Then I closed my eyes and thought about water. Not summoning it. Not shaping it. Just remembering what it felt like, remembering the weight of it, the cold certainty.
Be patient,I told myself.Yes. Be patient.
The moth was still there when Galahad finally woke and told me the canonical hours were now upon us.
-ARTHUR-
Tristan came at the hour I’d specified: no earlier, no later.
That alone told me something. Most men, when summoned by a king, arrived breathless and ahead of schedule. It was a form of submission dressed as eagerness. Tristan walked in at precisely the right moment, unhurried, and stood in the center of the room without looking around to take stock of it.
I was at my writing table, and I didn’t look up immediately.
“Close the door,” I said.
He did.
I set down the letter I’d been reading, something about a supply complaint from the northern garrison. It was tedious, exactly the kind of thing I used as cover when I wanted to appear occupied, and I leaned back in my chair.
He was watching me with those dark eyes, patient and not nervous.
“Tell me what you have,” I said.
He nodded. “I’ve noticed the prisoner watches the training yard during her free moments.” He kept his voice even. The accent softened certain consonants, sharpened others. “Not the sparring, but the rotations.”
I said nothing.
“She’s mapping them, if I had to guess,” he said. “She also watches the guard changes and which posts turn earliest, as well as which men walk the same path twice.”
I kept my face still. I’d noticed her doing the same eleven or so days ago. She’d been careful about it, but not careful enough.
“And Merlin?” I asked. “Any news of him or Annwyn?”
Tristan’s expression didn’t shift. “None.”
“Does she speak of either at all?” I asked.
“Not that I can recall.”
I looked at him.
He held his expression.
The fire in the grate popped once. Neither of us reacted.
There was something he wasn’t giving me. I could feel the shape of it: something that was present between us and specific, yet just out of reach. He’d constructed his answers because he’d known he’d have to give me something. I respected it, mildly.
“One question,” I said.
He waited.
“When she watches the rotations, is she counting, or is she looking for something specific?”
He took a breath, then he let it out slowly. “A gap,” he said. “She’s looking for a gap.”
Not an exit, a gap.
“That’s all,” I said, and looked back down at the letter.
