In the darkness his pale eyes passed from water to fire. “The Holy Grail, brother!” he breathed, entranced. “It is in our hands! It will be ours!”
CHAPTER 48
Avalon, Avalon, home—
Guenevere came softly to herself in the silver light of dawn. A damp fragrance filled the chamber, and through the last wisps of sleep she saw the beloved land-cape once again, the island rising from the dark, still waters, its slopes veiled with apple blossom in the pearly air. Above the birdsong outside her window she could still hear the call of Avalon’s doves, and the rustle of white wings in every tree.
Soon you will go back to Avalon again, the little mouse had said. And Guenevere knew that it must be today.
Embrace your fate, the spirit messenger had said too. Yes, this she also had to do. Arthur had betrayed her. And the worst of it was, he did not know what he had done. She had to save herself.
SHE FOUND HIM in his chamber, dressing for the hunt. When he saw her, his face burst into smiles and he folded her tenderly in his arms.
“My love,” he said joyfully. “My little love!” He kissed her on the lips.
She disengaged herself. “I am going to Avalon,” she said. “Today.”
Arthur’s joy vanished. “You’re going away?”
“To see the Lady.” She paused. “And to recover from the trial.”
Arthur sighed. “You were never in any danger, Guenevere, you know that.”
You think so, Arthur? I think you are wrong.
In silence Guenevere pondered what to reply. All through the feast last night, she had felt the Christians’ eyes. While all those around her were celebrating her escape, they had kept to themselves, huddling at a table apart. There they had refused the meat and fine dishes, gnawing on their frugal ration of black bread and herbs, and she had seen the hunger for her death on every face.
“The Christians called me a witch,” she said at last.
Arthur gave a confident smile. “Oh, that’s all nonsense, ignorant superstition, nothing more.”
“They do not think so.”
“What they think carries no force in law,” Arthur said with sudden irritation. “It was the Council’s decision that Mador should have the right of trial.”
“But the Christians sat on the Council. And I’m sure they made their voices heard.”
“Guenevere, listen to me.” Arthur took a breath, and his voice grew hard. “You may be keeping the Mother-right in the Summer Country, but the Christians have made themselves a force to be reckoned with here. I have to govern for the good of all, regardless of their faith. And that means keeping the balance, don’t you see?”
“I know you mean well, Arthur.” That at least is true.
He frowned. “And Mador had a claim upon me too. He’d lost his brother, and we had to acknowledge that. Oh, we could load him with blood-gelt to pay for Patrise’s death, and so I did, before he went back to the Meads. But honor demanded he had his day in the field.”
If you say so, Arthur.
He came toward her to take her in his arms. “And it’s over, Guenevere. You’re safe with me now.”
Safe? No, not now. I will never trust you again.
She stood unresisting as he smothered her with love.
Do I know this man?
Did I ever love him, share his bed, bear his child?
Oh, Arthur, Arthur, how did we come to this?
All women have to find out sometime that their husband is not the man of the dream. But you have broken the dream between us twice.
You took our son from me when he was seven years old. Perhaps I could have forgiven you for Amir’s death. But to turn to your sister for comfort in your grief?
Yes, yes, I know, Morgan is your half sister, not your full blood kin. And the Old Ones themselves called her Morgan Le Fay, so her bewitchments were hard to resist. I know she fed you dreams and potions to enchant you to her bed. But your arms held her, your feet led you there, your body took hers for her pleasure and your delight.
And I forgave that too.
Yet I am a Queen, and I come of an ancient line. The first Pendragon limped out of Ulster with his bloody hand only a few generations ago. The first Queen in these islands was the Great Mother herself. My foremothers led the Britons into battle, and threw the Romans back to Rome. You should not have thought I was yours to give to the Christians or save as you wished.
No, Arthur. You have betrayed me again, and I must save myself.
To Avalon, then.
Where the Lady will show me how.
She stepped back, and raised her eyes to his troubled face. “Arthur, I know you try to do what’s right. But you have given power in this land to men who believe that women are witches and vessels of Eve’s sin. Perhaps you would have saved me from the fire. But how will you defend all other women against that?”
“I don’t understand,” he said in bewilderment. “You were innocent, Guenevere, and there’s no danger anymore.” He ran a distracted hand through his hair. “Not to you, nor to any woman. Why do you have to go?”
ON THE ISLAND, a raw red dawn stained the pale northern sky. The people huddled inside their houses and did not dare to stir. A terrible deed had been done, and Queen Morgause would take revenge. Any found wandering and busying themselves abroad, obstructing her knights while her justice swept the land, would share the wrongdoer’s fate.
In the granite hall, Morgause sat alone on her dais. Before her stood the chief of the knight companions, gripping his sword. The blade writhed in Leif’s hands, whining for blood. “Wait, wait,” he soothed it silently. “It will come.”
The rest of the knight companions formed a circle around Agravain. Each held a drawn sword, pointed at his heart. Pale and defiant, he stared straight ahead. He did not glance at his brothers standing nearby.
Leif took a step toward the throne. His one eye was red and blood-shot from his night of grief. “Give me this man,” he said in a singsong hiss, “and he will feel what it was to kill your knight.”
On the dais, what had been Morgause stirred and laughed. Her body was still clad in the velvet, gold, and amethysts of last night’s feast. But all her finery was gray-white with ash from the hearth, heaped on her head in the ecstasy of her grief. Great bleeding weals showed the mark of Lamorak’s sword, where she had used it to beat her head and knock out her teeth. Her fingernails had torn at her eyelids and cheeks. Now her fingers scrabbled in the dank locks of hair that had lost its color overnight.
“My knight,” the bruised lips moaned. “My chosen one, the partner of my soul. The man who gave me love I never dreamed. A love that would be living in this dawn, not cold and in his tomb, if I had trusted him, trusted and believed—ohhh, Lamorak!”
The high keening wail tore through the air.
Gods above! Gawain turned his eyes away and met Gaheris’ despairing stare. Gaheris was fingering his drawn sword, while Gareth was weeping openly at his side. None of them could bear to look at Morgause. This thing was not their mother, not the queen of the isles.
Morgause laughed again, a hideous sound.
“You killed him—why?” she said madly to Agravain. “Why did you want to take his life from me?”
“Madam, you ask me that?” cried Agravain. “When I came upon him lurking in the dark? He drew his sword, and I feared for my life. I raised my dagger, and struck a lucky blow. The Great One herself blessed the point of my blade.”
“Lies, black lies,” grunted Leif at the foot of the throne. Agravain had lain in ambush to take Lamorak’s life. The leader of the knight companions knew it as surely as if he had been there. Leif had foreseen it, he had felt it in the stars. Yet still he had not saved his dear lord’s life.
Morgause nodded owlishly. “Yes, he lies.”
“Punish him, then,” came Leif’s soft demand. “According to the custom of the isles.”
“Your Majesty, I beg of you, hear me.”
Gawain stepped forward urgently. He kn
ew too well the custom of the isles. In the hands of the knight companions Agravain would face an eternity of cruel dying, and still be revived for more. He took a breath, and launched into his plea. “Madam, our brother only meant to—”
But Agravain was blind and deaf to his plight. “Punish me, lady?” he burst out in self-righteous rage. “You owe me thanks! Sir Lamorak was an enemy of our house. When I saw him outside your apartments with his sword, what was I to think?”
Gawain forced himself to look at the large lost figure mourning on the throne. “Your Majesty, Sir Lamorak died through a grievous turn of events. Our brother says he feared the blood feud from the past. Whatever the truth, let there be no more bloodshed now.”
Leif nodded to the queen. “We will not shed his blood.” Around him the knight companions shared a savage grin.
Morgause’s voice rang like the sound from a tomb. “Yessss, no blood—but punish him—”
Gawain fell to his knees. “Majesty, I beg you, give our brother to us. He has cruelly offended, but his own kin should deal with his offense. Let us take him to King Arthur for trial and judgment there. I swear he will never set foot in your kingdom again.”
“Yes—”
Once again the soft, flaccid bulk shifted on the throne. Morgause smiled, revealing the bleeding stumps of her teeth. “Take him, then.”
“Give him to your knights, not to them,” barked Leif furiously.
But Gawain was already shouldering Leif aside to take Agravain by the arm. Gripping him like a prisoner, he marched him down the hall, with Gaheris and Gareth striding behind.
Within minutes the sound of their departure floated up to the silent hall from the compound below. The knight companions stood like a ring of stones as the four sons of Morgause rode away, and the queen herself sat on her throne and howled.
IT WAS ONLY to be expected, that the queen would set him free, Leif told the knight companions later that night, feasting in the knights’ hall when all the princes had gone. A dam will not kill her son. The young whelp may turn on his dam, and tear out her heart. But the Mother will not permit a mother to revenge.
“Whereas we—” Leif grinned a mouthful of blood. The tallow lamp played over a table of bleeding entrails, served hot with herbs to feed the knights’ revenge. Stray shafts of light lit the depths of their blood-red wine, and threw up the hills and hollows of their scars. “We are free,” he said softly. “Free to avenge our lord.”
He cast his one eye around. “Some of you will stay here to take care of our lady, who will not be with us long. She loved our lord too much, and soon she will join him in the Otherworld. Meanwhile, she has ruined her face. So she cannot have better companions than men as ill-favored as you.”
The knights laughed gently and companionably. They had lost their faces in a good cause, it seemed.
“But you and you—” Leif pointed, and all knew why the two he chose had been singled out for the task. “You come south with me. Our lady has given the dark one to her sons. He is dead to her; he will never come back here. So he is ours, to do with as we like.”
He paused and stretched out, luxuriating in his power, while they hung on his words.
“So,” he grunted at last, “we shall track the dark one by the smell he leaves behind. He will not see us or hear us, but he will know we are there. When the moment comes, we will take him as the hunter takes the wolf.”
In the silence that followed, all the men around the table shared a single joyful thought.
And then the young whelp will learn what it is to howl.
CHAPTER 49
The antechamber was thronged with fur robes and fine cloaks, silks, and satins whispering happily together as they waited for the King. Lingering near the door to the Audience Chamber, the Father Abbot ad waited a long while for the privilege of being admited first. He drew himself up, and hoped that the fool of a chamberlain had taken note of this. How long, O Lord, how long?
At last there were sounds of action from within, and the great doors swung back.
“Come forward,” the chamberlain intoned, knocking his staff on the floor. “All who seek audience with the King may attend him now.”
He glanced around. “You, sir.” He signaled to the Father Abbot with a lofty upraised hand.
“Thank you.”
The Father Abbot hurried through the door, his eyes darting to the dais ahead. In the stately Audience Chamber, Arthur sat alone. His knights were well to the fore, but the great bronze throne at his side was empty of the white and gold figure usually seen there. The Abbot’s mind raced. So the gossip was true; the concubine had taken herself off. If only he could stay here to work on Arthur now, there could be no better opportunity to bring the King firmly to God.
But even he could not be in two places at once. And this sickness in the convent was too grave to ignore. If only he had not wasted so much time on the concubine. All these weeks, and they almost had her in the fire. Then at last she had wriggled away like the serpent she was.
And if only he had paid more attention to the letters from the convent as they came. The Abbot fought down the fear that things were far worse than he had been ready to believe. The Father Confessor was a man of robust faith, but there was something there that had defeated him.
Well, it would all be dealt with now.
“Your Majesty.” He quickened his step to the throne, and fell to his knees. “I come to beg your leave to depart. I hope I have been of assistance while I was here. But another grave matter calls me away now.”
“Of help to me, Father?” Arthur replied. “Oh, you were indeed. All kings have need of counsel, and I more than most. I was lucky to have Merlin to advise me when I began. But it’s many years now since I saw my dear old friend.” His eyes filled with tears.
He’s coming, the Abbot told himself. One day Arthur will be ours, heart and soul. He almost chuckled aloud. One day we shall rule him and all this kingdom, and its whores and witches too. And then let them beware!
He lowered his eyes. “You are gracious, sire,” he said.
“How can I help you, Father, as you leave?”
The Abbot frowned. “I go to a house of our holy women, visited by the plague. The Father Confessor is dying, and a successor must be found. He tells me that there’s a candidate already there. A nun called—”
A spasm of pain shot through the Abbot’s chest. He tried to speak, and an iron hand crushed his lungs. Why could he not say the sister’s name? God be in my mouth, he prayed, and struggled on. “A Sister Ganmor, sire, a nun of great piety—”
“What?” Arthur screamed, and hurled himself down from the dais, seizing the Abbot in a madman’s grip. “Ganmor? Did you say Ganmor?”
Behind him the Abbot could see a dawning horror on the faces of Arthur’s knights. The warrior Sir Lucan was the first to react, seizing his sword and leaping to Arthur’s side. “To horse, sire?” he burst out.
Arthur broke away and reached for his sword, swinging it through the air. “To horse!” he howled. “To horse! All men to the convent at once!” He threw back his head in an agony of despair. “Oh, God, God, why do you punish me? Will I never be free?”
Still weeping, he tore from the room. Led by Sir Lucan, all the knights followed him.
“Sir! Sir! A moment, I beg of you!”
Still fighting for breath, the Abbot tried vainly to question them as they ran. But the limping Kay was the only one he could catch. Kay’s sallow face was blotched and gray with bile, and his eyes had shrunk to pinpoints in his head.
“Tell me, sir,” the Abbot gasped, “what—?”
Kay brushed him aside in a rage. “Gods above, man, don’t you see? The King knows who this is! It’s a name she’s used before when she was up to no good, reversing her real name. This Ganmor of yours is the King’s sister. Your pious nun is Morgan Le Fay!”
LORD, LET IT be soon.
The Father Confessor lay on the hard wooden pallet and fixed his eyes on eternity. He could
feel the morning sun on his face and hands, but his sight was fading, and he was too wasted now to move. Serenely he prepared his soul for its final flight.
Earlier in his sickness it had grieved him terribly that others were suffering too. As disease swept through the convent, he had watched the nuns dying one by one, and shared their pains. Old and young, fearful or steadfast, they had all passed the gates of death, sobbing, praying, or simply closing their eyes. Many, indeed, had been praying to die. After the onset of his own bloody flux, the Father Confessor had been praying too.
Should he have foreseen it all, on the day when the sickness struck? As he went to the chapel that dawn, he had seen a cat lying in the angle of the wall. Sheltered within the curve of her body were five or six kittens, newly delivered and still glistening. She had stared at him with oddly colored eyes, and he had felt his stomach turn. Then as he watched, she had taken the first blind squirming thing between her teeth, and eaten her entire litter, one by one.
By the end of that day, the first four nuns were dead. At the height of the sickness, those left alive were burying their sisters by candlelight. Soon there were none left with the strength to dig a grave. The sick and dying both went untended as he dragged himself from bed to bed to administer the last rites.
Now even that was beyond his failing strength. For days the dead had lain rotting where they fell. He had not had the strength himself to move for a week, and by night he would be dead. The House of the Little Sisters of Mercy, once the Convent of the Holy Mother, was no more. And on her feast day too. This Candlemas there were none to light candles for Our Lady the Virgin, as they always had before.
His soul darkened with grief.
Salve, Maria, salve Regina—
His cracked lips moved painfully through the words of the great hymn to the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven herself. Save me, Lady, save me, he prayed, and have mercy on my poor showing here. I was sent to this place to cleanse the house of sin. I have failed, or God would not have sent this plague to destroy the holy sisterhood, root and branch.
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