Lancelot

by Gwen Rowley

  “I want to trust you, but how can I?”

  “That is a question only you can answer. I suggest,” he added coldly, “that you think well on it while I am gone. God keep you until we meet again.”

  “And you,” she answered steadily, but did not trust herself to say more. She watched him walk away, part of her longing to go after him and beg his forgiveness—

  For what? For asking him to speak the truth? No, it was he who was wrong—wrong to keep these secrets from her, wrong to always put the Lady first, wrong to ride off to the queen and leave her all alone when she—she—

  All at once Brisen stood beside her, her arm around Elaine’s trembling shoulders. “Did you tell him?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “That you bear his child. Oh, lady don’t deny it, I know a breeding woman when I see one. Did you tell him?”

  Elaine shook her head. “I wanted to be sure before I spoke.”

  They stood together watching Bors and Lancelot emerge from the stable. She fancied that Lancelot hesitated before mounting, his face turned to the place where she and Brisen stood. She nearly went to him then, but Brisen halted her.

  “Don’t,” she said. “It is too late. You’ll only make it worse for him—and for yourself. Besides,” she added bracingly, “you want him back whole, don’t you? There’s no worse luck for a man riding into battle than to leave behind a weeping woman.”

  “Then we must pray,” Elaine said bitterly, “that he does not see the queen before he goes.”

  Chapter 30

  RAIN lashed against the shutters of the hall. The air was thick with smoke from the damp wood smoldering in the central fire and the rushlight burning on the trestle table. The baby wailed fitfully at Elaine’s feet as she squinted at the column of figures, then threw down her quill and dropped her head into her hands, her stiff fingers massaging her throbbing temples.

  “Brisen,” she said carefully, fearing her skull would shatter if she raised her voice. “Brisen, Galahad is hungry. Send for his nurse.”

  “Aye, lady,” Brisen said, scooping up the crying child. “And you should lie down for a time.”

  As if Elaine hadn’t spent enough time in bed. Six weeks she’d lain there after Galahad was born, and though the first fortnight had passed in a blur of pain and fever, the rest had dragged by interminably as she waited vainly for her strength and spirits to return. After a solid month of staring at the ceiling and choking down Brisen’s bitter brews, she’d had enough of waiting. There was still work to be done.

  Galahad’s nurse arrived, a plump, cheerful lass who’d borne a daughter a mere fortnight before Galahad’s birth. Brisen surrendered the infant to her reluctantly.

  Elaine leaned her head in her hand and watched Galahad suckle noisily, his tiny fists flailing, feeling a dull twinge in her own flaccid breasts. The birth had been hard; by the time she’d regained her senses, Galahad was accustomed to his wet nurse. Elaine had made one or two attempts to feed him herself, but it was hopeless from the start.

  And it was better this way. She had far too much to do and little enough energy with which to do it, without a nursing child to distract her. Yet still she sat, her cheek resting in her palm, watching Lotte grasp one of Galahad’s waving fists and fold it gently in her own palm before raising it to her lips.

  They were lucky to have found such a kind, healthy lass. When Lotte placed the full and sleeping child in his basket and slipped away, Elaine resolved yet again to make her a goodly gift when her service to Galahad was finished.

  If, she thought, gazing down at the column of figures, they had anything to give.

  Lancelot had been generous. In fairness, she must give him that. He’d left a purse with Torre, and before he’d sailed, he’d found the time to send two dozen ewes and a ram—the black-faced, long-legged kind she’d always longed to try—complete with a shepherd accustomed to their ways. A fortnight later had brought three sows, two in pig, and a man to tend them. Later still had come a bolt of Arabian silk of peacock blue shot through with golden threads. But no letter. No message explaining if these gifts were a promise of his eventual return or a farewell.

  And then the gifts had stopped. As though that had been some sort of signal, the ones he had given began to vanish like faery gold in sunlight, a parallel Elaine did not like, but one she could not escape.

  First the sheep sickened. One slipped her lamb and died upon the snow-swept hillside, then another and another, not only the black-faced sheep, but their own as well. Now only three ewes and the two rams remained. The pigs lasted a bit longer, until a swine fever swept the countryside. The swineherd ran off with their best dairymaid and was never seen again.

  All that was left were a few coins and the bolt of silk that Elaine could not quite make up her mind to sell.

  And Galahad.

  After his birth, Elaine had been seized by the morbid certainty that he, too, would be snatched away, a fear that even now had not quite left her. He was an extraordinarily beautiful baby, though he bore no resemblance to his father. Galahad’s hair was like spun gold, his eyes a very clear, light blue. He was a son any man would be proud to acknowledge . . . any man save Lancelot, who did not even know of Galahad’s existence.

  Despite the fact that the king had returned to Camelot six weeks before.

  Lavaine’s squire, Gaspard, had brought the news. He was a Spanish lad who had attached himself to Lavaine somewhere in Picardy, and had been sent to Corbenic so he might recover from a festering wound. Now he sat by the smoking fire, whittling a toy for Galahad, to whom he was devoted. He spoke their language a little, enough to give them halting accounts of battles fought across the sea, in which Lancelot’s name figured prominently.

  “He ees the finest,” Gaspard had assured them, his black eyes shining, “the bravest, the noblest, the—how you say?—”

  “I don’t,” Torre growled. “Where is Sir Lancelot now?”

  Gaspard shrugged his bony shoulders. “With hees king, no? Where else would he be?”

  Where else, indeed?

  FOR the next fortnight, Elaine had gone about in a daze, leaving a trail of tasks half finished when she started up and flew to the nearest window at each imagined sound. Now that another month had passed, she’d finally accepted that Lancelot wasn’t coming back.

  So she did not rush to the door when a horse clattered into the courtyard, leaving Torre to investigate. When he called her name a moment later, she did not at first recognize the tall young man beside him.

  “Well, Elly?” he said, holding out his arms. “Is this the greeting I get?”

  And then she knew him. “Lavaine,” she cried, leaping from her seat to run to him. He caught her up and spun her around before setting her on her feet. “Oh, Lavaine, I’m so glad to see you.”

  He was broader across the shoulders, deeper in the chest, and he moved with a new grace, as though he’d finally grown accustomed to the length of his arms and legs. He smelled of rain and horses, and when he smiled down at her, she realized the boy who’d left them had returned a man.

  “How fare you, Elly?” he asked, his eyes darkening with concern. “Have you been ill?”

  “A little, but I’m better now,” she said, leading him over to the fire.

  “Gaspard!” Lavaine said to his squire, “I can see you’re in fine fettle! Have they been spoiling you?”

  “Sí, sir,” Gaspard admitted with a grin. “Much spoiled.”

  “Well, you can go stable my horse, you lazy dog,” Lavaine said, laughing. “And see to my armor before it rusts through.”

  “Here,” Elaine said, “give me your cloak—Brisen, look! Lavaine is home.”

  “Hello, Brisen,” Lavaine said, sinking down on the settle and stretching his long legs toward the sullen little blaze. “Pretty as ever, I see.”

  “For that, you shall have a honey cake with your wine,” Brisen said, bending to drop a kiss on the top of his head.

  “Do I get one, too?” T
orre asked.

  Brisen regarded him through narrowed eyes. “One what?”

  “A honey cake. Please,” he added with a smile.

  “No.” Brisen’s eyes flashed and she whirled, her skirts flying as she ran swiftly from the hall.

  “Well, that’s nice!” Torre said, shaking his head as he stared after her.

  “I always was her favorite,” Lavaine said smugly.

  Torre cuffed his brother lightly before taking the seat beside him, and though he laughed, a small frown creased his brow as he stared at the doorway though which Brisen had just passed.

  “Tell us everything, Lavaine,” Elaine urged, squeezing onto the settle on Lavaine’s other side and taking her brother’s arm.

  And he did. Battle by battle, he described King Arthur’s victory over Claudus, stopping only to embrace his father when Pelleas arrived. By the time he’d finished, the flagon was empty and the plate of honey cakes nearly gone.

  “A few of us remained behind in Gaul—we reached Camelot last night. I thought to stay a few days for the feasting, but I woke early and decided to come home. The path was flooded out, just by—” He broke off, looking over his shoulder. “What is that?”

  “That,” Elaine said, hurrying over to the basket beneath the trestle table, “is your nephew.”

  Lavaine turned to Torre. “When did you—”

  Torre shook his head. “Not mine.”

  “Not—? Oh, Elly, I had no idea! Why didn’t you tell me you’d been wed? Who—”

  Elaine plopped the baby in Lavaine’s arms. “You do know how to hold him, don’t you? Watch his head—that’s right, put your hand there—”

  Lavaine gazed down at the child. Galahad looked back, his blue eyes wide and solemn.

  “Hello, nephew.” Lavaine tickled Galahad’s belly, making the silly faces men always made when confronted with an infant. “God’s beard, Elly, is he always this serious? He looks like he’s about to start lecturing me on my sins. What is his name?”

  “Galahad.”

  “He’s a fine boy,” Lavaine said. “Congratulations. When were you—?” He broke off when Torre caught his eye and shook his head. “Oh. I see.” He stroked Galahad’s hair with one finger, his face grim. “How—who—?”

  “I would think by your age you would know how,” Elaine snapped. “As for who—” Her throat tightened, and she looked helplessly at Torre.

  “His father is Sir Lancelot du Lac,” Pelleas put in unexpectedly. “A noble lineage—young Galahad stands but in the seventh degree from—”

  “Sir Lancelot?” Lavaine interrupted. His cheeks flushed a brilliant red. “But—but I fought with him; we were together constantly—he never said—”

  “Did he not speak of me at all?” Elaine asked, taking Galahad from her brother and settling him in the crook of her arm.

  “Yes, he did, often—and always with the greatest respect. He said how kind you’d been when he spent those months here at Corbenic—” Lavaine’s eyes flashed. “But he never said how he had spent them. By God, I’ll—I’ll—”

  “You’ll wait your turn is what you’ll do,” Torre cut in sharply. “Once I’m finished, you can have whatever’s left.”

  “Neither of you will fight him,” Elaine said. “I forbid it.”

  “Elly, we’re your brothers—”

  “I don’t care who you are,” she said fiercely. “I will handle this in my own way—in my own time.”

  How and when that would be, she did not know. So far she’d been incapable of anything but hoping Lancelot would return, and when hope was gone, waiting passively to see what happened next. The only thing she knew for certain was that she did not want her brothers to issue Lancelot a challenge. The very thought made her stomach churn.

  “He’d make mincemeat of the both of you, anyway,” Brisen said tartly, sweeping the dish and flagon from the table before turning to fix Torre with an icy glare. “And if you think I’ll put you back together a second time, you are mistaken.”

  Torre looked so taken aback that Elaine almost laughed. “Who asked you to?”

  “Not you, that’s certain,” Brisen retorted. “You never ask me for anything, do you? You just ignore me or order me about.”

  “Why, you daft besom, I asked you for something earlier—asked nicely, too, for all the good it did me.”

  “Right. So you did.” Brisen picked up the last, half-eaten cake from the plate and flung it in his face. “There. I hope you choke on it.”

  Torre shot to his feet. “Did you see what she just did?” he demanded of his siblings. “What the devil can she mean by it?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Lavaine suggested. He picked up the half-eaten cake from the floor, brushed it with his sleeve, then sighed and tossed it into the fire.

  “You,” Brisen said, stabbing a finger into Torre’s chest, “are a selfish, idle wastrel. I wish you would fight Sir Lancelot—mayhap this time he’ll finish you!”

  Torre batted her hand away. “You’re mad.”

  “Not anymore.” Brisen’s dark eyes shone briefly before she turned and walked away.

  “Mistress Brisen seems upset,” Lord Pelleas remarked.

  “She’s daft.” Torre laughed uncomfortably. “Raving.”

  “She seemed sane enough to me,” Lavaine said. “Just angry. What have you been getting up to, Torre? Brisen is a good sort—I mean, she saved your life and all, wore herself to a shadow sitting up for weeks on end—and now, if you’ve been trifling with her—”

  “Trifling? With Brisen? I’ve never even thought of it!”

  Lavaine’s brows shot up. “You haven’t?” He shook his head, a grin quirking the corner of his mouth. “Well, that explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “Ask her yourself,” Lavaine said.

  “I will.” Torre stood a moment, staring at the doorway, then abruptly resumed his seat. “Later. First we need to settle this, we’ve put it off too long already. I mean to speak to Sir Lancelot.”

  Lavaine frowned at his nephew. “Elly, does Lancelot even know?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “What difference does it make?” Torre said impatiently. “He must have known there was a chance this would happen, and he’s had well over a month to come and see—”

  “He hasn’t,” Lavaine said. “He only returned to Camelot last night, with me.”

  For one brief, terrible moment Elaine feared that she might swoon. The hall seemed to darken, and a sound like rushing water filled her ears. She managed to drag in one gasping breath, and then another, and the rushing subsided in time for her to hear Torre say, “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? He could have come, as well.”

  “Not this morning. He was meant to see the king.”

  Elaine bent to put Galahad in his basket, taking her time adjusting his coverlet. Not again, she thought. Please, God, I cannot do it all again. Only in the past few days had she felt anything like herself, and now that hard-won peace had been demolished by a few words from Lavaine. Already she could feel it starting, the sickening jolt between exultation and despair.

  At one moment she was certain Lancelot was on his way, utterly convinced of his love. In the next, she was equally certain she had lost him forever. Back and forth, up and down, going over every word they’d ever spoken, reliving each sigh and touch and kiss, replaying their last quarrel and trying to pinpoint the precise moment when it had all gone so wrong, searching for the words she could have used to make it come out differently.

  When she was not dwelling in the past, her mind was racing toward the future, imagining how and when Lancelot would learn of Galahad’s existence. From Lavaine? Torre? Or would some stray bit of gossip reach him before her brothers did? What would he say? What would he feel? Remorse? Annoyance? Pity?

  Holy Mother, I cannot, she thought, I cannot do that again.

  And I will not.

  She raised her head. “I am going to Camelot.”

&nbs
p; “What?” Torre demanded.

  “Oh, Elly, you can’t!” Lavaine cried.

  “I can. I shall. Sir Lancelot deserves to know he has a son, and I will be the one to tell him.”

  Torre slammed his fist upon the table. “I will not let you humble yourself to that—that—”

  “I have no intention of doing so,” she answered coolly. “Galahad cannot be hidden forever. Sir Lancelot may acknowledge him or not—that will be his decision. But I refuse to sit here, hands folded, and wait for him to make it.”

  “But Elly,” Lavaine protested, “don’t you see how it would look? You can’t expose yourself like that—you don’t know what it’s like at court!”

  “He’s right,” Torre said. “I will go.”

  “And I!” Lavaine cried.

  “Yes,” Lord Pelleas said. His eyes met Elaine’s, and he smiled. “I think you should both accompany your sister.”

  Elaine walked over to her father and kissed his brow. “Thank you. For . . .”

  For loving me. For loving Galahad. For never treating either of us as though we had disgraced the family name.

  “. . . for everything,” she finished.

  “That’s quite all right, my dear,” he said, reaching up to pat her cheek. “I’m very proud of you. Always have been.”

  Elaine turned to her brothers. “To Camelot, then. We leave at dawn.”

  Chapter 31

  THE feast was a success, Guinevere thought, trying very hard to care. She forced herself to smile at Arthur, to sip from the cup they shared, and chat lightly of the latest gossip. But all the while she was conscious of the dull ache beneath her girdle. This afternoon she had woken to the knowledge that there was no baby after all, no new life growing within her. There never had been, she told herself. I was late, that’s all, it means nothing. Next month, perhaps . . .

  Having consumed every morsel amid a babble of excited talk and laughter, her guests had reached the state of satiety. Guinevere, judging the moment right, caught Sir Tristan’s eye and nodded.

  Tristan bowed to Guinevere and smiled, which did nothing to dispel his air of melancholy, for though his lips curved charmingly, his eyes remained as they ever were, large dark pools of sorrow. Two pages hurried over with his harp and a cushion, and he sank down with a heavy sigh. Tristan did not merely sit, he drooped—and most becomingly, Guinevere noted cynically, before she dismissed the thought as unworthy. With an awareness sharpened by her own loss—which had been no loss at all, she told herself fiercely, but merely a mistake—she knew Tristan innocent of artifice.