Gawain (8 page)

A bitter smile curved Aislyn’s lips as she finished braiding a lock of the crone’s white hair and tied off the tangled love knot with a bit of string. She wished there was a looking glass, but of course Gawain couldn’t be bothered with anything so frivolous. Still, she was sure she looked not only repulsive, but ridiculous.

Smiling, she entered the hall a few minutes later, where a single trestle table was erected at the lower end with bread and meat and cheese laid out upon it. Various members of the household helped themselves and carried their meals away with them, for only the lord and his family sat down to break their fast. The high table was empty save for Gawain, Sir Lancelot, and the king.

“Good day!” Aislyn said, plumping herself into the seat beside Gawain. “I’m behind my time, it seems. But a new bride needs her rest, you know. Isn’t that so, sire?”

The king stared at her, nonplussed. Sir Lancelot choked on his ale. Gawain shot her a dark look, but merely offered her a loaf of bread.

“The king was just telling me of his adventure yesterday,” Sir Lancelot said, breaking a rather awkward silence. “Go on, sire, what did Somer Gromer Jour say when you gave him the answer?”

Gawain stiffened beside her; he and the king exchanged a quick glance, then Arthur said carelessly, “Oh, nothing really. What was there to say?”

“The whole thing seems rather silly,” Lancelot remarked. “What was the point of it?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. He gazed at Aislyn, frowning, then shrugged. “Perhaps one day we will learn more of this fellow, whoever he might be, and his purpose.”

Gawain was looking at Aislyn, as well, with an expression she could not fathom. “So what shall we do today?” she asked brightly.

“The queen is planning an entertainment in the garden,” Sir Lancelot said, his sober expression belied by the merriment in his dark eyes.

“What, with dancing and all?” Aislyn said, thinking that a few more aches would be well worth the opportunity to dance upon the green. The same thought seemed to be in Gawain’s mind. He pushed his half-eaten porridge away, looking queasy.

“Sir Gawain and I are going hunting,” the king said firmly.

“Today?” Ragnelle rested her hand on Gawain’s arm. “Oh, sire, you wouldn’t be so cruel. It’d be a rare shame to part us so soon after the wedding. Don’t you agree, Sir Lancelot?”

Sir Lancelot, thus appealed to, went very red and was seized by a sudden fit of coughing. Arthur scowled at the young knight, and Sir Lancelot choked out a hasty excuse before he fled.

“Must’ve been something he ate,” Aislyn remarked. “Are you finished?” she added to Gawain. “Then why don’t you show me about?”

“But—” the king began.

“We’ll see you in the gardens later, sire,” Aislyn said, fluttering her fingers. “Mayhap we can have a dance.”

Gawain said nothing, but she thought she heard his teeth grind as she led him from the hall.

“So what
did
he say?” she asked when they were alone in one of the galleries. “Somer Gromer Jour?”

Gawain paused, leaning one broad shoulder against the stone wall as he regarded her through hooded eyes. “He seemed completely stunned for a moment, then he said, ‘My sister told you that.’ Tell me, have you a brother?”

Launfal.
In league with Morgause? No, it couldn’t be; not Launfal! He’d always been such an innocent. But innocence did not last long at Morgause’s court.

“Happens I do,” Aislyn said, “though it’s been some time since I’ve seen him. He would be about my age, for there was not even a year between us. D’ye think he might have been Somer Gromer Jour?”

Gawain shook his head. “No, he was a young man. Judging by his voice and bearing, I would guess him no more than one-and-twenty.”

Which would be Launfal’s age, or near enough. Stupid little nit, how
could
he have gone over to the enemy? It was difficult to believe that her frail, unworldly little brother had succumbed to Morgause’s blandishments. Aislyn might have done so herself, but she’d always believed Launfal too good to be taken in by evil. Of course, it had been five years since she had seen him and people changed. If he was Morgause’s creature now, he had changed more than most, and at the thought an odd little pain lanced through her, somewhere in the region of her heart.

ONCE they reached the gardens, Aislyn cast off her melancholy and flung herself into the queen’s revels with abandon. She refused Gawain’s offer to serve her, but snatched an iced cake from a platter. “A new bride needs her nourishment,” she said thickly, stuffing another morsel into her mouth. Those near enough to hear turned to stare at Gawain in horror, and he went brick red, his eyes narrowing into ice-gray slits. Aislyn met his gaze defiantly as she accepted a goblet of wine from a page. She lifted it in his direction before she downed it in a single draught.

“My lady,” he began, tight-lipped as she tossed the empty goblet to the startled page and helped herself to another from a passing squire’s tray.

“Ooh, music,” she cried, “come, Sir Gawain, let us dance!”

“No,” he said curtly. “Why do we not sit—”

She lifted her skirts to reveal her spindly shanks and cut a little caper. “Sit? Today? No, no, I’m feeling far too merry!”

Before he could reply, she spun away into the center of the green, knocking into a knight, who stumbled forward, catching his balance on the nearest lady, who drew back with an indignant squeak.

“Pardon!” Aislyn called cheerily, elbowing her way into the center of the green. Her dance, she thought, was a masterpiece of buffoonery. As she whirled and capered, the other dancers drew back to watch. Most of the knights attempted to contain their merriment, but in the end, they couldn’t help but laugh. The weepers—those half a dozen maidens who had wailed throughout the feast the night before and were now huddled red-eyed and dejected in a bunch—were reduced to fresh tears, though this time of merriment.

Gawain simply watched, his face like stone. When Aislyn at last succumbed to exhaustion, he stepped forward, gave her his arm, and led her to a secluded turf bench set beneath an arching trellis overhung with vines. She leaned on him and sank onto the seat with relief. Holy Mother, but her back was aching! And her legs, and especially her feet. Even her toenails hurt.

“Can I get you—” Gawain began.

“No.”

She belched behind her hand, cursing the crone’s weak stomach. All the wine and rich food weren’t sitting very well. And that frolicking about hadn’t helped matters, either.

Gawain must be praying she would keel over . . . which seemed terrifyingly likely at the moment, for her heart was pounding like a kettle drum. But he gave no sign of the rage he surely must be feeling and merely looked at her with something that in any other man she would have taken for concern. It was a show, of course, a trick. But who did he think he was fooling?

Not the king, who was looking almost as ill as Aislyn felt herself. Surely not the queen, sitting a bit apart from the others with Sir Lancelot, the two of them whispering behind their hands. Not Sir Dinadan, either, who fixed Aislyn with his bright eyes, his expression so reproachful that she could not hold his gaze. It could only be himself Gawain deceived. No one else believed his ridiculous pretense of sympathy.

Aislyn least of all.

“Well, that was jolly,” she said. “It’s been some time since I had such fun!”

Sir Lancelot led the queen to the center of the green. Others followed, arranging themselves in two lines. As the music began, Lancelot called, “We’ve room for one more pair, Sir Gawain! Do you and your lady join us!”

Something flickered in Gawain’s eyes, and for a moment Aislyn thought that this was it, he was finally going to lose his temper, but then he mastered himself and said, “I think not.”

Aislyn was tempted to press the point, but she could not bring herself to do it. All she wanted now was to find some cool, shady chamber where she could soak her feet.

“Would you like to retire for a time?” Gawain asked.

“What, and miss the fun? Or do you just want me out of the way so you can dance with one of them?” she said, jerking her chin toward the weepers.

“I do not dance,” he said indifferently.

Liar.
She’d seen him outdance every man at the court of Lothian; whirling around the targe, leaping to land neatly with one foot on either side of the spiked shield. She’d danced with him herself, their bodies moving in unison to the pipes and drums until dawn dimmed the torchlight. They had gone laughing to the stables then, and raced their horses over the hills, the rising sun on their faces and the wind in their hair . . .

Even the memory exhausted her. It seemed like something that had happened to someone else in a far-off age; a girl she could remember, but one that seemed to have no part of her.

Gawain belonged to that time.
Her
Gawain, the dazzling young knight who had galloped into Lothian five years ago and laid waste to the glittering edifice of her ambition. The man beside her now was a stranger. She did not love him— she didn’t even like him. A great weariness overwhelmed her until she felt as ancient as the crone’s form she wore. What point was there in punishing either of them for things that had happened in another life to two entirely different people?

“I think I will have a lie-down,” she said. “Nay, you needn’t come with me.” Without looking at him again, she hobbled from the garden.

BY the time she reached Gawain’s chamber, Aislyn could scarce drag herself inside.
What am I to do now?
she thought, dropping down upon the bed. Her jest had fallen flat; she had no desire to linger here at Camelot . . . and yet, there was nowhere else she would be safe.
If I were to change back and confess all to the king . . .
Yesterday, that might have served, but today it was too late. She and Gawain were wed . . . or no, he was wed to Dame Ragnelle . . . it was all muddled in her mind, and she was no longer quite certain who she was . . . Sighing, she closed her eyes and succumbed to sleep.

It seemed but a moment later that she bolted upright to find the chamber filled with shadows.

“Who’s there?” she cried.

Gawain started back, stumbling over one of the cats. It yowled and vanished through the window in a streak of black and white. “Ragnelle! I didn’t see you.”

She slid from the bed, groaning as her feet hit the floor. “Why were you cursing?”

“I barked my shin. Go back to sleep.”

She squinted against the sudden light of a candle, taking in his disheveled hair and flushed cheeks. He sank onto the trunk and rubbed his shin.

“Out making merry, were you?” she asked, eyeing him with interest.