Guinevere

by Sharan Newman

  As he lifted his cup, she gently tipped it toward her own mouth. His meat was whisked from his plate even as he was reaching for another piece of bread. The woman really had no manners at all, thought Guinevere, but the expression on Potius’ face was so startled that she couldn’t help laughing out loud.

  “My lady?” the page behind her spoke softly. “Is there anything you desire?”

  Guinevere glanced up at him. She smiled politely.

  “No, I am quite content.”

  When she turned back, the woman had gone. Old Potius was holding his cup before him possessively, peering right and left in an effort to find the one playing tricks on him. Guinevere realized with a start that he had not been able to see the woman. Why not? she wondered. The woman had been right beside him. She looked around the table, noticing that her parents and Geraldus were still conversing politely. Every few seconds, he would get a distant look and brush his hand across his hair, or against his ear, as if trying to shoo a fly. Guinevere stared intently, not at him but at the space just over his shoulder. Slowly the woman materialized. She saw Guinevere’s puzzled stare and winked. Guinevere returned to her dinner, blushing, and did not look up again.

  The end of the meal was so long in coming that she found herself getting sleepy. Their dear old butler and wine steward, Pincarna, had evidently decided that she was old enough to be served all she liked, or perhaps he had just forgotten to give the order to mix her wine liberally with water. At any rate, while the conversation had sparkled and the strange people had fluttered around, Guinevere had listened and laughed. Now that everyone was murmuring and the music had started, she realized vaguely that the wine was slowly rising and her head was slowly falling. Flora found her sometime later, sound asleep with her head on the table.

  “Where is the pretty woman with the black hair?” she murmured, as Flora gathered her up to carry her to bed.

  “There was no woman there tonight that you didn’t know, child,” Flora answered. She was puffing a bit and put Guinevere down. “You must walk the rest of the way. I’m too old and you’ve grown too much for me to do that any more.”

  “Yes, Flora,” Guinevere answered groggily. “But there was someone else there. She drank Potius’ wine. How silly he looked, staring at the empty cup. I wonder if he thought he had drunk it himself and forgotten it?”

  “You’ve had too much wine yourself, young lady,” Flora replied tartly. “Now I’m putting you to bed!”

  Guinevere sank back to sleep, hardly noticing that Flora was helping her out of her clothes. Her arms were limp as the night-shift went on.

  Flora’s eyes were bright. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to the child. She muttered all the while she smoothed covers and folded robes. But Guinevere was too deeply asleep to hear.

  “Another sign,” the old woman grieved. “Another sign. She grows apace and I cannot stop or change it. Soon, no doubt of it. Perhaps even by the winter fires. How can I bear it?”

  She cried out and touched the golden hair reverently. She tried to calm herself from the shock of this new knowledge and old grief.

  “If they didn’t demand the best, they would not be gods and our gifts would have no meaning.”

  With this remark, she carefully tucked the blanket about Guinevere and went to her own room, there to sit up all night, staring out her window at the chapel. But what she saw in the darkness was impossible to tell.

  • • •

  Geraldus stayed on as the summer waxed. He was welcomed by all, Guinevere especially. He didn’t mind being trailed after by a half-grown girl. He was young and laughing and told exciting stories. She adored him and they were together most of every day. Often Geraldus would play his pipes. Their willowy minor key would always give Guinevere an eerie feeling, as if she were someone else and crying or laughing with them. It was most often at these times that she saw the people around the young saint. There were both men and women, all young and comely as far as she could tell. Most of them appeared only as through a mist, and their hair and clothes never stayed still, even on the calmest days. She still had the problem that whenever she tried to look at them closely they would fade and then appear again, just at the corner of her vision.

  Although she had realized almost immediately that these were Geraldus’ singers, she told no one of her discovery. They didn’t appear at all the way she had been told angels would. She felt no religious awe around them, only curiosity and some irritation. They puzzled her, but she was not a questioning child, and so she came to take them for granted as part of being with Geraldus.

  Guenlian was glad to have Guinevere roaming about with Geraldus, safe, but out of the way. A visit from Merlin was something that must be prepared for. He was not only Guenlian’s cousin but a prophet of great renown, advisor to the late, unlamented king Uther Pendragon and also adviser to this new king, Arthur, about whom there were so many tales and so few hard facts. So the household was turned inside out. Linen was aired, all the walls received a new coat of whitewash, and some were painted over in pastels. Guenlian sighed for a new mural, but those days were gone. There hadn’t been an artist of any worth on the island in years. She also worried about the missing pieces in the mosaics on the floors of the main hall and the chapel. The tiny pieces of stone and glass had been imported from the Mediterranean. The few ships that braved the seas these days brought nothing that had such clear, shining tones.

  “My love, we can’t have everything,” Leodegrance remonstrated when she complained. “Those ships that arrive here despite the ravages of the Northmen should be treasured for what they do bring. We have good wine yet, and spices, and you and Guinevere dress in the sheerest of linens and silks. Must you also have artists and potters from Rome and Constantinople? Perhaps you would like a company of Greek players to entertain our guests?”

  Guenlian laughed. “We will have them again someday. The Saxon shall not prevail. We will see our daughter married in cloth of gold with the finest entertainment Rome can offer—poets, actors, dancers of all kinds!”

  Leodegrance smiled but he knew in his heart that all their fine talk was just bravado. Even Rome wasn’t Rome any more. The government had moved East and the Caesars of the West were only puppets, set up and knocked down almost with each change in the wind. Whatever art or literature or music was to be had would be homegrown. They already produced all the necessities of life and could survive, but the luxuries were good to have, too, and they were getting ever scarcer.

  “I am reminded,” he said, “the pipes leading to the guest rooms are not in the best repair. I am sure that one is leaking. I must send for the smith to patch it before it is needed in the fall.”

  “Another thing,” he thought, as he continued his inspection, “that we are unable to do as well as our forefathers. Perhaps our Age of Iron is disintegrating into something even worse. We all are living in an Age of Clay.”

  Leodegrance had tried all his life to be optimistic, but it wasn’t easy as he grew older. Every year the times grew worse, even if the change was not apparent on his little estate. Sometimes he felt like a man trying to push back the tide with only the force of his own body.

  “When my sons are grown!” he would repeat. “They will carry on. The barbarians will not conquer. They . . . will . . . not!”

  Civilization was very dear to him, and to him that meant Rome. Not as she was today, perhaps not as she had ever been, save in the minds of a few idealists and dreamers, but Rome still, with all the best that she stood for, republican government, culture, philosophy, reason, indoor plumbing . . . someone must make a stand to preserve it.

  With a sigh, Leodegrance moved his mind back to the problem at hand. The pipes were leaking. In the unremembered past, his forefather had built the house near a natural hot spring, so that hot baths and heated rooms were always possible. He blessed his pagan ancestor and wished the old centurion were there now to manage the estate. Perhaps he would have known how to stem the tide.

  �
� • •

  The summer was steeped in early gold. The heat turned the earth to a dying ember, baking and smothering all thoughts of cool air or winter chill. Even the mighty forest crackled as wanderers passed through. Guinevere longed to go there again but was not allowed. Something seemed to be pulling her back to the place where she had first seen the silver light, but Leodegrance and Guenlian had been frightened enough by her adventure and were firm in their refusal. So she roamed on the edge, sometimes with Geraldus, sometimes with the maids, but never alone. She saw nothing, but once she thought she heard a call, far away, from someone who wanted her desperately. She went running madly into the woods but was pulled back by her attendants.

  “I must go!” she screamed.

  They carried her home and put her to bed with mint tea and a guard at her door. Her mother rocked her like a baby. Her father told her stories of the saints. Flora recited arcane charms in old Brytannic. Nothing would calm her. Finally, they left her alone in her room. The moon shone whitely through the window, and a shadow, too swift to shape, ran past. Guinevere cried out and reached toward it. Then she slept. The next day she remembered nothing.

  To Guenlian, all these days were nothing but a blurry chaos of work and planning. Guinevere would be all right. These spells were only the result of her being too much alone or with Flora. Geraldus was good for her. Saint or not, he was always calm and sensible.

  “I haven’t time to worry,” Guenlian reminded herself. “The child is almost thirteen. Lord knows the odd things we imagine then. Leodegrance will see to her. Flora is getting old though, and I don’t like the way she’s been looking at Guinevere lately. She mustn’t carry these pagan notions of hers too far. The girl is mine, not hers! Well, Merlin will be here soon, Dear friend! He can explain it all. But I mustn’t act as if I think he’s truly a seer. He must have some place he can go and not be greeted at arm’s length. He’s still my cousin. What a time of year for guests! I hope they’ll be content with mutton. We’ll tell them it’s very late spring lamb.”

  She bustled about, determined to keep her mind from the things she feared and longed for most.

  It was late in July. Guinevere and Geraldus were bathing their feet in the creek. Only the woman with the black hair was along and, for a change, no one was singing. Guinevere lay on the bank, her toes dangling happily in the muddy water, her cheek pressed against the earth.

  “Do you hear something?” she asked Geraldus lazily.

  Geraldus began to laugh uncontrollably. “Do you know?” he gasped. “That is the first time in years someone has asked me that and meant anything but those damned voices!”

  Someone pinched him and he batted the air to stop it.

  “No, really!” Guinevere insisted. “I hear horses coming. Galloping! Hurry! They are very near! Look!”

  She screamed hysterically in his ear as the horses came around the bend and raced toward her, right through the stream. In a moment, Guinevere was lifted, jerked up into the arms of her brother Mark. They were home! So that’s who Merlin’s guests were! Home again! She clung to Mark, weeping for joy. Through her tears, she saw Geraldus’ beaming face.

  “He knew all along!” she thought. “Someone should have told Mother.”

  Chapter Three

  Guinevere’s shriek echoed all the way up the hill and into the compound, where Guenlian was checking to see that the linen was being properly aired. Her sigh was half fear and half annoyance. Now what had the child done? Then the cheering began from the guards at the gate and she heard the clatter of horses in the courtyard. She dropped the towels and ran to the front court. Sunlight bouncing off the polished armor nearly blinded her. They were home! Her beautiful sons, all of them together. All safe. She stretched out her arms to them joyfully.

  She found herself checking them over, much as she had at their birth: hands, feet, arms and legs all accounted for. Her last worry disappeared.

  “Mother!” Matthew cried as he lifted her in a bear hug. “Why were you not out at the gate to greet us? Have we been away so long that you no longer care about us? Guinevere was happy to see us, although I hardly recognized her. She is growing up too. Have you found her a husband yet?”

  “I remember, lieutenant, that you once knew the proper greeting for one of my rank!” Guenlian answered sternly. Then she relented and held him close to her heart. “I’m heart-glad to see you, my son.”

  Mark and John pulled her away from him, laughing.

  “You favor our older brother still. Have you no greeting for us?”

  “Of course I do, my proud cockerels, when you have finished strutting in your armor for the delight of the maids and boys. You are mightily proud of your trappings, children!”

  “Children!” Mark scoffed. “We are all grown men now, Mother, tried and proved in battle. If we are proud, it is of the honor of our name and family, not of this rusty metal.”

  “I see no rust on your helmet. But perhaps the reason for that is not pride in your armor, but rather the discipline of our cousin Cador.”

  “Come with me brothers,” Matthew laughed, “when will we learn not to fence words with our mother? I have never won a battle with her in my life.”

  Guenlian smiled as she watched the boys striding off to the stables, their arms lightly placed on each other’s shoulders. It was as it should be and she was pleased beyond telling with her strong soldier sons. They were truly hers, she gloated, more than the children of any of her friends could be to them. She had carried them all proudly, refusing to go into seclusion as custom declared, and had suffered their internal kicks and punches with delight.

  “I am growing Roman children!” she had told her husband.

  So she had shot her sons forth into the world, each one squalling bravely. She had given Flora the care of them for part of the time but had insisted that they be kept near her always. She had refused even a wet nurse.

  “How will they grow strong and wise on peasant milk, made from beer and barley bread? I will feed them myself with milk from good red wine and meat.”

  They traveled with her everywhere and she nursed them as she rode. She laughed at those who assured her that she would ruin her figure and her health. Her friends respected her position too much to laugh at her publicly, but they privately speculated on what would happen to children raised so loosely. When women met at their homes or at the few remaining baths, the conversation always drifted from complaints on the degeneration of society to Guenlian with her brood of babies, three sons in six years.

  “They seem to be everywhere children shouldn’t be,” one barren matron would cluck. “My dear, those boys have the run of the estate. The baby, whichever one that is, crawls about on the floor when there are guests to dinner! And Leodegrance only grins and warns you not to step on him!”

  “She should never keep them at home with her,” another would moan. “The first winter illness will take them all, how well I know.” And she would sniff lugubriously.

  “That would certainly be a fine stop to the Roman army she seems intent on building. It appears to me that she is determined to replace the whole twentieth legion by herself. If she continues like this, she may get delusions of imperial splendor. I wonder that Leodegrance allows it.”

  “Well, it’s obvious why he doesn’t stop her. All those children. You know what men are like!”

  And here the conversation would take another turn.

  The gossip never bothered Guenlian when she heard of it, as of course she did. It was always the duty of some dear friend to inform her of what people were saying. It may even have occurred to her that one day one of her sons might try for the purple. Stranger things had happened. But after Mark there had been no more children for many years.

  And then, when their hopes were almost gone, there was a fourth child, the last.

  Guinevere, silent, even facing her first breath. She hadn’t cried out at all but had simply opened her mouth and taken a long, gasping sigh. Then she opened her great, gr
een eyes.

  She had focused intently on the face of Flora, who was holding her, enraptured with awe. It seemed to the old woman that the wisdom and mystery she had worshipped all her life lay in that deep, clear gaze. The silence was so complete that Guenlian began to panic.

  “Bring him to me,” she commanded. “Why do you wait? Why doesn’t he cry? Is the child dead, deformed? Tell me at once!”

  Flora wrapped the unresisting child in swaddling and brought her to lie beside her mother.

  “It’s a girl,” she breathed. Guenlian sensed the strange tone of wonder in her voice.

  “That was to be expected, I suppose. I can’t always have boys. If she’s strong and healthy, I see no reason to grieve. Take off those linens and let me examine her.”

  But Flora was reluctant to give up the baby. She appeared almost reverent and refused to take her eyes from the baby’s face.

  “She is not like the others,” the nurse whispered. “There is a light about her, a divine aura. I believe she was sent to us by . . .”

  She clutched the child too tightly as a fearful thought occurred to her. The girl finally cried out.

  “Stop your superstitious nonsense and bring me my child, Flora.” Guenlian hardly ever used such a tone of command. “We are Christians and civilized, rational beings, and we do not believe in signs. You know I will have no divining or prophesying over my children. Even Merlin knows better than to try to tell me their future. They will be whatever God and their own abilities decide and I leave that to them.”