Guinevere, the Legend in Autumn: Book Three of the Guinevere Trilogy

by Persia Woolley

  Beaumains looked up abruptly when he heard Mordred’s voice, then rushed forward, opening his arms to the new squire and taking him into a bear hug as the audience murmured curiously.

  Gawain, stunned by the realization he’d been fighting his own kin, gaped at the two of them until they turned to include him in a joyful, back-pounding embrace. Tears of happiness streamed down all three faces.

  I thought of Morgause, weeping as she told me that Gareth had been lost at sea, somewhere near the Old Man of Hoy. Yet here he was, fully alive and well. For all that I bore the woman no love, I was sorry she had gone to her grave grieving for a son who was, in fact, not dead…until I remembered it was Gareth himself who had refused to divulge his background. Perhaps he’d feigned his death as a means of escaping from his mother. If so, it spoke volumes about the power she wielded over her children. For a moment my gaze rested on Mordred, and I wondered again what she’d told him and what not.

  Altogether it was a fitting climax to a fine tournament, and everyone was full of excitement when we gathered to celebrate the rites of Lammas that night.

  I’ve always liked the August festival. It’s the most cheerful of the four high holy days—happier than Samhain, less frenzied than Beltane, and certainly more fun than Imbolc, which introduces the dreary month of February. Everyone participated, bringing offerings of bread baked from the first milling of this year’s crop to be piled on a table in the courtyard.

  There were fresh oat bannocks and coarse barley loaves, hard-crusted horse bread of who-knows-what mixture, and the fine wheat biscuits from our own ovens. I’d watched as Cook shook her head over them that morning, decrying the dimples in the crust that showed where the kitchen sprites had danced on the rising dough. “Good Neighbors, we call them. Pesky imps is more like it!” she’d muttered, quickly making the sign against evil lest the spirits take offense at her too-hasty words. Still and all, the golden pillows were light and lovely, and a worthy present for the Gods of harvest.

  When all the bread had been arranged, Father Baldwin put aside whatever qualms he had about leading a Pagan ceremony, and not only blessed the fruits of the year’s labors, but thanked all of the local Gods as well as his own. I listened to his grace and thought that if all clerics were as big-hearted as he was, I would welcome them more gladly.

  Once the bread was broken and the blessed wine shared around with everyone in attendance, the Fellowship moved into the basilica. The Round Table had been set up with the chairs and pennants, curved trestles and glowing lamps laid out in their circle. It was full of color and high cheer, and goodwill all around. Lynette sat beside me while Gareth occupied Gawain’s place next to Arthur, and there was much banter and retelling of the youngster’s adventure. But afterward, when people were wandering from one group to another, the lad came to join Lynette, and I broached the subject of his reported death.

  “That was not premeditated, M’lady.” The blond warrior swirled the wine in his goblet and stared down at the maelstrom in the middle. “Some years back, just before my thirteenth birthday, I was in a boat that broke up on the high seas near the great rock they call the Old Man of Hoy. But by the luck of the Gods a fisherman found me more dead than alive, clinging to some floating debris well out in the Pentland Firth. He and his wife nursed me back to life, and when I realized no one knew I was royal born, I seized the chance to shape my life myself. With older brothers like Gawain and Gaheris and Agravain, I knew I would walk in their shadow if I didn’t prove myself on my own terms.”

  He grinned across me to Arthur. “The older ones had left when I was so young, they didn’t recognize me when I arrived at Court; I was just another country boy hoping to find a place as a squire. Between Lancelot’s training me in weaponry and your sending me on that quest, I had both the tools and the opportunity I was seeking. I owe a great debt to both of you.” Gareth’s happiness was evident, but at the mention of Lance a frown crossed his brow. “I haven’t seen the Queen’s Champion since I arrived. Surely he’s not elsewhere when you’re holding a tournament here?”

  I caught my breath, realizing he had not heard of his mentor’s disappearance.

  “Lancelot has been gone almost a year,” Arthur responded slowly. “We’ve looked everywhere we could think of—Joyous Gard, Cornwall, Wales—even sent letters of inquiry back to Brittany, where the rest of his family lives. But no one has seen him.”

  “Did you ask the Lady of the Lake?” Gareth was looking back and forth between Arthur and me. “He grew up at her Sanctuary, after all. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to return there.”

  Apparently the young man didn’t know his aunt was bent on usurping the throne, or that she’d attempted to enlist Lance in her plans. For a moment I considered telling him, but he had moved on to another point.

  “The High Priestess is famous for being the most powerful healer in Britain. If he was wounded or ill, she would be the natural person for him to turn to. Let me go to the Black Lake and see,” he pleaded. “Besides, I haven’t seen my aunt for years, and I’d rather that she hear I’m alive again directly from me than from some stranger.”

  Gareth’s optimism was so contagious, the hope that Lance might still be alive began to quicken in me. “By all means, go,” I told him, unclasping my brooch and putting it in his palm. It shimmered like the changing hues of the sea when I closed Gareth’s fingers over it. “Take this as surety of our confidence in you.”

  “Your Highness!” His exclamation was one of hurt as well as surprise. “I have no need of such gifts. Lancelot has been my mentor, my friend—indeed, closer than the father I barely knew. If I can serve you both on the same quest, it is my good fortune, not a matter for payment.”

  I smiled at his indignation, but pointed out there might be expenses to defray, and in the end he kept the brooch. It was the one from the Mote, the one I’d watched being made, but no matter how fond I was of it, it was more important to find Lancelot.

  Arthur signaled to the Jester, Dagonet, who soon had the HaIl quiet and attentive so that the High King could honor Gareth for his past exploits and explain why he was leaving us again so soon.

  “It is my pleasure,” the new Champion answered, his eyes shining with an inner fire. “What more could one ask of life than to serve the best king in the world, and prove one’s mettle by helping to redress the wrongs in his kingdom, or coming to the aid of fellow Companions? Surely, it is the highest honor.” He gestured broadly around the Table, as though in invitation. “Everyone,” he averred, “should have a chance to go on such quests—it’s good for the soul as well as the body.”

  ***

  Those were prophetic words, my friend. Prophetic, indeed.

  I looked across the gloom of my cell at the tall, blond warrior who was sharing this last night with me and smiled at the memory. “Little did any of us realize what such an idea would lead to.”

  “Aye, M’lady.” He sighed, and seeing how low the fire burned in the brazier, rose to put another piece of wood on the coals and stretch the muscles that grew cramped from sitting so long in the cold. “Back then, we were just discovering what we were capable of. And if our eyes were blind, it was with the wonder of all the things that could be.”

  “Perhaps innocence is always full of wonder,” I murmured, letting him empty the last of the wine into my goblet.

  And goodness knows, we were nothing if not innocent, that summer in Caerleon, though the shadows of dark knowledge were filling the woods around us, drawing closer in the flesh as well as spirit.

  Chapter XI

  Pellinore

  News of Gareth’s trip was the talk of the household, and the next morning, even before our guests had left, Mordred brought the subject up, asking to go to the Sanctuary with his brother. “He could take me as his squire, so I could see Aunt Morgan without having to ask the King’s permission.”

  It was a point well taken, and I admired the cleverness of it. He watched me closely, with an aching hopefulness, a
nd I frowned before answering. “Yes…well, perhaps this is not the best time. We’ll be heading north ourselves, with the whole Court—going to Carlisle for the winter, you know. I’m sure Bedivere needs you to help with those arrangements.”

  Mordred’s disappointment was so naked, I had to look away. How many times past had I denied him such a visit? The High Priestess used people without mercy, and the fact that he was her nephew would not keep her from exploiting the boy’s innocence. I was not ready to expose him to such danger and preferred to have him angry with me rather than shattered by her. So he went off to his afternoon lessons with the aggrieved expression of the young who don’t understand why their requests cannot be met, and I wondered, for the hundredth time, how to untangle the web of hatred and resentment within Arthur’s family.

  The problem was that it went back so far—back to when Igraine was the wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. He had been a widower and far older than she, having already raised that same Cador who now wasted away in Cornwall. But he was a good and thoughtful husband in the way older men can be, and Igraine had borne him two daughters—lively Morgause and dark, secretive Morgan. The trouble began when the beautiful young Duchess caught the fancy of Uther Pendragon, a man of unruly tempers who was newly chosen High King. Gorlois went to war to protect his wife, and was killed on a night raid against the King’s camp at the same time Uther lay in Igraine’s bed, having gained entrance to Tintagel in the guise of the Duke. The people credit Merlin’s magic with bringing that about, in order to ensure that Britain’s greatest king would be conceived under the most propitious of stars. Certainly the result was a hasty marriage between the widowed Duchess and the High King…and the birth of Arthur.

  But the daughters of Gorlois were convinced that Uther had killed their father, and they hated him with such a deep and unflagging passion that Igraine had to send them away shortly after the wedding. So both Morgause and Morgan grew into womanhood blaming Uther for not only the loss of their father, but their mother as well.

  When I came south to marry Arthur, Igraine took me under her wing, smoothing out my tomboy roughness and letting me take the place of the daughters she hadn’t raised to womanhood. On her deathbed Arthur’s mother told me the story of those days at Tintagel; of how she had honored the Duke Gorlois and feared Uther’s passion and had tried to avoid the moira which, nonetheless, had made her High Queen of Britain.

  That was privy information that I had shared with no one—not Arthur, nor Nimue, nor either of my sisters-in-law. But I used to wonder how much of the daughters’ bitterness toward Uther—and their fear of being displaced again—shaped their feelings for his son.

  Morgause’s seduction of Arthur in an effort to gain power over him through the presence of his child, and Morgan’s swings from staunchest advocate to treacherous plotter were, perhaps, more understandable when one knew their family history. Still, it did not make them any easier to live with…and I could think of no way to explain these things to fourteen-year-old Mordred. So by the time we led our party out onto the Road they call Watling Street, Gareth had left on his new quest and Mordred was still with us.

  The Road makes its way up the long, rumpled swath of land that marks the boundary between two worlds. To the east spread the soft, fertile midlands dotted with Roman villas, while in the west the wild Welsh mountains rise, home of the old Celts who call themselves the Cumbri. The Marches that separate these two lands are strange and fey, full of blue mists and green woods, and hills that rise like islands out of time. Many of them are crowned by ancient hill-forts now in the hands of warlords such as Pellinore of the Wrekin. But even where one can’t see the terraced earthworks of bank and ditch crowning the highest points, there is the feeling of being watched by eyes both human and otherwise.

  The Roman Road drives straight as an ash-pole through verdant forests and the ruins of whole towns. Cycles of life and death shimmer on the air like a warp of light stretched on the loom of Forever, and I rode through it remembering it was the route down which Arthur and I came on our way to Sarum to be wed.

  How the people loved us then, dropping hoe and fishnet to become part of the procession that escorted their young King to his nuptials. We had ridden to our destiny—right into the heart of spring on a wave of high spirits—with half the population following after.

  I glanced over at my husband and Bedivere, who were conversing as they rode side by side. All of us were broader now, made more solid by the years. Even the farmers who paused in the autumn plowing to wave, or the travelers on the Road who moved to one side to let the King’s party pass, had lost the lean and hungry look of our youth. Here, as on the Road to Caerleon, the peace and plenty that favored our reign spilled its richness over all.

  We camped in fields and meadows, stayed at such inns and roadhouses as we found, and whenever possible visited the warlords in their hill-forts. That’s where I began to hear the stories.

  “…walks through the woods at night, with all the animals following after,” the daughter of a tavern owner whispered to Lynette, who listened raptly, mouth half open in amazement. “And green—he’s all over green; skin, hair, clothes…even his horse is green.”

  “What’s this?” I inquired, pausing to smile encouragingly at the girl.

  She crossed herself hastily and bobbed a kind of curtsy. “Beggin’ pardon, Your Highness, but I was just reporting what my uncle’s brother-in-law saw. Up in the north it was, in a wild, fearsome place. They say he’s wreaking all sorts of havoc, and getting bolder with every visit.”

  “And who is ‘he’?”

  “Some claim it’s the Old One—the Green Man of Eld come back again.”

  I’ve noticed that dragons and giants and shadows of the Old Gods always appear a great distance away, never close enough to be confronted. “But not nearby?” I queried.

  The child shook her mop of curls, turning with a delicious shiver to Lynette. “Not yet, at any rate,” she whispered.

  What a pity, I thought, wishing it were possible to get within sighting distance of such a thing. Yet when I mentioned it to Arthur, he burst out laughing.

  “Don’t talk to me about foolhardy Celts,” he teased. “Who ever heard of a queen wanting to go twist the tail of some old deity?”

  I wasn’t exactly interested in riling the creature, just seeing it, but Arthur had a point, so I shrugged and forgot all about the subject until we reached Wroxeter.

  Once a hub of Roman activity, the city has stood empty for generations, its buildings decaying and towers unmanned. In the past travelers skirted its walls, fearful of the haunts of plague and pestilence they enclosed. But Arthur led our party right through the sagging gates and made camp in the shelter of the basilica’s wall. And after a communal meal of trout from the nearby Severn, Arthur and I walked away from the campfire, climbing to a perch on the deserted ramparts as twilight descended.

  “What do you think about building a lodge here, lass?” my husband asked. “Maelgwn forfeited all this land as reparation for kidnapping you, and it would make a fine retreat from the world.”

  I snorted scornfully and looked about the ghostly place. Ravens nested in broken walls, wooden signboards hung askew, and what doors were left creaked on rusty hinges, making it a setting more fitting for the Green Man than a human court.

  But more importantly, the city had belonged to my cousin, Maelgwn.

  Maelgwn—the King of Gwynedd, who kidnapped and raped me barely five years after Arthur and I married. Maelgwn, whose ravaging of my body left me sick to the point of death and barren forever after. The terrible memory still made my stomach turn.

  After Lance had rescued me, Maelgwn took shelter in the monastery at Bangor. It was a clever move, effectively placing him beyond vengeance by either Arthur or Lance. Yet in spite of the years gone by and the silence of the man, his very name filled me with dread, and I wanted no part of his property.

  “Can’t we put our lodge somewhere else?” I inquired. “There’
s my holdings at Carlisle, or out at Appleby. Surely we could build a retreat there, closer to my own people. Why, I remember a waterfall by the Eden River…”

  Arthur shrugged. “Rheged’s too far from Camelot for what I have in mind. But we’ll see; if you don’t fancy Wroxeter, maybe someplace else will catch your eye.” It was clear he had no notion of how much the encounter with Maelgwn still disturbed me.

  Suddenly a voice cut through the dusk, making me jump.

  “Your Highness?”

  “Over here,” my husband answered, standing up to peer at the figure that moved toward us. Silhouetted in the fire’s glow was the biggest man in the realm, outside of Pellinore. “Lamorak, is that you?”

  “Aye,” came the response. “From the number of fires, I reckoned it had to be the royal party. I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re here!”

  There was something more than simple hospitality in his voice, so we scrambled down from our perch, falling into pace beside him as we all moved back toward camp. “Have you any word of my father?” he asked.

  “No. Isn’t he at the Wrekin?”

  Lamorak shook his head. “Pellinore left for the tournament in early July, and we’ve had neither news nor message since. Some of the returning Champions came through last week, but they said they hadn’t seen him at Caerleon. It’s made for much uneasiness at the fort, and I was hoping you might know his whereabouts.”

  Both Arthur and I shook our heads.

  “There’s been talk about the Green Man recently,” Lamorak went on cautiously.

  “Nearby?”

  “No—farther north. But they say he’s huge, and invincible. Very polite, in a roguish way, and fond of issuing deadly challenges…and you know how my father loves a challenge.” Lamorak was keeping his voice casual, but in the fire’s glow I saw his fingers move as he made the sign against evil. “Of course, that’s all just hearsay from the peasants. Still, I’d be obliged if you’d come to the Wrekin tomorrow, just to reassure my people that life is going on as usual and Britain’s not being overrun by demons and such.”