The flickering flames, dancing their small glory into the yawning void, were forced by iron to stillness; one by one, the light of each candle was extinguished.  In a practiced motion—for all around was darkness, and he could not see—he placed the candle snuffer on the red robed table.  Despite the darkness, he could find his way, for there was not a single stone in this room he did not know.  And so, he turned from the hidden altar, and, not a step out of place, left the secret chamber.

Well, not so much a chamber that itself was secret, as a chamber that held secrets.  His secrets, to be precise.  Fittingly, the only entry—door or window—was in his personal chambers.  And his personal chambers were cleaned only be a servant who held similar secrets, and as such whose discretion was guaranteed.  Of course, there were rumors abound as to why he had a maid who was assigned only to the cleaning of his chambers, but it was preferable that the courtiers whisper about licentious indiscretions with a commoner than about private altars draped in red cloth.

That is not to say he hadn't slept with her.  He found her quite attractive, and she found him the same.  He had been careful to not sire a child of his own, though—he did not presently desire fatherhood.

All of that aside, he stepped through the door of his dark chamber into the chamber of his sleeping.  Unlike the former, this room had windows, and the light of the rising sun crept through them from over the horizon.  He walked up to a wooden door, and, mindful of the sleeping form in his bed, silently opened it, and stepped out into the air.

There was, of course, something solid in that air to hold him up: his own personal balcony of stone.  Closing the door behind him, he walked out onto this light-bathed stone, right up to the edge.  The small lights of the night were being drowned in the orange and pink of the coming day.  As the great disk edged over the limit of his sight, Sir Gruffydd Haern smiled.  There was, he thought, some considerable majesty in the darkness, but it did not compare to color and light.

He stood there awhile—he did not pay heed to quite how long.  As the sun rose, becoming more than his eyes could bare, he cast his sight upon the ground below.  The town that had sprung up around his father's castle, long most prominent for being a place to stop and resupply for those traveling to Camelot by a southern road.  Since its lord had been raised to greater importance, however, it had itself grown.  There were greater functions involved in managing a sizable county than a small barony, and such functions required functionaries, who created opportunities for the enterprising freedmen of the realm, who, in turn, made the town a more desirable to traders, who drew in further business.  Despite this self-perpetuating cycle, it was a town, not a city, and was not likely to grow quite that large.  Still, more modern maps were assured to have Ironhold drawn in on the southern road to Camelot.

The town was largely still.  While one or two of its people were assured to be awake, the town did not generally rise with the sun.  The people of the fields, beyond Ironhold, were a different story.  Sir Gruffydd knew that the serfs had much work to do in a single day, and liked to imagine he could see some farmers off in the distance.

There was a sound behind him.  He turned to see a woman, blanket draped about her shoulders and pulled to her skin, now stood in the open doorway.  He walked up to her, and wrapped his hands around her, just above her waist.  She wrapped her arms around his, and, her braided, brown hair hanging to just above the small of her back, she leaned her head into the crook of his neck.  For a short while, they simply stood there.

Slowly, gently, she pulled back, but did not let go.  Together, they walked back through the door into his chambers, and closed it.

[hr]

"My Lord, I apologize for the interruption."

Sir Gruffydd Haern looked up from the book he had been reading as he sat lazily in a cushioned chair.  He had, of course, heard the servant enter—while his perception was not particularly exceptional, he thought it perfectly reasonable that someone skilled in the arts of stealth could easily pick determine a person's presence when they were merely trying be unobtrusive, not hidden.

He had also opened the door, but Gruffydd elected to ignore this fact for the moment.

"It is no matter, just some tripe from the continent.  What is your business?"

"The Count Haern desires your presence in his study, my Lord.  I was not informed of the details, but it is some matter about a messenger from Camelot."

Gruffydd straightened in his chair, and breathed in sharply, and he mused.  A message from Camelot?  With the King away on his fool quest for some cup long worn down to dust by time?  Curious.

"Very well, going there shall take but a moment."

Gruffydd was out of his chair, and the room, in short order, and the servant closed the door behind them.

"You are dismissed."

Leaving the servant behind to return to his ordinary duties, Gruffydd began down the stone halls of his home.  There was carpeting, there were unlit torches, but it was largely bare stone.

Camelot.  He had only been to Camelot once, for a banquet celebrating the casting of the Saxons from the shores of Britannia.  The walls of the castles had sconces and portraiture and tapestries, not torches but sconces, vases with flowers, and carpets so thick they could swallow his bare feet.

He preferred the stone.  The rest of Camelot's luxuries were welcome; fine food, fine drink, fine song, fine cloth, all pleased him.  But the halls of the castle always looked like a child's idea of what do with wealth.  He wondered which of the King's ancestors had littered the stone with such gaudy nonsense.

But at last, he came to his father's study.  It was a room he had seen countless times throughout his life, and the most important feature was always the desk where his father sat.

Closing the door behind him, Gruffydd walked up to his father, and knelt down next to his chair.

"Ah, Gruffydd," the old man's voice warbled under the strain of his years, "you heard what my man had to say, yes?"  He took an unfurled scroll from his desk and passed it into his son's hand.

"Of course, father."  Gruffydd took the scroll from his father and made to read it.

"Please, sit," there was a twinkle in the old man's eyes as he gestured to a chair across the desk from him, "you shan't be doing much more before the day is done."

His brow creased and mouth turned down in a small frown, Gruffydd rose from where he knelt, and sat properly in the chair, holding the parchment before him.

When he placed it down again, his father looked at him expectantly.  "Well, what do you think?"

"I think our beloved Lord Regent has been terribly, frighteningly vague."

The old man burst out into raspy guffaws, and Gruffydd's lips curled up into a smile.

"Just make sure don't make jokes like that in the capital."

"Of course, Father.  I will make jokes about the Picts or the Gaels instead."  The Count Haern chuckled more.

"Be mindful that the Lord Regent may not appreciate jokes right now.  If the details aren't in the message, something must have spooked him into secrecy."

"I suppose I shall need to use my limited discretion."

"Speaking of your discretion, that maid of yours has a second to fill in for her while you're away, yes?"

"Her brother."

"Ah, the ties of blood."  The old man's eyes grew wistful.  "Excellent.  She'll arrive with the rest of the retinue that will be sent after you.  I've already sent word for horses to be made ready for you a couple retainers as escort."

"If we ride hard, we should be still be able to make it by nightfall."

"Not if you stand around talking to your old father!  Go on!"  The old man laughed, but it was an order all the same.  Gruffydd stood and bowed, before turning to leave.

And he mused.  The kingdom in great danger, while the king was away?  Were it just any Knight, it might look like a man grasping at power, but this was Lancelot.  No the threat was real, and the King was off chasing scraps of clay in the sand with the greatest knights of the realm.

Gruffydd's mouth turned sharply into a frown.

Driving the Saxons back into the sea was a great feat, but its accomplishment did not make the land safe for all time.  But there was nothing to be done for that now.  Until he reached Camelot, all Gruffydd could do was ride hard, and ride fast.