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Overview
Love finds a way in this epic series featuring swords, sorcery, and the women of Camelot.
The daughter of the steward of Cambryn, Lynet has seen the damage that following one’s heart can do. Now the threat of war looms over her land. Desperately searching for a way to restore peace to her home and honor to her family, Lynet and her sister decide that Lynet will seek the help of the last heir to the ancient royal house of Cambryn: the High Queen Guinevere.
In Camelot, Gareth, squire of Sir Lancelot, is filled with pride and swagger. But when a potential war calls Queen Guinevere to Cambryn, Gareth finds himself in the company of a young woman who has no patience for his shows of bravado, and for the first time in his life Gareth finds himself with something real to prove.
The love growing between Gareth and Lynet is undeniable, but so is the danger into which they are drawn. Only if they come to terms with their pasts and learn to trust again will they be able to overcome the festering darkness threatening to consume them both.
Praise for the Queens of Camelot series
“High fantasy at its best.” —SFF on Lynet: Under Camelot’s Banner
“This novel delivers passion, danger, and excitement laced with fantasy.” —RT Book Reviews on Risa: In Camelot’s Shadow
“A spellbinding journey.” —BookLoons Reviews on Elen: For Camelot’s Honor
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504057783 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 04/09/2019 |
| Series: | The Queens of Camelot , #3 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 553 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
About the Author
Sarah Zettel is the critically acclaimed author of more than twenty novels, spanning the full range of genre fiction. Her debut novel, Reclamation, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her second release, Fool’s War, was a 1997 New York Times Notable Book, and the American Library Association named Playing God one of the Best Books for Young Adults of 1999. Her novel Bitter Angels won the Philip K. Dick Award for best science fiction paperback in 2009. Her latest novel, Dust Girl, was named as one of the best young adult books of the year by both Kirkus Reviews and the American Library Association. Zettel lives in Michigan with her husband, her rapidly growing son, and her cat, Buffy the Vermin Slayer.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Lynet Carnbrea stood beside her siblings atop the watchtower in the first light of spring's chill dawn, listening to the bishop proclaim the holy words, and trying not to shiver.
"For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills!" Bishop Austell's voice rang out in the crystalline air of dawn, lovingly drawing out the long and stately Latin. "A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil, olive and honey!"
It was crowded on the watchtower's heights, with Lynet, her brother, Colan, their older sister, Laurel, Father Lucius to hold the Holy Writ, and the bishop to declaim the verse. Laurel tucked a strand of pale hair back under her hood and pressed close to Lynet so they might better share their warmth. The salt winds whipped around their heads, forcing their way under fur-lined hoods, woolen cloaks, and even between laces and seams. At the horizon, the sun's light stretched out red and gold above the distant moor. She could just barely make out the glowing remains of the bonfires that had burned all night. Men and women still moved sluggishly around the pools of glowing coals. They stretched, they embraced, some still danced, having tread the fires down to ash already.
Day had come, spring had come. The waters were clear of ice, and all the world would live again. In other places this rite was not held until the first of May. But in the land above the river Camel, their rite was for the thaw when the river ran free of ice and the tinning could begin again.
Every spring, Lynet had come up here with her family to greet the dawn and hear the call to work the turning of the year and the quickening of the season.
They were a widely varied group, the children of Steward Kenan and Lady Morwenna. Laurel, the oldest of them, was so pale she might have been a wraith of dawn. Her braid of white-gold hair hung over the shoulder of her substantial brown cloak and the warming morning light shone in her pale green eyes. Colan, Lynet's long-limbed, sparsely bearded brother was darker than Laurel, but not by much. He stood with one foot on the parapet, looking over the rocky country that spread around them. His hair was tarnished brass, and where Laurel's eyes were as green as the sunlit sea, his were like that same sea under a storm cloud. Indeed, there were those who said that it was not Steward Kenan who had fathered these children, but one of the morverch, the people of the sea. No one, however, said it where the steward could hear.
Of them all, only Lynet resembled their solid father. Like him, her hair was a rich chestnut, her eyes summer hazel and her skin golden in the winter and brown in the summer.
Steward Kenan did not stand with his children this morning, and Lynet found her gaze drifting toward the west, toward Tintagel where he had gone.
How do you fare, my father? she wondered. What do you speak of with King Mark? Does he speak to you at all?
Bishop Austell drew in a final breath and cried, "A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. Amen!"
The prayer shook Lynet out of her thoughts, and she was grateful. She had no wish at all to dwell on what might, or might not, be happening at Tintagel. Beside her, Colan raised his great hunting horn and blew long and hard, sending the curling note out across the countryside. When the last echo died away, the bishop smote the stones with his crook and called out, "Rise up! Rise up! Rise up, all you men! Rise up, all you women! The waters run clear, and the Lord of All the Earth calls you forth!"
In this fashion, Bishop Austell led them all down the tower's twisting stairs: Father Lucius and the great Bible first, then Laurel, Colan and Lynet. Together, they marched out into the sprawling cluster of dwellings that formed the castell called Cambryn.
"Rise up!" they cried. "Rise up, you men! Rise up, you women! The Lord of All the Earth calls you forth!"
Cambryn had grown out of the soil over many generations. The paths between the stone and thatch houses with their little courtyards spread out like old roots. They delved into earth and stone to reach the cellars and storage chambers that were also hiding places in times of war or great storm. Then they pushed up to meet the great timbered hall with its central tower, second story and roof of pale slate.
Any other morning, if someone had marched through the castell bellowing at the top of his lungs, the people would have risen slowly from their beds, rubbed the sleep from their eyes and cursed them mightily. Not this morning. Cambryn's folk surged out of their houses, beating sticks, pots, kettles, stones, whatever might add to the joyful riot of noise. Some wore holly crowns on their heads, or the first of the snowdrops tucked into belts and hoods. Some hoisted leathern bottles of strong drink. Children skipped between their elders, adding their own piping voices to the racket. The bishop's cry was fast drowned out by the song taken up by each and every new voice.
"Rise up, all you women!
"All in your gowns of green!
"Rise up and greet the morning!
"Rise up for Heaven's Queen!"
Another procession snaked down from the heath. This one carried the king and queen of the day hoisted high on two chairs. It was Deane and Nance this year. Both strong and fair, they had been clad in loose robes of red and green. Garlands of holly and ribbons twined in their hair and about their waists. Each carried a stave decked with tin bells that they shook to add to the clamor. They clasped hands over the heads of the crowd, their faces flushed with dance and drink and celebration. There was some noise that they'd been out the night before, not merely treading the fires down to bring luck and health, but observing an older practice which would stretch the bishop's patience to its limit. The thought made Lynet's own spine stiffen, but she prayed they'd come to their senses, and the altar, if that were so.
"Rise up, all you young men!
"All in your tunics red!
"Rise up and greet the morning!
"Greet the Lord of All the Earth ..."
The procession descended the steep river valley. They stormed into the forest, their singing shaking the branches that made a living roof overhead and causing the birds to cry out in angry response to this racket. At last they reached their destination. Up ahead, the river Camel ran chattering down the rocky hillside, as clear and cold as the morning around them. The weirs and sluices waited open and empty. The great kettles of ale that had been warming all night with wrinkled crab apples bobbing in the amber brew stood on the bank. The ale's smell hung heavy in the air, mingling with the scent of the warm bread that had been brought down from the hall.
Lynet's stomach growled, but she hung back with the others, waiting for Bishop Austell. The sturdy churchman marched into the stream. As the frigid water lifted up his robe's hems and swirled around his knees, he raised his holly-twined crook once more.
"For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands — happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee," he cried. "Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house — thy children like olive plants round about thy table! Behold! That thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord!"
Laurel stepped forward, took up a ladle full of the warm ale from the nearest kettle and passed it to the bishop. He poured a long libation into the river waters, and then drank down the rest himself. When he had emptied the dipper, he lifted up his head, ale still dripping down his beard. Lynet then moved to stand beside her sister, handing Bishop Austell a honied cake from the basket of breads. He crumbled the cake into the river.
"In nomine Patris, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctu." Bishop Austell drew the sign of the cross over all.
At this sign, the folk of Cambryn surged forward, lowering their festival king and queen to receive their own offerings. Laurel refilled the ladle so they might drink. Lynet popped pieces of sweet, sticky cake into their mouths. With each motion the crowd roared its approval. Deane and Nance kissed again, clasped their hands and shook their bells. The folk cheered once more and planted the king's and queen's chairs on the riverside, so "their majesties" could oversee the work and celebration, and give blessing or pass judgment on what they saw. The rest of the folk danced in and out of the river, barefoot, never minding the cold. They swung their shrieking, giggling children from bank to bank. Lynet and Laurel remained by the massive kettles and baskets, offering food and drink to all who demanded it. The people kissed and laughed and partook eagerly of what was offered.
In the midst of this revelry, the men stripped off their shirts, took up their picks, and began attacking the ragged hillside, loosening great chunks of earth and stone down into the sluices and the baskets. There were not as many of them as there had been in years past. War and raiders had carried off husbands and sons alike. So a number of the goodwives and their daughters waded into the stream beside their men, their hems tucked into their waistbands so they could wield the baskets and the sieves.
Colan stepped briskly up for his ale and his cake. He gave Lynet a broad wink before he stripped naked to the waist and waded into the river with the rest of the men. He'd toil beside them all day, adding his sweat to the libations already offered for the river, the tin, and God's blessing.
The great sieves rattled as hands shook them hard, sifting out the dirt and the dust. Then, one woman dipped her hand in and pulled out a rock with silver flecks that glinted in the rising sun. The first of the ore had been found.
Another mighty cheer went up. The festival king and queen kissed long and lustily. Lynet added her voice to the cheering and raised a dripping ladle. Bishop Austell drank deep once more, and Lynet sipped. The brew was warm and welcome, but she had only had opportunity to eat a mouthful of bread as of yet, and she did not need the strong drink's dizziness added to the effects of a sleepless night.
All at once, a man's voice rose up over all the clamor and the laughter. The tone of command and warning was so clear and so different from the merry riot about them that all went silent in an instant.
On top of the fell stood a small host of men, ten in number, Lynet counted. Two on horseback, the rest on foot. She did not know any one of them. All of them were dirty and windblown. Their hair stuck but in all directions where it was not braided tight, and travel had heavily stained their dull woolen cloaks. The men on horseback had swords and knives at their belts, and those on foot carried pole-arms that had been used at least as hard as the men.
The two leaders rode their horses forward to the very edge of the hillside.
"We seek the steward of Cambryn!" boomed the right-hand man. He had the coloring of a fall fox, all dark red hair with keen black eyes. His chin was stubbled by only a traveler's scrubby beard, but his mustaches hung down almost to his waist.
Colan, soaked to the knees, his dripping arms filthy with mud, straightened up. He surveyed these newcomers, and saw, Lynet was sure, how they all went armed.
"Steward Kenan is not here," he said. "He has gone to Tintagel to take counsel with King Mark."
Discreet of you, brother, thought Lynet, half with admiration and half with irony. Gone to plead more like, and all Mark's other vassals with him.
"I am Lord Colan, the steward's son, and I stand here for him at this time." He hoisted himself out of the stream, mustering what dignity he could, filthy, dripping, and half-naked as he was. "I do bid you welcome, Chief Mesek Kynhoem, and you, Chief Peran Treanhal."
Kynhoem. Treanhal. Now she could place these men. Their peoples lived to the north and east on Cambryn's borders. They lived by their kyne mostly, growing some small crops to feed the beasts and themselves. They did come up from the moors from time to time, to trade and reaffirm their loyalties to the steward and the absent queen. There had been trouble between them recently, she remembered hearing. A raiding that had left some men dead. But she thought the blood-price had been settled before Lord Kenan had left. What brought them here now?
The second man, Peran Treanhal, was the taller of the two. His brown hair was thin on top, letting his speckled pate show through, but still long enough behind to make a stout braid that hung down his back. His hawklike face had been horribly burned on its right side. The flesh was pebbled and puckered and his eye and mouth both twisted and pulled. The back of one long hand was mottled red and white as well. The whole sight made Lynet wince in sympathy.
"I am here for justice, Lord Colan," Peran said. His voice was painfully harsh, and Lynet looked again at the burns. He was well in the fire that had caused that, and breathed its smoke. "There has been murder done."
The word dropped heavily from him, and one of the women behind Lynet gasped. Lynet herself went cold. The charge of murder, of death dealt outside the law of God and man was as vile an accusation as could be leveled. If it were judged true, far more than blood-price would be paid. The shame upon family and clan would follow down the generations. The guilty man might even be declared outlaw, a sentence that was the same as death, only more slow.
Mesek sighed. "It was no murder, Lord Colan. It was the mischance of a young hothead's impatience," he said in a tone far too reasonable for words bearing a clear insult.
"This is for my son's life, and I will be heard!" Peran's raw shout tore from his heart and made the sinews of his neck stand out like knotted cords.
Mesek barked in laughter, as if this was some bitter jest. At this, Peran's wounded face flushed red and he looked as though he might have struck out, but only just remembered to stay his hand.
"This is no place to hear such hard business," said Bishop Austell in a voice of quiet reason. "And no place to make weary travelers comfortable." He climbed the bank as easily as a much younger man and stopped on the slope before the two chieftains, resting the butt of his crook on the ground before him. It showed his office plainly, and also made a barrier between the newcomers and the increasingly uneasy crowd behind him.
Colan moved to the bishop's side and picked up the bishop's theme. "You find us here on our feast day. Will you accept a drink in welcome?" He spread his hands gesturing to the kettles. "Then let me take you to the hall where you can rest and be refreshed."
Laurel scooped up a dipperful of the ale and strode smartly up the slope. Lynet did the same, so there would be equal welcome for both men. The crowd parted for them, murmuring to themselves. The elders pushed the children behind them, but none spoke. Misrule might be the game of the festival day, but this thing was out of bounds. All of Cambryn's people saw the pikes and the swords. If it came to blows, shovels, picks, and numbers might eventually cause the armed men to give over, but there would be a river of blood shed first.
Mesek's gaze swept over them all, counting, calculating. His fingers rubbed the leather of his reins and his horse danced uneasily under him. Then his thin lips twitched beneath his mustaches, as if he did not know whether to smile or frown. But he did slip from his saddle, bow his head to Laurel and drink from the ladle she offered up to him. It was an informal welcome cup, but it would serve. By accepting the drink, Mesek bound himself to the rules of hospitality and guestship. Colan, acting as Cambryn's lord, must now protect Mesek and his men as he would any of the folk of Cambryn, but Mesek could not now shed blood or offer violence in their home.
"Master Peran?" Colan inquired.
Peran only scowled at the dipper Lynet held out. Fire had made him a fearsome sight, but even beneath the burns she could tell he had been a hard-bitten man. He did not bother to measure the crowd on the riverbank. He instead looked at Lynet, looked and wondered. Lynet bit her lip and made herself hold steady under his gaze.
"I will not drink with my son's murderer," rasped Peran at last.
"You do not drink with him, Peran Treanhal," said Colan quietly, taking the dipper from Laurel. "You drink with me."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Lynet: Under Camelot's Banner"
by .
Copyright © 2006 Sarah Zettel.
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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