“I don’t know. Anger, or sorrow…or maybe relief.”
“Do you think he’ll come after them?”
“I’m not sure.” Dinadan rubbed his chin diligently. “It would take a lot for him to mount a war against you, particularly with his best warrior in your camp. But I cannot altogether swear he wouldn’t.”
Arthur was pacing the room, weighing the probabilities. “Well,” he said at last, “it won’t make any difference in whether I take the lovers in or not, just where we keep them. How would it be, Lance, if they joined you at Warkworth for the summer?”
“But what about the work at Cadbury?” the Breton exclaimed, obviously surprised.
Arthur frowned. “I don’t really need you for that—Bedivere can handle it. But I do need someone to give Tris and Isolde a safe haven. And Mark isn’t likely to march an army all the way up to Warkworth just to claim his wife.”
“True,” Lancelot agreed, though it was clear that he’d prefer to spend the summer with us. “Couldn’t Pelli put them up at the Wrekin?”
“With that great brood of children he’s produced, and all the warriors and family members that have collected around him? He doesn’t have room,” Arthur answered, then grinned. “Besides, royal guests expect royal accommodations.”
Dinadan noted that anything would be an improvement over the swineherd’s hut, and he for one thought the whole subject of love was hugely overrated, especially if it interfered with one’s housing arrangements.
We all laughed at that, and when he left the next day to return to Tristan we assured him we would give the Cornish lovers sanctuary.
***
It was an unusually beautiful spring, and a number of romances began to blossom among our courtiers. Pages and squires stared calf-eyed after flocks of giggling household girls, the newest warriors boasted and strutted before my younger ladies-in-waiting, and even the seasoned Companions responded to the beguilements of the season, though not always with a light heart.
“Griflet wants us to make our pledge and begin our own family,” Frieda confided one morning as we checked on the newest batch of pups. We had procured another bitch after Cabal’s death, and the kennels were now full of Caesar’s progeny.
“Sounds very sensible,” I commented, watching the little ones nuzzling blindly for their mother’s teat.
“But it means I must choose—between my family and him, that is.” A catch in the Saxon girl’s voice reminded me how closely she was tied to her kin. “Oh, M’lady, I love them both. I can’t imagine giving up either one for the other…or why they should demand it. Why can’t loving just be loving, without all kinds of decisions?”
Why, indeed, I thought, gently commiserating with her.
Fortunately not all our lovers were caught in conflicts; Ettard, for instance, seemed suddenly very happy.
“This morning she was singing to herself.” Augusta paused meaningfully. “I tell you, something has changed.”
I coughed pointedly, and the Roman gossip looked down at her lap. At least she’d control her poisonous tongue while I was around.
“Maybe,” Elaine suggested, “she’s simply excited about her wedding. Didn’t you say she was to marry Pelleas as soon as he comes back? I’ll wager she’s just full of good spirits because of that.”
The redhead was on her hands and knees retrieving her kitten, and she looked up at me with a grin. I nodded, thinking that while the girl from Carbonek might be every bit as spoiled as Augusta, she at least had a habit of looking on the best side of things rather than the worst.
The conversation veered to other things: the abundance of lavender blossoms in the garden this year, and what fine sachets they would make when dried; a new recipe for using the ashes of bracken in making soap, and the most recent stories of strange happenings in the Wood of Wirral.
“I’ve a cousin who lives there,” a new girl from Chester noted, “and she says it’s the Green Man who goes stalking through the Wood at night. That Old God ain’t been seen for generations, you know.” She made the sign against evil, for the Green One was feared and revered by all.
“What we need is one of the traveling saints to banish the wretched thing,” Vinnie said firmly. “I could write to my friend the Bishop of Carlisle and see if he’s got someone to send down that way.”
Vinnie had badgered the hierarchy into sending a bishop to refurbish the old church in Carlisle when I was a girl, and to this day she took a proprietary interest in his activities.
“’T’ain’t wretched,” the Chesterite said quickly, fairly bristling at Vinnie’s assumption that what was non-Christian was evil. “He’s the most ancient one of all, God of the Beasts and Field, who commands the whole of life…excepting maybe what the Goddess controls.”
“I’ll wager he challenges all comers,” Elaine speculated, her eyes wide with awe. “Just like the great warriors at the river fords of old; ‘Present arms, Sir, or you shall not pass!’” She grabbed her kitten and held it up as the challenger, making us all laugh.
The little animal put its ears back and glared about, then, reaching out a silken paw, patted the girl’s cheek until she brought it under her chin and let it scramble onto her shoulder. They made a charming picture.
I’ve never had time to be jealous of beautiful women, but if I were to be piqued by such things, this bright, lively girl might stir me to envy. Instead I grinned at her ingenuousness and put the thought aside.
Two nights later I awoke to her shaking my shoulder and whispering, “Come quickly, M’lady…come quickly.”
“What on earth?” Arthur mumbled, sitting up and opening the shutter of the lantern.
The girl was all soft and tousled from sleep, her hair a halo of wild waves and curls and her young athletic figure softened by a white bedshift. When she saw she’d wakened the King as well, she dimpled prettily and bobbed a curtsy.
“Whatever is the matter?” I asked, thinking the child had far too much nerve.
“It’s Ettard, M’lady. She’s so distraught, the matron said I should fetch you.”
“Mmh,” I responded, wondering why Vinnie hadn’t sent directly for Nimue; in the end, it was the doire who would fix things with a sedative, anyway.
But I came wide awake when I walked into the room where the convent girl huddled in a ball of misery on a stool. White and pale as death, she sobbed silently, her head sunken between her shoulders and her arms wrapped across her chest in a protective embrace. When I tried to talk with her she simply shut me out by closing her eyes.
“What in the world…?” I asked, turning to Vinnie.
“I don’t know, M’lady. She won’t speak at all now, but when I first heard her sobbing, she was crying for Gawain.”
“Gawain?”
“Yes, M’lady, Gawain.” The matron knelt beside the weeping girl and tried to comfort her with an embrace, but Ettard didn’t respond. “You know how fond she was of him, always talking about him before she decided to marry Pelleas. Maybe he can help.”
I was running back to our chamber to ask Arthur if he’d fetch the Orcadian when I heard voices coming from the Hall.
“By the Gods, what made you do such a foolish thing?” Arthur was clearly angry. “There’s a hundred single ladies who’d be delighted to ease your night’s sleep, Nephew. Why did you have to pick Pelleas’s fiancée?”
“She’s been asking for it for years, Arthur,” Gawain shot back. “And now, what with Pelleas gone and all…well, she was willing and I was needful. And it’s not as though tonight was the first time; we’ve been romping regularly for the last few weeks. Besides, who was to know Pelleas would come back this early?”
Oh, Glory, the groom-to-be was also involved! I squared my shoulders and crossed through the shadows of the Hall.
Gawain flushed as I came within the circle of the lantern light and had the decency to look
away while I watched him. “Where is Pelleas?” I asked.
“Who knows?” The redhead shrugged. “After he found us together, he drew his sword and threatened to behead me on the spot. You better believe it was a sticky moment, and I had just rolled away from the wench when the blade of his weapon began to shake and he drove the tip a full handsbreadth into the floorboards next to me. After that he turned and ran, and I decided I’d best be getting back to my room.”
“Leaving your conquest to fend for herself?”
Gawain hung his head for a moment, then shrugged again. “I assumed she’d find her way back to her quarters, though I admit I didn’t wait to find out. An outraged fiancé isn’t that different from an outraged husband, you know.”
“What did you tell her when you bedded the girl?” I demanded.
Gawain lifted his head proudly. “I never promised her anything, Your Highness. I don’t deal in lies.”
The old pride of honesty flamed across his red face. Cut off your head, ruin your marriage, make war over a broken tea cup he would, but never, never lie! The Celt in me responded fondly even as I shook my head in reprimand.
“And you never talked of love, or marriage, or the fact that she was a virgin?”
“Virgin? Oh, come now, she may have called herself that, but she had no objection to being bedded. As for love, they all talk about that. But I never promised her anything,” he repeated, his voice rising with belligerence. “She knew perfectly well what this was: a fling, a last lark, a time for play before the marriage vows took over.”
Arthur was watching his nephew closely, and now he sighed heavily. “There are many girls who go hunting husbands among the Companions, using fair means or foul. But the point of the Fellowship is a bond of trust with one’s brothers. How do you defend your actions where Pelleas is concerned? You were his mentor, his idol, and his best friend, after all.”
“So what’s a little—” Gawain clamped his mouth shut on the crudity with a glare at me. “If you’re going to snoop and pry and worry over each person’s ethical behavior, perhaps you had best begin by looking to your own, Uncle.”
His voice was full of indignation and I suddenly thought how much he sounded like Morgan when she gets upset.
“You who prate about law and order, and fairness for peoples…and then send away a loyal and blameless lad because of a personal grudge. What sort of honesty is that within yourself, Your Highness?”
Gawain spat the words at Arthur, and I saw my husband blink with surprise and lack of comprehension.
“I’m speaking of Uwain, damn it. Exiled from the one place he felt at home, by a man he revered. Don’t you dare sit in judgment of me, you…you Roman hypocrite!”
For a moment Gawain’s hand rested on the hilt of his dagger, but a loyalty deeper than all the anger in the world restrained him. Without another word he spun on his heel and marched into the gloom.
Arthur and I both let out a long breath and looked at each other in amazement. Neither one of us had any idea Gawain was harboring such a grievance. My husband spoke first.
“Do you suppose he’s right about hypocrisy?”
“Ye Gods, Arthur, this is no time for soul-searching; we’ve got a woman in hysterics and a cuckolded young man lost somewhere in the dark. Have you any idea where Pelleas is?”
Arthur shook his head but went off to look for him while I went back to Ettard. She may well have brought it on herself, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in desperate straits.
Nimue had already fixed her a cup of cowslip wine by the time I arrived, and although the convent girl was still pale and teary-eyed, she had at least begun to talk. She rambled on about her fear of leaving the Court and how Gawain owed it to her to make “an honest woman” of her now that he’d enjoyed her favors. Her voice had the same flat tone as when she’d told me of her childhood, and I wondered if there was any love and caring for anyone behind the pretty facade.
As she drifted into sleep Nimue and Vinnie and I sat in vigil beside her—the Christian crone, the Pagan priestess, and, somewhere in the middle, the Queen who was determined to hold things together. We could not have been more different in outlook or temperament, yet we gathered protectively around one of our own who was too hurt to protect herself. Men may deal in active blows, but it’s women who bind up the internal wounds.
***
All three members of the miserable affair left Court within a week. Pelleas crept away in the early dawn following his discovery of Gawain and Ettard together, having spoken only to Palomides.
“I do not know what will happen to him,” the Arab told me sadly. “The one saving grace is the land Arthur has given him. If he can face going back there without Ettard, perhaps it will eventually bring him life and hope again. The land is always healing, M’lady.”
I agreed but wished there was something I could do or say to the young horseman—he was the one most deeply hurt by this twisted, stupid mess.
Gawain also departed, ostensibly to check on his lands in the north. I hoped that was all it amounted to; we could ill afford to have the Prince of Orkney turn on Arthur as his father had.
With the strange, quixotic sensitivity that marks the Celts, he sought me out the morning before he left, precisely to allay my fears.
“I own I lost my temper, M’lady, and laid a harsher tongue on the two of you than I meant. Arthur’s said he understands, and I hope you’ll accept my apology as well.”
“Perhaps the change of scenery will do you good,” I replied, looking fondly at the redhead. “We’d hate to see you leave full of black rage…or feel you couldn’t return.”
He smiled disarmingly. “Arthur and the Court are still my home and family. But it’s been years since I’ve seen my kin. Mordred and Gareth must be so big by now I wouldn’t recognize them. And Mother…well, it’s time we made up our differences.”
I nodded, hoping that both of them had mellowed enough to patch up the old wounds. If so, there might be some way to effect a truce between her and Arthur as well. With that in mind I asked Gawain to give her my regards, and tell her that I would like to meet her someday.
Gawain shrugged and said he’d tell her. It was a casual remark on both our parts, but I hoped it might bear useful fruit.
Before the week was out Ettard announced that she was going to move to the Cornish holdings Igraine had left her. Clearly she had no future with Pelleas, and word of her involvement with Gawain had become the tattle of the Court, so I didn’t blame her for leaving. I wished her well and gave her the litter Igraine had used, as she seemed much more comfortable with it than I ever was.
Silently I commended her to the Queen Mother’s care, for even in spirit form I was sure Igraine had more patience than I did. Besides, with the imminent arrival of Tristan and Isolde, I had no time to worry about Ettard.
The party from Cornwall reached Oxford a week later and Isolde retired immediately to the quarters I’d put aside for her. I inquired if she and Branwen wished to join us at the table for dinner but was told she would be ready to face the world no sooner than the morrow, so I went to the Hall without them.
“You made very good time,” Arthur was saying to Tristan. “We weren’t expecting you this soon, or Gwen would have been packed.”
“I would? What for?” I asked, caught totally off guard.
“Why, to accompany Isolde this summer.” My husband seemed equally surprised that I hadn’t foreseen this new development. “She’ll need a chaperone, you know.”
I started to laugh aloud, the idea of protecting Isolde’s virtue being blatantly ridiculous. But Arthur was looking at me with his “don’t you dare” expression, so I stifled my laughter and glanced at Lancelot. Our eyes met for a moment, and I realized suddenly that he was as disconcerted by this development as I was.
***
“But I don’t want to go to Joyous Gard
,” I protested to Arthur as we prepared for bed. “I thought we were going to work at Cadbury together.”
“I did, too.” My husband sighed. “But until we see how Mark is going to react, we have to take all possible precautions. The last thing I want is war with the man—it could easily involve Ireland as well. With you accompanying Isolde, it will look like a summer frolic for two Queens.”
I groaned inwardly, knowing there was no way to tell Arthur that I was afraid to be alone with Lance for weeks at a time. It was one thing to enjoy his company as part of Arthur’s team and quite another to come face to face with…with what? I noticed I couldn’t even finish the thought.
“It will take weeks to get the Court ready to move,” I countered.
“Then take a smaller retinue,” came the answer. “I’m sure it really doesn’t matter how many there are, as long as we can tell Mark that the needs of Christian propriety were served.”
My husband came over to stand in front of me and putting his arms around me, pulled me to him. “I don’t look forward to being separated all summer, either,” he said. “But the needs of Britain come first, and right now that means giving Mark time to calm down before he decides what to do about his wandering wife.”
I looked up at him, loving him, hating him, wanting to scream, “Can’t you ever think of anything but Britain!” and so torn inside that tears welled unexpectedly to my eyes.
“Come now, is my favorite Celtic Queen going to cry over something as small as a three-month separation?” he teased, wrapping me in a bear hug.
I threw my arms around him and clung for dear life, all my words of doubt and uncertainty heaped on that great pile of silence where the sharing of love and hope and sorrow also lay.
***
Someday, Arthur, I told him silently, someday they’ll find a voice, and then you’re going to get such an earful, you’ll never never be able to ignore them again!
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