Under Camelot's Banner (49 page)

As they readied themselves though, worry flitted perceptibly through the entire encampment. They had spent the night openly on Tintagel's doorstep. They now made great, and noisy preparation, and no one, not one person from Tintagel had come to speak with them; not a shepherd nor a cotholder, let alone any soldier or other representative from the
castell
.

The queen would not be deterred. They would go forward as planned. Lynet looked up the rise that separated this camp from those people. As if dazzled by sunlight, she saw flashes of color in front of her eyes. They became quick glimpses of the Tintagel's folk huddled nervously in their cots, near their fires. She saw the grim hall of the fortress, empty and cold. She saw the brown-robed monks in their chapel, prostrating themselves in prayer.

“My lady?” whispered Daere in her ear. “My lady you must come with us now.”

Lynet forced her gaze outward again. Her head and feet both had begun to ached as if she had travelled too far in even that brief glimpse. The queen and the other ladies were pressing past her through the pavilion's doorway, ready to take their places for the procession.

Leave me be
, prayed Lynet silently as she lifted her hems and followed.
Let it fade, and leave me be.

But this prayer went unanswered. Her head hurt and her vision was dim. Each step forward prepared the way for her to arrive in the one place she had never thought, never desired, to walk again. With all this came the sick and creeping knowledge that in her spirit's flight she had opened herself wide to the invisible country, and not even the curtain of her flesh could close her off again. Looking out across the open headland filled her with memory, of she times she had ridden here at her father's side to pay court visits to Mark, of the time she had seen it with new eyes riding to begin her fosterage, of the times she had come out with Queen Iseult to take the air, and perhaps to meet Sir Tristan.

The memories sent sparks of light across her eyes, and brought the shadows gathering close at the edges of her field of vision. She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to use the pain as an anchor, but instead, she saw Queen Iseult racing away over the headland, her green skirts and red hair flying out behind her.

Lynet stumbled and cried out. Hands caught her and she looked up into Gareth's eyes.

He said nothing as he steadied her. She could not even have told where he came from. Then she saw he held her horse's reins.

“Thank you, Squire,” said Daere stonily, taking Lynet's hand from his. “I will assist my lady.”

Gareth backed away. But she could not fail to see the worry in his eyes, the wish that he could be beside her. The intensity of that wish dizzied Lynet and she clutched at Daere's hand, but at the same time, the pain and the shadows receded, and she was able to mount her horse without difficulty.

Queen Guinevere settled onto her gilded throne, stern and distant. All around them, banners were unfurled, rippling with color on the morning breeze. Arthur's gold and scarlet dragon rose beside and the queen's own blue and white swan. Gareth carried Sir Lancelot's own banner with its three broad blue stripes on a pure white field. He sat straight and proud on his red stallion, enjoying the pomp coming to fruition around him.

And Lynet saw him in the midst of battle, that stern face stretched and mad with fear and desperation, hacking out with his sword, trying to stay alive, bellowing his curses up to God in Heaven and down to the depths of Hell.

She squeezed her eyes shut, biting both her lips. Was that the past or the future she saw? She didn't know. She couldn't tell.

A blast upon a hunting horn brought Lynet back to the daylight world before her. The standard bearers raised their banners high, and the procession began to move.

They rode across the rolling country, overflowing the narrow rutted track that was the only road to the
castell
. The trumpeters blew their horns, and the drummers sounded the beat as their royal procession came on, slowly. But all the countryside was empty of any to see their display. The cold sea wind blew uninterrupted, causing their banners to snap and their skirts to flow and flutter. Out ahead, beyond the few trees, the world turned misted blue and white, and the terns and gulls cried out in surprised greeting to see the queen come to visit them.

In all their pomp they rode through the unguarded earthworks and into the
castell
of Tintagel, and only the sheep in the yards and the pigs in their pens lifted their heads to see Queen Guinevere and all her train enter there. Tintagel was a small place. It was older than Cambryn, but the homes huddled closer together, and clung more tightly to the earth. They had long houses for storage of common goods and meetings and shelter from the ordinary storms, and the high house towered over all on the headland. A far simpler edifice than Cambryn's, it was a single hall with a roof of slate. No door or shutter opened there. No fire burned anywhere Lynet could see and the smell of smoke was nowhere on the constant wind. But the people were not gone. Not truly. Lynet could see them in their darkness. She could feel them crowded together and waiting. Nothing was to be hidden from her anymore, she realized with despair. She was to be permitted no respite from shadows and secrets.

The queen's procession marched through the rough center of the huddled houses. Lynet found herself wondering if the queen meant to turn directly for the fortress island, but even as she thought this, the queen cried, “Halt!”

All obeyed, and her bearers set the litter chair gently onto the ground. Guinevere looked about her at the silent houses, the empty yards and the dumb, disinterested animals left to fend for themselves.

“Where will they be Lynet?” Queen Guinevere asked abruptly.

Lynet's dry tongue pressed against the top of her mouth and her mare shifted uneasily underneath her. She saw them and she felt them, with their eyes shining in the darkness, hunched among the sacks and casks, their fear emanating up through the stones. But she did not need any such vision. They were where her people would have been, and where, she suspected, Queen Guinevere knew they were. “In the cellars, your Majesty, those that are not in the caves below the cliffs.”

“Sir Lancelot!” called the queen. Lancelot dismounted immediately and knelt before her. They could not see if they were watched, but now was the time for all observations to be made.

“You will send a man into the cellars,” Queen Guinevere ordered. “Lady Lynet will show you how they may be found. Warn him to take a light and take care. I would speak with one of the people here, so use who you find gently.”

“Majesty.” Lancelot bowed. “Gareth, Lionel, with me. If you please, my lady …?” He bowed to her, and there was something strange in his voice, something ever so slightly mocking.

Lynet slipped off her horse. Fear rose in a cloud around her with each step she took. Gareth's worry had sharpened and she could not even spare a smile for him. With the three men following her, she circled the long house. She felt Gareth most strongly behind her, and was sure she could discern his breath and his heartbeat. She shrank away from this, fearing to raise yet more shadows.

On the far side of the long house from the procession, she found a standing stone that stuck out at an angle from the fresh spring grass. To one who did not know, it might be taken only as some ancient monument, or a place to tether horses, and the great, flattened rock beside as just one more grey and black boulder, no different from any other that dotted this land.

“There.” She pointed to the boulder. “They will be beneath that.”
Huddled close in the darkness, straining to hear footsteps and voices the earth and stone keep from them.
“The cellar will be bow shaped, and you must be careful, there will be a lintel set into the ground where the walls bend most sharply.”

“Why?” asked Lionel, already fingering his sword hilt nervously.

Lynet gave a small smile. “To trip up any attempting what we do now.” The Eire-landers, the Saxons, the men of the next heath … the bloody shadows flitted across the surface of the stone, and the men beneath clutched their makeshift weapons, and trying to ready themselves to spill blood one more time. “I will go down first,” she said abruptly.

Both squires looked uneasily at their knight. Sir Lancelot frowned. “That charge is not yours, Lady,” he reminded her.

“The queen bid you proceed gently, my lord Lancelot,” she said. “Can you speak the tongue of this land?”

“I cannot,” he admitted.

“And I can tell you the headman beneath us cannot speak the tongue of Arthur's court. It may be I can coax him out with a good word and promise they will not be harmed.” But they were so afraid, down there, their eyes so wide and shining. There was a babe crying and its mother trying frantically to get it to suckle at her breast to quiet it.

She did not say the other thing. Those who hid below all knew her and what she had done. They might well turn away for that reason alone. But she had to try, and it was better they know that now. Wasn't it?

The world swam in front of her, and Lynet stiffened her knees so that she would not sway.

“Very well,” growled the knight. “But do not, please, get yourself killed. I have no wish to explain that to our queen. Gareth keep watch,” he went on briskly. “Lionel, help me here.”

Lancelot and Lionel scrabbled at the stone. Gareth stood, hand on his sword, clearly and deliberately not looking at her. She wanted to reach out to him, to say something, to tell him she was all right, even if that was a lie. A woman stood beside him, a woman with brown hair and brown eyes. She laughed and leaned down to tousle the hair of a scrawny little boy who grinned up at her with all a child's sweet mischief. Talia, was her name and this was Gareth's sister, and his heart was breaking for her all over again, but she could not tell why.

Then, Lancelot grunted. He and Lionel had found the trick of the stone, and straining their arms managed to heave it onto its end and let it drop aside with a loud thump. Where it had been opened a rough, round hole. A ladder's rungs ran down one side of its wall, and beneath that, a narrow stairway had been carved out of the hard-packed dirt.

Sir Lancelot walked up to the hole and stood for a moment, listening. He would hear nothing. They were all clustered at the far end of the cellar, and the babe was sucking peacefully now.

Lynet drew a deep breath. “Halloo!” she cried out. Ignoring the shocked and sudden anger on Sir Lancelot's face, she went on. “I am Lynet Carnbrea of Cambryn, daughter to Kenan the Steward. I come in peace. Who will speak with me?”

Silence, deep and frightened. She saw them, stirring, straining, wishing. They whispered to one another, but they did not move. The men drew close, not daring to answer.

“I will go down,” she said.

“Not alone,” announced Gareth abruptly.

“They are terrified,” Lynet tried to explain. “God alone knows what they have been told. They may attack out of sheer panic.”

“So you will not go alone.” Gareth repeated.

“If you pair are finished planning our strategy …” drawled Lancelot. Gareth blanched and bowed deeply, murmuring his apologies. His knight smirked, and Lynet did not dare look into his eyes, for fear she might understand what flashed through his mind.

“If you are so anxious, Gareth to bear the lady company, you may,” Sir Lancelot went on. “I just remind you not to give me something else I must explain to our king and all the court, most especially your brothers.”

She saw the three men clustered around Gareth, so alike and yet so different, all watching him, all full of love and yet of fear for their youngest sibling.

Gareth bowed, and somehow that motion wiped the shadows away.

Lionel, streaked with sweat from his efforts, fetched a light, an open brazier with a sputtering flame.

“I am coming down!” Lynet called. “And Squire Gareth with me!”

No answer. They all shrank back. The babe stirred restlessly and its mother clutched it close.

Gareth started down the ladder rungs. When he neared the bottom, Lionel handed him down the light and stood back so Lynet could begin her own climb. Her arms cried out in pain as her hands strained to grip ladder rungs worn smooth as ivory from years of use. When her slippers touched the earth, they turned together toward the steps. Gareth handed her the brazier. It was heavy as lead in her hands. Gareth drew his sword. The roof was low enough she had to duck, and Gareth bent almost double. The way so narrow both her elbows brushed the walls of hard packed earth that gave way to stone. How in God's name would he swing that sword he held before him? She could not tell if that was her own thought or if it leaked to her from Gareth himself.

The sunlight did not fall past the mouth of the stair, so there was only the dim flicker of the braziers flame to see by. Their footsteps made no noise. It was their breath that echoed harshly off the damp, cold, confining walls.

Ahead of them, the stone walls widened and curved, as Lynet had known they would. These places were old when the druids and their kind still reigned here, and they followed a pattern that had proven more than once of good use. What Lynet did not understand was why the people of Tintagel should hide here now.

She could hear them with the ears of her body, breathing in the darkness, shuffling and shifting even as they tried to be still. Gareth was tight as a bowstring. Lynet touched his arm, and he knew what she meant, and he did not like it anymore than he liked that she had come down here, but he did not argue and he did not stop her. He let her slip past him with the light.

“Where is the good man, PenHarrow?” she called in the homely tongue, pressing close to the wall, holding the light well before her and as far to the side as she could, in case she had misjudged those who waited beyond. “Good PenHarrow, how is your leg that I set? Does it trouble you at all?”