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

by Persia Woolley

  As Camelot’s hill came into view, a great wave of gladness surged through me. I had found my Grail, both within and without, and knew how blessedly lucky we were.

  ***

  Life at Court began to return to normal for the first time since the events at Carlisle. Arthur and I moved gingerly into a reunion—when I tried to tell him about Joyous Gard, he stopped me abruptly, not wishing to hear—and though we bedded only occasionally, our teamwork in ruling had never been better.

  There’d been some difficulties in getting salt delivered to the inland regions on a reliable basis, so we reassessed the system and sent Cei to Droitwich to make sure our changes were implemented. The Royal Messenger service had declined for lack of new recruits, but with a new proclamation reducing the taxes of any family who had a member willing and able to perform the arduous service, we were inundated with applicants.

  Finally, there was the matter of the horse farms at the monastery in south Wales. Since Illtud’s death, the monks had begun demanding payment for working with the horses, to which Arthur replied that as long as it was his cavalry that kept their barns safe, they could jolly well contribute to the upkeep of the mounts. The clerics ranted and raved at such a notion, so Arthur had Gwyn start bringing the animals to his pastures outside of Glastonbury, in the hope of putting an end to the bickering.

  I took pains to get to know the new men better and spent more time with the ladies-in-waiting. And I tried not to think about those who were no longer part of the Fellowship—the men in Brittany; Perceval, who had stayed less than a year at Court before deciding to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and those who had died on the Quest.

  Most painful of all was the memory of Gareth. As at Joyous Gard, everyone missed the gentle warrior, and once I was settled in, I sought out Lynette, who had remained at Court, helping Enid run the household in my absence.

  She was seated in the doorway of her hut, taking advantage of the sunlight to do some sewing while the toddler played at her feet. After an exchange of greetings I told her how deeply sorry Lance and the others had been, and that I hoped she didn’t blame them for her husband’s death.

  Gareth’s widow looked up at me slowly, her eyes as hard as Kimmins’s wife’s had been. “Frankly, M’lady, there’s plenty enough blame to go around: the King for ordering your escort to go unarmed, Lancelot and his men for saving you by force, Agravain for starting the melee against them. No one knows who dealt the blow…so I lay it at the Gods’ feet. I’ve no time for recriminations, not with three children to raise and household work to do.” She shook out the little smock she’d been making and let her glance stray toward the boy. A softness came over her features.”I still cry for him, you know—silent, at night, so as not to wake the youngsters. But we’ll make it through somehow. The one who won’t let go of it is Gawain. Someone has to help him with his grief, M’lady, for it is eating him alive, like a poison in the blood.”

  Her assessment proved all too true. The red-headed Prince of Orkney carried a brooding anger everywhere he went, and even the most casual remark would send him into fits of rage, as though his own pain required him to flay anyone who came within range.

  “I’m right glad to see you,” he allowed the first time we met in private, “but I wish that wretched Breton had had the courage to come back as well. He’ll not get away so easily, you know. He’ll pay; someday I’ll make him pay for cutting down the very lad who idolized him.”

  “Oh no, Gawain,” I exclaimed, horrified to realize he believed Lance had personally delivered the fatal stroke. “Lancelot was on his horse, with me in front of him. He never even drew his sword.”

  “I might have known you’d defend him, Your Highness.” Morgause’s son looked at me coldly. “Not even the King will admit it, but I know…I know in my heart the coward turned on him. Gaheris and Agravain—even my son, Gingalin—had the chance to fight before they died. But to strike down my brother who was unarmed was a despicable act, an insult to the honor of my family…and I’ll not rest till I have vengeance!”

  Not only would Gawain not listen to reason, his mood seemed to darken further as the summer days lengthened.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Arthur sighed one night in June, moving slowly about the room as I undid my hair. “He’s been bullying me for months to go after Lance in reprisal for Gareth’s death.”

  “Maybe with time he’ll listen to reason.”

  “Not likely. It’s coming up to a year now, and the grievance just grows deeper. I was hoping Father Baldwin could calm him some, but even the Church can’t quell his thirst for blood.”

  I thought of the Orcadians’ vendetta against Pellinore and Lamorak and knew that Arthur was right. The family feud—that nemesis of the old Celts—was running full tide in Gawain.

  “Worse yet, he’s gathering others to his side, the followers of Agravain and the like,” my husband went on, sitting disconsolately on the edge of the bed. “They’re the strongest faction left in the Round Table, and I’m in danger of losing my hold on them unless something is done.”

  I turned to stare at him, shocked by the idea that all he’d accomplished was so close to dissolution.

  “Come here, girl, and give us a kiss,” he said with a sad, hopeless smile. “I could use a little holding.”

  Never, in all our lives together, had Arthur asked me for anything. The simple admission of a need had always been beyond him, and I turned to take him in my arms with a newfound warmth of love and affection.

  ***

  It was Mordred who suggested a solution to Gawain’s demands when he came to make his summer report on the Federates. I watched him ride up the cobbled drive, a man of grace and bearing, with a face as unreadable as stone. He greeted me politely enough in public, and I invited him to join me in my garden for a chat, wanting to see for myself where we stood with each other.

  “I am very glad you are safely home,” he said in his smooth, unruffled way. “I never meant to harm you, M’lady. It was Lancelot I wanted to bring down.”

  His voice was earnest and his manner contrite enough. I watched him carefully, trying to find contradictions between what his mouth said and what his body showed, but the façade was seamless. So we talked of inconsequential matters and parted amiably enough, though I knew that thenceforth I would be as guarded with him as he was with the world. The mother in me, remembering the child I had loved and raised, cried out to see him walk away a stranger…but perhaps there are times when that is what a parent must do.

  Later, when Arthur mentioned how set Gawain seemed to be on vengeance, Mordred spoke up quickly.

  “Wergild,” he announced. “It’s the price of a man’s worth. Among the Saxons, if someone is held accountable for another person’s death, he can give the survivors the amount of the man’s worth, and all blood debts are considered paid. It keeps grievances from becoming vendettas. Why don’t you see if Gawain will accept that from Lancelot? Use it to balance the books of honor, so to speak.”

  It was an intriguing idea, and one that Gawain allowed he would consider, provided that Lancelot himself pay over the price in person.

  “He’s not to come back here,” Arthur said hastily, wanting to stop that idea before it took root. “Let Bedivere carry the message and return with the payment.”

  “No!” Gawain’s face flushed to crimson, and his voice was steel. “I will accept it only with a personal apology, and if it means tracking him down in Brittany, so be it. We of King Lot’s clan have spent our lives in your service, Arthur Pendragon. And as my King you owe me something for all those years. The chance to reestablish my family’s honor is what I request. Come with me to Brittany and help me redress this insult.”

  The demand was outrageous, but no amount of arguing could change the Orcadian’s stand, so by mid-July the boatmen of London were making ready to take Arthur and a party of warriors across the Channel—not so many as to cause the Franks concern that we were invading but certainly more than a person
al bodyguard.

  “I don’t like it, Arthur,” I fussed as the day of departure grew close. “I don’t trust Gawain to stay within the bounds of diplomacy. You know how hotheaded he can be. Besides, there’s too much that needs attending here at home for you to go away just now.”

  “And too much at risk among the Companions if I don’t,” he answered, turning away from the work that lay strewn on our table and going to stand by the window, looking out. When he didn’t say anything more, I ventured a comment of my own.

  “Surely you don’t want a confrontation with Lancelot…” We had not spoken of the Breton since my first attempt was rebuffed, and now I was feeling my way along the subject like a person tiptoeing across a bog.

  “Don’t say it, Gwen! Don’t beg for his life, no matter how much we both loved him.” The words leapt from him—angry, pleading, full of bafflement. The force of his response startled me, and I instinctively took a step back. “You see,” he went on grimly, “there’s something else, love—a need of my own, if you will.”

  So the crack in the dam was still there, the feelings still trying to find a way out. I sat down and stayed very still, hardly daring to breathe, praying that at last he would open his heart.

  “Do you remember when you returned from Brigit’s convent?”

  “After being kidnapped by Maelgwn?”

  “Aye.” Arthur spoke without looking at me. “I wanted vengeance—as any man would, whose wife was raped. Wanted a chance to even the score, to prove to the world I was strong enough to protect you and punish anyone who hurt you. But you begged for his life…and I listened. I swallowed my pride and my instincts, and I heeded your wish. This time I’m not after my rival’s blood—the tangle of our lives is too thick a knot to untie with a sword. But I must take action of some kind, and not be dissuaded by you as I was when you sought to protect Maelgwn.”

  “Protect Maelgwn?” The very idea lifted me to my feet and sent me prowling across the room. “You thought I was protecting him? That scum? That toad? Oh, love, it was you I was scared for, you I wanted to save!”

  I had come to my husband’s side. Though he continued to stare out the window, I put my hand on his arm with full confidence that he wouldn’t shrug it away. And I spoke aloud, for the first time, the fear that had consumed me in the convent.

  “Arthur, I was beset by dreams—by nightmares in which I saw your death. Night after night, over and over. It terrified me. It still does. To be the cause of your death…” I paused, swallowing down the panic that rose with the idea, and picked my words very carefully. There was no need to explain Lancelot when the door was finally open to express my feelings for Arthur. “I plighted my troth to you on a chilly night at the Wrekin, and have never since regretted it. You are both my husband and my King…and even in Northumbria you were in my thoughts. In the odd moments, when I pondered what had happened, it was to the south I turned. To Camelot and you.”

  Blindly, without looking at me, Arthur reached out and, putting his arm around my shoulder, crushed me to him. Without a word he buried his face in my hair, and I felt the sobs that overtook him, long and hard and wracking.

  “There are so many things I should have done differently,” he said at last, still holding me too close to look at him. “Mordred—yea Gods, don’t you think I know I’ve failed him as a father? And you…oh, Gwen, every time I tried to tell you, tried to say it out open and dear, the words disappeared or came out wrong…or something got between us. So I ended up telling myself you knew…you must know, how much I loved you, how much I cared.

  “And then, after you pleaded for Maelgwn’s life so eloquently, I thought he must have given you all the things I couldn’t. And those rumors that you had wanted to be with him didn’t help.”

  “Rumors from Morgan,” I reminded him, and heard him sigh.

  “Yes, back before I realized how untrustworthy she was. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t true, that you were glad to be with me, happy as my wife. And when you insisted on taking in Mordred…well, it seemed like proof enough that you’d made peace with our lot. I just never realized how hard it would be to face the boy…or how much worse it would make things.”

  He pulled away from me and stared down at my face. “I didn’t believe you’d come back from Joyous Gard…didn’t think you’d leave Lance to return to me. Ah, lass, I’ve seen the look on your face, watched the spark that leaps between the two of you—who hasn’t, over the years? And if I couldn’t give you that myself, well, at least I didn’t want to take it away from you.”

  My arms slid around him, and I buried my face in his chest, unable to hold his gaze. Tears of my own—for happiness, for sorrow, I couldn’t tell which—were dampening his tunic.

  “I’d have left things be if it weren’t for Gawain constantly nagging at the matter of honor. I’ve no wish to go to war with the Breton, no desire to do more than make a quiet peace with him—he may have your love, but in the end, I have you…”

  “Oh, Arthur,” I cried, “you have my love as well. Surely you must know that?” The words burst out, as much for my own need to affirm it as for his need to be reassured. “Good glory, do you think I’d come back to Camelot’s throne if there weren’t some loving involved?”

  My outburst took him by surprise, and after a moment he lifted an eyebrow and gave me a wry smile. “No, come to think on it, I don’t suppose anyone in their right mind would.”

  I caught the shift of mood and grinned up at him. “I’m here, we are together, there is the whole future still before us. We can’t go back and do things over, but maybe we can make a better job of it in the days to come.”

  Arthur sighed, and lifted his head to look out upon the world. “After the trip to Brittany. I won’t fight Lance, you know; to do battle with him would be to war against the best part of myself. But reparations must be made to Gawain for honor’s sake. The wergild—the wergild and an apology will put an end to it. Once that is done…” He glanced down at me, “I too can come home. Come back to Camelot. And together we’ll begin to rebuild.”

  The flush of excitement was bringing color back to his cheeks and a sparkle to his eyes. “We can do it, love—I know we can. Once we get the Round Table back on its feet…”

  Just as when he was younger, his enthusiasm filled the room, and I hugged him fiercely, feeling the life course through him, believing there were still dreams to be fulfilled.

  “When I come back,” he was saying, “we’ll begin all over again…make up for the things left undone—or unsaid—before. Think you can manage that?”

  “Of course I can,” I averred, raising my chin and giving him a sidewise glance.

  It was the closest Arthur and I had ever been, and when he left to set sail for Brittany, I stood on the steps of the Hall while he and his men mounted their horses, filled with love and pride and excitement for him. The trumpet sounded, and he paused to look down on me, the smile of his youth lighting his face.

  Smiling back, I gave him the thumbs up and watched as he wheeled his stallion around and went to face his destiny. With so much hope flowing between us, there wasn’t room for fear.

  Chapter XXXV

  Rebellion

  Although I knew Arthur had no intention of going to war with Lancelot, Gawain and the rest of his cohorts had convinced the courtiers that battle between them was a forgone conclusion. I found the prospect so horrific, I simply would not admit to it, and spent my time assuring everyone at Court that it would never happen.

  Arthur had left the State Seal with me, but as rumor of the potential conflict in Brittany spread, there was little need to use it; everyone’s attention was focused on the Continent. So I settled for living day by day and prayed that Lance would pay the wergild and Gawain would be satisfied.

  By the end of a fortnight I was taut as a bowstring. “You’d think they’d have sent some kind of word,” I fretted.

  “It’s possible they’re on their way home,” Cei pointed out. Arthur’s foster br
other had stayed at Camelot to command the houseguards while the King was gone—not that there were that many, most of the seasoned men being with Arthur or off on typical summer errands.

  Over the years of working together, I’d grown used to the Seneschal’s sharp tongue, but now it seemed his manner was less caustic. Whatever the cause for the change, I was grateful for it. “They’d probably get here as fast as a messenger,” he added, turning his attention to the list of supplies he was laying in for the winter.

  Three more days went by before a messenger climbed Camelot’s hill, bringing a brief letter penned in Bedivere’s hand. I rushed to open it but, after reading the first sentence, let out a howl of disbelief.

  “Single combat!” I dropped the missive on the long table and stalked to the window. “Even though Lance has paid the wergild and sent the Orcadian an apology, Gawain claims family honor demands the Breton meet him in single combat.”

  The Seneschal studied the message more closely. “Apparently the men are goading Gawain on, so they won’t be leaving there ’til Arthur can talk some sense into his nephew—or Lance comes out of his fortress to do battle.”

  “Drat!” I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and shivered. Gawain could be stubborn beyond reason. When the Irish Champion Marhaus issued a challenge to single combat, Gawain had fought him for hours on end—until their comrades had to drag them both, bleeding and exhausted, off the field. Even so, Morgause’s son had demanded more. Now he was not only pitting Arthur and Lance against each other, he was holding everyone hostage to his own outrageous pride. Indignation boiled within me.

  Cei leaned across the table. “M’lady, you’re going to wear yourself out with so much worry. I’m taking some men over to that villa near Weston-Super-Mare tomorrow to pick up a new supply of wine from the Mediterranean. There probably won’t be further news from Brittany again for days—maybe weeks. Why don’t you come with us? The ride would do you good.”