“No,” Arthur agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “However, I should hardly think Bellicus wishes to see Mordred’s face. But a personal greeting from the King’s Champion? That might do the trick.”
Mordred watched as understanding dawned on Lancelot’s expression. The great and fabled knight of Camelot was many things, but strategic had never been one of them.
“Yes, my liege,” Lancelot replied with a nod of his head. He shot Mordred one last look before striding away, the crowd parting for the tall, broad knight, easily recognizable by his white-blond curls and striking green eyes.
“I saw you accept a token on the field,” Arthur said abruptly, leaning against the stone wall beside him.
Mordred scoffed, looking over at the king with surprise. “With all that is happening,thisis what you wish to discuss?” he asked.
Arthur smiled, those clever eyes sliding to meet Mordred’s. Then the king shrugged. “You know that I granted her request for wardship,” he said. “Galen is quite pleased with her. It would do me well to see you married. From what Guin shared about the girl, it seems a fair match.”
Arthur had brought up marriage with him quite a few times recently. For many years, it seemed unthinkable that any nobleman would offer his daughter’s hand in marriage to a bastard son with a dark prophecy hanging around his neck. But mortals possessed both short memories and ceaseless ambitions. More than once, he had needed Guinevere’s help to fend off Arthur’s suggested unions with lesser nobles willing to tolerate the stain of his birth in exchange for the weight of his influence.
But the mere mention of one had never brought heat to his face before. “She does not seek marriage,” he said smoothly, setting his goblet down on the windowsill.
“Oh?” Arthur asked, turning to him with surprise, his eyebrows drawing together.
“She brought some herbs to the stable a fortnight or so ago when Awen colicked,” Mordred explained, waving away his own words with his hand. “We conversed briefly. She feels quite strongly about her position.”
Arthur’s mouth twitched in amusement as he held Mordred’s gaze, forcing the knight to contend with the fact that this mortalknewhim, and quite possibly saw right through his feigned nonchalance about the maiden. Mordred, of course, had no father. Arthur had no living son, though he did not know it; that was, after all, the entire point of changelings. And so here Mordred was for the hundredth time, trapped with theuncomfortable understanding that Arthur Pendragon was the closest thing he had to a father, and that if he had been capable of such things, he might have even loved the man.
“Perhaps you dance with her tonight,” Arthur suggested, looking into the crowd. Mordred opened his mouth to protest, but the king held up one callused hand. “Only because we know she is not interested, and I have been propositioned on your behalf multiple times already this evening.”
“Ah,” Mordred said, crossing his arms.
“It might get some fathers off my back,” Arthur grumbled amicably. Then he grew serious, setting his goblet down next to Mordred’s. “Beyond your report, what do you truly think of this girl?”
Mordred let out a long breath, grinding his jaw. He had been trying to answer that question for the better part of a week. “I do not know, my liege,” he finally said. “As I told you, she claims to be from a nunnery, and the sisters there corroborate her story, but it is all a bit... rehearsed. I do believe she is truly of House Or’Afon. She is proficient in healing in a way not commonly come by in convents.” He paused, a strange surge of protectiveness for the girl overtaking him. He ignored it. “I would not be surprised if she had been taken in by one of the old clans after the fall of her house. Her medicinal knowledge feels distinctly Druidic.”
Arthur frowned. “I promised a few clans some degree of sovereignty within the Isle’s borders when I expand them,” he explained, shifting his weight off his bad leg. “It does not surprise me that they would send a pretty little bird into our halls, like you suggested in your report.”
Mordred nodded. “I imagine you read that she sends messages written in cipher back to her people. So far, they are harmless.”
Arthur considered this, raising his hand in greeting to Sir Bedwyr as the knight walked by. Mordred thought the man utterly wretched at best and Bedwyr knew it, so he offered little more than the slightest of nods.
“I think we made the right choice to let her stay,” Arthur said, turning away from Bedwyr to meet Mordred’s eyes again. “Let them think they’ve infiltrated us. Feed them only what we want them to know.”
“It would be much easier if they would simply send an emissary.” Mordred sighed and took another long swig of mead. Much easier than the fire-crowned girl with an emerald gaze that cut into him like a fine blade.
“Can you imagine?” Arthur laughed. It reached his eyes for once, Mordred noticed. “Deceangli Druids at court, doing strange rituals on the jousting tilt, wandering our halls in their ceremonial robes?”
Unease curled beneath Mordred’s sternum. He examined the king but did not return his smile. Quite a bold thing for the descendant of a land’s colonizers to be calling its indigenous peoples strange. Why shouldn’t the Druids wander the halls of Camelot in their robes? This citadel’s stones were hewn and carved long before Arthur’s bloodline had even reached these shores.
“Perhaps one day, they might yet accept our invitation to come to court,” Mordred said after too long a pause. Just as Arthur knew him, Mordred knew Arthur. He had ridden into battle at the Pendragon’s side a hundred times, seen him lead his men with honesty and bravery, watched him become a regent that might just manage to shape this world for the better. But as of late, there were uncomfortable moments like this one where Mordred worried that perhaps he did not truly understand the king at all.
Arthur harrumphed, draining the last of his spiced wine. “To accept would be to acknowledge my rule,” he muttered. “And the Druids will do no such thing.”
“I fear not, my lord,” Mordred replied distantly, watching the stone floors clear as the musicians returned to their instruments. From the dais, Guinevere’s searching eyes found them. The queen waved Arthur over. “Go, dance with your wife.”
“So I shall,” Arthur replied with a smile, handing his now-empty goblet to a passing servant. “Thank you, Mordred. And do as your queen asked. Continue to keep an eye on the Or’Afon girl.” He took a step or two away before glancing over his shoulder, his light eyes filled with mischief. “Perhaps even dance with her tonight.”
Mordred arched a brow. “Perhaps.”
And then Arthur was gone, striding toward the dais to take his queen’s hand and begin the night’s dancing. Mordred slumped back against the wall, appreciating the feel of steadiness at his back in a time when everything felt distinctly unsteady. As pleasant music filled the soaring space, he tried to relax into the merriment of the evening.
But Mordred found he could not. He sighed into his goblet. He missed faerie music. Faerie wine. Faerie fetes. Though he had been kept apart from his culture for much of his life, Morgana had never settled on only teaching him the ways of the mortal court. She ensured he had known his own people, too, even though it was always on Their terms and always with some degree of distaste.
A changeling in two worlds, belonging to neither.
