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CHAPTER 1

In the fortress of Din Eityn, the king lay dying.

Din Eityn squatted on a great black precipice, as old and as solid as if it had been carved from the living rock. Men who knew nothing but the working of stones and the worship of wells had once come here. They laid down stones without mortar to shelter themselves from the wind. Other men, ones who knew the working of bronze and understood the secrets of oak and mistletoe, came to cast these ancient ones out. They wove wicker fences and raised the walls higher. The the Romans drove all before them and took the great precipice after a bloody siege that was still sung of by bards and poets in both lands. They squared the walls of Din Eityn and built towers to better keep the watch.

That was four generations ago. The Romans were fled, but the rock and its many-layered fortress now called Din Eityn remained. The sons of the bronze- workers reclaimed the great place and they ruled on the thrones and the bones of their ancestors.

Now, Lot, the oldest surviving son of that lineage, screamed with the pain of his own passing.

The king's screams caused surprisingly little disturbance in that dark keep. Some men, drowsing in the court under the summer stars, turned and muttered beneath their harsh woollen blankets. Others, lounging on the parapets while drinking from their leather bottles or playing at bones beside their fires, cursed the noise and kicked the hounds who tried to howl in response.

King Lot had been laid in his great bed in his great hall. A fire burned brightly beside his resting place, and the linens tangled around his arms and legs were the finest that could be provided. These things brought him no comfort. Pain tossed him from side to side, dragging his cries and his moans from his ravaged throat. But none dared approach him. Not one of the cowering women who hovered in the dark doorway brought cloth or herb to their king, even now that the swelling in his legs had so greatly increased that he could not rise. None of the men slouched at the far end of the hall so much as looked up.

Only the two chieftains who sat on the other side of the fire from the bed made any move.

Lord Pedair rubbed his eyes. He was a grey, old man now, stooped by the weight of the years. The long nights of watching had left him weary and heartsick. He had known Lot in cleaner times, when they were both stronger, better men. It was a painful thing to see what Din Eityn had become, almost as painful as to see what had happened to Lot. The king's madness had driven away all men of strength and loyalty. Instead, he had surrounded himself with the corrupt and the cringing, who would follow any order, no matter how mad, as long as they could plunder the folk of Gododdin, and anyone else who crossed their paths.

'Will he hold long enough for word to reach Camelot?' Pedair asked.

'I do not know. They are laying bets in the forecourt now.' Ruadh's mouth curled into a sneer of distaste. Time had robbed Lord Ruadh of all the hair on his head and turned his long moustaches pure white. It had not, however, clouded his eyes nor his judgment. Like Pedair beside him, Ruadh had ridden to war with Lot in aid of King Arthur. He was the only other one who offered to take the night watches with Pedair. The king could not die without witness.

Lot kicked at his coverings. His feet were so swollen the skin on them had cracked and the wounds oozed with clear matter. The stench of illness hung heavily in the great square chamber. The swelling should be lanced. There should be hot cloths and poultices.

And I do not move. Pedair's hands dangled uselessly between his knees. That is my king and my friend there, and I do not move.

Lot writhed, his torso twisting and his arms flailing at nothing at all. His head fell towards Pedair, and Pedair saw the king's face contorted by pain and rage, his cracked teeth bared, his eyes burning.

'Traitor!' Lot roared. 'Stinking, whoreson traitor! Come to pick over my bones, Pedair? Come to dance on my tomb!' His mouth stretched into a horrible leer. 'Stay then, vulture! Maybe she'll take a liking to you next and you'll be dancing for the devil to her tune!' He laughed, a sound more harsh and horrible than his screams. 'Dance like me!' He lifted one grotesquely swollen leg and the words died away in a scream of pain.

'How much longer can he last?' Pedair whispered when he could speak again.

Ruadh shook his bald head slowly. 'Not long. God be praised.'

'Kill them!' bellowed Lot, his hands clenching into fists, strangling nothing but air. 'God rot them! Crush them!' In the next second, his hands fell to the furs and all the anger drained from his face. 'Water,' he rasped plaintively. 'I thirst. I burn. Mercy's sake, someone bring me water.'

Pedair looked sideways at Ruadh, spat into the fire, and slowly got to his feet. A pitcher and two wooden mugs stood between the men's stools. Pedair filled one with small beer, splashing dark droplets onto the stones. Slowly, shuffling from the stiffness in his knees, he brought it to the king's bedside. Lot looked at him, and for a moment, Pedair thought he saw his liege in the depths of those fever-bright eyes. He held the tankard to Lot's lips.

Fury distorted Lot's face again, and he lashed out, grabbing and twisting at Pedair's arm. Pedair cried out in pain, and dropped the mug, splashing ale everywhere.

'Poison!' bawled Lot. 'You'd poison your king, whoreson! I'll hang your head from my gate!' He shoved Pedair, sending him reeling back towards the fire. Ruadh caught him before he stumbled into the flames and helped him to his seat again.

'He still sees.' Rubbing his wrist and panting for breath, Pedair watched the king sink back onto his bed, plucking restlessly at the furs and muttering his curses.

'But what does he see?' asked Ruadh. 'We should have sent to Camelot before this.

Pedair watched his king lashing from side to side, as if to avoid a series of blows. 'Had there been any way to do so in secret, I would have.'

'I know,' said Ruadh. 'I know.'

The king groaned, a low, harsh horrible sound and for a moment, he strained to sit up, his eyes gleaming in the firelight and his mouth gaping in an evil grin. But his strength did not hold, and Lot collapsed back onto his bed.

'You come,' the words came out between Lot's gasps for breath. 'Even now you come to me.'

The wretched king paused, listening to that voice only he could hear, and his face twisted with a deeper pain. 'No. It is not true!'

Pedair knotted his fists. How much longer could he stand to wait? It was obscene to sit here while a strong man writhed in pain, while his hands clutched the linens and sweat ran down his brow.

'It is not true! You are not she! You are not! Oh, God, no! Morgause! Morgause! Don't leave me!'

Pedair started forward, but Ruadh laid a hand on his arm. 'Do not let him come to grips with you again, Pedair. He's killed a man in his fits. He'll do the same to you.'

'Morgause!' the king shouted. 'Morgause where are you! It is not true! It is not true!' The last word choked Lot, and the scream faded into weeping, before rising again, a cry of rage and pain and the last strength of a man trying to hold back death and despair with nothing but his own broken will.

The old men bowed their heads and as best they could, they prayed for the dawn.

'My lady? Their Majesties summon you.'

Laurel Carnbrea, until lately the Queen of Cambryn, turned away from the window that looked over Camelot's yard. The sun was just setting and the rich light of the summer's evening warmed and gilded the world. The two girls sent up from the great hall were dressed to match, in fine linen and golden girdles. Their relative youth made Laurel think they must be new to their positions. Their youth, and the way they openly looked Laurel up and down, weighing her appearance against their own. Laurel smiled a little at this. It was not these two whose judgment she needed to worry about.

'Well, Meg?' she said to her own woman. 'Am I fit to be presented?'

Meg, an aging, bone-thin woman more soberly dressed in brown and cream, looked Laurel up and down herself. Her eyes narrowed to slits, the better to discern a wrinkle in sleeve or neckline, or an ill-considered fold of cloth in Laurel's trailing skirt. For the past three hours, Meg had circled the room like a hawk. Laurel's handmaids, Plump Cryda and little brown Elsa were both flushed and fluttery from Meg's constant stream of orders intended to make sure Laurel's layers of rich dress and ornament were displayed to perfection.

All of which had made Laurel feel like nothing so much as a horse being readied for sale.

It was, however, necessary. Cambryn, the land which Laurel personified at this moment, must make a good showing of its wealth before the great court. To that end, she wore an underdress of rich, black wool that turned her translucent skin nearly pure white. Over this was laid a gown of vibrant blue silk brought from Byzantium. The sea at midday never saw such a colour. Its sleeves brushed her fingertips like the lightest of whispers and trailed down to the floor. This had been one of her mother's treasures, laid away against such a time. A heavy golden girdle with links shaped into sun disks and studded with blue Turkish glass belted her waist. This matched the necklace at her throat. Golden cuffs circled her wrists and a gold band held the delicate black veil embroidered with bright blue thread that covered Laurel's startling white-gold hair, which itself had been braided with sapphire ribbons and golden beads.

Meg had tried to get Laurel to leave behind the ring of small keys that belonged to her dowry chests, on the grounds they made her look more like a merchant's wife than a queen, but Laurel refused. She had carried keys at her waist since she was nine years old. These few were all that were left to her, but she would not lay them aside. The idea made her feel as if she were being asked to walk into the court stark naked.

At last, Meg nodded judiciously. 'You'll bring us no shame, my lady.'

'Well then.' Laurel drew herself up. 'Let us go meet the man I am to marry.'

Trusting Meg to marshal Cryda and Elsa into a proper procession to carry the betrothal gifts. Laurel schooled her expression into one of calm dignity. She lifted her hems, and followed Queen Guinevere's ladies out through the corridors of Camelot.

This was not the first time Laurel had walked these arched and painted corridors. She had lived with King Arthur's court for three years as a waiting woman to the queen. She could have chosen to stay longer, but at the time she had thought her place and her duty lay in the land where her father served as steward. Queen Guinevere had respected that decision and let her return to her father's house.

Since then, the world had turned over. Father was dead, murdered by his son and heir. War had almost come to their home, but Laurel and her sister, in concert with the queen and the knights Lancelot and Gareth, had just managed to turn it aside. For this service, Queen Guinevere, heirless and likely to remain so, had given over the throne of Cambryn to the family line of Carnbrea. She had also given Laurel's younger sister, Lynet, in marriage to the newly knighted Sir Gareth.

This tumultuous progression of events left unmarried Laurel with the title of queen, but with no current means of producing a legitimate heir. Without an heir, she could rule, but could not provide long-term stability for her now royal family, or their fractious kingdom. Even before the high king's ambassadors had come with their marriage proposal, Laurel had made up her mind to abdicate the throne in Lynet's favour. She had not wanted to give their neighbors and chieftains the chance to decide they should make the change in a less civilized fashion.

'You're being a fool, Laurel,' Lynet had said. 'You are known and respected for your strength and your wisdom. No one would dare try to bring you down.'

'Strength and wisdom are all very well, but our allies and our lords want safety. You and Gareth can give them that. I, as I am, cannot.'

'Then marry where you may stay in Dumonii lands.'

'Who, Lynet?' Laurel had replied coldly. 'After what I have done, and what they have heard, which of our worthy neighbours will have me?'

Lynet had bitten her lip at that, and made no answer.

Laurel had left the bed chamber they shared, and went to meet Sir Bedivere, the high king's ambassador in Cambryn's great hall. There, she gave her assent. She would come to Camelot and give herself in marriage to Sir Agravain, King Arthur's nephew, the second of the sons of Lot, and heir to the throne of Gododdin.

Now, Laurel descended the curving stairs at a sedate pace, following Guinevere's ladies and attempting not to tread on her own hems. She tried once again to call Sir Agravain's face to mind, and once again, she failed. Sir Gawain, the eldest of Lot's sons, she remembered well enough. Dark-haired and handsome, with a ready smile, Sir Gawain was the subject of great gossip among all the ladies of the court, and not a few of the men. He had been the one to head the procession that met Laurel at the quay. There, Laurel found his smile and charm had not dimmed during her absence, and this cheered her nervous spirits.

Sir Geraint, the third of the brothers, Laurel remembered mostly as a figure in the distance while training for war, or participating in some race or game. He was silent to the point of taciturn, but if one looked into his clear blue eyes, one could see the depth of warmth and humour there. Sir Gareth, the youngest, and now her brother by law, was an unduly handsome, cheerful, surprisingly stubborn man, dizzy in love with her sister.

Laurel had asked Gareth about his brother Agravain. She watched his face while he chose his words with utmost care.

'His wits are keener than any man's I know. He is brave, in his way ... He keeps much to himself.' Gareth hesitated.

His lower lip tucked itself beneath the upper, as if he had meant to bite it, but stopped himself. Laurel saw anew how young this husbandman was. 'He will not suffer any fool, and acts more on his own counsel than that of others. This makes him seem hard. It is to my shame that I cannot say whether this is real or merely what he wishes men to see.'

With all this echoing in her memory, Laurel Carnbrea allowed herself to be led to the doors of Camelot's great hall. The elaborately carved portals stood closed, flanked by an honour guard of six soldiers in shirts of shining mail with red ribbons tied about their spears. Between them stood four pages, all of them as nervously solemn as only young boys can be. This bright assemblage all bowed to Laurel and her entourage, and Laurel nodded solemnly in response.

Let this ceremony begin.

As if hearing her thought, the boys lined up and all four of them pulled open the doors to reveal the splendour of the great hall.

Dazzling light from torches, fires and tapers spilled out over Laurel in a wave of warmth. Gold flashed everywhere, reflecting the brilliant light and the stately music that rose in solemn and disciplined measure from harp, pipe and deep-bellied drum. Dazzled after the dim corridors, all Laurel could make out at first was a blur of scented colours; waxen scarlet, rush-tinged green, tallow blues, smoky grey and black, all the shades of stone and skin blended with lavender and lemon.

All this wreathed her round in a garland of heat and rustling cloth, setting her blood pounding. It seemed she had to step down a long way before the thin sole of her slipper found the mosaiced floor and she was able to walk forward. Laurel steeled herself and kept her pace stately. She knew her rank and worth. She was the one who had been entreated to do this thing. No one here would see her awed.

The whole of Camelot's court filled that hall. Where before she had travelled dim corridors of stone, now Laurel walked down a straight aisle of particoloured humanity. Dark Britons and pale Saxons; the knights of the Round Table in their cloaks of madder red; lords and ladies in linen and silk, silver, bronze and gold. All of them watched her, craning their necks even as they made their polite bows. Despite the drum beats and lilting pipes. Laurel clearly heard her heart hammering.

What do they see, all these people? What have they heard of me?

It does not matter. I am here at the king's command and the queen's behest.

She fixed her gaze on the dais. It was no less crowded than the rest of the hall, but at least these were faces she knew. Her dazzled and unnerved eyes could rest a moment on Queen Guinevere. Dignified and tall beside the High King, the queen wore her raiment of scarlet, white and gold easily. Her swan crown circled her wide brow lightly, as the companion torque did her throat.

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Excerpted from "Laurel: By Camelot's Blood"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Sarah Zettel.
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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