The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [71]
“Girl-child. How did I miss you before?”
Ailis gulped, but stood her ground. “We understand the spell. ‘Time marches on. / Time cannot stop. / King and maid alike must pass. / Only one tear may set them apart / and only one tear may set them free.’ Time moves forward for everyone…but a tear sets them apart. A tear was used to stop time. And only a tear—likely from the same source—can set time to moving once again.” Ailis looked at Morgain as directly as she could. “You cast the spell. I don’t think that you would allow anyone else to take part in it. You want this to be personal. Completely personal. So the tear came from you.”
“And you think to take a tear from me to end the spell?” Morgain laughed again, but softer this time. “Clever. Quite clever. I gave you too much of a clue. But, as I said, it is good to know there are at least some in Camelot who can think beyond the way things have always been done.” She leaned forward, placing her pointed chin into the cup of her hand and raised one arched eyebrow. “So, tell me. How do you plan to take this tear from me?”
“I thought I would do it the traditional way,” Gerard said casually, drawing his sword from its scabbard. “Beat it from you.” He was bluffing. Despite his words about treating her as any other opponent, he didn’t think he could fight a woman. On the other hand, she was a danger to his king. He would do whatever it took to free his king. That was what a knight did.
Morgain laughed a third time, clearly astonished. “You would challenge me? To battle?”
“Are you afraid to meet the least of your brother’s court?”
“Steel to steel? How…quaint.” She could take all three of them down with her magic. All four of them in the room knew that—five in the room, since it was so obvious even the cat at her feet must know. But there was a point of honor involved. Morgain spoke of not being treated as an equal; she had been bitter when speaking of men’s ways. So now she would have to face him using one of those ways. If she could defeat him, she would be vindicated. Justified. Triumphant twice over.
And, as the daughter of Gorlois, a royal daughter of Cornwall with generations of warriors in her bloodline, she had training in the art of the sword. Years ago, before she relied so much on her magic….
“Unless, of course, you are afraid of my skills,” Gerard finished.
That did it, as he had known it would. She rose from her swan-throne and strode toward them. As she walked, her embroidered robes changed into a leather jerkin over cloth shirt and pants similar to what the three of them wore, only of much finer fabric. In her hand she now carried a strange blade. The grip was of red wood, and the quillion was a simple black disk that seemed barely enough to protect a man’s knuckles, much less an entire hand. She pulled it from a black scabbard and Gerard had to admire the glittering beauty that was revealed. Barely an arm’s length and too narrow to be taken seriously, the metal shone like the moon, its oddly shaped tip and tapered edges covered in some strange tracings, like the embroidery on Merlin’s robes. Gerard took it—and her—seriously.
She dropped the scabbard on the floor and smiled at him, the smile of a confident woman. “Have at it, then, man-child.”
Gerard felt his body fall almost instinctively into fighting stance; knees bent to provide stability and speed, shoulders relaxed, holding up his own much less lovely but stronger-looking blade, ready to attack or defend as needed.
They circled each other warily while Ailis and Newt got out of the way. The cat remained by the throne, watching them all with supreme indifference.
Morgain held her blade in one hand, using the other to balance herself. Each studied the way the other moved, looking for a weakness, an opening. Gerard didn’t see anything he could exploit, so he went on the offensive, lunging suddenly, without any shift or change in his body that might signal his intentions.
She met his lunge with a perfect parry,