Guinevere: The Legend in Autumn

by Persia Woolley

  Arthur and I stood on the steps of the Hall, waving as the last of the Fellowship departed. Among them were Beaumains and Lynette, riding through the gates together. The new warrior was clearly pleased to be off on an adventure, though the girl was still dubious about it all.

  “At least the little baggage will keep him on his toes,” Arthur allowed with amusement.

  That night, as we were getting ready for bed, Arthur and I went over the high points of the gathering just past. He was generally pleased with the results, though he’d put aside discussion of the law code, thinking it best to wait until he had a chance to see the Edictum Palomides had mentioned.

  “And what of Beaumains?” I asked, taking the pins from my hair. “Aren’t you afraid Cei’s right—that he’s too inexperienced for the task he’s taken on?”

  Arthur shrugged. “If Lance says Beaumains can hold his own out in the big world, then he can hold his own.”

  There was a pause as he tugged off a boot and I began to comb out my hair. Thick and wavy, it is the color of red gold honey and is my best feature—and my one concession to vanity. I wash it regularly, and brush it thoroughly every night. Now I leaned over and drew the ivory comb through the length of it.

  Once, as a child, I’d seen my father comb out Mama’s hair, letting it tumble across his hands and piling it playfully around her shoulders. It was a deep copper red, like the color of her sorrel mare, Featherfoot. I remembered everything about Mama as being beautiful—her hair, her face, her charm and laughter—even her dedication to her people, for she took sick and died while nursing the hundreds who flocked to our Hall in search of succor during a year of famine and plague.

  But most of all I remembered her relationship with my father—tender, loving, and sometimes touched with an air of romance that made them both glow with happiness. Peering at my husband through the veil of my hair, I wished just once he’d drop his guard enough to let a little romance into our lives.

  “There’s other men I’m more concerned about than Beaumains,” he noted, putting his boots in the cupboard by the window.

  “Oh? Anyone in particular?”

  Arthur chewed on the ends of his mustache. “Geraint, for one. Did you notice that he didn’t take part in the tournament, even though Cei challenged him? Some of the men say that new wife of his is sapping him of the will to fight, what with her disdain for military matters.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I responded. “Just because Enid encourages him to find other solutions to problems besides drawing a sword doesn’t mean the man’s become a coward.”

  “No, of course not. And Geraint was one of the heroes of Mount Badon, so it’s not a question of his bravery.” He stretched lazily, then taking a nightshirt off the peg, began to chuckle. “No one can fault Pellinore’s courage! I haven’t seen such a fiery display since the last time Gawain got swept up in battle-lust! But I’m going to have to talk to Gawain again, when he gets home—remind him there’s no call for his continual jibes and threats against the men of the Wrekin. Pelli killed his father in battle, in fair combat. This vendetta he’s carrying is not only bad for morale, it’s the reason Lamorak didn’t come to the tournament—he fears one of those Orcadians will stab him in the back.”

  Arthur’s tone was full of resignation, and the straw in the mattress rustled as he sat on the edge of the bed. But some instinct made me ask, “Anything else of concern?”

  There was a long pause, and when I’d finished plaiting my hair, I turned to look at him directly. My husband was resting his chin on his hands, elbows on his knees, while he frowned off into space.

  “Constantine says his father’s dying. Cador was the first, Gwen—the very first to recognize me after Merlin declared I should be King—and I’ve never gone to battle without him. It won’t feel right, not having the old Duke of Cornwall at my side. Not that Constantine isn’t a worthy successor, but I’ll miss the father…Aye, I’ll miss the father.”

  I was stunned by such an admission of feeling and, rising from my stool, came to stand before my husband without a word. When he looked up, there was sorrow and bafflement in his eyes. Every king learns to live with the grief of warriors dying—men, both young and old, who gave their lives in the effort to fulfill their lord’s orders. But this was different and, I suspected, closer to the mortality we all share—debilitation, simply from living so long.

  I bent over and planted a kiss on Arthur’s forehead.

  “Here now, enough gloomy thoughts,” my husband announced, running his hands up my thighs. “We’ve a good tournament behind us, a bed with fresh sheets, and time enough to savor both.”

  As he pulled me down onto the mattress, I wrapped him in my arms, trying to comfort with my body the uneasiness of his spirit. There was no way of knowing whether I succeeded or not, for my husband had retreated behind his usual wall of banter, and when our loving was done, he simply went to sleep.

  But I lay long awake, thinking of the things I had found most important at this meeting of the Round Table: of Palomides’s trip and Enid’s sorrow, and Arthur’s own two half sisters: Morgan, weaving dark plots beside the Black Lake, and Morgause, whose shadow reached even from her grave to obscure our sun. These were matters of the heart and soul, yet they shaped our future every bit as much as cavalry maneuvers or politics, and I was sorry that my husband and I were never likely to speak of them.

  Looking at his profile while he slept, I wondered if I would ever find a way to breach the isolation of the man known as Arthur Pendragon.

  Chapter V

  Nemesis

  Those bloody Picts!”

  Gawain was howling like a hurricane when he burst into the room Arthur and I use as an office, two days after the last guest had left.

  Gawain—Morgause’s firstborn son, arrogant and stocky, with massive shoulders and a temper that matched his flaming hair. He was the perfect picture of the ancient Celt, even to the scars that furrowed his arms and creased his boyish face. And, like most Celts, he would cry over a lovers’ ballad one minute and be ready to bring down heaven because he’d missed a tournament the next.

  “I swear they use treaties and the promise of them to drag out everything! You’ll die of old age if you wait for their councils to make a declaration, and they can tie things up for months, no matter what the agreed-upon date. If only you’d let me take care of them my way, I would have been back in time.”

  Arthur looked up from the long table, giving his nephew a sardonic smile. “If I left our diplomatic relations up to you, we’d have another war on our hands within a week.”

  It was said with such good humor, Gawain couldn’t help but laugh in response.

  “Still,” Arthur went on, “it’s just as well you weren’t here for the jousting—gave the others a chance to claim the prize. Pellinore quite outdid himself this time.”

  The Prince of Orkney tensed at the mention of his enemy’s name, and his face froze. Arthur held his gaze like a man staring down a half-wild animal, controlling it by sheer force of will.

  “I tell you this because you’ll hear it soon enough anyhow, and you and I must reach an accord about your denunciations of Pellinore and his clan.”

  Gawain’s hands had balled into fists and his face flushed crimson. Slowly and deliberately, Arthur rose behind the table while his nephew glared at him.

  “When your father joined Urien’s rebellion against me at the beginning of my reign, he knew he could die—it is always a possibility in war. But such a death is honorable, and is no cause for starting blood feuds. Yea Gods, if every man who killed another in combat was held for murder, I’d have no fighting men left! I made a point of honoring all who surrendered—Urien of Northumbria and yourself particularly. As one of my best warriors, I named you the King’s Champion, and as my sister’s son you are next in line to stand for the throne. I value you and your brothers and need you at my side—that should be clear. But I also need the men of the Wrekin, and I want your word you’ll make no
more threats against them.”

  For a long minute the two men leaned toward each other, staring in hard, unblinking silence across the table as though across a grave. When Gawain finally spoke, his words rumbled out of his chest while the rest of him remained motionless, all his physical strength channeled into controlling his rage.

  “And what of the fact that it was Pelli’s son who was in my mother’s bed the night that she was killed? If it hadn’t been for Lamorak, she would still be alive. Have you forgotten that, Uncle?”

  Arthur’s response was just as taut and to the point. “As Queen of the Orkneys, Morgause was free to bed whomever she chose. That it was the son of her husband’s death-dealer was unfortunate, but I lay that to her lack of judgment, not to Pelli and his kin.”

  He spoke with the dispassion of a ruler who must be above the tangle of family loves and hates. From his voice one would never guess that he had detested Morgause; had forbidden her to come to his kingdom of Logres, just as he now forbade Morgan le Fey to do so. They were sound decisions, made by a man who found himself betrayed by the women of his blood. But what they cost him in personal terms, one could not even guess.

  I wondered suddenly if it was this need to distance himself from them that kept his heart hidden from all others as well.

  The Prince of Orkney might be volatile but he wasn’t stupid and although he grumbled a bit more, in the end he backed down and agreed to put an end to the tormenting of Pellinore and his son.

  Arthur straightened up with a sigh of relief. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear it,” he said, his voice full of affection once more. “I count you and your brother Gaheris among the best of the Round Table Fellowship, and would be loath to lose either of you.”

  No mention was made of Agravain, the brother who sobbed and howled in his cell on the Orkney Isles, tormented by memories no human should know. Perhaps, in some unspoken way, his very name had been stricken from the family roll, for matricide, like incest, is despised by all.

  “And Mordred?” I asked. “Does he know his mother is dead, and at whose hand?” I suspected Gawain might have used this trip to Edinburgh to enlighten his younger brother as to Morgause’s fate.

  “Yes, M’lady—I showed him her grave—a soft, shady spot, with a view over the Firth. Mordred will soon be old enough to be a squire, so he’s old enough to hear the truth. We sat together in the quiet of the grove, and I told him straight out that it was Agravain who beheaded her in a wild, bloody rage when he found her abed with Lamorak. The boy took it bravely, as befits a chieftain’s son.”

  There was a pause, and I wondered if Gawain had also told Mordred who his father was—if he knew. But the redhead made no further comment, and Arthur turned the conversation back to the tournament.

  The story of Beaumains’s besting Cei brought a gleeful laugh from the Orcadian. “Who would have guessed that scrawny fellow would turn out so well? Wish I could have been here to congratulate him.”

  “I’m afraid he’s left already—went off on a mission to prove his worth.” Arthur came out from behind the table and clapped Gawain on the back. “We should be getting down to the practice field. I want Lance to hear your news about the Picts.”

  “Aye,” the Orcadian responded cheerfully, falling into step beside his king. As changeable as the Scottish weather, he had already forgotten the blackness of his recent rage. At the door he turned back to me. “If you’ve a mind to go on with Mordred’s lessons in the morning, I think the lad would like that.”

  I thanked him with a grin, deeply pleased I could continue teaching the boy who had become the child of my heart, if not my loins.

  Mordred, the enigma—the boy who favored neither his Orcadian brothers nor his ruddy, voluptuous mother, but like his Aunt Morgan had black hair, beautiful features, and an intensity of spirit that set the very air around him crackling. By the look of him one would never guess his true parentage, and often while I sat next to his bed when he was feverish, or made his tunics, or cheered him on in his first attempts at swordsmanship, I prayed that his nature, in the end, would reflect his father’s side of the family. At least he had his father’s eyes, for unlike Morgan’s eerie green ones, his were a soft, warm brown.

  One could see the questions of all mankind reflected in those eyes; eyes that filled with concern at the sight of a wounded animal, or flashed with excitement when he grappled with a new idea. No doubt all mothers take delight in seeing the world anew through their children’s eyes, but this was the first I’d known of it, and the experience filled me with joy.

  The boy was overflowing with news about the trip to Edinburgh and during our first morning together regaled me with descriptions of the town that had grown up around the gray fortress perched atop its steep outcropping of rock.

  “And a natural mote,” he explained, drawing a rough map on his tablet. “More like a swamp, really—but it makes it that much harder for enemies to reach the ramparts. Gawain says such tactics of placement are half the battle won.”

  I listened and nodded, waiting for some mention of his mother, but Mordred carefully avoided the subject, and before long we were back to our regular studies as though he’d never been away.

  He picked up his favorite scroll, an ancient copy of The Iliad from Merlin’s library. It was tattered and worn, but Mordred loved the tale of the Trojan War, so we pored over it frequently, with me explaining what Cathbad had taught me of the Greek endeavor while Mordred corrected my Latin and tried to improve my syntax.

  He looked up suddenly, a scowl darkening his face. “Who do you think was the bravest, M’lady…Hector or Achilles?”

  “Well, Hector understood that he was facing a warrior beloved by the Gods,” I suggested. “And it takes tremendous courage to go against supernatural forces.”

  “And Hector was defending his home, which would add to his courage,” Mordred mused, absently stroking his upper lip where the shadow of a mustache was forming. “Gawain says a man will fight twice as hard for his own piece of turf as for conquest.” The boy glanced up at me, then shifted his gaze to some far distance. “It always seems unfair that the Gods caused Hector’s death.”

  Like Gawain, Mordred had a soft spot for the underdog, and I smiled at him. “Just think how the course of history would have changed, if Hector and the Trojans had won! Why, Aeneas wouldn’t have fled to Italy, and his grandson Brutus might never have reached our shores. We would have been born Ancient Ones, not Celts, if the Gods hadn’t taken a hand in things.”

  Mordred rounded on me suddenly, his eyes bright with curiosity. “Is it true that Gawain once lived with the Ancient Ones? The other pages say so, and when I asked him, he didn’t deny it.”

  “Then he must have, for no honorable Celt lies,” I answered firmly. “The Prydn were a band of Ancient Ones—nomads who followed their reindeer from pasture to pasture, never clearing land or using iron or staying long in one place. It was when their paths crossed ours in Scotland that your brother fell in love with their Queen. But that was quite a bit ago, my dear—quite a bit.”

  I thought of the tempestuous affair that had burned so fiercely over that whole winter. Swaggering with pride, the King’s Champion had presented his love at Court, boasting of her prowess as leader of the nomads. But the courtiers made fun of the half-wild girl dressed in bad-smelling skins, and she turned on them with scorn and hatred when she saw their hypocrisy. In the end, Gawain could no more leave Arthur and the Companions than she could desert her people, and they parted with pain and anger and slashing hurt.

  He never found another to love as he’d loved the homely Ragnell, and I doubted that she’d ever given her heart so completely to anyone else. The scars of their encounter ran deep—Gawain’s cheek still bore the mark of her nails, where she had raked him on their last encounter—and for a long while after that the Orcadian had used women without conscience. It was only recently that he’d come to espouse the notion of defending and protecting them.

  “Wh
at did he tell you about the Prydn?” I prompted.

  “That they are the firstborn of the Gods, and live outside with nature and the seasons, distrusting man-made houses with closed roofs and paned windows.” Mordred turned those luminous eyes on me. “Can they really make magic?”

  “So it is said. There are many kinds of power that we in our snug houses have lost touch with,” I answered, thinking as much of Merlin in his cave as Ragnell living among the Hollow Hills.

  “Aunt Morgan makes the most powerful magic of all, because she’s High Priestess of the Goddess.” Mordred’s voice filled with family pride. “Gawain says she made Arthur High King because he’s our kin, and she gave him Excalibur as proof of the Goddess’s blessing. Someday he’s going to take me to meet her, at the Black Lake.”

  I nodded silently, thinking it best not to get involved in that rats’ nest. No doubt someday he’d meet her, but for now I had no desire to explain to the youngster that even though Morgan had helped put Arthur on the throne, she had also tried to take his life. And I knew the High King would be furious if the boy asked leave to go see her; Morgan le Fey was Arthur’s nemesis as surely as Gawain was Pelli’s.

  “Maybe,” I cautioned Mordred, “your visiting the Lady of the Lake can wait for a while. At least we don’t need to bring it up to the King at the moment.”

  The lad searched my face as though seeking the answer to some unexpressed query. But finally he acquiesced, and we turned our attention back to the Trojan War and those tales of ancient families whose moiras had been twisted into tragedy by the Gods.

  In my tomboy youth I had been deeply envious of that Helen who was so beautiful men went to war over her. Fortunately beauty is not a requirement for being a good monarch, or I’d be serving my people as a stable hand. Yet oddly, the only women I’ve ever been jealous of were named Helen—well, Elaine, actually—but each was beautiful in her own way, and both were deeply enamored of Lance.