She began to sob again.
"Lance! Is that you?"
It was Arthur's voice.
"Lance! Help me! I'm wounded."
Reluctantly, she rose.
Just over the ridge lay Mordred's body. Arthur lay further down, by the riverbank, covered with blood.
She did not want to leave Gawaine's body to go to Arthur.
"Lance! Come!"
Reluctantly, she moved down the slope. She passed Mordred's body and scarcely glanced at it.
Lancelot saw there was a gaping wound in Arthur's side. She had served him for so many years. Surely she should feel something more for him. But he had tried to kill Guinevere. Lancelot felt a wave of revulsion.
Arthur smiled at her. How dare he smile?
He began a halting speech. "Lance. I'm not alone after all."
She froze. "You are dying." She felt—she felt numb. The wound in his side bled terribly. She made no fruitless attempts to bind it.
"Mordred killed me. He was my son, and I would to God that I hadn't killed him. He killed Gawaine, too."
Lancelot moaned. The unfeeling sun shone down on them.
"My son, I killed my son!"
"You tried to murder Guinevere." Lancelot's voice shook with hatred.
"Forgive me for that,” Arthur begged.
"I cannot." Lancelot remembered seeing Guinevere tied to the stake, and the flames beginning.
"Please forgive me," Arthur's voice cracked. "I was wrong. Stay with me. You will stay with me until I'm gone?" He trembled with anxiety.
Lancelot paused. "I'll stay." She did not want to look at him or be with him. But perhaps she owed that much to any dying man or woman. "But I must bring Gawaine here so the scavengers do not violate his body."
"Don't leave me, Lance!" Arthur cried.
"I'll be back." She climbed back up the hill. The sight of Gawaine's body crushed her heart.
She caught hold of his shoulders, wrapped in her cloak, and dragged his body, as gently as she could, down near Arthur. Gawaine's shield she left. He would not need it now.
She sighed and sat down on the ground between Gawaine's body and the king.
"My heir is gone," Arthur moaned. "Everything is undone."
"Gawaine was far more than your heir." Lancelot could not keep the anger out of her voice.
"He was a good man. Hold my hand," he said, as if he could still command anyone to do anything.
"No." She pulled back. “I pity you, but do not ask for more.”
"I shouldn't have tried to kill Guinevere. I was mad. You know what it is to be mad." He tried to coax her.
"You weren't mad, only angry and cruel." She tried to keep her voice calm since she was speaking to a dying man, but she shook with anger at the thought of Guinevere taken to the stake. "I am sorry that you are dying. I'll stay here so you won't die alone, but that's all I can do for you."
"You'd have done more for Gawaine," he said querulously.
"Gawaine deserved my friendship." She wondered whether she was speaking too harshly to a dying man.
Arthur groaned. "Even you have turned against me. So many deaths, so much bloodshed." His voice became weaker with every word. "I wanted my people to live, and live well. I did not want to see this day."
“I am sorry that you are dying. Perhaps you should think of God now, not of me.” His pain touched her in spite of herself.
"There is nothing left for me." He choked, as if there were blood in his throat. "No wife, no son, no kingdom, no warriors. No life. Only this pain."
"Is it very bad?" Her voice softened. She didn't want him to suffer more.
"Yes." Arthur could barely speak. "Help me to end it." His voice faltered and cracked more each time he spoke. "I want to give my sword to the Lady of the Lake—you. Take it, and help me end this pain. It is more than I can bear."
Lancelot shuddered. "No! I cannot do that. I have known you too long."
Arthur groaned. "For God's sake, pity me and let this pain come to an end." The grass around him was steeped in blood. "Take my sword."
Lancelot had so often been afraid that she would be asked to kill Arthur, but she had never imagined that he would be the one to ask. Her voice faltered. "Must I? Then we are both damned."
"No man—or woman—was ever damned for following his king's commands."
"I doubt that," Lancelot said.
"I can't bear to die slowly."
"You would have burned Guinevere. That is a terrible death."
"Please, Lance." Arthur moaned. "Remember that I was a good king."
"For many years, you were," she admitted.
He seemed to her weak and brave, lonely and clinging, striving for dignity and pathetic, desperate and calculating, and entirely human. He looked at her, then shut his eyes.
Lancelot stabbed him through the heart.
She flung the sword that he had prized so much into the river. She sunk to her knees, put her head in her hands, and sobbed.
She felt that Arthur had raped her. How could a dying man rape? She didn't know, but she felt he had. He had guessed that she had wanted to kill him, and he had forced her to do it. She felt defiled, stained with blood that could never be washed away.
If she had been with Gawaine when he was dying—if only she could have said a final farewell and consoled him, but no, it was better that he had died quickly—he would have left her soul innocent. At least as innocent as it had been, which was not very. He would never have left her with horrible images to haunt her.
After some time had passed—she could not have said whether it was a few moments or many—some farmers came by, looking to see what had happened at the battle.
"There lies King Arthur," moaned one of them. "King Arthur is dead!"
Weeping, the men came to see the king.
Lancelot looked up, relieved by their presence. She was able to act the properly grieving warrior. Others cared, many of them would care. She nodded to them. "Yes, our king is dead. Come and say farewell to him." Formality seemed the greatest of blessings. She stood somberly and let them pay their reverence to him.
She had not been able to touch the king's body. She asked one of the men to put gold coins on his eyes, and the man seemed honored.
She opened Gawaine's visor and put coins on his eyes. No one would steal them now. She would guard him until she dropped.
She gave the men coins in payment to bury Bors, Peredur, and Bedwyr, and told them where they lay, about half a mile away, and what armor they wore—if it had not already been stolen. She described their faces and sizes in case it had.
The farmers departed, and she sat with the bodies.
Despite her sorrow over Gawaine, she felt relief that here was someone she could simply mourn without ugly memories.
With Arthur and Gawaine gone, she felt that she truly was no longer Lancelot.
The sound of a pack of curs barking made her wince, because they must be at the bodies. In a way, she almost envied them, because most of her own pack was gone.
She heard the faint sound of a voice. She wanted to believe it was Gawaine's, but she knew that was impossible. The voice came from higher on the ridge. She looked up the slope and saw that one of Mordred's hands moved slightly.
Not hurriedly, she walked up to him. She didn't want to see him or hear his voice.
"Mercy." Mordred's eyes were barely open. His wound bled terribly and his voice was broken. "I was afraid that my father would finish me off if he saw that I was still alive, but I heard your voice and thought that because you're a woman you'd have mercy and save me."
"You're wrong. Your father would have tried to save you, but I won't."
A terrible scream, like nothing she had ever uttered, came out of her mouth, and she plunged her sword into him. She struck again and again, not caring that he was dead. He had killed Gawaine. He had killed Arthur. He had started this whole bloody war and caused all these deaths. He had killed Gawaine. His resemblance to Arthur didn't bother he
r anymore. She didn't care whether he was Arthur's son.
Finally, she stopped and looked down at Mordred's torn body. She saw what she had done and was horrified at how far her fury had carried her.
Returning to her watch by Gawaine, she slumped onto the ground, too weary even to weep.
"I hate this fighting, I hate it," she sobbed. "Am I going mad? You look like my mother, so helpless. Well, you're both dead." Like the girl she had been, weeping alone in the forest beside her mother's body, again she was left with the dead.
She moaned. "I am so alone."
"Mother! Mother! Mother!" she screamed until her voice was gone.
The river beckoned her. She could wash off the blood. She could plunge in, with chain mail on, and never have to remember her bloody deeds again. Cold, clear, and innocent, the water pulled her, as if she were already caught in its currents.
She remembered lying in the water thinking of dying after Elaine did, and the words "I cannot abandon Guinevere" came back to her. She had abandoned Guinevere once, but she could hold back this time—yet how could Guinevere love such a killer?
Then the river seemed to turn red, and Lancelot thought that she had caused it. The blood of everyone she had ever killed was in that river. It seemed to her that not saving was the same as killing, and that, like her mother and Elaine, Gawaine, Bors, and the other warriors were dead because she had not saved them. And she saw everyone she had ever failed to save, and Saxons' children who had starved because their fathers were gone, and every hungry woman, man, and child whom she had not fed, and Gareth, who had so much wanted to do good. And the girl she had accidentally killed in the Saxon War.
Gawaine had said that if she went mad at his death, his shade would never rest. Surely if she took her own life, that also would keep his shade unquiet.
She looked back at the river and it was water again, not blood.
"Mother, mother, mother," she choked with the cracked whisper that remained of her voice.
The crows came down to the field, and she did not welcome them. She was busy keeping them off.
Her mare, Raven, stood nearby, a little nervous at all of the bodies. Lancelot pulled herself together enough to pat Raven and be glad she had not been driven off by scavenging men like the many abandoned horses. She realized that Gawaine's horse was gone, and hoped it had run free.
A mist settled over the river, leaving her in a world outside of time, sealed off with the dead.
29 AFTER THE BATTLE
Guinevere, Ninian, and Morgan were poled down the river on a barge.
The searchers made many false starts, approaching the mist-covered bank and looking for Anna, only to find corpses beside a small tree, which they had mistaken for a still standing warrior. At each stop, Guinevere insisted on searching every bit of foggy land again and again. She stumbled over bodies of men she had known, and once came close enough to hear the robbers who were stripping them. The stench of dead flesh sickened her to the core of her being. She felt like Orpheus without music, searching through hell for the one she loved.
Then the boat came to a place where the fog was thick, and Guinevere again leapt onto the bank, calling out, "Lancelot, Lancelot, Anna, Anna." Morgan and Ninian followed her.
Guinevere stumbled over another unseen body, and saw that it was Arthur's. Then she saw her lover kneeling beside Gawaine's body.
Hollow-eyed, Anna stared at her rescuers. Guinevere stared at her in return, horrified by the terrible look on her face and the blood that covered her.
Guinevere opened her arms and Anna clutched her as if Guinevere were a tree leaning over the bank that could keep her from being carried away in the current. At least Anna recognized her.
Morgan threw herself down beside Arthur's body and wailed.
After a time, Morgan helped the men who poled the barge lift Arthur's body on board to take it to a church for burial. They staggered with the difficulty, because stiffness had set in.
"Let us take Gawaine, too, and bury him somewhere in the forest. I don't want to bury him here," were the only words that Anna said.
Although Guinevere had not been fond of Arthur or Gawaine, their murdered bodies seemed pitiful to her, and she could imagine how much worse it was for her lover. Making her voice calm, Guinevere directed the proceedings. "Yes, of course we can take Gawaine, too. I understand Antigone, dear." She realized after she said this that Anna would not know this Greek play about a woman who gave her life to see that her brother was buried, but it didn't matter. Probably the only words that did were "I understand."
"Move Arthur a little, there," Guinevere said. He had tried to kill her, but she felt no triumph at surviving while he died.
Lifting Gawaine's larger and longer dead body was even harder work than carrying Arthur's, but it was done. The fog had cleared somewhat, and Guinevere saw Mordred's body. While they were placing Gawaine on the barge, Guinevere strayed up the slope to Mordred and waved away the crows that worked at his corpse.
If she had borne a son, he might have had that face, now cut and distorted. Sucking in her breath, she realized that Lancelot—Anna—must have been the one who slashed his body so terribly. Arthur wouldn't have done that to his son, or to a man who looked so much like himself. She thought it hard that the father should be buried with great ceremony, while the bastard son lay unburied. Who had his mother been? For the sake of that nameless mother, she called the bargemen to quickly bury his remains, for that was all they were.
She returned to the barge where Anna sat in silence. "Let me clean you off a little, dear." Guinevere said, dipping a cloth into the river and wiping Anna's face. "Will you have a little water to drink?"
Ninian said, "I think perhaps some wine," and lifted a flask to Anna's lips.
Guinevere wiped the blood from Anna's hands.
As they departed, two ravens flew over them.
Ninian said, "See, their spirits have gone." Anna looked plainly unbelieving. Stroking Anna's hair, the old nun said, "You don't have to fight any more battles."
Guinevere did not see the bodies of the dead they passed as they went down the river. All she could see was the misery in Anna's face, which had lost all of its color. Anna's mouth was slack and her eyes seemed to stare at nothing. Could she go mad again from seeing this horror?
Guinevere could scarcely believe that Arthur was dead. She had wanted him gone, not dead. She no longer hated him, but hoped that if there were some future world he would find peace. What would happen to Britain? She would have no say in that now. All she had was Anna, poor dearest Anna. As for Gawaine, Guinevere found herself praying for him and wishing that he still lived.
Morgan went only part of the way on the barge, because it was not safe for her to go to a church. They put her off in a place in the forest where she had ordered servants who worked for the convent to bring her horse so that she could ride home. They buried Gawaine there, beside oak trees.
Ninian and Morgan said some of the old prayers for him.
Anna remained silent, scarcely present. It seemed as if she would have blown away if the plump old nun had not held her.
Morgan had said not a word to Anna. Watching Guinevere and Ninian minister to Anna, Morgan had glowered.
The Lady of Cornwall kissed her brother's forehead in parting, then turned to Anna and spoke in a bitter voice. "Lancelot knows nothing of love or grief. Poor Arthur didn't know that you killed our daughter. How could you leave Elaine?"
Anna turned even paler and trembled at learning that Elaine had been Arthur's daughter. Guinevere flung her arms around Anna, as if trying to ward off the blow that had already been delivered.
Ninian reproached Morgan. "You might be a little gentler. She's grieving. One doesn't have to lie with people or give birth to them in order to love them."
Morgan swung onto her horse, almost as gracefully as Anna could, and galloped deep into the forest.
"Never mind," the old nun said. "People are often cruel at funerals. Morgan just
wishes that she had been the one with Arthur when he died."
"She couldn't wish it any more than I do." Anna shuddered, and Guinevere clasped her hand.
They went through the funeral at the abbey on Ynis Witrin, which once had been Avalon, in a blur of requiems. Guinevere felt heavy from the ugliness of the field of death, but did not weep. For one last moment, she was appearing as Arthur's queen, though she had no crown.
The monks and priests stared a little because Lancelot—she was wearing her chain mail and therefore was so called—was so obviously much more affected than Guinevere, but of course a queen was supposed to be dignified even at her husband's funeral. They probably thought that a runaway queen might show tears of repentance, however.
One wrinkled old monk told Guinevere, "Your calm courage in the face of this great sorrow is an inspiration to us all. The great king long ago told us what he wanted on his tombstone. 'Here lies Arthur, the Once and Future King.'"
She stared back. "He even thought of that," she observed, careful not to show what passed through her mind. She was appalled that he had lived his life always for public show. He had lived to become a legend, and perhaps he would have his wish.
"He wanted you to be buried with him, so you can tell the nuns at your convent to make arrangements for that when you die," the monk informed her.
"I shall not be buried with him," she replied, unable to hide the vehemence in her voice. When she saw the monk's startled face, she recalled herself. "Of course he did not know about my sin when he told you that. I must be buried at the convent where I renounce the world." She vowed that she would be buried in the forest, so no one could ever take her body to Arthur's tomb. Apparently he had thought he could part her from Lancelot in death if not in life.
The monks went off to themselves and appeared to be deep in conversation, then one returned to Guinevere and said, "A golden-haired lady came here to die of the ague just yesterday, and she said that the only man she had ever loved was King Arthur. Perhaps we should bury her with him."
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