"Oh, Toland!" she cried, coming in from airing out the bedding and finding her husband and their child with heads close together, mixing bitter-smelling herbs into a pasty green substance she couldn't begin to guess at. "I've asked you not to do that in front of Kiera."
Toland had looked up from his work, his expression guilty and defiant at the same time. "What? This smells foul, but it's only to help chickens lay. It isn't dangerous."
"That's not the point." Alayna had glanced at Kiera, who sat still on the edge of the table and said nothing. The child's face, always too pale and serious for her age, remained impassive.
Toland had sighed. "Oh, Alayna. I'm not corrupting our daughter. She has the power. Train her in magic, and she'll be able to control it. Ignore it, and she'll just be less adept."
"Kiera," Alayna had said, "tables are not for sitting on. Go get water for washing our hands before supper."
Alayna remembered how Kiera had turned to her father, as if waiting for his permission. Toland had kept his face expressionless, and Kiera had gone, sulkily, still never saying a word.
"Alayna..." Toland had started.
Alayna had put her back to him, poking at the fire, and eventually he, too, stormed out of the house without a word.
For love of him, she had left her ancestral home, left despite her father's warning to be sure this was what she wanted, for—if once she left—she would not be welcomed back. She had learned to do without servants or rich clothes.
But it was one thing to be married to a wizard; she would not raise one. Too often she had heard of folk suddenly blaming all their problems on magical interference. Too often suspicion would boil over into violence, sometimes directed against people who had no more magic than Alayna herself, often against old women who had lost their wits and young excitable girls. Toland was capable of taking care of himself. Twice they had packed up what little they owned and fled to avoid mounting hostility. Alayna would not let Kiera be subject to that.
Magic was the only thing about which she and Toland had ever argued. And, in the end, it was Alayna who had the last word. For when Toland died, she had gathered his potions and herb pots and talismans, and had burned them all.
Just as the knights today had burned all the possessions she treasured.
Alayna forced her mind into blankness and kept on walking.
When she finally did see Croswell's cottage, the old farmer was hitching his horse to a wagon, apparently about to leave for town. "Wait!" she called, waving to get his attention. "Please wait!" But she used all her breath running. When she finally reached him, she could do no better than to pant, "Need your help. Your horse please. No time to lose."
Croswell squinted at her. "Eh?" he said.
"Please. My daughter's life is at risk."
Croswell looked apprehensive. "What?" he asked, trying to pry her fingers loose from his arm.
Alayna forced herself to slow down and suddenly found herself trembling and crying.
Croswell peered into her face. "Eh, now," he said. "Ain't you the lady from the cottage down yonder? The wizard's woman?"
Alayna nodded.
Croswell finally gave her a steadying arm. "Why, what's happened? Why'd you come the back way, on foot?"
"Have some men been by here?" Alayna was finally able to get out.
"Who? What sort of men?"
"Two knights. Five horses."
"Five horses for two knights?"
This time Alayna pulled loose and grabbed the little man by the shirt. "They've taken my daughter!" she cried, shaking him.
"Who?"
"The two knights!" she screamed. "Did they come by here?"
"That's the road that leads to Camelot," Croswell said, nodding just beyond his front door. "Men pass all the time."
Alayna, suddenly realizing what she was doing, released his shirt. "Please, I need to use your horse."
"My horse?" He scratched his head. A dry old man who smelled of dusty earth, he had lost his entire family to a virulent winter flux the year Galen had gone off to squire. Now he seemed to be out of the habit of talking and to be having trouble concentrating. "But why didn't he help?" he asked.
"Who?" Alayna tried to keep her voice even.
Croswell gave her a look that indicated she was a simpleton. "Your husband. What's the good of having a wizard in the family—"
"He's dead," Alayna told him, though Croswell had attended the funeral mass last year.
But perhaps he had attended too many funeral masses to keep them straight. "I'm so sorry. They killed him and took the girl?"
Alayna refrained from shaking him again. Instead she pronounced each word slowly and distinctly. "May I take the horse?"
Croswell shook his head. "What's the world coming to?" His lusterless eyes appraised her. "Take the horse, why don't you?" he suggested.
Alayna's hands trembled as she unfastened the traces. The horse was old, incredibly old, and bony, and she hoped it wouldn't die of age before she reached the road. She swung onto its back. Her skirt was wide enough that she could ride straddled, which she hadn't done since she was twelve and her father and stepmother declared it was time for her to start behaving like a lady. But there was no way to ride sidesaddle without a saddle, and she wasn't concerned about looking like a lady. "Thank you," she told Croswell as she dug her heels into the horse's sides.
She could hear Croswell yell, "Easy, she's older than you are, you know." Then softer, once again, "What's the world coming to?" And then she was too far out of range to hear any more.
CHAPTER 3
The men had probably gone east. Camelot was a half-day's journey to the west—even less with a decent horse—and it was well known that King Arthur would not tolerate murder and abduction. Alayna felt she could assume the lords of those baronies that were closest geographically would be least likely to be involved in actions sure to offend the King.
Still, she had to fight the inclination to head east after the men.
Even if she had a sword, she told herself—and she hadn't picked one up since her parents had finally put a stop to her training when she'd reached twelve—even if she had a weapon, and even if she was in as good form as she'd ever been—which she knew she was not—and even if she could ever hope to overtake them—which with Croswell's horse she could not—even then; What could she do against two knights and their man?
She hesitated on the road, looking down the way she was certain they'd gone. And Kiera, she prayed. Surely that was why they had taken the mare. Surely...
She turned west, toward the help she could seek from Camelot.
But soon it appeared that all the agony of making her choice had been meaningless, for Croswell's horse suddenly slowed and, after a few moments of consideration punctuated by Alayna's cursing, it slowly sank down and lay on the road.
Alayna jumped at the last moment to keep from getting her feet caught underneath. Now she started tugging and pushing.
"You worthless animal!" she cried. "Horses aren't supposed to lie down in the middle of the road. Come on. Up! Get up!"
She stooped down in front of the horse's face. The animal looked at her with dull, unresponsive eyes.
"Nice horse," she tried, scratching gently between the eyes. "Good horse. Are you hungry?" She plucked a handful of flowering wild grass from the roadside and waved it in front of her tired mounts face. "How would you like some nice sweet grass?"
The horse snorted and looked away.
"By the blood of St. Francis, get up off the road!"
The horse gave a knowing snort, indicating her sincerity had been at question all along.
Alayna threw the grass to the ground and started walking. As soon as she was too far away to do anything about it, she heard the horse get to its feet and start off toward home at a steady clip.
I don't need you, Alayna thought.
Let everyone and everything conspire against her, she would still get Kiera back.
Eventually, from behind, Ala
yna heard a horse trotting in her direction, moving faster than Croswell's decrepit animal had managed in years. She turned. A knight was approaching. She felt a moment of dread. Twenty years of assuming she knew how the world worked had shattered. Knights, she had to remind herself, were honorable men, were men to be trusted. This was a single rider, which pointed at the probability that he wasn't one of the pair who had attacked her home. And, therefore, she told herself a second time, he was to be trusted. She stood in the center of the road and raised her arm, signaling the rider to stop.
But the man ignored her and changed neither speed nor direction. At the last moment Alayna took a step to the left and felt the horse's warm breath on her cheek, and the knight's metal-clad foot brushed against her arm.
"Thank you, gentle sir!" she called after him.
The man tossed a small coin over his shoulder.
Alayna looked down at her dress, soiled and tattered from the fire and her walk through the fields, looking like a high-born lady's cast-off rag. She could only imagine the state of her hair and face. She sighed. Knights pledged to help ladies. Nobody expected them to waste their time running errands or settling quarrels for peasant women.
She resumed walking.
The next time she heard someone approaching, much later and again from behind, she resolved not to take any chances on being mistaken for a beggar. She stopped and sat on a rock by the edge of the road. She would have wished for the element of surprise, but for just that reason all large trees and boulders were kept clear from the road.
The horse was a destrier, a fine light gray warhorse, though the rider, unarmored and without a helmet, looked quite young. Somebody important, then, she thought. Or the son of somebody important. So be it. He was going slowly enough for Alayna to hope she could stop him without getting herself killed.
She waited until he was abreast of her, knowing that the horse was aware of her presence even if the youth wasn't. At the last possible moment she jumped up and grabbed the reins for one instant, and then leaped back off the road.
Immediately the horse, trained for battle, reared up on its hind legs and flailed with its front hooves at the space where Alayna had been an instant before. She had counted on the young lord to keep his mount from trampling her despite his surprise, but he slid out of his saddle and hit the road, rear end first.
The horse, fortunately, was satisfied, and galloped away.
"Sorry," Alayna said, running up to the felled rider. Most of all she regretted yet more delay, but she hadn't meant for him to fall, and she hoped he wasn't hurt.
"Sorry."
He was swearing in some foreign dialect—possibly Gaelic—and trying, with only moderate success, to get to his feet.
Alayna let him pull himself up on her arm.
"What were you thinking, woman?" he demanded, which she took as a strong indication that he would recover.
"I said I was sorry."
"Oh. Well. That fixes all, then."
Cornish, she settled on. Just the faintest hint—more in inflection than pronunciation. "Fine horsemanship," she observed icily.
His dark gray eyes widened, then narrowed, and he took a deep breath. But he bit back whatever he was going to say and turned his back on her. Without a word, he started walking.
Young, Alayna reflected. He was even younger than she had first thought, probably not even her own age. And thin-skinned, apparently. Not the kind of person she'd have chosen. But she didn't have the luxury of choice. And, after all, it would have been worse if he'd been the kind to take out his annoyance on her. She hurried to catch up. "I am sorry," she repeated.
He kept on walking, without bothering to look at her. When he finally spoke, it was to the air before them: "You could have been killed."
Which was not what she'd expected him to be brooding about.
"I had to take the risk, sir. It did not occur to me that my action endangered you, also." Alayna took care to speak slowly and evenly in the accents of a lady so that she wouldn't be mistaken again for a peasant. She didn't mention that had he been a better rider, he wouldn't have fallen. "I am truly sorry, but please, I need your help."
"You might have tried asking, you know."
"Yes. Certainly. And you would have stopped."
The young man—the knight, he had to be, with that horse, for all that he wore no armor and he was shorter and of a more slender build than average—finally did stop, finally did look at her. "Yes, I would have," he said.
Hard to judge.
And of little consequence now.
Alayna resumed walking. "Well, then, I thank you. But one of your fine compatriots passed me by already." She wasn't even going to start explaining that it was knights she needed help against.
He stopped again and pulled her around to look directly at her. His dark eyes i were quizzical. "Who are you?"
"Lady Alayna De La Croix. My father is Sir Guy of the Towered Gate." Maybe she would tell. "This morning—"
"You're Galen's sister?"
Alayna felt a surge of relief. "You know Galen?"
By the knight's smile, it was a happy acquaintance. "We squired together. I'm Mordred of Orkney."
Her breath momentarily caught. "The King's nephew?" she gasped, though she knew both her father and her brother believed the rumors that he was actually Arthur's son, by the King's own sister, the witch Morgause.
Mordred's smile tightened, and he neither acknowledged nor clarified his exact relationship to the King. He tried to kiss her hand, but—nephew or son—he was the heir apparent to the throne, and she was already dropping into a curtsy. "M'Lord," she murmured.
He looked embarrassed and quickly got her back to her feet. "Tell me what happened."
"Two knights broke into my home—I don't know who they were. They stole my daughter, killed my retainer, and left me for dead in a burning house."
"Stole your daughter?" Mordred repeated. From his renewed scrutiny of her face, he must be trying to guess how old she was, as though to gauge whether she could have a daughter who might be of an age to warrant abduction.
She resented the hesitation—she wasn't that much older than he. "She's five," she said.
"What did they want with her?" he asked.
"I'm not sure." But she'd been thinking about it while she walked. She added, "My husband—he died last year—he was a wizard." When the young knight didn't comment, she continued, hesitantly, "And ... Kiera may well have ... inherited ... some of his powers..."
He raised his eyebrows at this.
"She can..."—she bit her lip, finding this hard to put into words, for she had tried so long to ignore it away—"talk to animals ... and make herself understood, and understand them. And, once in a while, she might mention something that hasn't happened yet and then it ... well ... happens." Alayna swallowed hard. "Sometimes." She swallowed again. "Will you help me?"
He sighed, which in a moment of panic she took as reluctance. But then he said, "Of course I will," and he looked down the long road that stretched empty before them. "As soon as we find that damn horse."
They began walking.
And walking.
And walking,
Alayna had begun to limp and was leaning heavily against Mordred, when he pointed off to the left. "The road curves around the old Roman quarry, but there's the castle. You can see the north tower through the trees."
Despite its proximity, she had only been there once: for Galen's investiture as a knight. "Camelot," she whispered in awe..
"Mmmm," Mordred said. She couldn't decipher his tone, but it definitely wasn't awe. "Camelot."
They didn't try to cut across the quarry, which would have been treacherous going in any case, and kept instead to the main road in the hope that someone would be sent when Mordred's horse showed up at the castle riderless.
And, in fact, it wasn't too long after that when they heard the sound of horses. One of the house guards came around the corner, the gray charger in tow. "Sir Mordred," t
he man said with a grin. "You seem to have lost a horse and gained a..." He raised his eyebrows. "Could it perhaps be ... a Lady?"
"Yes," Mordred said, quietly and evenly.
The man smirked, obviously doubting this, obviously giving his own interpretation of why Mordred was in her company.
No need to take time pondering what that was. Alayna felt herself blush, though this man's opinion of her was of no consequence. Still, that anyone could think that of her ... She hovered between shame and anger, even as she felt herself diminished as a mother for letting these concerns distract her at this moment.
Mordred looked from the man, to her, back to the man. He smiled, showing a lot of even white teeth but absolutely no warmth. He said, "And, of course, since you didn't bring a mount for her, you will have to give her yours."
"M'Lord?" The grin wavered as the guard tried to determine how serious Mordred was.
"Off."
The man gave Alayna a disgruntled look, but slipped off the horse.
Mordred helped her up, a politeness probably for the guard's benefit since she was already halfway there, and if the guard had doubted before that she was a lady, her straddling the horse couldn't have helped.
Mordred swung onto his own horse. "I will send someone back for you," he leaned down to tell the guard. Then he gave his cold smile again. "If I remember."
Alayna flicked her horse's reins and took off at a headlong gallop. It was a small gelding, no match for Mordred's mount which would catch up in a moment, but it felt like riding the wind after her own small mare and Croswell's plow horse.
And at last, now, she felt as if she were doing something. I'm coming, she thought to Kiera.
CHAPTER 4
Camelot was aswirl with color. Alayna remembered that had been her first impression four years ago also, when she—and Toland, and Kiera, who hadn't been quite one-year-old at the time—had come to see Galen named a knight. In the intervening years, she had remembered the impression of color, but had forgotten the colors themselves.
There were banners, and awnings, and shirts and dresses: all in different shades and textures, not looking as though they were all dyed together—the way the shirt Toland had been buried in matched exactly the blue of the family's best tablecloth, which was the same as the blanket Kiera used on chilly nights. Or had—until this morning.