Gwydion shrugged. “Since I am not intending to join either force—”
“But what will they think of you? That you are cowardly, that you shrink from combat—”
“I have fought enough in Arthur’s armies that I care not what they say,” said Gwydion, “but if you wish, you may tell them that my horse is gone lame and I have no wish to risk more injury to him—that is an honorable excuse.”
“I would lend you a horse of Gawaine,” Gareth said, puzzled, “but if you wish for an honorable excuse, do what you will. But why, Gwydion? Or must I now call you Mordred?”
“You shall call me always what you will, foster-brother.”
“But will you not tell me why you shirk the fight, Gwydion?”
“None other but you could speak that word unchallenged,” said Gwydion, “but since you ask me, I will tell you. It is for your sake, brother.”
Gareth scowled at him. “What, in God’s name, do you mean?”
“I know little of God, or care to,” said Gwydion, and stared down at his feet. “Since you will know, brother—you know from old—I have the Sight—”
“Aye, and what of it?” asked Gareth impatiently. “Have you had some ill dream that I will fall before your lance?”
“No, make not a jest of it,” said Gwydion, and Morgause felt ice go through her veins as he turned up his face to Gareth. “It seemed to me—” He swallowed, as if his throat closed against the words he would speak. “It seemed to me that you lay dying—and I knelt at your side, and you would not speak to me—and I knew it was my doing you lay without the spark of life.”
Gareth pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. But then he clapped his foster-brother on the shoulder. “Nay, but I put small faith in dreams and visions, youngster. And fate, no man can escape. Did they not teach you that in Avalon?”
“Aye,” Gwydion said softly. “And if you fell, even at my hand, in battle, fate then it would be . . . but I will not tempt that fate in play, my brother. Some ill chance might guide my hand to strike amiss. . . . Let it be, Gareth. I will not take the field this day, let them say what they will.”
Gareth still looked distressed. “Well, do as you will, lad. Stay beside our mother, then, since Lamorak will take the field beside Lancelet.” He bent to kiss his mother’s hand, and went; Morgause, frowning, started to ask Gwydion what he had seen; but he was scowling, staring at the ground, and she forbore, saying only, “Well, if I am to have a young courtier to sit beside me, will you bring me a dipper of water before I go to my seat again?”
“Certainly, Mother,” he said, and went off toward the water butts.
To Morgause, the final scrimmage battle was always something of a blur; her head had begun to ache with the sun and she was eager for it to be over. She was hungry, too, and could smell, from a distance, the meat roasting in the pits.
Gwydion sat beside her and explained it to her, though she knew little of the fine points of fighting, nor cared to. But she did note that Galahad acquitted himself well, unseating two riders; she was a little surprised, he seemed so gentle a boy. But then, Gareth too had seemed a gentle child to her, and he was the most fearsome of fighters. At the end, he took the prize on the King’s side where Gawaine was at the head of the fighting. To no one’s surprise, Galahad won the prize on Lancelet’s side; this was customary for a young man who had been knighted that day, and she said so.
“You could have had a prize too, Gwydion,” she said, but he laughed and shook his head. “I need it not, Mother. Why spoil this day for my cousin? And Galahad fought well—no one begrudges him the prize.”
There were many smaller prizes, and when they were all given, the knights went to be sluiced with buckets of water from head to toe by their squires, and to put on fresh clothing. Morgause went with the ladies of the King’s household to a room put at their disposal, where they could arrange their gowns and hair, and wash off the dust and sweat of the stands.
“How do you think?” Morgause asked. “Has Lancelet made himself an enemy?”
Morgaine said, “I think not. Did you see them embrace?”
“They looked like father and son,” said Morgause. “Would that they were!”
But Morgaine’s face was like stone. “It is many years too late to speak of that, Aunt.”
Morgause reflected, Perhaps she has forgotten that I know whose son he really is. But before Morgaine’s frozen calm she could only say, “Would you like me to help with your braids at the back?” and took up the comb as Morgaine turned. “Mordred,” she said, as she worked. “Well, he showed crafty counsel here, God knows! Now he has won himself a place by valor and impudence, so he need not demand one from Arthur on the grounds of his parentage. The Saxons named him well. But I knew not he was so much of a fighter. He has certainly managed to carry away the luster of the day! Even though Galahad won the prize, no one will talk about anything but Mordred’s daring gesture.”
One of the Queen’s ladies came up to them. “Lady Morgaine, is sir Mordred your son? I never knew you had a son—”
Morgaine said steadily, “I was very young when he was born, and Morgause fostered him. I had come near to forgetting it myself.”
“How proud you must be of him! And isn’t he handsome? As good-looking as Lancelet himself,” the woman said, and her eyes glistened.
“He is, isn’t he,” agreed Morgaine, her tone so courteous that only Morgause, who knew her well, knew that she was angry. “It has been an embarrassment to them both, I dare say. But Lancelet and I are first cousins, and when I was a little girl, I was more like him than like my own brother. Our mother was tall and red-haired like Queen Morgause here, but Lady Viviane was of the old folk of Avalon.”
“Who is his father, then?” asked the woman, and Morgause saw Morgaine’s hands clench at her sides. But she said with a pleasant smile, “He is a Beltane child, and the God claims all children gotten in the groves. No doubt you remember that as a young girl I was one of the damsels of the Lady of the Lake.”
Trying to be polite, the woman murmured, “I had forgotten—they still kept the old rites there, then?”
“As they do now,” said Morgaine quietly. “And the Goddess grant they shall do so till the world end.”
As she had intended, that silenced the woman, and Morgaine turned away, saying to Morgause, “Are you ready, kinswoman? Let us go down to the hall.” As they left the room she drew a long breath of mingled exasperation and relief.
“Chattering fools—listen to them! Have they nothing better to do than gossip?”
“Probably not,” said Morgause. “Their most Christian husbands and fathers make sure they shall have nothing else to occupy their minds.”
The doors to the great chamber of the Round Table where the Pentecost feast would be held were shut, so that they might all enter at once.
“Arthur every year gives us more pageantry,” said Morgause. “Now a grand procession and entrance, I suppose?”
“What do you expect?” Morgaine asked. “Now there are no wars, he must touch the imagination of his people somehow, and he is clever enough to do it by making great display for them—I have heard it was the Merlin who counselled him so. The common folk—yes, and the nobles too—like a fine show, and the Druids have known that since they lit the first Beltane fires. Gwenhwyfar has spent many years making this the greatest holiday anywhere in any Christian land.” She gave the first real smile Morgause had seen on her face this day. “Even Arthur knows he cannot hold his people with a mass and a feast alone—if there is no great marvel to see, I doubt not Arthur and the Merlin will somehow arrange one! What a pity they could not arrange to hold the eclipse today!”
“Did you watch the eclipse in Wales? My folk were frightened,” Morgause said, “and no doubt, those fools of Gwenhwyfar’s ladies shrieked and shouted as if the world were coming to an end!”
“Gwenhwyfar has a passion for fools among her ladies,” Morgaine said. “Yet she herself is not really a fool, though she li
kes to seem so. I wonder how she can tolerate it?”
“You should show more patience with them,” Morgause warned, and Morgaine shrugged.
“I care not what fools think of me.”
“I cannot imagine how you have dwelt in Uriens’ kingdom as his queen so long, and not learned more of queencraft,” said Morgause. “Whatever she is thought by men, a woman must depend on the goodwill of other women—what else did you learn at Avalon?”
Morgaine said, her voice hard, “The women in Avalon are not such fools.” But Morgause knew her well enough to know that her angry tone concealed loneliness and suffering.
“Morgaine, why do you not return to Avalon?”
Morgaine bent her head, knowing that if Morgause spoke kindly again to her she would break and weep. “My time has not yet come. I have been ordered to stay with Uriens—”
“And Accolon?”
“Oh, aye, with Accolon,” said Morgaine. “I might have known you would reproach me with that—”
“I am the last to speak,” said Morgause. “But Uriens will not live long—”
Morgaine said, her face as frozen as her voice, “So I believed on that day years ago when we were wedded. He is like to live as long as Taliesin himself, and Taliesin was past ninety when he died.”
Arthur and Gwenhwyfar had arrived and were slowly making their way to the head of the line—Arthur resplendently clad in white robes, Gwenhwyfar beside him, exquisite in white silk and jewels. The great doors were flung open, and they passed within, then Morgaine as the King’s sister with her husband and his sons, Accolon and Uwaine; then Morgause with her household, as the King’s aunt; then Lancelet and his household, and then the other knights one by one, proceeding around the Round Table to take their seats. A few years back, some craftsman had wrought in gold paint and crimson the name of every Companion over his customary chair. Now, as they entered, Morgause noticed that the seat nearest the King, reserved all these years for his heir, had been painted with the name Galahad. But she saw it only in a flicker of her eye. For at the great thrones where Arthur and Gwenhwyfar were to sit, two white banners, like the garish banners with which the battles of the clowns had been fought, had been draped, and across them were scrawled paintings, ugly caricatures—on one throne was a banner portraying a knight standing on the heads of two crowned figures, bearing a devilish likeness to Arthur and Gwenhwyfar; and across the other was a lewd painting which made even Morgause, who was by no means prudish, blush, for it depicted a small, dark-haired woman, stark naked, in the embrace of a huge horned devil, and all about her, accepting certain strange and disgusting sexual ministrations, were scrawled a group of naked men.
Gwenhwyfar cried out in a shrill scream, “God and Mary defend us!”
Arthur, stopped dead, turned on the servants in a voice of thunder. “How came this—this—” Words failed him and he waved his hand at the drawings. “—this here?”
“Sir—” the chamberlain stammered, “it was not here when we finished decking the hall—all was orderly, even to the flowers before the Queen’s seat—”
“Who was last in this hall?” Arthur demanded.
Cai limped forward. “My lord and my brother, it was I. I came to be certain all was in good order, and I swear as God sees us all, everything was ready at that time to honor my king and his lady. And if ever I find the foul dog who sneaked in to put this thing here, I will have his head like this!” And he gestured as if he were wringing a chicken’s neck.
“Look to your lady!” said Arthur sharply. The women were twittering and chattering as Gwenhwyfar began to sink down in a faint. Morgaine held her up, saying in a sharp, low voice, “Gwen, don’t give them this satisfaction! You are a queen—what do you care what some fool scrawls on a banner? Control yourself!”
Gwenhwyfar was crying. “How can they—how could they—how could anyone hate me so?”
“There is no one alive who can live without offending some idiot or other,” said Morgaine, and helped her toward her seat. But the more crudely sexual of the banners was still draped over it, and Gwenhwyfar shrank back as if she touched something filthy. Morgaine threw it on the floor. There were wine cups set; Morgaine gestured to one of Gwenhwyfar’s waiting-women to fill one and give it to the Queen.
“Don’t let it trouble you, Gwen—I imagine that one is meant for me,” she said. “It is whispered indeed that I take devils to my bed, and what do I care?”
Arthur said, “Get this foulness out of here and burn it, and bring scented woods and incense to take away the stink of evil.” Lackeys scurried to obey him, and Cai said, “We will find out who did this. No doubt it is some servant I dismissed, coming back to embarrass me because I had shown some pride in the decorations of the hall this year. Men, bring the wine round, and the ale, and we will have our first round of drinking shame and confusion to that stinking louse who tried to spoil our feast. Will we let him? Come! Drink to King Arthur and his lady!”
A thin cheer went up, which grew to a genuine cry of appreciation as Arthur and Gwenhwyfar bowed to them all. The feasters seated themselves, and Arthur said, “Now bring before me any petitioners.”
Morgause watched as they brought up some man with a complaint which seemed stupid, about a boundary. Then came an overlord who complained that his vassal had taken a deer on his lands.
Morgause was near Gwenhwyfar; she leaned over and murmured to the Queen, “Why does Arthur hear these cases himself? Any of his bailiffs could handle this and not waste his time.”
Gwenhwyfar murmured, “So I once thought. But he hears a case or two like this, every year at Pentecost, so that the common folk may not think he cares only for the great nobles or his own Companions.”
Well, Morgause thought, that was wise enough. There were two or three more small petitions, then as the meat was brought round, jugglers and acrobats entertained the company, and a man did some conjuring trick of bringing small birds and eggs from the most unlikely places. Morgause thought that Gwenhwyfar seemed calm now, and wondered if they would ever catch the author of the drawings. One portrayed Morgaine as a harlot and that was bad enough; but the other, it seemed, was more serious—showing Lancelet trampling on both King and Queen. Something had happened today beyond a public humiliation for the Queen’s champion, Morgause reflected. That could have been dispelled by the graciousness he had shown to young Gwydion—no, Mordred—and the obvious lack of any grudge between them after. But despite Lancelet’s popularity with King and Companions, there were, no doubt, some who detested Gwenhwyfar’s obvious partiality to her champion.
“What is happening now?” she asked Gwenhwyfar.
The Queen smiled; whatever it was, as the horns blew outside the hall, it was something which pleased her.
The doors were flung open; horns blared again, the crude horns of the Saxons. Then three great Saxons, wearing gold torques and bracelets about their arms, clad in garments of fur and leather, bearing great swords and their horned helmets and with circlets of gold about their heads, strode into the hall of the Round Table, each with his retinue.
“My lord Arthur,” called out one of them, “I am Adelric, lord of Kent and Anglia, and these are my brother kings. We have come to ask that we may give tribute to you, most Christian of kings, and make permanent treaty with you and your court forever!”
“Lot would be turning in his grave.” remarked Morgause, “but Viviane would be pleased at this day.” But Morgaine did not answer.
Bishop Patricius rose and came toward the Saxon kings, welcoming them. He said to Arthur, “My lord, after the long wars, this gives me great joy. I urge you to welcome these men as your subject kings and take their oath, in token that all Christian kings should be brothers.”
Morgaine was deathly white. She started to rise and speak, but Uriens looked at her with a stern frown and she sank back at his side. Morgause said good-naturedly, “I remember when the bishops refused even to send anyone to Christianize these barbarians. Lot told me they have v
owed they would not meet with the Saxons in fellowship even in Heaven, and that they would not send missions to them—they felt it right that the Saxons should all end up in Hell. But, well, that is thirty years gone!”
Arthur said, “Since I came to my throne, I have longed for an end to the wars which have ravaged this land. We have dwelt in peace for many years, Lord Bishop, and now I welcome you, good sirs, to my court and to my company.”
“It is our custom,” said one of the Saxons—not Adelric, Morgause noticed, for this one was wearing some kind of blue cloak, and Adelric’s had been brown—"to take oath on steel. May we take oath on the cross of your sword, Lord Arthur, in token that we meet as Christian kings under One God who rules us all?”
“Be it so,” said Arthur quietly, and came down from the dais to stand before them. In the light of the many torches and lamps, Excalibur flashed like lightning as he drew it. He set it upright before him and a great wavering shadow, the shadow of a cross, fell all the length of the hall, as the kings knelt.
The Mists of Avalon Page 107