The Idylls of the Queen

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  As the time neared, I disliked the thought of the coming conference more and more. What good did I expect might come of it? If Astamore was the poisoner, how would the matter I had to discuss with the sons of Lot help save Dame Guenevere? What connection could it have, after all, with the death of Sir Patrise? I might finally have called it off, but for two thoughts: there might never come another likely chance for getting at the truth of this business, and Mordred would not rest until he had gotten my thoughts out of me anyway.

  Ihesu! I was made for open dealing, not intrigue—a rude tongue, if you like, but not this bloody business of guarding every word. Well, Dame Morgan had counseled me to try playing the hare for once… though, if she were watching, she might not care overmuch for the results her suggestion led me to.

  * * * *

  An hour before Evensong we gathered beneath Astolat manor. Sir Bernard must have kept his household at work all afternoon to make the cellar we had begged of him fit quarters for our exalted company. A dozen casks of cider stood against one wall, but the cell was cleared of whatever else might have been stored in it, rushes laid down on the floor, tapestries—probably the best the manor afforded—hung on the walls, and six chairs set ready around two tables placed together to form a squarish shape, no doubt the closest the baron could come to approximating a round table using what boards and trestles would fit into the space available. Lamps burned on their stands in every corner and on both sides of the door, and a nine-branched candlestick stood on the table, every sprocket filled with a wax candle or the stub of one, the one in the middle being marked to show the hours as they burned away. An empty bowl waited ready for each of us, and a flask of wine stood at either end of the table; even Sir Bernard’s hospitality did not quite extend to pouring the expensive stuff ready for us when there was any chance we might not drink it. There was also a plate of small cakes, crowned with two apples, doubtless our host’s last of the winter.

  Gawain was the first to arrive after myself and Mordred. Noticing the apples, he said quietly, “I would esteem it a great favor, Sir Kay, if you would eat one and leave the core at my place. Our host should not think his hospitality has gone unappreciated.”

  It did not escape my attention that Gawain had asked the favor of me rather than of his youngest brother. It did not escape Mordred’s attention, either. I more than half expected him to make some comment referring to the possibility or impossibility of these apples, too, being poisoned; but for once he said nothing. He did, however, take the second apple as I reached for the first.

  Gaheris came soon after Gawain, walking well enough by himself, though with the aid of a staff. He sat down heavily and filled his wine-bowl from one of the flasks. Agravain sauntered in some moments later and leaned against the wall. He was wearing his sword Coup-de-soleil.

  “I thought I made it clear we would have no weapons among ourselves,” I said. “Or do you expect a sudden invasion of Saracens to reach us down here in the next hour?”

  Agravain shrugged, strolled back to the door, drew his sword, and left it propped against the wall in the passage outside, without bothering to ungird his jeweled scabbard. His squire could always wipe off any dampness the exposed blade might accumulate.

  Agravain returned to lean against the tapestry and eye Mordred’s apple with something that looked like thwarted greed. I went out to the stairway, where Eliezer had taken up post because the passageway between stairs and cell was too short to accommodate him at a comfortable distance from our voices. “And why, exactly, did you let Agravain down with his sword?” I said. “Don’t tell me that cock-a-dandy overawed an old hand like you!”

  “You never told me to guard against weapons at this meeting, sir,” he said evenly.

  “God’s rage!” I wondered what else I might have forgotten. “And Mordred didn’t think to mention it to you either, I suppose. Didn’t you suspect anything when you saw the rest of us going down unarmed—when Gawain left Excalibur with Ywain, for the love of God?”

  “My lord Sir Agravain wears his sword and scabbard everywhere, for ornament when not for use, and it was not for me to tell him nay on my own authority. And you are all wearing your daggers.”

  “You’re right,” I said after a moment. “I’m sorry. No great harm done.… Well, we can’t do anything about the knives—better open than hidden—but just come and take custody of his blasted Coup-de-soleil, will you?”

  “Gladly.” The old squire grinned. “I will boast to my great-grandchildren of once receiving an apology from Sir Kay the Seneschal.”

  I returned to the cellar. Mordred had sliced his apple and given half to Agravain. Gawain had filled his wine-bowl by now, and Gaheris was refilling his. If Beaumains intended to maintain his aloofness from his brothers, I was ready to open the ceremonies without him—but the Honorable Innocent arrived just in time to be included, having, I suppose, done enough to demonstrate his superiority by appearing only for the business, not for the before-business society.

  “I hope, sir,” said Gareth, seating himself and looking at Gawain rather than me, “that whatever your reasons for calling us together, they will be explained before Evensong.”

  Gawain had first met Gareth’s glance with a hopeful smile, but at the tone of the younger brother’s voice, he lowered his gaze to the table. I had thought the two were finally starting to bury their differences along with Sir Patrise. I must have driven the wedge in again by reminding Beaumains of Lamorak’s death.

  I decided to plunge in with no courtly nonsense. Since there must be hatred in the room, let it be aimed at me. At least for a time. “This meeting wasn’t Gawain’s idea, Beaumains,” I said. “It was mine. I called you all together to ask you, once and for all, what really happened to Sir Lamorak de Galis and Dame Morgawse of Orkney.”

  I got the animosity I had expected. “That is a singularly crude jest, even for you, Sir Seneschal,” remarked Agravain.

  “When I choose to be simply rude,” I replied, “I can find plenty of reason at hand, without going back years into the past.”

  “Sir Kay,” said Gawain, “you know as well as the rest of us here how they met their deaths.”

  “Don’t lose truth in courtliness, Gawain,” I said. “I saw Dame Morgawse’s body—I never saw Lamorak’s.”

  “He may know as well as some of you how our mother died,” said Beaumains, for once playing my ally, “but neither Sir Kay nor I know the full truth of Sir Lamorak’s death.”

  “Gareth,” said Gawain. “Gareth. I know you have never believed it—you will not think evil of any good knight, save of your own brothers—but Sir Lamorak murdered our mother.… Perhaps it was a short fit of madness that came upon him. Perhaps, in his right mind, he did truly love her. But he did not deny it when we charged him with her death. In all justice, we had no course but to give him battle—”

  “Four against one,” said Gareth.

  Gawain faltered. “I gave him battle fairly, trusting to God and Our Lady to—”

  “Four against one!” Gareth repeated. “By Ihesu’s Cross, brother, I think I could forgive your seeking vengeance, but I cannot forgive the lie that you alone outmatched Sir Lamorak de Galis!”

  “Then perhaps it’s time you learned the truth, poor innocent,” said Mordred. “You and our good, curious seneschal. Yes, Gawain could have outmatched your noble Lamorak de Galis in the end—your oldest brother is a better man than you and some of your Lancelot-worshiping friends take him for. And yes, Gawain did offer Lamorak fair fight—too fair a fight for that murdering craven. It was I who rode up from behind and put my sword through the traitor’s back, and I would do it again!” He smiled and swung one leg around to sit astraddle his backless chair, getting his body at an angle that enabled him to lean part of his back against the table. “Now, is that what you wished to hear, Sir Kay?” he asked, looking up at me. “Confessions and self-accusations? Have I not immolated myself nicely? And what will you do now with your knowledge—bring me to trial for sen
ding a treacherous cur to the Hell he deserved ten times over?”

  No one spoke for a moment. It was Agravain who broke the silence. “Well, perhaps it’s just as well. Some of the rumor-mongers have always said it was Gaheris or myself, or all of us together.”

  “Maybe you threw in those last few remarks to make me think you were lying, Mordred,” I said, “but I believe your confession. You might have spoken up earlier and spared your brothers some of the blame they’ve been carrying around for your sake. Probably none of Lamorak’s kin would care to charge you in open court before the King, any more than they’ve ever charged Arthur’s nephews formally as a group. If definite word gets out, of course, some of them might hunt you down alone.” And you might enjoy that, I added in my thoughts. “But as long as Gawain’s refrained from charging you openly,” I continued aloud, “so will I. You thought you were justified. Gareth can keep the secret or speak as he chooses.”

  I looked around at them again: Gawain across from me, Agravain at his right, Gaheris at his left, Mordred at my right, lounging against the table to gaze up at me half-insolently and half-whimsically, Beaumains at my left, with his chair drawn a little distance away from the table and more toward me than toward his brothers.

  “However, I don’t think you were justified, Mordred,” I said. “Not in striking him down from behind, not even in offering him fair battle. It goes against the grain to say this, but now I think Gareth, with his foolish, unreasoning hero worship, has been right all along. Lamorak did not kill Queen Morgawse.”

  Gareth sighed. Mordred’s body stiffened, drawing back from the table’s edge. Gawain stared at me unmoving, and Gaheris stirred only a little from his weary posture of resting his head in his hands. Agravain said, “Now I know why you demanded we leave our swords outside, Seneschal. You feared we might draw them against you.”

  “No,” I said, “I feared you might draw them against each other.”

  “Explain yourself,” said Mordred, taking the game seriously at last.

  I looked away from Mordred, directing my gaze at Gawain. The youngest brother might be in most need of whatever sympathetic support I might be able to offer, but the oldest brother deserved it most. Not that I have ever known how to put any kind of sympathy into my words. “Anyone who blames you for looking at the appearances and assuming Lamorak killed your mother is a fool. But there have always been a few things that didn’t ring quite true. For instance, why did Lamorak wait until that night, in Gawain’s own castle? They had met often enough before, in her castle, in his, probably in forest or open field. Maybe, as Gawain has said, it was a passing fit of madness. Or maybe Lamorak thought it was somehow more fitting vengeance to kill her in the castle of the son he most blamed for Pellinore’s death. Maybe Lamorak had a sense of honor that made him open the way himself to being chased down for the deed—though, in that case, why run at all? Or, maybe, he did not plan the deed to his own best safety and advantage because he not only never planned it at all, but never committed it.”

  “Go on,” said Mordred.

  I went on. “But if someone else did it, why didn’t Lamorak attack his lady’s killer, or at least ride back to court and declare what had happened? Why did he even refrain from declaring his innocence when you four found him alone? Did the horror of seeing his love killed almost in his very arms addle his wits that badly? But he was sane enough to turn up in borrowed armor and carry off his full share of honors in the Surluse tournament. His actions don’t seem to fit either an innocent man or a guilty one.

  “Gareth thinks your mother’s murderer was either a jealous would-be lover, or some man of your own who thought to please you with Lamorak’s death and struck Dame Morgawse instead, by mistake. Those are possible explanations, but in either case the murderer should have tried to finish the job and strike Lamorak while Lamorak was still naked and unarmed. Of course, the traitor might have decided to make his escape before Lamorak could reach his own weapon—in fact, Lamorak could have ridden out into the night in pursuit of this traitor. Lamorak’s dwarf had not seen anyone else go in or out by the privy postern, but the traitor could have been hiding somewhere in the castle before Lamorak arrived, and he could have got out by some other way, while Lamorak returned to the gate where he’d left his horse.”

  “I fail to see where this is leading us,” said Agravain, “except to display your brilliant intellect for our admiration, Seneschal.”

  “It wouldn’t lead us anywhere,” I said. “I probably wouldn’t even bring it up now, but for another strange thing. We visited your Aunt Morgan le Fay in her castle, you see. Mordred, Dame Nimue, and myself. Yes, your aunt is still alive, though I wouldn’t mention the fact too widely abroad and I’m not going to tell you where we found her. Dame Morgan has the ability to see the past in a basin of water, and to show it to others at the same time.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Beaumains. “She is mistress of all the evil arts.”

  “Maybe not quite so evil as you think, Beaumains,” I told him. “Maybe not quite so powerful, either. She has to know exactly where and when to look in order to summon up her images. Now, she was very cooperative about helping us search for Sir Patrise’s murderer, in so far as we could guess the whens and wheres. We actually watched the fruit being poisoned—”

  “What!” cried Gawain, starting up. “Then why—”

  “The poisoner was too heavily robed and cowled for us to see who it was,” I answered. “We know how the poison got into the fruit, but we don’t know enough to save Dame Guenevere, even if what we do know were believed at court. It would only be said that the poisoner was one of the Queen’s creatures.”

  Gawain fell back onto his chair.

  I went on, “My present point is this: When I asked Dame Morgan to show me what happened in your mother’s chamber that night, she refused. Flatly. She claimed that seeing it would be of no use to us, pointing out that if it had any connection with the presumed attempt to poison Gawain, the connection lay not in whatever really happened, but in what the poisoner believed to have happened. She was probably right in that. But why so reluctant to let me see the truth? It would have taken only a few moments. She knew exactly where and almost exactly when to look—that much is common knowledge. I think she tried to imply that she herself had chosen never to witness her sister’s murder, which I would not believe if she had actually sworn it on a fragment of the True Cross. However ugly it might be to watch, Morgan le Fay would have wanted to know the truth of the deed as soon as she learned of it, and be sure she has her ways of learning news, even if the word sometimes takes a week to reach her. I can understand she would find it distasteful to see a second time—but not quite distasteful enough to explain her manner of refusing to let me see it. And she surely couldn’t have been tender about my stomach! No, I think she refused to show me what happened because she was shielding someone. Who? Not her sister, hardly her sister’s memory. She could have done Dame Morgawse more honor by letting us see the truth—know certainly that your mother had been avenged if Lamorak killed her, or give her the chance to be avenged if someone else had done it. Someone dear to Morgan herself, then?”

  “One of Morgan’s own creatures did the deed?” said Agravain.

  “Our aunt has always been a destroyer of good knights,” said Gaheris, without lifting his head.

  “Has she?” I replied. “Has she destroyed more good knights than Lancelot or Tristram or some of the rest of us who ride around wasting each other for the sport and glory of it instead of conserving our strength to serve the King? No, I do not believe that Dame Morgan ordered Lamorak killed.”

  “You have fallen under that evil woman’s spell,” said Gareth.

  “Maybe. But Le Fay has no special quarrel with the family of Pellinore. If she’s never made another attempt after that first one on the life of her husband Uriens, whom she hates, it’s hardly likely she would have made an attempt on the life of Lamorak, against whom she had no particular grievance.” />
  “Unless she knew ahead of time that he planned to kill our mother,” said Agravain.

  “So she sent her man, or her magic, against Lamorak that night, missed, and killed her own sister?” I shook my head. “Even if Lamorak had gotten out of the castle with his skin immediately afterwards—as we know he did—there wouldn’t have been enough of him left to fight by the time of the Surluse tournament, let alone enough for you to find, living or dead. No, Dame Morgan had nothing to do with what happened in her sister’s chamber that night, nor did she have any knowledge of it before the fact. But she does know the truth of it now, and the only reason she might have to withhold her knowledge is to protect someone. Not Lamorak—she’d have no cause either to protect or to damn Lamorak’s memory, and those who believe him innocent would hardly change their opinion on the strength of the tale of what Kay saw in Morgan’s mirror. So she was protecting someone she, or Dame Morgawse, or both of them, had held dear, or at least felt some kind of loyalty to, despite his deeds.”