The Idylls of the Queen

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  She must have known Patrise was a companion of the Table by recognizing the rest of us as such. Her remarks may have been only the grieving of a lusty dame for the waste of a handsome young body, but I think that moment, more than anything else, decided me to trust Dame Morgan. At least in the matter of finding Patrise’s murderer.

  “It may have been a certain preparation,” she went on, “called by various names, colorless as water and slightly thicker, and which has other uses than to poison one’s enemies.”

  “Other uses?” said Mordred.

  “To name the most frivolous, a tiny drop of it applied carefully with the tip of a pin or fine knife to an eruption in the skin causes the pimple to swell and burst almost at once. The same tiny drop, mixed with certain other ingredients and spread on the chin, is sometimes said to thicken a man’s beard.”

  “Dangerous stuff for vain folk to play with,” I commented. “But a person could get it without the sorceress knowing he wanted it for murder?”

  “In the hands of a skilled surgeon, it can also be used to help heal wounds, cleanse infections, and ease various disorders,” said Morgan. “But few of us who can prepare it will sell or give it away lightly, for the mere asking.”

  “You can answer for everyone who knows how to prepare it, eh?” I said. “Can you name them for us, too?”

  She sighed. “It requires no conjurations to prepare, but it does require a deeper knowledge than that of most village herbwives. As for who can make it—my old cohorts the queens of Northgalis and Sorestan, Dame Ysolde’s mother of Ireland, Annowre and Hellawes of the Perilous Forest—no, those two are gone now, are they not? Poor, amorous fools. Gwenbaus the brother of the French kings—but he is gone, too. The Duke of Surluse’s clerk Helyes, perhaps, and Old Blaise, Merlin’s master, writing in his forest in Northumberland, though they have both turned to wiser matters than magic. Dame Seraide and her French mistress Viviane of the Lake, possibly Dame Lynette, Mark’s wise woman of Cornwall, Nimue and myself, Dame Brisane of Carbonek, who has ever held herself aloof from us, claiming the reputation of ‘white witch’ while tricking Lancelot into bed with her young mistress Elaine…” Morgan shook her head. “No, once I could have named you the necromancers of Britain, Brittany, and Ireland, with the extent of all their skills. Now I become a recluse, keeping myself more aloof than Dame Brisane of Carbonek, waiting for the events of the world to come to me and letting new necromancers crop up without my knowledge. I cannot name you all who could have prepared the poison. But I can say that very few of us with the ability to learn such knowledge would then dispense the fruits of it without good cause.”

  “’Good cause’ including the deaths of your enemies?”

  “I weary of your suspicions, Seneschal.”

  “I used the word meaning all of you sorceresses and necromancers, Dame Morgan, not you in particular. But take it however it fits.”

  “I cannot even say surely this was the poison used,” said Le Fay, “and not some other which is more easy of manufacture.”

  “Shall we try to follow the cleric who sprinkled the apples?” suggested Dame Nimue.

  We turned our attention back to the basin of water. For the third time, we watched the cowled figure sprinkle the fruit with the “holy water” poison. This time, when he slipped away, Morgan followed him, again overlapping scenes.

  At the earliest opportunity, our cleric descended into the cellars, without benefit of lamp, candle, or torch. “I cannot illumine a picture from the past or present with light not there at the time, my lords,” said Morgan.

  “A man who knew enough about the magical arts to obtain that poison and use it,” said Mordred, “might be clever enough to guess that someday some unfriendly necromancer would be watching his past actions.”

  “If he was one of us at the Queen’s dinner, he has to come up soon,” I said. “And unless he knows those cellars like a rat, he has to stop and strike a light before he gets lost down there.”

  “He may very well have taken the trouble to learn the cellars like a rat,” Mordred remarked. “He must have planned this carefully, and for some time. Her Grace has given small dinners before. Our poisoner will have been waiting his chance, meanwhile acquiring his clerk’s robes and aspergillum, learning his way through the cellars in the darkness, and finding a shadowed corner or doorway where he could wait and watch for a page to pass with food for the Queen’s table.”

  “Assuming he meant to kill Gawain,” I said, “he had to wait for a dish of fruit; and he had to wait for a page who would set the dish down and turn his back. He certainly put his plans at the mercy of circumstance.”

  Mordred waved away the objection. “We do not know how long our poisoner may have waited, before how many of Dame Guenevere’s small dinners he may have watched for his opportunity in vain. In city after city, through all the court’s progresses, he may have learned cellars and lurking-places against the day when his chance would come. Or it may have come almost at once. Brother Gawain is one of the Queen’s favorites, she always takes care to have his fruit for him, and pages—despite your firm hand, Sir Seneschal—are well known for stealing moments from their errands. Having seized his chance, our poisoner would probably have discarded his robes and aspergillum in the darkness.”

  “In that case,” I said, “he’ll be coming up in his own clothes.”

  “How many ways lead up from those cellars, Sir Kay?” Dame Morgan said wearily. “I do not know them; I never had cause to go down into them. How many turnings might our quarry have taken? Suppose he, or she, was not among Dame Guenevere’s dinner guests and could therefore have waited in the dark cellars for hours, even until night and darkness throughout the castle? Am I to sit and watch the past through every possible hour and at every possible point of emergence?” She shook her head. “It would take more time than you have remaining before your Queen’s trial.”

  “Try,” I said. “We might have good luck.”

  “Ah, so at last you trust me and my magic! But to what purpose if you do? Will Sir Mador de la Porte accept the evidence of what Sir Kay and Sir Mordred have seen in the mirror of Morgan le Fay?”

  She was right. We had seen proof that the Queen was guiltless, but it was not proof that Mador would believe. Even if I could make Coupnez confess, Mador, in his bullheaded obsession, would probably say that it only showed Her Grace had not poisoned all the fruit, and the page could thank God he had stolen an untainted piece. It might even make Mador, if he believed any of our story, insist that Dames Elyzabel and Lore be burnt with their kinswoman. If anything, news that Morgan le Fay was the source of what we knew would injure the Queen’s case, besides revealing that Le Fay was still alive and possibly bringing Artus here to visit her and see Lancelot’s ugly paintings.

  “Our only hope is to learn who that cowled devil is,” I said. “Confront him with what we know, and work a confession out of him.”

  Morgan smiled wryly. “You rely more on your skill to extract a confession than our traitor relies on chance and circumstance. But we will try yet a while.”

  She tried. We watched for hours at every way I could remember leading up from the cellars. Dame Nimue curled up with the cat and went to sleep. Some time later, Mordred sprawled out on the floor and went to sleep also. Dame Morgan and I kept our vigil of the past. Unfortunately, those particular cellars were not used either for storage of food or of prisoners, and I was not overfamiliar with them myself. Most of them were used, if at all, for the storage of forgotten old waste lumber that had better have been either refurbished and used, or melted down and burned. Our traitor could probably have left his clerical garb and holy-water sprinkler with the rest of it, to stay undiscovered for years. If we returned to London in time, I would have those cellars searched thoroughly… though even if we found them, with some of the poison still in the aspergillum, it could be said they merely showed that the Queen had had an accomplice. Meanwhile, our man must have slipped up from the cellars at some egress I did no
t know about.

  Dame Nimue woke long enough to learn we had found nothing. “Then follow him or her backward through the past,” she suggested, “from the time and place where he lurked watching for the page Doran Coupnez to pass with the fruit. As for me, I bid you good-night, if there is any of the night left. My Pelleas is a softer pillow than any here, and you can show me tomorrow anything of interest you may find tonight.”

  Mordred awakened at her departure, complained that his bones would be stiff from sleeping on the stone floor, and dozed off again. The cat curled up at Morgan’s feet. Le Fay and I went farther back in our search, studying the passages until we found the shadowed corner where our false cleric waited for Coupnez. Morgan apparently could not cause a scene to flow backwards, but had to find the place, watch a few moments, then dissolve it and cause it to reform in her mirror at an earlier time. Learning where the traitor had come from to his lurking-place was an even more tiresome business than watching fruitlessly for him to emerge from the cellars… and, when we finally traced where he had come from when he began his watch—our long search led us back to the cellars. We watched him coming up, cowl already pulled far forward over face, and aspergillum doubtless already cradled in his robe, at one of the places where we had earlier watched in vain for him to come up after his deed.

  “Whoever this is seems to know enough of magic,” said Dame Morgan, “to have foreseen the possibility of someone’s watching as we watch. No doubt he or she went down into those cellars, having already explored them, put on the cleric’s robes—perhaps concealed there even earlier to lie in readiness—came up as we have just seen, then returned, as we have also seen, by a different way. The poisoner may have used four different ways into the cellars; and it seems not even you know them all.”

  “If you could follow him back this far,” I said, “you can mount watch on every possible foot of passageway around those cellars and find the right door.”

  “Aye, sometime between now and Martinmas I might, with luck, find the place and moment to see him or her either going down or coming up without the clerkly disguise, if indeed it was disguise. Meanwhile, Guenevere will be saved by a champion, or burned for the failure of one, within these eight days. And I weary, Seneschal, as do you. More than you. You have but to watch, while I must focus my power to find and hold the images. I cannot do this much longer without rest and sleep.”

  I tried to reckon up the time. With Nimue’s skill in covering distances quickly, we should not need more than three days at most to reach London. Since Watling Street would take us much of the way, we should be able to do it in two. “Four days here,” I said. “Maybe five. Luck with us, we’ll hit the right place and hour by then. You can have your priests pray for it while we watch. It’s our best hope.”

  Dame Morgan turned her head and stared at me. Even by lamplight, she was white with weariness. I must have looked haggard myself.

  “I had thought you wiser than your foster-brother the King, Sir Kay,” she said. “Must you layfolk who know no magical skill always believe that the tools of magic are of necessity better than the tools of reason and mortal effort? Will you depend on my images of the past in a basin of water as Artus depended on the blade and scabbard of Excalibur, instead of looking to your own resources? Oh, yes, you are dogged and determined, Seneschal, and when you are given work that seems sure, you will cleave to it faithfully, ignoring any inspiration that seems more reckless. But though the tortoise may always reach his goal in the end, he may reach it over-late. Sometimes the reckless speed of the hare is better, after all.”

  She dipped her hands into the basin and brushed them across her face, then stood, leaning heavily on the chest for a moment before straightening her back. “Wake nephew Mordred and bring him up to dinner and a more comfortable sleep. I think we have watched the night through and longer—it must be near midday. We will dine and rest before we talk of these things again.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Dame Morgan’s Tale of Sir Astamore’s Boyhood

  “And then at the last he came to a white abbey, and there they made him that night great cheer; and on the morn he rose and heard mass. And afore an altar he found a rich tomb, which was newly made; and then he took heed, and saw the sides written with gold which said: Here lieth King Bagdemagus of Gore, which King Arthur’s nephew slew; and named him, Sir Gawaine. Then was not he a little sorry, for Launcelot loved him much more than any other, and had it been any other than Gawaine he should not have escaped from death to life; and [Launcelot] said to himself: Ah Lord God, this is a great hurt unto King Arthur’s court, the loss of such a man.”

  —Malory XVII, 17

  In fact, it was after midday when we emerged. We dined lightly, slept until Vespers, and supped without much appetite.

  “Have calmer thoughts crept into your mind during sleep, Sir Kay?” said Morgan.

  “If you mean has my own mind thrown up any sudden, enlightening inspirations at me, Dame Morgan, no.” I had realized she was right about the small chance we had of finding the traitor’s identity in her bowl of water, or of bringing him to justice on the strength of her pictures; but that only inspired me with a new lack of hope. “It had to have been an enemy of the Queen, or of your nephews of Orkney, or of the Round Table in general. You were the only enemy of the Queen I could think of who might be active and subtle enough to plan something like this.”

  “Or it might have been an enemy of mine,” Morgan said, sounding slightly amused, “trying to strike at me through my beloved nephews.”

  “Most folk consider you dead,” I reminded her. “Besides, your enemies would have struck at your son Ywain, not at your nephews. As for an enemy of the court in general, anyone in London might be a spy with a vial of poison; but why sprinkle it on a bowl of fruit and be content with causing at most a few dozen deaths instead of poisoning our water supply or aiming at the King himself?”

  “That leaves the enemies of my sister’s sons, who are numerous enough to offer you a goodly choice, but not quite so numerous as all of London.” Morgan slowly twirled her glass goblet by the stem.

  “Thank you for including all of us, Aunt,” said Mordred. “Most folk would have said an enemy of Gawain, forgetting his brothers.”

  “Whoever struck in malice at the rest of you would be striking at Gawain through you, Nephew. But come—surely you can make me a list of your family’s foes?”

  Mordred smiled and sipped his wine. “Most recently, Dinadan’s brother Sir La Cote Male Taile, and the kinsmen of the late, lamented Bagdemagus of Gorre. Also, and from old days, Sir Ironside, who had taken an oath of old to the effect of Gawain’s destruction. And, of course, the remaining kin of King Pellinore.”

  “They suspect others as well,” Nimue added. “Sir Bors de Ganis, the dead knight’s cousin Mador de la Porte, and Sir Kay has his doubts of Gawain’s own brother Gaheris. Also Sir Kay and Sir Mordred long suspected each other—perhaps, even now, they still do, a little. Mordred, of course, thought the poison aimed at himself, and thus believed, though with deeper reason than Mador, that the Queen, possibly with the King’s knowledge and support, was behind the attempt.”

  Morgan raised one dark eyebrow, in surprise at what part of the information I could not be sure. Mordred’s face tightened and he paused very slightly before saying, “How do you know this, Dame of the Lake?”

  “Remember, she searched my brain day before yesterday,” I reminded him, “without my leave, and nearly drowning me in her blasted Lake in the process.”

  “That is not quite just, Sir Seneschal,” Nimue said calmly. “You baited me until I must assume I had your leave to show you some such power as searching your memory.”

  “Priests are bound by the Seal of Confession, and told less than a tenth part of what you saw,” I said. “If your memory-searching doesn’t put you under a seal of silence, you could at least blush when you scatter your victims’ secret thoughts.” She could have blushed easily enough: she was wearing her lily-wh
ite complexion again.

  “And so you mistrusted me, also, Seneschal?” said Mordred. “Before or after I made you that small confession of mine?” He waved his hand. “No, don’t answer. It is hardly worth our friendship to know. Then let me tell you, Aunt, before Dame Nimue or the good Seneschal tells you, of how I have so arranged matters that three of our chiefest suspects—Ironside, Astamore, and Pinel of Carbonek—have been riding these past days with Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth, respectively, to meet us again in a few days’ time at Astolat.”

  Morgan raised both eyebrows and nodded. “A dangerous gambit, Nephew, but one that shows imagination. But how, should one of these three strike against your brother, would you find it out and prove it to the court? Do you depend on squires’ tales?”

  One thing, at least, was clear to me. From what we knew of the poisoner, and from what Mordred and Dame Morgan had reasoned of his patience and plotting, he was too dangerous to leave at large, whether or not the Queen could be saved by her champion. “Maybe you can tell us something about Sir Astamore, Dame Morgan,” I said.

  “Young Astamore is Bagdemagus’ kinsman and therefore suspect; I am Astamore’s kinswoman and therefore may know somewhat of his character, eh? Have you forgot that my husband Uriens and myself are also kin to the late, unfortunate Bagdemagus?”