He whipped round. He hadn’t noticed the doorway behind him, or the rising ripple of voices and laughter coming closer. Coel’s fort was a honeycomb, halls and chambers linked by unexpected corridors. Halfway down the curving stone stairway that led from the floor above to the door onto the parapet, Arthur was standing. He was holding fast to the banister with one hand. His other arm was around the waist of one of the handsomest women Lance had ever seen. Her face was kind, her bearing noble.
Art was to be married. That was good and right, and in the nature of things. A woman like this would be a companion to him too, if the keen intelligence in her eyes was anything to judge by. The shape of her brow reminded Lance of Coel’s, and she was perhaps a daughter of the house. She was a dozen years older than Art, but that mattered little: an alliance was an alliance.
A huge pang of grief seized Lance. He told himself there was relief in it. He and Arthur had their separate paths—could live without each other, as they’d lived for the last three years. All was for the best. What would he have done, if Art had let go of the woman at his side and taken a step towards him, saying his name as he had by the moorland lake, in front of the courtiers and maids gathered round him?
Art let her go. He could barely walk without her support, but he clutched the stone rail with both hands and took one step down. “Lance,” he said hoarsely, eyes clouding with tears. “Lance!”
Chapter Seven
He dismissed the crowd with a look. Even the queenly lady at his side whisked herself away in a sweep of scarlet cloak, casting only one concerned glance over her shoulder as she vanished up the stairs. The others scattered like leaves on the wind, and then he was alone.
Why couldn’t Lance run to him? He’d ridden halfway across the country to get here, almost broken the heart out of a good horse. Why couldn’t he climb a flight of stairs?
Arthur saved him the trouble. He half-stumbled, half-fell down them, and limped across the patch of windswept turf. The sun had gone down now and the sudden night was cold. Uncertain lamplight painted the parapet wall. “For God’s sake be careful,” he said. “I lost two off there last week in a drunken scrap.”
At last Lance could move. He strode forward, holding out his arms. Arthur walked into them, and their bodies met hard, a subdued thump of ribcage, flesh and bone. Art was shivering. “Lance,” he whispered. “You came.”
***
Three stars were rising over the North Sea. The stone archway framed them, making a new constellation. The Trinity of Joy, Lance would have called it, or Journey’s End. He knew it was only the tail end of the Plough, beginning her nightly sweep up and away to the zenith, but he would take what he could get. The Plough was also called the Bear, and soon Arcturus would rise too—Arthur’s star, the sign he’d watched for on clear nights over the moors. Red-gold, like the head resting now against his shoulder. The stone archway could be his own arm, a shielding curve. “We’d better go in,” he said softly. “It’s getting cold.”
“I can endure it if you can.”
“Yes.” Fire, ice, the mud of battle, whatever you need me to bear. “Not very kingly, though, is it? To be sitting here on the back stairs?”
“No-one dares question me. And when I tell them to go, they stay gone.”
More sorrow in that than pride. “Even the lady in the red cloak?” Lance asked tentatively. “She didn’t seem to want to leave your side.”
“Yes, even she, though she has more right to disobey me than any of the others.”
“Because… Is she your chosen bride?”
Arthur sat up. He looked at Lance in undisguised amazement. A smile dawned on his face, pale echo of the blazing grin that had lit up Lance’s summer three years before, putting the sun to shame. “My what?”
“Well, Drusus said—I hope it wasn’t a royal secret—that you’re about to be married. I wondered if that was the lady concerned.”
“Lance, for God’s sake. She’s seen thirty winters if she’s seen one, and she’s a bony old girl into the bargain.”
Was she? Lance had only seen strength in the woman’s tall frame. He’d clearly put his foot in it, though, and was glad the shadows would hide his blush. “I’m sorry. I thought her handsome. Anyway, if she’d been your choice—”
“But she isn’t. Good grief. She’s my sister-in-law.”
“Your… Oh! Guy?”
“That’s right. Within two weeks of clapping eyes upon her. She’s Coel’s eldest daughter, the Lady Ardana.”
Lance tried to sound worldly. “Was it… political?”
“Hardly. She decided she wanted him, and he returned the favour, so they marched straight off to the Din Guardi priest and tied their knot. I didn’t mean to call her names. She’s strong as an oak, and she goes about with me whenever she can to save me appearing with a crutch.”
“That’s good of her. Yes, I… I heard you’d been hurt.”
Art shook his head. “You don’t have to play things down. They thought I was dying, and I cried your name so often in my fevers that they sent Drusus to fetch you. I do know. And over the moors and dunes you came at the gallop, expecting no doubt to find me with one foot at least through death’s door.”
Lance couldn’t deny a word of this. “I’m just glad to find you still on this side. All of you.”
Art shifted on the cold stone step and winced. “It very nearly wasn’t all. The reason for the mystery surrounding my injury—apart from the fact that I’m meant to be immortal—is that I took a knife blade through the top of my thigh and into what Gaius likes to call the family jewels.”
“Oh, my God.” Now it was Lance’s turn to wince, in pure sympathy. “Ouch.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“How did that happen?”
“I slew the Saxon who’d killed Ector. I thought I had, anyway. I was… distracted, though, and the bastard knifed me with his last breath as I was stepping over what should have been his corpse.” Art laid a hand to Lance’s mouth. His fingers were chilly and smelled of witch-hazel salve. “It’s in your good and noble heart to tell me how sorry you are about my father, how you grieve with me. I take it as said, dear friend. I can’t bear to speak of him, though. I can’t.”
Was it wrong for Lance to kiss the fingers pressed against his lips? Right or wrong, it was done before he could stop himself, and Arthur’s gaze widened unfathomably. He caressed Lance’s cheek before lowering his hand. “I won’t breathe his name,” Lance said. “Not until you do, I swear. This wound of yours—it has healed?”
“My physicians are sworn under oath to say it has. A king must be potent as well as immortal.”
“And the truth of the matter?”
“I’ve been too sick to test the equipment. Too scared.”
“Oh, Art.”
“I’ll be fine, I’m certain.” He made an effort to brighten, painful for Lance to watch. “I’d better, hadn’t I? For the sake of my future bride.”
“There is such a creature, then?”
“The Merlin says so. He’s prophesied her arrival soon.”
Lance took this in, wide-eyed. “So… she isn’t real?”