She lifted his hand and kissed it. “Farewell!” There was no time for more, Nimue was running up the sail, and the Queen had still to say her goodbyes. She turned to where her mother stood motionless on the riverbank.
Guinevere spoke in a grey and dreary voice. “My heart is a small and shrivelled thing, my lord, and it has never loved you as dearly as you deserve. But such as it is, all of it goes with you.”
The King opened his mouth, but his strength was fading and only a whisper fell from his lips. Blanchefleur bent and caught it, and she laughed through her tears, and turned and ran to her mother. Then for the first time she dared to throw her arms around the Queen of Logres, and kiss her cheek, and whisper those words in her ear.
Guinevere’s arms tightened around her with a sobbing laugh. “Godspeed, my dear daughter, better than seven sons.” And then she was gone, splashing through the shallows, climbing into the boat. The barge drew away on the river and went into the mist, and the High King of Britain departed.
41
Be glad thou sleeper and thy sorrow offcast.
I am the gate to all good adventure.
Lewis
IT WAS AROUND NOON THE NEXT day, and the sun was shining through the parchment-covered windows of Lydaneg’s little guest-house with a dull-gold glow that reminded Blanchefleur of the sky in Sarras, when a knock came on the door. She pulled a tunic over her smock and cracked the door open far enough to see Branwen.
Branwen grinned knowingly, but all she said was, “Sir Ector is here to see you, and Sir Lancelot is with him.”
“Oh, my. Give me a moment, Branwen, and we’ll see them.”
She shut the door and turned to Perceval, who was sitting before the fire finishing a breakfast of porridge and apple. “Did you hear?”
“I did.” He half-rose from his chair, winced as the wound in his thigh caught him, and subsided. “Blanchefleur, I’m sorry—”
“I’ll get it.” After the battle his clothes had been so hopeless that one of the monks had loaned him a threadbare woollen tunic. Blanchefleur handed it to him together with a belt, pinned her hair up and then whisked around the room, hiding dirty dishes and bundling muddy clothes and boots into dim corners until Perceval complained, “Don’t move so fast. You make my eyes tired.”
She straightened the bedcovers with a snap and said, “Why not close them?”
“I had rather look at you. You might try wafting.”
There was another knock, and at their call Sir Ector came in followed by Sir Lancelot and Sir Bors.
“Good morning,” Blanchefleur said. “Grandfather! You’re back!”
He paused inside the door with suddenly wide eyes. Perceval caught Blanchefleur’s hand and bowed from the waist. “Sirs. My wife.”
She kicked a foot back to curtsey. “The Abbot married us last night.”
“Ah!”
“We thought of leaving it a day or two, but with so many gone in the battle, it seemed best to marry at once. Won’t you sit down?” Blanchefleur gestured to the low bench by the fire. “I can send someone for wine.”
Lancelot shook his head. “We’ll not stay long. Only tell us what happened to the King. Some say he is dead. Bedivere tells us he went to Avalon, but we wondered if it was the fever speaking.”
“It is the truth. The King was wounded killing Mordred,” Perceval said. “We met Nimue on the river—I think it was foretold to the King once, long ago—we met Nimue on the river, and she took him to Avalon.”
“Then Mordred is dead?”
“Yes.”
Blanchefleur said: “We know now what Mordred was so afraid of. After I cut his shadow, he was furious. He hid it well, but he knew then that he could be killed.”
Sir Ector said, “So the battle was won.”
“But there is no Round Table left, no Camelot.” Sir Bors spoke. “What next?”
“We haven’t quite decided,” said Blanchefleur.
Perceval grinned. “The marriage was the first thing.”
Sir Lancelot said, “I would have come sooner, but word spread quickly that a usurper had taken Camelot. First a party of Saxons landed on the Deva, and then our way was blocked in Powys by the Knight of the Dolorous Tower. There are other tales of war in Cameliard and Listinoise.”
Sir Ector looked at Perceval. “If you mean to take the throne of Britain, sir, there is no time to lose.”
Perceval nodded. Blanchefleur saw the strain in his face and her throat tightened. It was too heavy a burden, she thought, so soon after a battle in which he had lost so much.
“Won’t you tell us what happened in your part of the battle, Grandfather?”
“We fought until the afternoon,” Sir Ector told her, “and then the man commanding them under the device of the Silver Dragon was slain. They turned and fled north. I gathered our foot and pursued them all the way into the arms of Lancelot’s host.”
Lancelot nodded. “The Silver Dragon will trouble us no longer, neither he nor his men.”
Perceval glanced up at Blanchefleur and smiled. They would explain about the Silver Dragon another day, or leave it to Sir Ector to tell that strange story. He looked to Sir Ector. “Caerleon is the nearest stronghold. We will ride there and call Logres to council.” He nodded to Lancelot and Bors. “Friends, are you with us?”
Lancelot bowed. “Sir, to the end.”
“Bors?”
The quiet knight shook his head. “I am called to Brittany. King Ban my father is dying and I am chosen heir.”
For a moment they stared at each other, the heir of Britain and the heir of Brittany, both Grail Knights. At last Perceval put out his hand. “We will lack your counsel, brother.” He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. “Caerleon, then.”
“Caerleon.” Lancelot touched Sir Ector’s arm. “We will leave you to rest.” But at the door he paused and looked back and asked, “And the Queen?”
Blanchefleur felt an unexpected stab of pity. The waste of it, to give all that love and service, and to see it come to this. If he had never known the Queen, if he had loved Elaine and been content, how much heartache and destruction might have been avoided?
“She also went to Avalon.”
“I see,” he said, and closed the door behind him.
Blanchefleur retrieved an apple from the chest where she had tucked it, and sat cross-legged on the mat before the hearth. “Do you think he will find some happiness, now that Mother is gone?”
Perceval’s words echoed her thoughts. “Certainly he would never have found it while she lived in Logres.”
Blanchefleur tugged the silver moonstone ring from her third finger. They had exchanged rings again at the wedding, for the golden ring of Gawain had never fitted her terribly well, and after having worn it for so long on her forefinger, it felt a fitting piece of herself to give to Perceval.
“I can’t think why I gave it up to you so readily, that morning in the pavilion,” she said, holding the silver ring out to the light that filtered through the window. “I must have been in a fit of the sulks.”
Perceval laughed.
“Guinevera casta vera. There it was, shouting at me all the time.”
“And you never believed it.”
She slid it back onto her finger. “No.”
Perceval eased himself out of his chair and lowered himself to the floor beside her, where he tangled his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck, kissed her long and sleepily, and then lay down with his head settled in her lap. His eyes drifted shut.
“What do you think, Blanchefleur, of this kingdom we have inherited?”
“I like it. Do let’s keep it.”
His brow wrinkled. “In all earnest.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “In all earnest, I feel I should be terrified. But I am not.”
He laughed and cracked an eye open. “Why are you not terrified, Lady of Logres?”
She gave a little sigh. “Because…”
Be
cause of a hundred things. Because Perceval had lived when all the chivalry of Logres went down in ruins. Because Sir Breunis had spared them at the end of every hope. Because an inexplicable impulse had held her back from agreeing when Simon Corbin first asked to marry her. Because although she had used the shadow knife amiss, the shadow knife had worked.
She smiled.
“How can I be afraid? All the awful mistakes we’ve made, and yet here we are. Still standing.”
Perceval grinned and closed his eyes again. “And Logres also.”
S.D.G.
The Great Houses of Britain
† - Knight of the Round Table
THE PENDRAGONS
Uther Pendragon (deceased): The first High King of Britain.
Igerne (deceased): Wife of (1) Gorlois, Duke of Tintagel, to whom she bore two daughters, Morgawse and Morgan, and (2) Uther Pendragon, to whom she bore a son, Arthur.
† Arthur Pendragon: The High King of Britain, son of Uther Pendragon and Igerne.
Guinevere: Daughter of King Leodigrance of Cameliard, wife of Arthur, mother of Blanchefleur.
Blanchefleur: Daughter of Guinevere and, at least officially, the heir of Arthur Pendragon.
THE HOUSE OF ORKNEY
King Lot of Orkney (deceased): The King of Orkney and husband of Morgawse.
Morgawse: Half-sister of Arthur. Wife of Lot, to whom she bore four sons. Queen-regent of the isles of Orkney.
† Gawain: The eldest son of Orkney, husband of Ragnell and father of Perceval.
Ragnell: A fay of Avalon, wife of Gawain.
† Perceval: Son of Gawain and Ragnell.
† Gaheris: The second son of Orkney, husband of Lyonesse.
Lyonesse: Wife of Gaheris and sister of Lynet.
† Gareth: The third son of Orkney, husband of Lynet.
Lynet: Wife of Gareth and sister of Lyonesse.
† Agravain: The fourth son of Orkney.
THE HOUSE OF GORE
King Uriens of Gore: The King of Gore and husband of Morgan.
Morgan, commonly surnamed le Fay: Half-sister of Arthur. Estranged wife of Uriens, to whom she bore two sons. Queen of Gore.
† Ywain: The elder son of Gore.
† Mordred: The younger son of Gore.
THE HOUSE OF BRITTANY
King Ban of Brittany: Father of Bors and Ector de Maris. Uncle of Lancelot, Blamor, and Bleoberis.
† Lancelot of the Lake: Foster son of Nimue. Champion of Guinevere. Father of Galahad.
† Galahad: Son of Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek.
† Bors: Cousin of Lancelot.
† Lionel, Blamor, Bleoberis, Ector de Maris: Cousins of Lancelot.
Author's Note
Dr George Grant has said of The Song of Roland that it is both entirely fictional, and more truthful than most history books filled with carefully verified facts. “Indeed, its true lies tell us much about ourselves, our world, and the shaping of Western Civilization that we might not otherwise know.”
One might say the same of the body of legends known today as the Arthurian legendarium, or the Matter of Britain. Today scholars continue to debate the actual existence of the man whose adventures have come down to us in this form. Was there a real Arthur? Was he Roman in origin, or Celtic, or something else? What exactly did he do—unify feuding chieftains, build an army of warriors, or defeat Saxon invaders? About the only thing we can know for certain about the historical Arthur, if there was one, is that all the most well-known stories about him are certainly fictional. He cannot, in the fifth or sixth century, have known anything of the knightly code of chivalry, the technology, or the courtly love tradition that flourished from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, during which most of the great medieval Arthurian romances were penned.
My aim in Pendragon’s Heir is not so much to use the Arthurian legends to construct something new, or to provide a faithful picture of any particular historical time, as it is to go back to the original Middle-English ballads and romances to demonstrate for my generation something of the purpose those original tales might have had for theirs. Accordingly, I have done precious little research into historical or any other kind of fact, for which I can give only a half-hearted apology. My focus has not been on fact and history, but on fiction, philosophy, and ideals; not on what the medievals did, but on what they thought, what they believed, and above anything else what they hoped to leave as a legacy to future generations. I hope that this story, however imperfect, has helped you to understand some of those dreams and ideals, partly because of their beauty, and partly because, to the medievals, those dreams and ideals were more important and more solid than anything else in the world.
In the ten years during which I tweaked, refined, and occasionally wrote Pendragon’s Heir, I received a great deal of help from a great many people. Thanks to Lorraine Black for lending me the story that started it all. Thanks to Rebekah White for critiquing Draft 1, to Alina White, Kate Saunders Britton, and Rosemary Williams for critiquing Drafts 2 and 3, to Schuyler McConkey and Christina Baehr for critiquing Draft 4, and to Elisabeth Grace Foley, David Noor, and Joshua Grubb for critiquing Draft 5. Thanks to my line editor, Sophia Field, and to my illustrator, Isaac Botkin, who also designed the drop caps, tweaked the cover design, and provided encouraging feedback. It has been a privilege to work with all of you.
I’m greatly indebted to Dr George Grant for the Christendom lecture series, Josephine Tey for The Daughter of Time, Roger Lancelyn Green for King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, Charles Williams for All Hallows’ Eve and the Arthurian Torso, Christine de Pisan for The Treasury of the City of Ladies, Sir Thomas Malory for Le Morte D’Arthur, Saint Augustine for The City of God, and GK Chesterton for everything.
Dad and Mum and all my brothers and sisters, my debt to you is too great to be expressed on the back page of a sensational novel.
To all of you who gave me encouragement, friendship, help, and reproof over the years, I thank you. By investing in this author, you have invested in this book.
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.
Suzannah Rowntree
February, 2015
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Non-Fiction
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About the Author
When Suzannah Rowntree isn’t travelling the world to help out friends in need, she lives in a big house in rural Australia with her awesome parents and siblings, trying to beat her previous number-of-books-read-in-a-year record. She blogs the results at Vintage Novels and is the author of both fiction and non-fiction.
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