The Idylls of the Queen

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Merlin then went on to prophesy that the child in question was to be born on May Day. Arthur had been bestowing his kingly body as generously as he could upon the ladies of his realm, to the point where he could not be sure how many lords’ children were really bastards of the High King. So, to be on the safe side, when the time came he sent for all the male children born to noble parents in the last sennight of April and the first sennight of May. At first he offered rewards, and when that did not bring in enough baby boys, he threatened death for non-compliance. Then he put all the babies in a leaky ship with a few loose staves in the bottom, and no mariners or adults on board, and sent them out into a stormy sea.

  I counseled him against it, to the utmost of my power. Sir Ector, our father (my real progenitor and still the only father Artus knew), counseled him against it. So did Ulfius, Brastias, Baudwin, Hervise de Revel, and Father Amustans, Arthur’s confessor, who called it Herod’s massacre of the innocents all over again. So did our old nurse. But Merlin the Great had prophesied.

  As far as anybody knew, Mordred was the only child who survived when the ship broke up on the rocks; and it was a few years before anybody knew about that, since Sir Antor and his wife, who found him, were understandably shy about mentioning that their new foster-son was one of the May Babies. Probably a lot of the infants on that ship, however, were peasant-born boys who had been substituted for the ladies’ own sons, so even if Merlin had prophesied true, Arthur’s precaution was as good as worthless. Meanwhile, King Lot, angrier than ever at the supposed murder of his youngest son, had easy recruiting for his new rebel alliance; and Artus, suffering fits of conscience, had his famous nightmare immortalized in a stone carving in Camelot cathedral, to remind himself that he had acted for the ultimate good of the realm.

  He had spared his first known bastard, Dame Lyzianor’s son Lohot, because Lohot was born in midwinter; but he loved Lyzianor’s son better after Lohot was finally dead of other causes than while he was still alive. Maybe the real reason Artus never had an heir of his wife’s body was that he feared Dame Guenevere’s son might be born on May Day.

  While my mind had slipped into the past, Mordred’s had apparently stayed on the business at hand. Maybe that was natural, since he himself had set up the pawns for his game. “Bademagus’ nephew Astamore; Pellinore’s nephew—or possibly bastard—Pinel; Ironside, once sworn to kill Gawain and Lancelot; and all the sons of Lot and Morgawse.” He drew his dagger, flipped it, and caught it by the jeweled handle as he rode. “It should be an interesting gathering at Astolat, Sir Seneschal, even if the poisoner of Sir Patrise is not among us. I rather hope Dame Nimue cannot find out the truth too easily with her crafts.”

  CHAPTER 10

  In the Castle of Sir Bellangere

  “Sir Bellangere le Orgulous, that the good knight Sir Lamorak won in plain battle.”

  —Malory XIX, 11

  We reached Arlan Castle shortly before vespers. I would have preferred going farther; but as Mordred pointed out, even at our present speed we would easily reach the Lake and return with Dame Nimue to Astolat by the appointed time. He went on to remark that folk speed better by day for having a good supper and warm bed at night. I suspect his real reason for insisting on the hospitality of Arlan was to bait Sir Bellangere, who had not yet rejoined court after wintering in his own castle.

  Bellangere the Proud was a protege of the late Sir Lamorak de Galis, and one of those who believed, on no visible evidence, that Lamorak had been innocent in the death of Queen Morgawse. Thus, Bellangere had less than no love for any of Lot’s sons (except, of course, Gareth Beaumains the Guiltless), or for anyone who rode in their company by choice and not simple chance. But as lord of the castle, Bellangere was bound to observe the laws of hospitality and see to the comfort and welfare of any guests, especially brother companions of the Round Table. It did not have the makings of a cozy situation for anyone but Mordred, who seems to relish being hated for the love of being hated.

  Bellangere’s elaborate care in having us shown to the best rooms and provided with the most expensive robes was little short of sarcasm, and I returned the compliment more than once before he left me alone with my squire to change my clothes. I would rather state my mind and take the consequences than mouth simpering courtesies to fools.

  “You should at least temper your tongue to your host, sir,” said Gillimer. He who thought himself over-ripe for knighthood, and showed it.

  “And you should temper your tongue to your betters, if you don’t want to stay a squire all your life.”

  “Maybe I will. Men listen when Gouvernail and Eliezer give good advice.” Occasionally Gillimer shows a flash of understanding.

  “Men listen to Gouvernail and Eliezer because they’re sensible, not because they’re old squires. You’d better settle for aiming at knighthood and battering your equals around the field. You’re no Eliezer or Gouvernail.”

  “Neither are you a Sir Gawain or Sir Tristram, sir.”

  “If you ever win the accolade, Sir Wisewords,” I said, “you’ll find I’m still jouster enough to give you a fall, and not just for practice.”

  Before our jolly company was reassembled in front of the hall fire, Dames Lore of Carlisle and Elyzabel had arrived to seek the Hospitality of Arlan. I suppose Bellangere greeted them more warmly than us. They had taken longer to reach his castle, it seemed, because they had been looking in more nooks and crannyholes for Lancelot. They had made up the time, however, by changing their robes more quickly than we.

  “It doesn’t make sense for us to cover the same ground,” I said at supper. Gawain would have prefixed the statement with some flowery apology to the effect that “Delightful as was the company of the fair ladies…”

  Dame Elyzabel had recovered the talent for courtesy, or diplomacy, or whatever it was that had not helped her sweet-talk her way out of King Claudas’ prison some years ago. “It would be a pity to lose your noble company at the day’s end, my lords,” she began, courteously if insincerely.

  Mordred raised his cup of ale as if in a toast. “By all means, my lady, let us keep up the social graces until the very end.”

  “Or until tomorrow morning,” I said. “We could make a more thorough search if we spread out. Why don’t you ride southwest, toward Salisbury?”

  “With so many pairs in the search,” replied Elyzabel, “it would be surprising if we did not encounter another couple, whichever way we rode.”

  Mordred smiled. “And you would prefer to stay near us two for the simple joy of our company. Or have you some other reason?”

  Lore of Carlisle looked at me. “Perhaps we are searching the same ground more carefully, we two dames, than you.” She had not veneered her manners as carefully as had her dark-haired kinswoman. “Do you really wish to find Sir Lancelot, Seneschal?” Lore went on.

  “It cuts both ways, Dame Suspicion. Would Lancelot want to be found by me? Or, for that matter, by anyone?”

  “Surely he could not object to being found by the charming ladies,” said Mordred. “But you may, of course, have another reason for keeping us in sight, mesdames.”

  By now, another host would have tried to change the subject. Bellangere was content to sit and look on, probably hoping Mordred and I would be bested.

  “Perhaps my lord Sir Mordred has a guilty conscience,” said Dame Lore. “What reason do you think we might have for following you purposely, other than distrust of the care with which you might be searching?”

  There were a few moments of silence that no one, not even Elyzabel, tried to fill, while Mordred ate a few bites of veal and wiped his fingers daintily on his bread. Then he replied, “Let us play a small game of trust and mistrust, Dame Lore. Give me a short time alone with your cup, and take that same time alone with mine. Afterwards, we will pledge each other to drain off the contents of our respective cups.”

  “That wasn’t humorous, Mordred,” I said. If Bellangere would not stop it, someone else should.

  “
I did not mean it to be humorous.” Mordred shrugged. “Well, if we are not to prove our mutual trust and friendship, we had best speak of other matters. Perhaps our good host can suggest a subject of harmless mirth for the supper hour.”

  Bellangere tossed a piece of meat to his hounds. “It’s been some time, my ladies, since I heard news of Sir Aglovale, or his brother Sir Tor le Fils Vayshoure.” He must have been waiting for a convenient opportunity to bring King Pellinore’s last remaining sons into the conversation. No doubt he was hoping they had recently done something great that would rankle Mordred when Lore and Elyzabel recounted it.

  “Le Fils Vayshoure wintered in his own castle, like you,” I said, “doing very little of note.”

  “The greatest knights of us all do very little, by your account of them, Sir Kay,” said Bellangere. “What of Aglovale?”

  “Sir Aglovale won honor in the North Downs about Candlemas,” said Elyzabel. “Encountering a band of robber knights, he struck down four and routed the others, rescuing a gentlewoman and avenging her lord, whom they had just slain.”

  “He may have struck down four, but he brought back two heads,” Mordred remarked. “Some wonder if the fair dame’s lord was already dead when Sir Aglovale came into the field, or if he survived long enough to help drive off the scoundrels. But, of course, noble deeds must be expected of the brother of the great Sir Lamorak de Galis.” Mordred rarely mentioned his mother’s lover and murderer, but when he did, you could hear real bitterness beneath his customary sarcasm.

  I did not pity our host. Bellangere had brought the implied slur on his patron’s memory down on himself. “It does not befit a guest,” said Bellangere, “to speak ill of his host’s friend beneath his host’s roof.”

  Mordred tossed it off. “I attempt to match my geniality with that of my host.”

  “Let him prattle, my lord,” said the Dame of Carlisle. “If an enemy of Mordred’s accomplishes any great deed, be sure Mordred and his brothers will always lessen it.”

  “Which is not that much worse than puffing a small deed into a great one with a lot of brag and boast,” I said.

  “Each man recognizes his own faults the most clearly in others, my lord Seneschal,” said Dame Lore with overwhelming originality.

  “Is that the way you recognize Mordred’s talent for lessening his enemies’ achievements, my lady Cupbearer?” I inquired, wondering secretly why I bothered to defend Mordred.

  “Sir Aglovale le Fils Pellinore is not our enemy,” said Mordred. “If he were, he and his brothers would have avenged their father and brother on us. But, of course, they understand that the deaths of Pellinore and Lamorak were just.”

  “That is false!” Bellangere sprang to his feet. “King Pellinore killed King Lot in plain battle!”

  “Why, so did my brother Gawain strike down King Pellinore in honest battle,” said Mordred, obviously delighted, in his sleek way, at having goaded his host into so far forgetting hospitality.

  “Although Sir Pellinore was his brother of the Round Table—although Pellinore himself had gotten Gawain his seat!” cried Bellangere.

  “Gawain would eventually have won his seat at the Table without Pellinore’s good graces,” said Mordred, “or even in despite of Pellinore. And had it not been prophesied… how many times? that Gawain would finally avenge his father’s death? Merlin even went about writing it in gold on the tombs of knights who had nothing to do with either Gawain or Pellinore. What could my brother do but fulfill the prophecy?”

  “Merlin and his bloody prophecies,” I said. I would have said more, but no one was paying attention to anything except Bellangere and Mordred.

  “And what of that noble knight Sir Lamorak?” shouted Bellangere. “Had it been prophesied that you four would close in on him from all sides and cut him down in pure treachery?”

  That seemed to checkmate Mordred slightly, but only for a moment. “The old gossip begun by a few silly squires and spread by idle folk who were not there to see it, eh? Yes, it’s true we searched for the traitor Lamorak together, my Lord Bellangere—we were all of us the true sons of Queen Morgawse—but when he was found, Gawain fought him alone. Would the sons of King Lot repay even a traitor with treachery?”

  “Yes, by God,” said Bellangere, “I think you would, Mordred—you and your brother Agravain. But I’ll say this for Gaheris—he may be another murderer like the rest of you, but at least he has some sense of honor.”

  “Credit the rest of us with brother Gaheris,” said Mordred. “We were all there to see justice done, but Gawain fought Lamorak fairly, man to man, for more than three hours.”

  Bellangere snorted. “Gawain could never have lasted three hours alone against Lamorak de Galis.”

  Mordred rose to return Bellangere’s stare at eye level. “The honor belongs to Lamorak for lasting so long against Gawain, and it is more honor than the traitor deserved. But if your noble Lamorak de Galis was killed by treachery, it was no more than he merited for cutting down in her bed a woman who trusted him.”

  “And who is Gawain, to avenge a murdered woman? What of Sir Ablamar’s lady?”

  That had happened while Mordred himself was a suckling infant, but the story was well known. Gawain had Ablamar down when the lady ran in between their blades and caught the stroke meant for her lord. Gaheris, who was standing by and watching, blamed Gawain, a little late, for not showing mercy to Ablamar earlier; but the lady’s death itself had been sheer accident.

  “My brother killed that dame in the heat of battle and by misadventure,” said Mordred. “The great Lamorak killed our mother naked in her bed while she waited for his embrace.”

  “Lamorak loved Queen Morgawse,” said Bellangere. “God alone knows why. He would not have—”

  Mordred went for Bellangere’s throat. I jumped up to separate them. So did Lore of Carlisle. We managed to pull them apart before anyone was hurt, and Lore and Elyzabel got Bellangere seated again.

  “All right,” I said, “you’ve both goaded each other into breaking the laws of hospitality. Now sit down and finish your supper.”

  Mordred pulled away from me. “I will not eat at the table of any man who insults my mother. The duties of a guest do not extend that far.”

  “Then go to your room and sleep it off,” I said.

  “No,” said Mordred, “I ride tonight.”

  “Then you’ll ride without me. You persuaded me to stop here for supper and a good night’s sleep, and by God, now I’m here, I’m going to get them.”

  He returned my look and smiled crookedly. “I will not breakfast here. Not even if I escape being murdered naked in my bed, like my mother.”

  “Bolt your bloody door,” I told him.

  One of the servants got a torch and came forward to guide him to his chamber. Mordred took the light himself and waved the servant away. Fortunately, Lore and Elyzabel seemed to have kept Bellangere from hearing Mordred’s last comment, which might have been a challenge to our host. Mordred had sounded almost as if he was looking forward to being murdered in his bed.

  CHAPTER 11

  Further Talk of the Deaths of Sir Lamorak and Queen Morgawse, and of the Gossip Concerning Queen Guenevere

  “Then, as the book saith, Sir Launcelot began to resort unto Queen Guenever again, and forgat the promise and the perfection that he made in the quest… of the Sangreal; but ever his thoughts were privily on the queen, and so they loved together more hotter than they did to-forehand, and had such privy draughts together, that many in the court spake of it, and in especial Sir Agravaine, Sir Gawaine’s brother, for he was ever open-mouthed.”

  —Malory XVIII, 1

  With Mordred gone, the rest of us sat back down to try to finish our meal. “Are you not going to beg indulgence for your companion, Sir Kay?” said Dame Elyzabel, as if proprieties had been the principal casualty.

  “No,” I said. “He and our host can beg each other’s forgiveness, if they really want it, but I’m not playing go-between.”
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  Bellangere threw Mordred’s food, trencher and all, to the hounds, and ordered one of the servers to pour his ale down the nearest privy and scour the cup with sand. Even that did not calm our host completely. “That they persist in their lie!” he said. “God! Lamorak loved the witch—he would have married her, if they had let him. He would never have killed any woman!—”

  “Stop talking about it and eat,” I said. “Get drunk, if that’s the only way you can forget about it.”

  “Travel with filth and you’ll be spattered, Seneschal,” said Bellangere.

  “Before you start accusing me of dirtying Mordred instead of the other way, Bellangere,” I replied, “remember there’s more reason to assume that Lamorak killed Dame Morgawse than there is to assume Dame Guenevere killed Patrise of Ireland.”

  I have never felt especially inclined to worship any man who defeats me in battle as if that fact alone made him some sort of prince, saint, and model of all knightly virtues. But Lamorak had been the one to defeat Bellangere the Proud, bringing him to Arthur’s court and to the infirmary for two months; and therefore, as far as Bellangere was concerned, Lamorak de Galis was the noblest hero who ever lived, with the possible exceptions of Lancelot and Ihesu. Our host started up again, with some garbled sounds that seemed about to lead into a comparison of me with Judas, but I cut him off.

  “Stop and use your brain, Bellangere, if it didn’t all leak out in some head wound or other. I’m not saying I think Lamorak killed her.” (It was what I thought, but I was not saying it.) “But Lamorak was alone with Dame Morgawse in her bedchamber that night. All right, maybe, as you Lamorak-worshippers guess, maybe someone else did get into Gawain’s castle, find his way to the chamber, swap off her head and get out again, all before Lamorak could get to his sword. And maybe the reason he never came back to Camelot was that he rode off in pursuit of this supposed real murderer, who somehow escaped the attention of Lamorak’s dwarf, waiting at the privy postern. But Lamorak’s ghost hasn’t come back yet to explain it all to us. Patrise of Ireland died of poison in a roomful of people—twenty-three other knights, five chief servers, besides the pages, besides whoever could have gotten to the fruit before the Queen’s dinner—which takes in a good part of the court—besides the possibility that Morgan le Fay is still alive and at her old tricks again. But Mador de la Porte immediately accuses the Queen, and several score men and women who pretend to have some sense in their heads are willing to go along with him and see Her Grace on trial. If Mador can accuse the Queen, you can hardly blame Gawain and his brothers for looking at the circumstances of their mother’s death and assuming Lamorak’s guilt.”