by Ben Bova
The look on Mark’s face could have etched steel. But he muttered, “God’s will be done.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Guinevere and Lancelot
1
With enormous reluctance, King Mark agreed to join Arthur’s forces heading north to deal with Modred.
Arthur was pleased with my victory and its results, but he was already looking ahead to the coming struggle.
“If we can get to the northlands soon enough,” he told me as we rode together, “we can scatter Modred’s forces before they are strong enough to offer us battle.”
That was Arthur’s hope.
Summer was waning. As we headed north, a miles-long column of knights and squires, churls and workmen, serving women and camp followers, I saw colors of autumn beginning to tinge the trees. The weather was warm and bright by day, but at night it grew chilly.
The land we rode through was peaceful and prosperous, it seemed to me. Neat little villages were dotted among the ripening fields of crops. People gathered at the roadsides as we passed, dropping to their knees as Arthur rode by, preceded by his red dragon banners, calling out blessings upon him. How different this land was from the years when I had first encountered Arthur, when invading barbarians had created a wasteland of death and fear.
“The people love you, sire,” I said to Arthur as I rode beside him.
He gave me a wry smile. “They love peace, friend Orion. They love not being attacked, not having their throats cut and their farmsteads burned out. They would praise Satan himself if the Fiend would protect them and let them live in peace.”
A strange bitterness, I thought. The years had hardened Arthur. The bright-eyed idealist I had known earlier in his life has turned into a graying cynic. I felt saddened.
We had been on the road for several weeks, buying provisions for men and horses from the local farmers as we progressed northward. We slept in tents most nights, although now and then a local nobleman hosted Arthur at his castle. Most of our army slept outside the castle walls, of course; there were simply too many of us to be housed indoors. Usually, though, Arthur brought me with him as he allowed the local lord to treat us to a feast and a roof over our heads.
Knights and eager, unfledged youths joined our army at each such stop. Arthur accepted them graciously enough, and put experienced knights to training them when we camped each night.
He steered our growing army well clear of Cameliard, I realized, and smiling, cunning Leodegrance, father of Guinevere. The weather turned sharper as we proceeded north; the trees were in high color, already dropping their leaves, which swirled about us on a cutting chill wind. I half expected snow sometime soon.
One night, as the men made camp, Arthur asked me to ride with him through the dark, sinister forest, well away from any listening ears. Once we were well into the trees, we dismounted and led our horses on foot.
“I’m leaving the army for a few days, Orion,” he told me. In the shadowy woods, it was difficult to make out the expression on his face, but the tone of his voice was grave, almost dismal.
“Leaving, sire?”
He let out a breath that might have been a sigh. “Call it a pilgrimage. I’ll only be away for a few days.”
“You’re going alone?” Suddenly I was alert to possible treachery. I hadn’t forgotten Aten’s goal of assassinating Arthur. Even though more than twenty years had passed, the Golden One still held to his objective, I was certain.
“Alone, yes. I’ll be back in a few days.”
“My lord, let me go with you.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Faithful friend Orion, still trying to protect me.”
“That’s what a friend is for, sire.”
He shook his head. “No, Orion. There’s no need. No one would dare to confront me.” He tapped the sword at his hip. “Not with Excalibur in my hand.”
“But where are you going, sire? And why?”
“There’s no need for you to know,” he said, his tone stiffening. “Sir Percival has been taking care of logistics for the army; he’ll handle matters until I return.”
My brows rose. “You expect Sir Percival to handle King Mark?”
For a moment Arthur did not reply. At last he said, “Mark is busy with his own men. If all goes well, he won’t even know I’ve gone.”
I thought that if Mark found out that Arthur had left the army, either he would try to take command of the entire force or he would gather up his own men and head back to Cornwall.
“It will be all right, Orion,” Arthur assured me, sensing my doubts.
I was not assured.
Arthur climbed back into his saddle and trotted off, leaving me standing in the moonless forest, my horse tugging at the rein in my hand as he nibbled at the shrubbery at the base of the trees.
I waited until I thought Arthur was far enough away, then swung up onto my mount and began to follow him.
Westward he rode through the entire night, out of the dark forest and into hills that climbed steadily. The moon came out from behind silvered clouds, and I had to hang far back, lest Arthur see me following him. The night grew chill, but he kept heading west, higher up into the hills. I could see him silhouetted against the starry sky, a lone figure doggedly heading toward … what?
2
Once the sun came up I had to hang even farther back from Arthur. I lost sight of him entirely, but in the daylight it was easy enough to follow his trail. He never stopped moving west. Now and again he dismounted and let his horse walk unburdened, but he kept moving, like a man on a quest, like a chip of iron being drawn by a magnet.
Is this part of Aten’s plan? I wondered. To draw Arthur out into the wilderness and then kill him? A gang of robbers, a marauding band of Saxons, an invading army of Picts or Scots?
“How melodramatic you are, Orion.”
I jerked around in my saddle to see the Creator who styled himself Hades riding alongside me. He who had earlier disguised himself as Merlin now was clad in a magnificent cloak of midnight black, etched with fine blood-red traceries. His mount was shiny black, as well, as powerful a steed as I had ever seen.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded of him.
He cocked a brow at me. “You grow insolent, creature.”
“What are you doing here?” I repeated.
With a sardonic smile, he said, “Actually, I’m here to give you a message.”
“From the Golden One?”
“No. From Anya.”
My heart leaped. “From Anya!”
With a slight shake of his head, Hades told me, “She really cares for you, Orion. Even though she is engaged in difficulties that you could never even imagine, she wants you to know that she will do whatever she can to help you.”
I felt a flood of overpowering joy rush through me. Anya cares about me! She’ll try to help me!
“But I can also tell you this, creature,” Hades went on. “You have no need to worry about Arthur at this point in spacetime. He is perfectly safe—for now.”
“Meaning that he won’t be perfectly safe for long,” I growled.
“Until Camlann,” said Hades lightly. “That’s when Arthur will be killed.”
“Not if I can help it,” I said.
Hades laughed in my face. And then disappeared as abruptly as a candle flame snuffed out by a gust of wind.
3
Late that afternoon, as the sun dipped toward the jagged horizon of a rugged ridgeline of tumbled bare rocks, I saw where Arthur was heading. Up atop the steepest of the harsh, unforgiving crags stood a stone building. It looked too small to be a castle, and although it was surrounded by a high protective wall, I saw no watchtowers. A monastery, perhaps, I thought.
I pushed my tired horse as hard as I could and just before sunset, as the sky flamed red and a cold wind began to bluster across the bare landscape, I came close enough for him to spot me. Arthur stopped his horse and dismounted, waiting for me. I slid out of my saddle and walked my mount t
he rest of the way to him.
“Orion,” Arthur said as I approached. “I might have known.”
I made a little bow to him and explained, “I couldn’t let you go alone, sire. My duty is to protect you.”
“Your duty is to obey my orders,” he said sternly. But then his face softened and he added, “Yet I’m glad to see you, old friend.”
He clasped my shoulder and together, side by side, we walked our mounts the rest of the way to the building’s main gate. It was a convent, Arthur told me, a place of healing both body and soul, famed throughout the land.
“Gawain lies here,” said Arthur, “near death from the wounds he suffered at Lancelot’s hand.”
“I was told that Lancelot killed Gawain’s brother,” I said, still finding it hard to believe.
“It’s all Modred’s doing,” Arthur muttered. “He’s broken the fellowship of the Round Table, unraveled everything I’ve worked for twenty years and more to achieve.”
As we approached the stout wooden gate, Arthur explained that Modred spread the rumor that Guinevere and Lancelot were lovers. Sir Gareth, Gawain’s younger brother, discovered Lancelot in Guinevere’s chamber at Cadbury castle. Foolishly, he attacked Lancelot and was killed in the fight. Lancelot escaped and Modred demanded that Guinevere face trial for adultery. Instead, Arthur banished Guinevere to this remote nunnery.
The white-clothed novice who slid back the peep hole in the convent’s main gate went wide-eyed at the sight of the red dragon emblazoned on Arthur’s tunic.
“You … you come from the High King?” she asked, in a trembling voice.
“Child, I am the High King: I am Arthur, King of the Britons.”
Fumbling in her hurry, the lass unbolted the gate and led us directly through empty, silent stone corridors to the abbess, a flinty-looking, rake-thin woman, her face as bleak and unforgiving as the stones on which the convent stood. She wore a tattered gray robe that hung on her bony shoulders like an old sheet thrown over a piece of broken furniture. Her office was as spare and undecorated as she was: cold stone walls, bare except for a crude crucifix over her worn-looking oaken desk, no chairs except her own.
She stood behind her desk as we were ushered into her office, leaning on the chair’s back, but it was clear that she was less than awed at the sight of the two of us.
“Your majesty,” she said flatly. “I presume you have come to see your wife.”
“And Sir Gawain,” said Arthur. “I was told he is near death.”
“We have sent for a priest to give Sir Gawain the sacrament of extreme unction.”
“Then he truly is dying.”
“The sacrament sometimes has healing power,” said the abbess.
“Kindly take me to him.”
“Not your wife?”
“I’ll see her later,” said Arthur, clear distaste in his tone. “She still has much of life in her.”
“Indeed,” said the abbess dryly.
In obvious pain, she moved laboriously around her desk and with a whispered, “Follow me,” led us, limping, down a dimly lit corridor.
“Sir Gawain has another visitor,” she said as we walked along the stone floor. “In fact, he is the man who brought the dying knight here. He hasn’t left Sir Gawain’s side, night or day.”
With that, she opened the creaking door to a cramped bare cell. Gawain lay on a narrow bed, his face as pale as death, his forehead swathed in bloody bandages. The man who had been sitting beside the bed shot to his feet as we stepped into the chamber.
Lancelot.
“You!” Arthur blurted.
“Sire!” said Lancelot, and he dropped to one knee.
“You’re the one who brought Gawain here?”
“Yes, sire,” said Lancelot, his head bowed.
Arthur’s tone hardened. “You came to see Guinevere.”
“I didn’t know she was here,” Lancelot replied. “This convent is known far and wide for its healing powers. I thought … perhaps the sisters could work their magic on Gawain.”
“First you nearly kill him,” Arthur growled, “then you want to heal him.”
Climbing to his feet, Lancelot exclaimed, “I didn’t want to fight him! I didn’t want to fight his brother; Gareth gave me no choice.”
“Sir Gareth was defending my honor.” Arthur’s hand moved to grip Excalibur’s jeweled hilt.
Lancelot shook his head sadly. I realized all over again how small he really was, barely as tall as Arthur’s shoulder. Yet he was a demon in battle.
“My lord, your honor was never tarnished by me,” he said earnestly. “I had come to Guinevere that evening to tell her that I had taken a wife, back in Brittany, to stop the stories that Modred was spreading. And…” Lancelot’s voice softened, “… and to help me forget her.”
“Then you truly did love her.”
“Yes,” Lancelot answered, in misery. “I do still. But I never touched her. I swear it, sire. We never even held hands.”
Arthur’s shoulders slumped. He had known Lancelot since he’d been a reckless youth, keen to win glory and honor for his lord.
From his bed, Gawain said weakly, “I forgive you, Lancelot. I forgive you my brother’s death. And my own.”
Lancelot bent over the bed and clutched Gawain’s hand in both of his own, his eyes brimming. “Gawain,” he whispered. “Gawain…”
But Gawain heard nothing. Those dark eyes that had danced with laughter so often now stared sightlessly into Lancelot’s tear-streaked face.
4
Arthur was grim faced as the abbess led us slowly up a flight of steep stone stairs to the chamber where Guinevere was housed. I could almost feel her pain as she toiled arthritically up the stairway.
“Has the queen been made comfortable?” he asked as we climbed.
“As comfortable as we can manage,” said the abbess. “She is in the chamber that we keep for visitors. She is more comfortable than any of the sisters, I assure you.”
Arthur fell silent as he, Lancelot, and I followed the bone-thin abbess upward. The stone walls seemed to breathe coldly upon us. Through a narrow slit of a window I saw that it was fully night outside, with a crescent moon riding low over the hills. A wolf bayed in the distance, a chilling mournful sound.
A middle-aged nun in gray habit was seated before Guinevere’s door, bent over a palm-size breviary, squinting painfully in the dim light of the sputtering candle in the wall sconce above her. She sprang to her feet at the sight of the abbess.
“Open,” said the old woman, and the nun fairly leaped to comply.
Turning to the three of us, the abbess commanded, “Wait here.” Then she entered Guinevere’s chamber. I heard her voice, too low to make out the words, and then a younger, clearer voice replied, “Show them in, by all means.”
I had to duck slightly to get through the low stone doorway. There stood Guinevere, looking rather out of place in a richly wrought gown of golden cloth trimmed with dark fur about the neckline and cuffs. She had gained some weight over the years; where before she had looked elf slim, now she was chunkier, fuller. Her face was still quite lovely, even though somewhat rounder.
“My lord and master,” she said to Arthur, sarcasm dripping from her words.
“My queen,” said Arthur, tightly.
We stood in the middle of the somewhat spacious room, in awkward silence. The chamber looked comfortable enough, with a big canopied bed in one corner and a shuttered window on the other side. A broad table with four cushioned chairs, a chest of drawers, and a commode with a wash basin atop it. The abbess sank stiffly into the straight-backed chair by the open door.
“And Lancelot, how nice,” Guinevere went on. “Have you come to comfort me in my solitude?”
Lancelot stood tongue-tied before her.
Arthur did not bother to introduce me, nor did Guinevere ask who I was. To her I was merely one of her husband’s men, a nonentity. Yet I realized that she eyed me carefully, with a hint of a smile curving the cor
ners of her mouth.
“Gawain is dead,” Arthur said, without preamble.
“So now you must kill Lancelot, here,” she replied, her smile growing.
“No,” Arthur said wearily. “There’s been enough killing.”
“How Christian of you, my husband, forgiving your enemy.”
Lancelot finally found his voice. “I’m not an enemy, my lady.”
Guinevere turned away from him and faced Arthur. “Why have you come here, Arthur? To see Sir Gawain or to see me?”
“Both,” he said.
Looking toward me, she asked, “And who is this handsome lout, standing there in silence?”
“This is Sir Orion, newly elevated to knighthood.”
She looked me over again, quite boldly, from head to toe. “Have you brought him here to comfort me?”
Arthur’s face flamed. “Guinevere!”
“What do you expect of me?” she snapped. “You bundle me away in this … this … prison full of holy women who speak in whispers and tell me to spend my days in prayer and meditation. Do you expect me to thank you for this?”
Arthur took a deep breath before replying, “If I had kept you at Cadbury you would have been brought to trial for adultery—”
“Sire, it’s not true!” Lancelot burst.
Arthur shook his head. “Not with you, lad. But there were others.”
“What of it?” Guinevere challenged. “You never loved me.”
“I am your husband!” Arthur thundered. “And the High King! You were making a mockery of me and everything I stand for!”
Guinevere scoffed, “And I am the queen, am I not? Why must I obey the same laws that the commoners follow?”
“Because in my domain everyone obeys the law,” Arthur said, straining to keep his voice civil. “My kingdom is a kingdom of laws. How do you think we’ve kept the peace all these years?”
Guinevere turned away and started across the room.
“Don’t you understand?” Arthur called after her. “If I hadn’t spirited you away to this convent you would have been brought to trial for adultery. You’d have been condemned to the stake!”
“Who would dare to testify against the queen?” she shot back.