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The battle against the rebel band had been won, peace treaties were being labouriously hammered out, and the celebrations were in full swing. So enthusiastic was the atmosphere, so dizzying had the day been, that all restraint had now abandoned the knights and their companions. Tunes were played on makeshift instruments, an impromptu dance broke out, and all troubles were left to dissipate quietly in the steadily darkening air.
No one paid much mind to the late hour or the increasingly star-flecked sky, and indeed, there was little reason to do so, save for the concerns of a lone man among the company: One Sir Gawain of Orkney, who had just now stumbled and half-collapsed upon the shoulder of his sister-in-law, who was just now calling, in a shrill, sharp voice quite unlike her usual sultry tones, “Linnie? Linnie!” as she, while not an especially muscled woman, attempted to keep him from falling headlong to the floor.
“Linnie”—Linet of Redland and Orkney, properly styled—was summoned from the grim chambers of the injured and relieved her sister of Sir Gawain, who, while more or less conscious, was ashen and shivering.
Linet spoke calmly despite the tense murmurs spreading through the hall: “What’s happened, Gawain? Are you injured?”
“Augh,” said Gawain, and then he fainted properly.
In the interim of his unconsciousness, clarity came from the familial quarter in the form of Gaheris’ explanation that Gawain was neither injured nor properly ill, but rather suffering from something the Orkneys referred to as Sunsickness.
“It happens to him now and then,” Gaheris told Linet as he and Lionel unceremoniously bore the still-unconscious Gawain to his room. “If he’s not careful, he forgets that he’s getting weaker with the sun. Strains himself too far. Heave-to, then.” The last as he and Lionel swung Gawain onto his bed in the manner of a sack of potatoes. Gaheris patted his slumbering brother’s shoulder affectionately. “He’s a fine warrior and a good man, our Gawain is,” he said. “But he’s a bit of a clodpole besides.”
☄☄☄
It was decided that Agravaine—having sprained his wrist prior to the battle and being consequently even more useless than usual—would stay with Gawain while the others attended to the wounded and finalised the last details of the treaty. Gawain slept nearly a full day, and in the late afternoon of the following day, the only indication of awareness that Agravaine could see was the twitching of Gawain’s fingers. He watched until he was certain that Gawain wasn’t about to admit his awakeness without prompting.
“I know you’re awake,” Agravaine said eventually. “It’s no good pretending you’re not.” Gawain made no answer save for a movement behind his still-closed eyelids that may well have been an eye-roll. “It’s your own fault you’re laid up like this, so there’s no use in sulking.”
“Oh, do piss off for once, Ag,” Gawain mumbled, and Agravaine did fall silent for a moment, not because of his brother’s request but rather because of the use of the childhood nickname seldom heard anymore, it having been discarded along with his Orcadian accent which had faded after much muttered practicing, along with the raging fights that he and Gawain used to have which had been replaced by well-placed barbs and bitter looks.
Gawain said nothing more, and Agravaine sat and watched him for a minute or two, noting the tension in his mouth and the paleness of his usually ruddy cheeks.
“Is it very bad?” he asked tentatively.
Gawain finally opened his eyes and scrubbed at them with his knuckles. “It’s not good, certainly,” he said, which was, perhaps, the best that could be hoped for.
☄☄☄
Agravaine remembered—likely they both remembered—the first time Gawain’s Sunsickness had left them in serious trouble. They’d swum out to the sandbar in the evening. Agravaine didn’t know why they’d gone so late in the day. He had been little: Eight or nine. Gawain must’ve been near ten.
Agravaine didn’t remember why they went out to the sandbar that evening. He didn’t remember if their Da had struck Gawain, or him. He didn’t remember if their Mam had been calling on some unknown dark spirits. He didn’t remember if Gawain had been afraid when they set out, because in his memory Gawain was never afraid. In his memory, Gawain was almost always laughing and if not laughing, then he was angry.
But that night stuck in his memory, because it was the first time he ever saw Gawain truly frightened. He remembered, stark and clear as he stood on the sandbar, the moment he saw the sun dip below the skyline, the moment when the light was more starlight than sunlight. He remembered looking to Gawain and seeing him stumble as if even the light eddies of water that lapped against his ankles was too much to stand against.
Ag, said Gawain in his memory. Swim back.
Agravaine, in his memory, could do nothing but stare at Gawain, head cocked.
Go, Gawain said, and his voice sounded suddenly raw, scraping along his throat as if he could hardly get it out. You’ll have to go back alone. I won’t make it.
But the tide was coming in, and the sandbar would be too far underwater to stand on soon. Agravaine wanted to tell Gawain so, but the words stuck in his throat as his child’s mind lost its footing and understood eternity. That is to say, for the first time Agravaine understood that there could be a world without his brother, and the thought— he’s never coming back —paralysed him. He stood on the sandbar with water covering his feet, unable to speak or move or cry.
And all the while, Gawain, the sun at ten years old, was saying Go, go! You’ll have to go on without me, I can’t go back, don’t be stupid, Ag! And all the while, Gawain was telling him to go away.
☄☄☄
Linet appeared with her curls attempting to escape the scarf she’d tied over them and a tremendous scowl on her face. “Have you been giving him water?” she demanded. Agravaine retreated a little in his seat as he shook his head. Truthfully, his sister-in-law still frightened him. “Egads!” she snapped as she stormed to the pitcher in the corner. “Do you want him to die? Is that it? Here—” She shoved a cup brimming with water into Agravaine’s hands. “A cup, every quarter-hour. Oh, and—” Her fury momentarily suspended, she rummaged through the many, many pockets that she’d sewn to her apron. She found the vial she was searching for in time, and presented it to Agravaine with a triumphant scowl. “Ginger tincture. A few drops of that. Do try not to kill him.”
And with that, she was off like a storm with Gaheris trailing in her wake with her medicine bag, sparing his brothers an easy smile and a wave.
Agravaine and Gawain were silent for a moment. “Well,” Gawain said eventually. “She’s certainly…efficient.” Agravaine snorted, and the moment very well might have been a nice one, had not Gawain, oozing forced casualty, followed it with, “So, speaking of the Redland ladies, how’s Laurel?”
The room seemed to fill with empty noise. Agravaine set the cup and tincture on the table by Gawain’s bed in order to have something to do with his hands. “She’s alright,” he said, throat tight.
He could feel Gawain watching him, so he stood and walked about the room with no particular destination in mind. His face and neck were hot. He didn’t like to be reminded of how badly he had failed.
Gawain sighed as if this was his own burden. “Gaheris and I were talking—”
“Oh, of course Gaheris would have opinions on it.” Agravaine heard how venomous his voice had become. He did nothing to curb it. “Oh, yes, he’s the damned authority on a virtuous marriage, is he? With a half-mad wife, sitting on his arse on the land that should be yours, pretending that he’s no coward when he could hardly hold his own against a squire—Isn’t he the man to put in his opinion on my marriage, my life—”
“That’s enough, Agravaine.” Gawain’s voice had gone low, though Agravaine didn’t know if it was on account of his anger or because the effort to speak louder would have exhausted him. He stared at the flagstones, feeling his face burn and his breath hot and shallow in his chest.
☄☄☄
He had tried with Laurel. Truly, he had.
Agravaine had always assumed that he would be able to love the maid he was told to. He would have his time of merry-making, his time of bedding scullery maids and wasting lustful glances on married women. Even when it wasn’t always women, even when he could not wrench his eyes away from the sunlight in Lamorak’s hair, even when a part of him desperately liked it when his opponent at some tourney or another knocked him down and pinned him there—even then, Agravaine found enough reasonable doubt that he believed he would someday marry a beautiful maiden and be perfectly normal.
And someone had been found for him to marry—some relation of Linet and Lyonesse’s—and while she was not half as fair as Lyonesse, she was also not half so much of a bitch as Linet, so really, Agravaine should have counted himself lucky.
He was not as poor a husband as he could have been. In fact, he was rather upstanding by his own estimation, at least in some matters. He did not beat her or seek pleasure in other beds. He did not shout or rail at her, nor speak of her unkindly—And therein was, perhaps, the heart of the matter: He had very little to say about Laurel.
She was pretty enough. Charming. Talented, certainly, with the loom and the mandolin. He had thought at first that this meant that he would be able to fall in love with her, or at least give her a child and keep up appearances.
Yet Agravaine could not summon any feeling for her. He knew that he ought to at least pretend, but it felt cheap. He felt nothing for Laurel, nothing beyond vague, friendly sentiments. He felt himself creating distance, speaking to her as seldom as possible, spending time away from home whenever possible. He felt himself grow increasingly bored with her.
Still, it had not seemed too great an issue until Linet and Gaheris came to visit. Linet had been delighted to see her cousin, and paid little mind to Agravaine, but he could feel Gaheris watching him all evening.
Do you like your new bride well enough? he’d asked after dinner.
Agravaine had shrugged. Well enough.
No better?
A pause. He at least had the decency to pause. No better.
Is she happy?
He answered truthfully: I’ve no idea.
Are you happy?
He had not answered at all.
☄☄☄
“You haven’t done right by her, and you know that,” Gawain said, sounding every bit as self-righteous and overbearing as a mother scolding her child.
“Please,” Agravaine scoffed. “It’s not as if you even have a wife anymore.”
Gawain’s face didn’t move; rather, it seemed to freeze over and solidify into a clay mask. “I’ll thank you to leave Dame Ragnelle out of this,” he said.
His words had the opposite of their intended effect; Agravaine saw the weak place and went after it with banners flying. “She left you, and yet you sit here and preach as if I should do what you couldn’t and make someone fall in love.” He paused for a second, and heard the wretched silence his words had left. He took a sharp breath before continuing, as if he was diving from a cliff. “She didn’t love you, and I don’t love Laurel, and that’s that .”
For a second, Agravaine felt genuine power in his body. For a second, he felt a hundred feet tall. He felt as Gawain must feel at noon.
And then the cup hit him squarely in the chest.
“Ow!” he shrieked as the cup bounced off him and shattered on the floor. He gaped from the pottery shards on the ground to Gawain, white-faced and sitting up in bed. “You were supposed to drink that!”
“Fuck you and fuck the cup,” Gawain said, but the rage was gone and his breathing was laboured. “Ouch,” he said faintly as he lowered himself back to the pillow.
Shaking off his shock, Agravaine moved back to sit with Gawain. He was lying down now, with one hand over his eyes and his lips parted. His breath still came hard, and his face was pale. Agravaine saw beads of sweat on his forehead.
“Sorry,” Agravaine said softly. “I didn’t mean to bring her up. I shouldn’t have.”
“No,” Gawain said. “No, you shouldn’t have. But it’s alright. You’re right. She’s gone.”
“Sorry,” said Agravaine again, for want of something more useful.
Gawain swallowed and sat up again, looking marginally better. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, though he wouldn’t look at Agravaine. “It doesn’t matter.” He was silent as he contemplated the middle distance. Then, shaking his head, he dragged his gaze back to Agravaine. “But we weren’t talking about her,” he said. “We were talking about you. And Laurel.”
“Right.” He felt his left hand twisting in on itself, the remnants of an old habit of picking at his nails until he bled. Gawain saw the movement too, and darted out a hand to slap him. Agravaine folded his hands and tried to calm his mind. “I don’t love her,” he said, and even he was a little alarmed by the coldness and certainty with which he spoke.
“I don’t ask you to be madly in love with her,” Gawain said. “No one can command that. But could you not at least be friends? Not two strangers living in the same house. Anyone deserves more than that in a husband.”
“What business is it of yours, anyway?” he asked, though he struggled to summon any real anger.
Gawain looked at him until he looked away. “You are my kin,” he said. “Neither of us can change that. As hard as it may be for you to believe it, Ag, I do want you to be happy.”
Agravaine tried to summon a response, but all he managed was a shake of his head. They were both silent for a while. “The trouble is,” Agravaine said eventually, “I thought I would love her. Someday. Believe me, I’m as disappointed as you are.” He could feel Gawain watching him, so he focused on the window. The sun was nearing the horizon. “I’ve gotten very close to falling in love a few times,” he said. “I think the trouble with me is that I never quite manage it.”
He saw movement in the corner of his eyes and instinctively slid back, his hands flying up defensively. Gawain was frozen at the edge of the bed with his arms outstretched. He stared at Agravaine with open-mouthed betrayal.
“‘Sblood, man, did you think I was going to hit you?” he snapped.
Heart still pounding from his startlement, not fully recovered from the cup ordeal, Agravaine could hardly speak. “I don’t know!” he sputtered. “You were moving quickly—I wasn’t expecting—”
“I was going to give you a hug!” Gawain let his arms flop to his sides and puffed out a long-suffering sigh. Then he lifted his arms again. “Come here.”
Agravaine was unaccustomed to embraces. He could go days without touching anyone in anything but a passing brush. Yet there was something familiar and baked into his memory about a hug from Gawain. He could never rid himself of his family. He knew it well.
“There’s no trouble with you,” Gawain said softly. Gentle, though his voice still sounded pained. “You’re a good man, Ag.” He held on a second longer, and then moved back. As he did, he let out a hiss of pain, and Agravaine grimaced sympathetically.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” he said.
Gawain’s face was twisted with pain, but he still managed a nonchalant shrug. “I’ve had worse,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” said Agravaine, rendered unusually devastated by the multiple upsets of the evening. “I’m sorry it hurts you now, and I’m sorry—I was thinking of that time on the sandbar.”
“The sandbar?” His face momentarily clouded over, and when he came back his eyes were a little sadder. “Ah. When we got caught out there. Jesu, I don’t know what I was thinking. Shouldn’t have brought you along, certainly. I should’ve known you wouldn’t go back. You were always too brave for your own good.”
Agravaine felt his stomach twist. “I didn’t stay because I was brave. I was too frightened to go back alone.”
Gawain snorted. “Like hell you were. You were a proper fish in the water. You said you wouldn’t go back if I wasn’t going. You were the one who shouted till old Angus picked us up in his fishing boat.” He let out a breath, shaky. “We were damn lucky. I was damn lucky you didn’t leave—I couldn’t get out anything louder than a whisper.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Agravaine remembered it like his tongue was pasted to the roof of his mouth. “I don’t remember saying anything.”
Gawain shrugged. “It’s just what I remember,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. We both survived. And now—” He slipped back under the blanket and looked up at Agravaine with a smile that nearly became a grimace of pain. “I’d recommend you steal down to the kitchens for another cup, or our formidable sister-in-law might have your head for letting me waste away.”
Agravaine debated insisting on his own guilt, on asking for help or reassurance or damnation, or begging for some great change to occur, for Gawain to deliver him from whatever his life had become in the journey from Ag to Agravaine and back—But in the end, he doubted there was anything to be delivered to, that this was all there was, and that, in the end, it was better to settle for simple things like going downstairs to find a cup to give his brother water, and so he went.