Gawain

by Gwen Rowley

  Ah, well, he comforted himself, Arthur is a sensible fellow; sooner or later, he will accept what cannot be changed. Now that Gawain knew that Dame Ragnelle wasn’t about to press her marriage rights, he did not much mind her. Oh, she was still as ugly as the day was long, but even now he didn’t view her with the same revulsion as he had on their first meeting. And if she embarrassed him from time to time . . . well, at least she wouldn’t put horns on his head, as so many young brides had done to their besotted knights. If a bit of awkwardness was the worst she had to offer, he could live with it without too much distress.

  The forest gave way to neatly tilled fields, and the scents of leaf and mold to that of fresh-turned earth. A light rain began to fall, though the sun still shone to the east. For a moment a dazzling rainbow arced over the fields before the clouds parted and the sun once more beat down upon Gawain’s head. In the next field over, fat raindrops splashed upon brown soil, and the rainbow shone palely to the west before vanishing once again, only to blaze forth in the eastern sky.

  It was on just such a changeable spring day that Gawain had first ridden to Camelot, his heart filled with all manner of terrible forebodings.

  He had been weaned upon the tale of Uther Pendragon, who had murdered Gawain’s grandfather, the duke of Cornwall and Uther’s loyal subject. On that same night, Uther ravished the duke’s wife, Igraine, after having himself magicked into the duke’s likeness so Igraine believed it was her own husband she lay with. Nine months later, Arthur had been born.

  That Uther had truly loved Igraine, had married her, and made her queen of Britain might have absolved him of some measure of his treachery in the eyes of the world— but not in the eyes of Igraine’s eldest daughter, Morgause.

  Morgause claimed to have loved her father, the murdered duke. Whether she had or not, Gawain never knew, for he had known little of loving-kindness at his mother’s hands. It was hatred that defined Morgause, hatred first of Uther and later of the son he had gotten on Igraine. That hatred shaped the fate of Morgause’s husband, whom she urged to rebel against the newly crowned King Arthur. It had shaped Gawain’s, as well, when at fourteen he was wrested from his home and sent as hostage to Arthur’s court when the rebellion failed.

  Gawain had expected his wicked uncle to be malformed, no doubt as a result of hearing him constantly referred to as “that misbegotten brat.” But even if Arthur appeared to be a genial young man, he was still the son of the Pendragon, that personification of all evil. And Gawain was the grandson of the duke of Cornwall and Igraine.

  There was that between him and Arthur that could never be forgotten: the blood of a loyal man, the rape of a good woman, a stain of dishonor that could only be washed away by death. So let Arthur call him “nephew” and treat him with all outward courtesy, as though he were a guest rather than a hostage. Gawain was far too canny to be so easily deceived. They had been born to be enemies.

  Only . . . Arthur did not seem to understand that.

  It is a trick, Gawain had thought that lonely first year, as he held himself proudly aloof from Arthur’s overtures of friendship. He acts out of political necessity, he told himself the second year, when Arthur named him as heir and took him on progress. He is a fool, Gawain decided soon after his sixteenth birthday, when Arthur began to lesson him in battle tactics, though once he grasped the essence of Arthur’s strategies, he could not call him fool for long. And when he understood that, to Arthur, military victory was not an end, but only the beginning of his vision for Britain, he no longer knew what to think.

  That was the worst year of all.

  Gawain knew what he should think. Given their shared history, the odds were good that one day he would become Arthur’s rival for the throne. As he, Gawain, was neither halt nor witless, but a warrior of undeniable promise, Arthur had but two choices: have him killed or make of him an ally.

  Gawain supposed he should be grateful Arthur had not chosen the first path, though there were times during that terrible year when he almost wished Arthur had. Better to die than to betray his kin and clan.

  That Arthur was a kind and admirable man would have been bad enough—but not an insurmountable obstacle. There was no shame in respecting an enemy or even liking him. But Arthur was more than a man—he was a king like those of the old tales, as wise as he was strong.

  “We must put aside the old ways,” Arthur said to him one night, when they sat alone in his chamber over a game of chess, “the old blood feuds and hatreds handed down from one generation to the next. You have Sir Whatsis who argues with his neighbor over a disputed boundary—oftimes a matter of a few acres!—and so they come to blows, and before you know it, Whatsis’s son is at daggers drawn with his neighbor’s son, and so on and on. Of course, the argument is not always trivial . . .”

  Their eyes met over the board. Met and held for a long, long moment.

  “But the point remains the same. Why should we—why should any man,” Arthur went on deliberately, “waste his life in avenging wrongs that happened long before he was born? What purpose does it serve to compound an error into infinity? And who really suffers for it? The poor lads who go off to die over some stale quarrel they do not even understand—and the farmers whose lands are trampled, so come winter all go hungry. And when Sir Whatsis is needed to fight the Saxons, he doesn’t give his mind or heart to the real threat. No, he whinges on about how his neighbor got the better encampment—or that his men cannot possibly be stationed beside those men. Oh, it might sound like a mere annoyance, but when you have a dozen Sir Whatsises—a hundred—it can grind an army to a halt. And what, I ask you, is the point?”

  Before Gawain could answer that the point was honor, Arthur hurried on. “And then you have that Bruce Sans Pitié who feels free to help himself to any maiden who catches his eye—and no one dares to say him nay because he is a noble! Where is the justice in that?”

  Gawain opened his mouth to protest that every lord must hold sway over his own demesne, but Arthur gave him no chance to reply.

  “Don’t you see, we have it in us to create something entirely new—a Britain united under a single set of laws. And those laws won’t be based on some old man’s bile, but on justice—and not only for the knights and lords. Indeed,” he added with a wry smile, “I often think that if it comes about at all, it will be despite them. These old men with their old grudges—they cannot see beyond the ends of their own noses or grasp that anything is more important than their petty quarrels. But the future doesn’t belong to those old men, Gawain, it belongs to us, and together we can make of it anything we will.”

  Gawain tried to reconcile the two loyalties warring for supremacy over his heart, but they were so opposed that any treaty seemed impossible. Matters came to a head over his knighting, an occasion Arthur wanted to mark with elaborate celebrations. In the space of six months, Gawain gained three inches and lost half a stone, and finally sent a message to his parents begging them to negotiate for his release. The reply, written in his father’s hand but no doubt dictated by his mother, was short and sharp. He was grown to a man’s estate, it said, and they expected him to act accordingly. “Do what you must,” it finished.

  Ten days later, Gawain knelt before the king and rendered Arthur his oath of fealty. Once the deed was done, he did not look back. An oath taken was taken. A promise made must be fulfilled.

  So it was with Dame Ragnelle. He wished Arthur understood that there was nothing to be gained by complaining of what could not be changed. But Arthur was a romantic, something Gawain had not been for years.

  His thoughts drifted back to a dream he’d had last night—a strange dream, very vivid. He was tempted to relive every moment of it, but he wrested his mind firmly to the present.

  No matter how enticing a dream of love might be, in the end it was no more than an illusion, and no one knew the danger of illusion—and of love—better than Gawain. But they are one, he reflected, for love is always an illusion, a trap to lead good men to ruin and
disgrace. Give him reality any day, even if reality was a muddy road beneath a darkening sky, with a difficult negotiation to look forward to and Dame Ragnelle to welcome him home when it was done. For right here, right now he was awake, aware, utterly himself and completely in control of his own thoughts and actions.

  It might not seem much to other men, but to Gawain it was enough.

  Chapter 15

  AISLYN was in a foul temper by the time she stumped up the stairway toward the royal pavilion. She had spent the past two days searching for her bag, and once she realized it must be in the trunk, in trying first to pick the lock, then using every spell she knew to open it. All she had to show for her trouble was a broken bodkin and a headache.

  She would far rather have been resting—hiding—in her chamber, but as the queen herself had sent a page to bring her to the tournament, she thought it prudent to attend. Guinevere sat beside Arthur’s empty throne, and on her left hand was Sir Lancelot, brave in a scarlet cloak and cap with a long white feather that curled over one shoulder.

  “Are you not competing, Sir Lancelot?” Aislyn asked, surprised to find him there.

  When Lancelot turned to her, the wind caught his plume. Guinevere batted it away from her face.

  “Since the king is gone away, our gracious lady asked me to judge the outcome,” Lancelot replied politely.

  “Lance,” the queen complained, “can you not remove that dratted cap? The feather keeps getting in my eyes.”

  “Remove it? Madam, I would have you know this cost me a small fortune. I will turn my head away.”

  He was in high good spirits, as was Guinevere. The two of them were whispering like children, then breaking into gales of laughter. Aislyn’s spirits lifted a trifle, for it had been years since she had seen a tournament, and never one half so fine as this. The knights were gathering below, Sir Kay’s on one end of the field, Sir Pellinore’s on the other. She leaned forward in her seat when the marshal dropped his scarf and the two sides charged.

  Gawain had been right. It was like a battle. They came together with a fearsome clash, and it was impossible not to be caught up in the excitement. “Oh, well done, Sagramore!” Guinevere cried. “Sir Kay is down—he will have hard words for his groom tonight, I trow!” Aislyn turned this way and that, trying to follow Guinevere’s pointing finger, but it was such a press of heaving steeds and shouting men that she wondered how Sir Lancelot could possibly decide the winner. She turned to ask him—only to find another man sitting in his place, wearing the scarlet cloak and cap.

  A great burst of laughter erupted from the audience and she saw a knight ride into the melee, wearing— She blinked and rubbed her eyes, but she had seen aright. The knight was wearing a yellow gown over his armor, the skirts ruched up over his legs and fluttering behind him as he galloped into the fray.

  It had to be Sir Lancelot. The tales of his prowess had not been exaggerated, Aislyn thought. He rode like a fury, knocking knights aside as though they were straw men, only to pull up his charger before two knights who were engaged. One fell; the other—Sir Dinadan, she realized from his shield, turned to find Lancelot ready to engage him.

  Aislyn was on her feet now, hands twisting as she waited for the charge. Lancelot put heels to his horse, but at the last moment he turned aside, making a show of smoothing down his skirt as Dinadan’s steed swept by him. Having arranged the billowing fabric to his satisfaction, Lancelot lifted his spear as though ready to engage his opponent, giving an exaggerated start when he realized Dinadan was no longer facing him. He raised himself in his stirrups and turned his head this way and that, one gauntleted hand shading his visor as he sought his vanished opponent.

  The other knights had drawn back to watch, and the stands rang with cheers and laughter as Lancelot finally spotted Dinadan and with a flourishing bow, invited him to joust.

  It was over in a moment. Dinadan went down amid a burst of laughter from the crowd. Guinevere sat forward in her seat, a hand pressed across her mouth and tears of merriment streaming down her cheeks.

  Ah, well, Aislyn thought, Dinadan had asked for it. She was relieved, though, when he stood and waved to the crowd, then with a bow as exaggerated as Lancelot’s had been, saluted the victor before mounting his horse and turning for the sidelines. He was halfway there when Lancelot and another knight—Aislyn could not see who it was— came up on either side of him and escorted him off the field and into the forest.

  “Where did they go?” she asked Guinevere.

  “Off to drink, no doubt, and make up their quarrel.”

  Aislyn wondered why they couldn’t wait for the feast to drink together; it seemed odd that Lancelot had abandoned the field when he surely would have carried off the prize, which turned out to be a two-handed cup filled with silver coin, presented by the queen to a rather stunned-looking Sir Sagramore.

  Maybe Lancelot was so wealthy he did not care, though he must be very wealthy indeed to turn down such a prize as that! She’d have to ask Dinadan about it at the feast.

  But Dinadan was not in his usual seat in the hall. Nor was Sir Lancelot. The first course was finished, and the second, before Dinadan arrived, though Aislyn did not recognize him at first. He was escorted on either side by Sir Lancelot and another man—the Saxon, Gudrun—who held him firmly by the arms.

  And he was wearing the yellow gown.

  His armor was beneath; it gleamed through the many rents in the saffron fabric, which was stained now with earth and what looked like blood. She could not read his expression, for his head was bent, his tangled hair obscuring his face.

  “My queen!” Lancelot cried. “I have brought a new damsel for your service!”

  “G-good my lady,” Guinevere choked, “you are welcome here. Come, sit by me.”

  Dinadan wrenched free of his captors. He turned, gathering the tattered hem, but on his first step he stumbled, half falling in a dreadful parody of a curtsy.

  Knights beat upon the tables with their fists, convulsed with mirth, and the ladies shrieked with laughter. Guinevere bent double, one arm clasped across her middle, half sliding from her seat. Aislyn was reminded of a bear-baiting she had seen as a girl. Everyone had laughed at that, as well—but she had run off to be sick behind a bush.

  She felt the same nausea now, the same pity and rage. But this time, she could do something about it.

  She stumped into the center of the hall and stood before Lancelot, hands fisted on her hips.

  “What’s this you’re playing at?” she demanded. “For shame, Sir Lancelot, to treat a brother knight so!”

  Lancelot looked momentarily taken aback, but he soon recovered. “Why, Dinadan, it seems you have made a conquest! Does Sir Gawain know of this?”

  “Watch yourself, lad,” Aislyn said quietly. “Your tongue is outrunning your manners—and your sense.”

  “What is this?” the Saxon asked, raising his hand. “Begone, before I fetch you a clout to remind you of your place.”

  Aislyn eyed him up and down. “Am I meant to be frightened? Of you?”

  Lancelot caught the Saxon’s wrist. “Gudrun, don’t,” he said in a low voice. “The king wouldn’t like it.” He glanced about the hall, then smiled. “Lady Ragnelle, if you want this . . . damsel for your own service, you only need appeal to our gracious queen.”

  The queen exchanged a glance with Lancelot and smiled. “Lady Ragnelle,” she said, “I will grant thy boon.”

  Aislyn rolled her eyes and reached for Dinadan’s arm.

  “In return for a favor from you,” the queen said.

  “What’s that?” Aislyn asked suspiciously.

  “We all so enjoyed your dance the other day,” Guinevere said. “Do you perform it again for us, I beg you.”

  Dinadan raised his head. One eye was swollen nearly shut and blood oozed from a gash on his cheekbone. “Don’t,” he said to Aislyn. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Quiet, you,” Gudrun growled, jerking him away. “Let the old woman dance fo
r us. Go on,” he cried, raising his voice, “Dance!”

  Aislyn didn’t know why she should mind. She’d been more than willing to make a fool of herself in the garden. But somehow that was very different than someone else forcing her to do it.

  “Either you dance,” Gudrun added, pulling Dinadan forward so abruptly that he stumbled, “or he does.”

  Aislyn cast a look about the hall, certain that someone would protest. But all she saw were the avid faces of people half starved for amusement, people who had lived so long in luxury that they had forgotten what it was to be poor and powerless—if they had ever known.

  But Camelot wasn’t supposed to like this! It was meant to be different. Better. A beacon, Gawain had called it, and only now did she realize how very much she had wanted to believe him.

  But he’d been wrong. This place was rotten to the core. When she could simply walk away, it had been easy to laugh at their pretension, but now it wasn’t funny anymore. Tears rose to her eyes, tears of helpless fury and shame and of sorrow for Gawain’s dream of Camelot.

  “Well?” Gudrun demanded. “Why are you still standing there?”

  Aislyn nodded. No point in slobbering, she told herself. Get on with it.

  She put her hands on her hips and tipped her head back to look up at the queen. “Where’s the music? You can’t expect me to dance without music!”

  Gudrun clapped his hands. “Dance!” he cried. “Dance!”

  Others took up the cry, crashing fists or tankards on the trestles to the rhythm Gudrun set. “Dance!”

  When Aislyn set her jaw and hopped from one foot to the other, they howled like beasts. She had just taken her second step when a voice sliced through the tumult like a blade.

  “What in God’s name is going on here?”

  Aislyn stumbled on the next step as she whirled, her heart lifting when she saw Gawain’s golden head above the flushed and sweating crowd. His face was set, only the flashing of his eyes betrayed his emotion as he strode between the trestles to stop before the dais. “Madam,” he said, bowing to the queen, “the king sends you greeting and bids me say he will be with you on the morrow.”