Arthur faded out. Lance, sitting up, could only stare at him in fraught silence, and there was no hiding from the truth anymore. “Oh, Lance,” Art said at last. “Oh, no.”
Chapter Sixteen
The day was barely past dawn, but the party from the south were almost ready to ride. The grooms were loading up the horses, checking tack and buckles. Ectorius, Art and Guy were waiting out these final preparations in the chilly courtyard outside the praetorium. Ector, fully aware of his foster son’s restless pain, had set him to sword drills, thinking he could do no better with the poor lad than distract him.
“No,” he cried, as Art missed an easy thrust from his brother. “Guy would have had the guts out of you there. Lift your arm. Keep your weight on your back foot. Concentrate!”
“Perhaps if you let me use Excalibur—my destiny-appointed blade,” Art returned breathlessly, “and not this blunt-edged toy...”
“You may bear Excalibur as you did your sword of ceremony, and not otherwise.”
“Really?” Art squared up to his brother, who was edging round him, looking for his next avenue of attack. “On your guard, Gaius! May I not bear it in whichever battle it is where I’m supposed to spill out my lonely, stupid, useless little life in order to save my people, or whatever miserable fate it is the Merlin has spelled out for me?”
“Arthur Pendragon!”
The boy turned red with contrition. He put up his blade, and Guy mirrored the gesture, stepping back from him. Poor Guy’s face was creased with a mixture of annoyance and sympathy. “Forgive me, Father,” Art said. “I didn’t mean to speak to you so.”
“I know you didn’t.” Ector eased up stiffly from the mounting block where he’d been sitting. He went to the frowning lad, who was clearly fighting tears, and put a hand to his shoulder. “What are the qualities I have taught you to seek most earnestly in your companions?”
“A strong arm. Nerves of iron, ready for the fight. Lance has all that and more.”
“Arthur.”
He sighed, slid his practice sword into its sheath. “Loyalty. Quickness of vision to see the needs of others, and to put them ahead of his own.”
“So...”
“So the very traits I most need and admire are those which hold him here.” He looked at the ground, scuffed one impatient foot over the hard-packed earth. “My lesson is humbly received, Father Ector.”
Humbly, my rear end! Well, as long as it is received.“No-one said you had to like it. You will be a king soon. It becomes you to try hard to get what you want. However, when you fail, it also becomes you to act with grace towards those who’ve baulked you.”
“I have, damn it.” He met Ector’s eyes, his own clouded with necessity and pain. “I will.”
“Not just Lance, either.” Ector looked across the yard at Father Tomas, hovering anxiously on the edge of the bustle of men and horses. “That old priest can’t be left alone to guard this place against another Pictish attack.”
“He wouldn’t be!” Art burst out impatiently. “If that’s what he’s said to Lance, it isn’t true. There’s farmers here, blacksmiths, strong field-hands. With a little training at arms—”
“None of those blacksmiths and farmers are leaders of men,” Ector interrupted him. “You of all people must understand the difference. And as for what old Tomas may or may not have said—you must also know that Lance will have made his own decision.”
“Lance couldn’t guard the place either, not now. He can hardly walk.”
“That’s why I’m leaving Marcus with him.” Ector nodded to the burly, crop-headed groom holding Hengroen by the rein. “For a month at least, or until Lance is well enough to take his rightful place here again, as his father’s son and a true prince. Put your chin up, Art. Here he comes.”
Ruefully Ector surveyed Art’s rumpled hair, the marks of sleeplessness and sorrow beneath his eyes. Lance, whatever effort it had cost him, was freshly turned out in a clean shirt, his spine as straight as his limping progress across the courtyard would allow. “You could take a lesson from this friend of yours, my Bear. Go to him now. Tell him he may keep Balana.”
“For... For a month, like Marcus?”
“No. As his own horse.” Art’s jaw dropped, and Ector shook his head. “Yes, it will cost me dearly to leave her. But I have my reasons. Go on.”
He watched while the boy obeyed him. He saw Lance turn white, then red, then look longingly at Balana. He gave Art a fleeting smile of such sweetness that the old man understood with new poignancy what was causing his ward to grieve on this day of departure, and briefly spoke to him. Then Art returned, his own spine very straight, his bearing as soldierly as Ector could wish. “Lance thanks you with all his heart, but says he cannot keep the horse.”
“Is he worried about her upkeep? Because I can leave some gold with him too, if—”
“It isn’t that. He’s afraid there may be another famine.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Art cleared his throat and looked at the ground. “It seems that he and the villagers had to eat his last horse.”
