but treason is still a deadly poison."

Gabriella's father seemed unperturbed.  "We have neither the resources nor the patience to stamp out every stray thought or word in a kingdom as far reaching as Camelot.  Such groups are a constant.  They burn off the fervour of malcontents before such fervour can stew into action.  Let them mutter and rabble.  They've done so since the time of my fathers in numbers hardly less than these."

"A slow-growing vine sinks the deepest roots, Your Highness," the low voice replied gravely.  "Things are different now than they were in the time of your fathers.  I do not think it wise to turn a blind eye to these rebels.  Their leader may be vile, but he is persuasive.  He may find an audience with your enemies."

There was a silence.  Finally, the King said, "Watch him then.  If he is found to palaver with the barbarian empire of the north, then bring him in.  I am doubtful that even the greatest zealot would dare stoop to such treachery."

Gabriella was barely listening.  Her eyes drooped heavily, lulled by the droning voices.  Dreams circled her, calling to her.

"Tell me his name again," her father's voice said, echoing from the depths of the library.

"We do not know his true name, but only the name he uses to identify himself to his followers," a voice answered gravely, almost secretively.  "He calls himself Merodach."

"Merodach…," the King mused.

Merodach
, Gabriella thought dreamily, and shuddered.  The name echoed in the corridors of her mind, following her down into the canyons of sleep, fluttering as if on bats' wings.

"Merodach?" Thomas repeated, stepping carefully over a strew of stone blocks.

Yazim shouldered his pack and surveyed the broken walls.  Vines and heather had overtaken the ancient structure, hiding it, softening its shape.  "A mythical name.  Merodach was a god of the underworld.  But the man who took that name was no god."

Thomas shaded his eyes and peered down a grassy hill.  A brook trickled through a grotto of shadows below, disappearing under an ancient stone bridge.  "A rebel with delusions of grandeur then?"