He saw a familiar face as he crossed the outer bailey. The maid Bors had flirted with during that first visit to Camelot — the one who had brought his father's tabard to them in the armoury.
He struggled to recall her name. Caroline? Claire? Katherine?
Was that what Bors had called the maid? Katherine? He found his lips shaping her name, as though to call it.
As though she sensed his scrutiny, the woman looked up from the well where she was labouring to draw a pail of drinking water up. She was pretty, in a sensuous rather than sweet way, and every bit as dangerous as Bors had warned. He watched the way her body moved beneath the skirts, appreciating it.
Alymere saw recognition pass fleetingly across her eyes, but they clouded and quickly something else replaced it. Shock? Revulsion?
No. It was worse than either of those, he realised. It was pity.
He drew himself straighter, defiantly, and strode towards her.
She couldn't take her eyes off him. There was no lust in her gaze this time, though. Of course, she hadn't seen him like this before. She had only seen the pretty boy he had been, not the burned man he had become.
He stopped two steps before her. Alymere hawked and spat into the dirt at his feet.
"Not so pretty now, eh?" he said, by way of greeting.
Katherine looked away. "Beauty belongs on the inside as much as it does on the outside, my lord," she mumbled, eyes downcast.
He barked out an abrasive laugh. "Then perhaps this," he touched his cheek, "is my ugliness clawing its way out. Or maybe if you kiss me I shall transform into a handsome prince?"
She had no answer for that: no coy smile, no batted eyelashes, no flirtatious offer to make a man of him.
"I thought not."
He left her at the well.
A young girl ran up to him, a chain of daisies in her hands and a summer flower tucked behind her ear. He turned, snarling, but was stopped by her pretty little face, so full of happiness and excitement. He reached out to take the daisy chain and looked down at them, the perfect little flowers on his scarred palm, and as he did, the little girl caught sight of his face. Her breath caught in her throat, but she did not scream or run away from him. She seemed oddly fascinated by him. There was something uncannily familiar about the child, although he had never seen her before.
The daisy chain slipped through his fingers. Alymere stooped quickly, picking the flowers up from the dirt before they were ruined, and slipped the chain over his head. He smiled his thanks, earning an uncertain smile before he kissed the centre of her forehead and sent her back to play with the others. Rather than being frightened, she seemed delighted. He listened to her as she skipped away, singing the refrain of a madrigal he vaguely recognised. He caught the words "Kingdom of Summer," before she was too far away for him to hear the rest of her song.
He looked down at his left arm where Blodyweth's favour was tied around his bicep, and for just a moment, perhaps, the lost Alymere might have reached up from the darkness where the Devil had cast him, but then the moment was gone.
He rolled his shoulders and stretched before continuing the short walk across the bailey to the keep's doors.
No-one got in his way.
The two guards standing sentry over the main doors didn't block his entry into the castle itself. They looked at him from head to toe before lowering their pikes and stepping aside to let him through. They offered no hint of recognition.
He nodded to them.
He was back. It wasn't the allotted two years and a day, but with both Lowick and Roth dead, there was no-one left to see to his training. And besides, he was more of a man now than they had ever been, he thought bitterly.
His footsteps echoed hollowly through the passageways of the place.
He heard the strains of music — a piper — filling the distance. It was a pleasant enough tune, if made rather funerary in the echoing halls. The castle had not changed. He knew where he was going without knowing where he was headed; he paused at the stairway that led up to the aviary where he had first met the king, turned and set off in the direction of the great hall.
The huge double doors groaned heavily on their iron hinges as he opened them. He hesitated a moment on the threshold, as though unsure he could enter the heart of Albion, but then he smiled without warmth and strode into the hall. He felt himself growing in stature with every step as he marched down the aisle toward the Round Table.
He was no longer a child. He was Alymere, Killer of Kings.
There was nothing left of the young man he had been.
We are not here begging for approval, nor are we hoping for freedom from old ills done to loved ones. This is our right, our destiny. We are here to claim our destiny. And if the fool king dares refuse us, we shall take it. There was no doubt in the voice of the Devil. It filled him. It thrilled him.
He commanded the chamber in a way that Sir Bors never could.
This time he was not awed by the kite shields hanging on the walls. He didn't care that the devices belonged to Sir Dodinal le Savage and the brothers Sir Balan and Sir Balin, Sir Helian le Blanc, Sir Clariance, Sir Plenorius, Sir Sadok, Sir Agravaine of Orkney and Sir Ywain of Gore or any of the other brother knights. His own device would sit amongst them soon enough, once they took down Lowick's leaping stag. He only had eyes for a single seat at the table, the Siege Perilous.12 His face twisted from a smile into something approaching a sneer as he walked towards it, determined to break whatever bond the sorcerer, Merlin, had set upon it and claim it for himself.
It was only the first of many things he intended to claim, including Camelot itself and, in time, the kingdom beyond its walls.
He knelt at the foot of the chair, as though in worship, and pressed his hands flat against the cold stone floor. He could feel the power of the earth flowing through the stones, the sheer thrill of it coursing through his veins. His expression as his head came up had passed beyond supplication into the realms of adoration. The weight of the book and the Chalice, wrapped carefully and stowed in his pack, pulled on his back; the chair was the heart of the chamber, which in turn was the heart of the castle, which in turn was the heart of Albion, making the Siege Perilous the centre of all things — and there was magic in the symmetry of that.
Alymere breathed it in, and then rose to his feet.
He reached out for the chair, though whether to steady himself or claim it for his own it was impossible to say — but before he could lay a hand upon it, a voice rang out across the chamber. "You think to claim the seat even before you take the Oath?" The quiet question reverberated in the stone hall. "Did your time with Lowick teach you nothing then?" Arthur's voice was resigned, almost wistful.
Alymere wheeled on his king, snatching his hand back, and for the second it took for him to master his face, his eyes burned.
"No my liege," he said, forcing himself to sound meek. "I was overcome, sire. It is an extraordinary thing, is it not?"
"It is."
"It is not often in my life that I have come face-to-face with something worthy of legend. My apologies."
For a moment he was sure the king would not be so easily mollified, but he need not have worried.
"I heard about your uncle," Arthur said.
"Anyone would think I was cursed," Alymere said.
"Not words to say lightly, b-" he had been about to say boy, but caught himself. "So, tell me, what have you learned about yourself?"