Camelot was much as Gruffydd remembered it.  The Great Keep, stifling finery masking the strength of stone. St Stephen's Cathedral, native stone and craft bent to adoration of a foreign god.  The King's Mall, thronged with the teeming mass of life, an energy and vivacity beyond the sedate life of Ironhold, but gentler and softer than the march of war.

The latter being the good part.  Perhaps good company or his Lord Regent's business would distract him from decadence and religion.

But before any of that, there was Lancelot's address, where they would finally learn why they had been called to the Capital.  And, due to his station, he had come dressed finely.  Not draped in the colors of his family, not with the Haern tincture, ordinary and charge emblazoned on his person.  He was near enough that he could have been, but his departure had been far too rushed than would allow that, and while he had been in Camelot for some handful of time, it was not so long that his retainers, such as they were, had organized themselves and arrived with his more formal finery.

Yet, he had not come wholly unprepared.  The tunic he wore was black, as he favored, was soft on the bare skin underneath, and both buttoned and cuffed by silver.  The many hairs of his face had been cut and groomed into the style of his liking, and the hair atop his head had been drawn back out of his sight.  At his hip, as with every knight present, was his blade.  Gruffydd wore a finely crafted piece of steel, unadorned by the ostentation of jewels and precious metal, but a closer inspection showed both weapon and scabbard to be made of only clean, bright steel, and fresh leather—though not so fresh as to retain the stench of the tannery, of course.

So dressed he found his way to his peers, a selection of faces and names remembered from the rest between bloody battles with the Saxons, and the feast in celebration of their victory.  One face in particular stuck out to him—after all, it is not every day that a commoner is risen to the peerage.

"Well now!"  Gruffydd's voice was full of mirth as a approached the knights slowly clustering around sir Delwin.  "It has been some time since I have seen these faces.  I only wish the circumstances were not these."  His smile grew rueful.  "I must admit, while some of the gossip floating around the city has been truly abhorrent, these past few days have not seen me well at ease."