LANCE OF TRUTH (14 page)

“M
eeting of the Round Table! Queen Guinevere’s orders!”

The herald’s voice, echoing in the courtyard below her window, woke Rhianna from a confused dream of dark mists. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t remember where she was. She could
still see that tower room north of the Wall, with its broken chain and crumpled bed, where her mother had been held prisoner. Then the sunshine streaming into her room reminded her that she was back at Camelot.

She smiled.
Queen Guinevere’s orders.
They might have lost the Lance of Truth. But her mother was safe, and Camelot had a queen again.

She pushed back the covers, and something clattered to the floor. Her eye fell on the mirror she’d used to contact Mordred before she went to sleep, and her smile tightened. It hadn’t been a dream, then. She had really challenged her cousin, and he was coming to finish the duel with Sir Lancelot at midsummer.

She climbed out of bed with a groan, quickly picked up the mirror and hid it under
her pillow. She dared not look into the glass again. Her entire body ached. Her left hand had blisters from swinging Excalibur in the bloodbeard camp. She opened her clothing chest and dragged out her favourite green dress, shouting for Arianrhod.

The girl came at once, smiling brightly.

“It’s a lovely day, my lady!” she said. “Camelot knows the queen is back.”

“Never mind the weather… I’m going to be late for the meeting! Why didn’t you wake me?”

She’d meant to get up early and catch her mother at breakfast, but using the witch’s mirror had made her sleep more heavily than she’d expected. She strapped Excalibur, back in its good red scabbard, around her waist over the dress. It looked a bit strange, but the knights had grown used to her wearing it like that.
She hurried down the stairs with Arianrhod chasing after her, trying to brush her hair.

“Queen Guinevere said to let you sleep, Rhia. She said they’d be discussing a lot of boring things, and you could join them later. Elphin came to wake you earlier, but Lady Isabel wouldn’t let him into the Damsel Tower.” She giggled. “I’m sure she thinks he’ll charm us all away to Avalon with his fairy harp if she does. So he said he’d go down to the stables and give your mist horses a bath. They got very dirty in the north.”

Rhianna pushed the brush away. “Stop that. My mother said to let me sleep? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. She told me herself.” Arianrhod smiled again. “She also said if I let you appear at the meeting with your hair in knots and wearing your sweaty armour, she’d chain me
in the dungeons. So
please
can you let me brush it?”

Rhianna sighed and let her friend untangle the knots she’d made in her sleep. Her hair had grown over the winter and was almost back to its old Avalonian length. It frizzed in a copper cloud after last night’s bath. She smoothed her dress and straightened the scabbard. “Better?” she asked, raising her chin.

Arianrhod giggled. “You look like you usually do, only cleaner.”

“That’ll have to do, then. Go and tell Elphin where I am.” She marched up to the big double doors of the Great Hall, put her hands on her hips and glared at the guards until they let her in.

“Rhianna Pendragon!” they announced.

The queen looked her up and down and
frowned at her frizzy hair. The knights nearest the door turned to grin at her. Rhianna did not smile back.

As usual when she stepped into that vast hall, she felt dizzy. The hole above the centre of the table showed a circle of bright blue sky. A sparrow fluttered around the rafters, twittering, reminding her of Merlin the last time they’d met in here. She thought guiltily of her challenge and hoped he’d managed to give the dragon the slip.

She hesitated. All the seats were taken except two – one near the door, where she’d seen her cousin Mordred’s shadow sitting on her first night at Camelot, and the other at the far side of the hall, next to the queen. She walked slowly around the huge table to give the dizziness time to pass. She smiled at her
mother and started to slide into the vacant chair.

“No!” The queen put her hand in the way.

“This is Lancelot’s seat.” The knights stopped talking and looked at them. Sir Bors cleared his throat. “With respect, Majesty, that’s where Damsel Rhianna usually sits.”

Guinevere gave him a fierce glare. “I am your queen.
I
say where people sit at my husband’s table, not you.”

A hush fell. Rhianna frowned. She didn’t want an argument with her mother on their first morning at Camelot, especially not in front of all the knights. But neither did she want to sit in Mordred’s old seat. The very thought made her shudder, and obviously nobody else wanted to sit there, either.

“Sir Lancelot won’t be here this morning,” she pointed out. “So why can’t I sit there until he’s better? After all, this is a round table, so it doesn’t really matter where we sit… does it, Mother?” She smiled sweetly at the queen.

The knights chuckled.

“The princess is right, Majesty,” Sir Bedivere said, clearing his throat. “I’m sure King Arthur would say the same if he were here.”

Guinevere blinked. For a moment, she looked as if she might cry. Then she took a deep breath and lifted her hand.

Rhianna slipped into the chair, feeling unexpectedly shy. At previous meetings, with the knights arguing and thumping the table around her, she hadn’t minded speaking up. Today, sitting beside her mother, she felt like a little girl. She clenched her fist on Excalibur’s
hilt for strength. Somehow, she had to persuade the knights that getting the lance back was important, without letting them know about her challenge. Otherwise, they might try to stop the dark knight coming to the lake.

As she wondered how much to tell them, Sir Bors thumped his big fist down on the table, making her jump. “Right, let’s get back to business, shall we? We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do about Mordred. He kidnapped our queen and held her to ransom, which ain’t right. He also nearly killed Lancelot, but that was in a duel so not strictly against the law—”

“Mordred cheated!” Guinevere said. “You told me he used magic in that fort. How can my poor Lancelot be expected to fight against magic? And Mordred’s blade was poisoned. That’s against the rules, too. I demand you take
an army north directly and teach the witch’s brat a lesson.” She lifted her right hand to show them the red mark around her wrist. Her eyes flashed. “Look what he did to me! He kept me, your queen, in chains all winter… and you’re saying he didn’t act against the law?”

Rhianna frowned.

Sir Bedivere cleared his throat. “Prince Mordred must of course be punished for the way he treated you, Majesty. But it’s as well to be cautious. We might have destroyed his army and made peace with the Saxons down here. But we’ve seen with our own eyes that he’s still got quite a rabble up there behind his Wall. With Lancelot sick, and King Arthur dead… er, I mean
sleeping
in Avalon… we don’t have a leader.” He glanced at Rhianna. “The time is not right for revenge.”

And don’t forget Mordred has the Lance of Truth now,” Rhianna said.

Guinevere gave her a distracted look. “That old thing doesn’t work any more, Rhianna darling. It’s not important.”

“I think it is… Elphin mended it using his harp before the duel so Lancelot could defeat Mordred.”

“Well, that proves it’s still broken, because Lancelot lost the tilt,” Sir Bors said.

The knights whispered among themselves, arguing about fairy magic.

The queen frowned. “It’s true what Bors says. Forget the lance. Those silly Lights of Merlin’s have done us all a lot more harm than good, if you ask me. Half Arthur’s knights lost their lives chasing after the Grail, and Arthur himself died with Excalibur in his hand.
I’ve been informed the Crown of Dreams is missing, thank God. And now Merlin seems to be missing, too. So we’ll have to do this the Roman way, by strength of arms. Have we got enough men to take on Mordred’s rabble in the north, if Cynric’s Saxons ride with us?”

The knights glanced at one another uneasily.

“Maybe…” Sir Bedivere began.

“Don’t forget the Saxons fought with Mordred against Arthur,” Sir Agravaine said with a scowl. “They’ve changed sides at least three times already. You can’t trust them in a battle.”

“They might follow the damsel,” someone suggested.

Rhianna’s heart beat faster. She hadn’t thought the knights might decide to ride north
again so soon. That would ruin everything.

But Sir Bors shook his head. “Damsel Rhianna’s goin’ nowhere near that Wall!” he said firmly. “Not after what happened last time.”

And Guinevere frowned and said, “My daughter can’t lead an army. Don’t be so silly.”

Rhianna opened her mouth to say she had already led an army last year during the battle for Camelot, when she’d made peace with the Saxons they planned to use as allies in their fight against Mordred. But she didn’t want them suddenly deciding to take her north again, not now. So she bit the words off and said, “Mordred might come here.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Sir Agravaine growled. “He knows we’d whip his behind halfway to Annwn for laying hands on our queen!”

“Hand,” one of Lancelot’s men corrected. “Arthur chopped off his other one at Camlann, and I noticed he ain’t got it back yet.” A few of the knights chuckled.

Sir Bedivere smiled and said, “He hasn’t got enough men to take Camelot, anyway. Our little jaunt up at the North Wall let us see that much, at least.”

“But what if he thinks the Lance of Truth makes him invincible? He might come then, mightn’t he?” Rhianna insisted, unable to believe that the knights could joke about such things.

“Ha!” Sir Bors grunted. “If he does, then he’s even stupider than I thought! We’ll thrash the little traitor black and blue, an’ chain him up in the dungeon where he belongs.”

The queen rubbed her sore wrist and nodded.

Sir Agravaine shook his head. “Bedivere’s right. He won’t show his face south of the Wall this summer. We should use the good weather to strengthen our defences and ride out to recruit more men. Then we can train ’em up over the winter, and maybe next spring we’ll have enough of an army without the Saxons to march north and root out Mordred, once and for all. No sense in losing half our men because we’re badly prepared. Lancelot ought to be better by then, too. I hear the fairy prince is healing him with his magic harp.”

The knights nodded and started arguing about which villages could spare men and horses, how many troops they’d need, and who would ride in which direction.

“But you can’t leave Camelot unprotected!” Rhianna stood on her chair so her voice would
carry and rested Excalibur, point down, on the table before her.

The knights who had been in the north with Lancelot the last time the Round Table had met frowned. The others looked at her warily, remembering the way she’d used the sword to open the spirit channel and show them their queen in chains.

The queen put a hand on her arm and hissed, “Get down, Rhianna dear. You’re embarrassing me.”

Rhianna shook her mother off. “I know my cousin,” she said. “He’ll come this summer, I know he will. You should keep the men together at Camelot in case they’re needed, not send them riding all over the country on some silly recruitment mission! Mordred might only have one hand now, but he can still fight with it,
and if the Lance of Truth is working again—”

“Which it isn’t, darling. I already told you that.” Her mother gave her an exasperated look. “I don’t know what Lord Avallach’s people taught you in Avalon, but it’s clear they didn’t teach you many manners… standing on chairs, whatever next? Sit down and be quiet, there’s a good girl, and let those of us who know what we’re talking about decide what to do about Mordred. You’ve only met him once. We know him a bit better than you do. He’s always hidden behind his mother’s skirts. Now Morgan’s dead and can no longer protect him, he’s not going to do anything that involves risking his cowardly neck, believe me.”