“Then what are we meant to make of it? That a family—two families—have spent fourteen hundred years copying riddles and calling it duty?”
Matlock’s eyes warmed—not with mockery, but with something like recognition. “When you put it so baldly, it does sound a touch absurd.”
Darcy gave a short, disbelieving laugh and shook his head. “We cannot even tell where fact ended and legend began. That is assuming therewassome fact, and not merely the over-indulged pride of some medieval squires. The French accounts have so badly corrupted whatever narrative we do have that one can hardly trace the truth.”
Matlock did not contradict him at once. He reached for the book instead and turned another page, slower than before, as though choosing where to place the weight of his answer.
“Theydidalter it,” he said at last. “That much is beyond dispute. But you mistake their offense if you think it was invention.”
Darcy glanced up. “Then what was it?”
“Preference,” Matlock replied. “And it was the Benedictines long before the French. You can hardly chargethemwith romantic delusions. Though, I suspect they might have polished our ancestors’ portraits somewhat, leaving less authentic material for later enthusiasts. What they found spare, they adorned. But they did not discard the tale altogether—and that, I suspect, is why anything remains to quarrel over at all. Confess it, would you even know the name Arthur if not for them?”
Darcy frowned. “I have yet to see the value—”
His uncle ignored him, indicating a passage with the tip of his finger. “Later,” he said, “the story changes hands. The French wrote for courts, not cloisters. For listeners, not archivists. They made heroes of lovers and conquerors. Bedevere was kept only because he could not be omitted—because someone had to remain at the end.”
Darcy crossed his arms. “The sword. Balderdash.”
Matlock lifted his shoulders. “That is the story, that he was to throw it in the lake after his king’s death. But the legend has it that he hesitated—that he failed, in fact, because he could not relinquish his king. If…” Here, Matlock stopped to chuckle and throw up a hand. “If one can believe any of that at all. Perhaps that is the ‘failure’ you are meant to set right.”
Darcy’s eyes scanned the crabbed text cluttering the space between what was once the elegant script of a reverent monk. “That is not clarified here, and nor would I have any notion what that could possibly mean for me. Swords in lakes, goddesses bestowing kingdoms? Why, it is perfect swill!”
Matlock laid his hand flat beside the margin, careful not to touch the ancient ink. “It may be—who knows? This is as near as the record comes. There is no account of what was asked of him. Only that he was there—and that afterward, he was not. There is mention of a Lady, certainly… but not as one would expect in a tale. She is not a creature from Tennyson’s imagination. No one knows anything about her—who she is, where she came from. She is simply… bound to the land, thoughwhatland remains uncertain.”
Darcy bent closer, following the line Matlock indicated. The word lay there—spare, unadorned—set into the text as though it required no explanation at all. He read it once. Then again.
“Not a lover,” he said, though the word had not been there. “Not a temptress.”
“No,” Matlock replied. “Nor enchantress, nor sovereign. She is referred to only by function—the woman in whose keeping the place endured. As though her role were assumed, and required no justification.”
Darcy’s eyes moved back along the line. No praise. No ornament. No attempt to make her intelligible.
“And Bedevere appears only in proximity to her,” he said. “Not as her guardian, nor as her lord.”
“Precisely. A clear connection, but not defined.”
Darcy straightened, the page blurring for an instant as a name rose—unbidden, making the flesh on the back of his neck heat—and was thrust aside as quickly as it came.
“And when he disappears from the record?”
“She does not vanish,” Matlock said. “Not immediately. But she becomes more difficult to discover. The references turn oblique. The descriptions move outward—toward the land itself, until one no longer knows whether it is a reference to her ghost or just… rocks.”
Darcy nodded once, slowly. “She was not destroyed, but faded. So whatever failed… perhaps was not a single act that could be recorded plainly.”
“Or perhaps it was a breach that could be named without embarrassment. It appears that something which had required a knight’s presence was no longer protected. The highest sort of disgrace—and, if one chooses to be inventive… possibly why the Darcy name never held a title in later generations?”
Darcy glanced up. “What?”
“Theyshouldhave,” Matlock insisted. “The family held all the power and influence necessary to secure royal favour, particularly during the reign of the Tudors. But perhapsechoes of a private humility? An honour relinquished and never reclaimed due to family shame?”
Darcy scoffed. “I fail to see how that has any bearing, since it is nearly eight hundred years since the Normans invaded. How many great families have risen and fallen in that time? I think you seek meaning long since forgot.”
Matlock lifted a shoulder. “It was just a notion.”
Darcy’s gaze returned to the margin, to the quiet finality of the phrase.Kept in the time of Bedevere.
“One begins to see,” he said slowly, “why later generations preferred a simple, clear moment they could dramatize over all this muddle. How many copies of this are there? Can we even be certain of its authenticity?”
