Tuesday Night Pendragon

Lancrius here...

You've heard, I'm sure. How could you not?

But I'll tell you some things you probably haven't heard, though God knows enough rumors have been swirling around Salisbury in the months since.

One, I can tell you for sure, as sure as I'm sitting here, that Lancelot did come back at the end, and with every intent to succor the King. Anything anyone says to the contrary is false. It was I who showed him where the King fell, and where Mordred's body lay. And the look on his face no one can fake, not even someone as skilled at trickery as that traitor Mordred, or the Orkney lot (Gawain and Gareth excepted).

Sir Bors accompanied me to Stonehenge and helped me erect the memorial stone to King Arthur Pendragon. It was Bors who chose the words on the tombstone; he was always better at that sort of thing than I ever was. Once the stone was in place among the rest of Arthur's kin, we parted ways and I have not heard of him or his whereabouts since.

Lancelot I did hear of, though: my cousin Alinor, the Abbotess at Amesbury, sent me word that Lancelot had come by to see the Queen. Alinor said that Guenevere refused to leave the safety of the building, and only allowed Lancelot to speak to her through the closed and heavy oak door. Alinor did not say what their parting words were, only that their conversation was brief. No one has seen Lancelot since.

So, so many good men died that day...I don't want to talk about it. It is still too fresh.

In all the confusion of the aftermath, as I made my way from Stonehenge to Silchester, I neglected the wounds I received on the battlefield. I'm afraid that by the time I got to Father's bedside my leg was quite green. Father's doctor had it removed at the knee, and after a bit of the old touch and go, I recovered. One of Ragnar's Sussex men brought me Cynfyn's saddle, the one he got from my brother Clarian, and with that I'm able to ride tolerably well, though it does ache something fierce.

I left Reynald in charge of Silchester and rode with Elliott to Durnford with father in a litter. The old manor had really been ravaged in all the fighting, but we got it tidied up and installed Father in his old rooms. He died about a week later and we buried him in the old garden next to Lady Ysabet. He was aged 93.

A few months later the King's cousin Constantine came to visit me at Sarum. Earl Robert died last year, and with Elliott back in Silchester I was doing my best to keep things running smoothly in the old keep. Constantine had been appointed King, and asked me to be his Constable. I pointed out to him that I really wasn't much of a strategist, but he asked me if I had ever seen a second layer of cream form on a pail of milk already skimmed, so I accepted the appointment.

***

Now, this I have told to no one: not Father's old friend Bors, not Lancelot, not King Constantine. The pieces of body we buried under the tombstone at Stonehenge are not my lord Arthur's. On that terrible day, after the fighting was over and the corpses of men, horses, and monsters lay strewn from horizon to horizon, two figures stood amid the ruin: Arthur and Mordred. I was too far away to see if they spoke, but when Mordred speared the king, Arthur reached out, grabbed the shaft and pulled himself within striking distance of Mordred, whom he smote with Excalibur where the neck joins the shoulder. They both fell, and when I had reached them, I kicked Mordred's body and cursed it. And, to my surprise, my lord Arthur opened his eyes and spoke! He told me to take Excalibur and throw it in the lake and, when I had done so, asked me to carry him to the shore. It was difficult with my leg, but I managed, then stood there dumb while a barge with six women in mourning clothes took Arthur's body onto the barge and glided off into the mist.

Arthur told me that if I threw Excalibur into the water he would return. But it's been over a year now, another man wears his crown, and he hasn't returned. Part of me thinks he died of his wounds, but another part...people thought I was dead but I was only in Faerie. We thought Monroe was dead twice, but he was in Faerie both times. Part of me wants to believe that Arthur is in Faerie, too, and will come back to us someday.

I should like to see him again before I die.

Lancrius, a knight of Salisbury.