Queen of Camelot

by Nancy McKenzie

  5 THE SIN

  During the next five years King Pellinore was often from home while Arthur’s new Kingdom fought for its fledgling life. The Saxons had been soundly defeated at Caer Eden, and Colgrin their leader had died of wounds received on that field. But there were other war leaders eager to fill Colgrin’s place. Caelwin, Colgrin’s second-in-command, organized the East Saxons, treated with the Angles, and with their combined forces fought to establish a new beachhead along the eastern shores. If Lot of Lothian treated with them, it would split Britain in two.

  And along the Saxon Shore arose a youth who dared to call himself King of the West Saxons: Cerdic the Aetheling, Eosa’s son, who promised his people freedoms and rule by law, should they conquer Britain. I wondered at his temerity—was not Roman law good enough for the likes of him?

  But Arthur led his troops to victory after victory, with great losses on the Saxon side and few on his own. Young as he was, older men granted him their respect, and hardened warriors deferred to his opinions, for there is no talisman luckier than victory, and he did not seem able to lose. Everywhere they were attacked, Britons fought bravely, from king to foot soldier, knowing that the High King would come to their aid with his invincible Sword, Excalibur, and his companion force of trained warriors.

  Without fail Arthur came and conquered. By the time I was ten he was already a legend in his own land. He never lost so much as a skirmish. His name was a password for victory, and men said he had only to appear on the horizon for the Saxons to turn and flee.

  Elaine believed every word she heard about him, and I was forced to stop my teasing under the pressure of her adoration. She even fasted the whole day of his coronation, while everyone else feasted. He was no longer our hope, she told me with earnest passion, he was our savior. And truly, I could not in good grace quarrel with her, for the kings of Britain hastened to unite behind this fearless warrior, and for the first time in men’s memories Wales, Cornwall, Rheged, Lothian, and scores of lesser kingdoms felt a kinship with one another—we were all part of one realm.

  This took time to achieve. Indeed, for the first year of his reign, Arthur was busy fighting stop-gap battles in the east, north, and southeast. He had been High King for over six months before the Saxons left him enough breathing space to get himself crowned. It was a Christian ceremony, and he was anointed by a Christian priest at Pentecost, but it was held in the old fighting fortress of Caerleon with a minimum of ceremony, because, in the King’s own words, there was little time. Most of his attendants were his troops and nobles, although all the lords and ladies of the land had been invited. King Pellinore and Queen Alyse attended, for Caerleon, lying on a hill above the River Usk, was but four days’ journey south. It was April, and spring was early that year, so the roads were clear and they made good time. According to Elaine, Pellinore had intended to take only his soldiers with him, but the queen refused to be left behind. She claimed she didn’t care if she had to sleep in a tent; she wanted to see the young High King crowned.

  When she returned, she was the center of all our attention, and one afternoon, in an expansive mood, she gathered us all around her: her waiting women, Elaine and me, and our nurses, and she told us all about it.

  It was not grand, she said, more a meeting among war leaders than a social event, but the High King’s mother, the lady Ygraine, had come up from Cornwall and had spent much time with Alyse, one of the few queens to attempt the journey. Ygraine still grieved for her lost Uther and looked pale and wasted. Her physician traveled with her, but it was Merlin who concocted her a brew that brought color to her cheeks and allowed her to attend the ceremony without exciting her son’s attention.

  “Merlin!” Elaine cried. “Was he there? Did you really see Merlin the Enchanter, Mother? Were you in the room with him? What does he look like?”

  Queen Alyse laughed gently. “You young ones grew up on the tales of his doings, I see, and to you he is a creature of fable. But he is real enough, I assure you. And free of arrogance, for such a powerful man. Without him, young Arthur would not now be King.”

  “Saints preserve us!” Grannic cried, crossing herself, and Ailsa clutched the amulet at her breast.

  “Is he very fearful, Mother?” Elaine whispered. “Did you see him use magic?”

  “No, child. He came often to visit Ygraine. They are old friends. But he used no magic except what he put in the broth that gave her the strength to see her son crowned.”

  “Is he ugly, Mama?”

  “Goodness, no. He is tall, of course, and dark. Black hair and eyes. You would think him old, but I do not. He is slender and quiet and does not say much. He listens to everything. They say the young King loves him as a father and depends upon him greatly. Not for fighting, of course. By his own admission Merlin is no swordsman. But for matters of state, I should imagine he is the wisest advisor a king could have.”

  “What was the coronation like, Mother? Did you have to stay in a tent? Did you get to see King Arthur? Is he handsome and fierce? Tell us!”

  Alyse laid a gentle hand on Elaine’s head, and I watched her eyes. They looked through Elaine to something beyond. “We were lodged in a house next to Ygraine’s. It was a high honor, for there are few private dwellings there yet, although I hear the High King has plans for the place. Yes, I saw the High King at the ceremony and afterward, when he greeted his guests. He is just fourteen, but already an experienced war leader. You could see it in his eyes, his bearing, his sureness. He is—he is—” she paused, searching for the words to describe the youth she saw in her mind’s eye. “He is tall, but not too tall, he is handsome, but not to swooning point. He has a look of Uther about him, but not his temper, God be praised. And by all accounts he is moderate in his habits.” No one needed to remind us of Uther’s reputation for womanizing. It was a saying that he had never slept alone. “But one doesn’t see him in that way. What you see is singleness of purpose, of youth and strength and joy. He was born for this, Merlin said to Ygraine, and it seems he knows it.” She sighed and smiled gently. “As a mother, I would want him for my son. Were I a girl again, I would want him for my husband.”

  Elaine caught my eye and sighed in deep satisfaction. Alyse continued her account of her visit and the nobles she saw, but for Elaine the rest was chaff. She had her fantasy of Arthur confirmed and was happy to bursting point.

  Those were good years, those early ones. While Elaine and I studied Latin and Greek and figuring, learned stitching and weaving and housekeeping, raced along the rocky beaches on our ponies, and listened in on the king’s councils when we could, Arthur was busy repairing the Kingdom’s defenses, building roads and fortresses, setting up communication links of signal fires from hilltop to tor top, refurbishing ransacked towns and castles, restoring life and trust to the land. He traveled constantly from kingdom to kingdom, renewing treaties and helping lords with their local problems in return for their pledge to come to his call. Around him he gathered the young men of the kingdoms, nobles’ sons, and forged them, through friendship, into a close-knit group. With the help of a king’s son from Less Britain, who was a consummate horseman, Arthur sent to Gaul for fine, swift horses and crossed them with the strong, native breeds to get warhorses unsurpassed in power, speed, and intelligence. Arthur’s mounted Companions became a swift, mobile cavalry and one of his deadliest weapons.

  But as they say in Wales, every sun has its shadow. No one is immune from slander, and one day I heard a tale that wove a dark thread of evil into the fabric of the new King’s glory. I was in my horse’s stall, rubbing him down after a ride and grooming his silken coat, a job I preferred to do myself than leave to a groom, when I heard men talking.

  One of Pellinore’s men spoke carelessly as he handed over his sweated horse; I had lingered long after my ride and no doubt they thought I had returned to the castle with Elaine.

  “Ho there, Stannic, how goes it?”

  “Well, young master, thank you kindly. You made good time. We weren�
��t expecting you before sundown.”

  “I hurried from York,” the trooper replied, and then their voices became muffled as they went together into the horse’s stall. I was about to straighten up and slip out, when I caught the High King’s name and the word “massacre.” Quickly I crouched in the corner of the box and kept as still as I could. The trooper came out and lounged nearby in the aisle, speaking with the voice of one who delights in bearing bad news.

  “They are talking about it all over York,” he gloated. “Two hundred babies, they say, all boys, all newborns, set adrift in a fishing craft with the sail lashed to the tiller and the course set for the rocks. I got it from a man who got it from his sister, and she lives in Dunpeldyr.”

  Dunpeldyr! The capital of Lothian. Lot’s city.

  “Oh, he was in a rare fury was King Lot. Put yourself in his shoes, Stannic. You’re away campaigning with the High King, your bride of eight months tucked safely away in your castle, with guards aplenty. You have left her with child, but what do you find when you return for her lying-in? A slender wife, an empty crib, a thin tale of an early birthing and a quick death. And all the while the place is buzzing with the rumors of a strong boy born six weeks ago, looking no more like Lot than a dragon does an eagle!”

  Stannic mumbled something, and the trooper laughed. I wondered what this common little tale had to do with the High King.

  “Yes, there was a child, all right. But she hid him well. She’s a witch, you know, a proper sorceress as well as a beauty. I’d say she was capable of anything. Seduction and deception would come as natural as breathing to Queen Morgause. Oh, it’s not Lot’s child, that’s for certain. Lot beat her till she was well nigh senseless but could get no truth from her. All York is full of the news.”

  “Is that why he killed the children?” Stannic asked. “To find the boy?”

  “Did I say it was Lot’s doing? The babe had other enemies. Can’t you guess whose child it was?”

  “Her bath slave? The captain of the guard?”

  The trooper paused, and I feared he would leave his tale unfinished, but he had only stopped to drain his hip flask, for I heard him push the stopper in and belch.

  “Listen, Stannic,” he continued, but very softly, and a curious, stealthy quality in his voice sent a shiver of fear down my spine; I crept to the front of the box to hear. “Can’t you guess the reason for Lot’s fury? No, no, if it had just been the queen’s bastard, he’d have tossed it out, not sought to kill it. You never heard the rumors then? There was talk after Caer Eden about them. Morgause and Arthur, I mean. Before she was married to Lot, and before he was proclaimed King Uther’s son.” His voice fell to a hoarse whisper, and I strained to catch it. “The young prince shared her bed there, they say, his first woman, the night of his victory. And that she carried his child within her when she wed Lot soon after. You can be sure Lot had heard the rumors and wanted no dragon chick in his nest, bastard or not.”

  “Does the High King know?” Stannic asked, coming out of the box.

  “Well, that’s the question of the hour, isn’t it? Someone’s troops invaded the city and slayed every newborn male child. Every house was searched. Babies dragged from their mothers’ breasts, lifted sleeping from their cradles, and thrown into an open boat. They said you could hear the cries of those babies for hours after the boat was out of sight, and of course the wailings of the mothers for days on end . . . No, none survived. The bodies all came in on the tide three days ago.”

  “Are you suggesting—” Stannic’s voice was shaking, “—are you suggesting they were royal troops?”

  “Who knows? They wore no badge. And it stands to reason the King would want to kill the child. What a hostage to his future that would be, a bastard son raised by the Witch of Lothian!”

  “Not this King,” Stannic whispered. “He’s but a youth yet. He’s no evil in him.”

  “And who stands behind him at his right hand but Merlin the Enchanter, master of the black arts? Don’t tell me, my man, it isn’t possible. With kings, anything is possible. The north country is already laying the blame at Arthur’s door. York is divided. In the south, they’ll probably blame Lot.”

  “I blame the Witch herself!” Stannic cried, and the trooper laughed.

  “Well, no doubt, she is the root of all the trouble. So beautiful, they say, she turns men’s wits. But would she give the order to murder innocent children?”

  “She might, to safeguard the boy. Bastards have come to power before now. Didn’t you say Lot had beaten her in a temper? Well, I’ve known women who would do any evil thing to cover the tracks of a lie. If she’d hidden the baby well, as you said, she could slay the city’s children and keep her dangerous son safe. That would cool the king’s anger and still the wagging tongues.”

  “Hmmm. Perhaps, if you think a woman capable of murdering children. I don’t know. But it was a terrible, black deed, and the blame for it must settle somewhere.”

  “I pray the Goddess it does not settle on the young King.”

  “Even if it doesn’t, he will suffer for it. How would you like a crafty wolf like Lot murdering a host of innocents just to kill yours? Leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, wouldn’t it? Leave you feeling a little unclean?”

  I believe I screamed in horror, but my hands were over my mouth, and they were walking away together, so they did not hear me. The trooper left, but Stannic came back and walked down the aisle, checking the horses. I was pressed frozen into the corner, and he did not see me. He doused the oil lamp, closed the door, and went out. I went to my dozing horse and wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his rough mane to hide my tears.

  I knew, as the trooper told the story, that there was more to it than he was telling, or perhaps than he knew, and when he said the word “unclean” I knew suddenly what it was. Morgause was Uther’s bastard daughter, born before he married the Queen Ygraine. She was Uther’s daughter. Arthur’s sister. I crossed myself quickly as I thought the unclean thought. It had been a sin time out of mind. Could it be true? Could the High King have done such a thing? I thought back to the Battle of Caer Eden. I remembered the tales that had circulated among the returning wounded at that time, that the prince was kept ignorant of his birth, at Uther’s wish, until Uther proclaimed him on his deathbed. That was the day after the battle, when they celebrated the victory. Was it possible, then, that when he went to Morgause he did not know who he was?

  But if he sinned in innocence, he must have realized the truth the next day, when Uther acknowledged him. Hadn’t Corwin described him as dazed and grim soon after the announcement? Here was a motive for murder stronger than any the trooper had named. Such a son would be a blight upon his honor, a smear across his good name, as well as a threat to his power.

  I found myself shaking badly. There seemed no way out of the dilemma. Arthur was guilty either of incest or of murder, and perhaps of both. Our new King, our stainless, shining hope, would bear forever the taint of evil, once the news got out.

  I realized suddenly that the trooper had come home to tell the news at the council table, and I straightened and stilled my trembling. I would dampen my clothing in the horse’s trough and feign illness, so Elaine could not persuade me to go out on the parapet and eavesdrop tonight. Someday she might find out, and if the story of the massacre was spreading across Britain with the speed it was spreading across Wales, then it was likely she would hear it from someone, but it wasn’t going to be me. Elaine was my only friend, and I was going to keep her Arthur untarnished for her.

  6 THE GIFT

  Queen Alyse and her ladies-in-waiting sat stitching and dozing in the queen’s garden, enjoying the soft sea breeze and the warming sun of midmorning. The winter had been a hard one, and more than one of the women nursed a lingering cough. It was luxury to spend the day outside the cold castle walls, delighting in the sun, the smells of new growth, and the early birdsong.

  It was the first of May and my thirteenth birthday.
Father Martin released us early from our lessons, praising our progress and pretending he didn’t know it was my birthday. There were celebrations in the village, where maids plaited wildflowers into their hair and danced with the young men, and the smoke from their feast fires drifted up the hill to our castle. This was Beltane, a day sacred to the Goddess, and while King Pellinore and Queen Alyse kept a Christian household, most Welshmen honored the Mother as well as Christ and observed Her holy days.

  I had been looking forward to this day for a long time, because I was sure that on this day God would make me a woman. I had prayed so hard and tried so earnestly to keep all His commandments, obeying even the most stringent of the rules set down by Queen Alyse for ladylike behavior.

  And more than that, I had learned, at great cost to my pride, to take my appointed place in Elaine’s shadow. When she was willful I did not thwart her, but found some politic way, if I could, to temper her headstrong ways and yet avoid her anger. When I failed, and her silly schemes ended in disaster, I learned to hold my tongue when I was blamed. Once when Elaine and I sneaked down to the buttery to steal the new cream from jugs just set out, the cook caught us and scolded us roundly for our greed. Knowing from long experience whose idea it was, she chided Elaine for her appetite and threatened to tell the queen. That very morning Alyse had lectured Elaine about her fondness for sweets and cream, so Elaine turned around and blamed the adventure on me. Because I knew I would pay for it well if I denied it, I confessed, and from then on Alyse concluded that it was I who was responsible for every lump of sugar that went missing from the storerooms.