Of course, it was anyone’s guess now what tone that debate would take. Or whether those heads would remain cool. One thing was certain, if Alaric handed over the letter now, there would be an eruption. Rivers of blood would run in this palace, rather than rivers of ale. Despite this, an odd perversity almost steered him into the heart of the mayhem, shouting and waving his envelope. But good sense at last forbade it.
Eleven
King Arthur was roused from his bedchamber at four o’clock to be given a message from the Watch that the Roman ambassadors were departing the city. If the King was still fuddled from the previous night’s carousing, he sobered up quickly enough. But he remained calm and thoughtful. He took a minute to absorb the information, and then issued orders that he was not to be disturbed again until dawn.
“Alaric!” Bedivere called.“Alaric!”
Alaric glanced around from the lodge-hall hearth, which he was having trouble lighting as gusts of damp wind kept howling down the chimney, scattering smoke and embers. Most of the other squires, Benedict and Malvolio included, were still snoring beneath their cloaks. Overhead, rain hissed on the thatched eaves.
He stood as Bedivere barged into the hall. The lad was pale-faced from lack of sleep; his eyes were sunken, his hair in stringy ringlets. He’d already made one trip across the courtyard, during which he’d been drenched, and up into the guest-apartments, to slide Countess Trelawna’s envelope beneath Earl Lucan’s door. That had been two hours ago, when everything was eerily quiet. Now the entire palace was alive with bells and the frantic feet of servants.
“Where is your master?” Bedivere said. “The King summoned the Round Table at first light. Lucan’s the only person not to have attended.”
“In his apartment, my lord. He won’t come out.”
“I’ve just been to his apartment and there was no-one — ” Bedivere paused, noting Alaric’s wan features. “What’s happened?”
The squire stammered out everything. After a night of anguish, during which he’d alternately prayed, wept and tormented himself with dreams of loss and guilt, it now seemed unimportant to conceal that he’d known about the countess’s deceit in advance.
Bedivere stood rigid. “You young fool!” he finally whispered. “Why didn’t you report this straight away?”
“I thought it a private matter…”
“A private matter!” Bedivere’s voice rose to a shout. “You damn idiot! This could mean death for someone!”
“I felt that, too. So I thought it best…”
“Best for whom? The miscreants? You thought it best to let them escape?”
Suddenly Alaric’s mouth was as dry as paper. This was, of course, the truth, though he could hardly bring himself to admit it — not even to himself.
“Did Trelawna tell you the Roman ambassadors were planning to quit Camelot?”
Alaric shook his head. “She implied that she and her lover were leaving. It shocked me so much I didn’t even think about the rest of them.”
“That you didn’t think is plain as day!” Bedivere looked ready to hit the lad. His lips had tightened so that his teeth were bared. “Get the rest of these oafs on their feet and search the palace. Press any servants you find into helping you.”
Alaric did what he could to marshal the rest of the squires, though in an attempt to protect the dignity of his overlord, told them nothing about the night’s revelation, which left most of them nonplussed and half-hearted in their quest.
It was Alaric himself who finally located Lucan. First he checked the apartment and, as Bedivere had said, found it empty and in a state of disarray. Next he looked in the adjoining room which had been used by Countess Trelawna’s maid, and found this also empty. Unlike the other room, every drawer and closet in here was closed. There wasn’t a thing out of place. All her personal belongings had been carefully removed.
Cursing Trelawna and her staff for a coven of conniving witches, he hurried on his way, at last — thanks to the advice of a royal guardsman descending from one of the high battlements — tracing his master to a pinnacle turret, where he stood between two mossy merlons, his toes on the very brink, the rain sweeping over him.
Alaric sucked a tight breath as he advanced onto the battlement walk.
Lucan wore leather breaches and hunting-boots, but only a loose blouse, which, soaked through by rain, clung to his tightly-muscled torso like a second skin. His long black hair also dripped with rainwater, but his head was bowed as though he was sleeping on his feet. Only his fingers made contact with the rain-slick merlons, providing no real anchor.
Alaric hardly dared to speak — he hardly even dared step forward.
“Did you know, Alaric…?” Lucan said without looking around. His eyes were open, gazing unseeing into the abyss below. “Did you know my father served Uther?”
“I know that, my lord,” Alaric replied.
“But did you also know that even by the standards of that most violent king, my father was a particularly violent baron?”
Alaric said nothing. He was wondering if he could dash forward and grab his overlord around the waist without accidentally pitching him to oblivion.
Lucan continued, his voice a dull, dead monotone. “When Arthur acceded to the throne, a handful of those warlords who’d gone before him were subjected to the Damnatio Memoriae. And my father was one. Did you know that?”
“I did, my lord.”
“That meant his sins were so great, the mere memory of him was outlawed. His name was to be erased from monuments, struck from records…”
“I’m aware…”
“And yet you…” Lucan looked up, taking the rain full in his face. He swayed dangerously. “You… who were born so long after he died, know all about him. It can’t have been a very effective measure.”
“I fear, my lord, you can’t kill a memory.”
“No.” Lucan smiled thinly. “You can’t unsay a creature like my father. His wickedness will spill down the ages… as I am surely proof.”
“My lord, please…”
“We lived on the north-facing flanks of Weardale, above the wooded wilderness of the Hen Ogledd, in a jagged tooth of a castle called Craghorn.” Lucan’s expression remained blank as the rain battered it. “I remember those days so well. Our wild North seems tame by comparison. The local populace was a mix of Brigant-Celts who’d deluded themselves that this entire realm should be theirs because their ancestors once used it as grazing-land, and Picts — painted head-hunters who’d launch murder-raids across the Brynaich. But if our enemies were dangerous, our friends were no better — lawless knights and barons, each in his own keep, constantly at feud or rebellion.”
“My lord, please come down from…”
“But of course, you know that too. How could you not? Perhaps it’s no wonder my father became the man he was, eh? Trying to hold the lid on such a cauldron. He was so wary of treachery and assassination that he became a specialist at both. He made night-assaults on anyone he suspected of disloyalty. Slew them in their beds, trampled their crops, burned their orchards and grain houses.”
Alaric felt a rising dread as he watched Lucan’s booted feet slide on the wet stonework. “My lord, if you would just…”
“One expedition went badly wrong. Father and a party of his knights were ambushed in the forest of Ewing. Most died in the first flight of arrows. But he and one other fled. They hid in a small chapel, where they tried to claim sanctuary. Their enemies were amused that this man, who had never respected the laws of Christ, should seek to hide behind them himself. So they piled wood around the building, brought oil and set fire to it. Eventually the heat and smoke overcame my father’s companion. He died, choking on his own vomit. To escape the flames, father climbed into the steeple, but the intense heat caused the chapel bell to melt. Gobbets of molten iron dripped down upon him; one struck the side of father’s face, incinerating it. Still he survived. In the morning, when all that remained of the chapel was a blackened shell, the enemy kicked their way in. My father, now a hideous relic of what he’d once been, was waiting, sword in one hand and mattock in the other. He killed six before they fled, thinking him a demon.”