'Not so pretty now, eh?' he said, by way of greeting.
Katherine looked away. 'Beauty belongs on the inside as much as it does on the outside, my lord,' she mumbled, eyes downcast.
He barked out an abrasive laugh. 'Then perhaps this,' he touched his cheek, 'is my ugliness clawing its way out. Or maybe if you kiss me I shall transform into a handsome prince?'
She had no answer for that: no coy smile, no batted eyelashes, no flirtatious offer to make a man of him.
'I thought not.'
He left her at the well.
A young girl ran up to him, a chain of daisies in her hands and a summer flower tucked behind her ear. He turned, snarling, but was stopped by her pretty little face, so full of happiness and excitement. He reached out to take the daisy chain and looked down at them, the perfect little flowers on his scarred palm, and as he did, the little girl caught sight of his face. Her breath caught in her throat, but she did not scream or run away from him. She seemed oddly fascinated by him. There was something uncannily familiar about the child, although he had never seen her before.
The daisy chain slipped through his fingers. Alymere stooped quickly, picking the flowers up from the dirt before they were ruined, and slipped the chain over his head. He smiled his thanks, earning an uncertain smile before he kissed the centre of her forehead and sent her back to play with the others. Rather than being frightened, she seemed delighted. He listened to her as she skipped away, singing the refrain of a madrigal he vaguely recognised. He caught the words 'Kingdom of Summer,' before she was too far away for him to hear the rest of her song.
He looked down at his left arm where Blodyweth's favour was tied around his bicep, and for just a moment, perhaps, the lost Alymere might have reached up from the darkness where the Devil had cast him, but then the moment was gone.
He rolled his shoulders and stretched before continuing the short walk across the bailey to the keep's doors.
No-one got in his way.
The two guards standing sentry over the main doors didn't block his entry into the castle itself. They looked at him from head to toe before lowering their pikes and stepping aside to let him through. They offered no hint of recognition.
He nodded to them.
He was back. It wasn't the allotted two years and a day, but with both Lowick and Roth dead, there was no- one left to see to his training. And besides, he was more of a man now than they had ever been, he thought bitterly.
His footsteps echoed hollowly through the passageways of the place.
He heard the strains of music — a piper — filling the distance. It was a pleasant enough tune, if made rather funerary in the echoing halls. The castle had not changed. He knew where he was going without knowing where he was headed; he paused at the stairway that led up to the aviary where he had first met the king, turned and set off in the direction of the great hall.
The huge double doors groaned heavily on their iron hinges as he opened them. He hesitated a moment on the threshold, as though unsure he could enter the heart of Albion, but then he smiled without warmth and strode into the hall. He felt himself growing in stature with every step as he marched down the aisle toward the Round Table.
He was no longer a child. He was Alymere, Killer of Kings.
There was nothing left of the young man he had been.
He commanded the chamber in a way that Sir Bors never could.
This time he was not awed by the kite shields hanging on the walls. He didn't care that the devices belonged to Sir Dodinal le Savage and the brothers Sir Balan and Sir Balin, Sir Helian le Blanc, Sir Clariance, Sir Plenorius, Sir Sadok, Sir Agravaine of Orkney and Sir Ywain of Gore or any of the other brother knights. His own device would sit amongst them soon enough, once they took down Lowick's leaping stag. He only had eyes for a single seat at the table, the Siege Perilous.12 His face twisted from a smile into something approaching a sneer as he walked towards it, determined to break whatever bond the sorcerer, Merlin, had set upon it and claim it for himself.
It was only the first of many things he intended to claim, including Camelot itself and, in time, the kingdom beyond its walls.
He knelt at the foot of the chair, as though in worship, and pressed his hands flat against the cold stone floor. He could feel the power of the earth flowing through the stones, the sheer thrill of it coursing through his veins. His expression as his head came up had passed beyond supplication into the realms of adoration. The weight of the book and the Chalice, wrapped carefully and stowed in his pack, pulled on his back; the chair was the heart of the chamber, which in turn was the heart of the castle, which in turn was the heart of Albion, making the Siege Perilous the centre of all things — and there was magic in the symmetry of that.
Alymere breathed it in, and then rose to his feet.
He reached out for the chair, though whether to steady himself or claim it for his own it was impossible to say — but before he could lay a hand upon it, a voice rang out across the chamber. 'You think to claim the seat even before you take the Oath?' The quiet question reverberated in the stone hall. 'Did your time with Lowick teach you nothing then?' Arthur's voice was resigned, almost wistful.
Alymere wheeled on his king, snatching his hand back, and for the second it took for him to master his face, his eyes burned.
'No my liege,' he said, forcing himself to sound meek. 'I was overcome, sire. It is an extraordinary thing, is it not?'
'It is.'
'It is not often in my life that I have come face-to-face with something worthy of legend. My apologies.'
For a moment he was sure the king would not be so easily mollified, but he need not have worried.
'I heard about your uncle,' Arthur said.
'Anyone would think I was cursed,' Alymere said.
'Not words to say lightly, b-' he had been about to say
Alymere's smile was genuine. 'It is safe to say I am not the man I was.'
'That is good to hear. So, tell me then? There is much I would hear.'
And so, for the best part of an hour, the king and the Devil sat side-by-side in the great hall of Camelot, while the Devil spun a tale as full of lies as any that had ever been spoken.
It began in the snows of the borderland and the reivers' pillaging as they sought their prize, the Black Chalice, the Devil's Grail.
The Devil remembered lying in the snow with the maiden, making promises to save the world, and could not help but smile at his naivety. The very best lies had their roots in the truth. He tapped the intense love that had fired Alymere's soul, his fear for Arthur and Camelot, and his desire to be a true man, and used it as the foundation for his lies. What fiercer passion could there be to fire the memory of Medcaut's inferno and the slaughter of the monks at the hands of the reivers? He touched his ruined cheek once during the entire telling but otherwise barely mentioned his injuries, highlighting the knightly qualities a true champion of the unfortunate ought to have. The lies he told may have mirrored the path Alymere had walked, but where each step had in truth led him deeper into darkness, he retold it now as something heroic.
It was the classic quest against insurmountable odds, where, still, somehow, the hero returned with the spoils, the day saved. More than that, it was what the king wanted to hear. Arthur sat silently, attentive.
The king wanted to believe that his judgment had been right — that, in sending Alymere off to learn from Lowick he had made a man of him — so Alymere gave him what he wanted, a tale filled with damsels in distress and selfless heroism, burning buildings, battles to the death, honour, and, at the end, the triumph of good. He
