The Book of Mordred

Part I

Alayna

Chapter 1

After looking everywhere in the house, Alayna found Kiera in the barn, talking to the horses.

Alayna knew that—given the chance—most children of five years would talk to horses. But Kiera was crying, sobbing, her voice coming out in gasps and hiccups, barely able to get the words out, and what she was saying to the horses was No, I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell. But something terrible.

She was still in her night dress, and she had her arms flung around the neck of the mare, Alayna’s own horse, who was nuzzling her as though to offer comfort. The other horse, Toland’s old nag, looked up as Alayna entered and gave a soft nickering sound.

No, Kiera said as if in answer. Why should I? She never believes me anyway.

Kiera. Alayna’s voice came more sharply than she’d intended, for it was one thing to talk to horses; it was something else entirely to think they talked back.

Her daughter turned and stood there, still crying, but not speaking.

What is it? Alayna asked. What has happened? Then, because Kiera was her only child and Alayna did have a tendency to worry: Are you hurt or ill?

Kiera hesitated and the mare used her head to gently bump Kiera’s back, forcing her to take a step forward. Looking and sounding torn between reluctance and hope, Kiera said, I had a dream. A very bad dream. Something bad was about to happen, but I don’t know what.

Alayna crouched down among the straw bedding, unmindful of the hem of her gown, and held her arms out, and Kiera ran to accept the hug. Alayna stroked her hair, soft and shiny but still tangled from the night’s sleep. Everybody has bad dreams, Alayna assured her in a gentle murmur.

Kiera pushed herself away. "This was not that kind of bad dream."

Not again, Alayna thought. Come back to the house, she said, and she swept Kiera up in her arms as she stood, which was getting more difficult lately, with Kiera looking to grow all tall and gangling like her father. Cheerfully Alayna announced, I’m to bake bread today. Sometimes Kiera could be distracted from these moods. You may add the raisins and the seeds.

Something bad is coming, Kiera insisted. We have to warn Ned, too.

Do you remember how two years ago you dreamed that the well collapsed? And do you remember how you refused to go anywhere near there all that summer long? And every time your father—she was able to get the word out without a catch—or Ned or I went near, you cried? And nothing bad ever happened anywhere near the well.

Two years ago I was just a baby, Kiera said. Now I can tell the difference. Alayna kept walking and Kiera twisted to call back to the horses. Be careful. Oh, please be careful. So seriously, so anguished—it nearly broke Alayna’s heart.

Alayna glanced to the peach tree on the little hill, where Toland was buried, and managed not to feel resentful.

Ned was just coming out of the house. Found the little one, eh? he said with a wink for Kiera. Of course Alayna would have awakened him in his little room at the back of the house with all her slamming of doors and calling for Kiera. He was carrying a bucket of slops for the pigs and didn’t pause, for the bucket was heavy. Everything all right, then?

Fine, Alayna assured him.

Kiera said, Ned, be extra careful today!

Of what? he called back over his shoulder.

I don’t know. But something is wrong.

All right, young miss, he told her, disappearing around the corner of the barn.

Kiera gave a loud sigh of exasperation, which Alayna knew Toland would have said was a mannerism their daughter had definitely inherited from her mother’s side.

In the kitchen Alayna put her down and told her, Go get dressed. And this time don’t forget to brush your hair.

Baking day always made her impatient. She had never mastered the art of making bread, but until a year ago she hadn’t realized it. Growing up on the wealthiest of her father’s several estates, she had never needed to learn. And with her father’s young second wife eager to avoid the reputation of demanding stepmother, Alayna had been allowed to spend her time as she wanted—and what she’d wanted was to accompany her older brother, Galen, through sword and riding lessons rather than learn how to run a household.

Then, married at the age of fifteen, it never occurred to her that the effortlessly wonderful bread she baked could have anything to do with the fact that her husband was a wizard. It wasn’t until Toland died that she realized just how much help he had secretly given around the house.

So now, twenty years old and on her own for the first time, she pounded and kneaded a slab of dough, and knew for a fact that some of the loaves would end up mostly big holes, and some would be too hard to bite through.

Her hands sticky with dough, Alayna blew at a stray lock of hair that had come loose and kept falling into her eyes. What she wouldn’t give for a few household servants now. But there was only old Ned, and good as he was at tending horses and fixing thatch and working the garden, it was too much to expect that he should be able to bake, also. She thought again of how her parents had advised against her marrying Toland, how they’d warned that life with a village-wizard would be nothing like the life she’d led so far. But she’d loved Toland enough to give up everything for him, even enough to put up with the queasy feeling she got at the thought of twisting nature through magic.

She’d defied her father, who in all likelihood would welcome her back home despite what he’d said almost six years ago; but she was determined to keep the home she and Toland had built together—bad bread or no bad bread. And, unless Galen had told them, her parents didn’t even know Toland had died.

Emotions mixed together, like the flour and water of the bread she was kneading: Missing him blended with annoyance, for he had always sworn that he wasn’t meddling.

She was so intent on not crying, not again, and on getting the bread right that she didn’t hear anything from outside.

No warning, until someone kicked in the door.

She didn’t have time to turn. Someone grabbed her from behind, slapping a sweaty hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out. Alayna bit as hard as she could, and the hand jerked away.

Miserable wench!

Alayna managed to twist around. The one who held her was a short, dark-haired man wearing a stained woolen shirt and breeches. The other two crowding through her doorway were in full plate-metal armor despite the heat of the day. Their helmets covered much of their faces and they wore no identifying insignia.

Knights? Knights were attacking her? The absurdity of it was enough to stop her, so that she lost her advantage, and the first man—the commoner—tightened his grip again.

Forget her, one of the knights told him. Just find the whelp.

Whelp? Kiera? Why in the world would knights be interested in Kiera? There was no time to work it out: Nothing was as it should be. Kiera! she screamed, hoping to get Kiera out of the house and at the same time warn Ned—Please, please, let him be close enough to hear—that something was wrong. Kiera, run! She had barely gotten those words out before the second knight struck the side of her head with his armored fist.

Alaynas head was throbbing and there was a roaring in her ears. She didn’t have the energy to open her eyes, much less to lift her head.

Useless, she thought. Foolish and useless. She’d provoked them for nothing: Even if Kiera had heard and obeyed without question or argument—which in the best of circumstances was unlikely—how could a five-year-old child possibly hide from determined knights?

And what could knights possibly want with her anyway?

With her thoughts come full circle, Alayna became aware that the noise in her ears was not the result of the blow to her head, and that the heat in the room was much more than sunlight through the casement and the fire in the hearth.

She sat up. Instantly thick smoke coated her throat, stung her eyes. She dropped to her hands and knees and fought the instinct to self-preservation that told her to crawl directly to the door.

Kiera! She tried to scream, but her voice, thick and slow, wouldn’t cooperate.

She started to crawl, but almost immediately banged into a wall. So. The stool she had dimly glimpsed through the smoke wasn’t where it was supposed to be. One of the men must have pushed or kicked it aside, and now her directions were all confused.

She followed the wall, but the smoke and heat seemed more intense in that direction. Her eyes streaming from both smoke and frustration, Alayna turned back the way she had come. But when she reached a doorway, it was the one leading to the rest of the house, not outside. And smoke was billowing from there also—a fire in each room.

Kiera! she tried again, and broke off, choking. She fought against the idea that Kiera could be in there. Surely, whoever those knights had been, whatever they had wanted, surely they wouldn’t . . . they couldn’t . . .

The front door would be just about opposite. Coughing almost to the point of retching, Alayna decided the risk of cutting across the unseen room was less than that of taking the time to feel her way around.

She crawled.

And crawled.

The cottage, so small after her father’s manor, suddenly seemed vast; and she was chiding herself for another wrong decision when she felt the door jamb and fresh air on her hot face.

Shakily she got to her feet. Kiera! Her hoarse scream came out little more than a whisper, but she repeated it in all four directions.

Nothing.

She called, Ned! Where are you? and stumbled toward the barn, also aflame. The horses must be gone—her mare which her father had presented to her on her fourteenth birthday, and the old nag Toland had used to make his rounds—surely they must be dead already or the men had taken them, for they weren’t in the enclosure and if they’d been trapped inside, they’d be frantically trying to get away from the fire. Yet she could hear nothing of them.

She found Ned’s body behind the barn, and she did not need to turn him over to see that he was dead.

The body of a stranger, perhaps squire or attendant to one of the knights, lay nearby. Ned, who had taught Alayna and Galen all about riding and weaponry and survival in the forest, had been past sixty, yet she saw that it had taken a sword blow from behind to kill him.

More tears ran down her face, this time nothing to do with the smoke.

Kiera! she called again, her voice finally gaining strength. She gulped deep breath though it felt like nails scraping the inside of her throat. Kiera! she screamed.

There was no answer.

She turned at a loud cracking sound from behind and saw the house cave in. The air quivered in the heat as she watched the end of all that had remained of her life with Toland.

Alayna dug her fingers into her hair, sank to her knees. She covered her face with her hands and rocked back and forth. Kiera, she moaned one more time.

But, of course, there was no answer to that either.

Chapter 2

Alayna forced herself to steadiness, for she’d be no use to herself or Kiera in this state. Toland would have been better suited to handle such a situation.

But then she thought, Or perhaps not. His magic had been unable to stave off the sickness that had started in chills and fever, and had ended in his death. The person she needed was Galen, who was a knight as well as being her brother. But whether he was at home with their parents or at court at Camelot, or someplace else entirely, there was no waiting for him.

She returned to the still-blazing barn, to Ned. With detached coolness that she knew could not last forever, she noted the wind and the amount of dry grass in the area and saw that the fire would consume Ned’s body and that of the attackers’ squire before dying out itself. Fire was the old way, frowned upon by the Church as a heathen rite, but she hoped Ned would forgive.

In any case she had no choice.

"Pax, she said, holding her sleeve to her face, against the stench of burning. Remembering how Ned had agreed to leave her father’s service to go with her and Toland, knowing he deserved better—she sprinkled a handful of dirt over his body. Pray God for the dead, she said out loud, then murmured, Dear, dear teacher."

The other corpse, the man who had come with her attackers, had nothing she could use: neither insignia, ring, or clasp from which to learn his identity, nor blade or water flask for her to take with her now. She didn’t give him another thought.

Now it was time to turn her attention back to the living.

The tracks of five horses led across the field in the direction of the east-west road first cleared by the advancing Romans. Two knights she had seen, and two attendants—including the dead one. That would have required only four horses. Either there had been one more attacker she had never seen, or they had taken Alayna’s own gentle mare with them. If they had taken Kiera—They must have taken Kiera, Alayna assured herself, unwilling, unable, to think of the alternative—if they had taken Kiera, they may well have wanted the mare for her to ride. In any case, apparently Toland’s sturdy old nag had not been considered worth the taking and had been left to burn.

She knew it was useless to go running after them on foot. But still she had to fight the inclination to do so, and to head—instead—for help.

The nearest holding was old Croswell’s, to the north, nearly half the morning away, for Toland had believed a wizard should live somewhat remotely, separate from the casual bickerings and rivalries of near neighbors constantly wanting to bespell each other. Alayna started down the path, but it had become overgrown since Toland’s death. Hardy, clinging weeds overlapped the edges and snagged the skirt of her dress. She had to lean over to pull herself free, and she noted for the first time that her hands were still speckled with bits of dried dough. Well, she told herself grimly, at least I won’t starve to death.

She kept her head down to watch the path. Her feet, in light shoes never meant for outside use, quickly became bruised and sore. She tried to recapture the energy she’d had as a child, training with Galen, when physical exertion had been an enjoyable challenge. But every time she looked up to note how far she’d come since the last glance, it was always a disappointment.

Instead, her mind filled with thoughts of last spring.

She remembered Toland sitting at the table, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, unable to get warm though she and Kiera had already put aside their winter woolens. Looking back, she knew it for the first sign of his sickness, though at the time she hadn’t seen that.

At the time they had been arguing.

Oh, Toland! she cried, coming in from airing out the bedding and finding her husband and their child with heads close together, mixing bitter-smelling herbs into a pasty green substance she couldn’t begin to guess at. I’ve asked you not to do that in front of Kiera.

Toland had looked up from his work, his expression guilty and defiant at the same time. What? This smells foul, but it’s only to help chickens lay. It isn’t dangerous.

That’s not the point. Alayna had glanced at Kiera, who sat still on the edge of the table and said nothing. The child’s face, always too pale and serious for her age, remained impassive.

Toland had sighed. Oh, Alayna. I’m not corrupting our daughter. She has the power. Train her in magic, and she’ll be able to control it. Ignore it, and she’ll just be less adept.

Kiera, Alayna had said, tables are not for sitting on. Go get water for washing our hands before supper.

Alayna remembered how Kiera had turned to her father, as if waiting for his permission. Toland had kept his face expressionless, and Kiera had gone, sulkily, still never saying a word.

Alayna . . . Toland had started.

Alayna had put her back to him, poking at the fire, and eventually he, too, stormed out of the house without a word.

For love of him, she had left her ancestral home, left despite her father’s warning to be sure this was what she wanted, for—if once she left—she would not be welcomed back. She had learned to do without servants or rich clothes.

But it was one thing to be married to a wizard; she would not raise one. Too often she had heard of folk suddenly blaming all their problems on magical interference. Too often suspicion would boil over into violence, sometimes directed against people who had no more magic than Alayna herself, often against old women who had lost their wits and young excitable girls. Toland was capable of taking care of himself. Twice they had packed up what little they owned and fled to avoid mounting hostility. Alayna would not let Kiera be subject to that.

Magic was the only thing about which she and Toland had ever argued. And, in the end, it was Alayna who had the last word. For when Toland died, she had gathered his potions and herb pots and talismans, and had burned them all.

Just as the knights today had burned all the possessions she treasured.

Alayna forced her mind into blankness and kept on walking.

When she finally did see Croswell’s cottage, the old farmer was hitching his horse to a wagon, apparently about to leave for town. Wait! she called, waving to get his attention. Please wait! But she used all her breath running. When she finally reached him, she could do no better than to pant, Need your help. Your horse please. No time to lose.

Croswell squinted at her. Eh? he said.

Please. My daughter’s life is at risk.

Croswell looked apprehensive. What? he asked, trying to pry her fingers loose from his arm.

Alayna forced herself to slow down and suddenly found herself trembling and crying.

Croswell peered into her face. Eh, now, he said. Ain’t you the lady from the cottage down yonder? The wizard’s woman?

Alayna nodded.

Croswell finally gave her a steadying arm. Why, what’s happened? Why’d you come the back way, on foot?

Have some men been by here? Alayna was finally able to get out.

Who? What sort of men?

Two knights. Five horses.

Five horses for two knights?

This time Alayna pulled loose and grabbed the little man by the shirt. They’ve taken my daughter! she cried, shaking him.

Who?

The two knights! she screamed. Did they come by here?

That’s the road that leads to Camelot, Croswell said, nodding just beyond his front door. Men pass all the time.

Alayna, suddenly realizing what she was doing, released his shirt. Please, I need to use your horse.

My horse? He scratched his head. A dry old man who smelled of dusty earth, he had lost his entire family to a virulent winter flux the year Galen had gone off to squire. Now he seemed to be out of the habit of talking and to be having trouble concentrating. But why didn’t he help? he asked.

Who? Alayna tried to keep her voice even.

Croswell gave her a look that indicated she was a simpleton. Your husband. What’s the good of having a wizard in the family—

He’s dead, Alayna told him, though Croswell had attended the funeral mass last year.

But perhaps he had attended too many funeral masses to keep them straight. "I’m so sorry. They killed him and took the girl?"

Alayna refrained from shaking him again. Instead she pronounced each word slowly and distinctly. May I take the horse?

Croswell shook his head. What’s the world coming to? His lusterless eyes appraised her. Take the horse, why don’t you? he suggested.

Alayna’s hands trembled as she unfastened the traces. The horse was old, incredibly old, and bony, and she hoped it wouldn’t die of age before she reached the road. She swung onto its back. Her skirt was wide enough that she could ride straddled, which she hadn’t done since she was twelve and her father and stepmother declared it was time for her to start behaving like a lady. But there was no way to ride sidesaddle without a saddle, and she wasn’t concerned about looking like a lady. Thank you, she told Croswell as she dug her heels into the horse’s sides.

She could hear Croswell yell, Easy, she’s older than you are, you know. Then softer, once again, What’s the world coming to? And then she was too far out of range to hear any more.

Chapter 3

The men had probably gone east. Camelot was a half-day’s journey to the west—even less with a decent horse—and it was well known that King Arthur would not tolerate murder and abduction. Alayna felt she could assume the lords of those baronies that were closest geographically would be least likely to be involved in actions sure to offend the King.

Still, she had to fight the inclination to head east after the men.

Even if she had a sword, she told herself—and she hadn’t picked one up since her parents had finally put a stop to her training when she’d reached twelve—even if she had a weapon, and even if she was in as good form as she’d ever been—which she knew she was not—and even if she could ever hope to overtake them—which with Croswell’s horse she could not—even then; What could she do against two knights and their man?

She hesitated on the road, looking down the way she was certain they’d gone. And Kiera, she prayed. Surely that was why they had taken the mare. Surely . . .

She turned west, toward the help she could seek from Camelot.

But soon it appeared that all the agony of making her choice had been meaningless, for Croswell’s horse suddenly slowed and, after a few moments of consideration punctuated by Alayna’s cursing, it slowly sank down and lay on the road.

Alayna jumped at the last moment to keep from getting her feet caught underneath. Now she started tugging and pushing.

"You worthless animal! she cried. Horses aren’t supposed to lie down in the middle of the road. Come on. Up! Get up!"

She stooped down in front of the horse’s face. The animal looked at her with dull, unresponsive eyes.

Nice horse, she tried, scratching gently between the eyes. Good horse. Are you hungry? She plucked a handful of flowering wild grass from the roadside and waved it in front of her tired mounts face. How would you like some nice sweet grass?

The horse snorted and looked away.

By the blood of St. Francis, get up off the road!

The horse gave a knowing snort, indicating her sincerity had been at question all along.

Alayna threw the grass to the ground and started walking. As soon as she was too far away to do anything about it, she heard the horse get to its feet and start off toward home at a steady clip.

I don’t need you, Alayna thought.

Let everyone and everything conspire against her, she would still get Kiera back.

Eventually, from behind, Alayna heard a horse trotting in her direction, moving faster than Croswell’s decrepit animal had managed in years. She turned. A knight was approaching. She felt a moment of dread. Twenty years of assuming she knew how the world worked had shattered. Knights, she had to remind herself, were honorable men, were men to be trusted. This was a single rider, which pointed at the probability that he wasn’t one of the pair who had attacked her home. And, therefore, she told herself a second time, he was to be trusted. She stood in the center of the road and raised her arm, signaling the rider to stop.

But the man ignored her and changed neither speed nor direction. At the last moment Alayna took a step to the left and felt the horse’s warm breath on her cheek, and the knight’s metal-clad foot brushed against her arm.

Thank you, gentle sir! she called after him.

The man tossed a small coin over his shoulder.

Alayna looked down at her dress, soiled and tattered from the fire and her walk through the fields, looking like a high-born lady’s cast-off rag. She could only imagine the state of her hair and face. She sighed. Knights pledged to help ladies. Nobody expected them to waste their time running errands or settling quarrels for peasant women.

She resumed walking.

The next time she heard someone approaching, much later and again from behind, she resolved not to take any chances on being mistaken for a beggar. She stopped and sat on a rock by the edge of the road. She would have wished for the element of surprise, but for just that reason all large trees and boulders were kept clear from the road.

The horse was a destrier, a fine light gray warhorse, though the rider, unarmored and without a helmet, looked quite young. Somebody important, then, she thought. Or the son of somebody important. So be it. He was going slowly enough for Alayna to hope she could stop him without getting herself killed.

She waited until he was abreast of her, knowing that the horse was aware of her presence even if the youth wasn’t. At the last possible moment she jumped up and grabbed the reins for one instant, and then leaped back off the road.

Immediately the horse, trained for battle, reared up on its hind legs and flailed with its front hooves at the space where Alayna had been an instant before. She had counted on the young lord to keep his mount from trampling her despite his surprise, but he slid out of his saddle and hit the road, rear end first.

The horse, fortunately, was satisfied, and galloped away.

Sorry, Alayna said, running up to the felled rider. Most of all she regretted yet more delay, but she hadn’t meant for him to fall, and she hoped he wasn’t hurt.

Sorry.

He was swearing in some foreign dialect—possibly Gaelic—and trying, with only moderate success, to get to his feet.

Alayna let him pull himself up on her arm.

What were you thinking, woman? he demanded, which she took as a strong indication that he would recover.

I said I was sorry.

Oh. Well. That fixes all, then.

Cornish, she settled on. Just the faintest hint—more in inflection than pronunciation. Fine horsemanship, she observed icily.

His dark gray eyes widened, then narrowed, and he took a deep breath. But he bit back whatever he was going to say and turned his back on her. Without a word, he started walking.

Young, Alayna reflected. He was even younger than she had first thought, probably not even her own age. And thin-skinned, apparently. Not the kind of person she’d have chosen. But she didn’t have the luxury of choice. And, after all, it would have been worse if he’d been the kind to take out his annoyance on her. She hurried to catch up. "I am sorry," she repeated.

He kept on walking, without bothering to look at her. When he finally spoke, it was to the air before them: You could have been killed.

Which was not what she’d expected him to be brooding about.

I had to take the risk, sir. It did not occur to me that my action endangered you, also. Alayna took care to speak slowly and evenly in the accents of a lady so that she wouldn’t be mistaken again for a peasant. She didn’t mention that had he been a better rider, he wouldn’t have fallen. I am truly sorry, but please, I need your help.

You might have tried asking, you know.

Yes. Certainly. And you would have stopped.

The young man—the knight, he had to be, with that horse, for all that he wore no armor and he was shorter and of a more slender build than average—finally did stop, finally did look at her. Yes, I would have, he said.

Hard to judge.

And of little consequence now.

Alayna resumed walking. Well, then, I thank you. But one of your fine compatriots passed me by already. She wasn’t even going to start explaining that it was knights she needed help against.

He stopped again and pulled her around to look directly at her. His dark eyes i were quizzical. Who are you?

Lady Alayna De La Croix. My father is Sir Guy of the Towered Gate. Maybe she would tell. This morning—

You’re Galen’s sister?

Alayna felt a surge of relief. You know Galen?

By the knight’s smile, it was a happy acquaintance. We squired together. I’m Mordred of Orkney.

Her breath momentarily caught. The King’s nephew? she gasped, though she knew both her father and her brother believed the rumors that he was actually Arthur’s son, by the King’s own sister, the witch Morgause.

Mordred’s smile tightened, and he neither acknowledged nor clarified his exact relationship to the King. He tried to kiss her hand, but—nephew or son—he was the heir apparent