This time he got into the woods, but it was a narrow strip of woods, coming out on the road. I caught up again in the bowshot-length of cleared ground bordering the paved way.
By now I had gotten the sword into my right hand and my shield in place on my left arm, and I shouted at him to stand and draw—expecting, I suppose, that a man who had tried to poison his enemy and then taken advantage of the said enemy’s conscience to strike him down unarmed, not to mention letting the Queen take the blame for his poison, was suddenly going to follow the rules of honorable combat at this point. Pinel’s lance, having missed me the first time, was still whole. He lowered it and bore down on me at full speed.
I did the only thing I could do—tried to turn his point with my sword. It’s been done, and with my own Tranchefer instead of Agravain’s Coup-de-soleil in my hand, I could probably have done it again. As it was, in the failing light and with the unfamiliar blade, I missed. But the effort laid my side open just long enough for Pinel’s lance to get in and stay there.
I remember falling with a broken lancehead in my ribs. I remember lying there on my stomach, feeling the point wedge deeper and the weeds under me get wet with my blood while Pinel galloped away, his horse’s hooves shaking the ground less and less. I think I pounded the earth with both fists until I lost consciousness.
Ywain and Astamore found me. Ywain rode on after Pinel while Astamore staunched my bleeding and waited for Eliezer and Gillimer to catch up and take me back. I awoke in a bed in Astolat manor. It still seemed to be shortly before sunset. Gawain lay sleeping in another bed on the other side of the room, and Mordred sat between us, with an ugly cut and welt on his forehead, blackened left eye and scratched cheek, and other assorted bruises over his face and throat, but seeming his usual calm self again.
“Pinel!” I said. “Did they—”
Mordred shook his head. “Neither Ywain nor Ironside, Astamore, Melehan, our host and his sons and yeomen, nor anyone else have found his trace. Unfortunately, I and my brothers, those of us left fit to ride, were unable to join the chase until later. Don’t worry, though. Dame Nimue should soon be back among us.”
“Why aren’t you on your way to London?” I demanded. “God, man, the Queen’s trial is in two days!”
“The trial is tomorrow. It is Sunday evening now. Did you think the sun had been rolled back in the sky? But what, exactly, would we tell the court in London? What proof have we of Sir Pinel’s guilt?”
“Sweet Ihesu! He nearly succeeded in splitting your brother’s head, he fled the moment he was caught in the act—not to mention giving me my death wound!”
“None of which actually proves he was responsible for the death of Sir Patrise, whatever else it may prove. Oh, and the leeches say there is a chance you may not die, nor brother Gawain either.”
“What more proof could Mador want? It’s better proof against Pinel than anyone can produce against the Queen!”
“Peacefully, peacefully, Sir Seneschal, unless you are determined to prove your leeches wrong. The Dame of the Lake should be here again before morning.”
Gawain groaned in his sleep, but did not waken. I made the effort to calm myself. It did not help the pain in my heart, but it made the hole between my ribs feel a little easier. “Who else but Pinel, with his upbringing at holy Carbonek, would have thought to use an aspergillum and sprinkle poison like holy water, asking a blessing on his treachery?” I said, putting into words what must have gone through my head the evening before without my realizing exactly where the certainty had come from. (Morgan’s hare.) “Who else but Pinel would have justified himself, when his poison killed the wrong man, by assuming that Patrise must have had some hidden sin that Heaven chose to punish this way, while reserving his intended victim for another vengeance? God, Pinel must have taken it as a sign from Heaven when Gawain walked into his pavilion and meekly offered himself up!”
“Nevertheless,” said Mordred, “we must look at this as Mador would look at it. Granted, Pinel did try to take vengeance for his cousin’s death when Gawain came to him yesterday evening, and then he quite understandably fled when you burst in on them like a crazed demon. But that does not in itself prove the poisoning, and Carbonek does not invariably breed such sinners as you make Pinel out to be.”
“What about Pellam and his daughter seducing Lancelot on the justification that Galahad must be engendered?”
Mordred clucked his tongue. “Do you compare self-justification for murder with self-justification for love, Seneschal?”
“Pinel never said which of King Pellam’s brothers was the uncle in question,” I persisted. “It must have been Garlon, the only one with a bad reputation in the world outside Carbonek. Remember how Pinel justified Garlon in that version of the Dolorous Stroke he told us?”
“Oh, for myself, I fully believe it, that Pinel is our traitor,” Mordred agreed. “And no doubt he obtained the poison from his uncle’s sorceress Brisane, on the pretext of using it to thicken his beard, as Aunt Morgan explained to us. But Mador de la Porte will not believe it. Come, will you follow Gawain’s example and take an herbed posset of Astamore’s preparation to help you sleep?”
“No.” Tired of his constant references to the hopelessness of saving Her Grace with what we had learned, I said, “What about Gaheris?”
Mordred set his jaw and stared at the other bed, as if to make sure Gawain was still asleep. “The traitor,” he said in a completely altered tone, “is our own blood, and our mother’s murder is our own to avenge or forgive. And brother Gawain, in his sweet and infinite mercy, has decreed that the madman must be forgiven, ‘for he knew not what he did.’ So let it be for now. But I will destroy Gaheris. I will destroy him, no matter whom else I must destroy in doing it.”
* * * *
I awoke in the night from evil dreams that may have been partly delirium and found Dame Nimue sitting by my bed, wearing her white-gold hair, almost as lovely as Dame Guenevere’s, and a delicate glowing nimbus around her entire body.
“Congratulations,” I said. “I half expected you to stay with Pelleas, after all.”
“I have already healed Gawain,” she replied. “He will be able to ride tomorrow, though he will of course remain too weak to do battle for some time yet. Now sleep again, and I will heal you.”
“You missed the best part of the game. You should be very happy to learn that the traitor was Pinel of Carbonek.”
She chuckled very softly. “I know. I returned here earlier than you may think. This morning, in fact.”
“And you spent the day trailing Pinel?”
“It was quite simple,” she said. “Sir Pinel had left behind a whole pavilion bestrewn with his possessions.”
“That’s why it took you so long to get around to healing us. But why didn’t they tell me?”
“Didn’t they?” she asked, and I realized that Mordred had, twice, although I had assumed he meant she would soon return from escorting her husband back to their Lake, not from tracking down Pinel.
“So you found him,” I said. “You brought him back?”
“No. I did better than that.” She smiled, beatific as a stained glass saint. “I touched his forehead and saw all his memories. It was very easy to get close to him. I wore my hair red, my face sunburnt and freckled, my clothes in tatters—he did not know me. And when I had seen beyond question that he was indeed the poisoner, I cast the spell of melancholia over him. The same spell I cast on you once, and on poor Dame Ettard, except that I do not intend ever to lift it from Sir Pinel of Carbonek.” She chuckled again, a little louder. “He has a very ugly mind for the charm to feed upon. I doubt he will reach Carbonek again before killing himself.”
That was news worth having gone through the spell myself to hear. I considered asking Dame Nimue to put it on Gaheris, too. But I thought again of Cob the charcoal burner and his palfrey. And if Dame Nimue were to start meting us our deserts on one another’s wish, how many among us, from Artus himself on down, would deser
ve to escape? Thinking it through once more, I might almost have asked her to lift the despair from Pinel… but it might well be too late by now anyway. And he had left Dame Guenevere to face his stake.
“All this is good to hear,” I said, “but it doesn’t do the Queen much good. You should have brought Pinel back to make his confession before the court.”
“Ah,” she replied, “but Arthur’s court, and even Sir Mador de la Porte, will take the word of the Lady of the Lake.”
* * * *
As it turned out, not even the word of Dame Nimue would have been needed to save the Queen. The great and noble Du Lac had been lying snug at old Sir Brastias’ hermitage in Windsor Forest the whole time, a secret shared only by Lancelot, Sir Brastias, and Bors de Ganis, who had been bringing his cousin the news and who had only agreed to say he would champion the Queen on Lancelot’s own instructions, with the understanding that Lancelot would ride in at the eleventh hour and take the field. It was a brilliant coup for Lancelot, who defeated Mador easily. No matter that Dame Guenevere had been kept in torture for a fortnight.
We arrived in time to ride into London on the great champion’s tail. Dame Nimue remained in disguise until after Lancelot’s victory, allowing him, for the sake of her French sister-in-magic who had raised him, to play out his little game and collect his glory before she came forward to share her knowledge with the court. Her testimony had at least the good result of getting the false damnation of the Queen erased from Sir Patrise’s monument, to be replaced by a true statement of the matter. The rest of us said little about our own parts in the search, and what little we said seems already to have been forgotten, or merged into Dame Nimue’s fame.
She also healed both Lancelot and Mador of their wounds. It takes you about as long to get back your full battle strength as after ordinary leechcraft, and even with Dame Nimue’s mending, your wounds, though they have disappeared, still tend to itch a bit; but at least it spares you the worst part of your knightly life—lying in the infirmary waiting for your flesh to close up and your bones to knit again. Mador wasted no time making his apologies and being welcomed back to his allegiance to Arthur and his seat at the Round Table. I hope I managed to impress on Coupnez the duty of telling the full truth when asked for it, and so the book was closed and bound on the whole unhappy adventure. Gouvernail had kept things pretty well under control for me, and I soon let it be known I would take no nonsense from anyone, from Chloda and Titus Flaptongue on down, on account of the lingering weakness of my recent wound. Especially with new work to be done.
Epilogue
Of the Queen and of Sir Kay
“And that time was such a custom, the queen rode never without a great fellowship of men of arms about her, and they were many good knights, and the most part were young men that would have worship; and they were called the Queen’s Knights, and never in no battle, tournament, nor jousts, they bare none of them no matter of knowledging of their own arms, but plain white shields, and thereby they were called the Queen’s Knights.”
—Malory XIX, 1
Dame Guenevere has a small, private garden within the walls of London Castle, which she loves and where she can sometimes sit alone for a while with her thoughts. With all the rejoicings and festivities that marked Lancelot’s rescuing her and Dame Nimue’s freeing her name from any last, lingering suspicions, it was late afternoon of the third day following her trial before she was able to seek her garden. And there I intruded on her solitude. I had been waiting too long for the chance to kneel at her feet and beg her forgiveness to let it pass, even at the cost of disturbing her peace.
“I would forgive you gladly,” said Her Grace, “but what is your offense, Sir Kay?”
“Failure, your Grace. If you had depended on my efforts alone, you would be a heap of ashes now.”
“But did you not summon good Dame Nimue?” The Queen, at least, has never forgotten that. “And did you not free the court of a dangerous man who would still be among us, unknown, for all of Sir Lancelot’s skill? And, unless I mistake, were you not actually in London with the Lady of the Lake very soon after Sir Lancelot? You would have come in time to save me, even if he had not.”
And by waiting to come forward until after he had won his victory, endangering both himself and the outcome of the trial—however slightly—in the chances of battle, we had made ourselves no better than the glory-seeking Du Lac. “Dame Nimue left us for a time at Astolat,” I said. “It was Heaven’s good grace she chose to come back in time. I should have stopped her from ever going.”
Dame Guenevere smiled and covered my clumsy hands with her own fair ones. “I will not have you still kneeling before me, Sir Kay. And I will not have you, of all knights, meek-tongued and self-accusing. It does not become you. Sit and speak a few unpleasantries, and let us laugh as in the old days.”
I rose and sat on the bench facing her bower, already covered with new, budding spring vines. I should have said, “I can speak unpleasant things only in unpleasant company,” or “I would rather have your laughter, Madame, than another woman’s praise,” or some such thing; but the courteous replies never come to my mind quickly enough, only the cutting ones. So, having what I might consider her leave to speak, I tried to obey her. “Will you have an unpleasant speech, Madame? Then I’ll say to you, Send your cock-a-dandy Lancelot about his ways.”
She sat very still for a moment, plucking at a new leaf, while the westering sunlight made a halo of her hair. “And the next time I needed Sir Lancelot’s arm?”
“You see? For all your kind comfort, Madame, I was no use to you. It was Lancelot who saved you. But with his wanderings and his adventures and his two-year absences, he might not be here anyway, should you ever need him again as you have this time, which God and Our Lady forbid! And if he is here, he himself could be the very cause of your danger.”
She raised her head. I could see no tears in her lovely gray eyes, though God knows I had already said enough to put them there. “You know, then, Sir Kay?”
“The entire court knows, Madame, with the all-important exception of Artus.”
“And have we been so very… careless?”
“You have not, your Grace. But your cocksure fool Lancelot as good as boasts of it in public.”
“Boasts? Or simply maintains his aloofness from other women?” As I started to reply to that, she held up one hand and went on, “No, Kay. I have tried, sometimes, to break with him… and he with me… although never at the same time. When he would be free, I hold him, and when I would be free, he holds me, though I am not sure we could long remain apart even if we should ever try to break free both at once. But even if we could accomplish so much, would it be of any use, now? Would our past not be as great danger to us as our present, should my lord ever learn of it?… And if we were able to break our long custom now, would not the King himself chide me yet again for failing to keep Sir Lancelot at my side?”
I rose. “Forgive me, Madame. I came to try to unburden my guilt, not compound it by disturbing your peace.”
She rose also, standing in the path between me and the door. “You would not be Kay if you could not speak out your mind to the rest of us. If only it were possible for the rest of us to be so honest!”
“But preferably not quite so churlish in their honesty, eh?”
She took my hand and led me to another arbor, where we could sit facing one another across the chessboard she keeps always on its own pedestal, ready for play. The sun was touching the high garden wall now, but there was still daylight enough to see the moons of her delicate fingernails as her hand rested on the black and white squares.
“They say that the Saracens of the East each keep more spouses than one,” she said, “though Sir Palomides and his brothers abjured the custom even before they were christened. Perhaps, Kex, I should have been born a heathen Saracen.”
“Would there have been room among your spouses for more than two?” It seemed, at first, that for once I had thought of the
courtly response at the right moment; but if I had used my brain before my tongue, it would never have been said.
“You never chose a lady, did you, Kex?” she asked softly.
“I chose a lady, Madame, long ago. The most gracious in the land. Should I have made a fool of myself, like Palomides weltering in his love for Ysolde when she already had Mark for a husband and that feckless gadabout Tristram for a… favorite?”
“What unkind words to speak of poor Sir Tristram!” The Queen smiled. “And what fitting ones. So you are still the same old Kay, after all. I had feared a little for you, when you first came to me here this afternoon.”
“I was a Queen’s Knight before I was a companion of the Table, my lady,” I said. “I am still more proud of the first honor.”
“Then you should not be.” For the third time she took my hand, and this time pressed it for a few moments. “But I think I am more proud of my company than the King of his.”
Letting go my hand at last, she opened her box of chessmen, took out a white pawn and a red one, shook them in her cupped palms and then separated her hands, holding out her closed fists for me to choose. “Now come, Sir Kay,” she said. “I think we have time for one short game before Evensong.”
* * * *
“Wherefore I liken love nowadays unto summer and winter; for like as the one is hot and the other cold, so fareth love nowadays; therefore all ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.”
—Malory XVIII, 25
NOTE TO THE 2012 TEXT
Somewhere I encountered the story of a famous artist caught touching up his own painting after it had been sold and was already hanging at the Louvre. While forgetting who the artist was, I empathize with him—even bearing in mind that mere authorship does not necessarily qualify a person to tamper with a work that has been in print for a number of years, as witness certain changes W. S. Gilbert attempted in later life to some of his Bab Ballads. But, like a medieval scribe cavalierly altering text while copying it, I plowed merrily ahead with my revisions.
The Idylls of the Queen Page 29