Chapter Text
People said things about Sir Gawain of Orkney and Lothian. Mainly they said “good morning,” or “thank you,” or “I hope you have a nice day,” because those were the things you said to someone whose back could be maligned but whose face could not. But, when he was most decidedly not stalking the halls of Camelot, they said other things. The word kinslayer got bandied about quite a bit, sometimes coupled with kingslayer, which wasn’t any better.
The fact that Arthur had knighted him despite committing patricide and regicide at the same time was a point of contention for the more cautious members of the court. “He wasn’t good enough for the kingship,” Sir Bedivere said once, where no one could hear him but Kay the seneschal, “so why is he good enough for knighthood?”
Kay didn’t know. No one knew exactly what under-the-table dealings had gone on after Lot’s eldest son had shown up in the military tent with a burlap sack and a promise of allegiance, but Arthur had left as liege-lord of the Orkneys and Lothian, Gawain had left as Sir Gawain, and his younger brother Aggravaine had left as the king in the north.
When Lancelot arrived on the scene, fresh from the rumorless, ignorant waterways of Occitania, no one had given him a guide book to Camelot’s byzantine internal politics. No one had taken him aside and pointed out the woman to King Arthur’s right who wore her royal circlet like a crown of thorns, and certainly no one had explained what it meant that, when left to her own devices, she sat to the side with the man in the green doublet.
But he figured it out quick enough on his own-- that was the thing no one realised about him. He had been at Camelot for several months, watching and learning, before he did anything that inspired people to learn his name. So he saw clearly the way that people walked, how they parted around the queen and her friend like water around a sharp rock in the river. And, in the neatly-kept pages of his mind, he took notes.
People were very polite to the both of them. King Arthur never went against his queen, never questioned her decrees, and for all she sat at his left hand she controlled the right as well.
Sir Gawain-- for that was the name of the strange man whom no one looked in the eyes-- was the king’s eldest nephew, but not his heir. He was the commander of a host of brothers and several cousins, some of whom were kings in their own right. It had been something of a shock to Lancelot when he had discovered that Sir Aggravaine, the king of the Orkneys and Lothian, was not in fact Sir Gawain’s elder brother but his younger. Why this was the case was not something anyone wanted to discuss, but Lancelot was patient.
The only people who held their ground against Queen Guinevere were the seneschal Sir Kay and the war marshal Sir Bedivere. The two of them, often seen in each other’s company, presented an inseparable front when addressing the duo Lancelot was rapidly coming to think of as Camelot’s sharks in the water, primed for blood. What exactly it was that had split the four of them into rival camps, Lancelot did not yet know, but he could only imagine it had something to do with the nervous way people watched Sir Gawain’s hands anytime they drifted near his sword hilt.
Sir Gawain was never sent on quests, but he did disappear on occasion.
He had once overheard the most curious conversation between a pair of kitchen maids. They hadn’t noticed him. People didn’t tend to notice him, not if he wanted to be quiet. Over the sound of washing dishes, one of their voices had faded into audibility: “...and you know,” she was saying, “Sir Gawain would have been a king by now if he hadn’t tried to take it too early. That’s what comes of going against the order of things.” More water bubbled. Then the other spoke. “That’s not what I heard. I heard he killed his father to protect his mother. Look what came of it, though. She’s exiled, isn’t she?” Well, she wasn’t at Camelot, that was for certain.
The queen had been kidnapped, which was not, on the whole, particularly good for the kingdom. She should have had a horde of rescuers. King Arthur should have ridden out on principle alone to retrieve her, or Sir Kay. Neither of them did. Instead, Sir Kay turned to Sir Gawain with a raised eyebrow, an unasked question hovering on his lips.
Sir Gawain took a sip of wine. “She’ll be fine.”
Everyone waited.
“Well,” he followed up eventually, placing his empty chalice on the table in front of him, “I’ll take care of the mess.” And he left.
No one noticed as Lancelot saddled his horse and rode after him. It was raining outside, the wind whipping through the trees and tossing branches to the ground in his wake. Tracking Sir Gawain was more difficult than he expected it to be, but not impossible. Fording the river was also not impossible. What was impossible was the way that Gringolet’s hoofprints faded into nothing once Camelot had disappeared from view.
Unsettled, Lancelot stopped. He was not a man prone to fear. Horses were also not prone to disappearing into thin air, so he accorded himself some leeway in this situation. It was raining, but not enough to wash away tracks. He spun around.
“You’re that man from Occitania, aren’t you?” said Sir Gawain curiously. He was seated on his horse as though nothing was unusual in the situation. “Sir Lancelot?”
This was insulting to his stealth, but flattering to his person. There was no point in dissembling. “Yes. I thought you might want backup.”
“I don’t, but that’s very nice of you.” His horse pawed at the dirt, leaving no indent. It was hard to leave an indent when you were standing several inches above the ground. “I’ll take companionship, though. Why are you so partial to the queen?”
“Um,” said Lancelot, who was not quick at thinking on his feet and thought picking your allies seemed somewhat impolitic, or rather, too politic entirely. “She seems nice.”
There was laughter at this. “Well, we can all seem. Ride with me? I’ll make it worth your while.”
In the rain, Sir Gawain’s eyes glinted with more warmth than the pale sky. Lancelot didn’t know what to make of a comment like that, and opted for conservative. “I don’t want money.”
“Well, that’s fortunate, I don’t have any. Unless I steal it from my brother, which wouldn’t be very brotherly.” He paused. “You’re staring.”
“Your horse is flying,” said Lancelot politely.
“Oh,” Gawain said, glancing down as though he had only just realised this, “he does that. Never break a taboo, Sir Lancelot. Killing a father, killing a king-- I don’t know how things are in France, but in the North curses are very much real. Kinslayers are less than human, they say. Well, they’re right. Nothing useful. But sometimes my horse floats. You know how it is.”
“I do,” said Lancelot, who had been raised underwater and had a magic ring. “Shouldn’t we be hurrying to save the queen?”
Thunder rumbled. “Hurrying to save Meleagant might be more accurate. Are you sparing of life, Sir Lancelot?”
“Whose?”
“Oh, that’s an answer. But you’re right, if we’re to make progress before dark we should leave. I am sure this will be quite the adventure. I cannot wait to make your acquaintance.”
And, with the rain hissing down like fire and night closing upon them, they rode.