The Knight of the Sacred Lake

by Rosalind Miles

  High summer had never bloomed so gloriously. Leaving Avalon, they traveled through long purple evenings and warm rosy dawns. Rich swathes of golden corn covered the hills, and plump pigs and calves roistered in sunny pens. At every smallholding some sunburned harvester, toothless ancient, or wide-eyed child would stop in their tracks to hail the Queen’s procession with a cheer. Even the wayside flowers, wild rose and honeysuckle, poppy and marigold, thronged the verges to give her a welcome home.

  At last they were cresting the final mountain ridge. Night was falling as the weary horses stumbled down the hillside through the trees. And there it was, the beloved stronghold of a thousand queens, its white towers and battlements glowing in the moonlight, its banners reflected in the ring of bright water below. Sighing with relief, she crossed the causeway, rode up the cobbled streets to the great gates, and allowed the old castle to enfold her in its arms again.

  CAMELOT, CAMELOT, HOME—

  At first, she could only lie on a daybed in the Queen’s apartments, and watch the sun creeping along the wall. Hour by hour she relived the time she had spent with Lancelot, and her heart grew strong. In that short time on Avalon, they had had more joy, more truth, more sharing of souls and bodies than most people ever knew. She had had a love, a great and mighty love, and for that she would thank the Mother as long as she lived.

  And she had him still. Every evening at sunset when the love-star bloomed, she lit a candle in her turret window to shine for Lancelot, wherever he was. One night the flame flared up, and in the heart of it she saw him far away. He was kneeling to pray in the path of the setting sun, and the red-gold beams bathed all his limbs with fire. She could even catch the words falling from his lips: My lady, oh, my love—

  From the angle of the sun, she knew he was traveling east. Every dawn then brought the comfort that the rising sun would tell her where he lay. So day by day she grew stronger, till she was walking, and taking the air, and riding out again. Day after day roses blazed from the castle walls, and the woodland beckoned with its cool green shade. Night after night the roses poured out their fragrance, and the song of the nightingale dropped through the air like tears.

  She lived now in full acceptance of the sadness at the heart of love. There could be no joy like theirs without great pain. A melancholy peace possessed her heart. Lancelot was with her, he was part of her, and that was a truth as enduring as the earth.

  But so was Arthur too. She had not seen him since the day she rode away, and he had made no demands, seeming to understand her need to be alone. Yet though absent, he was present everywhere. Every day in Camelot she saw again the Arthur of their youth. In those days he had loved Camelot, the wind-tossed towers with their slender spires, the strong walls and the snug dwellings, and she had been overjoyed to have his praise. The white castle had been their wonderland, their palace of delight. When had they lost that love? How long had they kept their kingdoms and their lives apart?

  She did not know. But she knew that she had once loved Arthur more than her life. He is your duty and your destiny, the Lady had said. What duty? What destiny? were the questions that tormented her now. And what would she say to him when he came? For he came at last, as she knew he had to do.

  HE CAME ON one of those days of cruel beauty at the peak of a long hot summer, before the sun must die and leave the earth to the cold. A dewy dawn had passed through a flaming noon, and the evening shadows were lengthening when Ina came to her in an arbor and said, “The King is here.”

  He was standing in her apartments gazing out through the window, a bewildered, bearlike figure, quite alone. He wore a plain dark tunic with dark breeches, and seemed to have put off his royalty along with the cloak on the nearby chair. He looked tired and sad, and she had a sudden impulse to take him by the hand. But as she drew near, his air of hopeless resignation maddened her. Why had he bothered to come, if he already thought it was in vain?

  “Guenevere—”

  Arthur’s heart constricted in his chest. Why did she look so remote? He had ridden every mile from Caerleon longing to see her, picturing the moment when he could take her in his arms. Now she turned a cold cheek to him, and his resolution died.

  “Guenevere,” he began again with effort.

  “Arthur?”

  He made no move toward her, she noted with a spasm of pain. “Welcome,” she said in an empty voice.

  Beside him on a table were a clutch of boxes, wood, ivory, and silver, curiously inlaid. Guenevere stared at them with cold dislike. Did he think to buy back her love with his gifts?

  Arthur noticed the direction of her gaze. “Oh, just a few things I brought.” He waved at them with an indifferent hand. Dear God, he cried inside, why can’t I speak? He had done all he could to make things perfect now. He had overcome his first mad impulse to ride straight to Guenevere, and had left her alone all this time, praying she might come to love him again. He had chosen the gifts so carefully, poring over them for weeks. Now the moment was here, he was throwing it away. He watched in hopeless fury as Guenevere drew near, then pressed the first of the boxes into her hands.

  It was made of carved sandalwood, and no bigger than a glove. Inside, wrapped in red velvet, was a crystal mirror the size of a lady’s hand. The glass was smoky and mysterious. As she looked into it, she saw another Guenevere, softer and happier, smiling in its depths.

  The second box was of ivory, with woodland scenes and figures etched on the top and sides. As she lifted the lid, she saw what looked like a pool of starlight glimmering inside. It was a length of pale shining silk, as fine as the gossamer for a wedding gown. Her fingers snaked out to touch it in spite of herself.

  “Ohh—” she cried.

  Arthur’s voice was low. “I thought it might remind you of our wedding day.”

  He reached out to pick up the third box himself. It was a square, flat silver casket, lovingly chased. His big hands stroked the surface, tracing the face of the full moon on the lid.

  “The sign of the Queen of Heaven,” he murmured, “for the queen of my heart.”

  He opened the box. Inside lay a fine diadem of spun gold, spangled with bright-stones shining like the stars.

  Guenevere gasped, and tears leaped to her eyes. The loveliness of it was almost too much to bear. She thought of her mother, and wished she could see it too. A single sob shook her from head to foot. A moment later she had it in her hands.

  Arthur’s smile could not drive the sadness from his eyes. “Take it, Guenevere. I had it made for you. You’ll wear it as a Queen, and a great one, too. You were born to rule, and you come of a great line.”

  He stifled a sigh, and tried for another smile. “All my life, I was only Merlin’s boy. When I met you I was a king without a kingdom, riding on my hopes and little else.” He laughed sadly. “You made me a man, Guenevere. You taught me my worth, and all I did was to outrun my strength.”

  Guenevere nodded.

  I made you King, yes, and High King too, when the Britons most needed a champion to unite the land and defeat the Saxon hordes. But the island’s gain was fated to be my loss.

  Arthur looked at Guenevere. “Your mother loved you, and you were used to being loved. I did not love you enough.”

  “Love is not all. Love and duty are the twin poles of life.”

  “Ah, duty!” He let out a ragged breath. “I failed you there as well. When we married, I swore to fight for you, and keep the worship of the Great Mother alive in these isles. I thought I could let Sir Mador make his challenge, and still check the Christians in their search for blood.” His voice was bleak. “I was wrong.”

  “Arthur, listen to me—” She paused. Why did it hurt her to see him suffering so? “Kings and queens have power, but they do not have free choice.”

  “No excuses, Guenevere.” The great head went back in unconscious pride. “It’s all over now, in any case. I’ve come to make my final peace with you. Through my folly and vanity, I’ve lost two sons, and now I must lose you.”r />
  “Lose me?” What gave him the right to decide what happened to them both? “What are you talking about?” she said angrily.

  “Morgan,” he said. He was very pale. “She’s here.”

  An impulse of pure terror ran through Guenevere. “Here in Camelot?”

  Arthur gave a bitter smile. “No. But not far away. She’s destroyed the convent where she used to live. It’s only a matter of time before she comes for me.”

  “Arthur, Arthur,” she cried in anguish, “you don’t deserve to die!”

  “Perhaps I do. But it’s not for us to decide. The Great Ones spun our thread when the world was born.” He straightened his broad back, facing blindly into the dying light. “And I am ready now, in any case. The sins of my father have to be answered someday.”

  “No, Arthur, no, not yet! And you should not have to pay for what he did.” What was it about his mute dignity that moved her to tears, the tall heavy body stiffly braced for the worst? “Listen to me. It can’t be, and it won’t!”

  He came toward her and gently took her hands.

  “Someday it must, we always knew that,” he murmured softly. “Morgan will not rest till her wrongs are avenged. And when it comes, little one, you must not grieve.”

  “I will, I will,” she cried, “but it won’t be yet!”

  In a passion of fury, she tore her hands from his and beat his chest. “Arthur, listen to me! I saw the Lady in Avalon as I came here. She told me for sure that you’re not going to die.”

  “What?”

  The words of the Lady filled Guenevere’s mind.

  Arthur’s time has not yet come. He is not ready for the last crossing of the water, where he and I shall meet.

  Slowly she repeated them to Arthur, word for word. “The Lady never lies. Morgan means some mischief, yes, that must be true.” She took a breath. “But whatever comes, we’ll face it together, as we’ve always done.”

  As she spoke, wild disbelief, then hope, flooded Arthur’s face. Before she finished speaking, he was weeping with relief. He buried his face in his hands, and his words came to her muffled by pain.

  “Oh, Guenevere, could you find it in your heart? I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

  The thought of Lancelot came as an answering pain. “Don’t say that, Arthur. There are some things you have to forgive me too.”

  He shook his head, smiling through his tears. “No, Guenevere. You’re a wonderful woman, and you’ve always been good to me. Whereas I—”

  He turned away, and his eyes filled again.

  “You’re not a bad man, Arthur. Give yourself credit for the good you have done.” Her voice had a sharper edge than she would have wished.

  He gave a tremulous smile. “You don’t change, Guenevere, do you know that?” Longingly his eyes caressed her face. “You’re still as beautiful to me as you ever were.”

  “Oh—” Guenevere waved her hand. She did not want his praise. “You are my husband. And I care for you.”

  “And I for you.”

  He paused, then looked her steadily in the eye. “Not even Amir was more to me than you.”

  Amir—

  A moment later, Arthur had her in his arms. “Cry, sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair.

  He wrapped her in the shelter of his cloak. She clung to his broad chest, and the tears ran down her face.

  Amir, my heart’s darling, dearer to me than all.

  She thought of her baby’s little body, his round head, and his eyes, so like Arthur’s with their wide, trusting gaze. She could feel his warm weight in her lap, and the satin smoothness of his rounded limbs. His fresh child’s smell, as sweet as summer hay, came to her in a needle point of memory so sharp she could have cried aloud. And all this sweetness gone with Amir, never to return.

  She felt Arthur’s chest shaking as she clung to him, and knew that he was weeping too. Suddenly she was flooded with a new dimension of their mutual pain.

  If I had been the cause of Amir’s death—

  If I had to bear that knowledge along with the grief of his loss, how would I live?

  And this is Arthur’s doom, his daily fate. Yet still he is loving to me, faithful to his knights, good to his people, and kind to all the world.

  “Arthur—”

  Love for him surged through her like a tide. She raised her arms and threw them around his neck, drawing down his face for a kiss. Startled, he pulled back. The look of mingled hope and hurt on his face stabbed her afresh.

  “Guenevere, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Don’t speak.”

  The last words of the Lady sighed in her ears like the sea.

  Ah, Guenevere, you and Arthur will have many years together now. And love will come to you.

  Gently she stroked his cheek. He looked at her with lovelight in his eyes. The dying sun lit up the golden stubble on his chin, and her fingers found the soft spot at his temples where the gold was turning gray. She could feel the old love rising from primeval depths. At the same time a new desire washed through her, and left her weak and panting in its wake. They stood for a moment clinging to each other like survivors of a wreck. Then she took his hand, and led him to her bed.

  CHAPTER 56

  In the Great Hall of Camelot, the two vast bronze thrones stood empty for Arthur and Guenevere, with Arthur’s knights in attendance behind. Around them a packed court buzzed and hummed and held its breath. All knew that Sir Agravain had been brought to judgment by Sir Gawain. And as the word spread of how Queen Morgause and her knight had died, most of those present had no doubt what the judgment should be.

  Gawain could feel all their eyes as he stood at the front of the court. Twitching with tension, he shifted from foot to foot. The endless weeks dragging Agravain south had been almost too much to bear. Gaheris now had a new and bitter edge, and the gentle Gareth was cheerful and childlike no more. Gawain stirred again, and cursed violently to himself. Where was Arthur? When would their ordeal end?

  But whatever the judgment, Queen Morgause and Lamorak had not gone unavenged. He did not know what had happened between Leif and the knight companions and Agravain, and he would not guess. All he knew was that the pursuers had been faithful to their oath. The experts in the art of inflicting pain, in the delicate play between sinew, bone, and nerve, had kept their knives in their sheaths.

  But in the morning they were gone, and their work had been well done. Agravain was lying curled up in a corner of the tent. At first he could only gibber and moan by turns, and when they forced him to eat, he retched and spewed like a dog. When speech returned, he would only scream or curse. They had feared then that he would never be right again.

  The weeks on the road had brought a semblance of calm. But the old sneering Agravain was no more. In his place was a creature who would carry his torment with him forevermore, as a snail bears its shell. Amid the ruins of his former peace, it gave Gawain some consolation that Agravain was paying for his crime.

  And thank the Gods, it would soon be over now. Gawain sighed with relief as the voice of the chamberlain boomed through the hall. He had done all he could in bringing Agravain here. It was in the hands of Arthur from now on.

  Gawain looked sick and Agravain far worse, Guenevere noted as she took her seat. What had happened to turn the darkest of the Orkney princes into a bleached shadow of himself? But by the time Gawain finished speaking, she understood. The horror of it was almost beyond belief. And these were Arthur’s kin. What would he do?

  Gawain was coming to the end of his address. “I swore to my mother that Agravain would receive justice here. I beg you, sire, give judgment in this case.”

  A deep hush fell on the court. Arthur leaned forward.

  “Sir Agravain, you are charged with the death of Sir Lamorak. Killing a knight is a capital offense. What can you say to defend yourself from death?”

  Agravain stepped forward and stood before Arthur, his thin body motionless, his hand clamped with a deadly rigor on the hi
lt of his sword. Only his eyes were alive in his staring white face.

  “Lamorak was a traitor,” he pronounced in a shrill monotone. “He tried to kill me when I found him out. I had to strike him down in self-defense.”

  Arthur frowned. “Lamorak a traitor? He and his father were loyal all their lives.”

  “To the House of Pendragon!” came the high-pitched reply. “Not to the house of Lot. His father killed my father at the Battle of Kings. And Lamorak dishonored my mother to complete his revenge.”

  “Dishonored her? How?” demanded Arthur.

  “He lay with her as her lover, though he was young enough to be her son. He—he—”

  “Sir Agravain—”

  Gods above, what a loathsome thing he is!

  Guenevere fixed her eyes on the contorted face and forced down the revulsion that she felt. “Every queen has the right to take a chosen one. You dishonor your mother far more by saying this.”

  “No woman would choose a man who had killed her husband!” Agravain shrilled. “He must have forced himself into her bed.”

  The image of Morgause, leaning back toward Lamorak with starlight in her eyes, rose before Guenevere. With it came a sorrow too deep for tears. Wrong, wrong, Agravain. How hateful and cruel you are.

  Arthur sat up with a sardonic laugh. “So you’re saying that Sir Lamorak was a rapist too? Tell me, sir—”

  But Agravain was deaf. “He used her, and refused to marry her,” he screeched. His voice rose to a new dramatic height. “I was defending the honor of our house!”

  Guenevere put her hand on Arthur’s arm. “All lies,” she said with quiet authority. “Morgause told me herself that Lamorak begged her time and again to marry him. He was the son of a king, and he longed to make her his queen.”

  “I know he lies with every word he says,” growled Arthur. “Lamorak was the most loyal soul alive. Thank God his father hasn’t lived to see this.”

  Guenevere took a breath. “So, what is it to be?”

  Arthur paused. “Agravain’s a liar and a murderer. He killed Lamorak, and caused his mother’s death. For both those reasons he deserves to die.”