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Chapter Two

The sun rose late the next day. It was still cold, though the wind had died and the only remaining snow lay in thin patches on the ground. A fire was not lit and the only available food for breakfast was two loaves of hard bread given by Arthur to his knights. "Take some to Lancelot," said Arthur, disappearing to organise the refugees into some semblance of order for travelling.

Galahad broke a hard piece of bread off the end of one of the loaves and headed to the edge of camp where he knew Lancelot to have rested. There was nobody there. "Lancelot?" he called softly.

Try as he might, he could not find the knight nor any trace of him, save a carved talisman of a beast amongst the leaves. Galahad recognised it as the one given to Lancelot by his family. After keeping it safe for fifteen years, it did not seem likely that the knight would abandon it now.

He found Arthur instructing a young farm boy on driving a wagon. He cleared his throat and waited for Arthur to finish.

"And where on this earth am I to find Lancelot?" he demanded, once the farm boy has gone. He used an angry tone to hide the concern he was feeling.

The camp was duly searched, everybody was questioned and nobody had seen Lancelot since Arthur, the previous night. Tristan examined the spot where Lancelot had been sleeping. He shook his head a couple of times.

"Well?" asked Arthur, who was beginning to feel unsettled. Galahad had given him Lancelot's talisman, which he clutched tightly in his right fist.

"Footprints. Here and here." Tristan pointed to two patches of faint imprints in the ground. "And look here." He motioned to an empty patch of ground. "It looks as if something was dragged."

Arthur frowned, not liking where this was heading. "Something? What?"

"A body."

Arthur stared at Tristan but the older man's face was unreadable. He was a good scout and an able tracker; he was able to read things in the earth that were invisible to the eyes of other men.

"There's blood there," said Gawain suddenly, pointing at the ground a few feet away from Arthur's feet.

In the end, there was only one conclusion that could be drawn from blood and footprints and a body being dragged. Lancelot had been captured.

Tristan was sent to track Lancelot's captors as the remaining knights escorted the refugees south to Hadrian's Wall and safety.

All day long, an uneasy feeling accompanied Arthur. He knew that he had to get the refugees south of the wall and yet the mission that he had given his heart too and paid for with Dagonet's life, seemed so ridiculous now. He rode as rear guard of the roup and yet he was not remostely watchful. He spent the whole journey trying to imagine reasons why Lancelot would be taken.

And only one possibility occurred to him.

Reaching Hadrian's Wall that afternoon did not feel like a homecoming to Arthur. There was no celebrating from his men as they received the releases granted by Rome. Dagonet was dead, Lancelot as well in all likelihood: there were only four knights left in the band. The Round Table was nearly empty; soon it would be abandoned forever.

The prospect of retreating without Lancelot was a foreign one.

Arthur took the paper that granted safe passage to Rome and climbed onto the ramparts of the wall. His eyes searched the lands to the North for a lone rider on a grey horse and sure enough, before a half hour had passed Tristan appeared, galloping from the North East.

Arthur found he could not wait for news and climbed back down from the ramparts as the gate was lifted for Tristan. He took the horse's reins as the knight heaved himself out of the saddle and landed heavily in armour. The dappled mare was blowing hard and the sweat on Tristan's forehead was more than testament to the speed at which the scout had ridden.

"What news?" asked Arthur brusquely.

"Saxons," spat Tristan. "They had three horses and the tracks lead to a cart trail. I think he's with the baggage."

Here at last was a glimmer of hope for Arthur. "Cynric?"

"Yes," Tristan said, wiping the sweat from his eyes. "Cynric is retreating with his surviving men to the main body of Cerdic's army. He'll have reached it by late afternoon."

The glimmer of hope had been extinguished. A well-timed ambush could have defeated Cynric's small band of men after so many had died yesterday on the ice. However, it was impossible that with just five men he could assault an entire Saxon army. Arthur felt a weight settle on his heart as he realised the implications of Tristan's words. Lancelot was lost.

Suddenly, Galahad appeared in the courtyard. He looked as if he had been running. A moment later Gawain appeared, breathing hard as he fought to catch up with the younger man. "Lancelot?" he gasped.

Arthur shook his head. Stray tears blurred his vision and for the first time in his life he turned away from his fellow knights.

"Saxons," said Tristan simply.

"Where?" growled Bors, as he too appeared in the courtyard.

"The Saxons have captured Lancelot," Gawain explained patiently.

Bors shook his head. "Why didn't they kill him? I mean, what use it Lancelot to anybody?" He didn't mean that badly.

Tristan led his horse to the stables. He knew the answer to Bors' question but he would rather leave it to the others to work out. His duty was done for the time being.

"Arthur?"

Arthur turned back to Bors, Galahad and Gawain, the tears now gone from his eyes. "How would you describe me? My appearance, I mean."

"Tall, dark-haired, armoured knight," answered Galahad easily. It took a moment for him to understand the importance of this. "Like Lancelot," he whispered.

Arthur nodded. "They meant to capture me," he said.

God, how I wish they had, he added silently.

"Is Lancelot dead?" asked Bors.

Deep down, Arthur knew that he was alive. After all, it must surely be impossible for a man to lose his best friend to the Otherworld and not feel something. "It would be better for him if he were." The statement was accompanied with the image of ropes, stones and hot pokers. The Saxons were brutal. They would torture Lancelot whether they thought him to be Arthur or not.

And once he had been tortured, he would die.

After battle, they always drank together. It was a tradition. Yet on this day, for the first time, Arthur found he was not ready to face the other knights.

Instead, as darkness fell, he took a candle and went up to Lancelot's headquarters in the hope of receiving some comfort from the place where Lancelot had lived.

He may have fought beside the man for fifteen years but he had never entered his quarters before: it felt like trespassing. Arthur suppressed a shudder as he crossed the threshold into a surprisingly small room. Looking around, there were few possessions, none that spoke of Lancelot. The room held just a cot, a rough wooden stool with several tunics draped over the top, and a whittling knife on top of a carved box with a crude iron lock. There was a grate but little sign that a fire had been lit in recent times.

Arthur searched for any sign that the room had belonged to Lancelot but he could not see one, save for the carvings on the box, which depicted a battle. He tested the lock on the box, feeling guilty as he did so. The lock held firm and Arthur abandoned it to sit on the edge of the cot. The mattress was stuffed with hay and smelt damp. Glancing at the ceiling he saw a crack between stone, from which water would drip as it rained.

"My friend," he murmured softly. The lack of personal possessions surprised him. Lancelot had owned fine armour and an expensive horse. He had dispensed coins freely amongst the poor. It was a shock to see the spartan room in which he had lived for so long.

Had Lancelot called this barren place 'home'? He doubted it. Home for Lancelot had been somewhere far away: a distant half-memory after all these years abroad.

Perching on the end of the cot, Arthur set his candle down on the floor and settled his head in his hands. The dull ache of before, the weight on his heart, was growing and he could identify it now: grief, masquerading as emptiness. For now he knew that Lancelot was lost: if not to the living world then to him. And he really did feel empty. He remembered his last conversation with Lancelot. It had been about Guinevere; he wished it had not been. If anything, Arthur would have liked to say thank you for friendship and loyalty.

He would not have said goodbye. There had been too many partings in the past years and all of them sad. Thank you would have been the thing to say.

Friendship and loyalty didn't really cover it, though. Yes, Lancelot had been a friend and yes, he had been loyal. He had also been so much more to Arthur: a comrade, a brother in all but blood, an extension of his own sword arm, the man he would want fighting on his right flank in battle, the man who could make him laugh at the darkest moments, the man who had once cut an arrow-head from Arthur's own shoulder with a hunting knife, the man who would watch his back in a fight, one of the few men he would not have been ashamed to weep in front of, a disciple, his knight and the man he would gladly have sacrificed his own life for.

Above all, Lancelot had possessed eyes that, when angry, had burned into his soul.

Arthur took his head from his hands and swiped at a stray tear.

He did not see her standing in the doorway. "I know how much he meant to you."

"What is it you want?" he asked Guinevere.

She gave him a gentle smile. She was still wearing the blue gown of yesterday's battle. "I want to tell you not to throw away your grief on tears."

"And what would you have me do?"

For her, the answer was simple. Grief must be turned into anger. "Seek revenge," she told him earnestly. "Join us."

He stared at her. His candle had all but died in the damp air and the light it cast was not warm. I like her, Lancelot had said, but I do not trust her.

"No," he said. Lancelot had not trusted her; that was good enough for him.

Her voice was soft as moonlight. "You will, perhaps, change your mind."

He doubted it. Sitting now in Lancelot's room, on his bed, on the hard, damp mattress, Arthur felt the loss of Lancelot more acutely than he had ever imagined possible. He would not now fight alongside Woads after he and Lancelot had risked death a thousand times to kill them. Guinevere too, held little attraction. She was beautiful certainly: beautiful as ice is very beautiful but not enough so to stop a freezing man craving fire.

"Go away," he said softy. He felt no regret after he had said it. What was she compared to the friend he had lost?

"What?"

"Go back to your fellows. I do not wish to see you again." His voice was cold.

She left quickly after that but he remained where he was for a long time. The candle died, leaving him alone in the dark with his thoughts and his grief.

After perhaps an hour of sitting there, Arthur forced himself to face the company of his fellow knights. He found Bors, Galahad and Gawain (the latter two being virtually inseparable) sitting in the corner and drinking rather half-heartedly. He cast his eyes round for Tristan but the knight was not there. It was no real surprise: the oldest knight was always something of an outsider, even now when there was so few of them left.

Arthur got himself a brimming tankard and joined the three men. It was strange that the tavern, so full of noise, could seem so silent to the four as they sat round a table and made a start at drinking themselves into oblivion.

Bors raised his tankard of ale. "To the victorious dead." He drank once then raised his tankard again. "To Dagonet!"

"Dagonet!" echoed Galahad, Gawain and Arthur.

Bors looked around at the faces if his fellow knights: he saw Gawain's sadness etched plainly in his face and the wild angry madness of Galahad that was his way of dealing with grief. It was Arthur that worried him. The expression on his leader's face was distant as if he were in another world entirely.

Another world.

Bors shook his head as tears threatened his eyes. He gulped down some ale and the lifted his tankard for the third and last time. "To Lancelot!"

"Lancelot!" chorused Gawain and Galahad. They were all fully aware of the hopelessness of Lancelot's situation. If he were not dead yet he soon would be. Arthur, however, did not drink the toast.

Bors cleared his throat. "Long may the deeds of Dagonet and Lance-"

"He is not dead yet." Arthur's voice was quiet, possibly a little hoarse, but filled with certainty. He had come to a decision.

None of the other knights said a word as Arthur rose and left the tavern. They didn't say a word; but they did follow him.

He found Tristan in the stables, feeding his hawk scraps of stew and his horse chunks of turnip.

"I have been thinking," said Tristan conversationally as Arthur entered.

"So have I and-" He trailed off, unsure how to formulate his plan into words: a plan, moreover, that was built on little more than grief and madness.

Tristan finished feeding his hawk. He cast it off and it flew to the rafters of the stable. "It is impossible to assault an army with five men," he said. "But it is possible for one man, perhaps, to infiltrate the ranks."

Arthur stared. He was not the only one to have contemplated a rescue attempt.

"You too think Lancelot is alive."

Tristan shrugged.

"And you will attempt a rescue." They may all be battle-tested knights but Tristan was the only one with the ability to move silently, unseen.

Tristan shrugged again. "If you wish it, I will do it."

Arthur nodded and knew that he could not abandon Lancelot to torture and death. "We shall ride in one hour."

"And were you planning to tell us or were you just going to ride?" said Bors, ducking his head to pass through the stable door. Galahad and Gawain followed him.

Arthur bowed to his knights and wondered if he had planned to leave without saying goodbye. "You have your passages to Rome now," he said.

"Aye," growled Bors. "We're going home." He grinned at the others. "And we're taking Lancelot with us!"

"Tristan is the only one going into the camp," Arthur warned.

But the others were resolute. "If all we can do is provide an escort then we shall do it."

"There is little hope," said Arthur softly.

"There is always hope," Gawain replied staunchly.

Arthur nodded and this time didn't turn away as tears once again came to his eyes.

"And hope makes the impossible achievable, my lord," said Gawain. He received a look from Arthur who was rarely addressed by his knights as 'my lord'.

And so five knights set off on the rescue mission at the same time that, miles away in the midst of a Saxon army, Cynric discovered he had not, in fact, captured Arthur. The anger bubbling within Cynric was all-consuming as he went to a baggage cart in which a bloodied knight was bound and trussed.

He would make that knight suffer.

Tbc...