Bedwyr was close enough to grab Medraut’s arms and strong enough to hold on. Medraut wriggled and cried out his innocence. “What’s to hold me for? I’ve brought the traitors before you!”
“Peace!” said the king. “Put away your weapons, all of you!” He waited for his order to be followed. No one wanted to be first. It was a standoff until Gaheris sheathed his knife with a flourish. Agravain, who had shielded Lynet behind him, followed. Then the others quickly put up their weapons. Lyonel held out until last, finally stowing his blade with ostentatious deliberation.
“Now,” said King Arthur, “We shall rule with law, not swords.” All eyes turned to the king when he shouted, “Medraut! I accuse you of the murder of Pawly. You used your friend as bait to trap these innocents and when that failed, you killed him.”
“These are no innocents, father.” Medraut writhed in Bedwyr’s clutches, more to express himself than to attempt freedom. He pointed his chin accusingly at Guinevere and Lancelot. “They are lovers. I caught them together. Lancelot killed Pawly to prevent him from discovering their hiding place. Who else is strong enough to kill a man with his bare hands? When I suspected he and the queen were together—on Gareth’s funeral day of all days, Sire!—I took these soldiers with me to protect my life. They’re witnesses to the lovers’ treason.”
Lancelot’s shirt hung open, an apparent admittance of guilt. Guinevere’s white underdress was torn at the hem where I knew it would be. Surrounded, the two of them stared at the floor. No one said a word. A servant girl bit her lip to stop tears. A soldier hung his head and sighed. Lancelot and Guinevere had lied to them all.
“Proof,” King Arthur demanded.
“If the testimony of these witnesses and your own son is not enough,” Medraut sniffled, “ask your friend Mistress Casey for proof. I saw her take it from the barnyard and put it in her pack.”
Everyone inched forward.
I hadn’t made a plan for the scrap of white cloth. I thought no one had seen me pluck it from the vines. I thought its destiny would be my choice. I figured I’d show it to the king when I finally got to tell him everything. Or I’d give it to Lancelot, to prove I meant him no harm. Or I wouldn’t show it to anyone.
“Reveal it.” Arthur’s expression was unreadable. Low flame and shadow flickered across his eyes.
I could not have moved more slowly had both my arms been restricted by slings. I touched the zipper on my pack. Fearing magic, a few people stepped back. I wished their fears were true. If only I could pull a rabbit from the pack, or a dove or a magic wand, anything but a scrap of white cloth.
Watching Arthur, I unzipped the pack slowly, to give him time to change his mind. I thought I discerned the tiniest nod.
He wanted me to show it.
I extracted the scrap and raised it high. The evidence that damned the queen dangled before the crowd like a bone held up to tempt a pack of hungry dogs.
The low flame in Arthur’s eyes flared, and he turned away.
“Ha!” said Medraut. His defiance fell like a thud in the silent hall.
Guinevere blinked and would not look at me. Lynet moaned and buried her head in Agravain’s chest. I wanted to put the scrap away and pretend it didn’t exist, had never existed. Agravain, his cheek against Lynet’s hair, seemed to be thinking about something else entirely.
Everyone else stared at the white scrap except Lyonel. Lyonel watched me. His mocking smile disturbed me, but most unsettling was the way he gazed at me with carnal eyes while gripping his throat and pretending to strangle himself.
“Sire.” Agravain broke the silence. “Ask Medraut why he didn’t tell us about the fires at Beran Byrig.”
I tore my attention away from Lyonel. Agravain had hit on what was wrong with Gaheris’s story.
Medraut ceased his squirming. “Why ask me?”
“Be quiet, both of you,” said the king. “We must deal with the prisoners first.”
Tucking the cloth away, I turned to the king. “If you please, it may be relevant, Sire. The morning after I got to Poste Perdu, I overheard Medraut at the gate. He told Gareth and Agravain he’d just come from Beran Byrig.”
Agravain looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. “Yes. Mistress Casey could have heard. Medraut said the granaries were full. If he’d been at Beran Byrig he’d have known of the fires.”
“They lie,” said Medraut. “I never said I was at Beran Byrig. I haven’t been there in months.”
“If you were not at Beran Byrig,” asked King Arthur, “where were you?”
“He was with the Saxons.” Agravain faced the king squarely, standing beside his big brother Gaheris. The two of them, their dark eyes gleaming with earnest fire, made a formidable pair. For the first time I noticed how tall Agravain was. “Medraut is your spy,” he said simply.
“I am no spy!” shouted Medraut, his anguish clear but not convincing.
“Someone led the Saxons to us last month in the forest near the Giant’s Ring,” said Agravain. “They’d have killed you, Sire, if not for Mistress Casey. The spy is responsible for the lives of Tore and Fergus and Dynadan.” He picked up steam, his voice deepening and getting louder. “You require proof, Sire. I don’t have it in my pouch. But if we were to scour the roadside between Poste Perdu and Beran Byrig, I suspect we’d find the messenger’s body. That might be proof enough.”
Lynet released Agravain’s arm and stood back to look up at him, as surprised as I was at his sudden verbosity. The people began to murmur. The king pushed against the air with both hands, as if to soothe the pressure in the room by patting it. “I’ll send a search party.”
Agravain gritted his teeth against his anger, but it came out fast and hard anyway. “How much more proof do you need, Sire? You have two witnesses to Medraut’s lie about the fires. The third is dead of a wound got in a battle we would not have fought but for Medraut’s treachery! Even then, he and Pawly became ‘lost’ in the woods trying to find their allies and warn them we were coming. Those ‘allies’ killed the boy Crewan and our brother Gareth!”
Agravain’s chest heaved. It was the most anyone had ever heard him say. Awed by his monologue, the soldiers were slow to react when he leaped atop a bench, dove across a table and locked his hands around Medraut’s throat shouting, “Murderer!”
Bench and table overturned, sending to the floor not only diners, but all those crowded around Medraut. Someone rushed in front of me—Caius—and leapt across the king’s table, knocking it over. Below the table Lynet, bereft of her usual pluck, was being buffeted about by charging soldiers and screaming servants. Everyone had something to shout and no one was heard, which made everyone shout louder. Even the dogs growled and yapped from their corners, their tails between their legs.
I clawed my way down the steps, dodging elbows and sword hilts, to retrieve Lynet before chaos engulfed her. A panicked servant bumped my injured arm as he ran by, forcing me to stop and wait for the pain to subside.
Lynet allowed me to usher her up the steps behind Caius, who had snatched Guinevere from the bedlam. I led Lynet to kneel with me behind the overturned table while Cai moved Guin farther off. Lynet covered her ears against the shouting and clack of swords, but I couldn't do the same; I had only one free hand and I needed it for holding onto her.
Bedwyr had lost his hold on Medraut. The younger man wrestled himself free of the mass of bodies and benches to escape Agravain. Lyonel and his cohorts took advantage of the confusion to fight their way to Lancelot, and Medraut saw his chance; he leapt sideways to join the small, oncoming army of Lancelot’s men. They slashed and hacked their way toward Lancelot, spattering blood in their wake. Though a few of Arthur’s men tried to stop them, most were still grappling under the furniture.
I had read this. It had happened before, would happen again, had always happened in legends and in books. I was witness to the inevitable in real lives, real hearts, real screams and blood. I watched, mesmerized, as Lyonel sliced Lancelot’s ties an
d thrust the hilt of a sword into his cousin’s hands. Free and armed, Lancelot had little trouble chopping his way to the exit, where he shielded himself behind a support post and surveyed the battle. Light from burning torches on the wall glinted off the sweat on his hair and skin. Breathing heavily, he took a precious second to search across the sea of clashing swords until he found her.
Cai had moved Guinevere to the door near the king’s quarters, as far from her lover as she could be and still be in the room. With a hundred men between them, Lancelot had no hope of rescuing her. The realization swept across their faces. Restricted by her bonds, Guinevere reached out to Lancelot with her eyes. She sent not fear to him but love and forgiveness. And Lancelot accepted.
I knew the legend. They didn’t. Things were about to get worse for them. They had given everything for love. What would I give everything for?
Lyonel touched Lancelot’s arm. After one more longing look at Guinevere, Lancelot followed his cousin out the door. Cai whisked Guinevere out the back.
The fighting spilled out into the night and the melee moved off toward the barracks. Lynet and I listened for what seemed like a long time. Horses came and went. Inside the hall, we heard the moans of the wounded. Some began to pick themselves up off the floor. The hall smelled of bodies, blood, snuffed torches and spilled venison stew. A few timid servants crept in from the kitchen to survey the damage. Arthur had long since disappeared, whether in the fighting or elsewhere, I didn’t know.
Lynet yanked her arm out of my hold. She stood and staggered to the steps, bracing herself on the table with a pale hand.
“Let me help you,” I said.
“I don’t need your help.” She meant it to sting. It did.
“It’s not safe out there.”
“I’m going to help the wounded,” she snapped. “Are you? Or do you lack the power to so much as clean a wound?” Disgusted, she tottered away down the stairs to navigate through the shambles of the hall, carefully choosing her steps over capsized benches and shattered mugs, a tired nurse picking her way across the battlefield.
THIRTY-NINE
My friends and I had beaten a path from the promontory down the slope to the wall, but the route was invisible in the dark. The ladderway we climbed to start our daily walks had been moved, rendering it useless as a reference point. I picked my way through the grass to the pair of armed guards who stood beneath a smoking torch.
“Your business, mistress?” A soldier I didn’t know, missing a few teeth.
“I’d like to speak to the queen.”
He and his cohort exchanged a look. “Raise your arms.”
I obeyed. The second guard backed away abruptly and spat out the blade of grass he’d been chewing. He feared my magic.
The toothless man waved his knife at me with his left hand and cautiously patted my sides with his right. I’d expected scrutiny and had left my fanny pack in my hut, tucked under the bench with Myrddin’s knife.
“No tricks.”
“I only want to comfort her.”
Guin must have heard. She waited by the tiny opening in the oubliette’s iron cover where she could receive fragments of sound and light. “Casey,” she whispered as I knelt beside the tiny chasm. “No one else will come. How is Arthur?”
The guards could probably hear me, but I felt the need to whisper, too. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the fight.”
“I’ve shamed him. I’ll burn for treason.”
“He won’t let it happen.”
“He has no choice. It’s the law. The trial will be held tomorrow.”
“Who can try you? No one’s impartial enough.”
“Cai will find fair judges. And I’ll be found guilty. There’s evidence.”
“Oh Guin.” My chin went into spasms. I must not cry, not while her eyes were dry.
“I want to die. I deserve it.”
“No!”
She changed the subject. “How is Lynet?”
I cleared my throat. “Upset, angry, grieving.”
“Good. She has her spirit.”
“Can I bring you anything?”
“It’s not allowed. I won’t be here long, thank God. It’s awful.” She lost her breath for a second. “God’s mercy will come soon after the trial.”
I dug my nails into the dirt. I wanted to tell her I wouldn’t let it happen. But I had learned my lesson about making promises I couldn’t keep. “How will you bear it?”
“God will give me what I need to face the fire.”
Above us the torch belched heat and smoke. Nearby, the sentries drifted back and forth. Grass swished against their legs. I couldn’t imagine a faith strong enough to carry anyone, no matter how devout, through the ordeal of burning alive. I leaned close to the oubliette’s small outlet, though I couldn’t see Guin in the blackness. “I can bring you poison from Myrddin’s garden.”
“No. One death at the stake is enough.”
“Then what can I do?” It came out like a guilty plea, my tears spilling with it.
“Forgive me?”
“Me, forgive you? Oh Guin.” She was just a kid who had followed her heart through territory too big for it to navigate. I’d behaved as badly as she had—worse—when I should have known better. I wanted to tell her I’d lied about the pregnancy potion, but the purpose would have been to cleanse my soul, not hers. And the scrap of cloth, my terrible mistake in showing it... “You don’t need to be forgiven, Guin. But of course. If you—”
“Then there’s nothing else.” Belying her words, her index finger rose from the void like a pale crocus, to beckon me closer.
I lay on the ground, blocking the oubliette from the guards’ view. Guin’s finger disappeared then returned. Finger and thumb held her silver ring, the one that matched Arthur’s, with the Giant’s Ring etched on its surface.
“Give this to Arthur,” came her unwavering whisper. “Tell him I’m glad to die for my sin, and I beg him to forgive me in his heart.”
“I will.” My voice broke. The ring fit tightly on the pinkie of my right hand.
“I know you love him, Casey. Take care of him.”
I thought to say I wasn’t in love with her husband. I started to promise I wouldn’t let her die. But I would make no more promises I couldn’t keep. I would tell no more lies.
Instead I held her hand and kissed her fingers, knowing what she and Lancelot had felt an hour earlier in the hall. They’d wondered—no. They had known. That look, this touch, could be their last.
FORTY
As Guinevere had predicted, Caius recruited the most impartial judges he could find. Presiding over the hall from the high table were the allied warlords King Cadwy of Cornwall, King Owain of Corinium Dobunnorum and Marcus of Lindinis, a newly-arrived military chieftain from the near west. They summoned everyone who could give evidence, from the smith who worked the forge behind the barn, to the soldiers who had arrested the lovers, to me.
Most of the trestle tables had been stacked along the walls. I stood before the judges in the early, gray morning. Guinevere faced them too, standing in the center aisle, forced to listen to witness after witness, with no opportunity to sit down. Her tunic had become soiled during the night and I wondered if she’d slept. No redness or puffiness encircled her eyes, no sign of tears streaked her cheeks, but in the bleak overcast her skin was as pale as the white cloth she wore.
King Cadwy wasted no time in his interview of me. “Tell us where you found the cloth,” he said in a voice as thin and elderly as he was.
“It was caught among the vines on the paddock wall.” I couldn’t think of a lie to help Guinevere.
“Why did you take it?”
The truth was I’d taken it because I wanted to protect Guinevere. But admitting that was admitting I knew of the affair, and despite my promise to myself I was still capable of lying. “I thought I should return it to the queen.”
“Did you not suspect?”
“I suspected only that the queen h
ad been in the barnyard, perhaps to see a favorite horse.”
The judges conferred. Apparently they believed me. Guin and I had only the briefest second to share a burdened glance. Cadwy nodded to Caius, who waited at the end of the main table. Cai ushered me briskly to the door, where he would call the next witness.
Until then I hadn’t noticed King Arthur sitting in the shadows of the furthest corner. The comforting hand on his sagging shoulder belonged to Myrddin, who must have risen in the pre-dawn dark to travel from Ynys Witrin and be at his master’s side. Myrddin’s eyes glowed, bright as ever.
-----
Servants gathered outside in the fog, clutching their threadbare shawls against the cold and gossiping in whispers. Above the gate, sentries stopped pacing to share suppositions about the proceedings inside the hall. Ladies and soldiers perched along the wall to have the best vantage when each witness emerged, and, ultimately, the accused. I knew the verdict of legend. I hoped history would prove legend wrong.
In need of distraction I ventured to the kitchen and begged Heulwen to give me something to do, “besides butchering, if you please.” If it wasn’t the worst day of her life, she said, that would have made her laugh. Most of the kitchen workers had gone out to join the vigil. Heulwen had given up on keeping them at their work and was glad of my company, if not my help. Up to my good elbow in greens, I sorted and chopped vegetables while Heulwen hacked away at some poor, dead critter, shaking the table each time she struck and killing it over and over again. We heard the hall’s front door burst open. Heulwen ceased her slashing.
We waited. No further sound came.
“I can’t bear it,” said Heulwen, wiping her hands on her apron.
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