“But Launcelot is supposed to be the perfect knight!”
“Not quite perfect, because he cannot sit in the Hot Seat at the Round Table. That knight is yet to be born. However, Launcelot is an excellent fellow, which shows how even the best of us can have our minds turned by a pretty face.”
The audience chuckled, their interest caught. Watching Merlin, Nyneve had to admit he was putting on a good act. Somehow he was projecting images almost as vividly as if he’d played the game. She was unhappily aware, however, that her own images were poor things, and unlikely to interest the audience. She decided she had better leave most of the talking to Merlin, even though she disapproved of the turn the story was taking. Winter was coming and they needed food and shelter for the night.
“The queen, as we all know, was more than passing beautiful,” said Merlin, and the vision of a tall, pretty woman rose before the audience. She had a certain look in her eye. “And as we know, Launcelot was strong and handsome, so it isn’t surprising that the queen returned his love.”
“No!” objected Nyneve, despite herself. “That’s a terrible thing for her to do!”
“Indeed,” said Merlin. “But Arthur loved Launcelot like a brother, and refused to believe that he and Guinevere, the two people he loved most, could be fooling around.”
Nyneve, feeling things were going too far, interrupted. “Mind you, other people had been talking. Er … Aggravaine and … Mordred and others were talking about the couple, so obviously the affair had to come to an end. In order to divert attention, Launcelot began to sleep with any woman he could lay his hands on. However,” said Nyneve, grinning triumphantly at Merlin, “This didn’t work too well because it made Guinevere jealous, and rightly so. Launcelot was banished from the court, and that was the end of him!”
“Or so everyone thought at the time,” continued Merlin smoothly. “Until Arthur arranged a great tournament at Camelot—and Launcelot, unable to stay away, decided to come in disguise. The tournament began with a flourish of a hundred and one trumpets, and the two opposing parties drew up on the field: King Arthur’s and the king of North Galys’. The fighting began.”
Resignedly Nyneve joined in, and between them they told that part of the story which the audience really wanted to hear: the battle. Open-mouthed, round-eyed, the villagers experienced the thunder of hooves, the crash of combat, the thud and pain of the unhorsed knight. Time went by as Nyneve and Merlin did what they did best, projecting simple images of battle—this time drawn from games of the past and stitched together with clever words from Merlin. By the time the tournament was done, every member of the audience felt as though he, personally, had taken part in the’ victory. There was no doubt that the traveling pair had earned their bed and board.
That night, as they played the game, Nyneve did her best to undo the damage that had been done to the fabric of the story, but it was too late. Launcelot and Guinevere were in love, and there was little she could do about it now. The word had passed on, and the audience would expect the romance to continue. So she contented herself with scolding Merlin, and ensuring that Launcelot was badly wounded at the tournament. She produced a new character, Elaine—no relation to the lady with the serpent—and made her fall in love with Launcelot. At least, she thought as the game ended, that will give Launcelot something else to think about while he licks his wounds.
In the dark, Merlin crawled close. “I’m sorry about this evening, Nyneve. I had to invent something to keep them interested.”
“You did a good job of that. And take your hands off me!”
“Just relax for a moment, Nyneve. When two people travel together the way we do, it’s natural for them to share a little more than their food.”
“It’s unnatural. You’re thousands of years older than me. So forget it and go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep for thinking of you. It’s torture, having you so near.”
“Then move away.”
“I mean having you in the same room. It’s very difficult for me to play the game,” he said, a whine creeping into his voice, “with all this frustration. I can’t keep my mind on what I’m doing. I’m sure we’d do a much better job if you were kind to me.”
“I said forget it.”
His tone became menacing. “I have powers, you know. I can make you be more friendly. I can cast a spell over you, and make you do anything I want. And you’d be surprised at some of the things I want.”
Exasperated, she said, “I don’t believe any of that stuff. That’s what you tell the villagers to make them scared of you. Well, it doesn’t work on me. There’s no such thing as a spell. It’s just superstitious claptrap, like …” She searched her mind for another example.
“Like gnomes,” said Merlin cunningly. “Like gnomes and happentracks and Starquin and the greataway? I remember you saying those were superstitions, too, until we showed them to you.” Having proved his point, he reached for her. “Now just be a good girl and lie still.”
But she was stronger and more agile than he, and she scratched his face and kicked him in the stomach so that the breath whistled out of him. He rolled away from her, cursing and gulping. “Go to sleep,” she said. He lay there mumbling to himself for some time until his breathing became regular and he slept.
As winter closed in on the land, they traveled across Cornwall and Devon, into the very heart of Wessex, until one day they stood within the circular ramparts of Maiden Castle. Merlin described the construction of this most ancient of earthworks, which he’d witnessed many centuries before.
“Thousands of people, there were,” he said, the cold rain running down his face and the wind snatching at his cloak, “all digging, and pushing barrows, shifting the very fabric of Earth itself to build this place. And what for? Now, when you look around, what was it all for?”
“I expect they had a reason,” said Nyneve absently. The cold seemed to lodge inside her like a long-staying, unwelcome guest. It seemed she had been cold for weeks, and she couldn’t remember when her clothes had last been dry—or washed, for that matter. The Dorset hills rolled away into the distance, misty with rain. A few goats cropped the short grass nearby. What was she doing here? What was the journey all for?
The game and the stories were a chore to be gone through in order to earn her keep. The romance of Launcelot and Guinevere was dragging on interminably. The tournaments and battles seemed to ring in her ears even when she was out walking the roads. Arthur himself was now fully aware of his wife’s affair but determined to say nothing of it, for the good of all concerned, hoping it would eventually fizzle out. Yet nobody respected him for his forebearance, and the other characters were beginning to laugh at him behind his back. Arthur was a good, simple man, and Nyneve felt he deserved better.
Her original intention in setting out on this journey now seemed meaningless. Certainly Arthur was no longer the godlike figure he had once been, but what difference did that make to Tristan? Did he even know that the imaginary man he modeled himself after was now being cuckolded? Had the stories got back to Mara Zion—and even if they had, did Tristan care?
“Merlin,” she said suddenly, “I want to go home.”
“We are travelers,” he said. “Home is where we rest our bodies.”
“Home is Mara Zion. I’m going back.”
He realized she was serious. “We have much traveling to do. Now we go north, to Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge.”
“You may go north if you wish. I’m going west.” She turned, and began to make her way down the first of the great banks. “Goodbye, Merlin.”
“You can’t go! How will you live without money?” Merlin shouted from above.
“People will give me money.”
“What for? What are you talking about?”
She reached the foot of the first bank and began to climb the second. Suddenly Merlin arrived, having fallen and slithered down the wet slope on his back. He clutched at her ankles. “Don’t go!”
“Get
up. You look ridiculous.” She helped him to his feet. “You can come with me, if you like.”
“I don’t want to go back,” he mumbled pathetically.
“Avalona’s not so bad.”
“I didn’t say Avalona was the reason.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Since you mention it, I can’t stand the thought of seeing her again. I’ll come with you part of the way, Nyneve, just to make sure you’re all right, you understand? After all, I’m responsible for you.” He put his arm through hers and together they climbed the second embankment.
They returned along the same route and they were welcomed at every village. When they played the game, Nyneve became aware of a new thread running through the story: a sense of destiny in the inexorable march of events, as though the ifalong had frozen into a single happentrack from which they could not deviate. Although they still played the game, in the sense that they lay together and allowed the images to flow, they no longer had to construct a storyline. In that sense, the game was playing them.
Now Aggravaine and Mordred were plotting against Launcelot and Guinevere. In due course they caught the couple in bed together and so publicized the affair that Arthur was unable to ignore it any longer. Event followed event in an unchangeable sequence. Guinevere was sentenced to be burned at the stake. Arthur, heartbroken, hid in his chamber. Gawain visited him and pleaded for Guinevere’s life. The queen was led to her place of execution. Launcelot, hiding nearby, galloped in and laid about him with his sword. He rode off with the queen, but he left Gaheris and Gareth, Gawain’s sons, among the dead. Gawain prevailed upon Arthur to march on Joyous Gard, Launcelot’s stronghold.
“I don’t want this battle,” said Nyneve. By now the warmer winds were blowing in from the Atlantic, and the trees were speckled with buds. Spring was waiting in the wings. “I’ve had enough of killing.”
“Perhaps you’re frightened your precious Arthur will be beaten this time.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m frightened of,” said Nyneve. “The game doesn’t need us any more. It’s as though it’s become real; as though it’s all happening down there.” She gestured at the forest of Mara Zion, which lay at their feet. “I don’t know what we’re going to find when we get back to the village. I have this feeling it’s not the same place we left.”
“Nonsense,” said Merlin. “It’s just the same. How could it be different?”
She regarded him curiously. He stood beside the looming blackness of Pentor, the gentle wind ruffling his beard, looking down at the forest. She wondered how he felt, seeing it again after so many months. For herself, she’d been looking forward to this moment—but now that it had come, she wasn’t so sure.
“Just supposing,” she said, “that we’d passed into a different happentrack. We wouldn’t have known, while we were on our travels. We’d have had nothing to compare things with. But now, after all this time, we’re back. And Avalona’s down there, and she has strange powers. Supposing she’s punished us in some way, and changed everything around, so there’s evil people down there, and dragons, and no place for us?”
“Avalona doesn’t punish,” said Merlin, but an expression of slight apprehension came into his gaze nevertheless. “And it’s been my experience that she always knows exactly what we’re going to do. She foresaw happentracks on which we left Mara Zion, and she foresaw happentracks on which we came back. Blaming us has nothing to do with it. I’m sure there were plenty of happentracks where we stayed right there in Mara Zion.”
“All the same, let’s stay up here for the night. It’s warm enough. We can go down to the forest in the morning.”
Merlin agreed; Nyneve fancied it was with some relief. They looked around for shelter. It was going to get cold, later on. Soon they found a tiny cave, little more than a cleft between the main bulk of Pentor and the strange opaque blackness of the Moon Rock.
“We can sleep in there,” said Merlin.
“It’s too small.”
“By the Holy Quin, Nyneve, must you always suspect me?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her in simulated outrage. “All right, then. I give you my word. I will not touch you.” Muttering to himself in aggrieved fashion, he dropped to his knees and Nyneve watched the after end of him disappear into the hole.
She sat with her back against the Moon Rock and looked across the valley toward the sea. The moons had risen in a bright triangle and the sea was like a silver plate, with the distant headlands standing out black and solid. Somewhere down there was Tristan; and there was a little shiver in her stomach at the thought of meeting him again. Then she put the thought from her mind. Iseult was her friend.
The Moon Rock was warm against her. She wondered whether she might perhaps spend the night out here in the open, to avoid having to sleep close to Merlin in the cave. She decided to stay out as long as she could, by which time Merlin, with luck, would have fallen asleep. The wind was getting chilly, and a huge bank of black clouds was building up in the south-west.
“When are you coming in?” came a querulous voice, but she ignored it, huddling close to the Rock for warmth. She found herself wondering what she would do if a traveler suddenly appeared, fresh from the greataway—a tall and shining man who would take one look at her and carry her off to new worlds. …
One of the moons winked out.
She stared at the horizon. The cloud bank had not reached the moons yet, but she could see only two of them. There was no doubt about it. One of the Earth’s moons had disappeared. The brightest was still there, and a little below it to the left, one of the dull ones—the one some people called the Maybe Moon and suggested it was just a mirage, like a sundog. The other moon, the Misty Moon, was gone. Nyneve had never seen a phenomenon like this before. She found it alarming, as though the very fabric of her existence were threatened. She took her eyes off the eerie sight of two moons, and gazed around the dark breasts of the moors, reassuring herself that they were still there, just as they’d always been.
But something else was there, too.
A peculiar animal was trotting toward her on short, powerful legs. At first sight she took it for a sheep, but as it came closer she realized it was no animal she’d ever seen before. It had a heavy head and huge, batlike ears. It made a snuffling, clicking noise, as though it were salivating uncontrollably. With a gasp of horror, Nyneve turned to dive into the cave. There were some rocks there which they could pile up as protection, and a few sticks to use as weapons.
But she could not find the entrance. She blundered about in the darkness, glancing fearfully over her shoulder at the approaching silhouette, and in the end abandoning caution.
“Merlin!” she screamed.
There was no reply. The beast came on, snuffling. The cave had disappeared, as though it had never existed.
Nyneve sat on the domelike summit of Pentor. There was nowhere else to go. After a while she heard the animal snorting around the base of the rock. It had circled the whole of Pentor without finding her, and now it was baffled. Perhaps it couldn’t climb, or perhaps it was too stupid to conceive that she might be somewhere above. If she waited up here for a while, it would go away. She lay on her side with her head pillowed on one arm, and watched the sea in the distance, dark and stormy now that the thundercloud lay above it. After a while her eyelids grew heavy and she began to doze …
… and it seemed that she was playing the game all by herself, because kings and knights marched across her mind, all in bright armor and ready to fight. But instead of joining in and guiding the events the way she wanted them, she watched drowsily, letting it all happen of its own volition.
So the battle at Joyous Gard was fought whether Nyneve wanted it or not, and Arthur and the vengeful Sir Gawain with their armies faced Sir Launcelot and his armies, while Guinevere lamented. The opposing armies clashed. The fighting was bloody and, it seemed to Nyneve, never-ending as she tossed on top of Pentor, unable to break from the grip of
sleep. Finally Sir Bors de Ganis met King Arthur head on, smashed him from his horse and dismounted.
My Lord, said Sir Bors to Sir Launcelot, shall I strike off his head?
It was so real, so real, and Nyneve whimpered in her sleep.
No, said Sir Launcelot. This is all my doing, and I will not see my king die for it. Then he said to King Arthur, You may remount, Sire.
The battle resumed, and continued all through the next day while the best knights in the land gave their blood and their lives.
But why? asked Nyneve.
And the face of Avalona appeared above the battlefield, and she said, Because that is the way men are, and that is the way they must remain.
In the end the pope intervened, the battle ceased, and Launcelot delivered Queen Guinevere to King Arthur. But Sir Gawain was not to be satisfied, even though Sir Launcelot left for France. He insisted that he and Arthur follow him there with their armies, to do further battle. They remained in France for half a year, laying siege to Sir Launcelot’s castle while that knight refused to fight. Eventually, challenged by Sir Gawain, Launcelot rode out and they fought man to man. Sir Gawain was defeated but his pride would not allow him to yield, so he withdrew to fight again. It seemed that this could go on until the greataway froze, but King Arthur received alarming news from England. In his absence, his throne had been seized by Mordred.
Mordred? Nyneve wondered.
You remember Mordred. Arthur’s illegitimate son.
But I don’t want Mordred to seize the throne.
The past cannot be changed.
But …?
Sir Gawain and Arthur sailed back to England and fought Mordred at Dover, and Sir Gawain was killed. Then Arthur pursued Mordred to Salisbury Plain and fought him again, and killed him. But in dying, Mordred ran King Arthur through with his spear. They carried Arthur away.
Weakly, Arthur said, Sir Bedivere, I would like you to take my sword to the lake and—
Nyneve jerked awake. A tiny voice was shouting in her ear.
“Get the hell off my rock, you giant.”
Fang, the Gnome (Song of Earth) Page 26
