Chapter 1 - Mark the Disturbance
Delyth was starting to grow sleepy. The day, for her, had started long before sunrise and was going to progress far into the night, if the noise and revelry were any indication. Today the king of Camelot had married his queen, and Delyth, the daughter of Sir Aranwy of the Valleys, had come along to be the queen's personal attendant. She had a new gown, too, so that was something.
But currently her job was to sit in the shadows behind the bride's chair and fetch her anything she desired. Thankfully, Guinevere had little use for Delyth just at that moment, and the girl was able to sit quietly and nod off. The noise became a mere hum in her tired ears, and she shut her eyes against the color. At least this feasting wouldn't happen every night.
"Up, girl!" someone snapped in her ear. "Get over to Sir Kai at once. He's been trying to get your attention a few minutes now."
Delyth snapped out of her doze and stared at the person in front of her. He was an old man, white-bearded and dressed in the plain garments of a regular servant. "Did you hear me, lass?" he said. "Sir Kai want you." He pointed towards a side door, where the king's seneschal stood, looking straight at Delyth and frowning.
"Hurry up, child," said the old man.
Delyth didn't exactly mean to move slowly, but she was feeling sluggish after her long day, and she didn't particularly want to go running around on errands for Sir Kai. She's known him for exactly two hours now, and that was only to be introduced to him and told that he was somehow related to the king.
Kai glared down at her as she approached. "Lass, there's to be no sleeping in the king's hall," he said. "Now go help Maugryth fill the wineskins. And hurry. You move too slowly for Camelot."
Delyth nodded and looked around. "Please, sir, who's Maugryth?"
"That man," said Sir Kai, pointing to a hooded servant man who was gathering up empty wineskins from around the king's enormous round table into a basket. "And hurry. The skins are getting empty far too quickly." He pinched his thin lips together disapprovingly. Apparently Sir Kai didn't like drunken carousel. Neither did Delyth. She found it much too loud in here. Not so long ago she had been thinking that her father's little castle in King Leodegrance's domain was a bit too small and crumbly for her taste, but now she thought small and crumbly sounded nice.
She hurried over to Maugryth, who moved rapidly enough so that the feasting nobles hardly noticed him. "Please, sir," she said, but he didn't hear her over the noise. "Please, sir," she said again, a bit more loudly.
One of the knights, a man of perhaps thirty with reddish hair and an orange and blue tunic which didn't go well with his hair at all, turned and glowered at Delyth. But Maugryth turned, too. He motioned for Delyth to hush and take his filled basket.
The basket was heavier than she had expected. Delyth hoped she wouldn't have to carry it too far. And, aside from that, Maugryth had another basket near the door leading towards the kitchens and cellars.
As soon as they were out of the great hall, Maugryth said, "A servant never speaks in front of knights. Even a high and mighty servant such as yourself."
Delyth gulped. She was used to being more or less treated with courtesy. But her father was only a minor knight, and just noble enough so that his daughter could hold an envied position as servant to the queen. Besides, King Leodegrance had always been good friends with Sir Aranwy, and he wanted to do something for the knight's daughter. Guinevere couldn't have cared less about Delyth.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just wanted to tell you that Sir Kai sent me over to help you."
"You can do that without words," said Maugryth. He walked quickly, and Delyth had to trot to keep up, which was difficult when one was holding a basket full of wineskins.
Delyth hadn't been to the kitchens yet. Really, she had only been up to the rooms that were going to be Guinevere's, and to the great hall. She had a little bed in one of the rooms with a straw tick indifferently shoved on top, but once she put the blanket that her mother had given her on it, she knew that she would probably like that bed. She'd never had a bed before. Generally she just slept on a pile of deerskin on the floor.
But now she was in a castle that was probably larger than her entire village. It was certainly much larger than King Leodegrance's place, which up until that day Delyth had considered the last word in living accommodations.
"You're one of the queen's new servants, yes?" said Maugryth.
"Yes," said Delyth. "I'm Delyth, daughter of Sir Aranwy of the Valleys."
"Sir Aranwy?" said Maugryth. His tone grew slightly more respectful. "Does Sir Kai know who your father is?"
"I don't know," said Delyth. "I think he just saw me sitting and thought it would be best to put me to work."
Maugryth snorted. "He'll be laid up for a week when he finds out. Sir Kai wouldn't have ordered you around if he realized, m'lady."
"I'm not a m'lady, exactly," said Delyth. "The queen is my mistress."
"Are you her lass, to stay in her rooms and take care of her there?" said Maugryth.
"Yes," said Delyth.
"And is your father a knight?" said Maugryth.
"Yes," said Delyth.
"Well, then you're a lady," said Maugryth. "At least, you'll be one to Sir Kai."
They reached the kitchen by then, and Delyth marveled at it. The kitchen was so large that her father's whole castle probably could have fit into it with a bit of room left over for stables. Of course, there were so many knights and nobles at Camelot, and it only made sense that they would have to have a huge kitchen in order to prepare enough food for them.
"I'm here for more wine!" Maugryth yelled as soon as he came into the kitchen, and with good reason. It was as loud here as out in the great hall. Someone motioned to a long wooden bench where several baskets with filled wineskins stood waiting to be taken out to the feast.
"We'll each take one," Maugryth said to Delyth.
Delyth's head was spinning as she made her way past a counter filled with braces of quail ready for the plucking, and someone came by her with a huge basin filled with bread dough that needed to rise balanced on his head. A young girl trundled by with a bundle of rushes on her back for laying out in the corridors that led out of the great hall. The rushes would be freshened while the people were at feasting, and later someone would have the magnificent task of cleaning the rushes in the great hall itself. Delyth, who had watched her father's servant clean the rushes from their little hall, did not envy the people who would have to perform that upcoming task here.
Of course, the basket of filled wineskins was even heavier than the one with the empty skins. Delyth wanted to drop it as soon as she picked it up, but she dared not. Even thinking about what might happen if she spilled that much of the king's wine made her feel a bit sick.
The way back to the great hall was absolute agony. Delyth felt that surely her arms would be pulled away from her shoulders before they reached the feast again. However, they did make it back to the room.
She was perhaps seven steps away from an empty bench where she knew she could set the basket when a great gust of wind seemed to blow the great doors leading to the outside courtyard open. She jumped, startled, and the basket fell to the floor. Wineskins burst and rolled all over the place, but no one paid attention to her.
A white hart bounded through the doorway as soon as the doors were open, and looked around at the guests, as though it had not expected to find so many in one place. But its hesitation was short, for a moment later a great white hound leapt after it, its teeth bared in a drooling snarl. The hound began chasing the hart around the room.
Delyth didn't quite know what to do, so she ran towards shelter in the corridor she had just come from. Maugryth was there, too, and several other servants. Most people were still in the hall. A few ladies were standing on their chairs, and one had even gotten atop the table round. King Arthur simply sat in his seat, staring at the animals making ruin of his feasting hall, and Guinevere looked as though she were considering falling into a swoon. Everything else was chaos as the hart and the hound knocked over side tables and even a few squires and pages as they ran around the room.
But just before any of the brave, noble knights gathered their wits, the hart leapt through an open window just past Guinevere's seat, and the hound sprang after it.
And then Guinevere really did faint. So did one or two other ladies, although most of the revelers just sat there, looking at each other dumbly.
"And you call yourselves knights!"
A voice came ringing out, loud in the silence of the hall. Delyth drew in her breath sharply as she looked towards the source of the sound, a veiled woman standing in the doorway to the courtyard.
"Mark the disturbance!" she said, giving out a short, bitter laugh. "How very many tales we've heard of the valiant King Arthur and his magnificent knights, but once a quest comes to you, you prove how soft you've become by sitting at that round table and blinking at each other. Find knights, indeed!"
Delyth shrank back. That woman, she knew, oughtn't to be here. And it wasn't just because she hadn't been invited to the feast. Delyth had enough dealings with uncanny folk to know a woman of the fairies when she saw one.