Paul Finch - Dark North

Lucan remained weak for the first few days, and was forced to travel in the ornate, flag-draped carriage normally reserved for Countess Trelawna and those handpicked ladies who accompanied her on baronial visits. Flax hangings over the doors and windows, cushions, blankets and pans filled with hot coals kept the interior of the carriage snug, and this enabled Lucan to rest and regain sufficient strength to eventually resume his position on Nightshade at the head of the cavalcade, which otherwise consisted of twenty knights, plus their squires, sixteen mounted men-at-arms and various pages, grooms, cooks and domestic staff.

It wasn’t entirely a tale of wearisome travel. Occasional feasts and feather beds made pleasing wayside distractions in inns, monasteries or the castles and manor houses of friends, and within two weeks of setting out, the sun had at last broken through. When they reached southern Albion, the broad meadows had turned a dusty green, the hedgerows were blue and gold with buttercups and tulips, and the woods were misted with new leaves and echoed to the calls of birds.

Lucan had lost some weight, his skin was still pale as ice and his blue eyes were now grey and glimmered eerily; “elf eyes,” whispered Annette and the other ladies when their mistress was out of earshot. His hair seemed to have darkened — it was jet-black, and had grown long and unruly. But aside from these matters he was more his normal self, and on the last day of the journey he and the rest of his household replaced their scuffed leathers and dingy, mud-spattered travel-mail with snug black hauberks and crimson surcoats adorned with the black wolf. The official household standard, the ‘Black Wolf of Corneus,’ was wielded by Turold, who rode at the head of the company, the foot of its pole fitted into a sturdy leather pocket alongside his stirrup.

They entered Camelot that evening, the Captain of the Guard recognising Earl Lucan’s livery and allowing him immediate access. From the Royal Gardens behind St. Stephen’s, they ascended to the castle by the ‘Eagle Road,’ a narrow but firmly metalled shelf, which spiralled up around the great mound to the palace. Several more guarded gates had to be passed, and each time the checks imposed by the officers on watch became more stringent. At the final point, where the road turned inward towards the Barbican, a small castle in its own right which controlled the main entrance, Lucan had to display not just his equestrian seal but also his Extraordinary Summons.

Behind the Barbican’s portcullis, a fire-lit tunnel passed beneath several murder-holes through which storms of arrows, bolts and boiling pitch could be discharged. Guards in mail and the royal insignia were ranked along the tunnel, wielding spears and halberds, but Lucan’s party was only halted by Sir Kay, King Arthur’s brother and official seneschal.

Kay was a hulking fellow, with a shock of gold hair and a trim gold beard and moustache. Like his underlings, he was mailed and wore the official white tabard with its red dragon symbol.

“Not before time, Lucan,” Kay said gruffly. “The Romans are already here.”

“Do they measure up to their reputation?” Lucan asked, dismounting.

“They’re a bunch of wily old birds. You can tell that just from looking at them… great Heaven!” Kay peered more closely at him. “Are you unwell?”

“It’s nothing,” Lucan replied.

Kay shrugged. “A good thing you’re finally here. The King has called a pre-Council meeting. We are to attend him in the West Library.”

Lucan nodded, and he and his band were admitted to the fortress’s reception courtyard. Their animals were taken for stable and feed, and Lucan’s retainers sent to one of the great lodge-halls, where, by the light of a few smoky torches, each man would have a pile of straw on which to lay his bed-roll.

“The joys of Camelot,” Malvolio remarked as they viewed the gloomy cavern. “In the future, men will write about this magical place and no-one will believe it could be true.”

“When we’ve achieved rank, Mal, we can rest our bones between silken sheets,” Alaric said. “Hardships like this will keep us in the trim.”

“Of course,” Malvolio replied. “Stale air and a cold floor is just the thing to improve a body’s reflexes.”

Meanwhile, Lucan and Trelawna were conducted to a more comfortable apartment, high in the West Tower, comprising a broad central room, its whitewashed walls lined with woven cloths, with rugs covering the paved floor and a large fire crackling on a hearth. A divan sat in front of the hearth, alongside a table arrayed with sweetmeats, a jug of water, a pitcher of wine and two crystal goblets. The room was airy and lit by candles fixed in iron racks. There were two other rooms: a small privy and a sleeping chamber containing an immense four-posted bed, its mattress, pillows and quilt stuffed with duck-down.

Aching and begrimed from the journey, they sought first to bathe. A porcelain tub was on hand for the countess, which her ladies immediately set about filling. Once they had withdrawn, Lucan watched from the doorway as his wife relaxed into the steaming, scented water. Her tresses drifted on the surface in a golden froth, mingling with the floating petals of many exotic flowers.

She seemed barely aware of him as she rubbed her hands, arms, shoulders, and the pink tips of her breasts with a new creamy lotion from the Orient.

It occurred to Lucan that, should they go to war with New Rome, these eastern delicacies would become a thing of the past. There’d be no more expensive gifts from dark-skinned emissaries, no more merchant cogs from distant harbours, no more trade with the continent of any sort as long as hostilities persisted. But these were fleeting concerns. Now he had thoughts only for Trelawna. During the two-week journey, he had initially been too weak to approach her, and later, when he felt better, she had slept in the carriage with her ladies while he had rested by the campfire with his men. Two whole weeks. His need for a woman was urgent.

He retired to the bedroom, where he replaced his armour with an ermine robe, then returned to the bathroom and pulled up a stool. She acknowledged him with a smile, but continued cleaning her fingernails.

“I understand you’re to attend a pre-Council meeting?” she said.

“It can wait,” he replied, eyeing the curved form beneath the fragrant water.

“Is that wise?”

“We’ve just made a tiresome journey. I think the King can spare us half an hour.”

“I don’t think you should keep him waiting, my love.”

Slowly Lucan felt his ardour cool. Yet again she was being stand-offish with him. This had happened from time to time during their marriage, but recently it seemed to happen more often than not. He could always tell when that mood was upon her: she would not sulk or pout, but merely become distant. Sometimes he was able to talk her around, though she’d remain aloof during their love-making, which was no aphrodisiac for him. Of course, as her husband he had the right to take her whether she was willing or not, but he had never done that. It ill became a Christian knight to rape a woman, especially not his own wife. This much he had learned from his mother who, several times in his boyhood, while wallowing in her misery, had advised him that he himself was the fruit of such a coupling. As though to add salt to a wound, she would always append this statement with the view that though the Church would never say he was the child of sin, this was something for God to decide, not Man — so he should seek no comfort from “his father’s toadying chaplain.”

Lucan rose from the bath-side, tightened his robe with its cord, and left the apartment, descending through the palace’s various levels. Throughout his years of increasing power, Arthur had expanded his citadel at Camelot in numerous ways, adding halls, passages, common rooms, more towers, more turrets, more battlemented walks, more gardens, galleries and banquet halls — all crammed and interwoven within the mighty walls of its outer fortification. In these latter days, as peace and prosperity settled on Britain, he had taken account of luxury as well as necessity. The ‘steam rooms’ were one of the most recent additions; they had been inspired by the swimming-baths of the great Romanesque villas that had dominated the British landscape before the legions left and the barbarians ran riot. The caldarium was the first of these chambers. It was tiled and equipped with marble benches, and running with moisture, heated by furnaces beneath the floor. In the second room, the tepidarium, there were arched niches where the busts of long-deceased Roman lords kept a careful watch, and braziers containing hot coals, which servants wearing only loincloths ladled with cold water, to emit clouds of cleansing steam. In the final room, the frigidarium, it was cooler and there was a plunge-pool. More servants were on hand there to offer soaps and massage.