"Or he might have killed us all for keeping you here," Tudy said, taking a swig of ale.
"Or he might have fucked you for a jest and ridden away," Coen said, laughing his ugly laugh.
"Well, he didn't see you," Dunaut said. "Here's a stick to beat the girl."
Mordred took the young whore off and beat her as hard as he could, thinking only of the day when he was strong and skilled enough to kill the panderers, and the more distant day when he could wield a sword at Camelot. He was bitterly ashamed of his mother, a dead whore he couldn't remember.
His father had vanquished the forces of the Saxons, so surely Mordred could defeat three panderers. When he killed them, he planned to own the brothel himself. Then he would pay to learn sword fighting and noble speech and manners. The next vengeance would have to be much slower.
26 The Seducers
Gawaine woke beside a pretty lady whose brown hair spread across his arm. Dawn's rays had barely begun to sneak through his window, so he wondered whether he could detain her a little longer. She was unmarried, though she was old for it, and he did not want to destroy her reputation, though she had not been a virgin. Strange that she was not better guarded at Camelot.
She opened her eyes, which were hazel. "I suppose you'll be off to a Mass soon," she jested.
"Not likely," he mumbled, stroking her hair.
"How can you bear to attend them?" she asked, sitting up and moving away from him. Her breasts were small but shapely. "A man like you, who was raised in the old faith?"
"Often I stay away, and when I attend, I pay little heed to the words, Cigfa." His voice was slightly cross. A discussion of religion was not what he had in mind.
"How sad it is that the priests' prayers are the only ones at Camelot." Cigfa cast a sad-eyed glance at him.
"The people must long for a ruler who listens to the old gods."
"What?" He sat up abruptly. Cigfa had not been long at Camelot, but even the newest lady should know that her words verged on treason. "The people love Arthur. You must know that." He tried to keep his voice from sounding too harsh, but it was a struggle.
"The people love you, too, Gawaine." Smiling, she put her hand on his arm.
"If so, it is because I am loyal to Arthur." Her touch did not thrill him any longer.
"You are too modest." Her glance was warm. "All the world knows of Gawaine, the great warrior from the North. And all the world knows that he is not truly a Christian, but believes in the old gods. And they would rejoice if you were the one who had the sword of power."
"My cousin's sword?" Gawaine cried. "Can you imagine I would try to take it? If all the world knows so well what is in my heart, they must know that I love Arthur." He left the bed and began pulling on his breeches.
"But don't you love the gods more?" Cigfa also rose from the bed and again put her hand on his arm.
Even the dawn's glow could not make her scheme pretty. Gawaine shook his head. "Do you think the gods can't hear our prayers if we use other names for them? Does it matter so greatly if we say Lugh or Christ? I can pray in a chapel as well as an oak grove." He gently removed her hand from his arm.
"Gawaine!" she cried out, as if in pain. "Think what it would be like to restore Avalon! You are the only one who could do that."
Gawaine put on his tunic, then looked into her eyes.
"I cannot restore the past. No one can."
"But you are the greatest fighter in Britain! Think what you could do if you had the sword of power as well. No one could challenge you."
"The sword has no great power. That is only a tale Arthur created to embellish his legend. Who gave you these ideas? Who sent you to speak with me?" He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. She was too young to remember Avalon.
Her face paled. "Many want you to lead."
He snorted. "I doubt that. Could it have been my cousin Morgan?"
Cigfa raised her head with pride. "I have the honor of knowing the Lady Morgan."
Yellow light was replacing the rays of dawn. Starlings were squawking outside his window. Gawaine sighed. Last night seemed far away. "And this was how she thought to persuade me? It would have been more flattering if she had sent for me herself."
"I am sure she would be glad to speak with you," Cigfa said hastily, but she looked at the floor as if he had insulted her, and perhaps he had.
He touched her hand gently. "I have nothing to say to her. I thank you for your generosity last night, Lady Cigfa, but I wish it had not been because someone asked you to do it."
"It was not for any mortal!" she exclaimed, reddening.
He was ashamed of what he had just said, true though it was. He had as good as called her a whore. She had believed in what she was doing.
Gawaine tried to make his voice gentle. "Pardon my crude speech. I meant no insult. I understand that you were doing all that you did for the goddess. I remember when such things were considered sacred, and Beltane was a ceremony, not a place where people thought only of finding pleasure. I merely doubt that the lady Morgan is as pious as you are." He kissed her forehead, then went to his clothing chest and pulled out a huge cloak. "This cloak should hide you if anyone sees you leaving my rooms."
She dressed quickly and pulled the cloak over her shoulders. Her face was well hidden in the deep hood.
Left alone, he poured himself some ale, sighing as he did so. He seldom felt sad after lying with a woman, but this time he did. How could anyone imagine that a pretty woman's flattery was enough to make him change his loyalties? How could Morgan tell a girl to lie with him as a way to serve the goddess, when it seemed that Morgan wanted only to serve her own plans, which sounded unsavory? He had difficulty believing that religion was her chief concern. And he was stung that, if she thought bedding was the way to persuade him, she had not tried it herself. He had been pleased with their long ago interlude and had believed that she was also.
Riding through a forest on a fine autumn day, Lancelot enjoyed the yellow leaves, which seemed to promise that life would be eternal, or at least glorious. She hoped to glow as brightly before she fell. She heard geese flying south, calling far above her, and she wondered whether she would ever journey to warmer lands. No, she could not bear to be so far from Guinevere. Her meditations were interrupted when a lady by the side of the road called out to her. The lady was standing beside three horses, no doubt her own and two others.
The lady was about twenty years old, fair of face and elegant of gown. Her embroidered traveling cloak was rather fine for riding.
"You are Lancelot, aren't you? Help me! My husband is fighting another man," she called out. Lancelot rode over to her.
"If you want me to help your husband, you must explain a little more, my lady. Did this man attack him?"
"No," she exclaimed, her voice nearly breaking, "I want you to help the other man. My husband attacked him and he can't fight as well as my husband can."
"Were you running off with him, my lady?"
She shook her head and sighed. "Oh, no. I wouldn't run off with him, because my husband is rich and he is poor. But I do like him and I don't want my husband to kill him. Won't you help?" She stretched out her hands in an imploring gesture.
Lancelot hardly knew where her sympathies should lie. "I don't know, my lady. Where are they?"
"In yonder clearing," the lady said, pointing in the direction from which yelling and clattering resounded.
Lancelot dismounted and walked to a clearing where a tall man wearing chain mail was pressing a fierce attack on a slender man in a green tunic. The man without armor had a short sword and was agile, but clearly did not have the same kind of training in fighting as the larger man. Nor was a short sword much protection against a long one.
"What is happening here?" Lancelot called out.
The man in chain mail looked up. His face was red and his eyes glinted like a boar's. "You're Lancelot! I've seen you in fighting contests," he cried. "Help me punish this cur who tried to seduce my wife
. I'm going to kill him."
The one in the green tunic turned slightly. Lancelot saw the seducer's handsome face and rushed into the fight. There was something about the lines of that face, the smooth cheeks, the slim build.
Lancelot threw herself between them and stumbled, so the husband tripped over her. Then she flourished her sword uselessly at the seducer, who ran away. As the husband tried to get up, Lancelot fell into him, making him stumble again.
"What in Annwyn is the matter with you? Are you drunk?" yelled the enraged man.
"Only a little," Lancelot mumbled, using a voice that pretended to be the worse for wine.
They heard the sound of a horse galloping.
"He escaped!" cried the infuriated man, his face redder than ever. "I must follow him."
Then the lady rushed up and flung herself on him. "Oh, dearest, you are safe, thank the holy angels. When I saw that ruffian ride away, I was so afraid that he had killed you." She kissed his cheek and clung to him.
"Yes, yes, I'm safe," he said, shaking her off. "But I must pursue him."
"No, don't give him another chance to kill you!" she moaned, trying again to cling.
"Nonsense, that whoreson can't fight half as well as I can," the man said. "If it hadn't been for Lancelot's blundering, I would have killed him." He stalked off towards the horses. Lancelot and the lady followed.
"But who knows, even you could have an accident and be hurt," his wife said solicitously, as she hurried after him.
"Which way did he go?" her husband asked.
"Oh, I don't remember, it was all a blur. I was so terrified when I saw him run out alone, as if he had hurt you." The lady's voice sounded helpless.
Her husband scowled at her. "Think."
"Oh, I suppose it was that way," she said, pointing. "But it's hard to be sure."
"Why don't you go that way, then, and I'll go the other," Lancelot said helpfully. "If I find him, I can fight him."
"Much good that will do." The man snorted. "You're a disgrace to King Arthur."
"Oh, sir, you have wounded me," Lancelot moaned. "Say anything but that. Surely my disgrace is mine alone."
The man had mounted his horse. "Yes, your disgrace is yours. Go on your way. I don't want you with me."
"Godspeed, my noble husband," his wife said in a tone of stirring devotion.
"Godspeed," Lancelot also called out to him.
He rode off and Lancelot mounted her horse.
"Oh thank you, kind lord," the lady said, smiling warmly.
"Be more careful next time, my lady," Lancelot replied and rode off in the other direction.
After a while, Lancelot saw tracks leave the road and go deeper into the forest. She followed them for a distance. Then she called out, "You can come out now, the man has gone."
Laughing, the seducer appeared from behind an oak tree and strode up to her. Yes, Lancelot had been right, she was another woman dressed as a man.
Lancelot stared. She saw a woman of about her own age, with dark hair, gray eyes, and a slender body. Her green tunic was good but old, as were her cowhide breeches.
"So you're Lancelot. I should have known no man could be as good as the tales say you are. Glad to meet you, Lance. I'm Drian." A man's name, of course. Drian's voice had an accent that was neither a noble's nor a laborer's, and it was not clear where she hailed from. Perhaps from Dyfed. She extended her hand.
Lancelot smiled and clasped it.
"You should be more careful. That lady wanted to stay with her husband, so she surely wasn't worth the risk."
Drian hooted. "How do you know she wasn't? Haven't you ever lain with any married women?"
Lancelot felt herself blush. "Perhaps I have."
"Why not?" Drian patted her on the shoulder. "It's a good jest on the husbands."
"I have never thought of it that way," Lancelot replied stiffly, moving away from her. "So you take advantage of many women? You shouldn't."
Drian laughed again and shook her head. Her gray eyes were full of merriment. "You could say they take advantage of me, couldn't you? Haven't you loved many women?"
"Only one woman. I want no other," Lancelot said in her most formal tone.
"Who is she?"
"I cannot say." Lancelot sealed her mouth in a firm line.
Drian grinned. "Come on, Lancelot of the Lightning Arm. Let me give you something to drink."
"No, well, perhaps a little." Drian was not exactly respectable, but Lancelot did not want to leave the company of the first woman like herself she had ever met.
Drian pulled out a flask from the pack on her horse. She brushed some acorns from a place on the ground and seated herself.
After getting some wheaten bread from her pack, Lancelot joined Drian sitting on the mossy ground. She looked appreciatively at the silver birches and gold-leafed oaks surrounding them. A red squirrel carried acorns to some caer of its own.
Drian offered Lancelot mead, and Lancelot offered her bread.
"For a warrior, you have a kind face," Drian said, drinking some mead.
Lancelot sighed and cut herself a slice of bread. "Perhaps I shouldn't have been a warrior, but it's too late to change my life to a gentler one."
"I'm a harper." Drian gestured to a small harp that was tied to her horse. "Music is the most gentle of all arts."
Lancelot knew that not all music was gentle, but she made no comment about that. "After we have finished our meal, would you play something?"
"For you, gladly." Drian made a sweeping bow, as if to a large audience.
"I would expect to find a harper at some lord's dun, not in the forest."
Drian chuckled. "Sometimes I have to leave those lords very quickly, so it's good to know places in the woods where I can retreat. I can hunt for food. I'm good with a bow and arrow. Sometimes I have to leave before the lords pay me. But if I do -" Drian put her hand in a small bag at her waist, pulled out a silver medallion with an amber stone, and pinned it to her green cloak.
"Why, the man who attacked you was wearing that!" Lancelot exclaimed, horrified.
"Yes, he was, but he wanted to give it to me. Didn't you hear him say so?" Drian's voice was earnest. She buffed the medallion.
"You stole it!" Lancelot felt her face grow hot with anger. She leaned forward.
"Say, rather, that he owed it to me for attacking me, as well as for some days of harping at his holding. I only made his wife happy, which is more than he'll do. No doubt she'll be more content to stay." Drian's voice was not entirely soft now.
"That doesn't make stealing right!" Lancelot argued.
"You've never been in need, I reckon?" Drian’s tone held no trace of apology.
"No, I have not," Lancelot admitted, wondering not for the first time what her life would have been like if her parents had not been nobles.
"You can do as you please. One like us who was born poor must make her way however she can and be prepared to leave any place as quickly as possible."
Drian's tone was harsher now. "I never know when someone might guess that I am a woman."
Drian tore her slice of bread to bits. "I've had some close calls when men have suspected I was a woman. I can run fast and I have a fast horse. But you can't always count on having the swiftest horse. You shouldn't live around so many men, Lance. They're dangerous." Drian looked her in the eyes, very seriously.
Lancelot almost jumped, as if she had been stung. "My friends would never turn on me."
"Oh, of course not," said Drian with considerable sarcasm. "Warriors never attack women."
Lancelot studied her bread. "I suppose there aren't many men I could trust to befriend me if they knew I was a woman," she admitted.
"Are there any?"
"At least one knows and is trustworthy," Lancelot said, thinking of Aglovale.
"That's more than I'd have guessed." Drian pressed her shoulder. "Don't think about them. Let me play some music for you." She took up her harp and sang some love songs.
&n
bsp; Drian's voice was good, and her playing was spirited but unschooled. Nonetheless, Lancelot much enjoyed hearing her.
"Very pleasant," she said when Drian paused.
Drian shook her head. "I know it's not what you're used to at Camelot. I taught myself. I couldn't risk asking any bard to teach me."
"Of course," Lancelot said, wondering what Drian's playing would have been like if she had been trained.
Drian leapt up. "There's a sport I can beat you in."
Doubting her, Lancelot tried to hide a smile. "What is that?"
"Running."
Lancelot shook her head. "I can run faster than many men."
Drian snorted. "I don't doubt that, nor do I doubt why you'd want to. But I know much less of fighting than you do, so I've had to learn to run faster than anyone. Race me, and I'll show you."
Seeing that she would offend Drian if she refused, Lancelot said, "Very well. The forest is not the best place to run."
"But I'm used to it. Come on, I dare you."
Drian dashed off among the trees, and Lancelot rushed after her. Drian had told the truth. She ran like the wind, and darted around the trees like a hare.
They came to a clearing, and Lancelot almost caught up with her, but not quite. Lancelot felt a surge of exhilaration in her blood as she tried to run as she had never run before, just for the joy of it.
They were among the trees again, and Lancelot tried not to lose speed as she made her way through them, but that seemed impossible. She lost sight of Drian.
Lancelot kept on running as best she could. When she passed a large oak, arms grabbed her. Drian held her and kissed her lips.
Lancelot gasped in astonishment.
"I've won, and you must forfeit a kiss!" Drian cried.
Lancelot simply stared at her.
"What, have you never played catch and kiss?" Drian asked, embracing her.
Lancelot- Her Story Page 39
