“Take him to the physician.” I kept my voice flat as I motioned towards the guards. “Tell him I want Galahad examined and a report by evening.”
The guards moved. Galahad went with them, or was taken; it was hard to tell which. The yard watched him go, and no one wished him well. That was the part that stayed with me the longest: the silence that followed him out.
I turned to face the yard. All the men were staring at me, some still gripping their practice weapons. Others had their hands at their sides, but all were careful and still, waiting to see what would come of this moment.
I met eyes where I could. “Return to your posts and your duties. If I hear that any of what happened here today became a conversation in my halls, the man doing the talking will answer to me directly. Am I understood?”
It wasn’t a question, and they knew that. They moved; none of them scrambled to leave, none of them were that undisciplined, but they moved steadily and purposefully, the way men move when they’re grateful to be dismissed. Tristan touched Guinevere’s shoulder before he left. It was just a light thing, and it was quick, but I noticed she gave him a weak smile in response. I felt my eyes narrow as I wondered what was going on between the two of them. For now, though, I had this crisis to solve.
Lance hadn’t moved. He stood where he’d been standing since the beating ended, his breathing slowing now, and one hand curled at his side. He was staring at the ground where Galahad had been. Or perhaps he wasn’t seeing anything at all; it was hard to tell.
I waited until the yard was empty.
Then I said, “Walk with me.”
-ARTHUR-
The anteroom outside my solar had a window that faced the inner yard. I’d stood at it a hundred times, watching my knights train as well as the daily machinery of Camelot grinding forward. I stood there now because I couldn’t sit; sitting required a stillness I didn’t have.
Lance had followed me inside, and I noticed he hadn’t sat down either. Instead, he stood with his bloody and ruptured hands hanging at his sides, blood still crusted at the corner of his mouth from where Galahad’s elbow had caught him in the scuffle. His armor was half-on and hastily buckled.
I closed the door behind us, and neither of us spoke for a moment.
Another man protecting what is ours.
I shut the voice down. Hard.
“You beat a Knight of the Round Table mercilessly,” I said. “In front of numerous witnesses.”
“Yes.”
“In front ofthe other knights.”
“Yes.” Lance didn’t flinch. His jaw was set, his dark gray eyes flat and level. “And I’d do it again.”
That was the part that made my teeth ache. It wasn’t the doing so much as it was the admission and the ease of it.
“That isn’t the point,” I said.
“Then what is?”
I crossed to my desk and stood behind it, not because I needed the barrier but because without it I might have hit him myself. Did he not fucking realize the position he’d put me in? That he’d forced me into a corner?
We should have defended her. Not him.
“The point is the position you’ve put me in.”
“And what position is that?”
He wasn’t going to make this easy on me. “Lance, you attacked Galahad over the prisoner’s virtue,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s what the court will see, and it’s what the other knights will see: that you attacked your fellow Knight of the Round Table to defendour fucking enemy.”
“My reasons were clear.” His jaw was tight, but mine was even tighter.
“Your reasons are the problem, Lance.” I looked at him directly, but when he didn’t comment, I continued. “The point is that you care too much, and that has me concerned.”
“I don’t care too much. I acted...” He paused and took a deep breath. “I acted the same way I would have acted if Galahad had abused any other woman.”
I looked at him. “We both know that’s a lie.” He cleared his throat but didn’t respond, so I continued. “You’ve fallen under her spell just like every man has who gets too close. That’s the truth, and you know it.” I took a breath. “It’s the same fucking thing that’s happened to Tristan, to Percival, and even to Galahad, in some form or another.”