Archive of Our Own

Title: A Space of Flowers
Fandom: Arthurian Legend
Rating: PG-13 at most
Pairing: Arthur/Lancelot
Summary: "To ease your heart, my King."
Written For: elynross in the yuletide fic exchange.
Beta of Splendiferous Brilliance: tigerbright *blows kisses*
Author's Notes: The title is from Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." This story draws heavily from Tennyson's and Masefield's poetry cycles.

There is a forest a morning's ride from Camelot's shining towers, a wide green wood of broad-trunked beeches, mighty elms, and droop-armed willows lining the streams. The sunlight comes green and warm through rustling leaves, the moss is thick and cool underfoot, the does and rabbits slip shyly from sun-pool to shadow-patch. In this wood there is an open glade, carpeted with every sort of bloom, hedged with dogwoods, wild apples, and briar roses. From the first meltings of spring to the last blusters of autumn the glade shimmers fragrantly in the depths of the green wood: to this place King Arthur led his new-arrived queen, her red-golden hair brighter than the roses above her head; to this place Guenevere would go as often as she might when her heart sought ease.

In that place was Queen Guenevere last seen in Camelot, two days past the eventide of May.

And so, to that place would Arthur go in days after, solitary and unattended, when the cares and duties of the crown allowed. He would smile hollow-eyed at his court and judge with a firm voice and trembling hand, then vanish of a day to the glade in the woods. The court whispered amongst themselves of griefs too heavy for any one head to bear, of enchantments and evils and the future of the Table. The kingdom was tended, griefs salved and troubles put down, but no new quests were undertaken, no new churches raised, no new enterprises begun. The knights chafed for lack of employ, the intriguers murmured with sharpened tongues. And the King vanished more and more often to the space of flowers in the wood.

On the first day that blew with the coolness of the coming winter, beneath a stainless morning sky, Lancelot the knight set out after his King. He laid aside his mail and helm, his jeweled armor and his great sword, and took only his daggers on a soft belt, for whatever foe he might face today, his heart foretold it was unlikely that the strength of his arm would decide the match.

As Lancelot rode out beneath the broad blue sky, he thought of how it had shone clear and cloudless on the day of Guenevere's vanishment, her happy smile brighter still as she set out with two sweet-faced maids and two sturdy young guards to pick the first roses of the May and wear them singing home. The morning wore away, and the noon, and the evening as well, as laughter at her tardiness grew to alarm, as the King waited with impassive mien and blanching, tightening fists; in the first full darkness of the night the Knights set out severally to the wood. Deeply late, past midnight, they found one of the maids dead in a mossy hollow dyed black with her blood; in the wavering hour before dawn they found the guards where the trees thinned, hewn to pieces. In the first golden sunlight of the new day they found the other maid, gown torn and shoes shredded, eyes blank as her wits as she crouched rocking, a long shining thread of red-gold hair in her hands.

Of the Queen, that was the only remnant.

The maid lay ill for long days, and when sense returned to her she had little tale to tell, only broken words of darkness and fell mounted men and the sunlight fallen away. By then not the King's best hunting master could have told the attackers' tracks in the springy green moss of the wood, and all the knights' searching proved as empty as the ivory carven chair beside the King's. The thought of the Queen's chair, its silken hangings stirred by any passing breeze, its back and seat vacant, smote Lancelot's heart as he left his horse and walked onwards beneath the leaves.

So too did the sight of the King, strong chestnut head bowed in shade, majesty's circlet dully glinting between broad hands; he stood beneath the trees which sentried the edges of the glade, but not so near it as to stand in its sunlight. Arthur was neither the tallest man Lancelot had known, nor the strongest of arm, but the might in him was a deeper thing than what swung a sword; from the first moment Lancelot had strode into the lofty shining hall of Camelot he had seen the King's steadfast poise and heard the warmth in his voice, and from the first moment he looked up from his obeisance he saw the bright glint of the King's steel-sheened eyes below his shining crown.

Now Lancelot saw the stoping cant of the shoulders which bore the kingdom, the droop of the head that bowed to no man beneath the sun, and his heart bled within him for the King's grief. He would have run if he might, but the forest hush and the King's stillness slowed him to a steady tread; he advanced with upturned hands over the soft green-scented moss, and all the while the King stood unmoving in the dimness.

Even when Lancelot knelt before him it was as if before a carven image of a sainted ruler of old, eyes closed and large-boned hands cupped around the circlet. Lancelot almost, almost reached for those hands, to grip them till they softened from stone to flesh again, to press his own living warmth into them. Such was the thought in his heart.

Instead, he bowed his head, and said low, "Greetings, my King."

And the King said, just as low, "Greetings, my good knight." Lancelot looked up into eyes of shadowed blue, sheened now with tears, into a face but dimly lit by a smile so pallid it barely glinted through the beard. "How come you here?"

"It is not meet that you go unattended, majesty." Lancelot brightened his smile to kindle the King's. "Not least--" And wider yet, over the words he should not say. "Not least here."

"Here, in a place so dark, or a place so fair?" Arthur held his hands to Lancelot, who folded his own gently around the circlet and rose as the King lifted. "Would it be meet that I pull my fellows and my friends with me into my grief?"

"The Court mourns---"

One ripple of frown on the bare, august brow cut short Lancelot's presumption. "Not as I do, my Prince Lancelot, and nor they should. Camelot should thrive and bloom, show a sunny face and strong arm to the world about, not sink wanly into her King's melancholy."

Lancelot would dispute, for even the King was a man and any man's heart might break beneath such a burden alone. But he would not, for this man was his King, to whose obeisance he was sworn, whom he followed with a glad will. So he struggled with himself, lips parting on words unsaid, till Arthur smiled and lifted a hand to his cheek and so resolved Lancelot's strife with a greater sortie. "My good young knight," said the King, his voice soft as the eiderdown touch of his hand over Lancelot's shaven cheek; stray prickles missed by the blade bent beneath Arthur's hand as the bared skin caught and glowed like kindling laid about a coal. "My stalwart Lancelot, best of my knights, whose arm none may match in battle, who is mildest of all in peace."

Though they were of a height it felt as if Lancelot stared up into Arthur's steel-blue eyes, and he could no more speak than he could fly as the King's hand molded to the shape of his jaw, as he found himself leaning into its press. He found the King's circlet cool within his nerveless grasp as Arthur's other hand shaped itself to Lancelot's throat, following its curve as if remaking it, slipping underneath and into Lancelot's hair. And all the while Arthur stared into Lancelot's face as if finding some benediction there, his own smile growing wide and warm as the wax of a long-burning candle, his tear-sheened eyes welling with some dusky light.

"I have seen you in a score of battles," Arthur murmured, soft as fur, thumbs sweeping back and forth over hot fingersbreadths of Lancelot's skin, "fighting with joy and smiling in your wounds. I have seen you in a dozen tourneys, praising the man who lately smote the helm from these inky curls, more meek in triumph than most knights in defeat. I have seen you these two years gone, grown from mighty youth to matchless man. Never in all those days and times have I seen you so stunned, so overborne, as you look to me now."

Doubtless, he must have shown as stunned as he felt, as his King held him fast with gentle hands and keen eyes. Lancelot's lips moved, but shaped no words, but Arthur smiled as if he heard the words that lay soundless within Lancelot's thrumming heart. "Why came you here today, Lancelot?"

"To ease your heart, my King," Lancelot answered, unleavened by any jot of wit.

Arthur guided him forward with gentle fingers' pressing. "If my heart may be eased, my good young knight, it shall be by you." With gentle strength, he brought their lips together.

Lancelot had kissed and smiled, a lady's hand, a maiden's cheek. Never before had he laid lip to warm lip, nor felt the brushing tickle of another man's beard, the power of another man's hands holding his face. His head, held up through long nights of watching and days of weary battle, tipped back into the cup of the King's hand as their mouths met and softened and danced.

When the King shifted him back Lancelot found his eyes fallen closed. The dimness beneath the trees was like full day when he blinked them open, but naught was so bright as Arthur's eyes in his face. "Here I first kissed Guenevere," the King whispered, voice like a strand of spiderweb, eyes fixing Lancelot's till the knight could not blink. "Here I first named her my wife and named this place hers. Here she vanished." Lancelot's heart drummed pain, but Arthur held him, and he could never think to go. "Has this space of flowers which lost me my Queen now led me my Knight...?"

The King did not finish in words, but with another kiss. And where the one before had been warm as springtime, sweet as new milk, this one was hot and fierce and thrilled through Lancelot's blood like the first shock of a battle, the first lift of the lance. The King's circlet pressed his hand where it pressed the King's shoulder, and the cool hard shock of it made Lancelot realize his arms enwrapped the King, surely a great liberty. He would have stepped back and knelt low, but Arthur let him loose only a little way, till they were nosetip to nosetip.

And Lancelot looked into the blue-dark eyes in which lay all the world, and whispering, "my King," he leaned forward, seeking to find the next kiss.

There is a throne room in the high hall of Camelot, of pale smoothed stone and gilded timbers, lit by windows tall and arched and many broad-flamed torches, hung with shimmering breeze-rippled tapestries. On the third day past the eventide of May, a year and a day since the loss of the Queen, King Arthur sat on his throne in a hall full of light, his first knight Lancelot standing at his left hand, as a disarrayed and wounded messenger was hastily borne in.

"Majesty," gasped the young man, his curls woefully matted with blood, "my King, your Queen lives, she yet lives, I have seen her with my eyes, close held in the castle of Malagant!"

The gasp went up over the hall like a flame in small kindling, as knights laid by their swords and ladies their embroidery, as every soul from fetching page to noble elder turned eyes and ears to the messenger. He leaned forward to speak as the guards bearing him laid him gently on a litter, but coughed instead, and groaned and shivered; Lancelot swiftly strode to a gaping squire, took his pitcher and cup, and and himself brought drink to the messenger.

"God be praised." Arthur sat on his throne and breathed, and waited. The messenger's words rang distant echoes in his ears, beating impenetrably upon his heart.

The silence spread from his center out through the waiting courtiers, as the messenger drank, and smiled weary thanks, and sagged back against the shoulder of the nearest guard. "I have, I have a letter, my King." Wincing to use a battered hand, he drew a small folded packet from a hidden fold of his undertunic, and a guard passed it from the crooked fingers to Arthur's hand.

When Arthur unfolded it, a carefully coiled strand of red-gold hair slipped to his hand, whispering flame across his guilty skin. The curved script, round and even, was surely by her hand, though his eyes prickled and ached so that he could not make out the words.

His Queen's words, his Guenevere's token. She yet lived, she would be restored, Arthur was not widowed. And no more than any man might he be twice bound.

Arthur lifted his hazed eyes to his court, frozen waiting in the sunshine, and then to the eager, fainting messenger, who smiled even as the guards beside him held him up. At Lancelot, a bright blur near to hand, Arthur dared not look.

Instead he stood. "God be praised!" The hall echoed, the court melted into cheers and accolades. "Our Queen lives!" The messenger took a great breath of excitement and swooned before he might speak. "Bear him hence to the healers," Arthur murmured to the guards, "and have him tended as well as they would me. We owe him a great debt." Bright-eyed, they saluted and obeyed, while Arthur raised his arms and the court's eyes fastened upon him; they smiled when he commended the messenger, and growled as he condemned Malagant, and cheered as he proclaimed the quest to rescue Guenevere.

Their cheers broke against him like a rock in a river, and Arthur smiled and spoke knowing hardly what he said. All he saw, all he knew, was Lancelot standing firm just beyond the edge of his eyes, and that he was forsworn.

At length the court turned buzzing and chirping from this wonder, the knights and their squires to arm themselves, the ladies to help them prepare, and all tongues working double-speed. Face mild and temples drum-pounded, Arthur rose from his throne and stepped behind it to the robing room, and none marked his going.

He had just sat on the low cushioned stool and laid his head in his hands when Lancelot shut the door behind him.

Lancelot was not a guileful man, but a warrior's face is another of his weapons, and Lancelot had mastered his all; his face was set in peaceful lines, unless the one who looked upon him knew his grey eyes.

Arthur knew Lancelot's eyes. These six months and more, when the kingdom bore him down, when enemies smiled and allies bared their teeth, the eyes Arthur had looked to for a glance of strength and love were Lancelot's. Now they were wide and soft and wild.

"My King," Lancelot said, and his brow creased with such astonishment as if another voice had issued from his lips, and Arthur could not but smile. "I--" he began, fighting with himself to say what he wished he meant, till Arthur waved a hand to him. Then Lancelot took that hand between his own, and knelt beside Arthur where he sat, and they did not speak.

The cool stone before Arthur was hung with a hunt, the quarry a shining gold lioness and her cubs. He watched the tapestry flutter gently in the breeze under the door, and wished as he had a time or many in the youth of his kingship, that he were but a simple knight of a small happy holding, his wife beside him crowned with flowers and hidden away from the dangers of the world, his loyal knight by his side before no danger greater than an attack of wolves or a few bandits.

But he was no simple backcountry knight but the King, and the wife he thought lost needed his aid, and his loyal knight knelt by his side twining strong fingers with his.

"Go to Guenevere, my knight," Arthur said, his gaze held on the tapestry as Lancelot's shocked breath echoed in his ears, as Lancelot's fingers tightened trembling around his. "Go and bring me back my Queen."

"Me, my King?" That was all Lancelot said, but Arthur could hear the remainder, what they had only said when crowns and titles were laid aside, what they had never said and now never would.

"My best knight." Arthur turned all the steel he could muster on Lancelot, and when he looked into the grey eyes they flared wider, soft as any lover's, shining wet. "My best knight, to uphold the honor of my Queen, to be my hand in chastising her abductor." The grey eyes narrowed as Lancelot's shoulders straightened, as his face set in a soldier's lines. "My closest knight, to bear her my love. Go to my wife and bring her home."

Lancelot bowed his head, and Arthur laid his other hand on the soft black curls for the space of seven breaths; for the last time he ran his fingers down through them, feeling their gentle rasp against his fingers, and over the hot skin of Lancelot's strong neck. Then Arthur raised his hand, and untwining their fingers Lancelot stood.

"Gladly, my King, I do your will. It will be my honor and delight to bring the Queen home." Lancelot's smile was sad and true as the one Arthur felt upon his own face, as the painful joy in his heart. He bowed, and Arthur did not lay hands on his shoulders and raise him; he turned and passed through the little door, and Arthur did not reach out for him.

Instead, Arthur breathed, and stood, and went to prepare for the return of his Queen.