Queen of Camelot

by Nancy McKenzie

  “Where is Merlin?” Mordred asked softly. “Why can’t he do this, instead of Arthur? The King risks himself to come within a hundred leagues of her!”

  These were his parents he spoke about, and it grieved my heart to hear it. “For years Merlin has been no more than a shadow and a voice. Now Arthur believes Merlin is gone. He says he has gone to his gods in that cold Welsh cave of his. The King even pays a servant to tend the place, that it may retain its holiness, and so honor Merlin.” To my surprise, Mordred looked stricken. “Don’t be distressed. Arthur told me it was a sign we needed to worry about Morgause no longer.”

  Mordred grunted. “He is worried enough about her now.”

  “When do you leave, and who attends him?”

  “Within the fortnight. Gawaine is at Caerleon and must be sent for. Bedwyr, Gereint, Villers, Galahantyn, and Bellangere attend him.” He paused and lowered his eyes. “Lancelot stays as Protector.”

  I grieved to see he still could not accept it. “And Gaheris? Does he know?”

  “Yes. He and Agravaine followed the courier in, to hear his news.”

  “How did he take it? Is he eager, or afraid?”

  He hesitated. “He is beside himself with joy.”

  “He must be guarded! Oh, Mordred, do not let her see him alone!”

  He shivered. “Believe me, my lady, the troops who escort us have orders to attend us every minute. Orders given in the presence of Gaheris. The King takes no chances.”

  We walked on in silence. I was as worried for Mordred as for Gaheris. His brothers never knew the part he had played in the accusation of Morgause. They blamed Lancelot, who was not then even in Britain, and they blamed me. I feared Morgause might take joy in telling them the truth and setting brother against brother for her amusement.

  “He will take me with him when he goes to talk treaty with the Saxons,” Mordred said suddenly, brightening.

  “Will he? I am so glad, Mordred. You are ready for it.”

  “Readier than most, my lady,” he said, warming to it, “for I have learned some Saxon on the sly.”

  “Really? From whom? Have we Saxons in Camelot?”

  “Two of them are grooms in the stable—Saxons are magicians with horses—Lancelot employs them all unknowing! They told him they were Irish, and he put down their straw-colored hair and strange accents to that. I have taken the trouble to make their acquaintance and learn what I can of their tongue. If they speak slowly enough, I can understand them.”

  I watched him thoughtfully as he spoke. Lancelot was right about him; he saw opportunity everywhere. As he would need to, to be a King.

  “Are you sure they are not spies?”

  “Oh, no, my lady. They are not. Each carries a blood price on his head and left the territories to save his skin. All they want is to work with good horses and be left in peace. They curse their former king and have sworn allegiance to Arthur. And anyway,” he finished, “I tell them nothing of what passes. I go to them only to learn.”

  “This is excellent, Mordred. You may perhaps do the King your father a special service, if you understand their speech, and they know it not. You can attest to the truth of the translations. More than that, you can listen to what the soldiers mutter to one another and see how the land truly lies.”

  He nodded eagerly. “That has been my thought, my lady. Their nobles, their ‘thegns,’ I must have speech with, to find out whether it is only King Cerdic who desires to deal with us, or if his men are behind him.”

  “And our men?” I asked with hesitation. “Are they behind the King? Or is there grumbling and superstition? Do they think it reasonable we talk with Saxons, or do they think the King is growing soft?”

  I saw by his disconcerted look that I had hit a bruise. He wished desperately that I had not asked him. Arthur had evaded the question with assurances, but Mordred answered me.

  “Opinion is divided, my lady. Among the young men—” He gulped hastily, seeing my face, and changed his wording. “I mean, among the youths of my age, some would follow the King even into the gates of Hell, but some prefer to hate the Saxons, mostly because they want war. These would fight their own kin for a rag of glory, if they thought they could get away with it.”

  “You might be describing your own brothers,” I teased him, to lighten the tone.

  He did not smile. “I am. All but Gareth, who, like me, takes no joy in killing. My brothers are among this group, and some black Celts from Wales. Most of the Christians are behind Arthur. As for the older—er, the proven warriors, who fought with the King in the Saxon wars, they are divided, also. Some cannot let go of their hatred and look beyond it. The others will do whatever the King commands, because he is who he is and has done what he has done.”

  “Amen,” I whispered.

  “The foremost of those opposed,” he said slowly, “is Lancelot.”

  I touched his hand and smiled at him. “Do not worry about Lancelot. He is opposed with his lips and his head, but his heart and his sword are with the King. He would follow him anywhere, even beyond the gates of Hell. Do not for a minute doubt him.”

  “If you say so, my lady.” But he did doubt; I could see it in his face.

  I shook my head. “Ah, Mordred. It is my fondest dream that you and Lancelot should grow in trust and friendship. You both are men of honor, and you love the King. But neither of you will know the other. There is some great reluctance between you.”

  Mordred took my hand and bent his knee to the ground. “You are so full of gentleness, my lady, you would have everyone you love, love each other. And when I am with you, it seems almost possible. But, dear Guinevere, beyond the sphere of your influence, beyond these castle walls, lies a world of slanders, lies, fierce competition, and mean acts. To be in your company, yours and the King’s, it is like coming up from the depths to breathe pure air.”

  I took his head in my hands. “Is life so difficult for you, Mordred? Are you still badgered about your birth? If the King’s silence makes it troublesome, tell him.”

  He shook his head quickly. “No, no. Let that be. I understand the silence. It must be so. Only—” He paused and swallowed audibly. “Only I sometimes wonder what the future holds for me. He has never told me what he intends.”

  I touched his cheek. “If he has not told you, I cannot,” I whispered. “But you know him, Mordred. He is your father, and he loves you. What would you do if you were he?”

  He looked at me with his black eyes, wise and deep and tragic. “But I am not enough like him,” he said so softly, the words hovered on the edge of sound. I felt a thrill go through me like an arrow of truth.

  “No two are the same. But there is much of him in you. If you cannot see it, I can. And knowing Arthur, what do you think he will do?”

  He kissed my hand with fervor, and I raised him.

  “Go with God,” I told him, and sent him back to Arthur.

  Lancelot and I strolled in the garden after hall. The night was warm and scented and dark with a new moon. Some light spilled from the open library doors, where a single cresset burned, but the depths of the garden were deep in shadow. Claire and young Linet attended me, but they sat discreetly by the fountain in the light, comparing the valor of the young knights they worshipped and, out of custom, paying us little attention.

  In darkness, Lancelot clasped my hand and held it close against his breast. We walked thus, silent, taking pleasure in the still beauty of the night and in the touch of our flesh.

  “I wish, Gwen, I could bring Galahad to meet you. I worry sometimes that he is kept too close at home.”

  “I would be honored, Lancelot,” I replied, “to meet your son. What do you mean, ‘kept too close’?”

  “Oh,” he said lightly, lifting my hand to his lips, “he is too fond of his mother.”

  “That is normal for a boy his age, I think. Soon his heroes will be men.”

  He shrugged. “I am not there enough. And she sets his mind against me, young as he is. He wou
ld be better off living here. Like Mordred. Like Gareth.” It was the nearest he had ever come to telling me about his life with Elaine. I could see well it was death to him.

  “Then leave the other two with her and bring him. You are his father.”

  He shuddered and then looked quickly away. My heart filled with rage against Elaine—that he should dread that confrontation so! Lancelot, bravest of men!

  “I would like him to grow up like Gareth,” he said quickly. “He left his mother early enough, it seems. He is full of gentleness and honor and the love of doing right. Galahad strives for high ideals, but knows only those his mother feeds him. He should be at Arthur’s court.”

  “Then bring him,” I said warmly, slipping my arm through his and entwining my fingers in his own. “Shall Arthur send for him?”

  He looked down at me, and a stray wisp of light caught his smile. “No, my lady Queen. This I can do myself.”

  “Brave Lancelot!”

  He laughed and drew me close. “This is a great myth you women raise us to believe: that you are powerless and we must risk life to protect you. I have yet to know a woman who does not rule her husband in anything she wills.” He kissed me softly, letting his lips linger on mine.

  “You know me.”

  “You pretend you do not rule Arthur? Why, three years ago he felt about Saxons as I do. You would no more have caught him treating with their leader than—than bathing in boiling oil. And now he proposes to parley with Cerdic himself, and talk new treaties, as if the thieving dog were his equal!” With an effort, he calmed himself and lowered his voice. “I know who has his ear, Gwen. Don’t think I cannot guess whose idea this is.”

  We walked on a little farther, and I gave him time to settle his emotions. Like Gawaine, he was quick to anger, but unlike him, he was just as quick to cool.

  “Is Cerdic a thieving dog,” I asked gently, “or a ruler beset by greedy lords at his back and a growing population on his shores? In all these years he has kept his word to Arthur and not strayed across the border anywhere. And yet, you know, his chieftains must be hollering for more land every year and spreading rumors about his growing age and unfitness for his crown. In his place, my dear Lancelot, what would you do?”

  “I would keep my word,” he said with some defiance.

  “And so he has. The King asked for this parley, only to set the stage for the future. If they meet in friendship now, perhaps his chieftains will wait to see what comes of it; and in the meantime, they will be our buffer against the Franks.”

  “Yes, yes, I know the reasons,” he said impatiently. “But even now that Clodomir is dead, we are not threatened. Childebert has treaties with me and with Hoel. So why do we need a buffer? And what makes him think the Saxons will listen, or abide by what is agreed?”

  “They will listen, because he is Arthur of Britain. And Cerdic has shown that he can keep his word. We have nothing to lose, Lancelot, and much to gain, perhaps, in the future.”

  He sighed. “I know your dream of a united Britain. But there might be a lot to lose. Many are against it.”

  We had reached the stone bench that hugged the wall at the end of the garden. I could see nothing here, it was so black. I put out my hands and laid them against his chest. His own came up and covered them.

  “And you, Lancelot? I know you disagree with Arthur, but will you follow him?”

  “Unto death,” he whispered, and kissed me. For a moment, I allowed myself to respond to him, giving in to the demanding fires that burned in me whenever he was near. But at last, trembling, we broke apart and sat together on the bench, remembering who we were.

  “You are right, Lancelot. He does this because of me, and because of Mordred, who has caught fire with this idea. But although Arthur sees the sense in it, he is not eager to pursue it far. He says it is not his destiny.”

  “That’s Merlin talking.”

  “I know. But he believes Merlin. He has always believed everything the old enchanter said.”

  “He wasn’t always old, you know, Gwen.” I heard the smile in his voice. “Bedwyr knew him when he was not much older than Arthur is now. In his prime. And when I met him, at Caer Eden, where he stood beside Arthur in front of all those gathered lords, he was magnificent! With Uther dead, and the Saxons camped across the river, there wasn’t a man on the battlefield who’d have risen for the boy Arthur if Merlin hadn’t been there. His very presence was more powerful than the entire host of war leaders. You should have heard my Christian father mumbling all the ancient protections! He sounded like a Druid!” He laughed lightly. “He was a strong enough man then. Terrifying, at times.”

  “Don’t I know it! Lancelot, did you know that Merlin is dead?”

  “What, again?”

  “No, I mean it. Last spring, before we left Caerleon, he came to Arthur in his sleep and said good-bye. ‘I am gone to my fathers; I will be with your children; you shall live forever in glory, the once and future King.’ It is odd, is it not? But Arthur understood it, it seems. He awoke in tears, and yet he did not grieve. But he said that Merlin was truly gone, taken into the hill by the god who dwells there. Now the place is holy and tended as a shrine.”

  Lancelot grunted but said nothing.

  “I wonder if it is because Arthur believes Merlin dead that he holds himself to this destiny of his—to hold Britain safe from the Saxons. I keep thinking, how much safer would we be, if they were part of it!”

  “They tried to be part of it once,” Lancelot protested, “in Vortigern’s day, and nearly destroyed us. Perhaps in time they might become civilized, but really, Gwen, they are primitive savages.”

  “Well,” I said, “let be. You know them, and I do not. Niniane does not see any harm in the trip for Arthur, so I hope I shall not have cause to regret his going.”

  Just then we heard voices, and a light came bobbing uncertainly down the path. Lancelot dropped my hand and rose. It was a page, and behind him, a courier.

  “My lord Lancelot, Queen Guinevere,” he said hastily, “an urgent message for you, my lord. Will you receive it here?”

  Lancelot drew the man ten paces away and heard him. By the lantern light I saw him take bad news and grow solemn. He thanked the man and gave him a coin and sent him off to his meal and bath. Then he came back to me.

  “What is it, my dear? Nothing’s amiss with the King?”

  In the new darkness I could not see him, but heard his voice, full of contrition. “There is no word from Arthur, or from Arres. This was from my home, Guinevere. Alas, my wife is dead.”

  “What? Elaine dead? Oh, Lancelot, how can this be? She is younger than I am!”

  He felt for my hands and held them tightly. “She was delivered early of a stillborn daughter. They could not stop the bleeding.”

  “Oh, Lancelot, how terrible!” It was how Arthur lost his first wife, and I knew the horror it brought a man, to be the cause of a woman’s death. “May God give rest to her unhappy soul,” I whispered. I felt him come closer in the darkness.

  “Pray with me, Gwen. I should feel more grief than I do. I did not love her, and she hated me, but she bore me three sons, and she was my wife. Help me mourn her.”

  So we sank to the ground and knelt side by side, hands clasped in prayer upon the bench, and together we prayed for the salvation of Elaine’s departed soul. Lancelot was deeply moved, not by grief, but by self-recriminations. All that he had ever said or done, or not said or not done, on account of Elaine, he now remembered. He took her death upon him, and felt he owed God for it. It was his way—I could not change him.

  And I, I remembered our childhood days together in Gwynedd. Bright, happy, full of life, she had welcomed me into her home with open arms, never once pitying her orphaned cousin; she had made me feel at home from my first day. How I had loved her for it! She led everywhere, and I followed. I remembered our gallops along the stony beach upon our fat ponies, and the time she tried to teach me Irish braiding—it took Ailsa three hours to get th
e knots out of my hair! And how we eavesdropped on her father’s councils, and stole cream from the kitchens, and plied our tutor with mead to escape our lessons . . . and how, when I had stumbled upon a half-dead Irish pirate early one frozen winter morning, Elaine, her cheeks flushed with excitement, had brought me the news that he was a real Irish prince and worth ransom! Thus Fion had entered our lives, and so began, in all innocence, a competition between us for the notice of men. Poor Elaine! How sad that only at her death should my anger toward her finally slacken! Now that she had suffered a heavier punishment than any I would have laid upon her, I pitied her from the bottom of my heart. From childhood she had worshipped Arthur, as prince, as King, as man, only to see her rival wed him. And although she had hated the man she married, she had done her duty and had borne him sons. What had I wanted from her, but love for Lancelot? She was no more capable of that than I was of love for Melwas—dear Elaine!—if only she could forgive me! If only it were not too late!

  Eventually, when the night was well spent, we heard whispers behind us in the dark. I finished my prayer, crossed myself, and turned. Linet and Claire stood there with a candle, their eyes wide in wonder. They dipped quick curtsies, and the light trembled, casting shadows.

  “What is the matter?” I asked softly. “Why have you come?”

  “My—my lady,” Claire whispered, shaking, “it grows late and we were worried. We did not hear your voices. And—and we felt we neglected our duty. As your chaperones . . .” Her voice trailed off. Lancelot knelt, head bowed, his back to them.

  I rose, wiped the tears from my cheeks and guided them slowly away. “We have come to no harm, as you see. Sir Lancelot has had bad news. Now wait for us by the fountain. I will be with you in a moment.” They went obediently, and I watched them thoughtfully. I wondered if they had been sent.

  When I returned to Lancelot, I found his thoughts running the same way.

  “Spying on us, were they?” he asked, rising. “Who sent them?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s not jump to that conclusion.”

  He sighed with a great weariness. “There is a faction of young men who have taken against me. You had better know this, Gwen, especially as Arthur will not hear it spoken of. They are young yet, but their power is growing. All the Orkney boys are in it, except Gareth.”