by Gwen Rowley
* * *
When the chilly predawn light slipped through the shutters, Brisen tied off her braid and sighed. Then she walked to the pallet and bent to run a hand across Torre’s curls, spiked in wild disarray upon the cushion, strands of cinnamon and nutmeg, gold and bronze and chestnut shimmering in the feeble rushlight. He smiled without opening his eyes and reached for her.
“I should have known you’d make a liar of me,” she said ruefully, slipping into his embrace.
“Not for long. I won’t wait for the new year to be wed.”
“You never asked me,” she pointed out.
He opened one eye. “Must I?”
She seized the coverlet and pulled it off him. “Out. Go! You have work to do, and dawn is almost here.”
He stood reluctantly, blinking like a sleepy owl in the dim light. “You said,” he reminded her, “that you loved me. You said that you had loved me since—”
“Yes, well, I’m sure I spouted all manner of nonsense,” she interrupted hastily.
He grinned. “It wasn’t nonsense. It was the truth.”
She threw his tunic at his head. “A moment of weakness. But I suppose now I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Never.” He traced a finger across her lips until they softened in a smile. “Never in this life. You have my word on it.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Not another one!” Lancelot groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “Tell him I am not at home.” Elaine laughed and fell back against the feather pillows piled high upon the bed. “Oh, go on. Poor man, he’s probably traveled days to meet you.”
“I hate jousting,” Lancelot said, his voice muffled.
“Then you shouldn’t have begun.”
“That,” Lancelot said, raising his head to glare at her, “was your fault.”
She met his gaze with a smile. “And you are all the better for it. The great du Lac,” she added with satisfaction, “has nothing on you!”
He slid over the enormous expanse of coverlet to lie beside her. “And what if this one knocks me down?”
“I’ll pick you up.”
He rolled atop her, arms braced beside her head. “I’ll do it for a kiss.”
“Very well.” When he bent to her, she tugged a lock of his hair, which had grown to curl around the collar of his robe. “You may have it after. No, stop, Lancelot, we cannot, the man is waiting—”
“He isn’t even across the moat yet.”
“But … well, I suppose … if we hurry …”
“Oh, we will,” he promised solemnly, wicked laughter in his eyes as his hand slid beneath her skirt.
When Elaine opened her eyes again, sunlight fell across the foot of the great bed. “Oh, dear,” she said, turning her head on the pillow. “What is the time?”
“Who cares?” Lancelot murmured against her breast.
“We have a guest,” she reminded him. “And Lancelot,” she added, “will you ask this one to stay for supper?”
“No.” He stood, stretching like a cat in the sunlight. “I will fight him if I must, but that is the end of it.”
“We cannot live in solitary splendor all our days,” Elaine said, “it isn’t right.”
“We are hardly solitary. We see Torre and Brisen nearly every week, and Lavaine spent a month with us last spring. Galahad all but lives at Corbenic, Elaine; he has plenty of company there.”
Elaine lay back and watched him dress, lifting her face for his kiss before he went. At first, she, too, had wanted nothing but to be alone with him and Galahad while she set Joyous Gard to rights. When a year had passed, she suggested that Lancelot invite his kinsmen to celebrate the harvest, but he refused, saying he had no desire for any company but hers. She let the matter rest, for she was spending much time at Corbenic preparing for Brisen’s lying-in. It was only when her nephew had been born and she returned home that she was struck by their isolation. Again she had suggested that they hold a feast, and again Lancelot refused her.
* * *
During the next year she watched him carefully, yet he seemed content. He spent hours in the practice yard each morning and in the afternoons rode out, sometimes with Galahad but more often on his own, for Galahad was often at Corbenic with his grandsire, listening rapt to Pelleas’s tales. Sunset invariably found Lancelot atop the battlements, gazing down the road that ran to Camelot.
The first time she found him there, Elaine felt an echo of the old pain she’d thought forgotten. She turned away without speaking, but he called her over and put his arm around her, drawing her head down to his shoulder.
“You miss her, don’t you?” Elaine asked, careful to speak calmly, determined to have only truth between them now.
“Her?”
“Guinevere.”
He was silent for a time as they gazed together toward the horizon. “I worry for her sometimes,” he said at last. “She was so terribly unhappy.”
“I don’t see what she had to be unhappy about,” Elaine retorted. “The king is a kind man.”
“Guinevere said the same to me once,” Lancelot said quietly. “She said he always treated her with far more kindness than she deserved.”
“Well, then—”
“In fact,” he added, turning to gaze down at Elaine, “she was saying just that on the day the king saw us together. She was telling me how very fortunate she was to be wed to a man who always treated her with such unfailing courtesy.”
Elaine frowned, wondering what Lancelot was getting at. He had said the queen was distraught that day, yet she could find no cause for complaint in anything he’d told her.
“The queen was right,” she said. “She is fortunate.”
“And well she knew it. She said,” he went on pensively, “that when Arthur took a mistress—as she fully expected he would do—that she was certain she could rely upon his discretion. She was … grateful she would likely never know precisely when it happened, though she was sure it would.”
“And that is why,” Elaine said slowly, “she was distraught?”
“That, and other reasons—her bitter disappointment in failing to give her lord an heir, her fear that he would cast her off and seek a younger bride—”
“It is the king she loves?” Elaine interrupted. “Not you?”
“Not me, no, though she is fond of me—as I am of her. Even when I wanted to wring her neck—which was fairly often …” He gazed at her intently as he went on, speaking very slowly as though he chose each word with care. “Do you remember how it was when Torre was so unhappy? He did many things that angered you, and yet …”
“I never stopped loving him,” she finished, her eyes widening with startled comprehension. “Lancelot, are you saying—”
“Only that fond as I am of Guinevere, we were never lovers. Even had we both been free, neither of us would have considered such a thing.”
“Is that because—”
He touched a finger to her lips. “More I cannot say.” He stroked her cheek and smiled down at her. “But know you this, Elaine: I never loved a woman until the day I came to Corbenic. Why, I never even kissed one until I first kissed you. And having once kissed you,” he said, pinching her cheek, “there was no other for me, nor ever will be. You do believe that, don’t you?”
Laughing, she clasped him round the neck, lifting herself to kiss him lightly on the mouth. “I do now.”
She remembered his expression when first she’d seen him gazing toward Camelot, and now, at last, she understood his sorrow. “Lancelot, why do you not send a message to the king and tell him where you are?”
He shook his head, his eyes darkening with pain. “The king sent me from his side, Elaine. If he wants me, he will find me.”
* * *
At the end of the second year, Elaine announced that she was to hold a tournament at Joyous Gard and expected Lancelot to compete. This resulted in their first quarrel, which ended with Lancelot saying, “Very well, but I’ll not fight under my own
name. You can call me—” He stood a moment, shoulders stiff, then said, “Call me the Chevalier Mal Fet.”
She had hoped that his success would cheer him, for he defeated every challenger. But when the time came for the feast, he was nowhere to be found, leaving Elaine alone to greet their guests. That had been the cause of their second quarrel, and they had not spoken for two days.
Now another year had passed, and they had both become accustomed to the knights who appeared from time to time to challenge the mysterious Chevalier Mal Fet. For all his grumbling, Elaine suspected Lancelot secretly enjoyed the chance to test his skill.
One day, she thought, rising and calling for her maid, he will cast off his helm and invite one of his visitors to stay. Much as she longed for that day, she dreaded it as well, for this time apart had held its own enchantment.
Once dressed, she went to watch the competition, stopping at Galahad’s chamber to ask if he would join her. He begged to be excused, pleading a lesson not yet finished. Elaine left him with a kiss, sighing a little as she went down the winding stairway. Galahad resembled Lancelot even less as he grew older, both in looks and nature. Indeed, he was the image of his grandsire, Pelleas. And though he was always perfectly polite to his father, Galahad had little interest in arms and none at all in watching Lancelot win yet another joust. She hoped Lancelot would not be too hurt, yet she lacked the heart to force the child.
Still pondering the mysteries of sons and fathers, Elaine went through the hall and toward the corridor leading to the tourney field. When she reached the end, she looked into the small chamber where Lancelot’s armor hung.
She stood, one hand braced against the doorway, as the breath left her body in a rush. Lancelot knelt before the bench, his dark head bent. Before him sat the king. Arthur looked up and smiled.
“Lady Elaine.”
“Sire. Welcome to Joyous Gard.”
“Thank you.”
Lancelot had not lifted his head. Elaine smiled tremulously at Arthur. “I will leave you now.”
“Until later, lady,” he said, and through her tears she saw both understanding and pity in his eyes.
* * *
When they were alone, Arthur said, “Sit beside me, Lance.”
Lancelot obeyed, feeling as awkward as the boy who had once been scolded by his king for fighting. Arthur seemed in no better case. Twice he began to speak, only to check himself, then stare down at his hands.
“You are well, sire?” Lancelot ventured.
“Yes. Or, rather—” Arthur looked up suddenly. “I should have come sooner. I wanted to, but … well, the truth is I knew not how to face you.”
“How to … ?” Lancelot repeated blankly.
“After you left us, I went to Cameliard. Leodegrance and I had quite a talk. Not a pleasant one, but … illuminating.”
“Guinevere is still queen,” Lancelot said, the words not quite a question.
“And always will be.” He laid his hand on Lancelot’s shoulder. “I should never have doubted you, Lance. Can you forgive me?”
Lancelot grasped his hand. “Need you even ask?”
“Yes. I must. When I remember the things I said to you that day—and to Guinevere—” He looked away. “I wronged you both most grievously.”
“Sire, you take too much upon yourself. You had good cause to suspect we were not honest with you.”
“That was Guinevere’s doing, and I understand her reasons now.” Arthur shook his head and sighed. “The fault was mine. She was so young, so beautiful, and I … well, I’m afraid I was all too ready to believe she would look elsewhere. I know very little about women—” He laughed softly. “But I am learning.”
“I am happy for you both.”
Arthur’s smile vanished. “Yet that is no excuse for my behavior toward you. You were blameless.”
Lancelot shook his head. “No, sire. Not blameless. I kept my own secrets.”
“Will you not call me Arthur? You always did before.”
“But that was when …” Lancelot made a helpless gesture. “Everything was different. I was different.”
“In what way? Come, Lance, there was a time we could say anything to one another. I wish you’d trust me as you used to.”
Arthur spoke so sadly that at last Lancelot was able to tell him everything, beginning with his first memories of Avalon. He recounted his joust with Gawain and what he had learned then, and how he dared not confess that Britain’s First Knight was no hero, but something more than human and so much less than the man Arthur believed him.
He told Arthur all he could remember of his madness, described his last adventure in Avalon and how he had parted from the Lady of the Lake. When at last he finished, Arthur was silent for a time.
“Yes, you are different,” he said at last. “You have grown up.” He slumped in his seat and smiled. “Oh, Lance, do you think you’re the only boy who rode invincible into the world? We all dreamed that dream, even if we did not all have your reasons to believe it. But soon or late, every one of us must face the knowledge that we are not perfect, but only human, and that we may not achieve the glorious destiny we believed our right.”
“If it were only that,” Lancelot said, “I would not mind. It is not the glory I miss—I’ve never been so happy as these past few years. It is you I mind for, Arthur.”
“Don’t. Do you think I want some mindless knight with no choice but to serve me? I would rather have you as you are and a service freely offered. I do not ask for perfection.”
He shook his head, a smile quirking his lips. “You and Gawain! Where the two of you got such a notion is beyond me, but I assure you it is false. We are all flawed, Lance, every one of us, all capable of cowardice and pride and pettiness and spite, all doomed to fail—not once, but many times—and to fall short of our ideals. That is what it means to be a man. And the true measure of a man lies in what he learns from his mistakes.”
“But you are not like that,” Lancelot protested. “You have never failed.”
“I have failed many times, in many ways. Some small, some great, and one …” He broke off and looked away. “Oh, I have sinned, Lance. Never stood a man more in need of God’s mercy than your king.”
“Then I will pray God grants it to you, Arthur.”
“Now I know that you have changed! Lancelot du Lac at prayer?”
Lancelot smiled. “As you say, I have grown up.”
Silence fell between them, so comfortable and familiar that it seemed no time had passed since they’d last met. Arthur broke it with a sigh.
“I fear ’tis more than friendship that brings me here today. I have need of you, Lance.”
“What’s ado?”
“Trouble with the Saxons. What else? They’ve seized Dumbarton.” He pulled a map from his belt and unfolded it. “I had thought to engage them here,” he said, pointing.
“Why not here?” Lancelot asked, marking a spot a bit to the north of the king’s. He knelt on the floor and sketched in the sand. “There is a rise—do you remember it—just beyond the Celidon Wood. If you gather your knights there and come down upon them—”
Arthur nodded, frowning. “Yes, you may be right.”
“We must use the horsemen to our best advantage. How many can we count upon?”
Arthur looked at him, brows raised. “We?”
“Of course. I had a thought the other day about a new formation—what? Why are you laughing?”
“Here I came, prepared with a dozen arguments to persuade you, but Guinevere said all along you were only waiting to be asked. The troops are already mustering at Camelot, and I need you to take charge of the horsemen. Can you come with me tomorrow? You can tell me all your thoughts upon the way. And your lady, too, of course. Guinevere asked me particularly to beg Lady Elaine to come to court with you while we make ready, and Galahad, if you will bring him.”
“I will come.” Lancelot drew his hand across the sand, blotting out his map. “As for Elaine … that wil
l be for her to say.”
* * *
He found Elaine on the battlements in the place he’d made his own, gazing out toward Camelot. She did not turn at his approach.
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow. First for Camelot to prepare for battle and then the king rides north.” She nodded. “I see.”
Of course she did. Elaine had always known him better than he knew himself. And he knew her, enough to be certain she would not wish to leave her home and friends and family to go to Camelot. How many times had she sworn never to set foot in the wretched place again?
Looking at her now, silhouetted against the setting sun, he realized this was only the first of many partings. No longer could he stay buried in the country while Arthur’s great work went on without him; the time had come to take up his oath and serve his king again. Elaine would want nothing to do with that part of his life, nor could he blame her; he knew too well how unhappy she had been at court.
’Twas a common enough arrangement, he told himself. Knights often went months—sometimes years—without so much as a glimpse of their ladies. Most laughed about it, saying it kept their marriages from growing stale.
But none of them were married to Elaine.
Lancelot could never grow weary of her company, no more than he could grow weary of the air he breathed. Upon hearing any news—whether it concerned alliances in distant kingdoms or a bit of village gossip—his first thought was invariably, “I must tell Elaine of this.” He often amused himself during his solitary rides in wondering what she might make of this tale or that. That she would have something interesting to say he did not doubt, and even if he did not agree with every one of her opinions, he never tired of hearing them.
Nor did he ever tire of the times they spent together in the great bed. Their lovemaking had changed over the years, grown less fevered but far sweeter. For all they had learned of pleasuring one another, there were many mysteries yet to be explored. No man had ever been so blessed. Even when they quarreled, Lancelot never ceased to give God thanks for Elaine’s presence in his life.
Yet tomorrow he would leave her. He must. Oh, he would return as often as possible, but it would not be the same. She would not be interested in the tales he had to tell, for they would be concerned with Camelot and its inhabitants. Their love would not die—that, he knew to be impossible—but something precious would have been lost. And still he must go. It was a pain such as he had never known, as though his very heart were being torn in two.
