"It grieves me that you don't always find women easy to manage." Morgan teased him. She took his hand. "I do like you."
"Am I better off for that?" Gawaine sighed.
"We're both many good nights better off." She smiled to herself. This time he had been careful to make certain she wouldn't become with child. Little did he know it was years too late to worry about that. And she took her own measures to prevent bearing another child.
Morgan pressed his hand. "I've been so lonely here. You have comforted me."
Finally looking at her, he returned the pressure. "I'm glad for that. I know it's quiet here, but it's beautiful in its way. There are far worse places. Take care that you aren't sent to one of them."
She took hold of his other hand, too.
"If Arthur ever imprisons me, you'll come and rescue me, won't you?" Her tone was pleading, not one she often used.
Gawaine paused, as if measuring what he was being asked to do. Indeed, Arthur would count it treason. "I'll rescue you, if you never tell anyone about Lancelot. If you tell, I'll let you stay wherever Arthur puts you."
With a cry, Morgan dropped his hands. "I am doubly the flesh of your flesh! Your cousin and your lover. Yet you care more about that strange woman." She shook with rage. "How is it that she has such a hold on people?"
"She is good and kind, and never hesitates to risk her life for anyone else's." His voice was quiet, as if Morgan's anger didn't move him in the least.
"And she's beautiful, too. My kinsmen all betray me!" Morgan cried, rising from her chair. Gawaine must be punished. "Oh Arthur, faithless Arthur! He forgets me, but I think of him every moment of my life."
"Even in bed with me, you mean?" Gawaine's voice was low.
"Yes!" That wasn't true, and he probably knew it wasn't, but it was an insult he couldn't ignore. She was determined to wound him.
"Then I shall leave this moment. The rain is not so bad, and there's no lightning. Thank you for your hospitality, my lady." He bowed, picked up his cloak, and turned away.
Any other man would have struck her, but she had known Gawaine would not. Morgan said nothing. She felt sure that he still would rescue her if Arthur imprisoned her, and she had her own reasons never to tell Lancelot's secret. If Gawaine stayed too long, there was a risk that he might somehow learn about their daughter, and make it difficult for her to present the girl, in time, as Arthur's son.
And she had other secrets, other reasons she wanted him to leave. But when he had gone, she went out in the rain, sat on a rock, and wept. Why had she driven away the only man who was kind to her? Why had she risked losing Guinevere's friendship, for that matter? Why was she angry at Lancelot, just because Lancelot could live at Camelot and she could not? Her whole plot had been foolhardy. But she couldn't bear to do nothing, to believe that there was nothing she could do, to be helpless. She howled into the wind.
Tintagel loomed before Ninian as her old mare slowly traversed the rocky causeway. Ninian drank in the salt air, which she had not smelled for long and long, and eyed the waves appreciatively. The wind blew so hard that she could hardly keep her veil from blowing off, but Ninian did not mind the cold as much as some people did. She enjoyed the contrast with the calm breezes near her convent. It was nearly nightfall, time for a nun, even the boldest, to be within doors.
When she arrived, the servants stared at the sight of an unaccompanied nun in that isolated place. Declining rest and refreshment, Ninian demanded to see their mistress.
She was shown to Morgan's private chamber. Although the room was darkening, no lamp had been lit.
Morgan's face paled. "How did you come to be here tonight of all nights? Oh, go away, Lady Ninian! You must leave."
Had Morgan gone mad? Ninian refused to show alarm.
"A fine welcome for a traveler who has come a long way because she worried about you. Word of your doings has reached me, and I came to give you counsel."
Morgan wrung her hands. "Not tonight. Please leave, or at least let my servants show you to your room, and stay there until dawn." Ninian seized hold of Morgan's trembling arms.
"What madness is this? Tonight is no different from any other."
"It is." Morgan pulled away. "I can speak with you tomorrow."
"You will speak with me now, and tell me what is so important about tonight. I won't leave this room otherwise." Ninian sat in a chair to show that she meant what she said.
Morgan shook violently. "Arthur is coming tonight. You must leave me alone."
Ninian stood up and reached for her again, but Morgan eluded her grasp. "I don't believe Arthur is riding all the way from Camelot to see you."
"Not coming that way." Morgan looked at the door, as if to make sure it was closed. "Once a year, Merlin transports him here, as he brought Arthur's father to my mother, in this very room."
"By the holy currents of the air!" Ninian exclaimed. "There is no such enchantment."
"There is! Leave me, leave me please. You can listen at the door long enough to hear his voice, then go to your room for the night. Please, I must see him." Morgan lunged at Ninian to drive her out of the door.
Morgan was so desperate that it seemed better to do as she wanted. "Poor dear!" Ninian said. "I'll wait outside your door. And in the morning we'll talk further."
Ninian found a chair for herself and sat outside the door. She prayed more anxiously than she had in a good while.
But the wait was long, and she had nearly fallen asleep, when she heard Morgan say in a barely audible voice, "You have come."
"I have come to you. You are mine forever." The voice actually sounded like Arthur's.
"Please," Morgan begged, "let me see you in the flesh, not as a specter. Please let me come to Camelot and live beside you. I'll
do only what you want, I swear."
"You'll do what I want, but you'll never come to Camelot. You'll never leave Tintagel for long. You are mine, now and always." The voice was no kinder than the words were.
Ninian shivered.
"Yes, I am yours, now and always," Morgan whispered.
"So you have discovered our secret." Merlin stood beside Ninian. Trying to keep her face calm, she turned to him. He motioned to her to follow him down the hallway, and she did.
"I thought Uther had merely been disguised, not transported, when he came to Arthur's mother while she was still another man's wife. This enchantment is dreadful. You did not learn this in Avalon." Ninian confronted him, accusation in her voice.
Merlin sighed. The wrinkles on his face were much deeper than they had been when she last saw him, years before. "Many years ago, King Uther threatened to kill me unless I made a spell to bring him to Igraine here in Tintagel. Under that threat, I manage to devise the spell. He came, lay with her, and Arthur was conceived, as you know.
"Then after Arthur sent Morgan to exile here, he demanded that I make a similar spell for him because he could not give her up."
"He surely did not threaten to kill you!" Ninian exclaimed in anger. "Why did you do it?"
Merlin looked away from her. "I could never refuse Arthur anything. If you had seen how anxious he was a child, because he did not know who his parents were... He comes here once a year to lie with Morgan. I know no other such powerful spells, only this one for Arthur, to the place where he was conceived. The spell would not aid anyone else."
Ninian shook her head. "You do wrong," she said in her gravest voice. "I would never have thought it of you. At Avalon we learned to revere the laws of the earth, air, and water, not to bend them."
"That's true," Merlin admitted. Slowly he began to fade away, escaping her wrath.
When Ninian saw dawn come through a window and heard the morning cries of the birds, she knocked on Morgan's door. There was no answer, but she entered.
Morgan lay naked on the bed. Her eyes were open, but she seemed barely conscious.
Ninian pulled the covers over her. "How are you?" She felt Morgan's forehead, which was cold, though not
with the cold of death.
Morgan moaned. "Arthur, Arthur."
Ninian tried to soothe her. "I never dreamed he could be so cruel. We must find a way to prevent his coming again in this way." She rubbed Morgan's hands to make the blood circulate more vigorously.
"The sword," Morgan murmured. "Merlin's spell is on the sword to transport them. Arthur hints to clever people that the sword has no magic, which they believe readily, as I did at first. But there truly is an enchantment on the sword. That's why I tried to steal it. I would have persuaded Uriens to give it to me after he had displayed it."
"By all that's holy! Arthur calls you a witch, but it is he who uses enchantments on you! What a reversal!" Ninian made the sign of the cross, not a usual gesture for her when she was away from the convent, but she knew it was a solemn one. "Lancelot would never have retrieved the sword if she had known. We must get it back, but don't use Lancelot, who has so much to lose. You should tell Gawaine what Arthur is doing to you. Gawaine will get the sword away from him."
"No!" Suddenly stronger, Morgan sat up. "No one must know, especially not Gawaine. I wanted the sword so Arthur would have to come to me in the flesh, not as a specter, not in this hidden way. I sent a girl to tempt Gawaine to steal the sword to enhance his own power, but he couldn't be tempted. And neither could Guinevere. I tried with her also. But if Gawaine stole the sword without using it for his power, if he took it to help me, Arthur would know I have been with Gawaine and would never forgive me. Arthur would never come to me again," she moaned.
"And that would be a good thing," Ninian responded.
"No, no. I love Arthur, I must be with him. And he must be with me."
Morgan stared into space, as if she still saw him in the room. "We are bound together forever."
"What a terrible tie!" Ninian cried out. "You must break it, to preserve yourself. If only you had loved Gawaine instead."
Morgan shook her head. "Impossible. I could never love a man who gladly lets another man rule over him. Gawaine pleases me, but Arthur possesses me. It is very different."
"Indeed it is," Ninian said, not thinking the difference was in Arthur's favor.
"Arthur will never be bound to anyone else as he is to me," Morgan said, clutching the blanket as if it were a lover. "He always told me that Guinevere was like a block of wood, that no one could ever possess her."
"Very good for Guinevere." Though Ninian had met the queen only once, she liked her well. "Think on what I have said. I will do all I can for you. I will seek out Gawaine and speak with him if you say the word, but you must decide for yourself."
"I decided long ago." Morgan stared out of the window at the tossing sea, which was no more tumultuous than her face. "When I cursed Arthur, I knew the curse would bind me, too. Better bound in a curse than separated forever."
"Not better. Arthur should find a way for you to live near him, or give you up."
"You are a nun now. You don't understand."
"Believe me, I do." Ninian held Morgan's hands to warm them, although Morgan seemed far removed from her.
31 Truths and Untruths
Lancelot wanted to ride alone in the forest, but as she was making her way down the hill, away from Arthur's caer, a voice hailed her. Turning her head, she saw that Gawaine was riding after her, so she waited for him.
"Could I ride with you? There's a matter that I need to discuss." The cold air made Gawaine's breath visible.
Gawaine generally did not ride for pleasure just after dawn on cold mornings. Lancelot was not eager for a companion, but she nodded.
When they entered the bare-branched forest, Lancelot asked, "What did you want?"
Gawaine didn't look at her. "You won't be pleased to hear this. The men often play pranks on each other, but seldom on you. When you first came to Camelot, I told them you would not stand for such things, and I have often repeated that warning. But now there is a jest that I can't prevent, so I must let you know about it."
Lancelot exhaled. True, what the men thought was amusing, she often did not. "And what is it?"
Gawaine hesitated. "The men often place wagers on whether you and Guinevere lie together..."
"What! How dare they!" Lancelot yelled, startling a woodpecker that flew from a nearby tree.
"I knew you wouldn't like to hear that. Don't be angry at me; I am merely telling you what they do." Gawaine moved his horse away from a fallen log that was in his path. "No one has ever won such a bet, because no one knows for certain whether you are lovers."
"I suppose you don't tell them?" Lancelot asked indignantly.
"Of course not. Now there is a new bet. Some of the men plan to get you drunk – that is, to give you drugged wine because it's impossible to make you drink too much."
"Who is it? I'll fight them," Lancelot cried, digging her heels into her mare's flanks more fiercely than she had intended.
"Will you please listen? I'm trying to help you. Then, they intend to send you to a woman who will pretend to be Guinevere."
"Infamous!" Lancelot pulled on the reins, making Raven stop. "How can you speak so calmly?"
Gawaine halted his horse beside hers. "The idea is that you would lie with her because you thought she was Guinevere."
Lancelot trembled with rage. "That's most disgusting idea I've ever heard. And these men claim to be my friends! Why haven't you put a stop to this scheme?"
"Because I think you should go along with it."
"Have you taken leave of your senses? Did you just meet me for the first time, that you think I would do anything so vile?"
"Control your indignation and listen to me, why don't you?" Gawaine's face reddened, but Lancelot suspected that her own was much redder. "Of course, you wouldn't really lie with her. You would slip away before you entered the room, and I'd do it for you."
"You're completely mad." Lancelot was almost too stunned to be angry. "Why would you ever think I'd agree?"
"Because it would prove that you're a man." Gawaine spoke as if what he said was obvious.
For a moment, Lancelot could not say anything, almost could not breathe. "No one has doubted that, have they?"
"No, but they might someday. And there's another point to be gained. The scheme would show that you've never lain with Guinevere. We could act as if you were greatly surprised by the honor, and you – that is, I – wouldn't recognize that it's not Guinevere. After all, it's likely that a man would know how his lover acts in bed. So the men who are betting that you aren't lovers would win their bet. You don't want people to believe that you and she are lovers, do you?"
"Of course I don't. I try mightily to prevent that. I don't speak with her much in public."
"But your face shows your true feelings."
A couple of crows began arguing with one another.
Lancelot shook her head. "I can't believe that even you would agree to such a revolting plan. And who would the woman be? She would certainly know that you weren't me. I don't suppose you'd shave your beard to make that less immediately obvious."
Gawaine put his hand to his beard. "Shave my beard? Never! There's a limit to what I'd do to help you."
"Help me! You talk about lying with a woman to help me! What arrant nonsense."
"Stranger things have happened." Gawaine moved his shoulders as if he were laughing.
"What about the woman?" Lancelot clenched her fists. "Again, I ask who would this poor woman be?"
"All I've heard is that she's never been to Camelot, or even seen you. So I'm betting that she doesn't know whether you have a beard or not."
"So she's some poor whore they're paying to do this?" Lancelot shook with anger. "You know what I think about buying women."
"Indeed. And I now agree with you about that." Gawaine's voice was much calmer than hers. "But surely they couldn't pick some downtrodden girl or girl with who acted whorish to pretend to be Guinevere. That would never work."
"And what if I just refuse to go along with their little plot?" Lancelo
t patted her horse, but her hand was not as gentle as usual.
"Then they'll know I warned you, and they'll come up with some other scheme and won't tell me. I think you should go along with this one, distasteful though it might be to you," Gawaine advised.
Lancelot wondered whether he might be right, or whether she was losing her mind. "What if Guinevere learned about it?"
Gawaine laughed. "She never will. You will do it."
"I don't know..." Lancelot shook her head, but she would think more about the idea.
Lancelot rode with several other warriors, Gawaine among them, to a fighting contest at a caer that was two days' journey from Camelot.
It was still early in the year, but the weather was mild enough to fight without freezing. As usual, Lancelot won.
The evening after the contest, Camlach, the lord of the dun, held a feast. But after they had finished eating, Bedwyr proposed that the warriors from Camelot go off and drink together.
Saying, "I'll stay in the hall," Gawaine nodded to Lancelot. That was the sign – her companions would give her the drugged wine that night.
She went with them to the house where they were staying. Lancelot had a bed of her own, so all she had to do was keep her clothes on, and no one knew that she was a woman.
"I have some excellent wine, better than anything they served us in the hall," Bedwyr said. "Lancelot, you're the victor. You try it first."
"Thank you," she said graciously, inclining her head. "I believe I shall." She pretended to drink deeply from the goblet he handed her, but she wore long, flowing sleeves, and was able to pour some in the sleeve.
Even the little bit she drank made her a trifle sleepy. It was not long before she said, "It seems that the contest tired me. I'll go to the other room and lie down."
Everyone bade her goodnight.
She went to the other room and rested on the bed. Soon, a pebble came through the window, which was close to the ground.
Lancelot looked up. A serving man was at the window.
"My lord," he said, "Queen Guinevere is here and has sent for you. Come through the window and I'll take you to her."
Lancelot- Her Story Page 50