Camelot Burning (21 page)

“We should have left for Camelot,” I whisper. “I'm sorry.”

He adjusts his tunic and trousers and flicks the rain from his hair. He runs his hands over his face, waking himself from a fog. When he turns back, his eyes undress me. When they see mine, they fall still. “Never imagined I'd hear an apology afterward,” he whispers, a laugh escaping his lips.

I embrace him, resting my cheek against his rapid heart. He exhales a pained sigh and sets his arms around my shoulders. “I've never done that before,” he admits.

My lips find his neck, wanting nothing more than to press fully against his wet skin.

“Please don't.” He lifts my chin. “Either that would be a terrible idea or a fantastic one.” Another sad smile.

His eyes tell me of another world where things could have been different. Our skin could have dried from a fire he'd have built, and he could have finger-combed my hair as my back lay against his chest. We could have ignored the clock on the tower, the castle in the clouds. We could have escaped.

Escaped. Left Camelot. Run off somewhere, away from his duties and mine.

“Now what?” he whispers, breathing a smile to make light of everything. But the devastation in his voice doesn't fool me. Neither do his eyes.

He should know as I do. It has to end here, before it even begins.

But then he cups my face, and ending this is the last thing I want. “I've wanted to know you for so long,” he says.

To be the reason he gives up on knighthood would be a devastating scandal. My reputation would be a harlot's, and he might be cast out of the kingdom as nothing more than a serf whose mother's life could be lost. This cannot happen, especially when the castle is destined to face another attack. Camelot would be left without a finished weapon to fight Morgan. Arthur's resources would be hers. The Grail would be hers.

“I don't … ” Words fail me.

The vulnerability on his face is overwhelming. “I'm not an idiot. I know our time is limited, that your reputation's at stake, that after all of this, your father will want a respectable man for you. Not a serf. Owen's made that quite clear.”

“That isn't it—”

“But that's part of it. I'm not trying to upset the social order in a castle I still have yet to understand. Honest.” His eyes are far away. “But you don't know how happy you look when you're listening to ramblings about Mongolia and the Black Sea or when you're working in the clock tower. You don't know what that does to me.”

I smile, running my fingers under my eyes to catch any traitorous tears of frustration or bliss. Duty is slowly surpassing happiness.

Marcus's face breaks. “Please, say something.” He pushes the hair from my eyes.

There's only one thing I can say. “You're the only one who knows of the clock tower. Of the joy it brings me. And that's all right with you.”

He smiles.

“But with your knighthood—”

“We'd have to say goodbye at some point anyway. Could be as simple as me walking out that door and into a ruthless storm. Or I could be slain by Morgan's legion, by the witch herself for siding against her.”

“Don't,” my voice rasps as I capture his face in my hands. I push away the image of his cold body on a battlefield of iron-jawed men, machines foggy with steam while he lies amongst them. “I can't bear it.”

He tries to smile, but it's bittersweet. “What else?”

I'm not sure anything else I say would be logical or sound. For now, my heart is stronger than my head. I have to grab on to any hope I can. “There's nothing else.”

His face inches closer to mine before he pulls away. Best not to tempt fate. He rests his lips against my forehead, setting a kiss there that's much too chaste. It's all we can ask for.

The rain shows no signs of letting up just yet, but still we're here, and we're alive.

“Come,” he says, leading me toward a warmer spot. “I'll make you that fire.”

Twenty-Five

I'm walking down a sunlit corridor.

The light moves around me like a untrustworthy wind, ushering me closer to an altar, a dull chalice sitting atop. My hand reaches for it, but a voice tells me it's not mine to—

A door slams. My eyes snap open.

That golden world fades.

My fingers grip a gentleman's jacket and a blanket wrapped around me. I'm pressed against Marcus, my head in the crook of his shoulder, his arm across my waist. The fire has long since sputtered out. Wind rattles the barn's poorly made door. The storm has passed. Merlin's spell held; Morgan never found us. And now it's morning.

“Oh goodness!” I'm to my feet instantly, and the jacket and blanket fall. Marcus takes a few seconds to awaken. I leap from the bundles of hay for the door.

“Wait … hold on … ” Marcus calls after me, sleep still woven in his voice.

There's a gentle hum of crickets as the sky turns from purple to blue, the sun threatening to appear at any second. My heart pounds, and my head is still between dream and wake, but it's enough for me to take in my surroundings and run for the castle. People might look for me once they realize I never returned. Guards will wander the streets, magnified goggle viewers and three-legged nightscopes atop the parapets in full force, with gas lanterns whose flames could stretch beyond five feet, only to find me in the arms of a future knight.

Damn it all!

I shake my head and mutter some of Marcus's favorite curse words. Then I realize the additional cost of being alone with him just once—I failed to meet Merlin in the clock tower. But blowing up the harvester might have slowed down Morgan, enough to forgive my failure.

“You keep running that way and you'll walk straight over the drawbridge!” Marcus calls, catching up. He laughs as I fold over, exhausted. “With a set of legs like that, you shouldn't have needed a horse yesterday!”

A lazy arm strikes out to hit him, but he moves to avoid it. “A lady of Camelot can do better than that, surely.”

“It's not funny! There's probably a search going on right now!”

He crouches next to me, watching each pathetic gasp for air with shining eyes. “They're not looking for you.” He helps me up, his arm around my waist. “Come along, you stubborn girl.”

“You can't know that,” I gasp. “My parents must be frantic.”

“No one's noticed. I'm certain.”

“How?” I grasp his free hand. Oh God, I love the roughness of his skin.

“Look,” he says, pointing with the finger in my hand to the clock tower. “If they were searching for you, Merlin's falcon would be out, and the wizard would be scanning the entire kingdom with his telescope, but his curtain's drawn.”

The curtain of Merlin's window is indeed drawn, although I'm not sure he'd need his telescope. But perhaps Marcus is right. Then I realize the subtle detail in what he said.

“Caldor.” I thought the mechanical falcon was my secret alone.

His eyes are riveted with curiosity. “I've told you my travels. Tell me yours.”

My smile numbs my cheeks as I start as far back as I can remember, grasping the memories in midair to show him, one by one. By the time we've reached the lake, we're clutching hands as I go on about the revelations in alchemy Merlin learned from Azur. The ulterior motive in seeing Excalibur, which Marcus had already guessed once he found Merlin and me in the cave. My crossbow side project. I mention vague details of Victor, and my heart screams at what I've decided to withhold for now. My recollections of heavy coughs and smoky air distract Marcus, but then I describe Caldor, and his fascination returns, at some points asking me to repeat what I've said as though the ideas are too much. I know the feeling.

I've never felt so freely happy before.

Guards patrol the wall closely, and a handful more smoke by the convenient birch. The gates have been resurrected overnight: the blacksmith must have worked nonstop to ensure our kingdom was strong again.

To avoid creating a scandal by risking the front gate, the only option for Marcus and me is to sneak in through a little known break on the other side of the gardens, where several blocks are loose. Squires go there to buy
shisha
from eastern peddlers, he tells me.

We disappear into some shrubbery, finding the break easily. No chaos has erupted inside Camelot. On the contrary, the gardens are mostly empty, save for older ladies encased by parasols watching their husbands play cricket. Tradition must be kept, even as the aura of fear still looms. Perhaps word never reached the subjects that men died yesterday, despite all somber evidence to the contrary. A few dandies refuse to bid the night farewell and take to morning strolls with maidens of the court, the bodices of their gowns low enough to be quite the distraction. The girls' eyes widen in awe at the dandies' exaggerated retellings of what happened.

“Oh God,” Marcus says, his eyes falling upon the reconstructed gates. There's no sign of carnage, but blood has dried into a most unpleasant shade of brown on the northern wall. In the grassy courtyard, it nearly looks beautiful against the green. “What Lancelot must think of me,” he adds. A long pause before he finds the will to ask. “Who was it that died?”

“I only know Sir Vincent was amongst them.”

His eyes darken with regret and sadness. I step toward the break, but Marcus's hand draws me back. “Wait,” he whispers. “One more minute.”

His hands settle on my back, locking me to him. My hands graze the collar of his tunic, and the pulse in my wrists leaps against my skin. He rests his forehead against mine. We close our eyes and just breathe, letting our hearts beat against the other's. His fingertips trace the outline of my face and brush back some of my loosened hair. “We're to be different people inside the castle, I suppose.”

I nod.

“Then until we return to the farmlands.” Marcus kisses my cheek, and this time, I don't pull away.

He slips past me into the gardens, walking backward for a second and managing a bittersweet smile before jogging for the knights' quarters to face Lancelot's wrath.

I gather myself, running a careful hand over my hair to make sure I don't look like the wildcat I feel I am after a night in the rain, sleeping in a bundle of hay with a squire.

A wilting peony greets me in the gardens, where there's more decay now than before. The bloom breaks and flutters to the ground. All around, more yellow and brown have sprung up. The gardens look closer to the wild farmlands than the fairy tales I always thought they resembled.

Merlin's incantation is waning fast.

My hand tugs on the ring of my bedroom door. I beg God to be spared of any creaking that might awaken my mother, who mistakenly believes my ritual of sleeping until late morning on Sundays has yet to be broken.

Inside, it's dark, and my bed lies empty, sheets untouched. But as soon as I take a step toward those soft blankets, the gas lantern in my room brightens. I squeeze my eyes shut with a wince. My mother's footsteps sound from the door, one light clack after another until I feel her presence in front of me. I listen to her long sigh.

“You were out all night only one day after there was an attack.”

Blast.
But her voice is calm. That's good. I open one eye in hopes it'd ease the trouble I'm in. “The queen was frantic after yesterday's events, and she asked—”

“Stop lying, Vivienne!” my mother shouts, eyes wide, cheeks flushed with fear. God help me if she found out where I actually was. I stare at our feet, mine covered in mud from the fields. Hers, properly polished and ready to appear at court. “Sir Lancelot and the queen were unavailable for most of the evening. I know you weren't with them. They requested no advisors, orderlies, or companions. I was terrified when I couldn't find you. I didn't know if you were hurt or—” She bites down on her words, her eyes filling with angry tears she's quick to overcome.

Guilt floods me for indulging in stolen moments with Marcus while the knights mourned their fallen brothers. “I wasn't hurt. I'm fine.”

She nods once and then marches me to the dressing table, running a boar-bristle brush through my hair that still sports bits of sharp hay. “The council is due to meet in an hour. The queen will need you.”

Over and over, she brushes my hair until it's smooth enough to fit into a bit of steel netting that yanks most awfully at my scalp.

“Has torture evolved to the state of fancy hair?” I whisper through the sharp pain.

“Your father wanted you to stay in your chambers when you weren't needed by Guinevere. The queen herself told you the same. Your disobedience might cost you a place in court, all for—” She yanks me around so we're facing each other, and I watch her thin lip try not to quiver. “You cannot think that your presence in Camelot goes unnoticed.”

I frown. “What do you—”

But then a gasp escapes my lips, and when I realize what she said about Guinevere, a pang of worry strikes me.
No advisors, orderlies, or companions?

In the woods, Morgan mentioned betrayal, and I was terrified she meant Marcus …

But the way Lancelot called Guinevere by name. The way their hands found each other. The way their eyes glinted white. How she sent for him to meet with the council, but they spoke alone at the Round Table first. How Lancelot's words seemed to indicate they'd known each other in Lyonesse, and quite possibly, he was the very person to save her from execution and charges of witchcraft. How the lace she cherished and then rejected was a token girls in Lyonesse usually received from their champions.

My mother studies my eyes. “Vivienne, what—”

“Open the gates!” guards bellow from the walls as heavy gallops lure our eyes out the window. The new ports churn open. “The king returns!”

Arthur.

I rush to the window. Hunched over his steed, Arthur's hair is a shocking white, his eyes frenzied with lines spidering outward. He disregards the unnaturally clean gates and any rubbish still present from yesterday's attack. His beard is gray, disheveled atop ruddy, sunburnt skin. He's an old man.

But strangely, he's managed to keep his clothes in immaculate condition, as though he fell to a level of hell where the body and mind were tortured while devils indulged in their appreciation for fine silk.

Galahad and more knights follow, not with the same physical affliction, but on the brink of slicing open the throat of the next man who confronts them.

My father runs to meet Arthur in the courtyard. Guards gape as their shaky king dismounts. Galahad and the other knights stay unmoving atop their horses. Several of them maddeningly declare they still walk in their foliaged, apple-tree visions, and we're all figments of terrifying nightmares.

“Your majesty!” my father bellows.

But as my father approaches, Arthur's blade threatens him, the hammer in his hilt clicking ready to fire.

“Arthur—”

My mother screams. I grip her arm. “Oh God.” What sort of evil did Morgan put on him?

The king's head tilts unnaturally. “The witch told me what she did. In Lyonesse, and here. Where's Lancelot? Where's the man I left in charge?” The line of Arthur's blade presses against my father's neck. His fingers are delicate at the hilt's trigger, drumming unpredictably. “Where's my wife?”

My father has no answer.

But I do.

I run to the basin and splash water on my face, and then change into a fresh gown of muted pink with a corset that's a mesh of silver, tossing aside the rained-on, slept-in garment from last night.

“Vivienne, stop!” my mother shouts. To disobey her now would be unforgivable. But I have no choice.

“I cannot stay here. I'm sorry.” The stillness of Merlin's window weighs on me, but I need to find Guinevere. I need to know Morgan's talk of betrayal had nothing to do with her.

Without thinking it through any more than that, I run out the door.

I reach the queen's towers and burst through the group of guards at the foot of her steps, leaping up two at a time. When I reach the landing, I come to a halt.

She walks out of her bedroom wearing nothing but disheveled linens and bliss. White light segments her pupils, stretching toward gold irises that should be brown. Her hair is wild.

Lancelot walks out with her.

The knight—dark curls just as wild as hers and tunic open revealing a damp chest—takes the queen by the waist and turns her so her back is against stone. She touches his brow with tender fingers. He cups her face, and they breathe each other in with clashing lips.

“Oh God,” I breathe.

It's loud enough for them to have heard me. Lancelot wrenches away from Guinevere. Their eyes flock to mine. The strange whiteness in their pupils disappears, and I see what must be the witch's curse with my own eyes.

Footsteps storm the stairwell. Arthur pushes me aside with such strength that I slam into the wall. Guinevere and Lancelot gape with horror at their king.

Morgan's promise of betrayal didn't concern an informant after all.