Guinevere: The Legend in Autumn

by Persia Woolley

  As the Fellowship dispersed to find their seats, Palomides’s dark glance moved slowly around the room, drinking in the light and color and faces of the Round Table. “Ah, M’lady, it is just as I used to conjure from memory,” he sighed. “Though I don’t recall the lamps.”

  I assured him they were new. Last winter Cei had fitted the curved table segments with wrought-iron poles from which to hang oil lamps. The Smith had hammered out the shape of each member’s own device so that Bors’s bowl of light was held in a net suspended from the beak of a pelican, and Gawain’s by the talons of a golden eagle. There was much debate as to whether Arthur’s should take the form of the dragon of High Kingship or the bear, which was his personal totem. At length we decided on the bear, for Arthur said the dragon represented all Britons, but at the Round Table he was but one voice among many.

  The lamps cast a steady light and were themselves quite beautiful, being fashioned from bowls and vases of silver or clay, old Roman goblets, or even handsome shells. Caught in their nets like miniature moons suspended beside each guest, the light of their floating wicks played on white napery, dark jewels, and plush fur, as well as the seamed faces of older warriors and the hopeful countenances of lads such as Beaumains. Across the circle from me, Nimue and Pelleas were surrounded by their own nimbus, which came as much from their love as from the lamplight.

  Closer at hand my own lamp, carved from translucent stone by some Imperial artist, pooled its light on the embroidery of my sleeve and spilled over onto Lancelot. On those occasions when a special guest took the lieutenant’s place beside Arthur, the Breton, being my Champion, would sit next to me.

  He was watching Palomides like a child delighted by the return of a best friend. “It’s good to have our philosopher back,” he noted. I smiled to myself—Lance most appreciated the Arab’s spiritual side, whereas Arthur had dubbed him “the leopard” for his deadly fighting skills. I wondered which of those aspects Palomides himself felt more at home with.

  Cei had done a fine job with the menu and a steady stream of servants came and went between the trestles, bearing trenchers of meat and fish, bowls of fruit, and flagons of the Roman wine the Seneschal always managed to provide. There were ducks and partridges, hare and venison, special dishes of eels in sauces with pepper and lovage—in short, all the unusual and remarkable things that Cei loved to present.

  After everyone was fed, the children took finger bowls and towels around to the guests while servants cleared the tables and we all settled back against cushions and soft sheepskins. At my feet Claudius stretched contentedly, then cocked his head, prick-eared, when the Court Fool bounded into the open space in the center of the Round Table.

  An acrobat by training, Dagonet leapt and capered in his brightly colored clothes, pirouetting gaily around the circle of our guests, drawing in their attention like a weaver gathering the warp of a loom through his hands. At last he came to a stop before Palomides and, with an exaggerated bow, bade the traveler tell us of the worlds he’d found in his journeying.

  The Arab rose slowly and moved out into the center of the circle. As he did so, the black-skinned servant, who had been standing behind his chair, came forward to crouch in front of the trestle, never taking his eyes from his master.

  “Ah, the Empire of the East is a world beyond imagining,” Palomides began, his voice filling the Hall. “There are cities to take your breath away—rich and splendid in history, squalid and teeming along the Red Sea, or burning white and baking under the eye of the sun. There are deserts that take weeks—sometimes months—to cross; vast seas of sand, scoured by the hot wind with only here and there a palm-shaded oasis to sustain life. And space, Your Highness…space such as you can’t imagine, here on your lush green island. But then, my people couldn’t believe that I lived in a land where it rains every third day and water bubbles freely out of the ground.”

  “So you found your family?” Lance broke in.

  Palomides shook his head, suddenly saddened. “Not close relatives, only the tribe we had come from. But I get ahead of myself.”

  He paused and held out his goblet, and the turbaned servant leapt to his side. Here, within the structure of normal life, the man seemed even more exotic than out in the sunshine—like the falcon held prisoner on a perch—and many of our guests made the sign against evil at his appearance. He filled his master’s cup, then sank down at the base of one of the carved wooden pillars that holds up the loft and sat cross-legged as Palomides began his tale.

  The Arab had taken passage for Constantinople on a merchant ship from Topsham, sailing through the Pillars of Hercules and along the coast of the Middle Sea, stopping at Narbonne and Marseilles for trade and provisions.

  “Marseilles’s where I first heard about Theodoric, the Goth who now rules Italy. He’s an odd one, Your Highness—came to power by killing the old king before him, but has given the Empire more than a decade of peace since.”

  “The Empire?” Arthur queried. “Are you saying there is a barbarian who preserves the concept of the Empire, rather than destroying it in order to set up his own separate kingdom?”

  “Aye. This Theodoric is not the typical unwashed savage,” Palomides concurred. “He’s a civilized sort who spent his childhood as a political hostage in the Court at Constantinople. So he pays homage to the Emperor in the East and has kept the Roman government of Italy intact—honors the Senators and that sort of thing. They say his army is made up entirely of Goths like himself but he gives them no power in governing.”

  The warriors in our Hall were beginning to fidget, having little interest in politics so far from home. With the mention of the army they quieted down again, however, no doubt curious about their eastern counterparts.

  “Theodoric is trying to rule a country of two separate peoples,” the Arab noted, elaborating on tales he’d heard of great waves of Goths pouring over the mountains into Italy, trundling along with all their earthly goods piled in huge, lumbering wagons, driving their flocks before them. Most of them had settled into peaceful farming, taking over deserted villas or clearing new land. Still, it must have been shocking to see a whole nation of foreigners swarming over the land like locusts.

  That is one of the advantages to living on an island—at least the Saxons and Angles and Jutes who keep invading our shores come only in scattered boatloads. And most of those have sworn fealty and become Federates under our rule, for all that they are aliens on our shore.

  “Theodoric has separate laws for the Goths and the Romans, each based on their own historic codes,” Palomides continued. “But he’s compiled them all in a collection called the Edictum. He holds it’s for the good of all his subjects, whether barbarian or Roman, Catholic or Aryan, Pagan or Jew.”

  By now other guests at the Round Table had begun to shift about and I tried to catch Arthur’s attention before a dissertation on legal matters put everyone to sleep. But examples of other people’s laws were exactly what Britain’s High King wanted to hear, and he wasn’t about to be distracted. “Were you able to get a copy?”

  “No.” Palomides shook his head. “But while I was in Ravenna I met a Roman noble who is an adviser to Theodoric—Boethius, his name is. He promised to keep watch in the bazaar for whatever manuscripts might be useful for you. And he himself has worked on such matters.”

  The Arab paused to drink from his goblet and I spoke up quickly. “Did you get to Constantinople?”

  “Ah, M’lady, indeed. It is truly even more exciting than Rome, now that the Eternal City is in decline…greatest center of learning and art and commerce there is.”

  He went on to describe the fabled city that sits on a spit of land between two seas, with a natural harbor for those traders who come by boat instead of caravan. The bazaar is a crossroads of goods from all over the world—oranges and bronzeware from India; shining silks and beautiful gilded platters from Persia; leather and black goat-hair capes from Spain; cotton and papyrus from Egypt; and linens from Panopolis. Ther
e was, he said, even a display of British wool at one of the stalls! And perfumes, wonderful perfumes. On a warm day they filled the city with their fragrance, though sometimes the stench of the tanneries overwhelmed them.

  “Did you see the Emperor Anastasius?” Arthur inquired.

  “No, M’lord, I’m afraid not,” Palomides turned suddenly serious. “It seems the Emperor is very old.”

  “But what of the letter we wrote to him? Did you deliver it?”

  “Not exactly. I tried, Your Highness, but they are all very strict about being Christians, those eastern nobles, and no one would see me because I am an infidel who represents the Pagan king of a small and insignificant island.”

  “Hmmph,” Arthur snorted, clearly disconcerted. He picked up his wineglass and began to swirl the contents of it, still watching the Arab.

  “But I saw the most amazing buildings in the city, M’lady,” Palomides went on, turning eagerly to me. “They build them with domes—roofs like inverted bowls that create great open, airy spaces beneath their arch. The Royal Palace has terraced levels all the way down to the shore, and the Hippodrome is immense—the longest arena you could imagine—where they hold chariot races and circuses. Circuses with jugglers and acrobats, trained lions, and dancing bears!”

  The traveler turned back to the Companions with a quick smile. “Noisy, colorful, riotous affairs, full of pageantry and politics—you can’t separate one from the other in that city. It’s a place of constant contrasts, of private gardens filled with lemon blossoms—and stinking streets full of rabble; of the dank, sea-wrack dregs of a harbor overlooked by opulent houses where mosaic pictures cover the walls. Not chunks of murky stone, such as our villa floors have, but bits of brilliant glass, backed by gold, that shimmer with color. They are amazing, those mosaics…changing hues and casts as the sunlight changes, so that they are always subtly different.”

  Palomides paused and lifting his head, let his gaze probe the high shadows where our ridgepole holds up the roof. Awed by the visions his words had called up, we all sat silently waiting for him to continue. In the hush I could hear the rustle of feathers where a stray sparrow, or perhaps a pair of doves, had perched in the rafters for the night. Compared with the great places he told of, Camelot now seemed small and rustic.

  “From Constantinople I traveled down the Incense Route along the edge of the desert, looking for my relatives,” the Arab said presently, bringing his attention back to the Fellowship. He described the Bedouins he met, the Shrine of the Three Goddesses at Mecca, and his eventually finding the tribe his family had come from. “They live outside the southern gates of Jerusalem, and guard the Holy City from attack.”

  “Jerusalem? You were in Jerusalem?” Griflet’s voice reflected his awe, and the other Christians in the audience leaned forward eagerly. Palomides turned aside to whisper something to the turbaned servant, then smiled directly at Griflet.

  “Indeed, I reached Jerusalem in September, in time for the great fair. Crowded, stinking, filled with masses and masses of people…it’s unbelievable. Yet in spite of that, the city is amazing—full of churches and convents, monasteries and hostels for travelers. The church of Golgotha, with its great bronze chandelier, was packed with pilgrims. You’ve never seen so many pilgrims, from Spain and Greece, Antioch and Alexandria, Constantinople—even from Rome herself. Everywhere you hear different tongues, yet the place is filled with piety, and the love of Christ pours over the land. It takes your breath away to see what can be done, all in the name of the one God.”

  Palomides’s eyes shone at the memory, and I wondered suddenly if the man had decided to convert. Back before the Empire collapsed, when every Briton was also a Roman citizen, they say most people were Christian. But in the century since the Legions left, the Old Gods have come back and now one finds most every kind of religion at Court—followers of both Celtic and Roman gods, and those like Lionel and his brother Bors who practice the rites of the soldiers’ god, Mithra…as well as the different kinds of Christians.

  I’d known a number of people born to that faith, like my foster sister Brigit, who went to live in a convent, or the Roman matron Vinnie. And some at Court, such as Griflet’s wife, Frieda, became Christians as adults. Even Lance was fascinated by their mixture of mysticism and miracle, stopping to visit with any old hermit and sometimes staying in deserted chapels to pray the afternoon away. Still, it made me uneasy.

  Not that I had anything against the White Christ himself. Indeed, as Brigit had explained it, he was a sort of archdruid, able to commune directly with the Father God. Nor did I mind the holy men like the teaching monk, Illtud—he was a loving person who was both practical and caring. It was the Roman Christians I found distasteful, with their belief that all other gods were evil and their followers blasphemers. The very notion sent a chill down my spine, and I was glad when Palomides began talking about his family.

  “It was among the tents of the Ghassanid that I found an old man who had known my grandfather—remembered the day he and my father, who was only a lad, were captured and dragged away by slavers. I suppose my parents met later…”

  Palomides’s voice dropped as he withdrew into some quiet, private place within himself. I wondered how much he remembered of his own days as a slave.

  The turbaned servant had come to Palomides’s side, a small trunk hoisted on one shoulder. The lamplight rippled on the muscles of his arms when he placed the coffer at Palomides’s feet. The Arab stared at it absently, as though it contained the relics of his quest. Finally he turned and lifted his gaze to us, his face composed in a soft smile.

  “So my mission was finished, for there was no one close enough for me to call family. I traveled on a bit more before deciding to return to Britain. But I bring with me not only this fine, adventurous fellow from Ethiopia”—he gestured to his servant as the man opened the trunk—“but also a few small gifts.”

  Excitement crackled through the Hall as the servant reached into the treasure box. He lifted a glass vial with gold thread twined about its neck and Palomides carefully bestowed it on me. Lance used his dagger to break the wax seal, and the fragrance of roses filled the air when I removed the stopper. I thanked the Arab for his gift but made a mental note to give the perfume to Vinnie; roses are fine for pretty women and fancy, but I prefer the clean, cheerful scent of lavender and never use any other.

  There was an exquisitely painted icon for Lancelot, and a dagger from Damascus which was put aside for Gawain’s return. The Hall buzzed with oohs and aahs as one exotic gift followed another, but when Palomides personally lifted a bundle wrapped in sheepskin and advanced toward Arthur, the whole Fellowship went quiet.

  “From the last stop on my journey, the Court of Clovis, King of the Franks, I bring you a ceremonial Gift of State.” Carefully pulling the covering back, the Arab disclosed a gilt-and-silver helmet, conical in shape and covered with ornate designs and metalwork. “He would have you know it’s the best spangenhelm in his treasury.”

  Arthur rose to accept the present. “May it be worn only in show, and never in opposition to the Frankish leader,” my husband announced, lifting the thing high so that all might see it. A gasp of amazement went up from the Fellowship.

  At last, with a smile, Arthur turned back to Palomides. “It would seem, dear friend, that you have traveled the world for us, and we are grateful that you have brought so much back with you.”

  The Arab bowed his head and reaching for his goblet, turned slowly to address the whole of the Round Table.

  “It has been a fine adventure, and I’m very glad I went. But the most important thing I found came not from the treasuries of kings, or even the history of my own people. It is the discovery that ‘home’ lies within my own heart—not out there, someplace else.” He paused once more, his dark eyes shining. Slowly he raised his goblet. “By blood I am neither Celt nor Roman, but I am British to the core, and my heart belongs here, with Arthur and the Champions of the Round Table.”

&n
bsp; He gestured gravely to the circle, toasting his fellow warriors, then drained the cup. A brilliant smile swept across his features. “It is good to be home.”

  “Hear, hear!” cried Lance as kings and warlords leapt to their feet, clapping and stamping their approval. The Companions rushed forward to lift Palomides onto their shoulders while the rest of the Round Table members applauded loudly when he was paraded around the circle. There was much hugging and back-pounding among friends, and even the Picts and Caledonians, who sat in the corners of the Hall, joined in the celebration.

  Carried on the great upsurge of camaraderie, my heart lifted with joy—full of wonder about the lands across the sea, and the happy conviction that we were achieving something just as remarkable here at home. My eyes filled with tears that prismed the sights of the Hall as Dagonet led a cheer for all of us.

  It is one of my favorite memories, from the days of our innocence.

  Chapter IV

  Working Monarchs

  For all the pomp and pageantry we invested in the Round Table, its basic function—beside providing Arthur with a platform for his political concepts—was to be a council for exchanging news, settling disputes, and assuring ourselves that Britain’s borders were intact.

  This year there were precious few disputes among the members, the different kingdoms were keeping the Roman Roads clear and safe, and the Saxon Federates had stayed behind the agreed-upon boundaries.

  “Quiet as a cat at a mousehole,” Bagdemagus noted succinctly. Ruddy-faced and pugnacious, the Dorset warlord had been chosen to represent the brotherhood of Britons whose line of hill-forts kept the South Saxons from moving west. Though he spoke in Latin, he and his kind were contemptuous of fancy ways, and he delivered his report in solid, practical terms.

  “Ever since you beat ’em at Mount Badon, Your Highness, those Federates have kept their heads down; from South Hampton to Winchester, they’re minding their own business. Never hear a word about their dead leader, Cerdic, or anyone thinking to rally around his son. You still keeping that boy hostage up in Wales?”