Lancelot and the Wolf (14 page)

I bowed. Else and the sergeant rose and we left the room in silence. I had just hours to prepare before facing Arthur and winning, without hurting him. We walked to the courtyard and I retrieved Ash, who stood alone in the large square space except for Mercury, he munched on some hay. Ash had clearly proved himself too dangerous to stable. As I approached, he laid his ears back and gnashed his teeth.

“
I knew a grey like that once,” said the sergeant. “Damn fine horse and his master was the best knight I knew. Most of these tosspots couldn’t fight their way out of wet cloth bag, but him, he knew how to fight. Just like his Majesty does. They were fine men to watch and finer to know. I can only hope you are here to bring the King back to his senses. He needs stopping fast. His anger is such that even the best of men are in danger. He lost his friend to politics and he cannot forgive himself or his Court for making it happen.”

I didn’t think the good sergeant knew so many words. I also realised he’d twigged as to who lay under the black amour.

He grinned at my sharp intake of breath. The price on my head for returning to England would be more than a year’s pay. I tensed ready for the yell bringing dozens of soldiers, instead he said, “There are many things a man can hide, but the way each man touches the hilt of his sword is unique. It is a good way of finding friends and foe on a battlefield when colours are gone and armour covered in blood. I wish you luck, my Lord.” He gave me his knee to stand on to mount. An offer I could not refuse, I mounted and rode off after Else.

“
That was bad,” she said. The horses clomped on the paved road covering her voice.

I didn’t know what to say. I had never seen Arthur in such a state and it seemed as though I carried the blame. Had losing me to the trial and banishment really changed Arthur that much? Or was it the publication of the original betrayal, of others knowing infidelity that proved too humiliating? How often had I begged for that time back, so I could undo the damage?

I felt Else take my hand through the thick gauntlet on my left side where she rode beside me, “This is not your fault,” she whispered as though reading my thoughts.

“
Yes, it is,” I said sadly. I had broken the heart of the noblest man I had ever known and I did it for a fuck. I think I hated myself more in that moment than at any other time in my miserable life. Once I fancied myself in love with a woman, so I took that woman. Now I knew what real love should feel like and I couldn’t have it. I also didn’t deserve it, if what I had done to Arthur should be repaid in full.

In three hours, I would face Arthur on the tourney field and all I wanted to do was lay my head on the block so he could have full reparation for my sins. We rode out of the city and back to our small camp on the edge of the woods surrounding Camelot. Else hustled me into the tent and took my helmet and gloves off, then removed the coif, gorget, breastplate and backplate, enabling me to move easily but redress quickly. I sank onto the small bed I’d used the night before.

I ran my fingers through my sweaty hair and over my face, “This is madness, I should just walk up to Arthur and beg his forgiveness.”

Else knelt on the ground at my feet, “No,” she said firmly putting her hands on my metal knees, the poleyn stopping me feeling her touch, “You need to prove yourself to him once more. You need to shock him into remembering you are worthy of his love. You need to make him listen to us. Do you really think you are the only reason he is suffering? Can’t you see the dark magic which is influencing him already?” her brown eyes beseeched me to understand. “You are all that can save him from himself.”

“
You don’t know what I did to him,” I said.

“
Yes, I do,” Else said gently. “I made you tell me when we were in the cave. You wept in my arms.”

That should have made me angry; it just made me more depressed, “So you know why I was flogged. How can Arthur forgive that?”

“
Because you accepted another’s punishment and he knew it. Lancelot,” I saw her hands clench with the need to touch me. “Sweetheart, you are a good man who made a terrible mistake.”

“
I am not a good man,” I said. “I am a killer.”

“
You saved my life, twice, three times if you count the hunt in the wood,” Else said softly. “You didn’t have to do any of those things, especially after I had lied to you so badly.”

I felt tears prick my eyes, “I thought I loved her.”

“
I know and while others were ignorant Arthur lived with the infidelity because he stole her from you in the first place. But, love, she is not innocent in this,” Else continued gently. “You took her punishment because she let the secret out to try and control you.”

I looked up sharply, “How the hell do you know that?”

Else rocked back on her heels and sighed, “Geraint and I had a long talk before we left. He wanted me to know how Guinevere is capable of manipulating you and Arthur, hoping I think to aid me in protecting you. Your friends blame the Queen for your disgrace, not you. Geraint told me you held out against her for a long time but finally fell to her seductions.”

“
We were out hunting, all of us, Arthur asked me to stay close to Guinevere in case anything happened and she fell off the damned horse. No one else was close and I found her in my arms. Like a fool, I fell for it, for her. I had lain with many other women but never loved them, only her and there she was, just as she had been the day I asked her to marry me. Which happened to be the day Arthur asked her the same damned question.” My voice echoed the bitterness I still held in my heart, “Who would you chose, a penniless knight or a king?”

“
I choose you,” Else said. She had pulled on her gloves without me noticing and held my face in her hands as she spoke. “I choose you because you tried to leave her over and over again, but love can be a harsh mistress and Guinevere would not let you go.”

“
Geraint talks too much,” I complained.

“
He is trying to protect you,” Else said smiling. “He loves you a great deal and wants to see you back at Arthur’s side.”

“
Geraint is a romantic,” I mumbled. I considered her words carefully, finally able to think about Guinevere without falling into a rage. “You said she was the one to make our affair public?”

Else rose and began gathering what we needed for the tourney, “Geraint didn’t think you knew. He tried to tell Arthur but almost received banishment himself for his pains. Guinevere knew she was losing you, knew you would throw her over for Arthur and she wanted you stopped. She is jealous of your relationship with her husband and with good cause I have no doubt,” Else looked at me and I ignored her implications. “But that is irrelevant. What is important is that she wanted to hurt you and Arthur, but she didn’t understand, or chose to ignore the consequences. So, she leaked the affair. Never realising how much havoc she wreaked in the Court, the damage to Arthur’s reputation as a king and man, and what you would have to suffer by taking her punishment and your own.”

I remembered the tears in Arthur’s eyes when he decreed the full flogging for our adultery. He had begged me with his eyes to offer to take Guinevere’s lashes. I said as Queen’s Champion I would, the charges were untrue and we were committing no crimes. I wanted to take as much of the burden and pain from Arthur as possible. I knew he would not survive his wife being flogged in public. The relief and gratitude on his face that day the only thing, which held me to this world as I took first my lashes and then hers in succession.

“
She betrayed me?” I asked. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I long realised Guinevere the woman was not Guinevere the girl, I once loved as a squire.

“
She betrayed you, no one else. I am sorry. But now Arthur needs you to hold his way clear. To give him a new life. He needs you to protect him from her, from the de Clare’s and from the fey who wish to control England for their own reasons. You have to help him or our world will be lost.” Else said pulling me to my feet and strapping my armour back on. “So, stop with the maudlin introspection, and go bag us a king.” She pushed me into the dull afternoon light and bullied me back onto Ash. She gave me a lance to carry and we set off, back toward the keep and my afternoon joust with Arthur.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

We rode up the hill to the castle and the weather closed in. The clouds lowered, the wind rose, snapping at my pennon, the wolf’s head shimmering in the flat light. It would rain before too long, making footing dangerous. I mentally prepared, once more going through simple combinations of sword movements in my mind. I brought forward all I knew of Arthur’s fighting style and remembered every fight we’d shared. Calm filled me, I remained centred and back in my world. This I knew how to do, I knew how to fight. Women, politics, they were a mystery to me but fighting I understood.

We approached the castle and I realised a great crowd swelled and rolled, like a huge wave of humanity. King Arthur always drew an audience. I wished feverishly we didn’t have a crowd but Camelot’s all about spectacle. Once we reached the main gate, the throng parted. We walked over the moat and through the wall into the killing fields. The soldiers lined the way to the tourney field, keeping the people back. We made short work of reaching the site. Without the time to set up a tourney field outside the city, we were squashed into the practice area. There wasn’t a great deal of room for the castle’s inhabitants never mind the city folk. The walls began to close in on me, the armour became heavy and my vision too restricted. The noise of the crowd and the stink of bodies made me wish for the open fields and my simple life with Else.

I saw Geraint, Kay and many others scattered through the crowd of wealthy merchants. My eyes slid to the centre of the heaving tableau. I saw two things at once, Arthur, sat astride Willow, his mighty warhorse and Guinevere stood beside him but not touching him or looking in his direction. She stared directly at me.

I knew she couldn’t see who sat under the black armour but her ice blue eyes captured my attention so thoroughly I stopped breathing. Across the distance of the tourney field, I realised Guinevere’s beauty still made me breathless. The wind moved her cloak and with it her hood, giving hints of her slim figure and hair spun from the light of the sun.

“
Hey, lover, focus,” Else snapped in whispered tones beside me.

I turned to her and looked down into her elfin face. Her eyes turned the colour of dark honey when she felt calm and at peace. Her skin always retained a warmth in its tones which reminded me of summer. Her body’s slimness came from hard work and hours in the saddle, not contrived eating habits.

I took a deep breath and willed myself to snap the chains Guinevere placed on my heart so long ago. “I love you,” I said quietly.

“
Bloody good job,” Else said grumpily, “or I might be forced to release that damned spell all over you again.”

I chuckled, suddenly preferring all the complications of my relationship with Else, to Arthur and Guinevere any day. I studied my opponent. He sat on Willow, the great black stallion looking sleek and perfect as ever. Unlike Ash, Willow had the temper of a gelding but the brains of a true destrier. They were a fine pair, even if Ash’s temper usually meant he’d rather fight with Willow than beside him. Jealousy in horses is not attractive. Because of Ash’s colour change, they appeared to be brothers and Ash shifted as he recognised the scent of the other horse. Arthur himself sat straight in the saddle and the lance in his hand did not waver.

Else rode forward slightly, “My Lord is here and prepared for the tourney,” she said loudly enough to still the hum of the crowd.

Arthur, his visor raised, said in return, “As is traditional,” his voice rang clear and strong. Arthur had sobered up. “The knight has the right to ask for anything from me if he wins, other than my crown.”

“
All he asks in return is the chance to plead his case to the greatest of Kings, in audience alone,” Else said.

I frowned. Arthur always included his wife in that speech. Guinevere stood beside him as if a statue made from chalk. Her eyes blazed with the fury of a smith’s forge. It meant, if a knight were brave enough he could ask for the Queen. I tried hard to ignore the implications but I felt them like poisonous demons on my back pulling my hair for attention.

Else distracted me by handing me the black shield I needed for protection. “Good luck and don’t get hurt,” she whispered. I just grunted in return.

Kay stepped forward, “Are we ready for the joust? Rules as always, the first to yield or the first to blood is the winner.” Just two rules existed in this contest, don’t aim to kill, don’t maim on purpose.

Arthur lowered his visor and gathered his reins. Willow stepped forward calmly. I gathered Ash’s reins and fought him for dominance until he realised he couldn’t grab the bit and run for his enemy. We lowered our lances. The crowd grew quiet. I focused on Arthur’s great shield. The crest of the oak emblazoned on its surface. My own felt heavy on my left arm, a comfort. Kay gave the order to charge. Ash had already begun moving before Kay finished the word. The thunder of his hooves at full gallop filled my head. We were on the outside run of the lists, nearest the wall rather than the keep. I couldn’t see anything other than my opponent racing toward me, lowering his own lance as I did mine. I knew we were evenly matched at the quintain, so we were unlikely to unhorse each other on the first pass. I also knew the more often we did this the more likely one of us would be seriously hurt. I had to unhorse Arthur quickly regardless of our skill.