by Alan Fenton
‘I’ll miss you.’ Her voice broke as she turned away. ‘Gally too,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘He’s grown very fond of you.’ ‘I’ll be back,’ he assured her. ‘As often as I can, I promise.
And I’ll call you and Gally regularly.’
The boy’s eyes were big and serious, staring at Lancelot uncomprehendingly as he tried to explain why ‘daddy has to say goodbye’. When Lancelot knelt, tears stinging his eyes, to hug his son, Galahad stood stiffly in his arms for a moment or two, then abruptly pushed him away and left the room without a backward look.
Twenty One
Convinced that Lancelot would never return to Camelot, Guinevere felt abandoned and abused. How could he have done this to her, first making her fall in love with him, and then deserting her? She had been happy enough with Arthur, had never dreamed of looking at another man.
What hurt even more was that her rival in love, Helena, had given Lancelot a son, something she would never be able to do for Arthur. It wasn’t fair. Because Arthur had been so understanding, she had somehow convinced herself that it didn’t matter, and it really hadn’t until now. But now it did, it mattered a great deal. For days she scarcely ate or slept. Humiliated and angry, she told herself again and again that she didn’t care whether Lancelot came back or not. Why should she? It was all over between them.
But when she heard that a Scuttle, piloted by Gawain, was on its way to fly Lancelot back to Camelot, she was unable to conceal her joy.
It seemed to Lanky that her friend’s happiness was laced with triumph. Was it Lancelot’s return she was celebrating, or was it the fact that he was coming back to her? If that was how she felt, she could hardly blame her, for it was confirmation that Lancelot loved her, wasn’t it? Not even his own son and the mother of his child could keep him away. Lanky was happy for her friend, but troubled too. Ginny had lost her heart. Had she lost that famous sense of hers with it?
Lancelot returned to Camelot like a conquering hero. Not only Arthur, but everyone on the island was relieved to have the Chief of Staff back again. Yet even as he was being warmly embraced by his peers and followers, Lancelot was wondering why Guinevere was not there on the landing pad to greet him. Surely she knew it was neither duty nor his love for Arthur that had drawn him back to Camelot; it was her. There could be only one explanation for her absence; she had kept her word. If you go, it’s the end.
The next day, his worst fears were confirmed. Early in the morning a note was delivered by Lanky who was clearly relishing her role in the drama. He tore the note open and read: I’m sorry, but there’s no future for us. Please forgive me if I ever did or said anything to make you think there could be.
She had said she loved him, no ifs and buts about it. And she had said it not just with words but with her eyes, her hands, her lips. If I ever did or said anything . . . Of course she did! He read the note again. And again. And yet again. And the more he read it, the more confused he became. His eyes swam, his limbs twitched, the blood sang in his ears.
That night he dreamed that Arthur was standing by his bedside.
‘You betrayed me.’
‘No! I would never do that.’ ‘You made love to my wife.’ ‘It isn’t true!’ he cried.
Wide awake now, heart racing, he sat up sharply, peering fearfully about him. There was no one there. It was all in his imagination.
When he woke the next morning he had a high fever. Rolling out of bed, he staggered to Command Control and collapsed on the floor of his office where his PA found him minutes later. Rushed to Camelot’s hospital he was taken to the intensive care unit. The doctors concentrated on rehydrating his body and bringing down his temperature. Though his condition was serious, there was no obvious reason for it, and they could make no diagnosis.
Arthur was deeply troubled. Lancelot’s illness was as unexpected as it was puzzling. ‘I can’t seem to get any sense out of the doctors,’ he told Guinevere. ‘What can be wrong with him?’
Why, she wondered, would Arthur imagine she knew more than the doctors? ‘Some kind of nervous breakdown?’ she ventured.
‘He has difficult decisions to make,’ said Arthur, ‘personal ones. And those are always the most stressful, aren’t they? Helena and Galahad pulling him one way, Camelot the other.’
‘I suppose so,’ she murmured.
He looked out at Camelot’s white buildings. ‘Tell me, Ginny,’ he said, turning away from the glare, ‘what is your opinion? Is it love of Camelot or love of his family that is pulling Lancelot most strongly?’
She blinked nervously. Was she being consulted or cross- examined? ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’
Arthur sat behind his desk and doodled on a notepad. ‘Because if it’s Camelot, then we must persuade him to stay with us, reassure him that we need him, that we can’t do without him. He can easily be in regular touch with Helena and Galahad, and of course visit them from time to time.’ Those piercing blue eyes of his seemed to illuminate the dark caverns of her mind. ‘If, on the other hand, the pull of family is strongest, then for the sake of his peace of mind we must encourage him to leave, even though it would mean losing someone we all admire . . . and love.’
She did not know what to say.
‘What do you think, Ginny? Camelot or London?’ ‘Why ask me?’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
‘I thought perhaps you might know how he feels about Helena.’
‘How would I know that?’
An airy wave of the hand. ‘Woman’s intuition.’
‘What about man’s intuition?’ she asked, to gain time.
He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘My guess is that he really is in love with her. I believe he only came back out of a sense of duty to Camelot, and to me.’
She was silent.
‘Of course, if he did decide to go back to her,’ said Arthur, scribbling idly on his notepad, ‘it would be a great loss for Camelot, and for me personally. I would miss him. I would miss him terribly.’
Guinevere was suddenly aware of her heart thumping against her ribs. Why was he telling her all this?
‘And so would you, of course,’ he added.
What did he mean by that? Fearing that the answer to the question was there in his eyes, she could not look at him.
For more than a week Lancelot’s mind wandered. Nurses, their shifts organised by an ever attentive Lanky, watched over him night and day. Ban, Arthur, Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris, Leo Grant, Ian Duncan, and the many actives who served under him, took turns sitting by his bedside trying to get through to him, though never succeeding. He talked incessantly in an incoherent gabble, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting. From time to time he would push himself up on his bed and cry out as if he were a soul in torment, then fall back into a deep sleep.
Guinevere did not visit him, afraid that by word or look or gesture she might betray her true feelings. Ban sat at his bedside for hours on end, talking to him in characteristic staccato bursts of speech. Even he could not reach his son.
One morning the fever left him. He looked pale and gaunt and was very weak, but the worst was over. The doctors said he would soon be on his feet again. Arthur and Guinevere visited him together and sat on either side of his bed. Even as they came into the room he was already apologising to Arthur. ‘I have let you down, sir. You will have my resignation on your desk this afternoon.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Arthur, ‘you have been sick, so naturally you feel a bit down. Let’s have no talk of resignation. We need you, Lance. We love you,’ he added softly.
‘I am not worthy of your love,’ muttered Lancelot, and though he looked straight ahead as he spoke, Guinevere knew the words were directed as much to her as to Arthur.
When they said goodbye, Arthur patted Lancelot’s shoulder self-consciously and Guinevere held his hand, squeezing it gently as Arthur waited by the door. Had she held Lancelot’s hand a second too long, she wondered. If so, had Arthur noticed? Later she remembered with relief that he cou
ld not have seen anything because his back was turned. Her relief was short- lived. Why was it turned, she asked herself; for no good reason she could think of, or at least none she cared to acknowledge.
It was only the second note he had written her, and it begged her to come to his apartment that afternoon. Guinevere was in torment. It was impossible. If she went to him now, there would be no more wandering in that hinterland between flirtation and commitment, no more ambiguity, no turning back. She had tried to persuade herself that their love was a spiritual union of twin souls, not to be contaminated by physical passion. Yet what was the use of pretending? She was in love, passionately, distractedly in love with Lancelot, and he with her. She sent her reply via Lanky. Three words: Will be there. What else could she do?
Neither of them knew how it had happened, or cared. One minute they were swimming in calm waters, the next, swept out to sea by a tidal wave they were drowning, with no hope of rescue and no chance of swimming back to shore. Nothing could have been more unexpected, and nothing more inevitable. It was as if they had always been in love, as if they had known each other for a hundred lifetimes.
Against all good sense and reason, Guinevere had surrendered to passion. For once she had allowed her heart to rule her head, something she had sworn would never happen, and far from regretting it, she was blissfully happy. From that day, the memory of their love-making never left her. Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, whoever she was speaking to, she was still, in some secret part of her mind, in bed with Lancelot, kissing him, fondling him, shivering at the touch of his hands. It was exciting, but frightening too. Yet if anything troubled her it was not guilt, it was the fear that Arthur might find out. She would do anything not to hurt him; anything, that is, but give up Lancelot.
Lancelot’s conscience, on the other hand, troubled him greatly. Since that day at Oxford when his prayers had brought Daniel Shalott back from the brink of death, he was convinced that his life had a special meaning and purpose, and that God had work for him to do. Not any more. Adultery was a sin, it contaminated his own image of what he was and what he aspired to be. He had done what he had so often criticised others for doing: he had lost control, and being out of control was frightening to a man accustomed to ordering every aspect of his life. Love was being out of control, love was chaos, love was a kind of madness.
And of all things, he feared madness.
Twenty Two
Since he was not expecting visitors, Merlin was surprised when the doorbell of his cottage rang. At the door was a slightly built young man with a narrow face and dark eyes, about seventeen or eighteen years old. ‘May I come in?’
‘You are welcome,’ said Merlin, ushering his visitor to a Windsor chair by the fireplace and taking the chair opposite.
‘Do you know who I am?’
Images of the past – children playing, a country house, manicured lawns – drifted like spirits through Merlin’s head.
‘They tell me I am like my mother,’ said Mordred, teasing Merlin’s memory. ‘Less like my father, apparently.’
Apparently. The word was obviously significant, and intended to be. Had his father died? Divorced? Left the country? Then suddenly he remembered . . . the blurred images were in focus, past and present merged. ‘You are Mordred,’ said Merlin, ‘Lennox and Margot’s son.’
‘Partly right,’ said Mordred with a wan smile.
Merlin made no comment, though he knew what Mordred meant, and why he was here.
‘My dear mother tells me that her husband, Lennox Lotte, the man I always assumed was my father, is in fact no relation of mine.’ Below Mordred’s cheekbone a muscle twitched uncontrollably. ‘It seems my real father is Arthur Pendragon. My mother had a brief fling with him at Oxford.’ A keen look. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I have seen neither you nor your family for many years,’ said Merlin. ‘Besides, it was for your mother to tell you, not me.’
‘Or my father,’ said Mordred.
‘Arthur never knew he had a son,’ said Merlin.
‘You and Arthur go back a long way,’ said Mordred insinuatingly.
‘Yes, we do. Nevertheless it’s the truth,’
‘Is it?’A keen look. ‘I imagine it is,’ said Mordred. ‘My mother said he wanted her to have an abortion, and she agreed – reluctantly – to have one. He must have thought she had taken care of his little foetus problem.’
Merlin said nothing.
‘So it’s thanks to my dear mother that I didn’t end up a bloody pulp in some hospital trash can,’ said Mordred. ‘I suppose I should be grateful to her.’ A bitter smile. ‘I wonder why I’m not.’
Far from being grateful, she disgusted him, not just because she had committed adultery, but because of the man she had done it with. It had taken a while for the full significance of the adulterous coupling to dawn on him. Recalling that recent exchange with his mother, the hot bile rose in the back of his throat, souring his mouth.
‘Igraine is your mother.’ ‘Yes.’
‘And she was Arthur’s mother too.’ ‘Yes.’
‘So you had sex with your own brother!’ ‘My half-brother, darling. Don’t exaggerate.’
‘Only your half-brother! I do beg your pardon, mother. So it was only half incest.’
‘You make it sound like something dirty. It wasn’t like that at all.’
‘How was it then? You mean you didn’t fuck? What did you do, then? Clink test tubes in the college bar?’
He and his brothers, Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris and Gareth, had always known that their mother was chronically unfaithful. Lennox – either blissfully ignorant or burying his head in the sand – never once complained, nor ever seemed to waver in his love for her. Looking back now, it was clear they had all been complicit in their mother’s extra-marital relationships, none of which, as it happened, greatly affected their lives. This one had, though. This one was different. It had given him life, at the same time creating in him the longing to be revenged on the very people who gave it to him.
‘Tell me, mother, when you fucked him, did you know Arthur was your half-brother?’
Her reaction, he recalled, was first to howl indignantly, and then to break down in a torrent of tears that sent rivulets of mascara streaming down her face.
‘How can you say such a thing? How cruel you are! Of course
I didn’t.’ Wiping her face clean of make-up, she looked younger and curiously vulnerable. For an instant he had felt a pang of sympathy for her; and then he caught that slyly malicious look in her eye. ‘But he knew! Oh yes, he knew alright. He told me later that screwing his sister was a huge turn-on.’
Whether he believed her or not, the accusation left its mark. Never in his whole life had he hated anyone as much as he hated Arthur. It occurred to him to wonder whether his mother was manipulating him, using him as the instrument of her own revenge. Well then, if she was, so be it.
‘If my father doesn’t know he has a son,’ said Mordred, forcing a cheerful smile, ‘let me be the one to break the good news to him. I shall have found my real father, and he will have a son he never knew existed. A happy ending for both of us.’
Merlin was not so sure. Somehow he did not associate Mordred with happy endings.
‘I intend to pay him a visit,’ said Mordred. ‘Gareth will be coming with me.’
Merlin knew how attached Margot’s youngest son was to his mother, as was she to him, and wondered why he was leaving her. Was it because he wanted to join his brothers in Camelot, or had Mordred persuaded him to leave her out of spite?
‘I shall need your help to get to Camelot,’ said Mordred, trying to look and sound casual.
Which had to be the real reason for the unexpected visit. Mordred in Camelot? Merlin looked into the young man’s heart, and what he saw there troubled him. Tempted to refuse, he decided he could not. Not even he could stop the wheel turning.
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Twenty Three
Gawain, agravaine and gaheris crowded eagerly round the new arrivals, greeting their younger brothers, Mordred and Gareth, with warm embraces. Waiting a few moments for the excitement to subside, Arthur came forward to welcome his two nephews. ‘Let me get a good look at you,’ he said, holding Gareth at arm’s length. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I wasn’t going to let Mordred leave me at home,’ said Gareth.
Arthur chuckled. ‘You’ve grown into a fine young man. How old are you now?’
‘Sixteen, sir,’ said Gareth, and then, observing Gawain’s disapproving look, ‘well, nearly sixteen. I want to be a member of the Round Table.’
‘You don’t think you’re a bit young?’ said Arthur, laughing. ‘Not too young to do a man’s work,’ insisted Gareth.
‘I like your spirit. We’ll see about the Round Table in a couple of year’s time.’
Gareth’s mouth drooped.
‘The years pass all too quickly,’ said Arthur. ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry.’
Next he clasped Mordred’s hand, drew him close and hugged him. ‘You are most welcome to Camelot, Mordred,’ he said.
‘It’s an enormous privilege to be here, sir,’ said Mordred. ‘You are eighteen?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then we shall make you a member of the Round Table.’ ‘Thank you, sir. A great honour,’ murmured Mordred.
‘And call me uncle,’ said Arthur. ‘All my other nephews do.’
Mordred hesitated. What an opportunity to embarrass his father here in the Great Hall of the Round Table in front of all his groupies. How satisfying it would be to gatecrash his party with the truth, the searing truth. God, it was tempting, indeed so tempting, it was almost impossible to resist…but no, it would not be right. Timing was everything. There would be better opportunities in the future. Arthur was strong now, a world hero. The time to strike would be when he was so weakened that one final blow would finish him off. ‘Thank you, uncle,’ said Mordred, his composed manner revealing nothing of the turmoil in his head. ‘I should say,’ he added, ‘how much I admire what you are doing, and how honoured I feel to be given the chance to serve you.’