Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [9]
Sure enough, the scene inside was no less noisy than before, only now the knights were arguing directly with each other, rather than trying to make a show for the king.
“Sir?” Gerard came up beside Sir Rheynold, who was talking with several knights of his generation, older men who had originally served King Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon.
“Yes, Gerard, what is—” The knight took in Gerard’s expression and his sweat-beaded face. He took his squire by the shoulder and walked him a few steps away.
“What is it?”
Gerard told him.
Ten minutes later, Sir Rheynold and Gerard were standing outside the offices of the seneschal, the man who ran Camelot’s household business for King Arthur.
“Have you a message for Master Godrain?” The young clerk who served the seneschal was barely old enough to have grown his first downy yellow beard. He looked as though a chick had gone to sleep on his chin, but he glanced at Sir Rheynold as though the older man was a servant. He didn’t even acknowledge Gerard.
“I would speak with him directly,” Sir Rheynold said, refusing to be put off. He stood in front of the clerk’s desk, his arms folded over his broad chest, and stared back, his leathery, heavily lined features unyielding.
“I am afraid that will not—”
“It will,” Sir Rheynold said, in an equally calm tone. “And it will be, now.” When the clerk would have protested further, the knight merely glanced at Gerard, as though to say, “This is how you handle such annoyances.” Rheynold walked around the desk, his stride vigorous enough to take him to the inner chamber’s door before the clerk could leap to his feet and try and stop him.
One hard knock on the door, and Sir Rheynold was casting it open. He walked inside as though it were the entrance to his own bedchamber.
“Godrain!”
The seneschal looked up from his ledgers, then stood, rising and rising and rising from his seat until he towered over the knight. Gerard, standing in the doorway behind his master, thought that Master Godrain would have made a splendid giant, had there been any flesh on those long bones. Instead of being impressive, however, he merely looked hungry.
“I will assume you have good reason to come barging in here like this,” the man said, his dry voice matching his dry complexion.
“My squire saw Morgain in the castle.” Rheynold reached back and caught Gerard by the shoulder without looking, and dragged him forward.
“What?” Godrain blinked several times in confusion, as though that would make the words suddenly make sense. Then he looked closely at Gerard. “You’re the boy who broke the spell.”
“I was one of them, yes,” Gerard said.
“And you think you saw the sorceress Morgain here? In Camelot?”
“Yes.” Though he didn’t just think he saw her, he wanted to add. He knew what Morgain looked like, better than anyone in this room, probably better than anyone in the entire kingdom, save Arthur and Merlin.
“She was here. Spying, maybe. Or working some worse mischief. I saw her, and there was this green light, a spell, probably. And she took Ailis!”
“Are you sure your boy here knows what he’s saying?” Godrain asked Rheynold, as though Gerard hadn’t spoken.
“I trust Gerard implicitly,” the knight said. In any other situation, Gerard would have nearly burst with pride to hear his master say that. But now, the teenager could barely restrain himself from grabbing the seneschal by his robes and shaking him like a terrier would a rat. Every moment they delayed, who knew what was happening to Ailis!
“Still. How can we be certain? The idea that Merlin’s protections are not enough to keep her out seems…unlikely.” Godrain’s smile and tone suggested what he thought of Merlin despite his words. “A half-hysterical boy, no matter how well he performed during the recent difficulties…”
“The king himself praised Gerard’s cool head and thinking,” Rheynold said, as though he himself had never called Gerard flighty, or foolish, or hot-headed over the years.
“Please!” Gerard broke into