Zosia sat on the floor of her father's solar as he reviewed paperwork, reading a book of her own. In the long months since her sister left, they had fallen into this routine, the two of them doing much of their work and hobbies in the same space to avoid feeling alone. She leaned her head against the leg of her father's chair and looked up at him as he read. He paused and smiled down at her, and he was about to speak when one of his men burst into the room.
"My lord," the man said, "an army is crossing the border into Camelot."
"Whose army?" her father said, setting down his work and standing.
"It appears to be Hengist, my lord. What shall we do?"
Zosia looked up at her father and waited for him to send everyone to King Constantine's aid.
"Have we heard from the king?"
"Not yet. It is possible that he is not yet aware of the threat."
"How long until Hengist reaches the city?"
"Less than two days."
Zosia stared at her father, a man she had never seen hesitate in anything before, and she wondered why he had not already given an order. It seemed so clear to her: Camelot were allies, friends. Surely they should send their full force, especially if King Constantine was unaware of the threat.
"Send your fastest rider," her father said. "Tell him not to stop. Ready the other men to respond to any call for aid."
"Yes, my lord."
When they were alone again, Zosia pulled herself to her feet and turned to her father.
"Why are you not sending everyone?" she said.
Her father's face was far grimmer than she'd ever seen him, but he did not answer her.
"Why are you only sending a rider?" she said. "By the time he is there and back, it will already be too late."
"Then we would flank Hengist," he said. "No siege has ever broken the citadel, Zosia. Constantine is a proud man. Sending a man will appear the appropriate concern from an ally. Sending an army would be an insult if he has not asked for it."
Zosia set her book on her father's table and said, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What kind of man refuses help from friends?"
Her father almost laughed, then said, "A great many men, I'm afraid. I know you hate when I say this, but you'll understand when you're older."
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The young knights-in-training walked back together to the armory to change for the evening. Uther knew there was a layer that existed between him and the other boys, but he still saw them as friends, of a sort. He sat on one bench beside Gorlois, perhaps his favorite friend, and across from them sat Bors and relative newcomer, Marcial. Bors Uther had known since childhood, as he had been raised in court, but Gorlois was the son of his father's greatest allies, the Lord of Tintagel. Marcial had come to court not quite a year gone, shortly before the death of his sister from fever. He was quiet, understandably, but he worked hard and was a good fighter.
Gorlois had just begun to address Marcial when there was a sudden commotion outside. The boys leapt to their feet, drew their swords, and were preparing to do whatever was asked of them.
The night was dark, and Uther had to squint to see the colors of the rider who was approaching Constans in the square. They were the colors of House Adaire. Uther held his breath.
"There are riders crossing your border, your highness," the rider said to Constans.
"Whose riders?" Constans said.
"They appear to be under the banner of Escetir. My lord stands ready to send whatever aid might be required."
Uther sheathed his sword when he saw Ambrose approach the two men, and the sound of the conversation of his brothers could not be heard from such a distance.
"How did Hengist know?" Gorlois whispered.
Uther shook his head.
The king was ill, gravely so, but they'd managed to keep it quiet, even from the people. Or at least, they thought they had. Constans stood ready to take the throne any day, but they had held off, thinking that perhaps a solution to his illness could be found. The king was, after all, a stubborn man.
Constans turned back to the rider to answer him when a crossbow bolt came from what seemed like nowhere and struck him directly in the neck. Uther was about to run to his side, but Bors and Gorlois held him back. Ambrose sprung into action.
"Uther?" he cried. He turned and the two brothers stared at each other for what was almost certainly too long.
Ambrose said to the rider, "Take the prince, get him to safety, take him all the way to Carneath if you have to. Do you understand?"
"Yes, your highness," the rider said.
"Please," Uther said. "Please, I can fight—"
"You need to go," Ambrose said. "Please. I'll watch over father and send for you when I can."
Uther tried to fight, but his friends were already pushing him onto the horse with Lord Inthorn's man, and he turned back to look at Ambrose ushering everyone into the citadel as they rode away.
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Marcial sat with Gorlois, watching the court physician treating the injured. Gorlois's father was arguing with the king, who looked like he was about to keel over. Ambrose was trying to separate the two men, but they were ignoring him.
"What do you think they're saying?" Marcial whispered. "Do you think they'll make us fight with the knights?"
"At fifteen?" Gorlois said. "The King might want us to, but my father would never stand for it. I expect that's the fight they're having. If we go back to Tintagel, would you want to come along, at least until it's safe for us to return, or return you to your lands?"
Marcial didn't want to appear a coward, but every time a candle flickered as he didn't expect, he jumped. He was worried about Uther and what might happen if Hengist found him in the woods on the way to Andor. He worried about the king, who was surely near to death. He worried about what might happen if they did try to escape and were caught on the way. He worried what would become of his parents, should he perish under this siege.
"Yes, I would," Marcial whispered.
Gorlois squeezed his shoulder and said, "It doesn't make you weak, Marcial. We're not yet men. There's no shame in avoiding certain death."
There was a great sound of clattering outside, certainly a clash of soldiers, and Gorlois's father motioned for the boys to follow him deeper into the castle. Ambrose caught Gorlois's arm on their way by and said, "Please, forgive my father. He's not himself right now."
"My father won't allow us to fight," Gorlois said firmly, "so there is nothing to forgive. Watch yourself, Ambrose. Hengist won't rest without killing every Pendragon. He'll never get Camelot otherwise.
"He's got to get through the front door first," Ambrose said with a weak smile.
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Zosia stood on the battlement long after the sunrise, waiting for news. The rider had been gone longer than she anticipated, and she was worried the news never reached Camelot. Or perhaps he became caught up in the battle. Or perhaps Constantine was as stubborn of a fool as her father suggested, and he turned the help away. Or perhaps—
She saw the lone horse, with a single young man on the horse with the rider. She didn't bother to question who it was. Instead, she lifted her skirts and hurried down the stair as quickly as she could, all the way down to the main entryway, where her father was just arriving.
The rider carefully pulled Uther off the horse. Uther looked exhausted and cold, and several men hurried forward to help him. Zosia stood at her father's side, marveling at how pale he was. The rider approached, bowing slightly to her father.
"The news was very nearly too late, my lord," he said. "Prince Constans is dead, and the castle is under siege. Prince Ambrose said word would be sent for help, but in the meantime, we are to keep the young prince here and safe until he is sent for."
"We are not to send aid?" her father said, clearly disturbed.
"It was not asked for, my lord."
Zosia shivered as she watched her father consider what to do. Surely he would send men anyway. Surely he wouldn't let Camelot be overrun.
"Then we will wait for word from Camelot," her father whispered. "Constantine has always found a way to get help when he wants it before. I will not underestimate him. See that the prince is warmed and fed. Zosia," he added, turning to her before she could announce her outrage. She didn't think she'd ever seen him look so sad, "I need you to do something for me."
She paused, too stunned to speak for a moment, but then she heard the men around her giving orders, carrying Uther to a bed, rushing to gather supplies.
"Yes," she said.
"I need you to oversee his care until he is well enough to speak with me. If he's the least bit like his father, he will be too proud to talk until he is well, but he will also allow you near enough to care for him. Chivalry is a foolish thing, I know, but we must deal with people as they are, not as we wish them to be."
Zosia hesitated, wanting to say she wanted to do something more important, but she understood her father's point: the best way to subvert pride was to find something more powerful than that pride. And she couldn't pretend she didn't want to see him again.
She turned to a nearby guard and said, "I need the physician called, I need broth prepared, and I need three servants on rotation to watch over him."
"Yes, my lady," the guard said. "Do you have servants you would prefer?"
She looked to her father, who nodded. She would be given anyone she needed.
"Thomas," she said, "Elsa, and Catherine."
The servants of herself, her sister, and her father. The guard was surprised, but there was no one she trusted more to do what she asked and do it quickly and well. When the guard left to make the preparations, her father smiled slightly.
"So like your mother," he said. "Always rises during a storm. I leave the matter in your hands until such a time that you and the physician feel he is well. If you need me, I will be in my chambers, deciding how to respond when the king requests aid."
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Uther was freezing when he woke in a vaguely familiar bed. His vision was blurry at first, and when he tried to sit up, gentle hands pressed him down again. He blinked, looking up at the owner of the hands, and he couldn't stop from smiling when he recognized Zosia.
"I'm dreaming," he said. "You're not real. You're a fever dream."
"I assure you, I'm quite real," she said. "You need to rest, Uther. It was a terribly cold night."
He lifted his hands to take hers in his. They were just as delicate, just as soft, just as warm as he would expect from a dream. Had she grown more beautiful while he'd been home, or was that the exhaustion?
"I need to go back," he said, recalling the way his brother fell like a sack of grain at the strike of the crossbow bolt.
"Please," she said. "Please, just rest, Uther. You can't go anywhere in the condition you're in."
He squeezed her hands and relaxed back onto the pillows. He wanted to argue with her, but she seemed so distressed, and he didn't want to upset her.
A serving girl entered, but he didn't bother to look away from Zosia as the girl set something on the nightstand. Zosia took one of her hands away and set a cloth in what it seemed was a bowl of water. He was startled when after she rung it out, she pressed it to his forehead, and it was quite warm.
"It's hot," he said.
"It's warm," she said. "You're freezing. You didn't think I'd put cold water on someone who's been out in the cold all night, did you?"
Uther sat up slightly, and before she could push him back down again, he pressed his lips to hers. She paused and let him kiss her, resting her hand on his chest for a moment before pressing him down again.
"You're an idiot," she said.
But she was smiling. And Uther couldn't help smiling too. Even if he was stuck here for a week before they considered him well enough to go home and help his father, at least she was here too.
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Marcial sat on the floor of his chambers and startled at the knock on his door. He told the knocker to enter, and he smiled a little when it was Gorlois.
"Any word?" he said.
Gorlois shook his head and came to sit beside Marcial. The two boys put their backs to the wall and sat in the near silence of the combat.
"The king is failing fast," Gorlois whispered. "Father doesn't think he'll make it through the night. He says Constans's death was too great a shock."
"It was shocking," Marcial whispered. "I've never seen a man die before."
"Nor I," Gorlois said. "I expect we'll see it many times again."
Marcial closed his eyes and said, "I had a dream last night, that I was somewhere warm and quiet, in the warmth and light of a fire, and there was a warm, gentle voice saying my name. I thought it was my mother at first, but it wasn't quite right. Too low, too mellow."
Gorlois tapped his feet in an absent rhythm like a fool just learning to dance, and Marcial watched his feet.
"Was it a nice voice?"
"Very." Marcial sighed. "It was a nice dream. Then I woke and saw the fires outside the city. Do you think the prince made it safely to Lord Inthorn's lands?"
"I have to believe it," Gorlois whispered.
When Marcial arrived, the only faces he knew in Camelot were Gorlois and his father, although he had not seen them in a great deal of time. He'd clung to Gorlois's side like a scared child, and he'd felt uncomfortable with how close Gorlois and Prince Uther were, feeling that there would be no space for him. What Marcial had learned was that Gorlois had a heart with enough space for everyone who needed him, whether that person be a prince, a lost boy, or an ailing old woman in the lower town who needed someone to bring her kindling. He was the sort of person Marcial liked to believe his father had been when he was young, the sort of person Marcial hoped to grow to be someday. Gorlois seemed to have been born with this trait.
There was shouting in the corridor, and the two boys shifted closer together. Gorlois's dark hair was trembling slightly, which was the only visible indication that Gorlois was in any way nervous.
A knock at the door caused both boys to jump, but when the door opened and it was only Gorlois's father, they both relaxed.
"Raff is going to get you boys out of here," he said firmly.
Marcial looked at Gorlois, who was staring at his father. Raff was Prince Constans's servant. Or he had been, until about two days gone.
"The king has approved this?" Gorlois said.
"The king is dead."
The silence that fell between them was heavy, and Marcial wondered if they were truly witnessing the fall of Camelot. Or at least the fall of House Pendragon.
"Raff will see you to Tintagel. I want you to stay there unless you hear from me that it's safe to send Marcial home. Are we understood?"
The boys looked at each other and said nothing. What did one say at a time like this?
Prince Ambrose came in from the still-open door, pale and more serious than Marcial thought he'd ever seen him. Ambrose was still a boy, although nearly a man. In the best of times, he would not be ready for the role he had to assume.
"You've told them?" he said. He then turned to the boys. "Please, we can buy you a very short space of time. You'll take the tunnels out. Raff knows the way. He'll stay with you in Tintagel until things calm again."
They must have been a grim pair because Ambrose forced a smile and said, "Relax. You'll be back in Camelot again, in happier times. But until then, you need to stay safe."
The boys packed up what they could carry, including their swords, and they met as directed near the entry to the siege tunnels. Marcial stayed as silent as he could, following Raff in the near dark, in the damp and earthy tunnel that extended out toward the forrest.
"We'll get to the cover of the trees," Raff said in his stiff, reedy voice. "No fire, just the moon. It'll be a cold night. You've got blankets?"
Both boys nodded.
Raff lifted the grate carefully and let the boys run. He closed the grate behind them and followed them up. When the three were in the forest, they paused to look back at Camelot, a sea of orange and black as smoke rose high into the night sky.
"We'll go back," Gorlois said, clapping Marcial's shoulder. "I have faith in Ambrose."
Marcial had faith in Gorlois, so he nodded, and the trio slipped away into the night, going as far west and south as they could before they had to rest and wait for dawn.