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psalm_onethirtyoneFIC. ATTACK OF FIC.
Title: Holy Week
Fandom: Arthurian
Characters/Pairings: Galahad, Percy, Heliabel, implications of pairings wherever you want to see them.
Rating: PG
Notes: An Easter present for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiamatschild! It only took me four months, too! Sigh.
Holy Week
In the Old Testament stories, God never sends word to His prophets before He makes them prophets. They’re ordinary men, shepherds and tenders of trees, quiet men, unimportant men. Until He calls them, they go about their lives unaware that there is anything remarkably holy about them.
Until God called him, Galahad supposes he was the same. He remembers when he was a child growing up in the convent--he doesn’t remember his mother at all, but the nuns told him she brought him when he was very young. Sister Catherine, who was better with children, took care of him; he remembers her kneeling in front of him while he only came up to her shoulders, brushing his yellow hair and dressing him in his white habit.
He was quiet--he must always have been quiet. He remembers Palm Sunday when he was a child, when the nuns of the convent would gather in the courtyard to process into the chapel with arms full of reeds. Of course they couldn’t have palms, but the reeds, and fresh branches of pine and fir, suited well enough for thirty women, the priest who led services, and Galahad. He remembers solemnly waving his handful of reeds and the little sweeping branch of fir he would put on the path into the chapel to invite Jesus to travel in.
Thirteen years ago, he hadn’t yet been called by God. It was only a celebration because there was so much noise and hymns and the brief respite from the Lenten fast. Now that God sends angels to speak to him, Galahad can’t think about any of the holidays without knowing their whole meaning. Nothing is just a clamour of music and sweet smells any more.
Palm Sunday in Camelot is celebrated with a feast, and a procession early in the morning. It isn’t the whole point of the day, and half the knights sleep through it. Galahad understands--he thinks he understands. When he was a child, if the nuns hadn’t woken him, he might have done the same thing. But when the morning dawns cool and clear, without even April mist to temper it, and he goes to the chapel with a scattering of the more religious knights and a good deal of the townsfolk, watching the children process with their own small bundles of reeds, he wonders what it’s like to watch this without knowing.
The children don’t feel the hot imprint in their hands, or hear the rustle of palms and the shouting. He isn’t even sure, at this moment, whether they know that they’re welcoming Jesus in to die.
On Maundy Thursday, even in Camelot, everyone gathers in the chapel to have their feet washed. Arthur does it himself, to humble himself, bearing in mind the words of the Christ: the master who does the work of a servant. Galahad watches them going forward.
Kay, the king’s brother, looks gruff and uncomfortable as Arthur tenderly washes him. Gawain smiles brightly. Peredur, Peredur whom Galahad loves with the love of a disciple for Jesus himself, is eager and unashamed and ready, as he always is. Mordred isn’t there, and Galahad can’t fault him for that, because he wishes he weren’t there either, when Lancelot goes forward and Arthur washes his feet and kisses them when they’re dried.
It is no secret that Lancelot is betraying Arthur with his own queen, but Arthur is as gentle as if they were brothers. Galahad can’t understand. He tries to, but he truly can’t. Beside him, Peredur squeezes his fingers, a firm and steady touch that Galahad anchors himself to desperately. Peredur is like his map for the world of men.
When he was a child, the priest would wash the feet of all the nuns. They weren’t allowed to do it themselves, just as they weren’t allowed to lead their own services. The priest, though, was old and his back and knees hurt him, so he let Sister Margaret help him, and she was the one who knelt down on the stone chapel floor and took Galahad into her lap to wash him.
Sister Margaret was always tired and always worn-looking, but on Maundy Thursday she washed everyone’s feet, her hands as careful as if she were illuminating a manuscript. She crossed Galahad before she let him go back to his pew, three crosses in the water: one on his forehead, one on his lips, and one on his chest. Keep, O Lord, the thoughts of my mind, the words of my lips, and love of my heart for your name’s sake.
When he was twelve years old, God called him, as He called Samuel, out of the darkness while Galahad lay in his bed.
In the convent the world was easy to navigate. He got up for prayers, for matins, vespers, and compline, he trained with weapons because God told him he was meant to be a knight. The nuns let him alone, once he grew too old to be an innocent. No one bothered him when his sadness fell on him and he had to lie for hours on his pallet in his cell, watching the wall, counting the bricks, trying to keep breathing. He could sit outside and talk to God and no one thought it strange.
Now there are all sorts of things to be understood--unkindness, spite, new routines, people who don’t understand when he has to be alone, and fathers who commit treason against their king and are loved anyway.
On Good Friday, Galahad kneels in the chapel and prays with all his heart. He and Peredur are fasting, along with Bors and Lionel, although they don’t speak to each other. Peredur left him in the chapel after kissing him on both cheeks and making Galahad promise to come to his room after he’s done praying.
In the convent on Good Friday all the crosses and crucifixes were covered with black cloth. The cross on the altar was shrouded, and all the usual ornaments of the sacristy were taken away. The service was a long, sombre one, and all the hymns were sad ones, the funeral service for the Lord.
It was always a day when Galahad’s sadness was worst. After the service he had to sit by himself on one of the pews with his head in his hands, trying to discern why God had chosen him to do anything, when he so often sinned through despair. He had had God’s visitations for so many years. Sometimes he saw angels who spoke to him and told him God’s will, and sometimes saints, and sometimes the Lord Himself. They all told him what his life was to be, and Galahad did as he was told.
Amos said to the priests, I am not a prophet. I am not even a prophet’s son. I am a herdsman, and a tender of sycamore trees. Galahad is even less than that. He is the son of a deceiver and an adulterer, a bastard child born to an unhappy woman, who grew up so far out of the world that he can’t climb back into it. He wishes he had sycamores to tend, quiet trees and a quiet home. His only saving grace is that God hasn’t asked him to be a prophet; it’s easier to be a warrior. He can hide his face under his helmet, mask himself in his armour, and do battle for God’s honour. When the time comes, he’ll ride out, and give his life for the glory of God.
He won’t have a family, he won’t grow old. But God has promised him Peredur, at least, and a lady to fight for (he’s sure it’s Mary), to be his footholds on this mountain.
Peredur is the only one in Camelot to know that God talks to Galahad. Peredur understands. He watches Galahad with his big simple eyes that know so much and tells Galahad he’s brave for doing all of God’s wishes for so long.
But Galahad doesn’t feel brave. He feels tired and sad.
On Holy Saturday they go on fasting. Galahad has begun to feel dizzy and light-headed, and Peredur takes advantage to tease him. He hangs upside down by his knees in a tree in the Queen’s orchard, and swings back and forth, making Galahad sick to his stomach.
“What’s your favourite? Mine’s Easter. I mean, they’re all good, but none of ‘em would mean anything without Easter. Even Christmas, yeah?” He grins at Galahad upside down.
“Pentecost,” Galahad murmurs, looking away.
“Oh, that’s a good one. All that red, just as fiery as anything.”
He laughs. “The church set aflame.”
“A Godly fire, though! Anyway, wait ‘til you meet Heli. Her hair’s the same colour as mine, but she can wear red just fine. And she makes rolls for breakin’ your fast on Easter. The best rolls. And she always gets you up real early, so you can see the dawn, like Mary in the garden.”
“Is she perfect?” he asks--he still feels light-headed.
This time Peredur laughs at him, dropping out of the tree and landing right-side-up somehow. “Sure, of course she is. She’s my sister.”
Some of God’s prophets tell their messages loudly and fiercely, proclaiming and then disappearing into heaven in carts drawn by flames, their disciples weeping for them below--loved that deeply, in spite of everything. Galahad thinks of Hosea, ordered to marry a whore and get her with child, to show how Israel was faithless to God.
His work isn’t so thankless; it can’t be harder to do what he has to do; but he thinks sometimes that God has done something like that to him, ordered him into the world to do the things he doesn’t know how to do in order to prove something to some later scholar looking backwards.
That night he dreams of Peredur’s sister, though he’s never seen her. He dreams of her, long red hair like the Pentecost fire, clothed in a gown the colour of blood, offering him Eucharist in a strange church he can’t recognise. He kneels before her, and she tips the chalice to his lips so he can drink.
The wine tastes of iron and fire, of blood and fire, and Galahad’s breath catches in his throat with pain, but Peredur’s sister rests her cool hand on his neck and the pain eases.
“Galahad,” she says. “Don’t be afraid. Percy and me, we’ll work you through it. I know I’m not here for you yet, but I’m gonna be. You just let Percy help until I can come. Okay? To-morrow’s the Pascal Feast. You keep your heart open just like you been doing, and everything will be okay. I promise.”
In the morning he wakes, feeling less heavy than he has in years. It’s so early even Peredur isn’t up yet, so he goes and shakes him awake. “Percy. It’s Easter.”
Peredur grins at him sleepily from his mattress. “Huh, already?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good. Christ is risen.”
“The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.”
“Time for Communion yet?”
“I don’t think anyone is awake yet. Just us, and the servants.”
Peredur sits up excitedly. “Let’s go see if the sun’s up!”
It isn’t, not fully. They stand on the edge of the gardens, watching it rise in a flood of watered-out colours, yellows and off-whites and a hint of faded orange. When they finally turn to go back inside, Galahad asks,
“Your sister--do you think she’ll ever come to Camelot?”
“I dunno. I’d like it if she did. It’s been a real long time since I seen her.”
Galahad tries to keep back a wistful look, but he isn’t sure he manages. God has instructed him to be pure, to be chaste, above all. Even if Peredur’s sister does come--even if she truly is as welcoming as she was in his dream--he’d never be able to court her, to win her, to love her. Those are things other knights may do with their ladies, not him. His purpose is to wear his white shield and his white linen and never to tie any woman’s colours on his arm.
Peredur leans on his arm for a moment, friendly. “She’d like you a lot.”
“How do you know?”
“’Cause I do!” he says contentedly, as if this is all the answer Galahad would ever need in the world.
They take the Eucharist in the little chapel, but this morning, unlike Good Friday, it’s full with the entire court. Even Mordred is there, although his black look shows he’s not comfortable. Galahad remembers that the Orkneys are still largely pagan in practise, and supposes that Mordred’s only trying to make Sir Gawain happy by attending.
For once, though, he feels at peace. It doesn’t bother him that he’s hemmed in on every side by men and ladies, and he doesn’t feel stripped naked when he goes up to take the host and wine. Even when the taste of the host on his tongue makes his hands and feet ache with nails that aren’t there, even when he feels the sharp bite of the spear in his side, and the prick of thorns in his hair, and the lash on his shoulders, he keeps his head bowed and swallows. Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they that trust in Him!
He’ll always feel these things when no other man does. He can’t be a child any more, and wave his fir branch without knowing what it means. Even the prophets who protest become prophets, and those that don’t become Jonahs, damning the people around them while they hide in the bellies of boats.
After services there’s to be a feast, but Galahad only manages one glass of wine before he’s too sleepy to endure it--between his restless sleep, his early waking, and the fasting, it proves too much. He slips out with only a few excuses, and goes back to his room to read his Bible.
It’s late in the evening when he wakes again, and he’s on his own mattress, instead of the chair where he fell asleep, and Peredur is curled up beside him like a dog at its master’s feet. Galahad feels a warmth in his body that’s far less painful than the burn of the wine in his dream. He strokes Peredur’s mop of red hair, tangled and curly.
When he was a child, he didn’t understand, not really, how Christ could love the whole world so entirely that He was willing to be beaten and hanged for its sake. He didn’t even understand what it was like to love one person so much. He isn’t an innocent any more. God doesn’t hide what will happen to him. But Jesus was welcomed and loved before He died, and after He died He rose again, and Peredur is right: without that nothing else would have any meaning.
And Galahad-- Galahad will never be betrayed.
To be loved, even by one man, and then to die for God is not so terrible a life. He is certainly no Christ. But he has the knowledge of Christ that no prophet before Him ever had, and he has a beloved disciple who will never leave him.
Galahad pulls Peredur closer to him, and lies still giving thanks to God until he falls asleep again.
---
Title: The New Britain Job
Fandom: Arthurian/Firefly
Characters/Pairings: Mal, Inara, Companion!Sagramore, Gaheris, Dinadan
Rating: PG
Notes: Totally fluffy and self-indulgent. A birthday present forskaryma, who should feel better soon. ♥
The New Britain Job
“Sagramore!”
Mal’s head jerks up like a cocked gun to see who’s got Inara calling out like that, her voice hitting that sweet place it does when she’s pleased. Across the room he half catches sight of a tall man waving back at them.
“Who’s that?” He nudges her with his elbow, and she shoots him a dark look.
“He’s a friend of mine. We trained together as Companions.”
“Oh, he’s one of Kaylee’s boy whores?”
“He is a cultured, thoughtful gentleman, which is more than I can say for you, Captain.” She isn’t looking at him, a sure sign that he’s pushed too far, but Mal can hardly bring himself to care. Sagramore is crossing the room towards them, and Mal’s no great judge of male beauty, but even he can see that Sagramore is something special. And Inara’s smiling like Kaylee with a new shiny.
“It’s been years, bájos.” Sagramore kisses both of her cheeks. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Let me introduce you. This is Captain Reynolds. I travel with his ship.”
“A pleasure to meet you. My name is Sagramore, Inara and I studied together some time ago.” Sagramore offers his hand. His skin is a slightly dusky colour, like shadows in corners.
“What am I supposed to do, kiss his hand?” Mal asks, letting his voice twang in the way that irritates Inara the most. “I don’t know the protocol for menfolk of the night.”
“Mal!”
“I prefer handshakes myself,” Sagramore says. “There’s less risk of me coming into contact with any of your bodily fluids.”
It gets a laugh out of Inara, and Mal stiffens. She rests her hand on Sagramore’s arm. “It’s so good to see you again. I hope you’ve had a successful career.”
He laughs. “Excessively. Actually, I’m here with a friend, but he’s already drunk, I’ll have to go and dig him out after a bit. But this isn’t the sort of place I would’ve supposed to see you--you’re not here on business, are you?”
“Oh, no, I’m just--”
“She’s slumming it with us common folk as makes our living getting our hands dirty,” Mal interrupts. “Inara, it’s time we were back to the ship.”
Inara’s face is sharp and warning. “I think there’s time enough for me to have a conversation with Sagramore.” One of those statements that’s more like an order, that he’s more used to getting from other folk, and good at blowing off no matter who says them; but instead he clamps his teeth together, because there’s no good reason not to like the man, other’n being a mite clever with his words.
Anyone would think Mal was jealous or something, and Mal doesn’t get jealous. Not of folks.
“We got half an hour to be shut of this room,” he says instead. “You just mind that as you’re having your conversation.”
“Half an hour should be sufficient,” Sagramore says, all modulated tones and good grace. “After that I’ll be needing to find my friend in any case.”
Inara smiles. “Of course. But really, where have you been staying?”
“Here and there.”
Mal lets his attention wander, with an effort. By now, Zoë will have relocked all the doors he unlocked earlier, during Inara’s tour of the old castle, and the wine cellar should have a lot more empty space in it than it did four hours ago. Real wine, not rot-your-brain fermented synth fruit or soaked corn (some of the more terra-formed planets have real crops, enough so they can still soak alcohol out of a bunch of husks in a jug, despite their poverty), sells for a high price even among the Alliance planets. The cellar of the castle was well-stocked, and if everything’s gone according to plan a lot of those smoke-wood casks are in Serenity’s belly now.
They call the man who rules here the Dragon King, a name that makes Mal want to spit in the dirt with scorn. Whoever he is, he’s managed to amass enough money to set his place up pretty fine--the food at the dinner wasn’t synthetic, any more than the wine is.
Suddenly the jostle of a body connecting with his startles him back out of thinking, and his hands go out unconsciously to grab the fellow’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length. It’s a young man, shy-faced and dark-haired, and noticeably shorter than Mal.
“Sagramore!” His voice is soft, slurred, and has thick hints of some whole other accent--for a planet with just one terra-formed island, and only one real city, the place has the damnedest collection of accents Mal’s ever run across in so small an area. If it were a port city, maybe, or on an Alliance planet; but castle-city is on New Britain, named for a country on Earth-That-Was, and colonised originally by about fifty people and a cow or two.
Inara’s fancy friend sighs and holds out his hands for the kid. “Christ, boy, your brother isn’t going to forgive me.”
Kid stumbles out of Mal’s grasp and into Sagramore’s arms, coming to rest like a docking ship. “He won’t mind.”
“Of course he’ll mind, he’ll have my hide.” Sagramore throws an apologetic look at Inara. “I’m sorry, he’s still a young man. He doesn’t know anything about managing his liquor.”
“It’s all right,” Inara says graciously.
To Mal’s annoyance, Kid’s eyes flutter to Inara’s face and he smiles, although it’s a vague kind of smile. Kid clearly isn’t Jayne-drunk so much as Kaylee-drunk, a fact that annoys Mal even further, although he doesn’t care to pinpoint why. “What’s thy name, my lady?”
“Inara Sera. You must be Sagramore’s friend.”
The kid laughs. “He’s my nursemaid, meanst thou.”
“You don’t look to me like a man in need of a nursemaid,” Inara says, in that cool, certain tone she has, the one that’s usually being employed to let Mal know she doesn’t like what he’s just said. Right now she’s trying to bolster the kid’s self-esteem or something. Mal manages not to roll his eyes.
“I do. I’m mad. My brothers wouldn’t have me come by myself, that’s why he’s here to keep me out of trouble,” with a gentle nod in Sagramore’s direction. “I already know, it’s no secret.”
“I’m beginning to think I’m more of a herdsman.” Sagramore keeps one hand on the kid’s shoulder to restrict his movements. “Inara, let me introduce you to Prince Gaheris, who’s ordinarily somewhat less outspoken. The man I came with is someone else entirely, although I can assure you he’s equally worse for wear by now. I apologise for both of them pre-emptively, I’m afraid.” There’s a real tight note to his voice, one that wasn’t there before, that makes Mal think the kid being drunk is more of a problem than it first seemed.
“Prince, huh?”
“The fourth of the five Princes from Lothian, yes.”
Suddenly Inara’s hand is back on Mal’s arm, her fingers gripping too hard, and Mal raises an eyebrow at her.
“No,” she says, fiercely, under her breath, before turning back to Sagramore. “Would you like to see him home? We can wait for your friend, and tell him where you are.”
“I can’t ask you to do my work for me,” smiling.
With a sudden burst of unreasonable dislike hum-throbbing in his chest, Mal decides that he’d like nothing more than to be rid of Sagramore and his smile for the rest of the evening. “Suppose you’d better take his highness home,” he says, in his mildest voice--which, being put on, doesn’t sound very mild.
“Mal,” Inara hisses.
But Sagramore bows gracefully. “Actually, it won’t hurt Dinadan to stay here by himself. He’s a grown man. It was splendid to see you again, bájos--a lucky chance, and I’m extraordinarily glad.” He bends to kiss Inara’s cheeks, one hand still balancing the kid to keep him in check.
Before Mal has time to get more irritated, Sagramore turns to him, and pulls him into a kind of a hug with more strength than Mal would have expected from that slender body. “I recommend that you treat your lady well,” he says, in a low voice. “And I recommend you bear in mind that I told the seneschal I was the one who unlocked the cellar door to the outside. Kai has infinitely less patience than I do.” He lets Mal go, and smiles at them both, his arm slipping around the kid’s shoulder with a protective air. “I hope I may have the good fortune to see you both again.”
“I hope so.” Inara smiles back. Mal scowls.
Sagramore turns away, then, and the air gets a bit lighter, as if some heavy incense scent were gone. Inara finally relaxes her grip on Mal’s arm.
“What the hell was that?” Mal says.
“I’ll tell you later,” Inara says, her voice still sweet but strained at the edges, like a step about to give.
“Just as well. We’re late.”
Inara nods, and Mal gets the idea she’s as ready as he is to get shut of this planet. It isn’t until they’re back on Serenity, and he’s shucking off his boots in the kitchen, she sitting across from him on one of the table benches, that she says,--
“Sagramore is involved with the royal family on New Britain.”
“This the bedroom kind of involved?”
“He is providing his services to the oldest prince, yes. But not as a client.” There’s something wistful in her voice, and Mal keeps his eyes on his bootlaces.
“Why’d you get all grabby with me?” he asks instead.
Inara sounds surprised. “I thought-- I thought the temptation of having one of the princes incapacitated and within easy reach might be too much to resist.”
“What?”
“I mean, I was afraid you might decide to kidnap him for ransom purposes.”
Mal looks up and squints at her. “I don’t steal people. Not without a real good reason, anyway. Not from some backwater ditch like that, wine or no wine.”
“Oh.”
“How’d your friend catch on to us?” abruptly.
This time Inara looks away. “I told him.”
“You told--”
“He’d already made excuses for us to the seneschal. I wanted to be honest with him.”
“And why’d he make excuses?”
“He’d seen us walking together earlier and thought you were my husband.” Mal catches something that sounds like a blush in her voice. “He wanted to protect me.”
“Seen us earlier? Why didn’t he come to see you then?”
“He was busy with Gaheris.”
“You got an answer for everything, don’t you? Well, I don’t like you telling strangers about our doings, even if they did go to whore-school with you. Why don’t you mind that, long as you’re staying on my boat?”
Inara gets to her feet, not even bothering to argue with him, and walks out of the room. Mal looks after her, then slams his hand down on the table. He shouldn’t’ve damn well stopped listening when Inara was talking to that man, and he knows it--doesn’t know what else he missed, besides Inara telling their entire operation to some prettyboy Mal never wants to see again in his life.
“Don’t matter anyway,” he says to himself. Even though it does.
---
Dinadan pokes Sagramore’s shoulder with an over-familiarity that has never bothered Sagramore in his life. “Who was that woman you were with? She showed up your bad looks, I can tell you that.”
Sagramore laughs. “An old friend.”
Dinadan waggles his eyebrows, but Sagramore shakes his head.
“You are filthy. Absolutely not. But she did me a very great service when I was young, so it was a pleasure to do a small one for her. By the way, when Kai asked, I’m afraid I indicated that you were as responsible as I for the fact of the cellars being available to predators, so when he discovers them pillaged we may be hanged together.”
“You bastard. Do I get anything out of this?”
“Well, there’s bed.”
“Small consolation,” Dinadan says, but he doesn’t argue. Companions don’t exactly frequent New Britain, and besides, he likes Sagramore. “You didn’t even introduce me to her.”
“Next time I will,” Sagramore says. “Next time.”
---
Title: Optimism
Fandom: Arthurian AU
Characters/Pairings: Gareth, Clarissant, Lyonors, Agravain, Gawain, Morgause, sundries; Gareth/Lyonors, Lamorak/Morgause
Rating: PG-13
Notes:snowyofthenight challenged me to write a story based on the fact that Gaheris and Gareth used to be the same character. Her question was "does that mean Gareth originally killed Morgause?" He didn't, it used to be Agravain (and still is some places), but I wrote the fic anyway. Also, I tried out a totally new style of writing, so I apologise, a tricky AU challenge is probably not the place to see what would happen if you used modern narration in an Arthurian fic, but hopefully it's not too jarring.
It is also a horror story. I'm not sure how that happened, but it totally did. If it creeps you out a bit, then I did my job right.
Optimism
Gareth was optimistic.
Had always been optimistic, despite the flash flood of fucked-up brothers, despite Lot and his overdeveloped sense of irony, despite Morgause and her possessive way with them, even when she was ignoring them. He’d never really bothered to think very hard about why he was so optimistic, but he thought it had something to do with Clarissant.
Clarissant, who was as fucked-up as the rest of them.
Clarissant, who when she wasn’t as purposelessly independent as a wild dog almost seemed to need him, the way she sought him out on her bad days. Who, when she wasn’t murmuring half-coherent fragments of whole thoughts that could piece together magic so strong he could feel it rippling over his skin like the steam above a boiling pot, would end up screaming, her body clenched like a fist, trying to tell him things he couldn’t understand and desperate because her meaning kept getting lost.
Which wasn’t really something to be optimistic about. But he loved Clarissant, the closest to him in age. On Beltane, when the Orkney herdsmen were driving their cattle through the fire and the fishermen were hanging up rowan and hawthorn for luck, she would nestle in the crook of his arm and tell him what was coming.
Gareth would watch the fires and Gawain dancing with sweet country girls with ruddy faces and ruddy hair, their skirts swirling like eddies around their feet. Gawain, the future king, who Gareth was sure was going to be better than Lot--not that Lot had been explicitly bad, but he had a mouth that liked the taste of blood, and spent more time campaigning (and trying to draw that sword) than here in the islands, even though he liked them. Gawain wouldn’t want to abandon the islands. Gawain had promise.
Everyone had this idea that Gareth was stupid because he was optimistic, but he saw more than he said and always had. And Gawain had the kind of promise that could turn a country around, with his broad warm smile and his listening ways and his honest voice that could make a person swear fealty before he stopped to think. Not that it exempted Gawain from the poisonous fucked-up-ening that was recycled through their hearts every time their lungs drew breath and their blood moved steadily on. Gawain had the temper, too. He had the wild blind fury that could overtake him at the wrongest moments, robbing him of all rational thought and ebbing only once too much damage was done to repair. Gareth had only seen him like that once, but once was enough to know it was in there.
Gareth had seen it the day Agravain killed the unicorn after coaxing Clarissant to catch it for him.
Agravain was first and foremost a hunter. Which couldn’t be helped, and could certainly be smelled on him, a sharp smell like sweat and leather and blood mixed with iron, so at least you had fair warning if you were paying attention. Agravain could use a hunting knife the way some people (Gawain, say) could use their words. He was a fine archer, too. And it was the only thing that made him happy. When he wasn’t hunting, it was like someone had stuffed him in a tiny iron-barred cage and left him there, and all he could do was crouch inside it rocking it back and forth with a fury that bordered on desperation, howling and hissing and lashing out any time somebody got close enough.
The day he killed the unicorn, he had found Clarissant in the morning and told her excitedly, “Hey, Clar. Clar. I found a unicorn in the meadow.”
“Balls,” said Clarissant, chewing on a stem of heather. Gareth was sitting in the doorway listening.
“I did. I bet if you went out she’d come to you.”
Clarissant was ten years old. She didn’t have a handle on her magic and it scared her sometimes. Her black hair--she and Mordred were both black-haired, when Agravain and Gawain and Gareth were the same red-gold colour as Lot--was in knots and tangles down her back, burrs and bits of heather stuck in it. The only shift she’d wear was the blue one, and big horseman’s boots on her feet. “You’re tricking me.”
“Am not. She’s a big white one.”
“Lost horse,” Clarissant said angrily. She knew something was wrong, and she knew Agravain wasn’t that nice. Gareth knew it too.
“Oh, fuck that,” Agravain said, irritably. “I know a horse from a unicorn, don’t I?”
“Fine, show me.”
Gareth trotted along after them, quiet in case Agravain decided to send him home. He was eleven, but Agravain still called him runt and ordered him home whenever the fancy struck. Agravain being all of fifteen.
It was a unicorn, anyway. Agravain wasn’t lying about that. Gareth had tried to imagine unicorns before--sometimes when he couldn’t sleep at night he lay on his straw mattress wondering what he’d do if a unicorn or a gryphon or a dragon showed up at the castle and he was the only one who could approach it (kid stuff like that)--but the unicorn was one of those things that you couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t white so much as silver: a shimmery kind of white, its long mane and its tufted tail (not like a horse’s, but like a whip with a tuft at the end of it, slender and snaky) the same constantly-moving frothy shudder of a waterfall.
Clarissant caught her breath. Clarissant was really impressed, and that made Gareth even more awed, because Clarissant wasn’t impressed by much. She held out her hand to the unicorn, and it came to her, making a soft whiffling noise, and laid its head against her neck. Clarissant started to cry.
Gareth ached inside. It was beautiful and he was trying to figure out how you could ever look away, ever turn away from something like that.
And then it screamed, a scream like a panicked woman’s, high in its long throat, and suddenly there was blood pouring out of its side, its neck, like springs in a white field, steadily pouring forth. Gareth spun around so fast his head hurt, and there was Agravain standing with his bow, his face the colour of an ashpit.
Clarissant started screaming too. Her scream was worse than the unicorn’s, because it wasn’t a dying scream, it was a scream like somebody trapped inside her own head, feeling blood spill over her hands and splatter the only blue shift she would wear.
It was the scream that brought Gawain running, Mordred behind him, though by then Gareth had dragged Clarissant away from the dead unicorn and she was screaming into his shoulder. The shoulder was never the same after that. Her screaming felt like a spray of sparks pouring into his skin through his clothes, and he wanted to jerk away from her but he couldn’t, even with her magic running crazy out of her mouth, because he was her favourite and she was his and he couldn’t run away from her now. But afterward his left arm was always weak, and it burned sometimes so that when Lyonors ran her fingertips over it he would flinch.
When Gawain saw them--what an incredible tableau, the dead, bloody unicorn, Clarissant screaming into him, Agravain standing transfixed with his bow in his hand looking like a dead man who was somehow still standing up--that white fury came into his face. Gareth assumed it was for Clarissant, although it could have been for the unicorn. Gawain hit Agravain while he was still running and brought him down to the ground.
He was beyond reasoning then. Mordred had to drag him off while Agravain was still breathing.
And later Gawain apologised, of course, and Agravain grunted unhappily to show he accepted it, but he had a broken rib the court physician had to set, and Gawain spent a night sitting by the fire staring at his hands like he’d never realised they could do something like that. That was how Gareth knew he was scared of it. And Agravain was scared of him. That never mended, unlike the rib. After that it only took a word from Gawain, and Agravain would shape up, no matter what he was doing or how black his mood was. Gawain tried to be gentle with his reprimands, but nothing could make Agravain go back to seeing him the way he had before.
Besides showing off Gawain’s fucked-up streak, it had showed off Agravain’s. Even it he was sorry he’d killed the unicorn, which he obviously was. He’d still done it. Maybe that was part of the lurking misery in him, the tang of inadequacy around him, things a person wouldn’t have guessed he’d feel until they got close enough to smell them, just like the hunter smell.
Mordred’s fucked-up side was a lot subtler to show. It was more like Gareth’s, a quiet narrative going on under the surface, the way Gareth’s optimism was balanced by the part of him that noticed the fucked-up-ness to begin with. You would have thought that it was Morgause that caused it, but all Morgause really did was give him a healthy sense of misogyny, which wasn’t that hard to understand when you realised how her moments of niceness and her cruelty were both just flavours of manipulation.
(Morgause had fucked up Gareth that way, because he didn’t realise for a long time--because he thought that when she was nice, she really meant to be nice. Sort of an unspoken “I love you”, like she wanted to tip him off that somewhere under all the cruelty she really was glad to have him as a son. It was a long time before he realised that the only sense of attachment she felt towards them was a sense of possession, as if instead of children she had a fancy set of chairs and she would have been annoyed if someone took one or scraped the wood finish.)
Mordred just couldn’t stand being responsible for anything, not consciously responsible. Like he just didn’t trust himself to make the right choices.
That, and the way Arthur called him nephew so indulgently, pretending that he (Arthur) had never slept with Morgause, that she had never niced her way into his bedroom by pretending to care about him, as if he were more than just another fancy chair at her dining room table.
Lately, Gareth was glad that Lyonors hadn’t wanted children. He couldn’t imagine what he would do with them. He’d be optimistic--he’d love the hell out of them, just like he loved the hell out of Lyonors, or Clarissant--but he’d always be noticing that streak of fucked-up, however it ended up showing itself. And it would, because it wasn’t just his brothers who had it. It was pretty near everyone at Camelot, everyone with their own special brands of fucked-up to try to hide.
Which wasn’t to say that he didn’t like people, because he did. He liked almost everyone. People in Camelot were interesting, a lot of scholars and knights with their own crazy families, brave men like Sir Lancelot (Gareth loved Sir Lancelot) and smart women like Gawain’s wife Ragnelle, and even the boring people were nice. It was just that he could always see the fucked-up, because everyone had it.
Except maybe Lyonors.
Lyonors never screamed when she couldn’t make words come out the way she wanted, never balked from responsibilities she wasn’t sure she could handle. She had spent five years holed up in her own father’s castle while dozens of bright-hearted young men were slain by the man who tried to lay claim to her, which gave her a good excuse for anything that might be wrong with her, but apart from not wanting children--which Gareth had never broken his heart over--she was as ordinary as heather on a moor.
She looked nothing like anybody in his family. Her hair was long and golden-yellow, curly as a wild pony’s but nowhere near as tangled, always fine as gold embroidery on a tapestry. Her skin was the pale brown of hens’ eggs. Blue-eyed. She was reticent, not outspoken like her sister Lynet, but that didn’t bother him. She talked to him. She lay in bed beside him, soothing his left shoulder with her cool fingertips, and just talking in her quiet mourning-dove voice. Soft like most things weren’t in his world of straw mattresses and rough leather clothes and angry waves trying to climb the sea cliffs to swallow the heather moors.
“I love you,” he told her one night.
Lyonors kissed his temple, right above his eye, and it felt like she had left coolness there, too, on his brow. “I love you too,” she said.
He hadn’t spoken the Norn language of Orkney since he’d come to Camelot, but he told her then, so she couldn’t understand, “I’m fucked-up too. Just like they are. You think I’m not because I smile all the time and I’ve never tried to kill someone for shooting a unicorn, but I’m just as fucked-up as the rest of them.”
Lyonors’ blue eyes searched his face, her confusion as gentle as everything else about her. “Gareth--are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said, taking her fingers and kissing them. “Will it be all right if I go back home to visit my sister? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her.”
“Do you want me to come along?” That was all she said. Permission so implicit that asking in the first place had almost been a formality--although he’d never needed formalities with her, not with Lyonors, who could touch his heart just by putting her hand on his chest.
“No. I don’t mean to stay long. I’ll take a fast horse, stay a week. You won’t notice I’m gone,” the corner of his mouth turning up into his less brilliant smile. Lyonors had once said she loved all his smiles. She traced the contours of this one, then smiled back.
“I’ll notice.”
“So will I,” he admitted. “But I need to see her.”
He knew he did. He had known for a few days. It burned in his shoulder, as insanely painful as the day Clarissant had breathed her magic into it, like a torch signal on a black night. Clarissant needed him, or he needed her.
Lyonors just kept smiling, and kissed him again. “I know. Just come back soon.”
She meant it all, too. Gareth had never been a nice piece of furniture in her house. He had always been a man.
He was optimistic about the journey to Orkney, though. Clarissant would be waiting for him, as sure as his shoulder. Maybe waiting in the door for him. Maybe in her room, settled in her chair with her hair full of heather, singing insane songs in Norn, piecing together magic like the carded wool women fed into the spindle, reeling out a whole grey thread as slim and strong as Clarissant herself. Gareth liked that thought. He should bring her something, he decided--once he was already on his way, of course, but luckily the things that Clarissant liked the best were the strange things you found by the side of the road or cheap copper charms in transient markets, or rounded stones that felt good in the hand. Something he could get on the way there.
Although when he got to Orkney, he hadn’t got just a pocketful of stones. He’d stopped somewhere in Scotland and bought her a shawl of dyed green wool, as soft as Lyonors’ voice. She’d probably like the stones better, but the shawl was exactly right for her, especially the way that instead of tassels at the ends the weaver had fastened a fringe of beaten silver discs that jingled together like metallic whispers. More money than he should have spent. Would Clarissant even realise?
Probably not.
She was in the stableyard by the well, feeding the chickens by scattering the grain into patterns and symbols. Gareth watched the chicken-incantation, which was bobbing slightly as the hens pecked and scratched. He wasn’t sure Orkney would feel like home without Clarissant.
He also wasn’t sure how long he stood there watching the chickens before Clarissant turned up at his elbow and started going through his pockets. That woke him up in a hurry.
“Hist wist,” she said. “Mother has a new man.”
“Who?” It felt almost like a scripted response, like saying ‘I’m well’ when someone asks ‘How are you?’ Morgause had had lovers now and then ever since Lot had died. Gareth had always assumed they were just furniture too, or sometimes even as little as kindling (just ashes after a few nights of burning, scattered in the fields when it came time to clean the fireplace).
Clarissant sang, under her breath. “Some say the poor man’s made out of mud, some say he’s made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood, skin and bone, a mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong.”
“Clar?”
“You know what? This one’s different. He’s going to ask her to marry him.”
“What?” He felt stupid. “Is she going to say yes?”
“Can I see the future? No, just a glass darkly.”
It was a bad day for her. He shouldn’t have pestered; her far-seeing days came and went. Gareth still had his pack over his shoulder, and he unslung it, taking the shawl out for her. “I brought you a present.”
Clarissant took it, passing the soft wool through her hands (they probably smelled like rue. They usually did). Then tears started running down her face, over the wrinkles of her frown, like rain on the sea during a storm. He knew they tasted like the sea, too. Just like he knew her hands smelled like rue and she hadn’t brushed her black hair in at least a month, just like he knew where she had buried her blue shift, the one stained all over with fat brown drops (who’d have guessed that a unicorn would bleed the same colour as any other animal, and that the blood would stain the same ruddy brown?). Then she stopped crying and straightened up, her black eyes as fey as the Folk they tried to appease on Beltane.
“Gareth, it’s your turn. It’s your turn. Someday it won’t be you, you’ll split into two people and one will go free, and you’ll never understand, all your life. But it’s you now.”
The chickens were drifting away from the grain-patterns in the yard. One or two hens remained, dirt-bathing with their feathers fluffed up so they looked twice their proper size, sending out little puffs of fine dust into the cold air. Gareth wished Lyonors were there. He wished he could go up to his old room in the castle and find her there, lie down beside her and take off his tunic, feel her cool fingers on the twinges in his shoulder.
He wished that his fucked-up-ness were something he had always been able to put a finger on, like Gawain’s anger or Agravain’s caged-up hunter’s spirit. The truth was he had never been able to pinpoint it, not more than the knowledge that under his optimism there was that narrative, always running, always noticing, aware of how fucked-up everyone else was.
It’s your turn.
He was sure he knew what that meant. His turn to find out. Even Clarissant, with her spindles of magic, couldn’t stop that. He had tried to avoid it, God knew, by acting as eager as puppy around his brothers, oblivious to people’s faults, good-natured and quick to take a joke. He had tried to cover up everything else, even around Lyonors.
He bit the inside of his cheek. “Who’s Mother sleeping with?”
“Lamorak de Galis.”
“Is he in love with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he furniture?”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You aren’t making any sense.” She laughed, triumphantly, like she was delighted that it was finally someone else who wasn’t making sense. “What’s in your head?”
Gareth tried to get the corner of his mouth to curl up in a smile, but it wouldn’t. His nails were biting into his palms like little rows of teeth. “Does she like him?”
“She’s had him the longest.” Clarissant leaned forward to him. “I have a question, but you can’t answer it until later. So I guess you’d better go see her. Can’t get out of it. Can’t get off once the ride’s started. Not even if you’re throwing up.”
“Upstairs?” It was the only thing he could get to come out.
“Yeah.”
He still had his pack with him as he climbed the stairs, just a little less full because of Clarissant’s shawl. He was hoping she liked it. Morgause’s room was on the castle’s third floor, up one of the staircases that wound along the stone wall like a coil of rope, with nothing to prevent you from falling off the far side of it if you were stupid or careless. He walked with his shoulder to the wall, his left shoulder, letting the cold, moist stone ease the burning a little. They’d never been able to get the damp out of the castle, as much as various day-labourers had tried. Morgause hated it. But she hated Orkney.
When he got to her room at the top of the stairs he rapped sharply on the door and then went in, through her quiet anteroom and into her bedroom.
He heard the soft murmur before he got there, a murmur as soft as Lyonors’ voice when she was lying next to him in bed. It made him feel as though there were a thin skim of dirt over his skin. Then he pushed aside the curtain and saw her--saw them, Morgause and the man, Lamorak, a young man, much too young to be sleeping with a woman who was only nice when it suited her purposes. They were both naked, but sitting up in bed together talking, her fingers trailing through his hair.
Lamorak started up indignantly--no doubt worried about Morgause’s honour, in that way only the young and chivalrous can be--but Morgause stayed him with a hand on his arm. Gareth decided that he might have a fever, because his head was starting to pound, in a hot, sticky, slow way.
“Don’t lie to him,” he said.
“Gareth--”
“You lie to us and get away with it because we’re all fucked up. Even me. But he’s just a kid. Why does it feel like there’s two people inside me? Clar said some day I’ll split into two people.” He didn’t even notice his voice start to strain with pleading. “I’ve got Lyonors, and she’s perfect, and people are all essentially good. I have lots of friends. That part of me’s fine. Why won’t the other part ever be happy unless you love me?”
“Gareth,” she said, in a voice so soothing his head almost stopped pounding. “Everything is all right.”
Except that he knew she was lying now. There wasn’t enough optimism in the world to cover that up. She was lying, and all of a sudden he hated her for it. He’d brought his sword along, just like all knights did, in case of a challenge or a bit of trouble on the road, and it was still bucked around his waist. Drawing it was the work of one smooth moment. After all, he’d trained under Lancelot. If Sir Lancelot couldn’t teach you to be a good swordsman, you might as well just give up (except that Gareth, being Gareth, would never have said that anyone should give anything up, would always have offered encouragement to anyone).
He vaguely saw Lamorak stumble out of the bed, digging through his clothes (for his own sword?); more clearly he saw Morgause looking at him, all trace of the lie gone from her face. She looked like she was daring him, like she didn’t believe he was actually going to go through with it. He wouldn’t have believed he was actually going to go through with it, either, if Clarissant hadn’t told him.
And then all of a sudden he couldn’t see anything except blood. He heard a clatter--Lamorak? or had he dropped his sword?--but that was all. And he felt himself fall.
When he opened his eyes again, wiping the half-dried blood out of them, Lamorak was gone. But Morgause wasn’t. She was lying on the bed in more blood than he had ever seen in his life. And Gareth, poor fucked-up Gareth, who had always been optimistic and genuinely believed that everybody had something good to offer, who tendered mercy more than any other man in Camelot because he hated the idea of killing someone when there was still that nutmeat of good inside the armoured shell--well, that was who had killed her. His own mother.
He lay down on the floor and cried and cried, until his stomach ached and he felt dizzy. After that he was so exhausted he fell asleep.
The next morning he came back down the stairs, rubbing his arms and wishing his head was still fever-vague, so he could distance himself from the body upstairs. When he came out in the courtyard, Clarissant was waiting for him, wrapped in the green shawl.
“Hey,” he said tiredly.
“Your turn,” she said. “Now it’s over.”
“No more?”
“No.”
“Good.” He sat down wearily on a stone bench. Clarissant sat down beside him.
“I’m sorry.”
It meant more coming from her. Maybe because she never said she was sorry about anything, maybe because she knew what had happened up there without him saying a word. Maybe because she had always been his favourite and he had always been hers, because she was the one who had always made him hope for the best. He nodded.
Clarissant put her hand on his arm. “Said I’d ask--”
“Yeah. What’s the question?”
She whispered. “Is her blood the same colour as the unicorn’s?”
Gareth really did throw up then. She brought him some beer, and after he’d drunk and little and gotten the taste out of his mouth, he said, “Same colour.”
Clarissant rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, wrapped up in her shawl like a selkie in a seal coat. “I’ll show you where to bury your clothes.”
Title: Holy Week
Fandom: Arthurian
Characters/Pairings: Galahad, Percy, Heliabel, implications of pairings wherever you want to see them.
Rating: PG
Notes: An Easter present for
tiamatschild! It only took me four months, too! Sigh.Holy Week
In the Old Testament stories, God never sends word to His prophets before He makes them prophets. They’re ordinary men, shepherds and tenders of trees, quiet men, unimportant men. Until He calls them, they go about their lives unaware that there is anything remarkably holy about them.
Until God called him, Galahad supposes he was the same. He remembers when he was a child growing up in the convent--he doesn’t remember his mother at all, but the nuns told him she brought him when he was very young. Sister Catherine, who was better with children, took care of him; he remembers her kneeling in front of him while he only came up to her shoulders, brushing his yellow hair and dressing him in his white habit.
He was quiet--he must always have been quiet. He remembers Palm Sunday when he was a child, when the nuns of the convent would gather in the courtyard to process into the chapel with arms full of reeds. Of course they couldn’t have palms, but the reeds, and fresh branches of pine and fir, suited well enough for thirty women, the priest who led services, and Galahad. He remembers solemnly waving his handful of reeds and the little sweeping branch of fir he would put on the path into the chapel to invite Jesus to travel in.
Thirteen years ago, he hadn’t yet been called by God. It was only a celebration because there was so much noise and hymns and the brief respite from the Lenten fast. Now that God sends angels to speak to him, Galahad can’t think about any of the holidays without knowing their whole meaning. Nothing is just a clamour of music and sweet smells any more.
Palm Sunday in Camelot is celebrated with a feast, and a procession early in the morning. It isn’t the whole point of the day, and half the knights sleep through it. Galahad understands--he thinks he understands. When he was a child, if the nuns hadn’t woken him, he might have done the same thing. But when the morning dawns cool and clear, without even April mist to temper it, and he goes to the chapel with a scattering of the more religious knights and a good deal of the townsfolk, watching the children process with their own small bundles of reeds, he wonders what it’s like to watch this without knowing.
The children don’t feel the hot imprint in their hands, or hear the rustle of palms and the shouting. He isn’t even sure, at this moment, whether they know that they’re welcoming Jesus in to die.
On Maundy Thursday, even in Camelot, everyone gathers in the chapel to have their feet washed. Arthur does it himself, to humble himself, bearing in mind the words of the Christ: the master who does the work of a servant. Galahad watches them going forward.
Kay, the king’s brother, looks gruff and uncomfortable as Arthur tenderly washes him. Gawain smiles brightly. Peredur, Peredur whom Galahad loves with the love of a disciple for Jesus himself, is eager and unashamed and ready, as he always is. Mordred isn’t there, and Galahad can’t fault him for that, because he wishes he weren’t there either, when Lancelot goes forward and Arthur washes his feet and kisses them when they’re dried.
It is no secret that Lancelot is betraying Arthur with his own queen, but Arthur is as gentle as if they were brothers. Galahad can’t understand. He tries to, but he truly can’t. Beside him, Peredur squeezes his fingers, a firm and steady touch that Galahad anchors himself to desperately. Peredur is like his map for the world of men.
When he was a child, the priest would wash the feet of all the nuns. They weren’t allowed to do it themselves, just as they weren’t allowed to lead their own services. The priest, though, was old and his back and knees hurt him, so he let Sister Margaret help him, and she was the one who knelt down on the stone chapel floor and took Galahad into her lap to wash him.
Sister Margaret was always tired and always worn-looking, but on Maundy Thursday she washed everyone’s feet, her hands as careful as if she were illuminating a manuscript. She crossed Galahad before she let him go back to his pew, three crosses in the water: one on his forehead, one on his lips, and one on his chest. Keep, O Lord, the thoughts of my mind, the words of my lips, and love of my heart for your name’s sake.
When he was twelve years old, God called him, as He called Samuel, out of the darkness while Galahad lay in his bed.
In the convent the world was easy to navigate. He got up for prayers, for matins, vespers, and compline, he trained with weapons because God told him he was meant to be a knight. The nuns let him alone, once he grew too old to be an innocent. No one bothered him when his sadness fell on him and he had to lie for hours on his pallet in his cell, watching the wall, counting the bricks, trying to keep breathing. He could sit outside and talk to God and no one thought it strange.
Now there are all sorts of things to be understood--unkindness, spite, new routines, people who don’t understand when he has to be alone, and fathers who commit treason against their king and are loved anyway.
On Good Friday, Galahad kneels in the chapel and prays with all his heart. He and Peredur are fasting, along with Bors and Lionel, although they don’t speak to each other. Peredur left him in the chapel after kissing him on both cheeks and making Galahad promise to come to his room after he’s done praying.
In the convent on Good Friday all the crosses and crucifixes were covered with black cloth. The cross on the altar was shrouded, and all the usual ornaments of the sacristy were taken away. The service was a long, sombre one, and all the hymns were sad ones, the funeral service for the Lord.
It was always a day when Galahad’s sadness was worst. After the service he had to sit by himself on one of the pews with his head in his hands, trying to discern why God had chosen him to do anything, when he so often sinned through despair. He had had God’s visitations for so many years. Sometimes he saw angels who spoke to him and told him God’s will, and sometimes saints, and sometimes the Lord Himself. They all told him what his life was to be, and Galahad did as he was told.
Amos said to the priests, I am not a prophet. I am not even a prophet’s son. I am a herdsman, and a tender of sycamore trees. Galahad is even less than that. He is the son of a deceiver and an adulterer, a bastard child born to an unhappy woman, who grew up so far out of the world that he can’t climb back into it. He wishes he had sycamores to tend, quiet trees and a quiet home. His only saving grace is that God hasn’t asked him to be a prophet; it’s easier to be a warrior. He can hide his face under his helmet, mask himself in his armour, and do battle for God’s honour. When the time comes, he’ll ride out, and give his life for the glory of God.
He won’t have a family, he won’t grow old. But God has promised him Peredur, at least, and a lady to fight for (he’s sure it’s Mary), to be his footholds on this mountain.
Peredur is the only one in Camelot to know that God talks to Galahad. Peredur understands. He watches Galahad with his big simple eyes that know so much and tells Galahad he’s brave for doing all of God’s wishes for so long.
But Galahad doesn’t feel brave. He feels tired and sad.
On Holy Saturday they go on fasting. Galahad has begun to feel dizzy and light-headed, and Peredur takes advantage to tease him. He hangs upside down by his knees in a tree in the Queen’s orchard, and swings back and forth, making Galahad sick to his stomach.
“What’s your favourite? Mine’s Easter. I mean, they’re all good, but none of ‘em would mean anything without Easter. Even Christmas, yeah?” He grins at Galahad upside down.
“Pentecost,” Galahad murmurs, looking away.
“Oh, that’s a good one. All that red, just as fiery as anything.”
He laughs. “The church set aflame.”
“A Godly fire, though! Anyway, wait ‘til you meet Heli. Her hair’s the same colour as mine, but she can wear red just fine. And she makes rolls for breakin’ your fast on Easter. The best rolls. And she always gets you up real early, so you can see the dawn, like Mary in the garden.”
“Is she perfect?” he asks--he still feels light-headed.
This time Peredur laughs at him, dropping out of the tree and landing right-side-up somehow. “Sure, of course she is. She’s my sister.”
Some of God’s prophets tell their messages loudly and fiercely, proclaiming and then disappearing into heaven in carts drawn by flames, their disciples weeping for them below--loved that deeply, in spite of everything. Galahad thinks of Hosea, ordered to marry a whore and get her with child, to show how Israel was faithless to God.
His work isn’t so thankless; it can’t be harder to do what he has to do; but he thinks sometimes that God has done something like that to him, ordered him into the world to do the things he doesn’t know how to do in order to prove something to some later scholar looking backwards.
That night he dreams of Peredur’s sister, though he’s never seen her. He dreams of her, long red hair like the Pentecost fire, clothed in a gown the colour of blood, offering him Eucharist in a strange church he can’t recognise. He kneels before her, and she tips the chalice to his lips so he can drink.
The wine tastes of iron and fire, of blood and fire, and Galahad’s breath catches in his throat with pain, but Peredur’s sister rests her cool hand on his neck and the pain eases.
“Galahad,” she says. “Don’t be afraid. Percy and me, we’ll work you through it. I know I’m not here for you yet, but I’m gonna be. You just let Percy help until I can come. Okay? To-morrow’s the Pascal Feast. You keep your heart open just like you been doing, and everything will be okay. I promise.”
In the morning he wakes, feeling less heavy than he has in years. It’s so early even Peredur isn’t up yet, so he goes and shakes him awake. “Percy. It’s Easter.”
Peredur grins at him sleepily from his mattress. “Huh, already?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good. Christ is risen.”
“The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.”
“Time for Communion yet?”
“I don’t think anyone is awake yet. Just us, and the servants.”
Peredur sits up excitedly. “Let’s go see if the sun’s up!”
It isn’t, not fully. They stand on the edge of the gardens, watching it rise in a flood of watered-out colours, yellows and off-whites and a hint of faded orange. When they finally turn to go back inside, Galahad asks,
“Your sister--do you think she’ll ever come to Camelot?”
“I dunno. I’d like it if she did. It’s been a real long time since I seen her.”
Galahad tries to keep back a wistful look, but he isn’t sure he manages. God has instructed him to be pure, to be chaste, above all. Even if Peredur’s sister does come--even if she truly is as welcoming as she was in his dream--he’d never be able to court her, to win her, to love her. Those are things other knights may do with their ladies, not him. His purpose is to wear his white shield and his white linen and never to tie any woman’s colours on his arm.
Peredur leans on his arm for a moment, friendly. “She’d like you a lot.”
“How do you know?”
“’Cause I do!” he says contentedly, as if this is all the answer Galahad would ever need in the world.
They take the Eucharist in the little chapel, but this morning, unlike Good Friday, it’s full with the entire court. Even Mordred is there, although his black look shows he’s not comfortable. Galahad remembers that the Orkneys are still largely pagan in practise, and supposes that Mordred’s only trying to make Sir Gawain happy by attending.
For once, though, he feels at peace. It doesn’t bother him that he’s hemmed in on every side by men and ladies, and he doesn’t feel stripped naked when he goes up to take the host and wine. Even when the taste of the host on his tongue makes his hands and feet ache with nails that aren’t there, even when he feels the sharp bite of the spear in his side, and the prick of thorns in his hair, and the lash on his shoulders, he keeps his head bowed and swallows. Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they that trust in Him!
He’ll always feel these things when no other man does. He can’t be a child any more, and wave his fir branch without knowing what it means. Even the prophets who protest become prophets, and those that don’t become Jonahs, damning the people around them while they hide in the bellies of boats.
After services there’s to be a feast, but Galahad only manages one glass of wine before he’s too sleepy to endure it--between his restless sleep, his early waking, and the fasting, it proves too much. He slips out with only a few excuses, and goes back to his room to read his Bible.
It’s late in the evening when he wakes again, and he’s on his own mattress, instead of the chair where he fell asleep, and Peredur is curled up beside him like a dog at its master’s feet. Galahad feels a warmth in his body that’s far less painful than the burn of the wine in his dream. He strokes Peredur’s mop of red hair, tangled and curly.
When he was a child, he didn’t understand, not really, how Christ could love the whole world so entirely that He was willing to be beaten and hanged for its sake. He didn’t even understand what it was like to love one person so much. He isn’t an innocent any more. God doesn’t hide what will happen to him. But Jesus was welcomed and loved before He died, and after He died He rose again, and Peredur is right: without that nothing else would have any meaning.
And Galahad-- Galahad will never be betrayed.
To be loved, even by one man, and then to die for God is not so terrible a life. He is certainly no Christ. But he has the knowledge of Christ that no prophet before Him ever had, and he has a beloved disciple who will never leave him.
Galahad pulls Peredur closer to him, and lies still giving thanks to God until he falls asleep again.
---
Title: The New Britain Job
Fandom: Arthurian/Firefly
Characters/Pairings: Mal, Inara, Companion!Sagramore, Gaheris, Dinadan
Rating: PG
Notes: Totally fluffy and self-indulgent. A birthday present for
skaryma, who should feel better soon. ♥The New Britain Job
“Sagramore!”
Mal’s head jerks up like a cocked gun to see who’s got Inara calling out like that, her voice hitting that sweet place it does when she’s pleased. Across the room he half catches sight of a tall man waving back at them.
“Who’s that?” He nudges her with his elbow, and she shoots him a dark look.
“He’s a friend of mine. We trained together as Companions.”
“Oh, he’s one of Kaylee’s boy whores?”
“He is a cultured, thoughtful gentleman, which is more than I can say for you, Captain.” She isn’t looking at him, a sure sign that he’s pushed too far, but Mal can hardly bring himself to care. Sagramore is crossing the room towards them, and Mal’s no great judge of male beauty, but even he can see that Sagramore is something special. And Inara’s smiling like Kaylee with a new shiny.
“It’s been years, bájos.” Sagramore kisses both of her cheeks. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Let me introduce you. This is Captain Reynolds. I travel with his ship.”
“A pleasure to meet you. My name is Sagramore, Inara and I studied together some time ago.” Sagramore offers his hand. His skin is a slightly dusky colour, like shadows in corners.
“What am I supposed to do, kiss his hand?” Mal asks, letting his voice twang in the way that irritates Inara the most. “I don’t know the protocol for menfolk of the night.”
“Mal!”
“I prefer handshakes myself,” Sagramore says. “There’s less risk of me coming into contact with any of your bodily fluids.”
It gets a laugh out of Inara, and Mal stiffens. She rests her hand on Sagramore’s arm. “It’s so good to see you again. I hope you’ve had a successful career.”
He laughs. “Excessively. Actually, I’m here with a friend, but he’s already drunk, I’ll have to go and dig him out after a bit. But this isn’t the sort of place I would’ve supposed to see you--you’re not here on business, are you?”
“Oh, no, I’m just--”
“She’s slumming it with us common folk as makes our living getting our hands dirty,” Mal interrupts. “Inara, it’s time we were back to the ship.”
Inara’s face is sharp and warning. “I think there’s time enough for me to have a conversation with Sagramore.” One of those statements that’s more like an order, that he’s more used to getting from other folk, and good at blowing off no matter who says them; but instead he clamps his teeth together, because there’s no good reason not to like the man, other’n being a mite clever with his words.
Anyone would think Mal was jealous or something, and Mal doesn’t get jealous. Not of folks.
“We got half an hour to be shut of this room,” he says instead. “You just mind that as you’re having your conversation.”
“Half an hour should be sufficient,” Sagramore says, all modulated tones and good grace. “After that I’ll be needing to find my friend in any case.”
Inara smiles. “Of course. But really, where have you been staying?”
“Here and there.”
Mal lets his attention wander, with an effort. By now, Zoë will have relocked all the doors he unlocked earlier, during Inara’s tour of the old castle, and the wine cellar should have a lot more empty space in it than it did four hours ago. Real wine, not rot-your-brain fermented synth fruit or soaked corn (some of the more terra-formed planets have real crops, enough so they can still soak alcohol out of a bunch of husks in a jug, despite their poverty), sells for a high price even among the Alliance planets. The cellar of the castle was well-stocked, and if everything’s gone according to plan a lot of those smoke-wood casks are in Serenity’s belly now.
They call the man who rules here the Dragon King, a name that makes Mal want to spit in the dirt with scorn. Whoever he is, he’s managed to amass enough money to set his place up pretty fine--the food at the dinner wasn’t synthetic, any more than the wine is.
Suddenly the jostle of a body connecting with his startles him back out of thinking, and his hands go out unconsciously to grab the fellow’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length. It’s a young man, shy-faced and dark-haired, and noticeably shorter than Mal.
“Sagramore!” His voice is soft, slurred, and has thick hints of some whole other accent--for a planet with just one terra-formed island, and only one real city, the place has the damnedest collection of accents Mal’s ever run across in so small an area. If it were a port city, maybe, or on an Alliance planet; but castle-city is on New Britain, named for a country on Earth-That-Was, and colonised originally by about fifty people and a cow or two.
Inara’s fancy friend sighs and holds out his hands for the kid. “Christ, boy, your brother isn’t going to forgive me.”
Kid stumbles out of Mal’s grasp and into Sagramore’s arms, coming to rest like a docking ship. “He won’t mind.”
“Of course he’ll mind, he’ll have my hide.” Sagramore throws an apologetic look at Inara. “I’m sorry, he’s still a young man. He doesn’t know anything about managing his liquor.”
“It’s all right,” Inara says graciously.
To Mal’s annoyance, Kid’s eyes flutter to Inara’s face and he smiles, although it’s a vague kind of smile. Kid clearly isn’t Jayne-drunk so much as Kaylee-drunk, a fact that annoys Mal even further, although he doesn’t care to pinpoint why. “What’s thy name, my lady?”
“Inara Sera. You must be Sagramore’s friend.”
The kid laughs. “He’s my nursemaid, meanst thou.”
“You don’t look to me like a man in need of a nursemaid,” Inara says, in that cool, certain tone she has, the one that’s usually being employed to let Mal know she doesn’t like what he’s just said. Right now she’s trying to bolster the kid’s self-esteem or something. Mal manages not to roll his eyes.
“I do. I’m mad. My brothers wouldn’t have me come by myself, that’s why he’s here to keep me out of trouble,” with a gentle nod in Sagramore’s direction. “I already know, it’s no secret.”
“I’m beginning to think I’m more of a herdsman.” Sagramore keeps one hand on the kid’s shoulder to restrict his movements. “Inara, let me introduce you to Prince Gaheris, who’s ordinarily somewhat less outspoken. The man I came with is someone else entirely, although I can assure you he’s equally worse for wear by now. I apologise for both of them pre-emptively, I’m afraid.” There’s a real tight note to his voice, one that wasn’t there before, that makes Mal think the kid being drunk is more of a problem than it first seemed.
“Prince, huh?”
“The fourth of the five Princes from Lothian, yes.”
Suddenly Inara’s hand is back on Mal’s arm, her fingers gripping too hard, and Mal raises an eyebrow at her.
“No,” she says, fiercely, under her breath, before turning back to Sagramore. “Would you like to see him home? We can wait for your friend, and tell him where you are.”
“I can’t ask you to do my work for me,” smiling.
With a sudden burst of unreasonable dislike hum-throbbing in his chest, Mal decides that he’d like nothing more than to be rid of Sagramore and his smile for the rest of the evening. “Suppose you’d better take his highness home,” he says, in his mildest voice--which, being put on, doesn’t sound very mild.
“Mal,” Inara hisses.
But Sagramore bows gracefully. “Actually, it won’t hurt Dinadan to stay here by himself. He’s a grown man. It was splendid to see you again, bájos--a lucky chance, and I’m extraordinarily glad.” He bends to kiss Inara’s cheeks, one hand still balancing the kid to keep him in check.
Before Mal has time to get more irritated, Sagramore turns to him, and pulls him into a kind of a hug with more strength than Mal would have expected from that slender body. “I recommend that you treat your lady well,” he says, in a low voice. “And I recommend you bear in mind that I told the seneschal I was the one who unlocked the cellar door to the outside. Kai has infinitely less patience than I do.” He lets Mal go, and smiles at them both, his arm slipping around the kid’s shoulder with a protective air. “I hope I may have the good fortune to see you both again.”
“I hope so.” Inara smiles back. Mal scowls.
Sagramore turns away, then, and the air gets a bit lighter, as if some heavy incense scent were gone. Inara finally relaxes her grip on Mal’s arm.
“What the hell was that?” Mal says.
“I’ll tell you later,” Inara says, her voice still sweet but strained at the edges, like a step about to give.
“Just as well. We’re late.”
Inara nods, and Mal gets the idea she’s as ready as he is to get shut of this planet. It isn’t until they’re back on Serenity, and he’s shucking off his boots in the kitchen, she sitting across from him on one of the table benches, that she says,--
“Sagramore is involved with the royal family on New Britain.”
“This the bedroom kind of involved?”
“He is providing his services to the oldest prince, yes. But not as a client.” There’s something wistful in her voice, and Mal keeps his eyes on his bootlaces.
“Why’d you get all grabby with me?” he asks instead.
Inara sounds surprised. “I thought-- I thought the temptation of having one of the princes incapacitated and within easy reach might be too much to resist.”
“What?”
“I mean, I was afraid you might decide to kidnap him for ransom purposes.”
Mal looks up and squints at her. “I don’t steal people. Not without a real good reason, anyway. Not from some backwater ditch like that, wine or no wine.”
“Oh.”
“How’d your friend catch on to us?” abruptly.
This time Inara looks away. “I told him.”
“You told--”
“He’d already made excuses for us to the seneschal. I wanted to be honest with him.”
“And why’d he make excuses?”
“He’d seen us walking together earlier and thought you were my husband.” Mal catches something that sounds like a blush in her voice. “He wanted to protect me.”
“Seen us earlier? Why didn’t he come to see you then?”
“He was busy with Gaheris.”
“You got an answer for everything, don’t you? Well, I don’t like you telling strangers about our doings, even if they did go to whore-school with you. Why don’t you mind that, long as you’re staying on my boat?”
Inara gets to her feet, not even bothering to argue with him, and walks out of the room. Mal looks after her, then slams his hand down on the table. He shouldn’t’ve damn well stopped listening when Inara was talking to that man, and he knows it--doesn’t know what else he missed, besides Inara telling their entire operation to some prettyboy Mal never wants to see again in his life.
“Don’t matter anyway,” he says to himself. Even though it does.
Dinadan pokes Sagramore’s shoulder with an over-familiarity that has never bothered Sagramore in his life. “Who was that woman you were with? She showed up your bad looks, I can tell you that.”
Sagramore laughs. “An old friend.”
Dinadan waggles his eyebrows, but Sagramore shakes his head.
“You are filthy. Absolutely not. But she did me a very great service when I was young, so it was a pleasure to do a small one for her. By the way, when Kai asked, I’m afraid I indicated that you were as responsible as I for the fact of the cellars being available to predators, so when he discovers them pillaged we may be hanged together.”
“You bastard. Do I get anything out of this?”
“Well, there’s bed.”
“Small consolation,” Dinadan says, but he doesn’t argue. Companions don’t exactly frequent New Britain, and besides, he likes Sagramore. “You didn’t even introduce me to her.”
“Next time I will,” Sagramore says. “Next time.”
---
Title: Optimism
Fandom: Arthurian AU
Characters/Pairings: Gareth, Clarissant, Lyonors, Agravain, Gawain, Morgause, sundries; Gareth/Lyonors, Lamorak/Morgause
Rating: PG-13
Notes:
snowyofthenight challenged me to write a story based on the fact that Gaheris and Gareth used to be the same character. Her question was "does that mean Gareth originally killed Morgause?" He didn't, it used to be Agravain (and still is some places), but I wrote the fic anyway. Also, I tried out a totally new style of writing, so I apologise, a tricky AU challenge is probably not the place to see what would happen if you used modern narration in an Arthurian fic, but hopefully it's not too jarring.It is also a horror story. I'm not sure how that happened, but it totally did. If it creeps you out a bit, then I did my job right.
Optimism
Gareth was optimistic.
Had always been optimistic, despite the flash flood of fucked-up brothers, despite Lot and his overdeveloped sense of irony, despite Morgause and her possessive way with them, even when she was ignoring them. He’d never really bothered to think very hard about why he was so optimistic, but he thought it had something to do with Clarissant.
Clarissant, who was as fucked-up as the rest of them.
Clarissant, who when she wasn’t as purposelessly independent as a wild dog almost seemed to need him, the way she sought him out on her bad days. Who, when she wasn’t murmuring half-coherent fragments of whole thoughts that could piece together magic so strong he could feel it rippling over his skin like the steam above a boiling pot, would end up screaming, her body clenched like a fist, trying to tell him things he couldn’t understand and desperate because her meaning kept getting lost.
Which wasn’t really something to be optimistic about. But he loved Clarissant, the closest to him in age. On Beltane, when the Orkney herdsmen were driving their cattle through the fire and the fishermen were hanging up rowan and hawthorn for luck, she would nestle in the crook of his arm and tell him what was coming.
Gareth would watch the fires and Gawain dancing with sweet country girls with ruddy faces and ruddy hair, their skirts swirling like eddies around their feet. Gawain, the future king, who Gareth was sure was going to be better than Lot--not that Lot had been explicitly bad, but he had a mouth that liked the taste of blood, and spent more time campaigning (and trying to draw that sword) than here in the islands, even though he liked them. Gawain wouldn’t want to abandon the islands. Gawain had promise.
Everyone had this idea that Gareth was stupid because he was optimistic, but he saw more than he said and always had. And Gawain had the kind of promise that could turn a country around, with his broad warm smile and his listening ways and his honest voice that could make a person swear fealty before he stopped to think. Not that it exempted Gawain from the poisonous fucked-up-ening that was recycled through their hearts every time their lungs drew breath and their blood moved steadily on. Gawain had the temper, too. He had the wild blind fury that could overtake him at the wrongest moments, robbing him of all rational thought and ebbing only once too much damage was done to repair. Gareth had only seen him like that once, but once was enough to know it was in there.
Gareth had seen it the day Agravain killed the unicorn after coaxing Clarissant to catch it for him.
Agravain was first and foremost a hunter. Which couldn’t be helped, and could certainly be smelled on him, a sharp smell like sweat and leather and blood mixed with iron, so at least you had fair warning if you were paying attention. Agravain could use a hunting knife the way some people (Gawain, say) could use their words. He was a fine archer, too. And it was the only thing that made him happy. When he wasn’t hunting, it was like someone had stuffed him in a tiny iron-barred cage and left him there, and all he could do was crouch inside it rocking it back and forth with a fury that bordered on desperation, howling and hissing and lashing out any time somebody got close enough.
The day he killed the unicorn, he had found Clarissant in the morning and told her excitedly, “Hey, Clar. Clar. I found a unicorn in the meadow.”
“Balls,” said Clarissant, chewing on a stem of heather. Gareth was sitting in the doorway listening.
“I did. I bet if you went out she’d come to you.”
Clarissant was ten years old. She didn’t have a handle on her magic and it scared her sometimes. Her black hair--she and Mordred were both black-haired, when Agravain and Gawain and Gareth were the same red-gold colour as Lot--was in knots and tangles down her back, burrs and bits of heather stuck in it. The only shift she’d wear was the blue one, and big horseman’s boots on her feet. “You’re tricking me.”
“Am not. She’s a big white one.”
“Lost horse,” Clarissant said angrily. She knew something was wrong, and she knew Agravain wasn’t that nice. Gareth knew it too.
“Oh, fuck that,” Agravain said, irritably. “I know a horse from a unicorn, don’t I?”
“Fine, show me.”
Gareth trotted along after them, quiet in case Agravain decided to send him home. He was eleven, but Agravain still called him runt and ordered him home whenever the fancy struck. Agravain being all of fifteen.
It was a unicorn, anyway. Agravain wasn’t lying about that. Gareth had tried to imagine unicorns before--sometimes when he couldn’t sleep at night he lay on his straw mattress wondering what he’d do if a unicorn or a gryphon or a dragon showed up at the castle and he was the only one who could approach it (kid stuff like that)--but the unicorn was one of those things that you couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t white so much as silver: a shimmery kind of white, its long mane and its tufted tail (not like a horse’s, but like a whip with a tuft at the end of it, slender and snaky) the same constantly-moving frothy shudder of a waterfall.
Clarissant caught her breath. Clarissant was really impressed, and that made Gareth even more awed, because Clarissant wasn’t impressed by much. She held out her hand to the unicorn, and it came to her, making a soft whiffling noise, and laid its head against her neck. Clarissant started to cry.
Gareth ached inside. It was beautiful and he was trying to figure out how you could ever look away, ever turn away from something like that.
And then it screamed, a scream like a panicked woman’s, high in its long throat, and suddenly there was blood pouring out of its side, its neck, like springs in a white field, steadily pouring forth. Gareth spun around so fast his head hurt, and there was Agravain standing with his bow, his face the colour of an ashpit.
Clarissant started screaming too. Her scream was worse than the unicorn’s, because it wasn’t a dying scream, it was a scream like somebody trapped inside her own head, feeling blood spill over her hands and splatter the only blue shift she would wear.
It was the scream that brought Gawain running, Mordred behind him, though by then Gareth had dragged Clarissant away from the dead unicorn and she was screaming into his shoulder. The shoulder was never the same after that. Her screaming felt like a spray of sparks pouring into his skin through his clothes, and he wanted to jerk away from her but he couldn’t, even with her magic running crazy out of her mouth, because he was her favourite and she was his and he couldn’t run away from her now. But afterward his left arm was always weak, and it burned sometimes so that when Lyonors ran her fingertips over it he would flinch.
When Gawain saw them--what an incredible tableau, the dead, bloody unicorn, Clarissant screaming into him, Agravain standing transfixed with his bow in his hand looking like a dead man who was somehow still standing up--that white fury came into his face. Gareth assumed it was for Clarissant, although it could have been for the unicorn. Gawain hit Agravain while he was still running and brought him down to the ground.
He was beyond reasoning then. Mordred had to drag him off while Agravain was still breathing.
And later Gawain apologised, of course, and Agravain grunted unhappily to show he accepted it, but he had a broken rib the court physician had to set, and Gawain spent a night sitting by the fire staring at his hands like he’d never realised they could do something like that. That was how Gareth knew he was scared of it. And Agravain was scared of him. That never mended, unlike the rib. After that it only took a word from Gawain, and Agravain would shape up, no matter what he was doing or how black his mood was. Gawain tried to be gentle with his reprimands, but nothing could make Agravain go back to seeing him the way he had before.
Besides showing off Gawain’s fucked-up streak, it had showed off Agravain’s. Even it he was sorry he’d killed the unicorn, which he obviously was. He’d still done it. Maybe that was part of the lurking misery in him, the tang of inadequacy around him, things a person wouldn’t have guessed he’d feel until they got close enough to smell them, just like the hunter smell.
Mordred’s fucked-up side was a lot subtler to show. It was more like Gareth’s, a quiet narrative going on under the surface, the way Gareth’s optimism was balanced by the part of him that noticed the fucked-up-ness to begin with. You would have thought that it was Morgause that caused it, but all Morgause really did was give him a healthy sense of misogyny, which wasn’t that hard to understand when you realised how her moments of niceness and her cruelty were both just flavours of manipulation.
(Morgause had fucked up Gareth that way, because he didn’t realise for a long time--because he thought that when she was nice, she really meant to be nice. Sort of an unspoken “I love you”, like she wanted to tip him off that somewhere under all the cruelty she really was glad to have him as a son. It was a long time before he realised that the only sense of attachment she felt towards them was a sense of possession, as if instead of children she had a fancy set of chairs and she would have been annoyed if someone took one or scraped the wood finish.)
Mordred just couldn’t stand being responsible for anything, not consciously responsible. Like he just didn’t trust himself to make the right choices.
That, and the way Arthur called him nephew so indulgently, pretending that he (Arthur) had never slept with Morgause, that she had never niced her way into his bedroom by pretending to care about him, as if he were more than just another fancy chair at her dining room table.
Lately, Gareth was glad that Lyonors hadn’t wanted children. He couldn’t imagine what he would do with them. He’d be optimistic--he’d love the hell out of them, just like he loved the hell out of Lyonors, or Clarissant--but he’d always be noticing that streak of fucked-up, however it ended up showing itself. And it would, because it wasn’t just his brothers who had it. It was pretty near everyone at Camelot, everyone with their own special brands of fucked-up to try to hide.
Which wasn’t to say that he didn’t like people, because he did. He liked almost everyone. People in Camelot were interesting, a lot of scholars and knights with their own crazy families, brave men like Sir Lancelot (Gareth loved Sir Lancelot) and smart women like Gawain’s wife Ragnelle, and even the boring people were nice. It was just that he could always see the fucked-up, because everyone had it.
Except maybe Lyonors.
Lyonors never screamed when she couldn’t make words come out the way she wanted, never balked from responsibilities she wasn’t sure she could handle. She had spent five years holed up in her own father’s castle while dozens of bright-hearted young men were slain by the man who tried to lay claim to her, which gave her a good excuse for anything that might be wrong with her, but apart from not wanting children--which Gareth had never broken his heart over--she was as ordinary as heather on a moor.
She looked nothing like anybody in his family. Her hair was long and golden-yellow, curly as a wild pony’s but nowhere near as tangled, always fine as gold embroidery on a tapestry. Her skin was the pale brown of hens’ eggs. Blue-eyed. She was reticent, not outspoken like her sister Lynet, but that didn’t bother him. She talked to him. She lay in bed beside him, soothing his left shoulder with her cool fingertips, and just talking in her quiet mourning-dove voice. Soft like most things weren’t in his world of straw mattresses and rough leather clothes and angry waves trying to climb the sea cliffs to swallow the heather moors.
“I love you,” he told her one night.
Lyonors kissed his temple, right above his eye, and it felt like she had left coolness there, too, on his brow. “I love you too,” she said.
He hadn’t spoken the Norn language of Orkney since he’d come to Camelot, but he told her then, so she couldn’t understand, “I’m fucked-up too. Just like they are. You think I’m not because I smile all the time and I’ve never tried to kill someone for shooting a unicorn, but I’m just as fucked-up as the rest of them.”
Lyonors’ blue eyes searched his face, her confusion as gentle as everything else about her. “Gareth--are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said, taking her fingers and kissing them. “Will it be all right if I go back home to visit my sister? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her.”
“Do you want me to come along?” That was all she said. Permission so implicit that asking in the first place had almost been a formality--although he’d never needed formalities with her, not with Lyonors, who could touch his heart just by putting her hand on his chest.
“No. I don’t mean to stay long. I’ll take a fast horse, stay a week. You won’t notice I’m gone,” the corner of his mouth turning up into his less brilliant smile. Lyonors had once said she loved all his smiles. She traced the contours of this one, then smiled back.
“I’ll notice.”
“So will I,” he admitted. “But I need to see her.”
He knew he did. He had known for a few days. It burned in his shoulder, as insanely painful as the day Clarissant had breathed her magic into it, like a torch signal on a black night. Clarissant needed him, or he needed her.
Lyonors just kept smiling, and kissed him again. “I know. Just come back soon.”
She meant it all, too. Gareth had never been a nice piece of furniture in her house. He had always been a man.
He was optimistic about the journey to Orkney, though. Clarissant would be waiting for him, as sure as his shoulder. Maybe waiting in the door for him. Maybe in her room, settled in her chair with her hair full of heather, singing insane songs in Norn, piecing together magic like the carded wool women fed into the spindle, reeling out a whole grey thread as slim and strong as Clarissant herself. Gareth liked that thought. He should bring her something, he decided--once he was already on his way, of course, but luckily the things that Clarissant liked the best were the strange things you found by the side of the road or cheap copper charms in transient markets, or rounded stones that felt good in the hand. Something he could get on the way there.
Although when he got to Orkney, he hadn’t got just a pocketful of stones. He’d stopped somewhere in Scotland and bought her a shawl of dyed green wool, as soft as Lyonors’ voice. She’d probably like the stones better, but the shawl was exactly right for her, especially the way that instead of tassels at the ends the weaver had fastened a fringe of beaten silver discs that jingled together like metallic whispers. More money than he should have spent. Would Clarissant even realise?
Probably not.
She was in the stableyard by the well, feeding the chickens by scattering the grain into patterns and symbols. Gareth watched the chicken-incantation, which was bobbing slightly as the hens pecked and scratched. He wasn’t sure Orkney would feel like home without Clarissant.
He also wasn’t sure how long he stood there watching the chickens before Clarissant turned up at his elbow and started going through his pockets. That woke him up in a hurry.
“Hist wist,” she said. “Mother has a new man.”
“Who?” It felt almost like a scripted response, like saying ‘I’m well’ when someone asks ‘How are you?’ Morgause had had lovers now and then ever since Lot had died. Gareth had always assumed they were just furniture too, or sometimes even as little as kindling (just ashes after a few nights of burning, scattered in the fields when it came time to clean the fireplace).
Clarissant sang, under her breath. “Some say the poor man’s made out of mud, some say he’s made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood, skin and bone, a mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong.”
“Clar?”
“You know what? This one’s different. He’s going to ask her to marry him.”
“What?” He felt stupid. “Is she going to say yes?”
“Can I see the future? No, just a glass darkly.”
It was a bad day for her. He shouldn’t have pestered; her far-seeing days came and went. Gareth still had his pack over his shoulder, and he unslung it, taking the shawl out for her. “I brought you a present.”
Clarissant took it, passing the soft wool through her hands (they probably smelled like rue. They usually did). Then tears started running down her face, over the wrinkles of her frown, like rain on the sea during a storm. He knew they tasted like the sea, too. Just like he knew her hands smelled like rue and she hadn’t brushed her black hair in at least a month, just like he knew where she had buried her blue shift, the one stained all over with fat brown drops (who’d have guessed that a unicorn would bleed the same colour as any other animal, and that the blood would stain the same ruddy brown?). Then she stopped crying and straightened up, her black eyes as fey as the Folk they tried to appease on Beltane.
“Gareth, it’s your turn. It’s your turn. Someday it won’t be you, you’ll split into two people and one will go free, and you’ll never understand, all your life. But it’s you now.”
The chickens were drifting away from the grain-patterns in the yard. One or two hens remained, dirt-bathing with their feathers fluffed up so they looked twice their proper size, sending out little puffs of fine dust into the cold air. Gareth wished Lyonors were there. He wished he could go up to his old room in the castle and find her there, lie down beside her and take off his tunic, feel her cool fingers on the twinges in his shoulder.
He wished that his fucked-up-ness were something he had always been able to put a finger on, like Gawain’s anger or Agravain’s caged-up hunter’s spirit. The truth was he had never been able to pinpoint it, not more than the knowledge that under his optimism there was that narrative, always running, always noticing, aware of how fucked-up everyone else was.
It’s your turn.
He was sure he knew what that meant. His turn to find out. Even Clarissant, with her spindles of magic, couldn’t stop that. He had tried to avoid it, God knew, by acting as eager as puppy around his brothers, oblivious to people’s faults, good-natured and quick to take a joke. He had tried to cover up everything else, even around Lyonors.
He bit the inside of his cheek. “Who’s Mother sleeping with?”
“Lamorak de Galis.”
“Is he in love with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he furniture?”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You aren’t making any sense.” She laughed, triumphantly, like she was delighted that it was finally someone else who wasn’t making sense. “What’s in your head?”
Gareth tried to get the corner of his mouth to curl up in a smile, but it wouldn’t. His nails were biting into his palms like little rows of teeth. “Does she like him?”
“She’s had him the longest.” Clarissant leaned forward to him. “I have a question, but you can’t answer it until later. So I guess you’d better go see her. Can’t get out of it. Can’t get off once the ride’s started. Not even if you’re throwing up.”
“Upstairs?” It was the only thing he could get to come out.
“Yeah.”
He still had his pack with him as he climbed the stairs, just a little less full because of Clarissant’s shawl. He was hoping she liked it. Morgause’s room was on the castle’s third floor, up one of the staircases that wound along the stone wall like a coil of rope, with nothing to prevent you from falling off the far side of it if you were stupid or careless. He walked with his shoulder to the wall, his left shoulder, letting the cold, moist stone ease the burning a little. They’d never been able to get the damp out of the castle, as much as various day-labourers had tried. Morgause hated it. But she hated Orkney.
When he got to her room at the top of the stairs he rapped sharply on the door and then went in, through her quiet anteroom and into her bedroom.
He heard the soft murmur before he got there, a murmur as soft as Lyonors’ voice when she was lying next to him in bed. It made him feel as though there were a thin skim of dirt over his skin. Then he pushed aside the curtain and saw her--saw them, Morgause and the man, Lamorak, a young man, much too young to be sleeping with a woman who was only nice when it suited her purposes. They were both naked, but sitting up in bed together talking, her fingers trailing through his hair.
Lamorak started up indignantly--no doubt worried about Morgause’s honour, in that way only the young and chivalrous can be--but Morgause stayed him with a hand on his arm. Gareth decided that he might have a fever, because his head was starting to pound, in a hot, sticky, slow way.
“Don’t lie to him,” he said.
“Gareth--”
“You lie to us and get away with it because we’re all fucked up. Even me. But he’s just a kid. Why does it feel like there’s two people inside me? Clar said some day I’ll split into two people.” He didn’t even notice his voice start to strain with pleading. “I’ve got Lyonors, and she’s perfect, and people are all essentially good. I have lots of friends. That part of me’s fine. Why won’t the other part ever be happy unless you love me?”
“Gareth,” she said, in a voice so soothing his head almost stopped pounding. “Everything is all right.”
Except that he knew she was lying now. There wasn’t enough optimism in the world to cover that up. She was lying, and all of a sudden he hated her for it. He’d brought his sword along, just like all knights did, in case of a challenge or a bit of trouble on the road, and it was still bucked around his waist. Drawing it was the work of one smooth moment. After all, he’d trained under Lancelot. If Sir Lancelot couldn’t teach you to be a good swordsman, you might as well just give up (except that Gareth, being Gareth, would never have said that anyone should give anything up, would always have offered encouragement to anyone).
He vaguely saw Lamorak stumble out of the bed, digging through his clothes (for his own sword?); more clearly he saw Morgause looking at him, all trace of the lie gone from her face. She looked like she was daring him, like she didn’t believe he was actually going to go through with it. He wouldn’t have believed he was actually going to go through with it, either, if Clarissant hadn’t told him.
And then all of a sudden he couldn’t see anything except blood. He heard a clatter--Lamorak? or had he dropped his sword?--but that was all. And he felt himself fall.
When he opened his eyes again, wiping the half-dried blood out of them, Lamorak was gone. But Morgause wasn’t. She was lying on the bed in more blood than he had ever seen in his life. And Gareth, poor fucked-up Gareth, who had always been optimistic and genuinely believed that everybody had something good to offer, who tendered mercy more than any other man in Camelot because he hated the idea of killing someone when there was still that nutmeat of good inside the armoured shell--well, that was who had killed her. His own mother.
He lay down on the floor and cried and cried, until his stomach ached and he felt dizzy. After that he was so exhausted he fell asleep.
The next morning he came back down the stairs, rubbing his arms and wishing his head was still fever-vague, so he could distance himself from the body upstairs. When he came out in the courtyard, Clarissant was waiting for him, wrapped in the green shawl.
“Hey,” he said tiredly.
“Your turn,” she said. “Now it’s over.”
“No more?”
“No.”
“Good.” He sat down wearily on a stone bench. Clarissant sat down beside him.
“I’m sorry.”
It meant more coming from her. Maybe because she never said she was sorry about anything, maybe because she knew what had happened up there without him saying a word. Maybe because she had always been his favourite and he had always been hers, because she was the one who had always made him hope for the best. He nodded.
Clarissant put her hand on his arm. “Said I’d ask--”
“Yeah. What’s the question?”
She whispered. “Is her blood the same colour as the unicorn’s?”
Gareth really did throw up then. She brought him some beer, and after he’d drunk and little and gotten the taste out of his mouth, he said, “Same colour.”
Clarissant rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, wrapped up in her shawl like a selkie in a seal coat. “I’ll show you where to bury your clothes.”
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-31 08:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-01 02:41 am (UTC)