Queen of the Summer Stars

by Persia Woolley

  “I came close to telling you several times, but the words always stuck in my throat. It’s a hideous story, and I wouldn’t blame you if you chose to have done with me entirely. But the very thought of your leaving…Oh, Gwen, I couldn’t face losing you. It is the most terrifying thing in the world, the idea that you might go away, forever.”

  His voice had gotten very quiet, and he stared out across the roofs of Camelot, a vast gulf of misery opening around him. Finally he turned and looked at me.

  “You have both the right and reason to leave, but I love you, and need you…and beg you not to go.”

  They were words that I had ached to hear for years, words I had despaired he would ever apply to me. Yet instead of delight, of hope and fulfillment and all the joy they might have brought, I felt only pain and sorrow. And an overwhelming sadness.

  Without willing it I was on my feet, coming to stand before him, reaching up to take his face in my hands. I tried to smooth away the aching lines that furrowed his forehead while tears coursed down his cheeks and fell on my own. Wrapping my arms around him, I held him close as he bent his head and sobbed.

  I too began to weep, silently, mournfully. I could not promise Arthur that I would stay, but neither could I tell him I was leaving. All my resolve to go to Lancelot was melting away in the presence of my husband’s anguish, and I was back once more in the limbo of heartbreak, despairing at the loss that either choice would mean. So we stood there entwined, sharing separate pains that neither one of us knew what to do about.

  There are times when tears are more healing than either words or actions, and this was one of them. When the first flood had passed, I settled on the window seat and Arthur sat on the floor, his head against my knee as he told me about Mordred. It was the same tale Bedivere had told, and as long as he felt the need to put it into words, I hoped they would help dispel some of the horror of it.

  I ran my hands through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead as he talked, noting it was not as thick as it used to be. Age was taking its toll on all of us.

  By the time Arthur finished, the day had begun to blossom. Down in the village the dairyman whistled as he went out to milk his cows in the pasture, while out by the barn a rooster crowed raucously. My flock of pigeons rose fluttering from their cote, disturbed by a commotion in the stable, and a cluster of exclamations drifted up to us. When Bedivere banged urgently on the door, I had a chilling premonition that something else had happened.

  “It’s Gawain,” the lieutenant blurted out the moment Arthur let him in. “He’s downstairs with Morgause’s head in a satchel.”

  “What?” we chorused, as alike in our response as a pair of twins.

  Bedivere glanced at me. “The riders we passed on the Road yesterday were the Orkney brothers, all in a race to go visit their mother. But it seems she wasn’t expecting them, and they arrived to find her in bed with Lamorak. Rutting bitch had to pick the very warrior whose father had killed her husband,” Bedivere muttered, sinking down on the chair. “Gawain let out a scream of recognition while Agravain drew his sword and, either by accident or design, cut off his mother’s head.”

  Arthur groaned aloud, and I turned to stare unflinchingly out the window. It was a gruesome but fitting end for a woman who so often used others’ passions against themselves.

  “In the pandemonium that followed, Lamorak got clean away, scrambling out of the tent without even stopping for his breeches. When Agravain realized what he had done, his mind snapped. Sitting on the floor, he cradled the head in his arms, crooning and talking and singing to it as if to a baby. I gather Gaheris is now taking him north, hoping that his sanity will return once he’s back in the Orkneys. Gawain spent the night digging a grave and burying his mother’s body, and now asks leave to take her head back to the one place where she was happy—to Edinburgh where she and Lot spent the early days of their marriage. You have no objection, do you?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Arthur said wearily, regret and relief mingled in his voice.

  A pall was spreading over us, filling the room with a thick, gray silence. Agravain would bear the mark of matricide for the rest of his life—cruel, vicious Agravain, whose frustrations had no doubt been honed on the stone of Morgause’s own bitterness. Now even in death the woman would dominate her son’s life.

  I gasped suddenly. “Mordred! What’s happened to him? Is he all right?”

  The two men looked at me blankly, as though the name had no meaning.

  “I think he’s with Gawain,” Bedivere replied slowly. “I suppose he’ll go back to the Orkneys. Unless”—the lieutenant turned to Arthur—“he stays at Court with you.”

  “Ye Gods, what would I do with him?” the Pendragon cried.

  The question balanced on the air for a long minute. Glimpses of the future floated before me with Arthur and Queenhood on one side, Lance and love on the other. And in the center, Mordred became the fulcrum.

  The price, Igraine had said: the price of a love that left the children motherless…Was it not that which started Gorlois’s daughters’ vendetta against us? Now it threatened to be repeated again, in the next generation.

  Not this time, I vowed silently. Not this time.

  “We’ll take him in.”

  My words were simple and firm, but the two men stared at me as though I had just uttered some dire prediction of doom instead of the world’s most basic law—first you take care of the children.

  “He’s old enough to become a page—that’s why she brought him here. So we’ll take him in, and give him the kind of family he never had in the Orkneys. I’d rather his background not be known to begin with—you can decide later whether to recognize him as your son or not.”

  Arthur shook his head slowly. “Are you sure you’re willing to do this?” he asked.

  The dreams of life with Lance glimmered before me, poignant as the reflection of the new moon on a lake, then dispersed when the ripple of my voice broke the silence.

  “Of course I am. You know I’ve always wanted a son.” My words were light and cheerful, skittering across the aching void of my own pain like a water beetle running over a pond. “And now we have one. I may not have raised him from birth, but a child is a child no matter who its parents are. And the boy is in need of reassurance and acceptance, particularly after what’s happened to his mother.”

  So the men agreed, soberly and hesitantly, and I set about trying to rescue some sort of future from the chaos.

  ***

  Nimue was less than sanguine about the matter, however, and she intercepted me on my way to find the boy, trying to dissuade me from my decision.

  “If he isn’t a viper now, he’ll become one, Gwen,” she warned, determined to keep me from going into the commitment blind.

  “He’s only a child,” I retorted. “He needs a family, a place of his own. Maybe he’s the son the wicca promised Arthur and I would raise.”

  The doire scowled, sure it would bring disaster to us all. But for good or ill, I would not see it that way, and I ran down the steps to look for my stepson with a growing sense of excitement.

  I found him in the kitchen, half-hidden in the shadows between the cooling cupboard and the oven, his back to the wall, his eyes downcast.

  The people in the busy room ignored him, a fact that surprised me until I remembered that they didn’t know he was Arthur’s son. Then, too, they had no doubt heard some hint of his mother’s death and were staying as far away from him as possible.

  “Mordred?” I asked, coming to stand in front of him, but not too close. There was no way to tell how upset he was, and I didn’t want to crowd the youngster.

  He looked up at me without a word, neither denying nor confirming his identity. The level gaze, so like his father’s, held me at a distance.

  “Do you know who I am?” I queried, wondering how to bridge his silence.


  “You are the lady who took us in out of the storm; the High King’s wife, Your Highness.” His reply was courteous enough, but his defenses were clearly up.

  “You may call me M’lady, if you wish,” I offered, moving a step or two closer. He was at that in-between age where going down on my knees would put me below him, but standing left me speaking across the top of his head.

  “Here,” I said, reaching for his hand. “Come sit on the bench with me while we get acquainted.”

  The brown eyes regarded me solemnly as I led him to the table. “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  He shook his head, never wavering in his observation of my face.

  “When did you eat last?” I seated myself on the bench and patted the spot next to me.

  The shrug was noncommittal, as though food had no meaning, but he sat down nonetheless.

  In the early morning sunlight I had a chance to study the boy more closely. He was thin and pale, with a childish, undeveloped body offset by the quick, foxy look of Morgan. But his gaze marked him unmistakably as Arthur’s offspring. It surprised me that others didn’t see it as plainly as I did.

  “Is there anything special you would like?” I persisted.

  “To know what has happened to my mother.”

  The words were measured, carefully rationed out in a tone that contained neither hope nor fear, and I stared at him with consternation, having no idea what to tell him.

  “What do you think happened?” I hedged, trying to find out how much he already knew.

  “I had terrible dreams last night…nightmares, with my brothers arguing and yelling over a pool of…of something black. And then, this morning, Gawain brought me here. But he refuses to talk to me, to explain why Mama isn’t with us, or where she is now.” Suddenly the dark eyes were full of life and concern as he scanned my face. “Do you know where she is?”

  I swallowed nervously, not wanting to lie to him but unwilling to drop the whole weight of the tragedy onto his frail shoulders at once.

  “Gawain is taking your mother back to Edinburgh.” I picked my words carefully. “He’s left you in my care. She was bringing you to meet the High King, wasn’t she…now that you’re old enough to join the Court?”

  Mordred nodded cautiously, perhaps as loath to pursue the truth as I was to bring it forth.

  “I understand you have a birthday coming soon,” I went on, hoping to move the conversation to less difficult ground. “That you’ll turn eleven…old enough to become a page.”

  There was a further nod of the head, and for a moment his mouth relaxed into an almost smile. Lynette was lifting hot bannocks from the hearthstones, and I caught her eye and motioned toward our table.

  “What would you like to do, now that you’re at the High King’s Court?” If I could reach some hidden dream, it might help fill the void of his mother’s absence.

  “Why, become a warrior, of course.” The lad answered without hesitation, in a tone that reminded me vividly of the young Gawain. “The House of King Lot is famous for our Champions, and I want to be the best of all.”

  It seemed that Mordred assumed Lot was his father. Certainly this was not the time to bring up the question of his paternity, so I accepted his statement with a smile.

  “And here, for the future Champion of the Round Table, is a fresh-baked bannock,” Lynette announced, curtsying impishly as she set the plate down before us. Her gamin face was full of mischief, and she looked barely more than a child herself. “Perhaps, just for the young lord, I can find some butter.”

  Mordred’s eyes widened at that, but whether it was because of her acceptance of his status or the fact that butter so late in winter is a rare treat, I couldn’t tell.

  “In honor of your birthday,” I interjected, gratefully following Lynette’s lead. “Maybe we can also find you a horse as well. You do ride, don’t you?”

  “A little.”

  He paused, eyeing me thoughtfully as I broke off a piece of bannock and began to eat. I was trying not to push him; strange youngsters are like strange dogs—if you stare them down they cower away, but if you appear unconcerned and give them a chance to sniff all about you, eventually they will make up their own minds about being friends. So I looked around the room, nodding to the servants and smiling at the very pregnant Frieda when she waddled in from the kennels. Only now and then did I bring my gaze back to Mordred.

  “At home Mama makes me stay inside, practicing with our scribe,” he volunteered. “She is most keen that I learn to read and write.”

  “Very handy things to know,” I concurred. “But if you’d like to do more riding, there’s a pony in the stables that could use some exercise. Did you know that Gawain and I rode together when we were children?”

  Mordred shook his head, so I launched into the tale of our escapades when King Lot and Gawain had come to visit my father in Rheged. I didn’t mention that I had bested the young Orcadian in horse racing, however, as I wanted to give Mordred as much pride in his family as possible.

  “We’ve been friends ever since,” I concluded, noting that the boy had buttered a chunk of bannock and consumed the whole thing while I talked.

  “Will I have time to learn to ride, if I’m to be a page?” he asked.

  “Of course. And in a couple of years you’ll become a squire—and from there a warrior. I have no doubt you’ll make your family proud.” I watched him lick the butter from his fingers and, after dusting the crumbs from my hands, grinned over at him. “Want to go down to the stable and take a look at that pony?”

  The boy gave me another thoughtful appraisal, then nodded, so we pushed away from the table and headed for the horse yard. By the time I’d introduced him to Whitenose and showed him the King’s stallion and my own two mares, he was asking questions and volunteering comments like any other youngster. I heaved an inner sigh of relief, glad to have found a common ground between us.

  It was not so easy with Arthur, however.

  Mordred and I entered the room with the long table early that afternoon. Arthur and Bedivere were going over a list of the hostels where royal messengers could stop for lodging, and they both glanced up when we entered.

  Exhausted from the ordeal of the night before, my husband barely glanced at the lad before turning to me.

  “This is Mordred, brother of Gawain of the Orkney Isles,” I announced as the youngster made a proper bow. Morgause may have been a hellcat, but at least she had taught this youngest child good manners. I thought of how pleased Igraine would have been.

  Arthur nodded curtly and immediately went back to studying his list. It was Bedivere who smiled at the boy.

  “Well come to the Court of King Arthur,” the lieutenant said. “May it prove to be a happy home for your new life.”

  The boy looked at both men, observing them from behind that silent guard.

  “We’ve been down with the horses,” I explained. “Mordred took a fancy to the pony, Whitenose—I thought I’d give him the animal so he can learn to ride.”

  Arthur grunted noncommittally, and Bedivere rose to his feet. “Why don’t I take Mordred round to find a place to sleep?” he suggested. “What say we give him Beaumains’s place since the kitchen boy is north with Lance?”

  Mordred moved to Bedivere’s side, though his eyes were still fastened on Arthur. I glanced up at the lieutenant and smiled gratefully as he put an arm around the lad’s shoulder, and they moved toward the door.

  When the leather curtains had flapped shut behind them, I marched over to the table and stood in front of my husband, arms folded and hackles raised.

  “What sort of greeting is that to give the child?” I demanded. “Why, the poor boy has gone through all sorts of horrible things, and you didn’t even smile at him.”

  Arthur looked up wearily from his work. “I never said I would help you raise him, Gwen. You know
I’ve no fancy for youngsters—I’ve told you you can take on as many as you wish, but don’t bring them into our personal life. That holds as true for Mordred as for any street urchin.”

  We stared at each other across the worktable in silence, and finally he gave me a tired, crooked smile. “Ah, lass, don’t ask me to be everything to everyone”—he sighed—“and I won’t ask it of you.”

  “Fair enough.” I grinned with understanding of his plea, and coming round the table, planted a kiss on the top of his head.

  ***

  Whatever Arthur might or might not be as a father, he was still the husband I loved and admired.

  Chapter XXXVII

  Motherhood

  When the need to provide Mordred with a home came up so fast, both my heart and mind knew full well what I was giving up. Still, I dreaded having to tell Lance that I would not be coming with him.

  Certainly it was not for lack of love I’d made this choice, yet I had no idea how to explain it or what his reaction would be. How could he possibly understand, not having been with me at Igraine’s deathbed? A hundred questions and memories rose to haunt me, and I finally put the problem aside by telling myself I’d find the words when Lance arrived. In the meantime I concentrated on getting to know my stepson.

  I gave Mordred daily riding lessons and arranged a small celebration of his birthday in the midst of the May Day festivities. And Bedivere agreed to tutor him in Latin, picking up where his teacher in the Orkneys had left off.

  The boy was bright and willing to learn, and while neither reading nor writing were among my favorite pastimes, he was very good at both. He enjoyed showing me how proficient he was and offered to help me get through one of the scrolls he was working on.

  It turned out to be about the Trojan War, and we had great fun with it—I explained the background of Gods and people that Cathbad had taught me about years before, while the boy sharpened my Latin vocabulary and syntax. I wasn’t sure anyone in Logres would understand a reference to the “wine-dark sea,” any more than they cared how many boats a Greek warlord had called forth on his expedition to retrieve his brother’s wife, but Mordred and I enjoyed it, and that was enough.