Lancelot- Her Story

by Carol Anne Douglas

  That night when Lancelot came to her room, Guinevere asked her to sit down at the little table. Guinevere poured red wine for her warrior.

  After Lancelot had taken a few sips of wine and set her goblet back on the table, Guinevere spoke. "There is no more need to fear that Arthur will discover our love, for he knows that we are together and he will make no complaint. I did not tell him, but he was clever enough to see it."

  Lancelot gasped. She reddened and put her hands to her face. "How can we ever face him again?"

  "I knew you would be distressed, but please try not to be." Guinevere put her hand on Lancelot's arm.

  "He does not have the same feelings you do. Of course he would be dishonored and have to take action if anyone else found out, but otherwise it does not matter to him."

  Lancelot shook her head. "That seems impossible. If you told me you loved someone else, I could not bear it. How could he?"

  "You love me. He does not, as I have told you. He respects me, and that is all I want. I knew I would embarrass you, but I had to let you know that you need not fear him greatly."

  She took Lancelot's hand.

  "How can he be so kind? I cannot comprehend." Lancelot clasped her hand. "I don't know how we can live this way, with him knowing that we love each other."

  "There is no other choice. I am not ashamed, and you must not be ashamed either." Guinevere made her voice sound much calmer than she felt.

  "He can never have you back." Lancelot leaned over and kissed Guinevere's lips.

  "Never," Guinevere affirmed. "We belong to each other now."

  The next time Arthur came to Guinevere's room, he flourished a scroll. "Take a look at this letter from Maelgon of Gwynedd. Do you think there's something insolent in the tone?" he asked.

  Proud that he asked her opinion, she read the scroll and pondered. "It's not insolent enough to require a response, but he bears watching," she told him.

  He nodded. "Exactly what I thought. I like to have your judgment sometimes. It seems that I hardly see you anymore."

  A few afternoons later, he was at her door again.

  Believing that he wanted to consult her again, she smiled in welcome. He sat in a chair by her table.

  "I have heard that Marcus of Dumnonia is settling his disputes with the Irish. Do you think that bodes ill for us? Might he then seek more independence from us?"

  Guinevere paused. "He might. On the other hand, if the Irish make fewer raids on the coast, surely that would be good for the people, Lord Arthur."

  She was pleased at being his counselor or friend, not his mate.

  23 The Raven and the Hawk

  Lancelot and Gawaine rode through a forest in Gwynned, returning from a visit to that land's king, Maelgon. Arthur did not want to leave Camelot, so he sent his cousin on purely ceremonial visits. Gawaine had chosen Lancelot as his companion, which flattered her. But now she was tired of endless feasting at the marriage of Maelgon's son.

  "I am glad that Maelgon has no more sons to marry," she said. "Many more such feasts and I'd be too heavy to fight."

  "Ah, but he has daughters, as we know too well." Gawaine laughed, for Maelgon had tried to match him with the older girl and Lancelot with the younger. "But we managed to escape without offending him too much."

  Lancelot groaned. "If I wanted to be betrothed to anyone, it surely would not be a six-year-old child. Ugh."

  "You're out of danger now," Gawaine said.

  Something heavy fell from the branches over Lancelot's head, knocking her off her horse. Whoever it was tumbled with her. His body pinned her down. His hands tightened on her throat. The fall had stunned her, and it was hard to fight. Gasping for breath, she struggled to break his grip.

  But the man's grip loosened and he slumped over. She was able to turn her head enough to see that he was dead, and Gawaine's sword stuck out of his back. Gawaine stood over them. He lifted the man's body off Lancelot.

  She saw a man with a cudgel running towards Gawaine. She yelled, "Behind you!"

  He pulled out his gore-covered sword, turned to the other brigand, dodged the cudgel, and slashed at him.

  The brigand dropped the cudgel and fell to the ground. He grabbed Gawaine's leg and tripped him.

  Lancelot could scarcely move her right arm, which had been twisted when she fell. She used her left to pull out her knife and throw it, cutting the brigand in the neck. He collapsed.

  Gawaine rose, still panting. "I knew that teaching you how to fight with your left hand would save my life someday." He extracted Lancelot's knife from the dead man's neck. "So much for safety," he said. "A man also tried to land on me, but he missed and fell to the ground. I leapt off my horse and killed him. That's why it took me so long to help you."

  Lancelot shook. "I might never have seen Guinevere again," she gasped.

  Gawaine stared at her. "Guinevere? Do you mean that the two of you..."

  "Oh no," Lancelot said hastily, realizing her mistake, but she felt her face turn red.

  "Great hounds of Annwyn, you don't mean Guinevere's human enough to take a lover!" Gawaine laughed. "Of course I've noticed that you've always stared at her like a starving puppy, but I had no idea she'd give you a chance."

  "Hush!" Lancelot gasped, moving away from the brigand's body, as if even in this desolate place they might be overheard. "You must never tell anyone. Swear you won't, as you are my friend," Lancelot demanded, horrified that she had let her secret out so easily, after being with Guinevere for only a year. Do I protect Guinevere so much less than I protect the secret of my sex? She chided herself.

  "No one will ever hear of your love through me," Gawaine promised. "Don't worry yourself. Perhaps she'll have a child, and that should please Arthur."

  Lancelot choked. She had expected to hear some condemnation of her lying with Arthur's wife.

  "The war is over, but yet we've killed again," she said. She shuddered. "How many more times will I have to kill?"

  "Who knows?" Gawaine said. "It seems that there are no more brigands. Let's leave these by the roadside."

  She nodded, and avoided looking further at the corpses.

  Lancelot realized that she had changed much since the war. Her life was precious to her now, mostly because of Guinevere.

  They rode through glens and across mountains.

  Lancelot eyed Gawaine more carefully. Would he tell that she and Guinevere were lovers? Would it slip out when he drank? The thought that she had betrayed Guinevere by telling him shamed her. She feared to tell Guinevere and face her anger.

  But the journey was difficult enough to demand her full attention. At times their horses had to cross streams rushing high with snowmelt, and the warriors' legs were soaked. Shivering, she wondered if she would catch the ague.

  When they had climbed a hill and were resting their horses, they looked down on a tapestry of green woodlands and lapis lakes. Their beauty made Lancelot's heart ache. It was her first journey away from Guinevere since they had been together. Did Guinevere miss her as much as she missed Guinevere? "If only Guinevere were here." Lancelot sighed.

  Gawaine laughed. "Why should a woman come on such a difficult journey? You're worse than I am, Lance. Even I don't think of bedding women all the time."

  She felt herself flush. "That's not what I was thinking of. I meant that I would like her to see this land," she said, sweeping her hand over the wild places they saw both near and far.

  But Gawaine only laughed, and a raven dipping in the sky and calling seemed to echo him.

  They camped under a grove of ash trees. A drizzling rain that began after midnight disturbed Lancelot only a little. It woke her, but she fell back to sleep.

  Then she saw fields of corpses and woke screaming.

  "Are you all right, Lance?" Gawaine asked from under the next tree. "Nightmares about the war?"

  "Yes." She tried to stop shuddering.

  "We all have them. Want to talk about it?" His voice was gentler than usual.

&nbs
p; "No, thanks. You know what it was like." She stared at the tree above her to remind herself that she was no longer at war. The rain had stopped, but she brushed water from her face.

  "I hope you can rest now."

  "I think I can. Sorry I woke you."

  "That doesn't matter. I can go back to sleep."

  She stretched out again. So men, too, had such nightmares. Well, of course they did.

  Guinevere read her scrolls late into the night, until she began to worry that the dim light might hurt her eyes. Every night she feared there would be a knock at the door, though it seemed that Arthur had plenty of mistresses. She asked Fencha to sleep on a pallet in her room.

  One afternoon when she was discussing tax reports with Arthur in her room, he looked up from a wax tablet.

  "Happy with Lancelot, are you?" he asked. The way he glanced at her was too familiar.

  "Yes." She answered as briefly as possible, and did not meet his gaze. She understood that he was asking whether she wanted him to come to her. She had not guessed that knowing she was with someone else might make him want her again, but she could see that it did, at least a little. She must discourage him. "I fear that Maelgon of Gwynned is cheating on his taxes, my lord, even as Lancelot and Gawaine are paying him a visit in your stead."

  "The ungrateful wretch!" Arthur exclaimed, pounding on the table. But after he had done exclaiming about Maelgon, Arthur asked, "Is there any sign of a child?"

  "No, my lord. I'll tell you if there is." Guinevere looked out of the window, as if to say that was a painful subject.

  When her husband left the room, Guinevere sighed with relief. She would never lie with him again, but she hoped not to have to fight over it. And perhaps such a fight was most likely when Lancelot was on a journey, which happened all too frequently.

  Lancelot was not at war, but there was always a chance that she might not come back. Guinevere could never forget that. She hoarded her moments with Lancelot as treasures that she could go over in her mind every night, like a miser counting his gold.

  As Lancelot and Gawaine rode on, their food was depleted. They tried their luck at hunting, but the deer were hidden from them, and the hares also. Even the grouse seemed to have vanished from the earth.

  "Why isn't Arthur here with us? Perhaps some hand would come out of a lake and offer him food," grumbled Gawaine one night as they camped on the side of a mountain, low enough so they could have shelter under the scraggly mountain oaks and rowan trees and high enough so they could enjoy a view.

  Lancelot laughed at his reference to the tale that Arthur liked to tell. "It may be Merlin that you want, then. Pray a little, and you might get such powers yourself."

  Gawaine shook his head. "No, prayer would produce only bread, and that's the one thing we have already. Besides, your god would more likely turn my bread to stones than these stones to bread."

  "Surely not. There is no doubt compassion for the hungry, even for a miserable sinner like you."

  "Look, that sparrowhawk is harrying a raven."

  So it was, and the raven harried it in turn, but neither injured the other. "They're just jousting, not battling," Lancelot said.

  "As they always do."

  "Like us, Hawk of May." Lancelot referred to Gawaine's childhood name, Gwalchmai. She knew the name because Arthur and the other warriors often made jests about it.

  "Indeed, Raven," he said, grinning, looking at Lancelot's black hair. Raven was her mare's name, so it seemed that he mocked her. "Although surely if I were a hawk I would be larger than a sparrowhawk."

  "No doubt a goshawk at least," she agreed. They watched the sky warriors' contest until the two dipped out of sight. Then the sky began to redden.

  "If only some woman, witch or enchantress, would appear in the sunset," Gawaine said, peering into the rosy sky as if he might be able to discern one. Lancelot stiffened.

  "If there is one, I hope she can create supper out of nothing. I would rather have hot food than the aging oat cakes in my bag."

  Gawaine pretended to sigh. "How shallow of you, to want her only for such mundane things. I want her for herself alone."

  "I can guess what part of herself, too. Don't bother to tell me," Lancelot replied irritably, moving to a slightly more distant rock.

  Gawaine grinned. "So you finally have a woman," he began.

  "That's no concern of yours," she grumbled, getting out her oat cakes.

  But he continued talking as he took off his boot and shook a stone out of it. The colors in the sky were fading. "When you decide to sin, you certainly make no small foray, but charge right in. You might have made a more prudent choice. Remember, there are many others."

  "There are no others," Lancelot asserted, trying to hold her temper.

  Gawaine put his boot back on and took his wine flask from his saddlebag. "Now that you're lying with a woman, I should give you some advice," he said.

  "I don't need any," Lancelot insisted hastily, also refusing his proffered flask.

  Gawaine laughed. "That's not the kind of advice I mean. All I can say is that women like a man to take a long time and pay them every attention." He leaned back against a rock. "What I meant to say is that women are different from each other," he advised. "There's more to it than face, form, and coloring."

  "What?" Was this actually information that he thought had to be imparted? Hadn't he always known that? She tried to keep from expressing even more astonishment.

  "I was just eighteen, visiting home after Arthur's war of succession, when I married my first wife, Keri." He averted his eyes. "I loved her dearly. She was very fair and laughed all the time. We were happy together. When she died in childbed after nine months, I couldn't believe it. Then, a year later, I met a girl who looked something like Keri, and I married her." He swallowed a great gulp of wine.

  Now Lancelot looked away, for the sky was not yet dark enough to hide her face.

  "I realized as soon as I married her that she was nothing like Keri. She was nice enough, but very different. I was so unhappy that she could see it, and I soon saw that she was unhappy too. So I tried to be pleasant to her all the time, to make it bearable for her, and she also pretended to be happy to cheer me up. Then I began to realize that most marriages were like that, or worse.

  "For me, she was only Not Keri. The prospect of spending my whole life with Not Keri was terrifying. But of course I could go off with other women, and live at Arthur's court. She could not turn to other men, and I didn't want her to, but I was sorry for her.

  "I returned when she was going to bear a child, but she died in childbed, too. I hate to admit it, but though I grieved over the death of the baby girl, I was relieved that I didn't have to spend my life married to Not Keri."

  "I suppose she had a name," Lancelot said, trying not to sound too harsh.

  "Of course. It was Anna," he replied.

  Lancelot shivered, pitying that other Anna.

  "So, when I saw that women are different, I decided to try them all," Gawaine added, resuming his usual jesting tone and drinking more wine. "Don't believe that a pretty face and form are enough to make you happy."

  "I certainly won't. I never have imagined that," said Lancelot, thinking it was already clear how miserable she would be with any Not Guinevere.

  "Good. Even if a woman is beautiful, you won't be happy unless she's warm-hearted and can laugh a little."

  Lancelot again found this obvious, and made no reply. Could he possibly be suggesting that he thought Guinevere was cold and could not jest?

  "It's too bad you don't like to hear me tell tales about women. Stories about imagined women are much more amusing than the truth about real ones." Gawaine moved closer and elbowed her in the ribs. "By the way, it was wise of you to choose the only woman in Britain who doesn't want me."

  "I think there might be a few others," she observed.

  They both laughed.

  In the night, Lancelot woke to the sound of moans.

  Gawaine
was crying, "Not the women and children! No, no!"

  "Gawaine! Wake up, you're having a nightmare," Lancelot called out gently.

  He made some unintelligible sounds. "What? Oh, Lance. Thanks, the nightmares about the war go on and on, but they don't always wake me up. I wish they did."

  "Are you well now?"

  "Yes, thanks. I'm fine." However, his voice was not hearty as usual. "Go back to sleep."

  Lancelot rolled on her side and tried to dismiss the memories of war that his groans had brought back to her. Perhaps women and men weren't so different after all.

  Guinevere lay on Lancelot's side of the bed. Lancelot had been gone too long – none of her scent was left on the coverings.

  There was a chance of danger in any long journey. Even in a skirmish with brigands, it was possible to be killed. How long would it be before she knew Lancelot was unhurt?

  Some women claimed they would know immediately if the men they loved died a hundred miles away, but Guinevere didn't believe that.

  However bad a man Gawaine might be, at least he was such a good fighter that Lancelot was probably safer traveling with him.

  But it infuriated Guinevere that he had so much time to be with Lancelot, when she, who loved Lancelot so much, had so little time. Just snatched hours at night, never whole days.

  Guinevere sighed and tried to force herself to sleep.

  After weeks of rain, the sun shone on Camelot. Guinevere burned with desire to course through the fields and the woods. She decided to ride alone, though Arthur didn't want her to do so. Bors had the ague and there were no other warriors she wanted as escorts. Perhaps Dinadan might be acceptable, but he had gone away for a few days. She went to the stables early, at a time when most of Camelot would be breaking their fast, and told Cuall, "I shall ride unaccompanied this morning."

  The old stablemaster frowned at her as few dared to frown at the queen. "If you say so, Lady Guinevere. I and all my stablehands will be drawn and quartered if you meet with any trouble, but do not worry your head about such small things."