Lancelot

by Gwen Rowley

  Guinevere. The very name, so sweetly musical, had the power to drain all light and happiness from the day. Guinevere, the most beautiful woman in Britain—some said in all the world. Guinevere, so charming and witty and merry, the radiant young queen no man could look upon without desiring.

  Guinevere, who had eyes for only one man. The one who lay before her now, naked save for the coverlet over his hips, one long leg stretched out, the other bent slightly at the knee. His dark hair—had she really combed it just this morning?—curled over his shoulders, brushing the collarbones that still stood out too sharply. Every spare ounce of flesh had been stripped from his face, revealing the perfect harmony of brow and cheek and jaw. His was a bone-deep beauty that even his long illness could not mar. It was no wonder Guinevere desired him. Any woman would. As so many had before, to their eternal sorrow. Deadlier than the plague, Brisen had named him, what with all those maidens pining themselves into the grave for love of him.

  Not me, Elaine thought with rising anger. I refuse to be reduced to some pathetic footnote in the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere, just one more maiden who could not face life without the great du Lac.

  “Lionel is a fool,” Lancelot said abruptly.

  “He is a young man who finds it impossible to dissemble,” Elaine replied evenly. “You may call that foolish; I thought him rather charming.”

  Lancelot smiled grimly. “Have you ever tried to stop a rumor? Stay silent, and you are damned—protest, and you are damned twice over. I have enemies at court. They dare not challenge me directly, so instead they choose to blacken my name.”

  With the truth? The question trembled on Elaine’s lips, but she feared she already knew the answer. “I was sent to serve King Arthur,” Lancelot had said, “but then there was Guinevere . . .”

  What more was there to say?

  Elaine nodded. “I see. Well, Lancelot, ’tis time you took some rest. Supper should be ready—”

  “The queen and I came to court at about the same time,” Lancelot said rapidly, “we are of an age, and were often thrown together in our duties to the king. That, and some similarities in temperament—I don’t deny that I count the queen a friend. We laughed at the same things—court life is often quite ridiculous—and now I realize we were not always discreet in our amusement.”

  Elaine remembered the day she had first met Lancelot, and he had exercised his wit at Sir Gawain’s expense. Now, having met Sir Gawain herself, she knew Lancelot, had been not only unkind but unjust. If the queen was of a like mind, she could see quite well how the pair of them had managed to make dangerous enemies.

  “Elaine, I am ashamed that that these rumors began in the first place,” he said earnestly. “My only excuse is that I was young and foolish, and life at court was strange to me.”

  She longed to believe him, wanted it so much that it frightened her. “There is no need to tell me these things,” she said. “When you return to court—”

  “But I thought—you said—” He looked down, his long lashes veiling his expression. “Ah. You have reconsidered your invitation.”

  “No, of course not. You are still welcome at Corbenic. But once you are well—”

  He looked up at her. “I’m not going back to court.”

  “But your duty to the king—”

  “Britain is at peace; the king has no real need of me. Save in times of war, he cannot compel my service—and he would not, even if he could.”

  He wasn’t going back to court—to Guinevere. Her heart leapt, but she dared not believe he meant more than he had said.

  “Will you return to Benwick?”

  He sighed. “I suppose I should do something about Benwick, but in all honesty, I would be hard put to care less about the place. No, I have a castle—at Norhaut, that was once called Dolorous Gard. ’Tis my own; I won it years ago and have not set foot in it since. I had hoped,” he added diffidently, “to show it to you. If you would like to see it.”

  It was impossible to mistake his meaning now. He wanted to share something with her that he had never shared with anyone before.

  Something he could never share with Guinevere.

  Elaine could accept that he had loved before. Perhaps she was not Guinevere’s equal in grace or charm or beauty, but she could make Lancelot a home, bear his children, give him the settled security he craved. He cared for her, she was certain of that much, and in time, the memory of his youthful folly would fade.

  “Yes,” she said, “I would like to see it. But not until you are well again. Sleep now, and I will wake you when ’tis time to eat.”

  Chapter 26

  THAT didn’t go too badly, Lancelot thought. He reached for the water at his bedside, though his hand was shaking so that some slopped over on the table. Abandoning the effort, he lay back against the pillow. Elaine hadn’t quite believed him, but she was prepared to let the matter rest.

  He had not lied—he had promised himself he would never lie to Elaine—yet he had not betrayed Guinevere. Poor Guinevere. How would she cope without him? Apparently she was not doing very well so far, but he could not help her now. She would have to rely upon herself . . . and Arthur.

  Something was very wrong in their marriage, though Lancelot had no idea what it was. Arthur had been delighted with his bride, and Guinevere had been half in love with him already before they wed. They had met some months before their wedding, for Arthur had ridden to King Leodegrance’s aid when Cameliard was attacked.

  “Tell me everything about him!” Guinevere had demanded of Lancelot during her bridal journey to Camelot. “I want to hear it all.”

  “King Arthur is . . .” Lancelot lifted one hand in a gesture of futility. “He is . . .”

  “The king. Yes, so I’ve heard. But what of the man? What are his likes and dislikes, his pastimes, his passions? Oh, I know he’s a great warrior, but does he care for music? Can he dance? Have you heard him sing or play upon an instrument?”

  “No, but there had been little opportunity—”

  “Is he learned or one of those men who scorns the written word? What is his favorite dish?”

  “How should I know?” Lancelot demanded, laughing. “Why did you not ask him all this nonsense yourself?”

  “There wasn’t time! I met him twice—well, only once to speak to—and then he was sore wounded. And I did not know then that he—that we were to be—”

  “Ah. I see it now. You were too dazzled by his skill at arms to ply him with impertinent questions. Very wise of you, I’m sure.” He laughed. “And now you are blushing! Don’t tell me you are in love with him already?”

  “Of course not.” Guinevere sniffed delicately. “How could I be on the strength of one meeting?”

  “You said two,” Lancelot pointed out. “What was the first one?”

  “Oh, it was nothing. I only saw him from the battlements one evening. I did not know then who he was—nor did he know me.” Guinevere blushed and bent her head, making a show of straightening the folds of her cloak. “It was just a look, no more,” she added in a would-be careless voice. “Completely unimportant. I can’t imagine why I mentioned it.”

  “Hmm. It all sounds suspiciously romantic to me. Now, if you can just stay silent until the vows are spoken, he’ll never know what a silly wench you are until it is too late.”

  There was something wrong in the silence that followed. He leaned closer, trying to peer into her face. “I was only joking. You’re not so bad. I daresay he’ll resign himself in time.”

  She laughed, but it was not natural, and turned her face away.

  “What?” he demanded. “Tell me what is wrong.”

  “Oh, ’tis naught. Only—well, I had a rather dreadful scene with Father before I left.”

  Lancelot fell silent. He could well imagine what the scene had been about. He’d had a rather dreadful scene with King Leodegrance himself, when he had arrived at Cameliard to escort Arthur’s bride to court. Leodegrance, upon learning Lancelot’s identity, h
ad seemed to go mad. Seizing his sword, he’d made a blundering attempt to run Lancelot through, and failing in that, to turn the blade upon himself. Once disarmed, he wept—it had been horrible to see—and a very nasty tale had come out.

  Apparently Leodegrance, a young man newly wed, had gone to Gaul to visit King Ban, his dear and trusted friend. When he’d been summoned back to Britain by Uther Pendragon, he left his bride in Ban’s care, expecting to return in a matter of weeks. But the Saxons had attacked, Leodegrance stayed to fight, and by the time he returned a year later, it was to find his lady heavy with child. Rather than cast herself upon his mercy—which would not in any case have been forthcoming—she’d had the audacity to beg him to leave her as she was, claiming wildly that she would rather be Ban’s leman than Leodegrance’s wedded wife.

  Luckily, Leodegrance had said, his lady did not survive the birth. The child, Guinevere—which he admitted openly he planned to smother had she been born a male—was instead packed off, first to the nursery and later to a convent.

  Leodegrance immediately wed again. And again. Three dead queens later and without an heir to his name, he found his grown daughter upon his doorstep. Before he could decide what was to be done with her, Cameliard was attacked. King Arthur saw the chit and fancied her, throwing Leodegrance into a quandary of conscience. Only with the greatest reluctance had he agreed to the marriage between Guinevere and the high king.

  Lancelot had listened to these drunken ramblings with a distaste that soon turned to bored revulsion. Why should he care what two strangers—both dead now—had gotten up to before he was even born? Why should anyone care? What difference did it make who had fathered the girl so long as Arthur wanted her? As for Guinevere, he hadn’t regarded her at all. He had certainly felt no connection to her.

  Until they met.

  Lancelot had told Elaine that he and Guinevere were similar in temperament, and that, though true, did not begin to explain it. Within an hour of meeting, he and Guinevere were finishing each other’s sentences. Soon they had no need for words at all. The lift of a brow, the motion of a hand was enough to communicate volumes.

  By the time they reached Camelot it seemed that Lancelot had always known her. She could be—and often was—haughty and impatient, but as these were flaws he shared, he regarded them with amused indulgence. Or he had at first. Later, he’d realized just how willful she could be—and how reckless. But by then it was too late, for he was bound to her by oaths unbreakable. Bound to silence. Bound to obedience. Bound to stand by while she laid waste to his friendship with Arthur.

  What had gone wrong in their marriage? Arthur would never breathe a word of such private matters to any man—save perhaps his confessor—and Guinevere refused to admit that anything was amiss. But the signs were there. Her laughter was too shrill, her eyes too bright, her entertainments so lavish as to be absurd. She flirted shamelessly with every knight at court, and though most of the poor fools fell under her spell, a few found her both unseemly and ridiculous.

  It finally occurred to Lancelot that there was only one man she was trying to impress, and she was going about it in precisely the wrong fashion. Arthur cared nothing for glittering pageantry and extravagant entertainments. The harder Guinevere tried to win his notice, the more he withdrew from the beautiful, volatile, altogether puzzling creature he had wed. So Guinevere had turned to her one friend—the word brother was never so much as whispered between them—to fill the emptiness.

  Lancelot could not help but respond. He was intensely protective of her, even as he lived in dread of her next act of folly. The one thing he found impossible to forgive was that she had poisoned his relationship with Arthur, the brother he had always longed for, the father he had never known, the best friend any man could want.

  But maybe, without Lancelot in the picture, they would turn to one another.

  When Elaine looked in a little later with a dish of fresh fish and greens, he pretended to be sleeping. He saw no one until the next day when Bors came to say farewell.

  “Leaving so soon?” Lancelot asked, though in truth he was relieved.

  “I promised the king I’d go straight back once I knew how you fared. He has been very worried,” he added mildly.

  “I know. Tell him I am mending.”

  Bors nodded and drew on his gloves. “He will be glad to hear it.” He was silent for a time, waiting, but at last he voiced the unspoken question hanging in the air. “When can I tell him to expect you?”

  “It is better,” Lancelot said carefully, “if he does not.”

  “I know it’s difficult to say—Father Bernard thinks it will be some weeks yet before you are returned to full strength. But the king will want to know. Say a month?” Lancelot shook his head. “Six weeks, then?”

  In time, Arthur would understand he was not coming back at all. Let the knowledge steal upon him gradually; it would be easier that way.

  “Give him my greeting, Bors.”

  Bors nodded, as though he had heard the words Lancelot could not bring himself to speak. “And the queen?” he asked quietly. “Will you send no word to her?”

  Nothing Lancelot wanted to say to her could be sent by such a messenger, or indeed by any messenger at all. And perhaps that, too, was for the best. “Say to the queen,” he managed, “that I commend myself to her.”

  Exhausted, he turned his head upon the pillow and closed his eyes.

  “All right, Lance.” Bors walked to the entrance; there his footsteps halted. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “God will reward you for it.”

  “You might mention that in your prayers.”

  “It would be better coming from you. He does listen, you know, if you would only talk to Him.”

  Lancelot managed a weak smile. “You do it for me, Bors.”

  “I always do,” Bors answered on a sigh. “Farewell.”

  Chapter 27

  “LADY, may I . . . ?” Mab, one of the Corbenic serving girls, gestured vaguely toward the privy.

  “Of course.” Exasperated, Elaine turned to Brisen, who was tossing handfuls of wood ash into the cauldron bubbling in the center of the courtyard. “What ails these wenches?” Elaine demanded. “Is there some sickness going round?”

  Brisen burst out laughing. “You could call it that. Green sickness, at any rate. Sir Lancelot is practicing in the yard.”

  “Is he?” Elaine glanced toward the practice yard, then turned her attention firmly to the work at hand. “Here, now,” she called sharply. “You’re dragging that sheet through the mud!”

  Giggling wildly, the three girls gathered up the dripping sheet and flung it over a shrub, their heads bent close together. The day was fine and breezy, a perfect opportunity to turn out all the bedding, the mattresses to be picked and aired, the linen washed and hung in the sun to bleach.

  “Do you think he should?” Elaine asked Brisen. “It’s very soon, isn’t it?”

  “I should hope he’ll have the sense to leave off if he’s in pain,” Brisen said. “But perhaps you should go and see how he gets on.”

  “Yes. Perhaps I should.”

  “You might want to leave the apron here,” Brisen suggested blandly.

  “Wench,” Elaine muttered, but she did as Brisen bade her. leaving the sacking apron folded neatly over a stool. “I’ll be right back,” she added loudly. “Keep on with your work.”

  She found not only Lancelot but Torre in the yard. Torre was astride his charger, and Lancelot bent over the stirrup. “Try it now,” he said.

  To her surprise, Elaine saw that the quintain had been set up in the center of the yard. She leaned against the wooden railing of the fence and watched Torre charge it with a practice lance. He hit it true, and the arm swung round with a squeak, catching him a glancing blow upon the shoulder. He kept his seat, though, and trotted over to Lancelot.

  “Not bad,” he said grudgingly. “Where did you come up with that?”

  “Sir Kay’s stirrup is built up and
seems to serve him well.”

  “Thank you,” Torre said gruffly.

  Lancelot picked up a wooden practice sword and swung it. “Care to join me?” he asked Torre.

  Torre hesitated, then said with a passable attempt at carelessness, “Why not?”

  Elaine retreated a little farther into the shadow of the stable as Torre dismounted. Lancelot demonstrated a complicated series of moves; Torre, after one or two false starts, followed his example. He managed surprisingly well, Elaine thought; his bad leg threw him off, but not as badly as she’d feared. Of course he could not compare to Lancelot, who moved with the ease of long practice. After half a dozen repetitions, Torre stumbled and dropped the sword.

  “You do this often?” he asked, limping heavily to the bucket hanging by the gate.

  “Every day.” Lunge, withdraw, lunge, and turn; Lancelot swung the practice sword in an arc above his head then dropped into a crouch, rising smoothly to lunge again at the straw target. He rested on his sword, his chest rising and falling deeply. “One hundred is the usual. More than that begins to waste the muscle. But I’ll be lucky to make twenty today.”

  “Who trained you?” Torre asked, offering him the ladle.

  Lancelot rinsed his mouth and spat into the dust, then poured the remainder of the water over his head. “A kinsman of my foster mother. He’d laugh himself sick to see me now.”

  His threadbare linen shirt was rolled up at the sleeves and hung open at the neck, the fabric plastered to his body, revealing the hard muscle of his chest and shoulders. Hearing a giggle nearby, Elaine turned to find several of the maids hanging over the fence. Torre looked over, too, and scowled.

  “That’s enough,” she said, shooing them toward the courtyard. “Get back to your work. And that is enough for you, as well,” she called to Lancelot.

  “I would argue the point, but I’m weak as a kitten,” he said wryly.

  “Get you to the river, then,” she advised. “You’ve earned a rest.”