Under Camelot's Banner by Sarah Zettel Page B

carefully wiped both face and hands before he stood, leaving the wooden bowl on the floor. The axe man grunted and led him further back into the hall where the women sat on with their spindles and carding combs, creating the fine white thread from a clots of wool.
    Colan bowed courteously to this assemblage and was rewarded with a selection of cold and appraising stares. Not one of the women here looked to be less than a grandmother. Colan remembered his manners, held his tongue and waited.
    He waited until his feet began to ache. He waited until his legs and knees remembered their climb of that morning and all the labors they had accomplished over the past days and threatened to begin shaking again. He waited until he wanted to grab one of these silent, ancient women and choke her with her own thread until she swore to show him to Morgaine.
    â€œYou are possessed of some patience, Colan Carnbrea, whatever else you may be.”
    Colan started and saw another woman sitting in the shadows before him. Like the others, she held a spindle and twisted a fine white thread. She, however, sat in a great carved chair that he would have sworn was not there a moment ago.
    It is fatigue and shadow,
he tried to tell himself, but he could not escape the understanding that he did not see her because she did not wish him to.
    In Colan’s experience, the mark of power in women had shown itself as the absence of color. Laurel was the image of their mother, who could call the seabirds down to rest on her hands, and could fill a net with fish in the middle of a hard winter just by wishing it so. Morgaine, however, was raven dark. Her skin was brown from wind and sun. Her long hands were solid and strong from her work, but had such a delicate touch that she spun a thread as fine as any spider’s. This woman was as much stone and earth as his father had been, but there was fire there too. Her black eyes shone with it, and they seemed to see all he was and all he had done.
    Beside her stood a stripling boy, a brown, lithe whippet of a youth. That boy had his mother’s eyes and saw all that she did. He smiled at Colan. The image of a questing hound came to Colan more clearly than ever, as the boy leaned over and whispered something to his mother. She nodding her agreement. Then, she touched his hand, and the boy flashed Colan another mischievous, knowing grin and ran away, vanishing out the hall door and into the sunlight.
    It was a small moment, a single heartbeat of domestic life, but something there left Colan disquieted. Something too knowing about that gangly boy, something in the fire sparking behind Morgaine’s eyes. Colan set these thoughts aside. He was here now, and it was far too late to be disconcerted by so little. He knelt, bowing his head.
    Morgaine was clearly done testing his patience. She turned all her attention to him. He could feel her gaze although he could not see her face. “You have travelled hard and come alone, Colan Carnbrea,” she said. He could see her long, brown hands. Her fingers never ceasing to twist the thread. The spindle bobbled and twirled at the end of its thin leash, like a captive insect still weakly struggling for escape. “I would not expect this of someone of your station. What has happened?”
    You know.
He was certain of it. Though there was no earthly way for the news to have flown ahead of him, but she knew, and she was still going to make him say it.
    â€œI am declared outlaw from my home and people for the crime of murder.”
    â€œOh?” There was no surprise in her voice, only mild curiosity. “And did you do this murder?”
    â€œI did.” Memory bit hard. Rage, blinding rage at his so solid father, standing by his word, his useless oath though he condemn them all to death. Had he really meant to kill the old man? Or only to make him see, finally and forever that he was
wrong
?
    â€œMy men tell me you come begging mercy.”
You mean to