Queen of Camelot

by Nancy McKenzie

  When there was punishment, I took it. Afterward, Elaine would give me a sweet apology and a promise of better behavior. And if Alyse frowned and scowled and called me a young fool, I could always rely on Pellinore’s forgiveness. He could not bear to see me out of temper and would tease me back to good humor with all the good-hearted boisterousness in his generous nature.

  For these sacrifices, I was sure God would answer my prayer. Although Elaine was a year younger than I, she had already grown round breasts and hips and had passed her menarche. All I had done was grow taller. I was taller now than Queen Alyse, but straight as a boy, with no sign that my body would ever change. But I was sure God had heard my prayers. Father Martin said He paid special attention to the requests of virgins.

  Queen Alyse and her ladies had made us each a new dress to celebrate the day, and we hurried to change into them. Elaine’s was made of a sky-blue cloth, soft and fine, that matched her eyes exactly. It had a high belt and rounded throat, accentuating her budding figure. She looked beautiful. Mine was a soft, spring green, the color of new leaves, cut out of silk that must have come from the warm lands far to the south. The lace at the throat was a sign of love and honor, for lace was rare in Britain and very costly. But the dress fit like a glove and could not hide the straightness of my frame. Next to Elaine, I looked like one of Alyse’s garden scarecrows.

  “Gwen!” Elaine gasped. I turned to find her staring at me in distress.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She shook her head angrily. “You have no right to outshine me!” she blurted. “Change your dress!”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “You know full well what I am talking about! You have been admiring yourself in the bronze half the morning! I mean it, I will not be outdone!”

  “Outdone, indeed!” I retorted. “It ill becomes you to mock me, Elaine. Just because you look like a woman of twenty, and I—I—I will grow a shape someday and find a husband, just wait and see!”

  “Too soon for me!” she cried, in tears.

  “Good heavens, Elaine! Are you blind? Come and look at yourself! You look fit to be courted by one of the High King’s Companions!”

  This was the highest compliment I could think of, for the King’s Companions were the finest men in all the land. But it did not please her; she scowled and turned away. I did not dream, then, of Elaine’s ambition.

  “Fat chance I shall have of ever courting anybody, Gwen, until you are married. Who will look at little Elaine, standing in Guinevere’s shadow?”

  I grabbed her arm. “What nonsense is this? You are Pellinore’s daughter! Have some sense, Elaine!”

  But she pulled away angrily. “Leave me alone! You’d just better leave me alone!” And she fled out the door and down the corridor before I could stop her.

  “What have I done?” I cried to Ailsa, who bent to retrieve the comb Elaine had thrown aside. “What did I say? Do you know what is the matter?”

  “Indeed”—she smiled—“but pay it no mind, my lady. It’s an illness without a cure.”

  “Well, whatever is amiss?” I demanded. “Tell me!”

  She looked up slowly, her eyes narrowing in laughter. “If you don’t know yet, time will tell you. Go on down to her now and be kind to her. You can bring her around, if you try.”

  I composed myself as best I could and went down to the garden, where I knew the queen was waiting for us. Elaine was there before me, but she kept her eyes in her lap and did not greet me. The conversation centered on the big event of the day, which was Pellinore’s return from King Arthur’s court. He was bringing me a special birthday gift, the messenger had said, but it was a great secret. Not even Alyse knew what it was.

  Pellinore had been gone three months with his troops of fighting men, helping the High King repair the defenses along the Saxon Shore. Rumor had it they had been with Arthur when they defeated a Saxon force newly landed in longboats. The Saxons had been many in number, and the High King’s force small, only Pellinore’s foot soldiers and those of two lesser lords of the Summer Country, but the Saxons had been without horses, and Arthur’s Companions had demolished them. The young knight from Less Britain, Lancelot of Lanascol, who had bred and trained the horses, had been honored at the victory feast. The High King graciously gave him credit for the victory and made him first among the Companions, his second-in-command. This he already was in all but name, for having no kin in Britain, he of necessity lodged and traveled with the High King, and they had become close friends.

  Now the King had moved north to York, and Pellinore was coming home for what we all hoped was a long stay, bringing with him a surprise.

  I picked up the piece of stitchery I was working on and listened almost absentmindedly to the women talking, my thoughts full of womanhood and distress at Elaine’s sudden temper. Would she never cease her childish sulking and be my friend again?

  “Melwas is King of the Summer Country,” Alyse was saying, “although they say it is his sister Seulte who rules there. She claims to be a witch, but those who live there on Ynys Witrin say her foul temper is only bitterness at her inability to find a husband.” Leave it to Alyse, I thought, to touch unerringly on Elaine’s sorest spot.

  “Isn’t there a shrine to the Good Goddess on Ynys Witrin?” Elaine asked swiftly, to divert her mother. “I’m sure I heard it somewhere, but I thought there was a monastery there, too. How can there be both?”

  “My goodness, Elaine, how do you get your information? You have never been to the Summer Country, and I am sure I did not know anything about it until Pellinore spent so much time there in the last year.”

  Of course we had got the information by eavesdropping. I caught Elaine’s quick, warning glance and hid a smile. She turned an innocent face to her mother. “I don’t know, Mother, I must have picked it up at the stables, I guess. Sometimes the men talk when they don’t know young maids are about.”

  A chill of horror shot through me, and I almost gasped, reminded of the trooper from York. Was it possible Elaine knew the wretched tale, or had it merely been an arrow in the dark? I bent low over my work to hide my face.

  “Ah, well, little pitchers have big ears. Yes, Avalon lies on Ynys Witrin below Melwas’ fortress, the Christian monastery farther up the Tor. The monks and the Ladies of the Lake get along well enough. They are all in the service of the Divine. The priestesses are skilled in the healing arts, as the monks are in prayer and meditation. There has been no trouble there, at any rate. The trouble has all come from Melwas. He is young and handsome and is a likable enough fellow, I gather, but he has rather an eye for the girls in training. I understand he has ruined more than one pretty acolyte, and he is only twenty.”

  “Perhaps,” one of her ladies said, “it is time for him to marry.”

  “No doubt it is, Cissa. But his sister stands in his way. No one is good enough for the lady Seulte, although I daresay Melwas himself is not so choosy. But he will not cross his sister, who feeds him full of praise and ambition, and so he bides by her will. Pellinore fears there will be more trouble in that quarter for some time.”

  “But at least it’s only woman trouble,” Leonora said.

  “Perhaps,” said Cissa, “he should look farther north for his bride.” She turned and smiled at Elaine, who colored. I shot Elaine a triumphant glance, but she ignored me.

  Alyse paused and looked at both of us thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” she said, “but there is time yet. And I haven’t told you the big news.” She put down her work and gathered our attention. “I expect we will hear the details when King Pellinore comes home tonight, but I don’t see why I can’t tell you now what I know of it. As you know, the High King has been looking to build a fortress for his troops for some time. Caerleon, reinforced though it is, is not big enough. He has collected many men who follow him, not to mention the horses, and there are no hill forts large enough to accommodate his household. So a month ago they broke ground at a new site.”


  This set the ladies chattering with delight. At last the kingdom would have a center, a court that did not have to migrate from kingdom to kingdom, a place Arthur could call his own.

  “It is in the Summer Country, which is what made me think of Melwas,” Alyse continued. “On a high tor, flat-topped and long-sloped, within sight of the signal fires on Ynys Witrin. It sits near the river Camel, and there is a spring near the summit. It is rumored that before winter the fortifications will be complete, and lodging for the troops and horses ready. The castle, of course, will take longer.”

  What need had Arthur of a castle, I thought to myself, if he had good fortifications and lodgings for troops and horses? For five years he had done without either consistently and was still victorious wherever he raised his Sword.

  “This is good news indeed, my lady,” Cissa cried. “And perhaps, in two or three years, when he has built a home to bring a bride to, the High King will marry at last.” It had long been a worry among my lady’s maids, and I suspect among many of the ladies of the land, that the young King had not yet given a thought to marriage. He was now eighteen, well grown, well favored, war-hardened, and beyond all doubt the most eligible bachelor in the land.

  Queen Alyse laughed in delight. “Cissa, my dear, you anticipate me. The new court at Caer Camel was but half my news. Hear this. The High King is betrothed and will wed come September.”

  I happened to be looking at Elaine and saw her blanch. She bent her head quickly, but I had seen tears forming in her eyes. With the swiftness of a lightning flash, I understood at last.

  “Who is it, my lady?” the ladies were asking with eagerness. “Who backed her? What is her family?”

  Queen Alyse took time to hush them, and Elaine struggled valiantly to compose her features. “She is the daughter of the Earl of Ifray, who was killed in battle at Duke Cador’s side four years ago. Her mother died at her birth, and she has been raised in Cador’s household since her father’s death. Remember that the High King made Cador of Cornwall his heir until a prince should be born. And Cador is on excellent terms with his stepmother, the queen Ygraine.” The women nodded solemnly to one another. There were no stronger backers in the land than the High King’s mother and his heir-apparent, excepting only Merlin.

  “She is sixteen,” the queen continued, “and quite pretty, by all accounts. She has had speech once or twice with the High King. At least they know one another.” Alyse had married Pellinore for love, which was almost unheard of at that time, and firmly believed that young maids should not be given in marriage to strangers. “And her name,” Alyse said, “is Guenwyvar.” They all gasped in surprise and then looked at me sidelong, as if I had lost by a near miss.

  “Lord be praised,” Leonora murmured. “At last we shall have a Queen and Arthur’s line shall be established.”

  “Yes,” the queen continued. “And it has been in my mind, that after the building at Caer Camel is finished, the High King and his Queen will want company at court, and his Companions may want wives, if the wars allow. It may be we shall move to the Summer Country in two years’ time.” The ladies looked at us and smiled knowingly.

  Elaine’s misery was heartbreaking to see, but no one seemed to notice it but I. As soon as I could, I made some excuse to leave, and Elaine followed me willingly. We fled to our room, and Elaine burst into sobs upon her bed. I sat beside her and stroked her fair hair. It was the color of ripe grain, dark gold and glowing. Much lovelier, to my mind, than my white-gold hair, a childhood color I had yet to outgrow, and which always made strangers stare.

  “I’m sorry, Elaine. I had no idea. I knew you idolized him; he has been your hero since tales about him first started to go round. But I never knew you really—expected to—”

  “Oh, stop!” Elaine sobbed. “I knew it was hopeless, but I couldn’t help it! I knew this would happen! And now Mother thinks to marry us off to his Companions!”

  “Would that not be an honor?” I asked her. “Surely any maid chosen by the Companions would be among the first in Britain.”

  “I don’t care! Oh, Gwen, it would be too awful! To be there in the High King’s court and married to someone else. I couldn’t stand it! And I don’t want to marry anyone else! I shall never marry! Never!”

  I tried to soothe her and calm her, but she so enjoyed her weeping fit that she ceased to fight for control and grew hysterical. It took Grannic and Ailsa both to calm her, with cold cloths to her head and warm blankets on her body. This was Elaine at her most tiresome; she often enjoyed the complete release of her emotions, always suffering dreadfully for it afterward, with headaches that could last days, but in a strange way I did not understand, she enjoyed the suffering, too.

  I left her to the nurses, who calmed her to sleep, and went to the stables. My brown gelding Peleth was beyond his best years, which is why King Pellinore had taken him from a trooper and given him to me. But he was willing and had been an athlete in his prime, and I had taught him a new skill in his old age: I had taught him to jump. We had begun with natural barriers on the woodland trails: downed trees, rain-washed boulders, low walls, but these became easy with practice, and lately I had secretly built obstacles from branches, rocks, and greens, some wide and some tall, and he learned to take them all with ease. It was a wonderful feeling, flying through the air with the wind whipping my hair, and Peleth loved it.

  I was not yet a woman; I checked before I went out, but the day was only half spent, and there was still time. We practiced jumping until Peleth took all his fences perfectly, and then went for a gallop along the beach. The day was mild and clear, and the sea spray cold. We returned as the sun dipped toward the hilltops, splashed with seawater, sand, and mud, and very tired and happy. I did not go in the stable, but left him with the groom, for I knew I was late and had probably been missed.

  Ailsa was in a panic. “My lady, where in the name of all the saints and devils have you been? King Pellinore has returned, and we are bidden to dinner! And look at you! You’ve torn your tunic, God knows on what”—she crossed herself quickly—“and your leggings are filthy!”

  I laughed as she tugged the tunic off. “This is nothing, Ailsa. You should see Peleth!”

  “What will become of you!” she wailed. “You’re as wild as an Irish elf and shall never find a husband!”

  She had touched inadvertently on my innermost fear, and I felt the gaiety drain from my body.

  Ailsa saw it and began to croon lovingly. “That’s just my way of talking, my lady. Don’t pay any heed to a silly old woman. You’re as lovely as a summer’s eve, and as soon as the Good Lady blesses you with your monthlies, there’s not a prince in the land who won’t be knocking at King Pellinore’s door for your hand. Mark my words, my lady. Remember what the witch foretold. First in the land will you be.”

  A sob rose in my throat, but I swallowed it back. Giselda’s prophecy! It was clear to me now. The witch had been right. I might be flat-chested forever, a spinster and a burden in my old age, but no matter. The first in the land bore my name.

  I had missed King Pellinore’s arrival, and remembering that the feast tonight was held in my honor, I lifted my skirts and raced down to the greeting hall. I was surprised to see that Elaine had recovered enough to join the ladies seated about the great log fire. Usually she was long abed after such weeping. I supposed she had been made to join the birthday celebration; she looked pale and unhappy.

  King Pellinore stood beside the queen’s chair, holding Alyse’s hand. His affection for her was a true one, and he never strove to hide it. He had two visitors with him, a man and a youth, but they stood with their backs to me, facing the fire, so I came upon them unawares.

  “Ah, here’s Gwen!” the king cried, smiling kindly at me.

  I curtsied low before him. “Please forgive me, gracious king. We are so happy to see you safely returned to us, and I did not mean to be late. It was—”

  He laughed and raised me, hugging me warmly. “The horses, no doubt. Wha
t else? Come, see who I have brought back with me from court.”

  I turned and faced two tanned, black-haired warriors, no taller than myself, with thick, strong bodies and dark pelts of hair along their arms. The younger of the two, after a wide-eyed glance at me, studied the floor; the elder grinned at me, his black eyes sparkling.

  “Gwarthgydd!” I gasped, throwing myself into his arms. “Oh, Gwarthgydd, my brother!”

  He laughed and swung me around. “Little Guinevere, I’d not have known you! Look at you, taller than me, by Mithra! You are a beauty, Gwen, there’s no denying it.” He turned to the youth beside him. “This will be something to tell your mother, Gwillim, won’t it?”

  “Gwillim!” I cried, staring at him. I had not recognized him at all. He was fourteen, had grown a beard and moustache, and looked at me with the eyes of a stranger. But I hugged him nevertheless. We had been playmates once. He stiffened and nearly fell to one knee, but restrained himself.

  “Oh, Gwillim, I am so glad to see you! Have you been with the High King? Did you not stop at Northgallis? Did you come on to see me?”

  Gwillim was clearly speechless, so Gwarthgydd replied. “To see you, dear sister, and to honor King Pellinore, who invited us most kindly. And to show Gwillim his first sight of the sea.” His glance flicked ever so slightly toward the moody Elaine, and I noticed that Pellinore was smiling at Alyse. “And the beauties of Gwynedd,” he finished politely. I understood instantly. They had come to inspect Elaine.

  King Pellinore was clearly delighted, but Queen Alyse did not return his smiles. After the conversation in the garden I understood she had much higher ambitions for her daughter than marriage to a Welsh lord. Everyone was polite, of course, and conversation never lagged. King Pellinore’s table was unlike any other I had heard of—it was round. The beauty of this arrangement was that it allowed everyone to see and talk to everyone else. There were long trestle tables and benches, as well, which were used to feast troops after victories of importance, or on high holy days, but always the family sat at the round table.