Queen of Camelot

by Nancy McKenzie

  “He’s a Christian, too, so the men will follow him.”

  “How can he be Christian if Merlin the Enchanter has raised him? Everyone knows Merlin is a pagan and a powerful one. It is said he speaks to the gods directly and has seen Mithra himself slaying the Bull.”

  Elaine crossed herself quickly, then made a sign against the ancient evil spirits that was not Christian at all. “Hush, Gwen, don’t say such things! You’re blaspheming, I know it! Have you no fear? Anyway, Queen Ygraine is a Christian, even if the High King is not, and she wouldn’t have him raised by a pagan household. And how can he lead Christian soldiers if he isn’t one himself?”

  “King Uther does. I don’t think soldiers care so much, as long as their leader is successful. And I don’t know about Queen Ygraine. I mean, she can’t be much of a mother if she was content to give her firstborn son away three days after she bore him. She may not care how he is raised.” I saw I had hurt Elaine, who adored her image of Prince Arthur, and I was ashamed of myself. “Never mind, Elaine. You are probably right. I’m sure he’s a devout Christian like Father Martin and handsome, as well.” But as her humor was restored, I fell to teasing her again. “But perhaps he is fair. King Uther was red-headed in his youth, they say, although now he is gray.”

  Elaine was unmovable on this point. “You forget his descent. Uther’s line is dark. Uther’s brother Ambrosius was dark, and Constantius, their father, was dark, and so on back to the Emperor Maximus, founder of the line.”

  “Who was Iberian, and not Celt,” I reminded her. “And black-eyed, to boot.”

  Elaine sniffed. “Dark hair can be Celt, too, and blue eyes certainly are. Maximus married a Welsh princess from our own country, Princess Elen, and she had blue eyes. She’s famous for it. Dark, brilliant blue, like the sea in a summer storm. She’s my kin.” Then she stopped, remembering that she was related to the famous Elen through her mother’s line, and therefore I was descended from her, too. She looked at me cautiously. I knew already what she saw, because the color of my eyes had been compared to the Princess Elen’s all my life.

  “Well,” I said quickly, “it’s no wonder we think so much of Prince Arthur, since we are both kin to him, if you go far enough back.”

  Elaine looked delighted. This was the kindest thing I had ever yet said about Arthur, and she took it as a victory. The truth was, I disparaged him only to tease Elaine; but the skeptical attitude, once adopted, stuck. From that summer on, I was always finding fault with him, if only because Elaine thought him so perfect.

  The sun returned when September came, but it was too late. The smell of rotting growth and mud stank in the river valleys, and men and beasts died from mysterious fevers. Water lay everywhere on the ground, breeding insects and disease. We could not bury our dead for the mud, and burned them instead on funeral pyres like the dead of the Saxon savages. The queen kept us to the castle and forbade our rides upon the shore, fearing we would catch noxious vapors and fall ill. Indeed, the youngest of Elaine’s brothers fell to the fever in September, and the queen was prostrate with grief. Men muttered under their breaths of omens and witchcraft; women wore charms against ancient evils, the Christian women secretly and others, like Ailsa, actually jingled and clicked as they walked from the jumble of talismans they carried. Small offerings were made daily at the wayside shrines. The village folk had not forgotten the Elders. King Pellinore, saddened and restless, called in his men from their homes and drilled them mercilessly in preparation for action, any action, to keep their minds from dwelling on the death and stagnation that enveloped Britain.

  And then finally, toward the end of that interminable month, the royal courier arrived. Elaine and I were on the eastern wall when he rode up the valley on his tired horse, spattered with mud and so exhausted he could barely stay in his saddle. We knew who he was by the leather pouch at his belt, and we exchanged glances behind the sentry’s back, knowing we would creep out that night to overhear the king’s conference.

  The news was thrilling indeed. King Uther Pendragon was gathering his forces at Caer Eden, a week’s march north, and all loyal Britons were called to arm and join him there to meet the Saxon attack. The time had come. Cheering filled the hall. The men sounded wild with happiness, as if the courier were bringing them tidings of great joy. The king proposed a toast, and as the men turned to their tankards and the noise died down, we heard Arthur’s name.

  “Will Arthur be there?” “Yes, will the great Enchanter reveal him now?” “Will Uther acknowledge him, I wonder, and give him a command?” “He’s just a boy—how could he?” “Ah, but he’s the royal heir, with black magic behind him, and we’ll follow him anywhere.”

  King Pellinore hushed them, looking fierce under his bushy black eyebrows, but the courier fidgeted nervously. He was not charged with any official message about the prince, but rumor had it—rumor, mind you—that Merlin had been sent for. And where Merlin was . . .

  This was the best news to come to Wales in years, and within two days every able-bodied fighting man had marched north to fight the Saxons, confident in the certain victory that the fabled Arthur would bring. Elaine was beside herself with excitement, but I felt the loss of the men keenly. There was no more news, no more eavesdropping, no more feeling a part of events. We had shrunk to a household of women, and our chief occupations were putting the castle to rights, getting in what little harvest there was, weaving and sewing against the inevitable winter cold, and for me and Elaine, uninterrupted lessons with Father Martin and Iakos.

  We did not hear about the battle for two whole months, when it was long over and the glory of the battlefield had faded in the minds of the wounded and maimed, who were the first to come home.

  4 KING ARTHUR

  Queen Alyse organized a primitive hospital in the castle outbuildings. It was not primitive by the standards of the day, only by comparison to what I have seen since, for there were no learned men of healing in Gwynedd, no army physicians, no Merlin. We were a community of women with skill to heal minor wounds such as men get hunting. Those soldiers who made it back to us were grateful for our attentions, but they were halfway to recovery before ever setting foot in the sickrooms. The worst wounded had died in the field hospital at Caer Eden, and more on the road home.

  Elaine and I were not allowed to treat the men directly on account of our youth, and I was grateful for this. Nursing repelled me; I had not the stomach for maimed limbs and open sores and the stench of sickness. We were happy to help the washing women hang the clean linens to dry and fold them away, sweet-smelling and herb-scented, until they were needed again. We helped to change the bedding on the pallets that lined the floor and were allowed to bring around cool water for the men to drink.

  One day, as Elaine and I stood outside the sickrooms, folding linens, I began to hum, and then sing, an old Welsh song I had learned in Northgallis about the beauty of Wales, her fertile meadows where sheep grazed in summer, her shining ponds and white-frothed streams, her cool forests full of game, and the crown of her glory, glittering Snow Mountain, where the gods walked among the clouds. Elaine loved the song and begged me to teach it to her, so I repeated it for her sake. Then we brought our folded linens to Cissa, the queen’s lady-in-waiting who was in charge of the washing. To my amazement, she curtsied low before me.

  “The queen’s compliments, Lady Guinevere,” she said softly, “and would you be pleased to continue singing, for the men were quiet and restful just now, and seemed relieved of pain. The queen tells me they had tears in their eyes, and indeed, my lady, it was beautiful to hear.”

  I stared, astonished that the queen favored me with such attention, and assured Cissa I would be delighted to sing. From that day forward, singing to the men was my chief duty, and Queen Alyse had a cushioned chair brought for me and set just inside the door, so that all could hear the song, and yet I was not overcome by the sickroom vapors. To show their gratitude, the men began to call me the Lark of Gwynedd.

  As men hea
led and were allowed to sit outside in the afternoon sun and take exercise on the grounds, Elaine and I learned from them all we wanted to know about the great things that had happened in the north. To be sure, King Pellinore had sent his queen a messenger bearing news of the glorious victory over Colgrin and his Saxon hordes, of Uther’s death and of young Arthur’s succession. With the kings of Britain united behind him, the new King pursued the Saxons eastward, and Pellinore went with him, leaving Gwynedd in the capable hands of Queen Alyse.

  But these were dry facts, and we sought among the convalescing soldiers for those who could tell us what we really wanted to know. Finally we found Corwin, a twenty-year-old foot soldier who had suffered a broken leg. He was lucky that the bones had not pierced the skin. Merlin himself, he said, had splinted the leg and prophesied that it would knit cleanly and straight. He had since fashioned himself a pair of crutches and got about easily enough. He had a ready tongue, a bard’s gift for exaggeration, and a lazy nature. He spun us tales by the hour, and we believed them all.

  “Tell us about the battle!” Elaine cried, settling down at his feet, her face aglow. “Did Prince Arthur fight?”

  “Did he indeed!” Corwin exclaimed, grinning. “Why, he won it for us, you may be sure, and proclaimed himself by the deed, even if he was the last to know it.”

  “What do you mean, the last to know it?”

  Corwin laughed. “When he came to Caer Eden with Sir Ector of Galava, he was more a body servant to Ector’s son Kay than a warrior. By rights, he’s a year or two short of making a soldier. He’d no more idea of who he was than Kay did himself, or I, or any man there, excepting only Ector, King Uther and that sly fox Merlin. And as far as anyone could see, Merlin was there alone, standing silently with his arms folded into his sleeves and a face as dark as stormclouds, watching everything, saying nothing, keeping his own counsel. No one gave a second glance to Ector’s fosterling.”

  “Ector’s fosterling?” I wondered.

  “Oh, never mind that now!” Elaine cut in. “Go on, Corwin, tell us about the battle!”

  Corwin settled himself among the cushions we had brought him. He had a Welshman’s love of a good tale, and this had all the earmarks of an afternoon’s work. “It was midmorning when we saw them coming across the river plain. You should have seen them—thousands of Saxons—blond giants with four-foot moustaches, whirling their two-headed axes over their heads in a mad frenzy of noise. Wild men, they were, screaming uncouth paeans—I don’t mind admitting it to you girls, but my bones were shaking.”

  Elaine giggled. “You’re no soldier, then. Soldiers are never afraid.”

  “Aren’t they, my lady? Well, that’s as may be. I can only speak for myself. And yet I’ll wager there wasn’t a man on the field who saw them coming who didn’t wish he were safely home in bed.”

  Elaine was scandalized. “You call Prince Arthur a coward? And King Uther? And Pellinore, my father?”

  Corwin shook his head quickly. “Certainly not, little princess. Brave men, all of them. But if a man has no fear to face and overcome, where is bravery? He is a fool, that’s all.”

  “Oh, stuff and nonsense. You’re just making excuses. Go on with the battle!”

  “He was, until you interrupted,” I pointed out, and was rewarded with a bold retort and an angry shake of her head.

  “I’ll tell you this,” Corwin cut in. “They almost took us. We were all looking about for Prince Arthur when the trumpets sounded, but no one saw him anywhere. Half the men watched Uther, half watched Merlin. But Uther lay abed upon his litter, with his own guards in attendance, and Merlin busied himself in the field hospital, paying no attention to anyone. Men began to doubt the prince had come. When the Saxons attacked, we gave up hope and followed the High King’s litter onto the field.”

  Corwin’s voice fell into the singsong lilt of the storyteller, and we hugged our knees and listened, enraptured.

  “The Saxons attacked at the center of the line, where the High King’s litter was. So savage they were, we could not hold them, and fell back against the onslaught. They pressed hard, eager to get to Uther, a sick king, and have it over early. Now, Sir Ector of Galava led the right flank, and saw his chance to cut the Saxons off. Good soldier that he is! If Lot, who led the left, had had the sense to do the same, the villainous dogs would have been swallowed up and surrounded. But Lot stood his ground and looked the other way.”

  “I hope he was hanged for his treachery!” Elaine exclaimed hotly.

  Corwin laughed. “On the contrary, brave lass, he rides at the side of the young King as they chase Colgrin toward the sea.”

  Elaine objected violently, but I said, “Since he is alive, it is the best place for him, where Arthur can keep an eye on him.”

  Corwin regarded me thoughtfully. “So many have said, my lady, and Merlin one of them, if rumors be true.”

  “Well, I’d have killed him myself if I were king!” Elaine cried emphatically. “But go on, Corwin, what happened next? Don’t take all day.”

  “For God’s sake, Elaine—” I began, but Corwin raised a hand.

  “Bide a bit, young ladies, and let me tell the tale. You will know it all, in time. Well, there we were, face to face with the stinking Saxon hordes. Had Lothian grown roots in the hill, that he could not move? Was he waiting, as some were saying, to see which way the battle went? If the Saxons got to the King, he could join them from the flank and cut us off—the lines wavered, uncertain. Good Ector led the charge from the right and drove deep, with his son Kay right at his side. But an ax got his leg and he lost his sword; he had to withdraw. Young Kay tried to take his place—he fought hard, he’s a valiant soldier—but he had no sense of the battlefield, of the flow of things, of where he was. He was pushing too hard in the wrong place, and the seasoned warriors all knew it. The charge began to waver, the lines began to weave, the Saxons scented the kill; for a moment it seemed that all was lost—the charge, the Briton positions, the field, the day, the High King, the Kingdom. For a moment—the same moment—every man on the field knew it, wherever he was. It was one of those moments when time stops, when the balance between two futures—defeat and victory, death and life, evil and good fortune—lies on a thin edge of chance.” Corwin paused. We could have heard a leaf fall in the silence. “But it was no chance the unknown boy rode forward, raised his sword, gave the orders in a voice that brooked no hesitation, and saved the day. Out of nowhere he came; but he knew what to do, and every man there followed him. I followed him myself, and I don’t know why. I’d never seen him before. But he’d a cool head on his shoulders, and he fought a damned smart fight. Before old Colgrin knew what had happened, he found himself pushed hard against the hill where Lothian waited, and King Lot, forced to choose and seeing a new commander bidding fair to take his place at the King’s right hand, cast his future with the British and attacked. That was the end of it, really. It was all over but the mopping up.”

  “And then?” Elaine asked excitedly. “Surely everyone knew by then? Surely King Uther proclaimed him?”

  “No, my lady. It’s a busy time, after battle, with the field to clear and the wounded to tend. We all found our own camps and took stock of who was left.”

  “But you must have wondered who he was,” I said, “and where he had come from.”

  “Oh, he was the talk of the army, of course. Who was the new commander? No one knew his name or had seen his badge. The word went round he was a child, a dogsbody, a nameless lad who tagged along in Kay of Galava’s wake. Ector’s fosterling, they said, meaning Ector’s bastard, born on the wrong side of the blanket and good only for errands and hard labor.”

  “No! How did they dare!”

  “Who was to know? A few bright souls wondered if it might be Prince Arthur in disguise—such a disguise!—but no one knew, and no one liked to wager on such a long shot. All that long night we carried the dead from the field, dug the grave pits, sorted their belongings, and tended to our wounds. That’s whe
n I broke my leg, in a scuffle with a half-dead Saxon who attacked me when I took his armband. In the field hospital I saw my cousin Durwen—the bardling, we called him, because he wanted to be a bard, he had a gift for it. He was delirious with pain from a slice across his thigh, but he had already made a song about the battle. ‘The Wrath of the Nameless Prince’ he called it. He had sung it for Merlin, he claimed, as he stitched his leg, and Merlin had smiled.”

  Elaine wrinkled her nose. “Ector’s fosterling? No, Corwin, it’s too ignoble. Tell us rather that Merlin raised him in the Magic Isles across the Western Sea and brought him forth just in time to save us from the Saxons!”

  “I’m telling you what happened, if you’ll be polite like your cousin and wait for me to get there.” Corwin winked at me and took another pull from his flask. “When the work was done, the men who were well and whole caroused till dawn. There were plenty of girls in Caer Eden to toast our victory. Ah, those lovely northern lasses—” He stopped, recollecting where he was, and cleared his throat. “Beg pardon. But I cursed the misfortune of my leg, I can tell you that. At daybreak we gave thanks to Mithra in a formal ceremony, with King Uther in attendance, pale as a nether spirit. And that night there was to be a formal victory feast. Rumor had it he was going to bring forth the prince at last and name his heir—he was dying on his feet, anyone could see it. Men looked all about for Prince Arthur but could not find him. Meanwhile, Ector’s fosterling was in the hospital with Merlin, visiting the wounded and offering his arm to Ector so the man could walk. By daylight you could see he was only a beardless boy, and hopes fell.” Corwin paused. “These things I saw and can swear to. The rest I know only because the camp was alive with rumors, and I spoke with men who had been at the victory feast, and—and at what came after.”

  Elaine and I looked at each other. He was making the sign against enchantment behind his back, and we wondered why. We had certainly heard no rumors of magic from the men, only bragging about the battle itself.