The Book of Mordred (4 page)

She followed him at a cramped and stooped half-run as he went up the stairs and down a long hall. Here, finally, they left the clamor and press of people behind. There were only three or four women in this region of the castle, quiet and elegant, slipping in and out: of rooms along the hall. But though they were wearing gowns as fine as any Alayna had ever had in her father's house, she guessed they were servants, because some were bearing freshly laundered linens or cut flowers, and because they bowed as Mordred passed.

Mordred brought her into a large sunlit room where a half dozen women were gathered: One was strumming a gentle tune on a rebec, two were working at a loom and an embroidering frame, one was brushing another's hair, and the last looked up from a book from which she had been reading out loud. The women inclined their heads as Mordred entered, all but the one who was embroidering the tapestry. That one paused, her needle in midair. She was an older woman—at least thirty-five, or maybe even forty years old—but she had a gentle look to her, as her gaze went from Mordred to Alayna.

Mordred had not shared with Alayna the specifics of his plans. He'd said he would inform King Arthur immediately about what had happened, but now she suddenly realized that—of course—she wouldn't just be let into the council room for an audience with the King. Obviously he was first taking her to the apartments of one of the noblewomen, to be cleaned and tended, bandaged and made presentable.

Just as she was wondering who this noblewoman was, Alayna noticed that Mordred had inclined his head with deference and waited for a sign to approach, and Alayna knew—just as Mordred said, "Guinevere."

"Mordred," the Queen greeted him. Without turning around, she said, "Juliana, we have a guest who is in obvious need of succor."

The young woman who had been getting her hair brushed hastily rose to her feet and rushed to Alayna's side, but still managed to look graceful. "I beg your pardon, mistress," she told Alayna, curtsying. "Would you care to sit?" She took Alayna by the arm and was leading her to a cushioned seat before Alayna could nod. "May I bring you something to drink?"

Alayna hesitated to sit, she was so filthy. "I don't want to rum..." she started, but her legs were suddenly wobbly after all the anxiety, and the walking she'd done, and the unaccustomed riding, and the headlong rush up the stairs. She was too tired, too unsteady, to match the servant woman's courtly manner of refined speech. "Isn't there somewhere—" But as she glanced around the room, she saw
everything
was too fine for someone in her condition.

After a quick glance at Queen Guinevere, Juliana assured Alayna, "Sit here. Please."

Alayna sat, because to delay was to risk collapse. Even so, she lost several moments of time, and somehow another of the women was suddenly standing beside them with a bowl Alayna had neither seen her fetch nor approach with. By the smell of it, the bowl contained rose water, and by the cool wetness of her face, the serving woman, Juliana—who was dipping a cloth into the water and wringing it—had already wiped her face at least once.

"Thank you," Alayna said breathlessly.

"Poor soul," Guinevere murmured. She had put her embroidering needle aside and was standing nearby, something else Alayna had not seen happen.

Someone brought a stool. Alayna sat there staring at it dumbly, assuming she was meant to summon the energy to remove her filthy self from the fine chair and onto the almost-as-fine stool—until one of the women knelt and took her bruised and bleeding feet and put them up. Juliana knelt also, and she took Alayna's right foot while the other took her left, and each woman tenderly worked to remove the stones and tattered bits of Alayna's thin slippers that had worked their way into her flesh as she walked so long over rough ground. They washed her feet, seemingly unmindful of the blood and dirt that seeped into the cushion of the stool.

Time was being wasted, but Alayna had to fight to keep her eyes open.

"Rest. Rest, Alayna," a gentle voice murmured, and that was something else she had missed, Mordred telling them her name. When she forced her eyes open, she saw him standing next to the Queen and she was aware of his quiet voice, though she couldn't make out the words. She closed her eyes again for a moment, just to gather her strength, yet when she looked again there was no sign of him, and the gentle voice—it was the Queen, Alayna realized—said, "All will be well. But now it is time to regain your vigor."

Alayna saw the sense of it and knew she was not a bad mother just because she couldn't sustain the level of panic she'd experienced when first walking to Croswell's holding. She let herself doze, refusing to give in entirely to sleep; instead, she drifted in a state where she remained somewhat aware of her surroundings, of the quietly efficient voices around her, of someone brushing the twigs and tangles from her hair. But most of all she was aware of the fact that she was just catching her breath—waiting for Mordred to come back for her, to bring her before the King, who would help her regain her daughter.

She was aware enough to recognize a male voice among those hushed feminine voices about her, and she forced herself to come fully awake then, and opened her eyes though they were reluctant to cooperate.

Mordred was leaning over her. "Lady Alayna," he said. "Are you able to come with me? The King has convened an emergency session of the council. I have told them what you told me, but it would be better—"

"Yes," she assured him. It was what she had hoped for, what she had anticipated. She sat up, with help from one of the Queens ladies-in-waiting. Her muscles had set, once she'd stopped moving, and she ached all over.

Kiera would be sore, too, for she was not used to riding. Alayna focused on that thought, and wouldn't allow her mind to skitter off to any other. To
any
other.

Mordred took hold of her arms and gently lifted her to her feet, which hurt more now that they were salved and bandaged than they had before. "Are you well enough?" he asked at her pained intake of breath.

"Yes," she said, her voice a sibilant whisper.

Guinevere said, "Juliana will attend to you."

"Thank you." Alayna looked around the room to include all of the ladies, though their kindness was from the Queen. "Thank you all for your tender charity."

Guinevere made a hushing sound, with her finger to her lips as an adult to a child, too secure in herself and her position to be concerned about maintaining her dignity. "Our prayers go with you, that you speedily find your daughter safe and well."

The other women murmured their good wishes, too, and all the words of kindness seemed to fly directly to the inside of Alayna's chest, where they sat, a lump waiting to take its shape depending on what happened to Kiera.

"Are you certain you are well enough?" Mordred asked several times more as they walked, very slowly now, back down the stairs and through several halls. He had hold of her left arm, supporting her, while Juliana hovered at her right side, ready to be of assistance if needed.

"Yes," Alayna said each time.

And finally they stood before huge oaken doors decorated with a golden ring at least as big as the circumference of a barrel.

Mordred knocked, and the doors swung open.

They were in a big room, not as immense as the Great Hall where the King held public audience and where Galen and his friends and relatives had gathered for his investiture, but big enough to hold a circular table that had twelve chairs around it.

And Galen was there, too.

She hadn't realized how much she had been hoping—until, for one awful moment, she thought he wasn't. But it was just that he wasn't seated. He was standing by the door, not one of the twelve and he came forward and hugged her. He had grown a droopy mustache since the last time she had seen him, which made him look more like their father. She threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest and he rocked her back and forth, which was also like their father—a very long time ago—and he said, "There, there. All will be made right. I'm sure she's safe. She
is,
Alayna. There would be no sense in taking her away to do her harm."

Alayna fought back the voice that wanted to say,
But I don't know for sure they DID take her away. She might be dead beneath the cinders of the house.
A part of her wanted to say it, to hear Galen's reassurances. But another part of her warned that his reassurances could only be guesses; and to give voice to her fears—only to be reassured by guesses—was to give the fears too much strength.

Once she was sure she wouldn't cry, wouldn't embarrass her brother in front of his comrades, she stepped back from him, glad to have had the support of his arms. She nodded to show that she was in control and remembered that among the men watching and kept waiting was the King.

Arthur was, in fact, the only man of those who sat there that she recognized, for it was only four years ago since she had seen Galen swear fealty to him.

She curtsied, aware that Juliana also curtsied, except deeper, because she was a servant—and Mordred bowed. Then Mordred indicated for her to go closer. There were chairs along the far wall also, and one of these had been pulled forward. She couldn't be expected to sit, not in the presence of the King. It had been bad enough when she had practically collapsed in the Queen's chambers.

But Mordred brought her directly to the chair, and the King smiled, a grave but friendly smile, and the King said, "Sit, child. You have been through too much to stand on ceremony."

Alayna hastily looked away, partly to make sure she didn't miss when she attempted to sit, but mostly so that King Arthur wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. She blinked several times, and the tears went away without overflowing her eyes.

Galen stood beside Alayna while Juliana stood behind the chair. Mordred took his place at the one remaining chair around the table. Arthur's councils were selected as they were needed: Arthur and eleven men of his choosing, so that there would never be a lack if someone was away from court.

"Lady Alayna De La Croix," Arthur said, "please know that you are most welcome here, and we sincerely hope that you will avail yourself of anything we might possess to make your time at Camelot more comfortable, though we understand the reason for your coming is one none of us would have desired."

Alayna hesitated, having no idea how to answer this. But if she was left speechless by the Kings greeting, that didn't bode well for explaining her mission. She finally settled on, "Thank you, my Lord."

Arthur indicated the man on his right. "This is Sir Gawain."

Alayna inclined her head in greeting, which Gawain returned, and Arthur continued with the next man. "Sir William Fitzwilliam..."

Belatedly she realized he hadn't singled out Gawain as someone she needed to know; the King was simply going around the table. Alayna tried to concentrate, mentally repeated each name as Arthur spoke it, and lost in turn each name as Arthur moved to the next. The only names that stayed with her were Gawain, since he'd been the first, and Percival, since he was last—and also he stood out because he was the only one of the twelve, besides Mordred, who wasn't her father's age or older.

Once done, Arthur said, "Please tell us, as you will, what happened."

Alayna nodded and took a deep breath. "Two knights—"

"Did you know them?" interrupted a man several places to Arthur's left. He had darting eyes and fidgeting fingers.

"No," Alayna said. "If I—"

"Then how do you know they were knights?"

"They were dressed as knights," Alayna started. "I—"

"How?" the man interrupted again. "Exactly."

"Plate armor—"

"Painted? Any devices? Insignia?"

Alayna started to shake her head, and the man didn't wait for her to vocalize her answer. He asked, "Did they carry shields whose pattern you might recognize?"

"No, I—"

"What makes you think they were knights then, and not just thieves?"

Alayna glanced at Galen to see what he made of this man who wouldn't let her get out more than two or three words at a time. But Galen, she saw, was in company among whom he did not dare speak out as an equal. And Mordred was busy watching the King. She spoke in a rush to get her question all out: "Thieves who stole armor from knights?"

"Why not?" the fidgety man snapped. "Or from an armorer? Might they not have been?" His tone suggested he was sure she planned to argue.

"I don't know," Alayna said "They might—"

"What of the horses?"

"Sir Lambert," Mordred finally intervened, "will you give Lady Alayna a chance to answer any one of your questions, or must she wait until you have asked them all first, then answer the sum of them at the end?"

There were some quick smiles, and the first man, Sir Lambert, explained, "Please pardon my zeal for the truth, only I find it difficult to believe knights would accost a woman and her child in their own home."

"Oh, verily," said Mordred, in such an ingenuous tone there could be no doubt his words meant the opposite of what he said, "such a thing has
never
been done before."

"Not in recent memory," Lambert protested. "Not in King Arthur's lands. Perhaps in the backcountry of Cornwall, where—"

Mordred sighed and looked away. Apparently this was an old argument. The burly Gawain must have been Cornish also, for he brought his arms down heavily onto the table.

"Enough," Arthur said in the long-suffering tone of a father experienced with bickering children. "Let Lady Alayna tell her story." As though to get her started again, he prompted, "Two knights broke into your home—"

"Two men dressed as knights," Lambert corrected.

Praise God Arthur was king, and not Lambert.

"It happened so suddenly," Alayna resumed, "I didn't get a good look at them. I am not certain I would be able to recognize them again, but I might." She thought of their man who had grabbed her, how she had spun around and found herself no more than the breadth of a hand away from him. "I think I would be able to recognize the man they had with them."