For the rest of that night I couldn’t say anything right. I kept digging myself into deeper and deeper holes with Palomina. Many times I wished I had never found the spell to hide my stutter, as I would have had to think harder about my words, but the magic had become such a habit with me that it was not easy to untangle. I tried to tell her that I’d already resolved to come clean; but then she asked me why I had felt it necessary to lie in the first place. So I told her about my intense loneliness on Avalon, and the way my phantoms had at first seemed to turn against me until I learned the glamour; but then she asked about the nature of the phantoms, and why I had let her believe they were temptations placed in my way by Lady Bertilak. She inferred, despite my protestations, that I had made them for less wholesome reasons than had been the case. ‘What did you make them do, Drift?’ I remember her snarling at me. ‘Did you have them undress for you?’
I became angry in return. I accused her of lying to me, of hiding Mordred’s intention to send me to my mother, of not telling me that Margaret of the Marsh’s father was with us. I wondered out loud if she was jealous of dead Margaret. She responded with a captain’s logic: she had not told me about Mordred’s plan because as our leader that was his prerogative, not hers, and if I had not been so cowardly with my magic then I would have known everything she knew. My accusation of jealousy she would not dignify with a rebuttal.
I tried to apologise, but ended up offending her even more. My explanation that my discussion with Mordred earlier in the day had triggered my desire to tell her the truth was interpreted as an admission of habitual lying. When I repeated what I had told Mordred about my plan to kill Avalon, she said I should have gone through with it, as then I could have saved her brother. ‘You think you are the only one here who has made sacrifices, Drift,’ she said. ‘I have involved my family in a war and lost two brothers, one in his opinion of me, the other to Arthur’s dungeons.’ She didn’t stop there, she said something I thought very cruel: ‘To think I loved a hunchback for his pure heart! Your soul is as twisted as your true form.’
Then she stormed out of the stony chamber I had been allocated – she would not let me enter hers – half-sobbing, half-raging. I conjured a block of ice to block the door, and broke it apart chip-by-chip with small pellets I shot at it.
One hundred times an hour I thought about knocking on her door to apologise, and one hundred times an hour I decided that she was as in the wrong as me, if not more.
* * *
At that time of year night in the far north seems to last no longer than a few minutes, but I think I managed to sleep for an hour or so in fits and starts. After two or three further hours of tossing and turning, I heard people begin to move around the camp. I got out of bed, and as soon as I did this it disappeared, mattress, sheets and all. Garnish’s hospitality spell was being removed from the camp as we made preparations to leave – all of the furniture was part of his enchantment. I dressed and left my chamber in the grim-faced hope of finding Palomina. I knocked on the door of her cell, but there was no answer. When I tentatively pushed it open, I discovered her room was bare.
I heard whistling coming towards me from up the path, and turned to see Mordred. I had never heard him whistle before. He was completely transformed from the boy I had found sitting alone in the darkness the day before. He was smiling even as he whistled, all tension gone from his body.
‘Good morning, Drift!’
I looked up at the sky and saw blue. It was a more pleasant day than the one before, though it didn’t feel like that to me.
‘I’m going to bathe before we head off. Coming?’
‘I’m looking for Palomina.’
‘She and Melwas set off early to find a boat. The party for Orkney are going to meet them at the coast.’
I needed no clearer signal from Palomina. She didn’t even want to talk; she had fled the camp to avoid me. That was all over.
I fell into step with Mordred, and he led me down the valley towards a lazy greenish river.
‘Thank you for your advice yesterday, mate,’ he said brightly as we walked. ‘You were right: your fresh eyes saw the situation more clearly than I could. I don’t know why I couldn’t tell Melwas the truth before, but she understood everything, just like you said.’
‘She forgave you?’ I said glumly.
‘Said there was nothing to forgive. Lord Jesus, what a girl.’ We reached the side of the river and he took off his shirt. ‘Hey, are you alright, mate?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Oh, is it this?’ He indicated the scar on the left side of his chest, where Agravaine’s lance had pierced almost to his heart. ‘My ribs ache a bit in the cold, but it’s healed otherwise. Do you mind if you don’t come in, by the way?’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘There’s some new stuff in here I’d like to keep private.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. I must admit my feelings were hurt a little, but at that moment I couldn’t stand the thought of connecting with the mind of someone who had so obviously rediscovered his lust for life.
He removed his breeches, and jumped into the water. He disappeared below the surface for the moments, before bobbing back up, slicking his wet hair out of his eyes. I looked at his slim but well-defined shoulders and chest, and wondered if the appearance I’d created for myself was an imitation of his.
‘What you said yesterday, about Garnish...’
He looked serious for a moment. ‘Epicene says... Just don’t be too open with him.’
‘Why is he with us, if you don’t trust him?’
‘He could be useful is all.’ With that he disappeared below the water.
I watched him swim.
* * *
When we got back to the camp the others were ready to go. I wasn’t sure where they had been keeping the horses, but there were enough of them for all of us to ride. Sir Dinadan was on the back of a narrow wagon, in a cage made of fiery bars that did not scorch the wood. It reminded me of the more rickety cage the knight had locked me in when he took me from the Lake. I sidled up to the bars to look at him. There were no obvious burns on his face or hands.
‘Makes a change this, doesn’t it, Lord of the Lake!’ said the knight, as thoughtlessly jolly as ever. ‘A right reversal! Well, never fear, you lot will all be in cages before long; Merlin and Lamorak will see to that.’
I looked up at Epicene as I passed her, wondering how she had obtained the intelligence from Dinadan without harming him – one of the first things she ever told me about her magic was how painful, and potentially fatal, her method of connecting with other minds was compared to mine. She nodded at me, seemingly pleased by my confusion. I wondered if she’d found something in my gift of the Magikos to change the nature of her magic, but then she’d had the book for less than an hour when I saw her and Norma heading for Dinadan’s cell. She had always been so open with me on Avalon; the change upset me.
Piers would drive Dinadan’s wagon. Alisander was riding with Aglinda – I was surprised to see that it was he holding the reins, rather than his friend. Norma and Christian were also sharing. The old nurse rode sidesaddle, with Christian in front of her. Everyone else bar Bellina was riding astride. Brunor, dressed as always in the coat that slouched off his shoulders, was standing at the front of the party, tending to three horses.
He held out the reins of the first horse to me, a sturdy piebald six-year-old he called Tommy.
‘You want help up?’ Brunor asked me. ‘They say you’re not a rider.’
I put my foot in Tommy’s stirrup and lifted myself easily into his saddle. ‘I learned.’
We went together as one party only as far as the gate that marked the entry to the valley. Then, wishing each other good luck, the party for Orkney went west, along the route by which we had come in, while Brunor led Garnish, Petal, Bellina and me due south, on a different, but very similar path.
Not wanting to talk to, or even look at, Bellina after what she’d caused to happen between me and Palomina the night before, I rode in front for the first stretch, alongside Brunor. He told me a little of himself, of his birth in a land across the seas to the south, of his vow to recapture his family’s lands on one of the near edges of the circle sea, and of how he had come to know Mordred.
‘It’s the British who took Castillo Orgulloso from us by treachery,’ he said. ‘A Red Knight invited himself into my father’s home, and slayed him. The thieves cannot even pronounce my home by its true name; they name it the Castle Orgulous.’
‘How did you end up in Britain?’
‘I came to warn King Arthur that I would kill his man, this Red Knight, to revenge my father, whose coat I wear. We are a passionate people in my country, our land has real sun which makes us quick to anger – that, I think, is why our laws are so much more strict than yours. This land of Britain is cold and wet, the living is easy, and so you have little respect for the law. We are a more civilised people; we obey the proper order of things. But before I could reach Caerleon to speak to your king I met Mordred, who was then only concerned with rescuing his sister, the fair Iseult, whose beauty is known by repute even in my country. After he told me his tale I knew I would find no justice at Arthur’s court – it was one of Arthur’s own knights who stole Iseult from her father’s house on Erin.’ He made a long actor’s sigh. ‘My rage upon hearing Mordred’s tale was quick, and I vowed to him not to rest until Iseult was safe once more in the bosom of her family. In return, Mordred vowed to help me recapture Castillo Orgulloso once Iseult was safe. I believed at that time it would be a matter of weeks.’
‘But now it’s been years.’
‘Si, si,’ said Brunor sadly. ‘And I spent a season of that time in the dungeons of Tintagel directly below, I think, the lovely Iseult in her high tower.’
‘How did you get out?’
He puffed out his chest. ‘Southern cunning, my friend.’
‘Pfffft,’ I heard behind us. Petal had been riding close by, her long curly hair bouncing with the movement of her horse. ‘We’ve had this talk a hundred times, Brunor,’ she said. ‘Good Queen Melody ordered your escape.’ She turned to me. ‘My queen had me put a sleeping draught in the guards’ drink.’
Brunor shook his head. ‘It was my cunning, tiny lady.’
But I was interested in Petal’s version of the tale. ‘Why would Queen Melody do that?’
‘Because she hates her stepson Sir Tristan, and loves to frustrate him,’ said Petal. ‘And because she’s braver than King Mark, if you ask me. Mark gave his word to Tristan that Brunor would never escape the dungeons of Tintagel, and Mark never breaks his word – but my queen disagreed on the morality of the matter.’
We rode on like that for most of the day. I became accustomed to Garnish talking to himself as he struggled to stay on his horse. Although War-Strider had seemed a fine beast when Melwas rode him in Alisander’s memory, with Garnish on his back he was quite transformed. The boy, who was from woods north of Vellion, to the south and east of the Lake, was no great horseman, but the beast did not make things easy for him. War-Strider was irritable, nervous and actually seemed to dislike his rider. He frequently mis-stepped with the intention of tipping Garnish from his back. When he wasn’t muttering to himself, Garnish talked incessantly and interestingly of herblore and history; perhaps that was what irritated the horse.
I grew so familiar with the heavy throb of magic in the south – which dragged my magical sense towards it – that sometimes I forgot it was there.
Every time we stopped to feed and water the horses during the day I wandered off, telling the others I was scouting the land ahead; but in truth I was going to contemplate my argument with Palomina, so I hardly saw the landscape before my eyes.
When Brunor called the halt for the night, Garnish removed a neverending collection of things from War-Strider’s saddlebags, building a fine tent for Bellina and Petal, and three smaller ones for Brunor, himself and me. He buried his hands even deeper into his pack, and produced more than enough good things to eat. It was only when we were sitting around the campfire, with the hills looming and stars sparkling above us, that I finally found myself face-to-face with Bellina.
Garnish was telling us of Hilda. Avalon had shown me that she had once been a druid, but Garnish knew of her life before she found that Lord Jesus. He was describing a number of books Hilda had translated from what he called First British, when I felt my anger boil over. Forgetting myself, and everything that Garnish had been saying, I said:
‘Why did you do it, Bellina? Why did you tell her about my glamour? I was going to tell her.’
She turned her hard, beautiful face to me. I had confused her. ‘Why, it never occurred to me she hadn’t noticed.’
There was a long silence, during which, blocked up with anger, I thought of all the ways I could lash out at her.
The silence was broken by Petal. ‘She tells the truth, pretty man. If there’s one thing Bellina isn’t good at, it’s seeing the world through other people’s eyes. There was no malice in it. None more than normal, anyway.’
Bellina’s eyes fixed on Petal in a long, lingering, hate-filled gaze.
‘That’s Mistress Bellina, if you please, Petal. I won’t have you forgetting yourself in front of the Lady of the Lake. And do shut up.’
Petal giggled. ‘Aye, Mistress Bellina. Whatever pleases you.’