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When at last you are alone, Arthur sets aside the crown. Setting down the burden gives the king no peace; he crumples in on himself, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. Free for a moment, from the most obvious bonds of kingship. Free to simply be a man in pain.
“Lancelot,” he says. “You have been gone too long.”
Beneath the relief, there is something wounded, something that makes you want to flee, to hide in shame. But the sight of him, worn gold and battered steel before you, is enough to banish that impulse for now.
“I know,” you say, softly.
Riding to Camelot, you passed the great chasm wrent in the earth, where the traitor had turned Arthur’s own sword against him and been slain. Riding to Camelot, you heard a thousand scraps of gossip. The king was dead, they said, putting down a rebellion. The king had fought a great battle with a warrior from a fae realm, risen from the river. The king had been ambushed by Sir Accolon, and fought him in single combat from noon to moonrise. Excalibur was shattered; Excalibur was stolen; Excalibur was sunk in the lake and Arthur’s reign over.
You rode the rest of the distance like a man possessed.
You sit beside him, and reach to ease the tunic from his shoulders, revealing the broad expanse of his back. Your eyes linger on the old scars, a dozen other battles, a thousand scrapes and near-misses. The cycle of a generation of wars, mapped in pale and livid lines across his back.
Your body bears no record; a gift of the Lake and the Lady. You bleed and hurt and have known what it is to be wounded near to death, but when they lay you in the earth, you will be as unscarred as the day you swore your first vows. In your worst moments, those moments of pain, moments of victory, of exhilaration, of defeat seem nothing more than smoke. Illusions conjured by your own whim, fleeting as spring.
But you know each of Arthur’s scars as you know each mile between Caerleon and the Lake; each point of your life and his. Desperate, bloody nights spent watching your new-sworn king bleed into the earth, your steady hands the closest thing to a surgeon. Other, later nights, lying in the king’s pavilion, at the foot of the bed, the vicious thrill of the battle fading to leave your body fever-sensitive, listening to the rasp of the king’s breath.
The fresh scar splits his skin from shoulder blade to hip, cutting a furrow through the other, familiar scars. A mess of gnarled skin. A hiss escapes Arthur’s lips as you brush it with your fingers; he twists further in upon himself, his breath ragged.
“Excalibur,” he murmurs, between gritted teeth.
Tracing the skin beside the scar instead, you follow the furrow as it cuts across Arthur’s skin. The mark of the king’s own blade, used against him, wounding him as Accolon wounded the earth.
“Where were you?”
The question is not an accusation, but the answer is a tangle of thorns in your throat; to unwind it all would leave you wordless and bloodied. “I went to the Lady for a time,” you say. You cannot find the same ease in the Lake that you had in your childhood; you have lived too long in the land of time, of flesh and bone and earth and pain, for the hours to flit into timelessness. Though it left no mark, the blood you spilled for Arthur’s kingdom ties you to it as surely as your love will always lead you back.
Yet you will never belong as Arthur does, tied to the soil and heartsblood and soul of the land. You are a creature between worlds.
Arthur makes a small noise, and looks at you with eyes slitted in pain. Your fingers slow, taking greater care, but you do not stop. If you could heal as your mother can- but your fae gifts stop at your own skin. “Did you find… peace?” Arthur asks.
You still for a moment. “I heard you were wounded,” you say.
A familiar sigh escapes him, and he reaches a hand to touch your cheek. You allow him, leaning a little into the touch.
“I would that I could know your hurt,” he says, his fingers lingering on your face. “I would that I could cure it.”
You smile, leaning back to resume your ministrations. “The kingdom has hurts enough for your worry,” you say.
When at last you reached Camelot, the city was crowded with people, seeking news, seeking assurance, seeking word of a war or a burial or prayers to ward against the bloody ruin either would bring. You saw him from afar, another cloaked pilgrim ahorse amidst the crowd, watching the royal procession from the sidelines. You saw him as they saw him, whole and hale under the sunlight, the triumphant summer-king.
In the cool darkness of his chamber, you can see the shadows that have gathered under his eyes, the way he hangs heavy with pain. Still golden, still beautiful, but the beauty is austere, stripped of vitality.
The words of the half-formed tales you heard on your ride rise and fall through your mind like the notes of a hymn. Accolon, and the wounded earth, and the wounded king. Excalibur, gone. You run your hands over the curve of his shoulders and think of your king returning home in the sun and think of your king returning home on a bier and part of you can see it already.
One day, would those scarred bones be pulled from their tomb of stone and entombed in silver reliquaries, to be kissed and caressed by a thousand reaching hopes, a thousand hearts praying for peace, for hope, for an ease to suffering?
The weight of inevitability settles over your shoulders, like the hand of some great magic set into motion long before you were born. Arthur, your summer-king; Arthur, a saint laid out on bier. And somewhere between, this moment.
Your fingers drift back to the old scars, and Arthur’s shoulders, still twisted by pain. You smooth your hands over his shoulders, trying to steal the sting of the pain with pleasure, working the weary muscles into acquiescence.
When some of the pain has unknit itself from his face, you lean down to rummage through the pack you carried. Trinkets from the Lake, hardly an excuse for your absence, but useful all the same. You draw out a small container, and undo the parchment and thread that kept it safe during your journey.
“The Lady gifted me this on my departure,” you say, to Arthur’s curious glance. “It’s a salve, for scars.”
Arthur’s lips twist into a little smile. “A passing odd gift, for you.”
“Not so, given the company I keep,” you say, taking his shoulder and gently turning his away from you again. You warm the salve between your fingers and something of the Lake in your blood pulls at you. For a moment you can feel it around you; the current of magic, ebbing and flowing with the beat of your blood. A piece of the Lake, with you always.
You begin at the upper edge of his shoulder, where Excalibur bit deep into the strand of muscle. You run your fingers over the tangle of scar tissue, working in the balm. “Was this dressed properly, or did you have to do it yourself, when you were wounded?”
“The sisters… of an abbey. Not their fault.” Arthur bites the words out. “It was… Excalibur, after all.” Arthur’s shoulders tighten, and he leans over, his teeth clamped tight, knuckles white with the effort of not making a noise.
You murmur an apology; he shakes his head. Any pain you bring him he trusts as necessary.
Guilt flickers through you for a moment, guttering like a candleflame against your breastbone. Arthur believes the best of you; where others see you for your flightiness, your unrestrained passions, the way your emotions burn through you and burn you out like a fever, Arthur only sees his dutiful flame of chivalry.
The dutiful flame of chivalry who ran mad through the woods while his king was stripped of his defenses and forced to fight for his life.
“I thought I was not like to return,” you say at last, after he has born the pain as dutifully as he has born everything else set on his shoulders. “When I thought at all. I was scarcely aware of anything, for a time. I know not how I found the Lake, only that I did.” The Lady could not set to right what had been wrenched amiss; but the Lake was home, and Elaine had stolen all the solace from Caerleon.
It is low, perhaps, that you tell him this now, when he has been stripped of all his regal facade, and is vulnerable and in pain. It means he cannot turn and pin you with those golden eyes and make you swear, on your honor, on your life, that you will not abandon your duty again. You are not sure if you are strong enough to keep those oaths. You are not sure if you are strong enough to break them.
He does not speak at first, only reaches back to touch your face again. You lean into the touch, resting your head on his good shoulder carefully. He strokes your hair, gently. Then, softly “You are always free to go, Lancelot.” The words falter, with pain or emotion, or both, and he turns to meet your gaze. “I would- I do- grieve it, but I would not keep you here in unhappiness.”
For a moment, you can almost see yourself as he sees you; his fae-knight, almost untouched by war, almost untouched by age, with the magic of the Lake in his blood and the candle-flicker vibrancy of a fire guttering in the wind.
You say nothing, instead setting the tin of salve aside and leaning forward to wrap your arms around him. You can feel the thump of his heart through his ribs, a steady, reassuring beat. Still alive, still alive. Despite it all.
The two of you remain like that for a time.
You can feel in the way he breathes when the position starts to become uncomfortable. He moves a little easier now, as you unwind yourself from him, but behind his drooping eyelids there’s a dull, almost feverish gleam to his eyes that you don’t care for.
“Will you stay?” he murmurs, as you help him into a robe.
You consider. It is almost the hour at which the queen would be like to join him. It would not be the first time the three of you slept together; you were the king’s most loved knight, and had shared his bed longer than the queen. But the thought of seeing Guinevere, speaking to her, is another tightly-tangled mass of thorns in your throat, and not one you can bear this day.
“Please,” he says.
You relent with a nod, and the two of you prepare for bed in comfortable silence, falling back into old routines.
The weariness of the past days’ ride overtakes you quickly, and you drift off to the sound of Arthur’s measured breathing.
You rouse, for a moment, to the king still awake beside you, running his hands through your hair, and the scent of rose oil and a soft voice murmuring from the doorway. Arthur’s eyes gleam in the moonlight, weariness and strength, and you drift off again as another form settles down beside you and finds her familiar place.