“Of course, Allard. Your Aunt Rhianna is away now, but she’ll be back this evening. Until then, we can explore wherever you like.”
“Well, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to see all of the house and the chapel and the tree one could climb from the stable roof and the cave where the wine is stored and the Round Table was hidden. Oh, I’ve been told all the old stories!”
“I would have thought my brother would never have mentioned any of that to you. He wanted to forget all of us.”
Allard shrugged. “I don’t know any of the reasons he left here, but he does love the place. He’s told me all about it. Now I almost feel I’m coming home.”
The look he gave Guinevere was so familiar and friendly that she made up her mind then that he must stay.
“I think, Allard, that it may be true. Welcome home!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“My mother says it doesn’t matter if he’s the Lady Guinevere’s kin; he’s still half Saxon and I’m to stay away from him,” Grisel said decidedly to her friend, Cafdd. The two girls were sitting in the anteroom, waiting for Guinevere to finish bathing.
“Well I don’t care what your mother says,” Cafdd retorted. “He’s friendly and handsome and I’ve heard it said he’s going to build his own villa over by the orchard. When the mistress dies, he’s likely to be lord here, and I’m not going to give him cause to want to turn me away.”
“We’ll be old women before she dies, Cafdd. She’s older than my grandmother, who’s white and toothless and wrinkled as a dried apple, but does she look it?”
Cafdd sighed. Her hands were already rough from the washing she did, and her skin was starting to line from the sun and wind.
“The aristocracy do seem to keep themselves up longer than folks like us.”
Grisel thought it was something more than birthright, but she didn’t have a chance to say, for Guinevere called them then to brush her hair.
Allard was not only clearly delighted with Cameliard and its surroundings, he was also very useful to it. He had grown up among his father’s sheepfolds and knew as well as anyone how to shear. He understood breeding techniques enough to hold his own with the old shepherds and showed them a new treatment for the summer coughing, which killed so many of the lambs. He won respect from them, despite his strange looks. Before June was well begun, Guinevere had decided to deed him a section of the property. She had proper legal decrees drawn up and notarized by the priest, sending them both to court and to the Bishop in London. Allard was given a copy for his own at a banquet in his honor. He held the thick document as if it were an eggshell, not quite believing that it made him officially part of this place he loved so much.
“You may find, Allard, that it’s now a part of you,” Guinevere cautioned. “You shouldn’t thank me. This is your father’s portion you hold now.”
“I’ll care for it well. I promise, Aunt.” He could hardly finish his meal. He wanted to take a torch out and pace off his section, filling it already with flocks and fields and a villa like this one his many-times-great grandfather had built.
Guinevere was pleased. He would see that the old ways were kept up, as well as he understood them. The things her father worked to preserve were safe for another generation, at least. Arthur would have been happy, too. If only he could have known. Constantine was holding order in Dumnonia and even the other kings, though they had abandoned Arthur’s dream of unity, still called in need on his justice. Modred had destroyed Camelot, but not the dream. She wished Allard could have known Arthur. He would have been one who believed.
Allard threw himself into organizing and improving his land. He begged Caet to let him go along on the next trading journey.
Caet looked up sourly into Allard’s face. The lad was thirty years younger and a head taller than he was. He combined, both in looks and temperament, the best of both his races. Caet knew that, if he lived long enough, one day he would be taking orders from this man. He shook his head. There had never really been any hope. The day of the Celt was long over.
He made the best of it. “Yes, come along. I can tell you who to deal with and where to get the best price for your wool. They say that the Eastern Emperor, Justinian, is mad for British hunting dogs. Have you thought of raising them, too? And when we go to the tavern, keep your mouth shut. It’s better if they think you a dull wit at first. Later on you can dazzle them with your highborn dialect.”
They returned in the middle of July with fine cloth, wine, glass beads wrapped in thick cloth, peppercorns, and fever.
Caet fell ill on the road home and it was a panic-stricken Allard who carried him into the villa.
“He woke up one morning complaining that the light was too bright and that it kept moving; then he seemed better, but quiet. By noon the fever was on him. I don’t know how he kept his seat, but he wouldn’t let me stop. Then, last night, that swelling started in his neck; there’s another under his arm. What should I do?”
He looked like a bewildered sheepdog, holding his charge.
“Take him to his room and undress him for us,” Rhianna ordered. “Cafdd, send your brother for a bucket of cool water. Then come for Caet’s clothes and throw them in the midden. How do you feel, Allard?”
“Fine. I don’t understand it. There wasn’t any sickness in Portsmouth while we were there.”
“Well, go to the baths and be sure you wash yourself all over. Then send your clothes after Caet’s.”
Guinevere came in soon after.
“Is he very ill?” she asked. “I can’t remember him ever being sick, even when we were children. Flora wouldn’t have permitted it.”
“I wish she were here now,” Rhianna sighed. “I’ve never seen anything like this. These swellings are hard and hot as if some horrible creature is growing inside him. I’m going to try to bring the fever down. Sing to him, dear. If anyone will respond to that, it’s Caet.”
Guinevere leaned over the bed and placed her hands on either side of his head. Softly, she hummed the ancient words and from deep in her Christian heart, she prayed that his pagan goddess would spare him.
His eyes opened and she thought he knew her. “You’re home now, Caet. We’ll take care of you. Just rest and get well.”
He smiled at her in wonder, then looked over her shoulder with awe-stricken eyes. “I tell you, Lord Arthur,” he said loudly, “it’s not your Virgin, but the goddess Epona. There! Look! The celestial horse, her guardian, stands behind her!”
Startled, Guinevere turned around. But there was nothing there.
Caet had collapsed back onto the pillow.
They worked over him for three days, but nothing seemed to help. He began coughing blood, the first time spraying Rhianna, who was bending over him. On the last day, strange red blotches came out on his chest and face, and the next morning he died in Guinevere’s arms.
She held him a long time, not believing he was gone. He had always been like a shadow to her. Except for the years of her fostering and the early part of her marriage, he had always been there, quietly waiting, never intruding. When she had needed something special done, she had gone to Caet. He had taken the blame for her childhood pranks. His death made her feel that there was suddenly a cold wind blowing on her unprotected back.
“My poor friend,” she wept. “I never knew you as I should have.”
Because it was summer, they buried him at once, with little preparation. With him went the small leather bag he had carried all his life. It held only a pagan charm and three strands of golden hair. Allard looked down on the small coffin and shook his head.
“It seems a man like that would need a bigger piece of earth to hold him.”
They burned the bedclothes and washed themselves thoroughly that night. After dinner, they sat out in the atrium and watched the stars. They spoke very little, still numb from the strange and ugly thing that had struck Caet. Rhianna got up to go first.
“How sweet the air is tonight,” she said. “Ther
e must be some flower in bloom I never noticed before.”
Guinevere took a deep breath. “I smell nothing different. Perhaps it’s just the change from being in the sickroom so long. You wore yourself out, my dear.”
“Yes, I do feel tired. But the scent is so strong. How odd that you don’t notice it. Good night, everyone. Tomorrow, I must start on the making of the brine to preserve the vegetables. Everything is ripening at once and we are sadly behind.”
By the next morning Rhianna was delirious, calling for her mother and Guinevere’s long-dead brother Matthew. In rare lucid moments, she complained that her head ached dreadfully and begged for water. They gave her potions steeped with herbs and applied cool cloths to her burning limbs. Nothing helped. By the end of the day, her nose began to bleed and they couldn’t stop it. In the hour before dawn, she died. When they uncovered her, they found the same small red blotches on her as on Caet.
Guinevere looked at Risa; her hands were shaking.
“What is this thing that has come down on us?” she asked in a dazed whisper.
Rhianna was buried in the family section, next to Guinevere’s parents. Father Antonius was away, so Guinevere read from the Gospels over the grave.
“Rhianna should have had more honor than this,” she worried. “We must have a stone made as soon as possible.”
But that was to be a long time. That afternoon the serving girl, Grisel, fell ill, and then two of the stable boys. Guinevere found herself too busy to feel anything but fear and frustration. She did all Rhianna had taught her and used the pagan chants as well as Christian prayers, but nothing made any difference. One after the other, they died.
“We must send someone to Constantine,” she told Allard. “He has to know what’s going on here. Perhaps someone at the court knows what this is and how to treat it.”
“I don’t know the way, but if you make me a map, I’ll go,” he offered.
“I don’t know. You seem healthy. I would think that if you were going to get this, you would have by now. I don’t want to send this horror anywhere else. Yes, you should go.”
But before he could, the poet Durriken arrived. When he got to the gate, the guard called down.
“You don’t want to come in here! We have a plague upon us! Deliver your message and go!” he warned.
“Dear God, no!” Durriken cried. “You may as well let me in, man. It can’t be any worse than what I just left.”
Guinevere greeted him sadly. “You shouldn't be here. Every day someone dies of this hideous illness. There is nothing in my books about it, nothing in the lore. It seems we can only wait and bury. What news do you have of the court?”
Wearily, Durriken sat in the chair she brought and sipped some ale. He took a long time about it. Finally, with a deep breath, he gave his information.
“This evil plague has swept through Britain, my Lady. They say it is the same Black Death that was in Constantinople four years ago. The trading ships may have carried it here from Iberia. No one knows what causes it or how to stop it. The sorrow is great in Dumnonia. Hundreds have died, including the King’s first-born son.”
“Little Arthur!” Guinevere cried. “Poor Letitia! How does she endure it?”
“Not well. She is concerned for the two younger children and wanted them sent to you, but it seems that there is no place safe now.” Durriken took another deep drink. “People are saying that this is a judgment on Britain for our contentiousness and sin, as was foretold in Gildas’ book.”
“I can’t believe that,” Guinevere retorted. “What sins could that little boy have had on his soul?”
“Not his, Constantine’s. Like the son of Pharaoh in Exodus. Since the child’s death, the King has locked himself in the church. He prays and fasts and weeps constantly. No one can convince him to put aside his grief and resume the government. He is even talking of renouncing the throne and entering a monastery.”
“That’s insane! What will happen to the country?”
Durriken leaned forward and lowered his voice. “My Lady, if this plague continues unabated through the summer, there will be no country to matter.”
Guinevere thought of all the new graves, too many to be contained in the old cemetery. They were taking the bodies to the fields, now, and putting them in common graves. There wasn’t time or energy to dig them individually any more. Of the thirty or so people attached to the villa, twenty-two had died and dozens more among the farmers and shepherds. There would not be enough people to bring in the crops this year or care for the sheep. And, if they slaughtered animals to bring down the herd size, there were not enough people left to eat the meat before it rotted. Durriken had reported that in Wroxter there was no one left alive. Bodies lay on the side of the road and no one, not even looters, had the courage to enter the town.
“I don’t care,” she said firmly. “Someone will survive. It’s cowardice to abandon our duties now. Constantine can’t destroy what’s left of Arthur’s order just because his son has died. I have no patience with that. Oh, Durriken, I’m sorry! You’re tired and I’ve kept you here so long. Forgive me! Cafdd! See if you can find a clean room for Durriken and something to eat. I must go, now. Risa was taken sick last night.”
The lump in Risa’s neck was already huge and burning. She tossed on her bed, her hands clutching at her own throat. Even through the stupefaction caused by lack of sleep and the sight of constant pain, Guinevere felt wrenched unbearably by the agony Risa was suffering. She wiped the maid’s face and neck, swallowing her horror of the swelling. Risa grabbed her hand.
“My throat!” she sobbed. “It’s choking me! Cut it out, Guinevere, please! I can’t breathe!”
“Risa, I can’t!” Guinevere looked with revulsion at it.
“Help me!” Risa cried. Then she fell unconscious.
Guinevere sat there, staring at Risa’s neck. Sometimes those things had burst open on their own, spewing out a stinking viscous liquid. “I couldn’t do it,” she told herself. “I’m not used to such things.”
Risa tried to scream again, but only coughed hoarsely. With streaming eyes, Guinevere drew her knife. She held it in the candle flame until it glowed. She put a dish at Risa’s neck and prayed to anyone listening.
“Please let me do this without killing her!”
Then, before she lost courage, she plunged the knife point into the swelling. There was a disgusting noise and then a gush as the liquid poured into the bowl. Guinevere set it on the floor and wiped the cut clean. Then she staggered out of the room and fell in a dead faint outside the door.
When she awakened they told her that Risa’s fever was down and she was breathing clearly. She was going to live.
They tried the cutting with others. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it was too late. They learned that once the red marks appeared, early or late in the illness, nothing more availed. As summer waned, so did the plague. By early autumn, there were no new cases. The rains began and seemed to wash away the contagion with them. Travelers were seen on the roads again, bringing news of the rest of Britain. It was hard for Guinevere to understand what they were saying, her world had shrunk so in the last few months. One pilgrim did catch her attention.
“We can be grateful that old King Arthur went to aid the Armoricans,” he stated. “They took in our refugees and even sent help in the worst days. If we had turned our backs on them, they’d have ignored us in our need. He was a good man, the old King. Would there were any like him now.”
She treasured the man’s words. “You see, Arthur! It didn’t die with you, like a candle in a storm. Your light still shines. I won’t let them forget. I promise.”
Slowly, they learned what had happened elsewhere. Gwynedd was hard hit. Maelgwn and most of his court had died. Whole towns, like Wroxter, were inhabited only by ghosts. It was thought that the British population had been cut by a third. The Saxons were untouched. No report came of any cases of the plague in their villages.
“You see,” people told each
other. “That Gildas was right. We’re being punished for our sins.”
Wandering monks preached the same thing and swore that only through prayer, repentance, and a life of self-denial could Britain be saved. Strict monasteries were founded. Great lords and ladies rushed to join them, leaving worldly property behind. One day, word came from Letitia that she was returning to Cameliard permanently, if they would take her.
She arrived a few weeks later, weak and thin, with her two remaining children. She was hard and angry. It was several days before she would tell them why she had come.
“He’s renounced the crown, the land, our children, and me,” she told them, her voice shaking with bitterness. “He’s left his cousin, Vortemir, to run things as best he can and gone into a monastery.”
“Constantine!” Guinevere wouldn’t believe it. “But he’s coming back, of course.”
Her niece stared at her blankly. “If he does, I won’t be there waiting. But I don’t think he’ll leave it. He blamed himself for little Arthur’s death and then for all the others and for not being King Arthur reborn. He left us gold and jewels and alone. So, I’ve come back. When my children are old enough, I’ll try to see that they get their patrimony. But now we’re defenseless. Will you let us stay?”
So there were children again at Cameliard. Guinevere showed them her old hiding places and taught them to swim in the baths. They quickly forgot the horrors of the summer past. Their presence discouraged others from dwelling on it. Under the snow and rain, the graves sank and blended into the landscape again.
In the spring Allard came to Guinevere with a suggestion. He hemmed a long while, rather defensively, before he came to the point.
“There aren’t enough people here any more, Aunt,” he pointed out. “We need people to settle and work the land. I want to go to the Alemanni living on the coast and offer them a chance to live here.”
Guinevere looked at him suspiciously. “Alemanni? I remember Arthur had a treaty with them. Aren’t they a kind of Saxon?”
Guinevere Evermore Page 28
