Queen of the Summer Stars

by Persia Woolley

  The affair between Gawain and Ragnell grew into a tempestuous passion that flared explosively between them. Arthur’s nephew spent more and more time in the shadow of the barrows where the Prydn had their camp, and some at Court began to worry that the Champion would get trapped in their fey ways. It is well known that when mortals are tempted across the threshold of those Hollow Hills, they rarely return.

  “My wife thinks the Prince is under a spell and doesn’t see what an ugly scamp that creature is,” a local laird confided. “But I’ll wager she turns into a lovely lass at bedtime; you know how changeable the fairy-folk can be.”

  I suspected it was less a question of physical beauty than spiritual affinity that drew Ragnell and Gawain together. Raised in the mannered, painted Court of his mother, the Prince of Orkney seemed to be reveling in the freedom he found with the homely nomad Queen. Like a pair of wolves unwilling to be tamed, their spitfire energy fused in a savage partnership. Nor did it seem that either one cared a whit about what the courtiers might say.

  So I was surprised when Gawain brought the Gern to my chambers and asked if I could find a dress for her—he wanted to present her at the Hall and feared the others would ridicule her native clothes.

  I stared in dismay at Ragnell. When she stood on tiptoe she came barely up to Gawain’s chest, and since Gawain and I are of an equal height, I was at a loss as to what I had that might fit her. But Enid was quick with a needle, and she added a panel to one of my tunics, turning it into a full-length gown for the Prydn Queen. It was not exactly elegant, but it would serve for her debut at Court.

  Remembering her generosity of spirit when I lost the child, I laid out my jewelry for Ragnell to choose from, but she wrinkled her nose in disdain.

  Gawain laughed. “I fancy she’d prefer to dazzle them with her own treasure.”

  And dazzle she did. There was a gasp of amazement when she and Morgause’s son appeared at the Hall that night, and I had a hard time keeping from grinning as they walked the length of the room to give us a formal greeting. Gawain was defiantly wearing the rough tunic and cape of skins that Prydn men use, and Ragnell had covered herself with gold; gold braided into torques, beaten into bands, strung as beads or sewn to edgings as bangles. No doubt it was fairy treasure from within the Hollow Hills, and it made her glimmer in the fire-glow like a tiny, primitive Goddess.

  Gawain had coached her well, and she gave me a mischievous look as she made a full curtsy. I reached out my hand and squeezed her fingers lightly as she rose. For a moment I felt them tremble and knew her poise was more facade than confidence.

  Later that evening one of the warlords who had drunk too much became suggestively familiar with the Gern. Ragnell turned on him so rapidly that he had no chance to raise his guard, and her nails left a set of bloody furrows down his face.

  Gawain jumped to his feet, dirk drawn and manner challenging. The nomad had more than defended herself, but after the drunken lout backed down, she stepped forward and spat in his face, no doubt thinking that one insult deserved another.

  A murmur of disapproval ran through the Hall and Ragnell let out a string of invective, though I couldn’t tell whether it was meant for the boorish warlord or the Court as a whole.

  Gawain slung some comment at her, and then suddenly the two of them were at it, yelling and hollering like banshees at Samhain. The Prydn Queen stamped her feet in frustration and sidestepping her lover, advanced upon my chair. In a movement that was half wriggle, half ripping, she tore off the tunic and with the briefest nod, stepped out of the tatters and turned toward the door.

  Clad only in her jewelry, she passed by Gawain with the utmost dignity, as though he didn’t exist. He threw out his arm to stop her, and with a flick of her wrist, so quick it could have been that of a thief, she snagged the fur cape he was wearing and, slinging it over one shoulder, marched out of the Hall.

  With a yell Gawain disappeared after her, and the Court erupted with laughter. But I sat silent, aching for both of them.

  Ragnell never came back, and while Gawain continued to divide his time between the Prydn and the Court, it soon became obvious the redhead was caught between conflicting loyalties. He would sit, gloomy and miserable, with us, clearly longing for the open fields and his love. Yet after several days at their camp, he’d come back to Court, sad and angry, but relieved to be home.

  I watched him fret within the trap of his moira, but when I brought the subject up he growled like a hound with a sore paw, so I let it be.

  The winter progressed, and for every three lairds who came to meet the High King, two left willing to talk about truces and trade agreements. Scrap by scrap Arthur was stitching together a unified Britain, and he was so filled with his own dream, he didn’t notice his nephew’s plight.

  One March morning a Pictish envoy appeared, coming up the Forth in a sturdy dugout. He was a brawny fellow with ornate tattoos on his arms and across his cheeks, and though he stayed only long enough to deliver his message to Arthur, the household was full of gossip about him when I returned from riding.

  “The paths and tracks from the Highlands are still frozen, so he sailed along the coast.” Arthur shook his head in admiration. “I swear those Picts are half seals, they’re that at home in the water! Maelchon, the leader at Inverness, has invited us to join him for the Gathering in the Great Glen at midsummer. He sent along a present for you as well—seems they’re full of admiration for the warrior queen who fought the Saxons so bravely at Humberside.”

  I laughed; it always amuses me how quickly news of royal activity travels—and how often it is wrong. Next they’d be saying that I had been the hero of that battle instead of Cei.

  Arthur let a sleek, slippery necklace of silver flow into my palm. It had the look of slinking water, and I stared at it, fascinated, while he explained it was a token of their highest esteem. I would wear it with pride at Inverness this summer.

  As the weather warmed we began to hear that Hueil, son of Caw and brother of that same Gildas who was studying with the monk Illtud, was trying to gather enough men to force us to retreat back beyond the Wall.

  So Arthur and the Companions fought a series of skirmishes through the great forest before Hueil’s men scattered across the Trossachs at the end of May. Lance volunteered to stay behind to round them up while we were attending the midsummer rite in Pictland. It was an offer Arthur much appreciated.

  The day we were to leave, I climbed to the top of the rampart for a last look at the view I had loved so well and found Gawain leaning morosely against the parapet. He was holding one of Ragnell’s hair ornaments between his fingers and barely acknowledged my greeting.

  “Gone!” The Orkney Prince glared out toward the north as though his very anger could stop her. “Gone back to the summer pastures without even a farewell.”

  “Are you going after her?” I asked, and immediately regretted it.

  “What good would it do?” He sighed heavily and turned to look me full in the face. The misery of his loss was written clear across his countenance, all bravado and bluff gone.

  “She was the world to me, Gwen…but Arthur and the Companions are my family.” He swallowed heavily and glanced away. “The very night after my father died in the Great Battle, my mother tried to make me swear I’d take revenge on Arthur…even though I had already surrendered and given him my oath. Being newly widowed, she was distraught—misspoke herself in her grief, no doubt. But she is an ardent woman; beautiful and powerful, and you cross her at your own peril. When I refused her request she cursed me…cursed me and struck my name from the family.”

  Morgause’s son wrestled silently with the memory, then shuddered. “That’s when I turned to Arthur and made his Cause my Cause. He’s all the family I can call upon, Gwen, and I could never forsake him.” There was a long pause, followed by a deep sob. “I told Ragnell she needn’t live at Court, that we could meet somew
here in between…”

  Gawain turned his back to me and leaned, stiff-armed, against the parapet, elbows locked and head drooping. This was no time to point out that the Gern could no more forsake her people than he could his, so I simply put my hands on his shoulders and tried to massage the tension from the knotted muscles. When he’d relaxed a bit I gave him a fond pat and went back downstairs, leaving him staring moodily at the bright feathers his love had left behind.

  The conversation had at least given me some insight into Morgause. I wondered if she still harbored that fierce rage against Arthur, or if, as Gawain said, she had been crazed by grief when she tried to set her son against her brother. Certainly in the years since, she had shown no enmity toward us and had let her sons come to Court as they reached the age to become pages. I hoped that time had dulled her pain and would draw the sting from Arthur’s bitterness as well.

  ***

  When we headed into the Highlands it was Tristan who rode at the front with Arthur and myself since Lance was pursuing Hueil’s men to the west. Gawain preferred to ride alone, surrounding himself in deep, brooding silence.

  Scotland is a rugged land, full of quick, drenching showers and a multitude of rainbows. The Romans had not brought their Roads this far north, so we picked our way through primitive pine forests and camped in the high meadows under the Grampian peaks.

  We heard the Picts long before we saw them. At night the high trill of their flutes danced from one hidden glen to another, broken only at the lakeshores by a wild, demonic laughter that made my skin crawl. Even after I learned it was the courting call of a black-throated diving bird, the eerie sound still made me shiver.

  The people began to show themselves in shy, scattered gatherings beside the strange carved boulders they use to denote boundaries. With great sobriety they watched our procession pass and rarely said a word. Only occasionally did we stay at a leader’s fort, but even there we were met with curiosity rather than enthusiasm. While they were not hostile, there was no cheering and glad welcome such as I was used to in the south.

  By the time we approached Inverness the days had grown long and the twilights lasted well on to midnight. It was then that Gawain asked permission to search the high pastures for Ragnell.

  “I need to have it out with her once and for all,” he growled, the last of his hope warming his voice. “But I’ll meet you at the pass of Glen Coe in a fortnight, no matter what the result of our talk is.”

  I eyed my friend anxiously—he’d become a man consumed by a love he could neither claim nor let go of, and it was burning him alive. Perhaps this was the only way for him to resolve his moira, but I made an extra little prayer for him, unable to see any resolution that would not involve pain.

  ***

  The Pictish leader Maelchon proved to be a gracious host, but his sister was a lean, haughty woman who gestured scornfully toward the cleft in the mountains where the lake lay black and silent in the gloaming. “The annual gathering for the lairds to hold Council, settle disputes, and drive a herd of cattle into the water to appease the Gods.” She nodded toward the scatter of cooking fires that lit the long banks of the Loch. “Every year Himself and I get rowed down the length of it to receive their allegiance. Not that it means much; those brigands would as soon slit our throats as not.”

  I was appalled by her attitude, for she acted as though she were the King’s consort yet spoke with total derision about their subjects. Pity the king and people who must be under her sway.

  “Has he no wife?” I asked Tristan.

  “He does, but it doesn’t matter. Among the Picts it’s the men who rule, but they count the bloodline through the mother, so the sister’s son is considered first in line for the throne. If she’s a powerful woman, she dominates the Court.” The Harper shrugged. “That’s why I have no standing here, for all that my father was a Pictish king himself.”

  Next morning we were escorted with great ceremony to a flotilla of boats and dugouts, barges and canoes that were assembled at the head of the Loch. The royal barge was swagged with awnings and pennants, each held to its post by the bleached skull of a stag. The eye sockets of these relics were filled with flowers, while a set of antlers, covered with beaten gold, topped the center pole of the royal pavilion. A scatter of thick fur throws covered the wooden benches on which we sat. There was a constant roll of drums, no doubt to help the oarsmen as well as signal our approach to those along the shore, and the bright notes of the flutes shimmered over the water as we got under way.

  Loch Ness is as deep and strange as the Lady’s Black Lake in Rheged. Powerful mysteries lie sleeping beneath the surface of the dark water that extends like a long narrow gash between the jagged mountains. This day the clouds were running like sheep across the sun, changing the mood from light to shadow in the blink of an eye.

  Whenever our barge approached a clearing on the rocky shore, barons and warriors, craftsmen and husbanders rushed to the water’s edge, dancing and singing in salute as we went by.

  “They wish to perform a special ceremony with the High King,” Tristan reported when we stepped off the barge at the far end of the lake. So I moved aside to watch as a holy man came out of the crowd and bowed low before Arthur.

  The shaman was wearing the skin of a stag, its face covering his, its antlers rearing up from his head much like the pictures I’ve seen of the great Horned One, Cernunnos. He shook a wooden rod with great vehemence, carving the air in Z-shaped strokes. It was clear that he was calling down the spirit of the God into his own mortal being, for like all shape-changers he would soon become one with his deity.

  The stag-priest danced and spun in place while a young apprentice shook whispering rattles and put pinch after pinch of resin into a small brazier at his feet. An acrid smoke rose from the embers, and the acolyte fanned it into a cloud around Arthur as the stag-priest stamped his feet excitedly.

  Then suddenly all was silent as the boy handed Arthur a bronze mirror much like the one I have from Mama, only this one had a soft leather cover attached to the polished surface.

  “Close your eyes,” Tristan translated, and when Arthur’s lids were shut the stag-priest lifted the bronze disk before my husband’s face and folded the covering back from the mirror. A new cloud darkened the sun as Arthur opened his eyes and looked directly at the reflection.

  Anger flashed across his features, and for a moment I thought he would fling the thing to the ground. But though his jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed, Arthur held his gaze steady and didn’t move.

  The shaman was peering intently at the High King through the eye holes in the deer’s face, and with a sudden, wild cry he began to prance in a circle around Arthur, bowing and strutting and showing off the majesty of his saber-pointed antlers. My husband stood, resolute and unmoving, in the center of that wild dance. No matter how close the sweep of the mighty horns came, he neither flinched nor looked away from what the mirror revealed, though he paled noticeably in the process.

  With a final grand whirl the stag-priest snatched the mirror from Arthur’s grasp and, bowing deeply, turned to present him to the murmuring crowd. They broke into applause as the shaman backed away, and Arthur reached out to me, pulling me back to his side. His fingers were cold as ice, and sweat was glistening on his skin, but we stood together before the assembled Picts with regal calm. The rest of the night was devoted to eating and merrymaking, cavorting around huge bonfires and hailing the Gods of mountaintop and hidden stream. The Picts are famous for their heather beer, which so captivated Cei that he offered to trade his best gold bracelet for the recipe. But the brewer laughed and allowed that it was part of the tribal treasure and therefore not for sale. That was a pity, for to this day no one has been able to duplicate that tasty brew, though I suspect Cei has spent some time trying.

  Later I watched Arthur in the fire-glow, wondering what he had seen in the mirror that had shaken him so deeply a
nd wishing I could have gotten a peek, too. Perhaps it held the key as to why he was so guarded and brusque at exactly those times where warmth and gentle sharing should be possible. I loved him deeply in spite of the distance that lay between us, but one could watch him with the dogs and see more tender concern than he would ever allow another human. It was a puzzle that I had no answer for, and I finally told myself to leave it be. There was no point in making myself unhappy over something I couldn’t change.

  So we progressed down the Great Glen, with feasting and festivities each night and a wide variety of people bringing us gifts each day. There were walrus-tusk charms with pictures scratched on them; thick, solid cloaks with peaked hoods; and more of the beautiful silver chains.

  Toward the end of our journey an old woman gave me the handful of fern fronds. “For Merlin. We hoped the Mage would come with you, though rumor says that wench has put an end to him.”

  “Oh, no,” I corrected her. “No, the Enchanter is in Brittany.”

  The crone looked at me skeptically. “The Ancient Ones see everything, and they say the doire lives in Merlin’s Cave, alone. They saw her this last Beltane. I’ll wager she tricked that daft old man into giving her all his secrets, then got rid of him.”

  I shook my head adamantly, and she laughed. “Sorcerer or not, he’s still a man, and a mortal one at that.”

  With a stiff glance she stalked away, and I noticed those around her threw their hands across their eyes lest she put a hex on them. A chill slid down my spine—what if she knew something we did not? What if Merlin was, in fact, dead?

  ***

  At the end of the fortnight we camped in the broad swath of Glen Coe pass, where the mountains are flung about like building blocks left scattered in a nursery by young Gods. It’s an awesome place, full of deep, brooding shadows, and I kept checking over my shoulder for what might be just out of sight.