Lancelot- Her Story

by Carol Anne Douglas

  Guinevere's whole being was concentrated on watching her. Silently, she willed the lady to ride over to her and speak.

  Seemingly in response to Guinevere's longing, the lady veered and rode over to the well.

  At a closer glance, her skin was flawless, which embarrassed Guinevere, who had a few flaws like many girls of fourteen years.

  Was her hair well combed? Was her gown becoming? She had seldom worried about such things before. She felt awkward.

  "Will you have some water, my lady?" she asked, for the king and his warriors had not drunk all of the water that the servants had drawn for him.

  "Water is the most sacred of drinks," the lady replied, extending her arm. "I give you thanks."

  Guinevere reached up and gave her the dipper, but felt that she could never reach high enough for this lady.

  The stranger drank Guinevere's water, and, without introduction, asked, "What did you think of the High King?"

  Her eyes fixed on the noble face, whose every line she was committing to memory, Guinevere asked without hesitation, "Does he truly want peace?"

  The lady lowered the dipper. Drops of water still sparkled on her lips. Her eyes searched Guinevere's. "You answer my question with another one. Very good. Yes, Arthur is the only one who can bring us peace, though he must do it through war. He will lead just as well in peace as in war."

  "I am not pleased to see our fighters dying in battles with other Britons," Guinevere said, surprised at her own boldness.

  The lady smiled with approval, making Guinevere flush. "What a pity that your father is a Christian. You could have served the Goddess well." She reached down and handed back the tin dipper as if it were a sacred vessel. As Guinevere took it, the lady's fingers touched hers, and she trembled. The lady's hands felt warmer than anyone else's.

  Nevertheless, Guinevere spoke her mind. "I am a Christian, but I wonder what good prayers do. They didn't save my mother's life, or the lives of some of my father's best men."

  The lady's beautiful forehead wrinkled. "Indeed? But women at Avalon, where I was raised, truly spoke with the Goddess. War leaders used to seek the blessing of the Lady before they went out to fight, and even Arthur was pleased to have her support."

  She sighed. "But the Lady is dead now, and all that is gone, but I hope not forever. I hope I can bring it back."

  "May you do so if it would please you. But as for me, I do not want to spend my life praying. I want to be — I shall be — a queen." Guinevere wondered whether she had been too bold, but she wanted the lady to know what stuff she was made of.

  "You will be a queen," the lady replied solemnly, as if she could foresee the future.

  "But do not despise women's prayers. I hope you will use your power to help other women. Did you know that in Ireland there is a council of women? Of course, they speak only of women's matters, but they say a great deal." The lady's voice was not soft, but it drew Guinevere to another world.

  "Would that we were in Ireland," Guinevere answered. "Who are you, my lady?" she finally managed to ask.

  "I am Lady Morgan of Cornwall, the king's sister. I have traveled across Britain with him. I must go now. Remember me always," the lady told her, and rode off through the caer's gate to follow the High King.

  Guinevere wanted to run to the stables, leap on her horse, and follow, but she could not.

  His sister, she thought. How wonderful to meet a woman who had seen much of Britain! For the first time Guinevere thought it might be very good to see places besides Powys. A woman could view the sea, see snow-capped Yr Wyddfa, and visit cities with markets crowded with far more stalls than a fair. When she became queen of Powys, she would travel like the High King's sister.

  While Guinevere still was standing in the courtyard and looking in the direction that the lady had gone, Leodegran rode up.

  "How did your meeting with the High King go?" her father asked, scrutinizing her face.

  "Well enough, I suppose," she said, shrugging.

  Her father sighed.

  "I also met his sister," Guinevere ventured.

  "She's only his half-sister," Leodegran said in a voice that showed little interest. "But I am surprised that he hasn't married her off by now."

  Guinevere returned to the women. Her mind was full that day, but Valeria frowned and did not seem interested in talk.

  "The High King let me ask him questions," Guinevere said.

  Valeria did not look up from the green plaid wool she was weaving. "Don't you want to know what I asked him?" Valeria murmured slightly, not sounding as if she cared.

  Chastened, Guinevere nevertheless continued. "The High King has a sister who's the most beautiful lady I ever saw."

  "I have to concentrate on my weaving or I might make mistakes," Valeria insisted. Guinevere fell silent, but she resented Valeria's lack of interest.

  When evening came, Valeria still failed to speak, so Guinevere came up behind her and tugged lightly at the long brown hair that flowed down her back. "I want to speak with you," Guinevere said. "Come to my room tonight."

  Valeria came to Guinevere's bed, and Macha scolded them. "Go to sleep, girls. Don't talk all night. You'll lose your beauty if you don't get enough sleep, Lady Guinevere, and then where will you be?" Guinevere giggled.

  "Ah, well, soon enough you'll be married, so you might as well spend the nights in girlish giggling while you can," the old woman said, shaking her head. "Blow out the candle soon," she admonished them.

  As soon as the door was shut, Guinevere said, "I never shall marry."

  Valeria's pout had turned to a frown, and she snapped, "Of course you will. I'm the one who'll never marry. I’m going to be shut up in a convent with a lot of pious old women."

  Guinevere couldn't help giggling again. "You won't enter a convent. You aren't pious enough."

  "It's no jest." Valeria's face was unsmiling. "I have no father or mother to find me a husband. My uncle is a priest, and he says that's what I have to do. Whatever you do, you'll at least be in the world, but I'll be shut up like a prisoner." She buried her head in the pillow and wept.

  Sobered, Guinevere put her arms around Valeria and held her tightly. "I won't let you be shut up," she said. "My father's a king. I'll ask him to persuade your uncle to let you stay here with me."

  Valeria stopped weeping and rubbed her hand over her wet eyes. She pulled away from Guinevere. "No, Gwen, I don't want to spend my life in your shadow. You'll be married, and I'd have to go to your husband's caer and spin by the fire like one of your serving women. At least in a convent I'll have a life of my own, even if I don't want it."

  Guinevere drank in those bitter words, and felt no impulse to be falsely cheerful, or to imagine lives for Valeria that she could not provide her.

  "When are you going away?" she asked.

  Everyone always went away and left her.

  "I'm going to the Convent of the Holy Mother this summer," Valeria said. "I asked my uncle whether it was one of those abbeys where they have both women and men, and he frowned and said it was not, and that my asking showed an impious attitude." She sighed, and then she let Guinevere snuggle up to her and sleep close, as usual.

  In Guinevere's dreams, the king's sister came, with a caer that appeared and disappeared into the air, but it was no more magical than the Lady Morgan was.

  Peopled with men and women with the faces of birds and other creatures, the caer was dazzling to Guinevere, and she longed to live there, but it vanished.

  Guinevere turned away from the road where Valeria and her uncle had disappeared, once the dust from their horses settled. Her eyes teared, and she felt as if she were strangling. Nothing but the death of her mother had hurt this much. There was no one else she wanted to be with as she was with Valeria. She couldn't giggle with anyone else or confide in them. What good was it being a king's daughter if she must be alone?

  Not wanting anyone else to see her weep, she walked in the garden. The lilies brought her no comfort. Their fr
agrance reminded her of the scent of Valeria's hair.

  When Guinevere returned to the room that had once been her mother's domain, where the women still spun under the shadow of the Virgin and Child, Macha made clucking sounds.

  “No mournful looks. You mustn't carry on. You're a king's daughter. Someday you'll have a husband who must go off and fight, and then you'll know what it truly is to miss someone."

  Guinevere didn't look at her. She did know what it was to miss someone. Her heart ached, as she had not known hearts could really do. Missing a husband could not be any worse than what she now felt.

  On a hot summer day, Guinevere was called to her father's office, where she found him speaking with a grim-looking priest with grizzled hair. The priest scrutinized her through narrow eyes.

  "This is Father Jerome. He'll improve your Latin and teach you some Greek," her father said.

  Guinevere stared at Leodegran with amazement.

  Many times she had asked for such lessons, only to be told they were not fitting for a girl. Why had her father changed his mind? Had he returned from the war with a new respect for learning? Deciding not to question a blessing, she did not ask.

  Father Jerome frowned at her.

  As soon as Leodegran left them alone, the priest said, "You will be attempting to learn more than any woman should know. It will be like trying to teach a horse to play the harp, but you must behave yourself and do the best you can."

  Guinevere liked him little, but the languages delighted her, even though the tracts he gave her were generally those that cautioned against the wiles and weaknesses of women. She was determined to make no mistakes, just to spite him.

  3 The Witch’s Son

  Gawaine leapt off his horse, tethered him, and scrambled through heather and broom to the rocks of the seabird colony. When he was younger, he had raced his horse through the colony, but he did that no longer. He ran, waving his arms to protect his head from the terns that dove at him to keep him from their nests. A tern struck his arm, and he laughed, though it hurt.

  Puffins, their beaks full of fish for their young, flew into the crevices and burrows that held their nests. Their screams sounded like demented cows, far stranger than the cries of the gulls and kittiwakes. Bird droppings covered the rocks and made them slippery. The stench was overpowering, almost enough to cover the salt smell of the sea.

  Gawaine glanced at a puffin standing on a rock and laughed at its comical face.

  "I'm not hunting you. I leave such pursuits to the boys, and besides, we're roasting a sheep today," he told the bird.

  Another tern struck his arm.

  By the gods, these terns were fiercer than any opponents he had met in fighting practice. He could best any of his father's men, and defeating his younger brother Agravaine was almost too easy to be worth the trouble. When would he face a real challenge?

  Here on Orkney's main island he could not even ride for any great distance. Islands were all very well for boys, but as he grew older it was better to be in a place where he could ride for many days without coming to the land's end. He was too old to live in a place where his mother expected him home for supper every night. Climbing on rocks was not bad exercise, but wasn't it a bit too boyish for one who was nearly sixteen years old?

  He loved the islands of Orkney, but he wanted to visit his father's lands in Lothian. It would be good to see forests again, for there were few trees on the islands.

  Staring out to sea, he tried to spy a dolphin or a whale, but there were none. A seal's head emerged from the waters, and Gawaine thought of the tales he had heard about selkies – people who could change into seals – or seals that could change into people. Most of the tales were about women, but some said that a man also could be taken off to live with the seals. Gawaine half wished the seals would come for him and teach him to live in the kelp beds. He wanted to taste all that life had to offer. He ate Orkney's oysters and mussels as eagerly as venison from the hunt.

  No doubt in some life he had been a seal, darting through the waters. He had been a stallion galloping over the moors. He had been a wolf bringing down the deer. He had been a hawk soaring above the clouds. He thought with pride of his childhood name, Gwalchmai, Hawk of May.

  Gawaine clambered over the rocks until late afternoon, when he reluctantly turned his horse towards home.

  As he approached the caer, he saw that a ship had landed in the harbor and men were carrying boxes away from it. He hoped they might have exciting cargo, such as new swords.

  The sandstone slab caer was small and damp compared with his father's caer in Lothian. Men milled around outside it and his tall mother, unmistakable even from a distance, was in the courtyard. She wore a rust-colored gown and her red-gold braid hung far down her back. The gold in the torque around her neck was not as glorious as the color of her hair.

  He dismounted and hurried over to her. Hounds rushed up to him and begged for his attention. Laughing, he scratched the ears of one and patted another's head.

  "Gawaine, where have you been? Everyone's been searching for you," his mother complained, but her voice was not harsh. It never was to him, though Queen Morgause was often sharp with others.

  "He's been tumbling a girl as usual, no doubt," grumbled his brother Agravaine, who had just recently grown nearly as tall and muscular as Gawaine, and whose hair was just as red as Gawaine's own.

  "No doubt." Gawaine laughed and tossed his head. His breeches were torn in several places, and why not pretend that a girl had done it because she was so eager to be with him? "I have to make them happy, don't I? Mother, can you make a charm for Agravaine so some of the girls will look at him? I do believe he's getting bitter."

  Agravaine howled at this insult. "Just wait until we practice swordfighting and I have a chance to get even."

  "How? I always win. Mother, can you give him a potion so he can beat me, just once, poor lad?"

  Agravaine tried to cuff him, but he held the boy off.

  "Boys, stop your horseplay at once, or I shall turn you into toads!" Their mother tousled both their hair. They ducked away, and she led them toward the caer. Guards saluted as they passed. "No wonder the world calls me a witch when my own sons jest about this calumny."

  "No more than you do," Gawaine retorted. "But if any man dares to slander you in earnest, I'll have his hide."

  "And that you won't." She sighed. "You must curb your anger. I can survive the Christians' vile lies. They say I am a witch because I am the only woman north of Hadrian's Wall who can read."

  "Oh, I won't be angry." He put his hand on his knife because he wasn't wearing a sword. "I won't stab such a man any more than ten times."

  "Gawaine!"

  "If you like, Mother, I'll be gentle and make it only five times."

  She looked into his eyes, which were blue as her own, and her gaze was the steadier. "You'll do no such thing. If you killed every man who called your mother a witch, you'd have to kill more of our people than the Saxons have. Why do you think I jest about it? To calm your nerves on the subject. You cannot spill blood over these old insults, Gawaine. Too many people have heard the tales."

  "About sacrificing dogs and cats? They've never seen the way you cosset our hounds." Several of said hounds were leaping about them, trying to reach up to lick his face.

  She shrugged. "If they knew that, they'd say I consort with them, no doubt."

  Gawaine growled and drew his knife, cutting the air. "No man dare say anything so vile, or his life is forfeit."

  But his mother did not sound overly dismayed.

  "The name of Queen Morgause of Lothian and Orkney will always have rumors attached to it, and there's nothing you can do to stop that. You must learn to feign indifference, especially now that you will go south to fight for your father."

  His heart raced. "My father has sent for me?" Perhaps he would finally have a chance for a real fight. He saw himself defeating a stream of warriors. Lot was a stern father and Gawaine had tried to stay out o
f his way, but he was proud that his father was a notable warrior.

  "Didn't you see the ship come in the harbor? Are you blind?" complained Agravaine.

  "I was off riding. There's a message from father?" He would make the name Gawaine resound with glory. Both his mother and father would be proud of him.

  "Now that King Uther Pendragon is dead, some boy who claims to be his son is trying to gain the throne and become High King of all Britain. Of course your father will fight him," Morgause explained, glancing at the ship in the harbor, then turning back to Gawaine. "And it's time for you to join the fighting, too."

  Gawaine let out a yell of excitement. "At last! I'll win victories for you, Mother, I swear it!"

  "Indeed!" Agravaine glowered, shoving him. "Father has hundreds of men, but you'll be the one who wins the victories! Don't boast 'til you've won them."

  "Well, you'll never win anything except perhaps tavern brawls," Gawaine countered, shoving back.

  "Stop this childishness! Agravaine will go next year, if the fighting continues. Agravaine, be good enough to let me speak with your brother about his journey. Go find Gaheris so we can have supper sometime this evening," Morgause commanded.

  "The child is off watching the men unload the ship."

  Agravaine spoke as if he were overwhelmingly superior to twelve-year-old Gaheris.

  "Well, find him then." She dismissed him with a smile and, grumbling, he went off towards the dock.

  Morgause walked with Gawaine to her room, which had a faint scent of rose petals mingled with the ever-present smell of the sea. There were no very good hangings or furniture because the sea air spoiled them. The best were all at Din Eidyn, his father's fortress in Lothian. Even in summer, a peat fire was burning to keep off the chill. The Orkneys' weather was seldom very cold, but neither was it hot.

  "Try not to tax Agravaine too much. You excel in ways that he never will, so you must be gracious."

  He shrugged. "But it's only because I'm older."