Knights of the Round Table 03 - Gawain Read online

  LAUNFAL’S eyes were no longer empty as he watched Morgause walk away, but blazing in a face as bleakly beautiful as a winter’s moor. Had Morgause bothered to look back, she would scarce have known him.

  But Morgause did not look back. Launfal knew she wouldn’t. Had she begun to guess how well he knew her she would have been astonished—and deeply affronted that she was not the mystery she thought herself. If she learned he had feigned illness to give Aislyn the chance to flee—had, in fact, delayed Morgause for another quarter of an hour with his nonsense—she would likely have him whipped. And she would watch every moment of it, drinking in his agony with the same expression she wore when he pleasured her in bed.

  Oh, yes, he knew her. He knew her very well.

  “God help you, Aislyn,” he said aloud, then a hard smile touched his lips. God had abandoned their family long ago. They were in the hands of a demon now, one who walked the earth in a woman’s form. “Run,” he breathed. “Run fast and far.”

  Aislyn would. She had always been the clever one. And she would not look back, for she never had before. He doubted she even remembered she had a brother, let alone wasted a moment in wondering what had become of him.

  And why should she? He was as much an imbecile as Morgause thought him. Who but an imbecile would have just thrown away his one chance to escape this life that was killing him by inches?

  He’d planned it all so carefully, choosing the precise words with which to convince King Arthur that he had no intention of slaying him, had never harbored any such intent, and that he himself was a loyal subject in need of the king’s aid. He’d have only a few moments in which to say those words, for Morgause’s guards would be posted near at hand, but the king was said to be quick of understanding. He would surely realize it was the truth when Launfal did not attempt to exact the terrible penalty for the king’s failure.

  The one thing Launfal had not anticipated was that the king would not fail; that he would, in fact, have the very answer Morgause had sworn he could not know. Morgause had been certain that none but Aislyn could give it to him, and Launfal had been equally certain that his sister was long dead. Why he had been so sure he could not say, save for his belief that had she lived, she would have found a way to contact him, an assumption as ridiculous as it was pathetic.

  All this had flashed through his mind in the moment the king stopped speaking. Launfal’s careful plans were blasted into ruins, but even so, he might have managed to win the king’s aid. The risk would have been nothing to him had it been merely his own life at stake, but now it was Aislyn’s, as well, and he had not known where she was or whether to speak would bring her into danger.

  And so his chance had slipped away, all for the sake of a sister who despised him. “Nit,” she used to call him, and though now it seemed trivial, at the time the pain had been quite real. It wasn’t so much the name, though it was hardly flattering, but that Aislyn knew how it hurt him to be mocked for his size. He’d made the mistake of showing it, and so the name had stuck, others taking it up until he nearly forgot he’d ever had another.

  Nit. It no longer fit his stature, yet there was a certain truth to it, though fool would be closer to the mark. You would think that by now he would have learned that the first lesson of survival was to think only of himself. Everyone else knew it, after all, Aislyn first and foremost. It could only be some errant scrap of honor that had driven him to folly, the dying remnant of the knight he might have been.

  Somer Gromer Jour—Lord of the Summer’s Day. What a joke. He was lord of nothing but his own ruin.

  But perhaps Aislyn would have better fortune.

  Chapter 6

  THE stale heel of a loaf had been Aislyn’s breakfast; her supper the night before, a handful of boiled oats and a few walnuts. She had long since forgotten what it was to eat for pleasure rather than to merely keep herself alive, and when the doors leading to the kitchens were thrown open, the scents were enough to make her dizzy. When the varlets began to stream into the hall with platters on their shoulders, her knees grew weak and her stomach rumbled noisily.

  She and Gawain were seated at the high table—Gawain at the king’s right hand and Aislyn beside him, with the young brown-haired knight who had stood up with Gawain to her right. She spared him only a quick glance before her attention was riveted by the dishes appearing before her— suckling pig, parsnips and onions swimming in oil, manchet bread and pots of butter, barley in a fragrant gravy studded with currants— She gazed at it all, barely able to stop herself from seizing everything in sight. But why should she stop herself? The crone wouldn’t. Laughing inwardly, she grabbed a slice of pork and stuffed it in her mouth, moaning aloud as the various flavors of meat and pepper and garlic exploded in her mouth.

  The tusks made chewing a disgusting business, but the horrified stares of her tablemates only added to her enjoyment, for she had quite destroyed their appetites. They merely picked at the delicacies, faces turned away. At the lower tables, conversation was muted, and several of the ladies sobbed openly.

  Gawain ate nothing. That was no surprise. She didn’t imagine he’d have much appetite just now. What did surprise her was that he didn’t drown his troubles in drink. He lifted his goblet once, took a small sip, and put it down again, where it remained untouched for the remainder of the meal.

  And it was very good wine, or so it seemed to Aislyn, who had not tasted any for five weary years. She finished one goblet quickly and a second more slowly, savoring each drop. When it was done, she reached for the flagon. Gawain’s hand grasped it first and moved it beyond her reach.

  “That is enough,” he said.

  “Eh? Who are you to—”

  “Your husband.” He set a pitcher of water beside her empty goblet. “Drink that if you thirst.”

  “Now, look here, lad, if you think you can tell me what to drink and when, you are mistaken.”

  “No, it is you who are mistaken,” he said with icy courtesy, “if you think I will shirk my duty to protect you, even from your own folly.”

  “Protect—?”

  “My lady will not demean herself or me by drinking to excess.”

  His lady, was she? Once those words would have been enough to make her weep with joy, but now she only fixed him a steely gaze. “I’ve been looking after myself for years, laddie. If you think I will obey—”

  “As you have just promised to do so, I believe I am within my rights to expect it. Should you wish to discuss the matter further, we can do so privately, but I refuse to quarrel in public. No,” he added, holding up a hand as she began to protest, “I have said all that I intend to say on the subject. If you cannot conduct yourself as befits your station, I shall have you escorted to your chamber.”

  Having delivered this pronouncement, he turned away, leaving Aislyn to stare at his profile in shock.

  Was this really Gawain? When had he grown so prim and dreary? The first thing she had noticed about him long ago—well, the second really, the first being that he was over six feet tall with a face like a young angel and a smile like the rising sun—was his sense of fun.

  When you were with Gawain, everything was an adventure, even if you were just walking through places you’d visited a hundred times before. Look, he said, and she looked to find herself in a world that was new and vibrantly alive. It was all so beautiful, the burn rushing over the stones in a streak of white, a curiously shaped boulder, the first blossoms on a cherry tree. He’d picked one and tucked it behind her ear, his fingertips brushing her cheek— She had forgotten that day. She had made herself forget, because to remember hurt too much. That was the day they’d found the kittens, bobbing down the millstream in a sack. Gawain had spotted it, of course, for there was nothing that escaped his notice, and where anyone else would have passed by, he’d wondered what it was. Once he’d wondered, he had to know, and he’d fished it out and dried the kittens off—how he’d laughed when they climbed all over him, and she had laughed, too, sitting beneat
h the cherry tree . . .

  That was the day he had kissed her.

  Don’t look back, she told herself. It was all long ago and best forgotten. Five years stood between her and the girl she had been then: five years to understand that she had lost all hope of security—let alone of happiness. Five years of flight, of exile in a dingy little hut, existing but only half alive.

  Five years that Gawain had spent serving his king, surrounded by his friends, living the life he’d always wanted and winning fame and glory.

  She turned to the knight on her other side, who had been listening to her exchange with Gawain with shameless interest. He was a year or two older than Gawain, she thought, with smooth, dark hair caught back carelessly at his neck. His face was lean, his eyes very bright in his pale face. Throughout the meal he had not spoken to anyone, but stared into space, his fingers tapping out a restless rhythm on the trestle. Now he did not shrink from her perusal, but regarded her with those unsettling eyes, nothing but curiosity in his expression. She had been introduced to him, but could not recall his name. Brandon, she thought, or Darmuid . . .

  “Sir Dinadan,” he supplied.

  “Right.” She was a bit annoyed that he’d followed her thoughts so easily, so she gave him her best smile. He leaned a little closer, gazing fascinated at her teeth. “A friend of Sir Gawain’s, are you?”

  His eyes flicked up to hers. “Yes,” he said decidedly. “I have that honor. We met years ago, after the—” He lowered his voice. “—the rebellion.”

  “Which one?” Aislyn helped herself to his wine. He grinned, revealing unexpected dimples.

  “The first one, just after King Arthur came to the throne.”

  Aislyn nodded. Some of Britain’s most powerful barons had thought pulling a sword from a stone was insufficient proof of Arthur’s lineage and had sought to relieve him of his crown. Gawain’s father, King Lot, had been chief among them.

  “Was your father one of the rebels?” she asked.

  “Alas, he was.” Dinadan took the wine from her. She opened her mouth to protest, but he merely sipped and handed it back, a show of good will that could not have come easily. She lifted it to him before she drank, acknowledging the gesture.

  “Father always was a fool,” he went on. “Afterward, many of the rebels’ sons were sent to court to be trained as knights.”

  A nice way of putting it, Aislyn thought, when what they’d really been was hostages to their sires’ continued loyalty.

  “And you are still here,” she said.

  “Indeed. King Arthur is Britain’s best hope against the Saxons,” he said, and all the humor vanished from his expression. “That alone would keep me at his side. The Saxons are a curse,” he added, raising his voice slightly. “I would see every one of them driven back into the sea.”

  “Not quite all, surely?” Aislyn glanced past him to the tall Saxon lord seated on his other side, who she vaguely recalled was one of the king’s allies. The man stiffened, his eyes narrowing.

  “All.” Dinadan leaned back, an ironic smile curling his thin lips. “I mistrust these treaty troops,” he said, not bothering to lower his voice. The Saxon glared at him, then turned pointedly away. “Gawain does not agree with me,” Dinadan went on in a drawl, though his long fingers were busy tearing a hunk of bread to pieces. “All the king does is well done in his eyes. But years ago, when I was a child, I was taken prisoner in a Saxon raid upon my home.” He dropped the bread and took the wine from her again. “Seven years of slavery are not easily forgotten.”

  “No, I expect they wouldn’t be.”

  He smiled and waved a hand, banishing the subject. “Tell me about you and Gawain. How did you come to marry so suddenly?”

  “True love strikes fast.”

  He laughed and heads turned in their direction. Aislyn fancied he rather enjoyed shocking them, and she warmed to him, feeling she had found a kindred spirit. “I must confess, lady, that I have no idea what to make of you.”

  “Good.”

  He offered her the wine again, but she refused. Though she’d never admit it, Gawain was right. She’d had enough. A bit more, in fact, and she might give into the temptation to share her jest with Sir Dinadan, who seemed to her a man who might enjoy it. Instead she turned from him back to Gawain.

  Holy Mother, but he was a handsome wight. Different, though, from the lad she remembered. That Gawain had been a blooded warrior already, but merry-hearted, too, always ready with a jest. She had yet to see him smile today—small wonder, considering—but she fancied the change in him went deeper than this marriage.

  They called Gawain the Courteous Knight, and she’d always wondered why, for though he’d been mannerly enough when she knew him, she would hardly have called that his defining feature. But no song had ever praised him for the qualities that had captured her five years ago: his impulsive generosity, his high spirits, the honesty that always took her unawares. Strange how honesty was always referred to as blunt. His had been sharp as a dagger, slicing through all her glittering ambitions to reveal them for the tawdry things they were.

  Or no, she thought, resting her chin on her hand, it was the fierceness of his idealism that had won her. Many and many an argument they’d had over it, too; first because, mindful of her duty to Queen Morgause, she had attempted to draw Gawain away from King Arthur and back to the loyalty he owed his clan. Later she had argued for her own sake, for she could not believe in the new Britain Gawain described to her, a place where every subject, no matter what their station, was entitled to the king’s protection. A land where a widow could not be driven from her home simply because she lacked the ability to defend herself against a greedy neighbor.

  A land where justice was every subject’s right, not a gift to be purchased at the cost of a girl’s body . . . and her soul.

  Aislyn had not dared to believe such things could really be. But argue as she would, no words of hers could quench the fire that consumed Gawain, and in the attempt she had only succeeded in catching his vision like a fever.

  Sir Gawain the Courteous? That was far too tame a title for the young warrior she’d known. But it suited the man beside her now.

  There was a look of chill austerity about him that matched the tales she’d heard of him of late. Sir Gawain the Chaste, she’d heard him named, and though at first she’d laughed, remembering certain passages between them, she had never heard another woman’s name linked with his. His was too lofty a spirit to surrender itself to the dark urges to which all men were prey—or so the stories went—and no mere woman could ever win a heart so devoted to his God and king.

  Not for lack of trying, Aislyn thought eyeing the weeping maidens throughout the hall. But Gawain did not seem to regard them in the least. Even when one forgot herself entirely and called out, “Mercy, sire! Whatever Sir Gawain has done, have pity on him!” he only glanced briefly in her direction, brows slightly lifted as she was helped, sobbing, from the hall. A ripple of uncomfortable laughter passed among the courtiers, but Gawain did not seem to hear it, save that his lips pressed a bit more firmly together.

  A pity, Aislyn thought, regarding the grim set of his mouth. He’d had a most enchanting smile. He’d certainly enchanted her . . .

  And you’re lucky you didn’t die of it, she reminded herself sternly.

  She picked at the remains of her meal, but her hunger had long been satisfied. She was just wondering how long they would have to sit here when the great doors opened and a warm, blossom-scented breeze rushed in. “Sir Lancelot du Lac,” a page announced, and suddenly the hall sprang to life.

  Guinevere sat up very straight, her face vivid with excitement. The king looked over toward the door, as well, his expression brightening. Aislyn craned her neck to see this newcomer, but he was surrounded by a group of knights, all talking at once as they gestured toward the high table.

  “What?” The voice rang out across the hall. “You’re joking!” And then she did see him; a slender, dark-haired yout
h in a fine crimson cloak. He saw her, as well. Astonishment and disbelief chased each other across his fine-boned features before he burst into a merry laugh.