“But surely all that is courtship, you would say?” Lancelot muttered almost to himself. “Oh, sir, if only it were.” His sigh cracked his ribs. “Believe me, if your sister, if any woman could come between me and the love of this queen...” Tears rose to his eyes. “But it is not to be. I love her, and I shall until I die. So you see what cruelty it would be to offer another woman the shadow of a love.”
Lavain shook his head. “We thought—” he said brokenly. “My father hoped—”
Lancelot groaned. “Gods above, Lavain, she’s been goodness itself to me, and she’s lovely too! D’you think I’m made of stone?” He could have cried aloud. “And children.” He could hardly believe he was saying this. “I shall never have children, Lavain, d’you understand that?” A bright vision shot through him, of laughing children running to meet him, arms reaching up for a kiss, and he brushed it aside. “That’s only one of many things Elaine could offer me. Truly it grieves me that I am not the man of her dreams. But I swear to you, your sister will find another knight, one who will love her as I never could.”
Even if I have to send him here from Camelot myself, he resolved, turning away. There’s Sagramore now, or Sir Tor, both fine knights, and good-looking too. Or there’s Dinant, or—
“Never.”
She stood in the doorway as Lavain had, but her wide eyes and mouth were badges of sorrow, not hope.
“I begged your favor once, Sir Lancelot,” she said clearly, “and I have come to beg you once again.”
“God bless you, my dear sister,” murmured Lavain. He pressed a kiss on her temple, and left the room.
Lancelot felt a chill around his heart.
“You are welcome, lady,” he ventured, as cheerily as he could. “If it is in my power, what you ask is yours.”
“Oh, it is in your power!” Her eyes were very bright. She gave a brittle laugh. “You are too good to let me die for your love.”
“Die?” Lancelot gasped. “What do you want of me?”
She came toward him quivering, and took him by the hand. Her soft body was as sweet as dawn in spring, and her scent of pink and white petals filled the air.
But Guenevere smells of roses as red as blood, the blooms of high midsummer, moody and strong. She breathes honeysuckle and wine, the hot scent of Beltain fires, as well as the fragile hope of bluebells in the spring.
Elaine had not taken her eyes off his face. “Sir Lancelot, I want you for my husband,” she said.
“You honor me, lady.” Lancelot cast around him in despair. “But truly, I never saw myself as a married man.”
She nodded doggedly, as if she knew what he would say. “Then will you be my paramour?”
Lancelot wanted to weep. “Oh, lady,” he said hopelessly, “I beg you, think what you are asking of me. You are a maiden of the highest hope. You saved my life, and your father and brothers have treated me like their own flesh and blood. How could I reward all your goodness that way?”
Her eyes flared. “Then you are saying I must die for your love.”
“No, no!” he cried. “No, you must live! Live and love, lady, and marry a good knight.” He did not know what to say next. “I will dance at your wedding, I will stand godfather to your sons, I will champion you until the day I die—”
“But you will not love me!” She let out an agonized shriek. “And my life is over if you won’t care for me.”
“Maiden, I cannot!” Lancelot bowed his head.
“Then Sir Lancelot, my good days are done!” Her keening filled the air. “I shall die!”
CHAPTER 37
Thank the Gods, the eternal summer was drawing to an end. Now at last the days of endless pale blond light would shorten to give the land a few hours of sleep. Only in these winter months did this skein of scattered northerly islands ever see the dark, but then it was all the more welcome when it came. Sir Lamorak sighed and drew the crisp air deep into his lungs. Though born in the south, he loved this place like his life.
And he could not leave it now.
He clutched the letter and looked with unseeing eyes around the room. How many times had his fingers traced these granite walls, and never found a joint? He loved this palace, this world of endless gray.
And he loved the queen of these islands more than she loved herself. That was hard to believe of a strong, self-loving queen, a proud and willful woman brought up in the ways of the Goddess since she was a child. But he saw Morgause’s subtle mind at work as she ruled her land. He watched her tireless efforts for her people, and read the love in their eyes whenever she passed. He never tired of her deep, smoky voice, her stone-pale face, her russet hair. And for all that and more he loved her; there was nothing else to say.
So how could he leave her now, after all these years? He slapped the stiff parchment furiously against his thigh. How could he live in a place where the Christians ruled?
The Christians! His sturdy frame shuddered at the thought. Men who refused all the goodness the Great Ones gave, and chose cold, pain, starvation, and self-punishment? Who denied the love of women for the love of their God? He thought of Morgause, and her wonderful, ample flesh. Live without that? Goddess, Mother, no!
Yet what else could he do? He stared at the letter again. If Morgause persisted with this, how could he stay?
He stalked around the queen’s chamber racked by thought, oblivious to the witnesses of his reverie. Waiting in loose formation around the walls stood a dozen Orkney warriors, their coarse plaids belted with bronze weaponry. Not a man among them still boasted the natural complement of bodily parts with which the Old Ones had sent him into the world. But give or take the odd hand, eye, or nose, every one knew his value, and his role. They were the knight companions of the throne. Their task was to die for the chosen one of the queen, as his fate, when it came, was to die for her. There was nothing else. So they waited patiently as Sir Lamorak wrestled in his soul. It would all be settled when the queen appeared.
With a rustle of silks she came sweeping in.
“Lamorak?”
“Your Majesty.”
Lamorak bowed low and kissed her hand. He could tell she felt happy today, sensual and young. But he could not pretend to be in tune with her mood.
“I have written the letter you ordered,” he said, without delay. “And tell me, lady, when must I leave for Camelot?”
Her mouth opened in dismay. “Leave for Camelot?” she said stupidly. “What do you mean?”
He looked at her, grim-faced, and put the parchment into her hand. “You asked me to write to Camelot, and send for your sons. Sign the letter, lady, and I’ll take it straightaway. I’ll stay with King Arthur as long as they are all here. After that, when you command me, I shall return.”
She stared at him. “But Lamorak, I cannot spare you now. I must have you with me when my sons come.”
“Madam—”
“No, Lamorak,” she said simply. She bunched her fists. Her bosom was heaving beneath her velvet gown. “I need you here. Another knight can take the letter south.” She nodded to herself. “Now, who shall go?”
She whirled around to survey the men along the wall. Standing first in the line of knight companions, their leader grinned, and arranged his ruined face in its best aspect. It was hard to look charming with only one eye, Leif knew. But for the court of King Arthur, nothing else would do.
One circuit of the hacked noses, scarred faces, and missing teeth, and Morgause had made up her mind.
“Leif shall go,” she pronounced. “He’ll be there and back before we know he’s gone.” Her face softened as she turned back to Lamorak. “Let you go?” she said tenderly. “How could I do that?”
“My queen—” The words burst from Lamorak before he was aware. “Why do they have to come?”
Morgause caught her breath, eyes wide. “Why? Because this is their land, their ancestral home, and they are strangers here. One day it will be their kingdom when I die, and none of them may want to take that burden on. Beca
use—”
Lamorak let her voice wind on unheard, and listened instead to what she did not say. I understand, my love, his battered heart acknowledged wearily. They are your sons, your babes, your flesh and blood, and your mother’s heart is yearning for her brood. He bowed his head. So be it.
Morgause’s speech came to an end.
Lamorak drew a breath and spoke with all the emphasis he could. “If this has to be, I beg you, think what it will mean. Your sons have not seen their home for full ten years. They will have to know how you and I live here.” He paused. “For your sake, and for mine, this must be the time.”
“Oh, Lamorak!”
Morgause reached up her hand and laid a finger on his lips. Lamorak took it and covered it in kisses, then cradled it gently between his hands as he spoke. “The time has come,” he repeated patiently. “The time to marry.”
“Lamorak, don’t torture me!” Morgause moaned.
Lamorak stroked her hand. “When I loved you first, your sons were only boys. Their father had just been killed. It was not the time for them to learn that their mother had taken a chosen one.”
“Lamorak—”
“Now they are men. More than men, they are Orkney men, princes, knights of the Fellowship. In the years since King Lot died, they’ve grown in pride, and learned their status and their place in the world.” His face grew hard. “They will resent me now. My father killed your husband, and the blood debt is still unavenged.”
“That was—”
“But if I am your husband, no man can challenge me. Your sons could never say that I dishonored you, using your body but refusing to marry you. If you marry me, you will be Queen of Listinoise. Then they will see our two kingdoms joined in one, just as King Arthur did with Queen Guenevere.”
He crushed her hand to his lips, and put his heart into his plea. “Marry me, lady!”
But as he spoke, he knew his cause was lost.
“I am their mother,” Morgause wept. “How can I tell them of the love we share?” She broke away and roamed weeping around the room. “I’m too old for you, Lamorak! This and all else, my sons will not forgive.”
She swept up and down the long chamber, wringing her hands and beating her breast, crying to herself. He was still waiting as she returned to his arms.
“Let us send the letter, then,” he said bleakly as she nestled into him, “and prepare to take what comes. Your sons are men of the world. Perhaps they will see that you have need of me.”
“Of course.” Suddenly at peace, Morgause smiled into his eyes. “I need my knight. They will all know that. A queen must have her knights.”
THE GREAT HALL was alive with dancing light. Every table was laden with gold and silver candlesticks, every candlestick studded with jewels reflecting the candles’ flickering flames. At the far end of the room, the tall bronze doors threw back the reflection of laughing faces, of goblets raised in greeting, of silks and velvets flashing white and red, green, purple, and sloe black. Outside, the rain beat down on the roof, and the first storm of winter howled about the hall. But at the round table in the center of the bright, warm space, spirits were high. A week after Sir Gawain had come back to court, the knights were still relishing his startling news.
“Lancelot getting married!” cried Sir Sagramore ebulliently, waving up a servant to bring more wine. His full face was flushed, and in the heat of the room, an old scar on his forehead took on a silvery sheen. “And after all the times he told us he’d never be a married man! But it must be true. There’s no smoke without fire.”
Sir Dinant chuckled. Lean and keen, he enjoyed the life of court and camp alike, and no lady appealed to him for his help in vain. “Ah, the fire of love!” he declaimed rhetorically. “Or is it lust at last for Lancelot?”
A volley of sniggers and cackles followed his words.
Lionel shot a glance at Bors seated by his side. His brother would hate the knights’ boisterous banter, he knew.
Sir Lucan laughed, then pulled a serious face. “Poor Lancelot doesn’t have your luck with the ladies, Sagramore,” he said gravely, “so he has to take the first woman he can get.”
There was a general burst of merriment among the knights. Too fond of his food and wine, fat-faced and ample in the girth, Sagramore pursued women furiously, without success.
“Yet still she must be a fine lady, this maid of Astolat,” offered Mador, his young face aglow. Not like my lady, Queen Guenevere, he told himself. But the girl who could win Sir Lancelot must be rare indeed.
“More likely a fine estate.” Lucan smiled cynically and thrust back his thick hair. “And I’m sure the girl knows every penny of her worth. There’s no such thing as an innocent woman, after all.”
He looked around the table, challenging a response. There was a silence among the older knights. Sagramore, who had been planning a loud riposte to Lucan’s taunt, lost his taste for revenge. It had been years ago now, the Gods knew, and long buried in the past. But no one had forgotten the woman who broke Lucan’s heart.
And not even a beauty, as Sagramore remembered her. Tall and scrawny, when in his opinion women should be small and plump and fair, like dormice waiting to be stroked and uncurled. Yet black-haired and bony as she was, the King’s sister Madam Morgan had something special about her, every man knew that. Was it her long, white face, her sullen eyes, her small sharp breasts, her tight damson mouth? Sagramore shook his head. No man could say.
And no one knew how she had bewitched Lucan, a man more versed in women than any knight at court. But they knew she had practiced her black arts on him, and he suffered for it still. She had stolen his heart and seduced him to her bed, dazzled him with the future they would share, and then cast him away. And after her, even the down-to-earth Sagramore could imagine, other women would be like milk and water to red wine.
A voice untroubled by the past broke in. “But Sir Lancelot would never marry for a fine estate, would he?” said Patrise wonderingly. “And surely there are good women in the world? Ladies to be loved for their truth and nobility?”
Of course there are, Bors wanted to cry out, and this maiden may be one of them, pray God she is! If Lancelot had found someone honest and true, a girl who could be his, he would weep with joy. But he knew it could not be.
“It can’t be true, this nonsense of Gawain’s,” he muttered furiously to Lionel under cover of the noise.
Lionel nodded miserably. “Not as long as he loves the Queen.”
He loves the Queen.
Bors pushed aside his platter with an inward groan. His stomach was sick with chewing on nothing but his fears, and the steaming dish of pork made him want to retch. His mind ran to and fro in hopeless spurts. Where are you, Lancelot? What’s this marriage nonsense all about? What’s to become of you, of all of us?
A raucous burst of laughter broke in on his thoughts.
“So what’s your bet, Lucan? Will he marry her?” Sagramore guffawed through a mouthful of food, spraying pork and herbs as he spoke. “And what’ll the Queen say when she loses her favorite knight?”
“The Queen?” Lucan laughed sardonically. “The Queen will not be pleased. And Lancelot may find that his fair young virgin, even with her fine estate, will cost him dear. He’s always been high in favor with the Queen. But her displeasure will be the King’s too.”
“That’s why he’s staying away,” Sir Dinant put in. “He knows he’s angered the Queen.” He shook his head. “Why would he risk it? The Gods alone know why he’d marry the girl.”
Sagramore’s eyes took on a lecherous gleam. He filled his mouth again. A trickle of pork fat ran down his chin. “We haven’t seen her yet! What’s the betting she’s a real—”
Bors turned away in disgust. Gods, they were vile! What he’d give to be away from here!
Suddenly he felt a servant at his elbow, plucking his sleeve. “There’s been a stranger in your quarters, sir, asking for you. A man of Little Britain, so he said, to see the Queen.”
&
nbsp; “Thank you.”
Bors rose to his feet. He threw an arm around his brother’s shoulders, and breathed in Lionel’s ear. “Come to our lodgings as soon as you can.” He met Lionel’s questioning gaze with a slight nod. “Yes. He’s back.”
CHAPTER 38
Lady, lady, he’s back! There’s a page from the knights’ quarters with a message. A stranger from Little Britain craves your—”
Ina, Ina, do I care?
How many days had she spent living with the contant stabbing thought of Lancelot’s betrayal, yet having to smile and talk as if nothing were amiss? How many nights of endlessly prowling the floor, flinching at shadows, snapping at Ina, then weeping in her arms?
And all the time her anger with him grew.
“It can’t be, lady,” Ina protested, tight-lipped. Through it all, she believed in her lady’s knight as fervently as she loved Guenevere. “He can’t be married, not Sir Lancelot.”
“Why not?” Guenevere snarled. “Is he the first man to lie and betray? I’m sure she’s soft and sweet, and never contradicts a word he says.” She gave a hysterical laugh. “And she can’t be more than nineteen. Why should he be faithful to an old witch like me?”
She knew she was hurting Ina when she spoke like this. But not as much as she hurt herself.
It seemed to her now that her love for Lancelot had been almost alchemically pure before he had polluted it. Now it was poisoned, he had killed her love, and with it her hopes for the future, her reason to live.
And Arthur, too, had wounded her this way, first when his folly had cost Amir his life, and then when he took his sister to his bed. Now Lancelot had betrayed her as Arthur had. She thought she had suffered when Arthur loved Morgan. But nothing before had been as bad as this.
Guenevere wrapped her arms across her stomach to hold down the gnawing pain. Her body won’t have the marks of childbearing; she’ll be lithe and firm. And a virgin too, so she’ll think he’s wonderful. Wouldn’t any man choose a woman like that, soft and undemanding, easily satisfied, above a partnership of equals, with its constant wrestling of body and soul?
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