"No, son, it's not." She looked into his eyes.
Gawaine was silenced. He had suspected that he would always be a better fighter than Agravaine, and now his mother confirmed it.
Her eyes were bluer than the skies on this fine summer day. When she looked at him with admiration, he could almost burst out singing.
Morgause put her hand on his shoulder. Her touch was gentle, though nothing about her was delicate. Her long, graceful fingers smelled like roses. "Would that I did have the power to predict the future. Yours, at any rate."
"So, do you think that father will become High King? Who is it who contests him?" He tried to sound like a grown man. Now that he was going to battle, his mother must not think of him as a boy any longer.
"A boy called Arthur, a bastard son of Uther's, and the son of my sister Igraine, or so Merlin claims. Yes, the sage Merlin is on his side, unfortunately, even though the boy has been raised Christian." She grimaced. "I do not see why Merlin should favor the bastard."
"But is he then my cousin?"
Her face relaxed slightly. "Yes, he's likely your cousin. Your father thinks this Arthur is no match for him, but Lot is not always the best judge of men."
"But my father is a king in his own right who has fought many battles. How could a boy be a better king?"
"I know one young man who might be. One who is a king's trueborn son." Morgause smiled and gazed at him as if he were the only person in the world. "Why do you think I want Lot to be High King? For his own sake? Or for yours?"
Gawaine's jaw dropped. "Could I be High King? You don't want my father to be High King?"
"Your father and I get along well, particularly when he is in Lothian and I am in Orkney, but I can see that you will be greater than he. That much I am safe in predicting." She gave him the smile that made people believe she was an enchantress.
Well, he hoped that he would at least yell less than Lot. His head spun with pride at hearing that his mother thought he would be greater than his father, even though he had always guessed she did. He could not imagine sitting on a throne and having to give orders. He could perhaps manage in Lothian and Orkney, which he had known all his life, but he had no idea how he could rule all of Britain. He did not tell his mother about his misgivings.
"Listen, son," she said, her hand on his arm, "I am not sure what will happen in these battles. If Lot wins, that is very well. And if he does not, I want you to go with the next High King. Whoever he is, he cannot fail to be impressed with you."
Gawaine gasped. "Go with someone who defeated father?"
"If he proves to be a greater war leader, why not? You can respect him. And if he is your cousin, well, he will understand that you fought for your father and should be glad if you make peace afterwards. But perhaps you will win this war for your father. We shall see. Would that I could have been at the conclave of kings when Uther died! Why did Gareth have to be born this spring?"
Morgause shook her head, but, apparently reminded of the baby, she stepped to the door and called out to her serving woman to bring him to her. "Bring Gareth!"
A red-faced girl soon hurried in with the baby, who let out a wail. Morgause sat in a chair, dropped her gown off her shoulder, and took him to her breast. The baby quickly grabbed hold and began to suck.
"Another fine son, aren't you?" she chortled. "I am much too fond of my boys to give them to wet nurses," she told Gawaine, as she had many times before. "I can raise them to be big and strong better than any peasant woman could."
Also seating himself in a chair, Gawaine was at a loss for conversation. How beautiful she still was, though she had turned thirty the year before. No other woman could compare with his mother.
"The girls, high-born and low-born alike, all smile at you, my son." Her gaze moving from the baby to Gawaine, she gave him a tender look. "You are gentle with them, then. Always remember that the woman should have some pleasure as well as the man." She sighed.
Gawaine felt himself flush with embarrassment, and with anger, at the sigh that implied his father was not a tender lover. He had taken it for granted that his mother and father were not overly fond of each other, but now he began to see that his mother might have deep grievances.
"Your father wants you to leave soon, so part with any girls in the next few days." Morgause shifted to a more serious tone. "Let me tell you more of the South, for as you well know I was born there."
Gareth choked, so she held him to her shoulder and patted him, then put him back at her breast.
"Uther was much like your father," Morgause said, "a fierce warrior and a strong king, but he was not as great a king as Ambrosius Aurelianus before him. With the Saxons on the eastern shore, who have lived there for generations and cannot easily be dislodged, and with other Saxon and Angle sea wolves continuing to come from the North, and Irish raiders pillaging from the West, Britain needs a strong leader. But the kings are not of one mind as to who that should be. The strongest kings are your father and Uriens of Rheged, but the kings of Gwynedd, Powys, Dyfed, Dumnonia, and all the smaller kingdoms also want a say. Many of them apparently may back the boy because they fear the strong kings of the North almost as much as they fear the barbarians. Some of these kings are Romanized, and some are Christian. But what matters most is to have a good, strong man as High King. And I hope that will someday be you."
He did not argue with her, but he thought it was enough for him to be a great warrior, whose deeds were sung by the bards.
Gawaine had battled his way into a town, ahead of his father's other warriors. He had dodged the archers' arrows, and he had fought he knew not how many men. The tide of men that had rushed at Lot's forces had ebbed. The streets were littered with the bodies of dead and wounded fighters. A few women, mostly old, crept out of hiding to look for their kin among the bodies.
Stunned to be alive and with no serious injuries, Gawaine found a well, hauled up some water, and drank. The warriors of Lothian and Orkney were passing around northern liquor, and he gratefully took a flask offered him by one of his father's men. His own had disappeared in the fighting. The man clapped him on the back and praised him, and the liquor warmed Gawaine as it poured down his throat. Pausing made him realize that every muscle ached. He was covered with blood, but it was not his own. He lived, he had won, and that was all that mattered. He wanted to collapse on the cobblestones, but pride kept him standing.
"This way, your father's this way," a warrior called, and Gawaine followed him into a thatch-roofed wooden building. He wondered if there was a treasure in it.
Lot was there, surrounded by his men. Though his beard was graying, he was nearly as large and strong as his son. His huge hand grasped the arm of a girl of about Gawaine's age who was dressed in undyed homespun. She screamed and flailed about. Several of the other men also held girls or women.
Gawaine saw his father tear the front of the girl's gown with one large rip. Gawaine pitied her, but he knew he could not stop Lot. Gawaine had always imagined that if he ever saw a man trying to rape a woman, he would prevent it, tell his mother what he had done, and win her praise. He had never guessed that he would confront a group of warriors all bent on rape, or that one of them might be a king, much less that it would be his own father.
"Get one for yourself, son." Lot laughed and grabbed the girl's breast. "This is the best part of the battle."
Gawaine reeled, not just from the liquor.
He longed to free the girl, who had a round, young face that should feel only gentle kisses but was now contorted with terror. Her screams unnerved him. "Nah." He wanted to vomit.
His father glared at him. "What, is my son a woman? After that fighting, can you be so limp?"
That he was not, not at all, just sickened. How could he possibly want to force himself on one of these screaming women who were trying to get away? How could the other men bear it?
"The hair barely covers your chin, but I didn't know you pissed squatting! This is no way for my son to act," Lot yelled at him, then
laughed. Some men laughed along with their king. Others stared as if they could hardly believe what Lot had said.
"I won the fucking battle for you!" Gawaine moved to strike him. He wanted to kill his father, then realized that he easily could, and held back at the last moment.
Some men looked to Gawaine as if they were waiting to see what he would do. He could challenge his father for kingship, but he really would have to kill Lot for that.
Lot's face reddened.
"Go fight with beardless Arthur, why don't you? They say he doesn't take the women when he's won a town."
Seeing Lot distracted, the girl broke away, but Lot grabbed her and struck her so hard that she fell. He jerked her back up.
Gawaine spat in his father's direction, and staggered out of the building. He didn't want to be a kinslayer. He hurried down the town's one poor road, now crowded with warriors drinking and looting. Where was his brother Agravaine?
He saw the familiar face. Agravaine was hurrying towards the building that Gawaine had just left.
"Brother! Hero!" Agravaine cried out, saluting Gawaine and clapping him on the shoulder. It was Agravaine's first battle, and his still fairly unstained garb suggested that he had fought only a little, but he beamed at his brother, basking in Gawaine’s glory.
"Come away from here." Gawaine took his arm and tried to change his direction.
"Away from the celebration?"
"Away from Lot. They're raping all the women they can find. I'm off to fight for Arthur, if I can. You should come with me, too." He tried to hold onto Agravaine, but let him shake free.
Agravaine's blue eyes bulged.
"Desert father and go to the other side? You can't. You must be mad from all of your fighting. They nearly killed you so many times."
Gawaine could hardly keep the frenzy out of his voice. "This is an evil place. Come with me, or they'll make you part of all this horror."
They saw some warriors doing in the street what their father was doing behind the walls. The struggling women shrieked like the gulls of Orkney.
Agravaine laughed, his voice heavy with liquor. "We won, did we not? Come on, Gawaine, have you never hit a girl or shoved her down to make her open her legs?"
"No. I'm going. Come with me." Gawaine tried to make the words sound like an order.
"No." Agravaine darted to the door of the building where their father was.
Gawaine found his gray war stallion and rode away. A few of the men stared at him, but they no doubt assumed that he was on some mission for his father.
He was so tired that he could hardly stay in the saddle. His empty stomach protested that it wanted food. His horse, Storm, was no more pleased than he was at riding away, and Gawaine knew that he would have to rest the stallion soon. He had chosen a gray because Cuchulain's battle horse had been of that color.
Gawaine found a stream with blue gentians growing on its banks and let the horse drink a little.
Never had he thought of being anything other than the fighting son of King Lot of Lothian, and his heir. Not knowing what to think, he rode across bleak moors and on, over heather-covered hills. He paused only to avoid killing his fine horse. The pink of the heather, so fresh and harmless, reminded him of the cheeks of the girl his father had assaulted. Lot had no pity. What would it be like to have no pity in your heart?
He had not risked his life so some old men could rape girls. But what had he risked it for? So Lot could be High King? Or just to prove how brave he was?
Why, after all, had it been necessary to devastate a town just because its lord had supported Arthur? The fight seemed inglorious compared with attacking Arthur's warband.
Where could he go now? His mother would have welcomed him and understood, but he could not go back to her. He had to make a name for himself.
His mother was married to a rapist. The thought sickened Gawaine.
His father must not have imagined that Gawaine really would go to fight with Arthur, but there seemed to be no other choice.
What would he do if Arthur did not want him? All he had was a good horse, a good sword with his emblem, a hawk, carved on the hilt, and what he was wearing. The golden torque around his neck and his golden armrings had been gifts from Lot, and the large garnet ring on one hand and the amethyst ring on the other had been gifts from his mother. She had made the many-colored plaid cloak on his back and the embroidered scabbard that held his sword. He supposed he could sell or trade the jewels if need be.
If Arthur did not want him, perhaps he could serve Uriens of Rheged? But it would be humiliating to go to a king no greater than his father, and he wondered whether Uriens was any better than Lot. Gawaine touched his chin with regret. He would grow a thick beard as soon as he could and would never shave it, though many men in the South had picked up the habit of shaving from the Romans. He would woo so many women that no man would ever cast doubt on his virility again.
When Gawaine finally found the tents of the young man who called himself High King, Arthur's warriors eyed him suspiciously. Having fought against Gawaine, they glared while he waited to hear whether Arthur would see him. Gawaine was aware that his clothes and his mail were still covered with the blood of men who had fought on Arthur's side, and he was sure that he stank from the battle. Some of the soldiers were eating venison. The smell made him want to tear it from their hands.
A soldier escorted Gawaine into a tent with a red dragon pennant hanging in front of it. Inside, he saw a young man, tall, though not as tall as he, with a shaven chin, red-gold hair, and steady gray eyes. Arthur rose from a pile of rugs, and moving like a soldier — no, like a commander — he greeted Gawaine.
"My cousin, are you not? Does my Uncle Lot send a message?"
Of course, it was their mothers who had been sisters. Gawaine thought he saw a trace of Morgause's looks in Arthur's face, and a bit of his young brother, Gaheris, who was still at home. Gawaine bowed slightly. Arthur invited him to sit on the rugs beside him and offered him some wine.
Gawaine drank it, though it seemed too sweet.
While he told his story, Arthur regarded him thoughtfully.
Then Arthur shook his head. "Surely you can see that Lot will never be High King. He could not act that way in Lothian, or his people never would accept him. The people will look to a ruler who protects them rather than pillaging them. You were wise to come here, Gawaine, and most welcome."
The gray eyes also bade him welcome, and Arthur clasped his shoulder. "I've heard that my father, King Uther, did such things as well. We'll be better than our fathers were, and our sons will be even better than we are."
Gawaine nodded. He had come to the right place, after all.
4 The King’s Sister
Morgan walked past the half-finished caer, which resounded with noises of men carting stones and piling them. Arthur was reconstructing a hill fort, making it larger and stronger. The workers had repaired the outer wall first, as protection, and now they were working on the citadel’s inner dwellings.
Swallows swooped by her as she looked out over the fields and forest at the foot of the hill. Her arms were full of violets she had gathered that afternoon. She drank in their scent. In the west, a red sun was fast disappearing. She missed the sight of the sun's red streaks fading into the sea at her own caer, Tintagel, on the Cornish coast. A sea of tents for Arthur's men surrounded the half-built fort. She went to the one beside a white banner with a red dragon.
Morgan opened the tent flap and found her brother, away from his builders for once. Arthur's red-gold hair fell over his face as he looked up from his building plans. She let the violets scatter over his vellum drawings.
With a cry, he shoved the flowers off.
"Put aside those plans. It is Beltane tonight." She smiled at him and extended her hand.
Arthur pulled her down on the rugs beside him. "It is always Beltane for you and me, sweeting," he said.
He tried to kiss her, but she pulled away. "Beltane is sacred. Our love
then is different from other times."
"You can't expect me to go rutting on the ground among the common folks." He laughed, showing his strong white teeth, and reached for her again.
She jumped up, disgusted. "Don't speak of it so. It is a holy ceremony. We celebrated it together in Cornwall."
"But now we are in the place where I shall rule." He spoke as if explaining to a child. "I must be dignified. I am a Christian." He grimaced, as if he found there were drawbacks to dignity, and perhaps to piety.
Morgan felt as if he had struck her. "I have always celebrated Beltane, and I always will. Must I ask some other man to celebrate with me? I suppose I could ask our cousin Gawaine."
Gawaine she had met in Arthur's camp, and she liked him, though not in the way that many other women did.
Arthur's usually pleasant face reddened and distorted. He leapt up, glaring at her. "Don't you dare! I won't let another man touch you. I'd lock you up first."
He reached for her, but she evaded his grasp. She was now glaring as much as he was. "Lock me up in a tent? Or would you confine me in one of your mud-and-wattle churches? You'd never see me again afterwards. If you object so much to my lying with a man you know, I'll just go to the fires and lie with any man there, it doesn't matter whom."
He collapsed on the rugs and buried his head in his arms.
"Please don't, I can't bear it."
The sight of his misery filled her with tenderness, as his anger never could. How young he looked, though he was more than twenty, four years younger than she was, and so often foolish. She had known him for little more than two years, but she could imagine what he must have looked like as a child. Perhaps the Goddess would understand if she pampered him.
She slipped down to the pile of rugs and put her arms around him. "We can celebrate here, by ourselves, in your tent."
Arthur lifted his head and embraced her tightly.
"I never want to lie with any woman but you." He pressed her head to his shoulder.
Morgan wriggled out of his grip. "Don't talk nonsense. I know that you write to Leodegran of Powys more than to Maelgon of Gwynedd or even Uriens of Rheged, and I can guess why. That daughter of Leodegran's would make a good wife for you."
Lancelot- Her Story Page 7
