Mordred was getting desperate. He had all the impatience Arthur had had as a young man. He did not want to wait for what he had seen happen. I had learned patience the hard way, and I did not have any sympathy for his haste.
“What do we do, then?” he demanded.
I gave him a sly smile. “I will bring Lancelot back from Joyous Guard, and we will not have to wait for long.” Mordred made a gruff noise of agreement. He did not have a better suggestion. “But you wait now. I will bring Lancelot back, and we shall arrange it so Arthur sees the truth. Then, war between them shall begin, and I shall take the sword as payment, and you can do what you like with all the rest.”
“All the rest?” Mordred insisted. I felt sick at the thought of it, but I knew I had to agree to get his obedience. I nodded.
Chapter Sixty
I had not been to Joyous Guard before, so I had to ride there. It was not far, a little more than a day’s ride, and it passed quickly. Soon I saw before me its tall, thin shape rising on the horizon. It was not a welcoming place, despite its name, but a siege fortress made of dark grey stone. It was not even a castle like Rheged or Lothian Castle; it was a warrior’s stronghold.
I was not sure that he would be there, but he was. I could see lights within as the day began to fade. There was no way in that I could find apart from the barbican gate. There were no men I could see in the courtyard, but I took the shape of a rangy-looking cat I had seen in Lothian Castle and slipped between its bars. It was almost entirely empty. I could only see a single light, high up. There was no one to stop me, so I followed towards it, up a tight set of spiral stairs, up, up to what must have been a bedroom. I could hear someone moving around inside – Lancelot, I was sure – and out in the corridor, I took Guinevere’s shape. I could feel my heart racing. I was not sure yet how far I intended to go to convince Lancelot that he was forgiven. I was not sure how guilty I ought to feel about what had happened between us – how I had deceived him – since I suspected I had been deceived by Nimue all along. But there was no time for doubt now.
I pushed the door open and strode in. I had wanted him to believe it was really Guinevere, so I had changed into her form dressed in the rich gold and green dress I had seen her in, her hair plaited back and dressed with the little gold circlet. He looked up as I came in, and I saw the breath rush out of him at the sight of me. It did for me as well. Out here, far from Camelot, he had not bothered to shave every day, and a light handsome stubble of dark hair shaded his chin. I stepped further into the room, pushing the door shut behind me. He took a step towards me, too. His eyes, dark blue, dizzyingly intense on me, were wide with surprise.
“Guinevere...” he breathed.
I stepped forward, rushing across the space to place my fingers lightly against his lips. I did not want to hear her name. He closed his eyes against my touch and sighed, putting his arms around me. I felt his hands at the small of my back, pulling my body against his, and I slid my hand into his hair as we came together in a kiss that was as light and sensual as it was deep and passionate.
Slowly, reluctantly, he held me away from him, gazing into my eyes.
“Guinevere,” he whispered, “I am sorry. Truly, I am.”
I hushed him, leaning up and gently brushing my lips against his. He gave a low groan of yearning and pulled me hard against him again. I could feel the heat of his body through my dress, and the hunger in his touch as he ran his hands down my back. I had lost all the thoughts I had of what I had come planning to say, how I could convince him to return. In that moment I did not care about that. I wanted his hands all over my body, and his mouth. I wanted him more intensely than I thought I ever had before.
He moved his lips to my neck, and I sighed against him, closing my eyes, feeling my own heat rise in response to his, and to my long-sleeping desire.
“Truly, you forgive me?” Lancelot whispered by my ear, his hands winding through my hair, pulling it loose. I felt a flash of annoyance that his words were distracting me. Why was he talking so much?
“Truly,” I replied.
He seemed to pause then, only for a moment, and then he began kissing down my neck again, and I felt his lips across my collarbone.
“How did you get here? How did you come in secret?” he murmured between his kisses. I wanted him to be quiet. I didn’t like speaking, didn’t like hearing her voice coming from my mouth, reminding me that it was she not I that he wanted.
“I found a way. I was desperate to see you,” I replied.
Suddenly, he drew away, holding me by the shoulders, peering down at me. He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and then sighed deeply.
“Morgan,” he sighed. To my surprise, his tone was weary, annoyed, rather than furious or hurt.
I had missed my chance to lie. I let my own shape return and Lancelot sighed again and shook his head.
“Morgan, that isn’t fair,” he said, his eyes on mine a little sad, a little hopeless.
“She does want you to come back,” I told him, gently. “She has forgiven you. Come back to Camelot. Please, come back.”
He ran his hands through his hair, closing his eyes, then rubbed his face, hard.
“Morgan...” he groaned, and he looked down at me again, his face slowly growing suspicious. “What do you have to gain from this?”
I shrugged, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I suppose you wouldn’t believe that I have reformed my character and I am trying to be kind?”
Lancelot said nothing.
“Fine. Come back because Mordred is going to hurt her if you don’t. Arthur doesn’t see anything that happens, including you with his wife day and night right in front of him.” Lancelot gave me a sharp look, but it was the truth. I continued, “And he certainly doesn’t see what Mordred is trying to do.”
Lancelot, to my surprise, nodded. So he knew.
“I was afraid that my leaving would give him an opportunity. But she is safe at the moment?”
“For the moment,” I insisted. Lancelot sighed once again, pressing his fingers into the middle of his forehead in despair. Slowly, he nodded.
“Arthur has sent to me, inviting me for his Mayday hunt. I will come back then. You think she will be safe until then?”
I had not realised until I said it that I had not needed to lie about my reason for wanting him back there. He would check Mordred, and he would keep Guinevere safe. He would be upset when he learned that I was trying to use him to punish Arthur, but he might well end getting what he wanted.
“I will make sure of it,” I assured him. He nodded, thoughtful.
What was it about her? What made all these men risk anything to have her?
“What does she have,” I asked him, and I could not hide the plaintive sadness in my voice, “that I did not?”
Lancelot gave me a sad and gentle smile, putting his hands in comfort on my shoulders. It was unbearably little, and I knew what he was going to say.
“Nothing, Morgan. There is nothing wrong with you. I just... love her.”
And you don’t love me, I thought. Lancelot sighed and shook his head, his gaze growing far away again, getting lost in his thoughts of her. I wished that I had not begun it.
“I tried, Morgan. I tried so hard to forget. I wanted to live a good man’s life, but,” he paused, closing his eyes for a moment, “I could not forget her. Even when I went to seek the Grail, and I was supposed to fix my thoughts on God, all I thought about was her. I used to dream, again and again and again, that I was walking through Camelot, through the courtyard, up the stairs of her tower. I knew she was in her bedroom, just behind the door, but when I opened the door, I would wake, without seeing her. But she was always there. I knew she was there. No thoughts of God, or sin, or hell could erase the memory of her, of her hands against my skin, of her –” His words caught in him, and I could see he was remembering even now, and he knew that I saw it, and he blushed. “We are bound together, she and I. I will love her until the worl
d ceases to exist. Until heaven and hell fall away into nothingness. I wish it were not so, but also I am not sure I could bear this world without her love. She is...” a slight smile flickered across his face, “undeniable. Like a force of nature. Wild, yes, passionate – cruel, too. She is cruel, sometimes.”
“How did you know, then?” I asked him. “How did you know it was me this time?”
Lancelot laughed softly. “Morgan, it was a long time ago that I was so easily fooled. I was little more than a boy then, and I have long been a man now. I have loved my Lady nearly fifteen years. I know her as well as I know myself.” He laughed again, looking down at his feet, a strange, secret smile on his face. “She would never have told me she had been desperate to see me. No, she would have come to me demanding to know why I had not come to her. Besides, I know her kiss, her touch, the sounds she makes when I have her in my arms. I remember it all, though, in truth, it has been six years since I have even kissed her.”
I was shocked. I remembered what he had said to me, when he thought I was Kay, that he was trying to be near her without giving into what he knew was wrong. I could see that he regretted that now. He had not held me away from him when I had come in her shape.
“She is angry with you for that, too,” I replied, and he nodded, pacing away from me.
“It is all such an awful mess, Morgan,” he said, quietly facing away from me, out into the darkness. The window was open, and the cool spring breeze wafted in, lifting the loose curls of his hair lightly. I could hold him in my arms for a moment, but he would never be mine. He had been hers from the moment he laid eyes on her. I did not know why I had never seen it before. I felt suddenly cruel with my jealousy.
“Because of Arthur?” I demanded. All this talk of Guinevere, of his Lady, and he seemed to have forgotten that she was someone else’s wife. Lancelot groaned and rubbed his face.
“Arthur,” he sighed. “Yes, because of Arthur. If only it were any other man. The only other man in this world who could possibly be worthy of her love, and he is her husband.” He half-turned back to me. He was desperate to excuse himself, but I was not convinced. “And she does love him, Morgan. I’ve taken nothing from him. She does not love him less on my account. What we have is outside of that, beyond this world, beyond time, beyond control.” He shook his head again, suddenly angry and suspicious again, pacing back towards me. Perhaps it should have been him, not Mordred, whose help I should have sought. I could not have been totally honest with him, but he was destroying Arthur’s perfect world from its secret centre far more effectively than Mordred could ever have done with violence. “But why are you really here, Morgan? What do you want? Kay told me that you tried to have Arthur killed. How do I know you’re telling me the truth? After all, you came here trying to deceive me again. You are not trying to harm Arthur again, are you?”
I gave him a harsh laugh. It was rich of him to lecture me about doing Arthur harm. I felt cold, and angry and vengeful suddenly again. I was ready for cruelty, for Mordred’s savagery. I wanted to hurt them all. Stupid, selfish Lancelot with his talk of his love beyond everyone else – he was not beyond everyone else; the rules that had held me back and tied me to Uriens, and had forced me to suffer and live the life that everyone else wanted me to live – he was not really outside of those, and neither was his Lady. He would not live beyond them forever. He thought he could have Guinevere and somehow some great god of love would protect them? He was wrong. I would make him suffer, too. If he wanted to have her, he would have to kill Arthur for her. If these men wanted us to live in a world where they possessed us, then they would have to fight each other to the death for us. I would set them at each other, and watch them tear themselves to pieces. They would feel it; they would feel how I had felt when the door had closed behind me on my wedding night, how I had felt when Arthur had sent my sister, pregnant, from Camelot, how I had felt when Lot held me against his table, my face pressed against the wood. How I had felt standing naked on the shores of Avalon.
I did not answer Lancelot, but let myself fade away, back to Camelot. He would come. I was sure.
Chapter Sixty One
I did not have to go to Mordred again. He was already working on a plan of his own, his mean little mind busying away while I was gone. He sought me out as soon as he saw me back, in my borrowed shape.
“You did not bring him back with you, then,” Mordred demanded, standing in the doorway to my bedroom, his arms crossed over his chest.
“He will come soon,” I told Mordred, dismissively.
“We need better than soon. We need now.”
I could tell that Mordred felt time running short. He would be nineteen years old when Mayday came. He was acutely aware of how much Arthur had achieved at that age. By that age, too, Arthur had had a son. I wondered if this was what Mordred’s suddenly rampant interest in any and every woman was about.
I shrugged. “It will be for the Mayday hunt.”
Mordred nodded, but he did not seem satisfied. “You can make sure he comes here, but I have heard something that concerns me greatly, Morgan. I have heard it said that since his return from the quest for the Grail he has kept himself from her bed, from being alone with her, even, out of concern for his immortal soul, or some such nonsense.”
I nodded.
“Ah, Morgan,” he stepped towards me, his eyes wild, “this is our problem! We bring him back, and what if he still consigns himself to this life of virtue?”
I didn't think he would, but Mordred did not look in the mood to be taking chances.
“What is to be done, then?” I asked him.
He did not answer, but took my hand, leading me from the room, down the stairs, across the courtyard, back to his room. He had planned something already, then.
In Mordred’s room, sitting as though he were waiting for us to arrive, was a shortish man whom I knew by sight from around Camelot, dressed in a faded surcoat of dark purplish red. It looked strangely dusty, and I suspected that if I came closer to him he would smell damp and musty. He had the look about him of a man who was trying to appear much finer than he was. All of his clothes looked old, and though he had a neat straw-coloured beard, he had an unpleasant slightly feminine softness to his features. I did not like the look of him. I noticed that his hands, folded in his lap, had longish, greyish fingernails. I had heard Gaheris call him Mad Meleagaunt. He was a joke well known among the sons of Lot; a poor, weak-minded knight who entertained himself with dreams of grandeur. He had challenged Gawain to a joust once, and Gawain had laughed about it for more than a week. What on earth did Mordred want with this pathetic creature?
“Who is this?” Meleagaunt asked. His voice did not match his features, it was rough and assertive.
Mordred turned to me with a cruel grin. “This?” he answered. “Oh, this is just my whore.”
If I had not been eager to find out what Mordred wanted with this fool, I would have slapped him.
“Now –” Mordred turned back to Meleagaunt, business-like, pulled up a chair and sat facing him. I hung back, leaning against the wall. Meleagaunt seemed to have forgotten already that I was there. “How can we help one another?”
“I have spoken to you before of my dear, true love of the Queen, which I have held for many years now,” the man began, his face showing no sign that he did not utterly believe in his own words, though I had heard nothing, nor ever seen her even look at him. I doubted that she knew he existed. Mordred, however, nodded earnestly in response. “And yet, Sir Mordred, all my efforts are lost. Lancelot is ever by her side, and there is no way that I may...” He paused, as though looking for the right word. He glanced at me again, as though he were embarrassed, but he continued, “Be alone with my lady to... persuade her of my affections.”
Mordred furrowed his brow into a frown. “But you know, Meleagaunt, Lancelot is far from Camelot, and no one knows where he has gone, or if he will return, or if he even lives, still.”
Meleagaunt nodded thoughtfull
y. “But ever her husband is with her.”
“Yes, yes,” Mordred agreed, nodding, as though he were thinking it out with this repulsive little man, when I was sure he would have plotted it all out long ago. “Ah, but Meleagaunt, there will be a Mayday hunt, and she will ride out for that. She will be with my Lord King Arthur, of course, but she is a woman and rides slow. If you are wise, you will be able to spot your opportunity to speak with her alone.” Mordred leant forward, placing his hands on Meleagaunt’s shoulders, staring into his eyes. “Just remember, my friend, that a woman will not love a man she does not respect. Sometimes a little... force is necessary, if you want to convince her of the seriousness of your affections.”
I felt suddenly sick. I opened my mouth to object, but I knew I could not without giving myself away. Besides, Meleagaunt was already speaking, jumping from his seat in excitement.
“I will take her back to my castle – yes. When she sees what a fine castle it is, and what a fine lord I myself am, then – yes. And besides, I have a small retinue of knights there. They will ensure that she is... attentive to what I have to say.”
I tried to catch Mordred’s eye, but he was deliberately avoiding mine, standing to clap the madman on the back and direct him from the room. As soon as Mordred shut the door behind him, grinning to himself, I switched back into my own shape and stepped towards him. I could feel the anger twisting through me. I did not like the way Meleagaunt had talked about persuasion, about Guinevere being attentive. That had hardly sounded like love to me. I resented Mordred for throwing a woman into danger so callously. I did not see, either, how it helped him. I could feel my breath catching in my chest, and I was unable to keep the memory from playing over and over again in my head of Uriens with his hand over my mouth. This was not part of any agreement I had made with Mordred. I could not stop him trying to take her for himself, but this was disgusting, and I would not allow it.
MORGAN: A Gripping Arthurian Fantasy Trilogy Page 46