Shame landed on him like a rockfall. Nothing short of death could have excused his letting Garbonian go. He got his legs under him. Walking felt odd, as if his feet were skimming an inch or so over the red-pooled flagstones, barely in touch with them. Arthur and Coel had seen him now, were turning to him open-mouthed. His heart tried to crawl to a halt in his chest. The only way out was immediate confession of his fault. “Art,” he gasped. “Coel, Your Majesty... I’ve failed you. I let the traitor go.”
The courtyard lurched: knocked him sideways onto his arse. His disgrace was complete. But Art didn’t seem to care. He dashed across to crouch at his side, and his warm strength, lifting and propping, was the only thing left in the world Lance cared to have. Gratefully he leaned against his chest. When he breathed Art’s scent through the open neck of his shirt, he could read every minute of the night his king had passed, the hot reek of battle and beneath it the traces, deep and fresh, of their long, loving struggle for release in the wooden bed. Art rocked him. “What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you hear me? Garb got away.”
“For the love of Tamar, Lance, you had to leave one alive tonight. You fought like a demon—didn't he, Coel?”
“A very demon,” Coel agreed, thudding down beside them. “It was my job to stop Prince Garb, not yours—and I should have done it twenty years ago. Ah, it was a grand fight! I haven't seen the like in years.”
All three sat in silence, taking in the devastation. It didn't seem strange to Lance, to be sitting in the midst of scattered corpses with the two high kings. Had Arthur reached over and handed him bread and a flagon, that would have felt natural too, as if they'd stopped their horses in the dunes to rest and eat. Art didn’t think much of Lance’s injury, if he’d noticed it at all: was holding him as if he’d stumbled out of a fistfight and just needed steadying until the world stopped spinning round.
All was well. And if Art and Coel didn’t care about Garbonian, why should he? For Lance, whose sense of responsibility was acute, the sudden rush of freedom came as something wild and new. Mirth shook him, and Art, who had scarcely ever heard him laugh without restraint, looked down at him strangely. “What ails you?”
“Nothing, love. Nothing at all.”
Coel grinned at them, as if they met his satisfaction too. “You’ll have to take care, lads,” he said. “These damned Roman priests want bodies and souls for their church, and if you’re not getting children—in lawful wedlock, at that—by your passions, they’ll tell you you’re hellbound for that, as well. For myself, I think it does a man good to love a fellow soldier. Teaches him responsibility—the bonds of combat, not this titupping courtly love we hear of from the travelling players.” He regarded them, smiling, a merry old soul indeed. “I’ll tell you what. I wish you two had been my sons. Bryneich would have been a kingdom then.” He held up his sword, considered its bloodstained blade thoughtfully in the firelight. “I believe that I shall leave this place. I believe that I shall go and take up the work I abandoned in the northwest, against the Scots and the Picts.”
Art shook his head. “That’s a lost cause, Coel, and you know it.”
“I do. However, it is my cause. It always has been. I am an old man, Artorius, and I don’t expect to return from such a campaign.” He nodded at them contentedly. “I have not been happy here, trying to fill the boots the Romans measured for me. I will be glad to take my last journey. And that leaves my fortress here empty, with no heir.”
“Your Majesty, Garb may still be alive.”
“Not to me. No, not to me. I’d hand it to you, Artorius, did I not know that soon you’ll have more strongholds than you can deal with. You, Lance, however… I knew your father a long time ago, and old Ban, though he can die and make a king of you, will never leave you a castle. And that’s a bad state of affairs. A king should have one—a grand rock like this, from which he can hold the whole north for Arthur of the Britons.” He flashed a triumphant smile at Lance, reached out a bloodstained paw to pat his face. “You it was who lifted the curse, who took the worm out from my heart. Din Guardi shall be yours, the Castle Dolorous no more. From now on it shall be Joyous Gard. What do you say?”
Lance couldn’t say anything. He was numb now from his throat to the pit of his stomach. He heard Art observe, “I think he’s a bit overwhelmed,” and watched as if from a great distance as his friend released him, stood up, took him by both cold numb hands and tried to hoist him to his feet. “Come on, then, Lance of Joyous Gard. You’ve earned your rest. Coel, I’m sure he’ll thank you in the morning.”
Coel stared. His old eyes were still sharp—the sharper, for his night wielding a sword. “Never mind that now. He’s bleeding, Artorius. Look to him!”
Chapter Sixteen
Garb’s knife had been tainted. For several days afterwards, Lance lay desperately ill. When his delirium ebbed, his chief impression was of Arthur, shouting: at Coel’s herbalists and physicians, at his brother, when Guy had come and tried to prise him away from the bedside to get some rest, and then at Lance himself when he showed signs of giving up.
Hearing him did Lance more good than any amount of poultices or the herbal draughts being poured down his unresisting throat. His deepest instinct was to obey his king, and so he lived.
He surfaced in sunlight, in the chamber that overlooked the sea, to the scent of a driftwood fire. Arthur was sleeping uncomfortably, propped on a stool against the wall. When Lance said his name, he woke with a jolt that almost knocked him to the floor. It took him a moment to regain his poise, but as soon as he saw that Lance was smiling and clear-eyed, he straightened up, pushed his hair back and came to sit on the edge of the bed as though nothing had happened.
Lance surveyed him. He was unshaven, his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion, and he looked ten years older. “Well,” he said. “Are you done scaring the wits out of me?”
“I… think so, yes.” Lance tried to push upright, but his muscles were water. “How long did I take over it?”
“Almost a week. It’s been quite inconvenient.”
“Yes, I can see that. I’m sorry.”
Art leaned over him. In frowning silence, he folded back the bedclothes. Someone had dressed Lance in a short winter tunic of the softest wool, thick enough to keep him warm but easy to manage in a sickroom. Lance didn’t own such a garment, but he’d seen one like it among Art’s things. Art eased the hem up, lifted the bandages beneath with a practiced, cool-fingered touch. “You’re almost healed. Your wound wasn’t deep, but there was some kind of poison on the blade.”
“You’ve nursed me with your own hands.”
“Least I could do, after the healing you brought me.” He glanced up. “I did try it, you know—asking Excalibur to give me that power. But for me she’s just a sword.”
“Such a sword as never was seen. You and she swept like fire through that fight.”
“But is that all there is to it, Lance—the fight, and the fire?”