Child of the Northern Spring (Guinevere Trilogy)

by Persia Woolley

  “I hope you’ll find it comfortable, since it’s the best we could do under the circumstances,” he said awkwardly. His voice was stiff and formal, and I glanced at him sharply. Perhaps he too was feeling edgy and unsure.

  “Have you heard me complain?” I asked.

  “No, I guess I haven’t,” he answered slowly. “But it can’t be half so elegant as you must have expected.”

  The room was filling up with draymen and servants and people helping with our baggage, yet in spite of all the confusion a very special feeling was emerging, as though this were a place that had sheltered me all of my life. It was trustworthy and solid and to be appreciated just as it was, and I suddenly felt safe and happy and secure.

  When I looked back at Arthur, I saw him in the same way: comfortable and familiar and very much to be trusted. He might also be lively, exciting, energetic, and full of surprises, but on a level I could not question I knew him as thoroughly as I’d ever known anyone and found him to be as real and honest as the bolster we both sat on. Even his present shyness was understandable and the last of my doubts vanished with that knowledge.

  “What I expect is to be with you,” I said slowly and deliberately, wanting him to see I was making my pledge without reserve or hesitation. “Whether in a tent or a fortress, Roman hall or thatched roundhouse. It is you I am marrying, not the setting. And I will always choose to be with you, even in the roughest circumstance, rather than be set apart in some elegant but pointless ‘women’s quarter.’”

  “I should have known,” he said with an embarrassed chuckle, “and I apologize. If I treat you like some prissy stranger again, just remind me about Celtic queens.”

  Relief was plain in his voice and face, and he rushed on to matters of practicality. He explained that we should plan to stay at Sarum for a week after the wedding, then move up to Caerleon till harvest time.

  “They have some great horse lines there and the facilities for training are excellent. It would be a good time to start work on the cavalry,” he concluded.

  I listened with growing bewilderment, wondering if he had even heard what I had said. I had just given over my life and freedom to him, and all he could talk about was horses!

  Disappointment clawed at me and I struggled to put it aside, telling myself it was foolish to expect him to understand Cumbri ways. Perhaps he didn’t realize I was making my vows to him; or knowing, preferred to wait for another time to give me his own pledge. This was not, after all, the most private of circumstances.

  The broad assortment of our luggage was beginning to pile up around the edges of the room, and Vinnie fluttered about, pointing to this corner or that as the men brought more bundles through the door. Arthur glanced out the window to the street.

  “That mob’s so thick I can’t even walk back to the Square,” he grumbled, “and there’s all manner of things to look after. With all these extra people it’s as chaotic as preparing a military campaign. Worse, in fact,” he averred with a grimace.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, getting to my feet with him. The jumble of the day’s emotions was threatening to exhaust me and I tried to focus on what would be expected from me in the near future.

  A page came trotting in carrying a leather satchel, and recognizing the King, forgot to look where he was going. He collided with Lavinia, and there followed a flurry of indignant sputters and hasty apologies. Arthur was chewing on the end of his mustache and stared at it all as absently as if nothing had happened.

  He sighed and shook his head. “Outside of taking care of whatever you need to do for the wedding, I can’t think of anything specific,” he said vaguely, then brightened as someone went through a door at the end of the room. “I’m sure Ulfin said there was a back way out of this building.”

  With that he dragged me through the kitchen and out into a small garden that was planted with herbs and vegetables. A pear tree had been trained flat against the far wall. Arthur’s spirits suddenly revived.

  “With all the people to take care of at court, I doubt I’ll get back to see you again today. But why don’t I bring the dogs around tomorrow and we’ll take them for a run?”

  I nodded and accepted the hasty kiss he planted on my cheek, then watched him swing up into the branches of the tree and balance for a moment against the sky before he jumped down on the other side.

  The idea of running away from one’s subjects seemed outrageous to me, and I was both amused and shocked. Like so many other things it was full of contradictions, and the best I could do was shake my head and laugh as I returned to the house to prepare for my meeting with the Queen Mother.

  Chapter XXXVI

  Queen Igraine

  I can’t find anything,” Vinnie wailed, standing in the middle of the bedroom and surveying the chaos of half-open baskets. “I’m sure I put it in one of the hazel panniers!”

  “It’s all right, Vinnie, really it is,” I told her, running my hands along the plain wool girdle that graced the dark green dress. “I’m more comfortable this way; it’s only an afternoon chat, don’t forget, not a formal audience.”

  “Even so, you should be wearing your best,” my chaperone retorted, pawing through the jumbled contents of another hamper in her search for the silk belt with the little bells.

  “At least,” she added, triumphantly hauling out Mama’s jewel box, “you can wear the gold fillet.”

  Weariness and nerves were making me testy, and I took a deep breath to steady myself.

  “Vinnie, there’ll be a far greater crown placed on my head soon enough, and there’s no point in hurrying matters.”

  I didn’t want to risk offending my future mother-in-law by flaunting my status, so in spite of Vinnie’s protests, when Ulfin came to get me my hair was simply tied back with a ribbon. I felt a flutter of apprehension when I remembered he was Chamberlain of the Wardrobe, but he smiled approvingly and offered me his arm.

  As we crossed the main room I spotted the lilies I had carried into Sarum that morning and hastily grabbed them up, vase and all.

  “Does Her Highness like flowers?” I asked hopefully.

  “I think she will today,” Ulfin said in an understated way that reminded me of Griflet.

  So I marched out the door holding the flowers before me, trying to keep from spilling the water down the front of my dress.

  After a minute Ulfin reached over and with a solicitous “M’lady,” took the vase and carefully poured the water out on the cobbled street. “They won’t wilt between here and there,” he said, handing them back to me.

  The Square had quieted considerably since the morning’s excitement, though all manner of people lounged about in little groups. A cobbler with a shop on the corner looked up from his work and nodded as we approached. He eyed me curiously, as though trying to remember who I was, then with a shrug went back to his tapping, the bristle of tacks still carefully held between his lips. I remembered Rhufon setting me to look for a tack I had dropped once, with the admonition that one doesn’t get careless with a commodity that’s so hard to come by. “Learn from a cobbler,” he’d said; “they’re the tightest-lipped people in the world.”

  A flurry of questions hammered in my head as we passed: Would Igraine be friendly or aloof, resentful or critical or condescending? Had she watched my entrance and remembered the days of her youth, her years as High Queen at the side of a vigorous king? Would she view me as a stranger from a backward country who threatened to usurp her place in the hearts of the people? Arthur had said so little about her, I had no idea what to expect; the best I could do was try to remember the cobbler and keep my mouth shut.

  At the Queen Mother’s house, the door flew open before Ulfin had time to knock. The servant girl who stood there was all eyes and curiosity, and she couldn’t decide whether to curtsy while I stood on the doorstep or wait until we had come inside. I smiled at her as reassuringly as I could, wondering which of us was more nervous: she in confronting me, or I in confronting
Igraine.

  The Queen Mother’s quarters were much like my own, homey and unpretentious, and I noticed that she had done nothing to change them. Except for an ornate brazier, which even on this balmy afternoon glowed with fragrant embers of apple wood, the furnishings were undoubtedly those which normally filled the room.

  Igraine was warming her hands at the brazier and she turned to stare at me as Ulfin and I approached.

  She was a tall, regal woman, and the structure of her youthful beauty still showed beneath the parchment skin. Her hair, once fabled to be bright as gold, was silver now and mostly hidden by the black veil of her widowhood, and her dress was of sedate brown homespun. I was doubly glad I was not more formally gowned, for I should have felt a sorry upstart in anything fancier than what I wore.

  Ulfin made the formal presentation and Arthur’s mother watched me carefully, as though she were searching for the very heart of my soul. She might not have raised him, but it was obvious where her son came by his habit of looking the world fairly and directly in the face.

  “These are from Amesbury,” I said hastily, making a deep curtsy and offering up the lilies. “But they need some water.”

  Igraine’s eyebrows lifted slightly and she glanced over at Ulfin as though puzzled by what she had just heard.

  “Well, get up, child. We can’t remedy that while you’re balancing halfway through a curtsy,” she said.

  Red-faced, I scrambled back to my feet. The serving girl hurried forward and relieved me of the vase, then headed off toward the kitchen.

  There were three chairs drawn up near a small table and after Igraine was seated she gestured us to the other two.

  “Would you like to have tea?” she asked, and this time it was my turn to look inquiringly at Ulfin.

  “Chamomile tea,” she went on, not waiting for Ulfin to interpret. “It’s good for the blood, and quite tasty with a biscuit or two.”

  I nodded my assent, feeling a silly fool. When the girl returned to put the flowers on the window ledge Igraine told her we would all take tea.

  The presence of this august woman filled the room and I sat in silence while she and Ulfin conversed. They discussed the weather, the newest arrivals for the wedding, and the fact that Morgan’s party had not yet made an appearance. I stared at the long petals of the flowers, which glowed in the afternoon light with an impeccable whiteness, and wondered uneasily where this visit was going.

  The tea was pleasant, but I found the biscuits to be odd little pillow things in a thick, brown crust. I munched my way through one cautiously, hoping it was the proper thing to do. I noticed the Queen Mother ate nothing, although she drank a cup of tea.

  “They are delicious,” I told her when I had finished the little bun. “But what are they? They are so…different.”

  “Biscuits. Wheat biscuits,” Igraine said. Then, recognizing my confusion, she added, “You were raised on good solid oat bread and barley, weren’t you?”

  When I nodded she leaned forward and carefully taking up one of the warm biscuits, very gently pulled it open. The crust tore with a crisp crunchiness and the bread inside stretched and seemed to expand as the layers slowly lifted apart. It looked like clouds caught within the golden casing of the outside, and I watched fascinated as she turned the two halves over and put them, crust down, on my plate. “Only wheat does that,” she said. “Now, try some honey on it and see if it isn’t even more delicious.”

  I did as I was told, drizzling the dark amber sweetness across the peaks and valleys of the bread and licking my fingers afterward to make sure they weren’t sticky.

  When everyone had finished the tea tray was cleared away, although Igraine asked that the pot be left for us. Our companions were dismissed and the real encounter began.

  “I understand you went to Mass this morning,” the Queen Mother said, making it a statement rather than a question as she picked up her teacup and curled her fingers around its bowl.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I replied stiffly, wondering how she knew.

  “There’s not much that escapes the wings of gossip in a High King’s court, and that bit of news arrived in Sarum before you did. Were you born a Christian? Somehow I was under the impression that the people of Rheged had returned to Paganism.”

  Her expression was one of polite neutrality, and although her tone was authoritative, I could not tell what her emotions were.

  “I was raised in the Old Ways,” I ventured, “but my foster sister was born a Christian, and my governess too. So I am not unfamiliar with the teachings of the White Christ.”

  “That’s good,” Igraine responded with a nod. “You have no idea what terrible notions some people have about the Roman Church. I was hoping you would not come to the throne unduly prejudiced against it. I would never force my beliefs on another, but I hope, if you should ever need it, you could look to the Church for help. It has been a great solace for me, child. Particularly now, when I no longer have a role to fill at court. Have they told you I live at a convent?”

  “I had heard something to that effect,” I temporized.

  The regal glance shifted to the flowers and she smiled slightly, though whether at my gift or at some inner thought of her own I couldn’t tell. “It’s a very quiet, humble little place set within the curve of a small and unimportant river. My cell is shaded by a willow, which plays host to all manner of warblers; I haven’t heard a trumpet, or seen a banner, or faced a crowd for more than four years now.”

  “Oh, M’lady,” I said quickly, “if you would like to come back, I’m sure there’ll always be a position for you at Arthur’s court, and he would want you to know that too.”

  “Aye, and there’s an equal place for me with Morgause in the Orkneys.” The flash of Igraine’s response surprised me. “Or possibly in Urien’s court if Morgan ever gives up her priesthood and goes back to being a wife and queen. That is not a problem, my dear. After a lifetime of drama and majesty, with the surf pounding endlessly at Tintagel and the wind whipping up storms of every kind around King Uther, it’s a pleasure to curl up in a small nest and be all but unrecognized.”

  The Queen Mother was speaking freely now, in a relaxed manner, as though glad for a chance to talk with someone.

  “I lost interest in court life long before my husband’s death, and was relieved when Arthur did not expect me to stay on after his Coronation. My son and I are almost strangers, you know,” she added with a pause that might have been a sigh.

  I started to say something, but she overrode me.

  “No, I vastly prefer my little niche at the bend of the river to the tempestuous power of a royal household. The problem has not been what to do with a retired queen, but rather how to find a new one. For the most part people don’t understand about queens. I’m sure every woman thinks she could be one, if given a chance, but very few are really equipped for it. I suppose what I am trying to say,” she added, jumping directly to the heart of the matter, “is that I feel confident you will do a fine job…probably far better than I did.”

  “What ever makes you think so?” I exclaimed, stunned by her unexpected endorsement.

  She looked at me again, and this time there was a humor in her manner that I had not seen before. “To begin with, there’s no pretense or falseness about you; you are exactly what you are. And the people like that. They always see through pretense sooner or later. But more important, I watched you this morning, my dear. You were riding on that crest of excitement which comes with the first discovery of queenhood. The glory and wonder carry you along with them at first, and a certain majesty sustains you later, even when you are too weary to wish it. Or at least, it does if you’re both strong and lucky,” she added, looking back at the brazier.

  “It takes a particular kind of person to enjoy it. It helps if you are raised for it; bred to it, you might say. If you come to it as the consequence of passion, that’s quite another matter. I was afraid that Arthur might pick some pretty but empty-headed little commoner who
would love the notion of being queen without any concept of what it requires. Or that you would turn out to be an infatuated girl, full of romantic notions that would only break your heart later on, and cause no end of trouble once the honeymoon was over.”

  Igraine was half-lecturing, half-reminiscing now, as if wanting to share a wisdom gained through hard experience.

  She paused and stretching out her hand, felt the side of the teapot to see if it was still warm. When I reached forward to lift it for her, she nodded and extended her cup, and after both cups were filled she leaned back in her chair again and went on.

  “Then Arthur arrived night before last, raving about his bride-to-be, and I began to wonder if he was the infatuated one. He was full of talk about your horsemanship, and something called a stirrup, and how you took an interest in everything and everyone. He couldn’t stop talking about all those qualities he was so pleased with, and I thought, Well, at least he’s well satisfied. And that’s important.”

  Again there was a pause, but this time when she resumed she was looking directly at me.

  “Arthur told me the people adore you already, and that’s a good start. But that didn’t tell me how you felt about them. So I stood here in the window this morning, waiting to see what you would be like.”

  She raised her teacup and I caught a hint of amusement in her eyes as she stared at me over the rim. “I think I half-expected to see a homely, gawking, horsey girl buffeted by that noisy mob and all but scared out of her wits. And instead I looked down on a handsome young woman who radiated back to the people the same devotion she was offered. One feels you love them every bit as much as they love you, and if that’s so, it will make your task much easier. It is very difficult to be a High Queen if one is shy or private by nature,” she added very softly.

  The Queen Mother put down her cup and folded her hands serenely in her lap as though she had forgotten my presence. But when she finally looked up, it was with a bright and twinkling smile.