Lancelot was troubled with a new question. When would she be with Guinevere again? And could she dare to ask?
Guinevere removed some leaves from Lancelot's hair. "Will you come to my room tonight?"
"If you want me." Lancelot touched Guinevere's cheek, rubbing off a streak of dirt.
"Of course. I will always want you." Guinevere's smile was a bit shy. "Meet my serving woman Fencha near the walled garden, and she'll show you a hidden way."
Lancelot threw her arms around Guinevere and could barely manage to return to garbing herself and making the necessary departure.
Guinevere's gaze never strayed from Lancelot, who rode beside her. It seemed that every hurt and indignity her mind and body had felt was healed by Lancelot's touch. Lancelot was so tender, so loving.
She feared that Lancelot might still be overcome with guilt, go to a priest and renounce her. Let Lancelot love me, please let Lancelot love me, she repeated to herself, as if begging the saints to release their hold.
That evening, apprehension gripped Lancelot. How would it be possible to speak with Guinevere in front of the host of warriors, ladies, and servants – and the king? Lancelot wanted to run away to the forest, go on a long quest, and never face them. She also thought she could never bear to leave the caer's walls again.
The world had changed. How could it be that the warriors in the great hall were acting much as usual, that Bors was telling her about a lad he was training? What did she care? She managed an answer.
Guinevere walked up to her... surely they must be enveloped in a radiant cloud. It was not possible to speak in ordinary words.
But Guinevere said, in a tone much like her usual one, "God grant you good evening, Lancelot. Are you well?"
Somehow she forced herself to reply to those precious words, "Yes, thank you, Lady Guinevere, and I hope that you are well also," without calling her dearest or saying how sweetly some strands of hair strayed across her cheek.
Unbelievably, the gold-torqued king was there, seeming to notice nothing. He kissed Guinevere on that very cheek and said, "You're looking very fair tonight, my dear."
Lancelot froze. So Arthur would still kiss her.
Smiling at her husband, Guinevere spoke calmly, "I am a trifle weary. Pray let me sit with the ladies tonight and listen to their gossip at supper."
"Of course, my dear, whenever you want. I know that the men's talk does not always interest a lady, but I like to have you sit by me sometimes."
He patted her arm absently, and Guinevere walked down the hall to join the ladies.
Bedwyr and Gawaine were discussing some newly purchased horses and Lancelot pretended to listen to them. This was how it would be, this was how it would have to be. Forever.
22 The Stolen Nights
When Lancelot left her house that night, she feared that someone was watching her. She guarded herself more carefully than if she were sneaking up on Saxon troops. A bat fluttering by made her jump. The moon was only a sliver, but Lancelot feared there was all too much light.
Visiting the queen's bedchamber at night was likely as dangerous as fighting Saxons. She could be killed, but Guinevere was surely worth the risk.
People seldom came by the chapel to pray at night, so Lancelot thought she was safe enough near it. But she heard voices in the nearby walled garden, so she slipped into the chapel. She hated the hypocrisy of this move, but there seemed to be no other choice.
She lit a candle. Staring at a statue of the Virgin Mother holding the Infant, Lancelot prayed to her own mother.
"I love Guinevere so much, even though she is married. Help me to know what is right and to do it, Mother."
No voices sounded in the chapel. No sudden streams of light shone. Lancelot buried her head in her hands.
After a while, she felt quieter and left the chapel. Perhaps she would be forgiven for what she did. Or perhaps she was damned already and one more sin wouldn't matter.
Guinevere's serving woman met Lancelot outside the walled garden and showed her the way to a secret door. Lancelot was glad that the woman's face showed no hint of a lewd smile.
Lancelot opened the hidden door and ascended a secret staircase. At the top, there was a door that looked ordinary, but it must be enchanted because the queen was on the other side. Lancelot opened the door.
Guinevere wore an embroidered white bedgown. Her braid was undone and her black hair streamed down her back.
The sight of her reduced Lancelot to silence.
A brazier warmed the room. Beeswax candles flickered on the table, which was covered with a jumble of scrolls and even leather-bound books. No other room in the caer had so many books.
None of the hangings on the walls depicted battle scenes, nor indeed did any of them depict men. The largest hanging was of girls picking fruit, while another showed a woman reaping.
Gold-tasseled cushions rested on the chairs, and one held a sleeping gray cat.
There were more cushions on the bed, which was hung with fine green curtains.
When Lancelot glanced at the bed, Guinevere's gaze met hers.
Lancelot felt her face flush. Guinevere approached her and kissed her flaming cheeks. Lancelot felt as if she would faint as Guinevere guided her to the bed.
The Feast of the Resurrection came, and Lancelot went to Mass with everyone else, but she felt no joy. Far more candles than usual made the chapel glow with light, and incense permeated the air. Many people, Guinevere included, went to the altar, but Lancelot did not. She watched them as if she were again an outsider, dwelling in a place beyond the world. Only a few others, like Gawaine and his brothers, stayed back and did not partake of the bread and wine.
Afterwards, Lancelot busied herself at the stables until it was time to go to the day's feast. Little as she wanted to attend, she knew her presence would be missed if she did not.
The scents from the kitchens were even more fragrant than usual, but they did not rouse her appetite. Instead of entering the great hall, she hung back behind a wagon, as if she were fascinated by the barrels that were its load.
"Lance." A hand touched her shoulder.
She turned to see Arthur. Trying not to flinch at the touch of the man she was betraying, Lancelot inclined her head. "God give you a good holy day, my lord."
Arthur looked at her as if she were wounded. "My friend, I fear you are too scrupulous. Are you still troubled by the things we did in the war? If you aren't good enough to take the sacrament, none of us are. You are one of the best men I know, if not the best."
Lancelot froze. "My lord, I have my reasons." Her voice was as formal as if they were in the great hall with hundreds of listeners. "I beg you not to speak of this again."
Removing his hand from her shoulder, Arthur shook his head. "Very well, but don't be too solemn. Pray come and enjoy the feast." He clearly expected Lancelot to walk to the hall with him, and she had to do so. She thought her guilt must be written on her face.
When she chose to be Guinevere's lover, she had not pondered how difficult it would be to speak with Arthur or how little she would want to see him.
She thought how horrible it would be if Guinevere went back to him. Lancelot tried to dismiss the idea from her mind.
She did not go to Guinevere's room that night. Instead, she went to the chapel and knelt on the cold stone floor. The place, which had been lighted by so many candles earlier, now lay in darkness except for a small oil lamp on the altar.
She had knelt there for some time when Father Donatus walked up and asked softly, "Lancelot, may I help you? Would you like to be shriven?"
She closed her eyes, then reluctantly opened them, turned to him, and shook her head.
She could just barely see the priest's face in the dim light. His brow furrowed. "You are a good man, Lancelot. Giving the Church and the poor your share of the plunder from the war has made you the most generous man in Britain, save only the High King. Why, with that, and your chaste temperament, people already talk of s
ainthood."
Lancelot groaned. She had once liked thinking of herself as good, but she had lost that feeling during the war. She also liked more than a little her reputation for being good. No doubt the reputation would continue though she deserved it no longer, if she ever had.
"I am no saint," she said. "I thank you for your concern." She rose and left the chapel, trying to keep her pace steady.
She could never again be shriven, Lancelot realized, for she did not have true repentance. She would lie with Guinevere again the next night and, she hoped, every possible night for as long as they lived. She could never be absolved of her sins again. Neither could she take any other sacrament.
Taking the sacraments without being shriven would be a sacrilege. With a sinking heart, Lancelot rose from her knees and left the chapel.
No doubt she was damned, but she could not leave Guinevere.
At supper the next evening supper she saw that the queen was pale, with circles under her eyes.
Guinevere did not look at Lancelot.
That night she returned to the queen's room.
Guinevere's white embroidered bedgown accentuated her face's pallor. "I feared you would never come to see me again." Guinevere's voice was nearly breaking. Astonished at hearing the tremor in the queen's voice, Lancelot took hold of both her hands. "I could not keep away, though you are my king's wife."
Guinevere's brow wrinkled. "Arthur does not own me. Do you believe he does?"
"Own you?" The bitterness in Guinevere's words startled Lancelot. "Of course not. But he must love you."
"Is that what you imagine? No, he does not. He merely likes me." Guinevere shook her head.
"How could he not?" Lancelot didn't believe her. "But even if he does not, my loving you is a sin."
"No, our love is not a sin!" Guinevere's small hands grasped Lancelot's stronger ones so hard that they hurt. All traces of regal aloofness had vanished from the queen's face. "I thank God for our love! I have never before loved anyone more than myself, and I am sure that's good, holy, and right."
Lancelot put her arm around Guinevere. "Right or wrong, I love you. I must believe that you will be forgiven for loving so much, but as for me, who knows? I cannot seek absolution, for I shall never give you up. So I cannot take the sacraments any more."
Guinevere tossed her head defiantly.
"I shall take them as usual. If we both held back from the sacrament, it would be like shouting out our love in the great hall. Truly, your conscience is too tender. How many people who take the sacraments are lying with whomever they please? And I have no intention of telling a priest that I love you. Failing to love you and comfort you would be a sin." Guinevere kissed her cheek and stroked her hair.
And would Guinevere always love her? Lancelot felt that she could never be whole alone again, if she ever had been.
Guinevere tried not to sing or even hum while she sewed with the ladies or worked on the accounts with Cai. It was not her custom to make music, and she feared her joy would be noticed. She held herself back when she wanted to run, on her way from the courtyard to the stables, because everyone would stare. She did let herself smile more often, though she heard ladies whisper that perhaps she was finally with child. It seemed that she could hear Lancelot's voice and feel Lancelot's touch for many hours after they had parted for the day.
She noted with pleasure that Lancelot could not refrain from smiling at her more often in public and making innocent remarks to her even in the largest gatherings.
Lancelot woke sighing. The first thing she saw was Guinevere's face, looking at her through the dark. A faint light from candles made her beloved visible.
"Why the sigh? Did you have a bad dream?" Guinevere asked, touching Lancelot's face.
"I dreamed that I was trying to protect a fox cub, but it kept disappearing. I thought that if only I were good enough, I would be able to protect it. I have such dreams often, about cats, rabbits, robins, all sorts of creatures."
She kissed Guinevere's soft hand.
"You're such a creature of the forest," Guinevere said with some surprise. "My mind lives in rooms. People, not animals, fill my dreams. I just dreamed that I was young, telling my father that I would not marry Arthur. Sometimes I dream that I am sitting through an endless meal at the round table. I want to leave, but my legs won't move; they have turned to wood. I also dream that my golden torque is strangling me to death." Her voice choked.
"What sad dreams. Let me soothe away the sadness." Lancelot took her in her arms and loved her.
Another night, Lancelot dreamed she was lost in a field full of blood-soaked corpses, and ones long past bleeding.
She woke, and there was Guinevere, putting an arm over her.
"What is it, my sweet? You moaned so in your sleep."
"I dreamed about the war." Her voice was hollow. "You can't imagine what it was like." Great, choking sobs shook her.
Guinevere took her in her arms and kissed her tear-stained cheek. "It is over. We are together. That horrible time is past."
She put a hand on Lancelot's breast, but Lancelot said, "Not now."
If Guinevere knew what a killer she was, surely Guinevere would not want her, Lancelot thought. How could the queen love her if she knew about killing the girl? No, it would never be possible to tell Guinevere about that.
"I think you knew sorrow before you ever came to Camelot," Guinevere said, stroking Lancelot's hair.
"When I was ten years old, I saw my mother raped and murdered. I put the man's eye out." Lancelot's voice trembled as she told what she had never told anyone before.
"Your poor mother! May God strike down all such evil men!" Guinevere cried out, embracing Lancelot as tightly as possible.
Although Lancelot felt that no one who had done as much killing as she had deserved to be comforted, she let Guinevere hold her. Before the night was over, Lancelot was calmer.
Lancelot did not mind that she had to rise and leave before dawn because she liked to do so anyway. Certainly there were other warriors who were returning from assignations early in the morning, but instead of going to her own house, she went out in the woods. She was still tired, so she napped under a tree.
She knew that Guinevere generally slept a trifle late, but perhaps no one found that strange for a queen.
When Lancelot rose from her nap, she startled a woodcock that had come along the path. The bird flew up with whirring wings, and Lancelot marveled at it. She did not have to train aspiring warriors until midday, so she could spend much of the morning in the woods. She had brought Raven, a black mare she liked better than any other horse since Arrow died.
Strangely, Lancelot had not noticed that this spring was more beautiful than any other. The primroses had never been so yellow, nor the violets so purple. Last year, during the war, she had believed that green shoots would never thrill her again, but she had been mistaken. She rejoiced at the song of a thrush.
After the birds' early chorus drifted off to occasional bursts of song, Lancelot realized that she had just observed the woods with a blank mind and had not thought of Guinevere for a little while. Before Guinevere, it had been sadness that stole back into her mind when she recalled herself, but now it was joy.
This joy was like nothing else. The pleasure she had taken in winning fighting contests and hearing herself praised was meager compared with love. Why did men prize fame so greatly? It was all very well, but the delight in loving and being loved went far beyond such small victories.
At supper in the great hall, she dared to exchange brief glances with Guinevere. Lancelot then forced herself to look away for fear that their elation would make their love known to everyone.
Arthur spoke at great length about something, but Lancelot's mind was on other matters, all of which concerned Guinevere.
Lancelot rode with the others to the Pentecost contest field. The crowd seemed even larger than it had in other years, perhaps because there had been no contest the year before, when they
were fighting the Saxons. How different the warriors looked, with their chain mail polished, instead of covered with grime and gore.
It seemed that the spectators screamed louder than ever. In the midst of the din, Lancelot realized that people were calling the names of the warriors, especially her own and Gawaine's.
"Lancelot!" "Gawaine!" Lancelot!" "Gawaine!" The people yelled. Ladies were pelting them with flowers.
Lancelot's head spun. She turned to Gawaine. "What is all this clamor?"
He rolled his eyes. "We're war heroes now."
"God have mercy on us!" Lancelot's hands covered her mouth to stifle any stronger exclamation.
"Be calm. This is just another contest to show off." Gawaine smiled reassuringly.
Lancelot pulled herself back to the present, looking at him rather than the cheering crowd.
"True. It matters not at all which of us bests the other, for in any real fight we'll be together."
"Indeed, it matters little. But I'll try to win anyway." His smile became a grin. "The ladies are watching."
Lancelot recalled that it would matter to Guinevere to see her win, and defeated him, though the fight was so long that she was gasping for breath afterwards.
When she rode up to the royal stand for her prize and saw how the queen beamed at her, Lancelot was glad she had won.
Gawaine took his defeat with good grace. That night he and Lancelot sat beside each other at supper and shared a goblet, as everyone did when the many guests of Pentecost descended on them. Only Arthur, Guinevere, and the lesser kings had their own goblets, while the others were shared between two people. The warriors had drinking horns of their own, but they knew that Arthur wanted to display the silver goblets.
"Very friendly of you to share a winecup although you were fighting each other earlier today," Bedwyr remarked.
"Gawaine wants to share his goblet with me only because I drink so much less than he does," Lancelot replied, eyeing the cup as if she expected Gawaine to drain it any moment. Men's humor appealed to her much more than it had in her earlier years at Camelot.
Lancelot- Her Story Page 31
