Camelot's Blood Read Online Free

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    â€œIt is my hope you will accept this token from my house to yours.” Laurel signalled Meg to bring her maids forward. Between them, Cryda and Elsa carried a package wrapped in undyed cloth. This Meg unfolded to reveal a garment of saffron-dyed silk stitched over with costly threads in many colours.
    Laurel had carefully questioned Gareth regarding Gododdin’s marriage customs. As it transpired, Gareth had left his home while still a child, and so knew very little first hand. He had, however, told her tradition dictated that the bride give her bridegroom his wedding tunic. So, with patience, if not with enthusiasm, Laurel set about making the garment. She now let Meg lay it across her outstretched arms so that she in turn could give it to Sir Agravain. Its saffron silk had come from Cambryn’s treasury, of the same origin as her blue. She had seen it cut generously, broad-collared, full-sleeved, and long-hemmed. Under her direction, and with her help, it had been richly worked with threads of emerald, scarlet, cobalt and gold, to shape a design of open-winged falcons, which were the sigil of Gododdin’s high house, and of sea waves, the sign of her own.
    Agravain let her lay the garment in his hands. He looked down at this product of so much labour with his closed and shallow gaze. “Again, you honour me, my lady. I thank you.” He bowed once more, and she made an answering curtsey, and then they looked at each other; the pair of them, surrounded by all the glory of Camelot’s court, to be husband and wife before tomorrow was finished, and neither found a single word to say.
    Blessedly, the queen broke the silence before the moment could become truly awkward. She took both Laurel’s hands in hers.
    â€œCome, Laurel, sit with us.”
    So saying, Queen Guinevere led Laurel up the steps of the dais. The servants at once began their complex dance, moving the thrones back to their place of state, bringing the carved chairs for the guests who would eat at the high table. Laurel sat at the queen’s right hand. Agravain sat at the king’s left, after his brother, Gawain. This removal meant further conversation between them would be impossible for the length of the meal. Laurel found she was grateful for this mercy of ceremony. Becoming tongue-tied in front of the entire court had left her shamed. She sat on her softly cushioned chair in uneasy silence while the trestles and boards were brought and the richly embroidered cloths spread for the feast.
    Queen Guinevere always seemed to have the gift of reading thoughts, and Laurel’s were no secret to her. “Do not worry yourself,” murmured the queen, touching Laurel’s hand lightly. “You will find your way.” Other ladies and their lords began to mount the dais, pausing to make their obeisance before they took their place at the high table. “Now, here is one you must meet,” said the queen, brightly. “This is the Lady Risa, wife to our Gawain.”
    Lady Risa was a woman of medium stature, no longer young, but not yet to her middle years. What made her stunning was her red gold hair that hung down to her ankles, woven with gold threads and pearls. The lady looked fair and open, a good match for her husband, but there was, Laurel thought, something delicate about her, a hesitation of movement and smile, perhaps or a faded colour to her eye that made Laurel wonder if she was fully well.
    â€œI am glad to meet you, Lady Laurel,” said Risa as she took her seat. “As we will soon be sisters, it is my great hope we will also be friends.”
    The smile which accompanied these words reached Lady Risa’s eyes, and Laurel dearly hoped this was not simple politeness. She needed friends in this court to which she was about to become even more intimately allied. The fact that as the wife of Sir Gawain, Lady Risa was heir to Guinevere’s swan throne as Gawain was heir to Arthur’s