Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country

by Rosalind Miles

  Guenevere awoke sobbing, her heart breaking with joy.

  At last! Goddess, Mother, praise and thanks to you …

  After all this time, Merlin’s enmity was appeased. Even from his retreat in his crystal cave, Merlin had foreseen Amir’s destiny. He knew that Amir was a marvelous boy, and he loved him already as Arthur’s son. So he had given his blessing on her gift to Arthur, and that would mean as much to Arthur as the thing itself. She could not wait to share her dream with him.

  THE ROUND TABLE hung in its place on the wall of the Great Hall. Beneath it stood the knights’ sieges, each with a name in gold.

  Guenevere turned to Arthur and took both his hands. “The Round Table is yours. This is my gift to you for your love to me. From now on, your knights and mine will be joined in brotherhood as well as in name. Now they will no longer be the King’s knights or the Queen’s, but all Knights of the Round Table, going forth in both our names.” She gestured to the sieges along the wall. “Some of these have been empty for a good while. Let us hold a solemn ceremony to create a new fellowship of knights, rededicate their sieges, and bless each one of them as they take their seats. How do you like this?”

  Arthur shook his head in loving disbelief and gazed at the bright hopeful face before him, the tremulous smile. Whatever had he done to deserve this? His heart swelled with love. What a woman! Would she ever know what she meant to him?

  Overcome by emotion, he turned his head away. At the end of the line one seat stood apart, the cover over its wooden canopy already in place. “Why, sweetheart,” he said wonderingly, “whose place is that?”

  To his surprise, he saw Guenevere’s eyes fill with tears. “The best of all,” she whispered, drawing him down the room. “Come, my love, and see!”

  With a trembling hand, she lifted the red velvet and held it aside. Beneath the cover the gold letters pulsed and glowed. Arthur stood in silence as he made them out. Here Is the Siege Perilous, for the Knight Who Is to Come. He Will Be the Most Peerless Knight in All the World, and When He Comes, the Prophecy of Merlin Will Be Fulfilled.

  He was shivering. “What knight will sit here?”

  Guenevere was shining like the moon. She took his hands. “The son of the best knight in the world.” She was transcendent now with joy. “Your son. Amir.”

  Arthur felt colder still. “Amir?”

  Guenevere laughed, a deep triumphant sound. “Oh, it is destined to remain empty for a decade and more, of course. But hear me, Arthur! His name will be the brightest of them all. Merlin has told me so!”

  “Merlin?”

  Arthur was suddenly terribly afraid. In the distance he heard Guenevere’s voice recounting her dream and Merlin’s prophecy, and his heart quailed. How could it be true? His son could not fulfill this destiny. For he was not the best knight in the world. He knew that, whatever others thought.

  But when Guenevere gave him Merlin’s blessing on Amir, he wept aloud. And at high summer, when the roses were breathing out the joy of June all around Camelot’s walls, the knights were assigned to their new places with all the ceremony that could be devised. When all had been seated, Arthur and Guenevere gazed upon Amir’s chair, clasping each other and hardly daring to believe. Then Guenevere gave the signal for the cover to be lowered over the Siege Perilous, with its blazon of future fame. If Amir was as big and forward as his father, it would not be long before he took his place here.

  SO BEGAN THE wonder years, Guenevere was to say, the years the world remembers, when all our knights were bold and all their ladies fair.

  Arthur’s knights were enrolled in the noblest band of chivalry the world had ever known. Each day now Gawain, Kay, Lucan, Bedivere, and the others practiced their knighthood in the lists, or rode out adventuring with Arthur to see justice done. In the Middle Kingdom too, Arthur’s knights under King Pellinore were slowly purging the land of the evil King Lot had done. The menace of the invaders from the North meant no more now than an annual war party to patrol the eastern shore and throw the raiders back to sea again before they could get a foothold on land.

  Now those who had held out against Arthur saw the error of their ways and yielded to him as High King. One by one all his old enemies, the hostile Kings Rience, Vause, Nentres, and Brangoris, even King Carados of Northgales and the dreaded King Agrisance, lowered their swords to him.

  And each time Arthur and Guenevere rejoiced again. Each bloodless victory added to the glory of their court. Love and acclaim greeted them on all sides. From the white towers of Camelot to a golden Caerleon restored to its former glory, there seemed no limit to what they could do.

  For their tournaments now, kings and knights came from far and wide. The French kings from Little Britain were often outdistanced by those from Italy, Spain, and Gaul, and even from the old Roman Empire, Constantinople, and Alexandria. Each was a more glittering occasion than the last—the knights hardier, the kings more noble, the lances sharper and brighter, and the swords and chain mail more silver than the gleam of the salmon as it slips down to the sea.

  And at each tournament now, Arthur would allow no one to open the proceedings but Amir. Escorted by King Leogrance and Malgaunt, with the four cherished knight companions riding behind, Arthur would ride the jousting field from end to end, carrying Amir in pride of place before him on his horse.

  THEN MORGAUSE SENT a present for Amir. They stood in the courtyard as the gift was unloaded from the wagon in which it had traveled down from the Orkneys in royal state, like a king itself.

  Guenevere gasped. “What is it?” she laughed.

  Rearing and snorting, the fiery creature was standing up on its short back legs to punch and fight the air. It was one of the tiny barrel-bellied ponies of the Shetlands, legendary for their spirit and tirelessness. “You will find him,” Morgause had written, “bold enough for a prince.”

  “Excellent!” Arthur roared. He turned to the wide-eyed Amir at his side. “Now you can ride your own mount, sir, like the Emperor of Rome.”

  Amir looked up, his clear eyes wide with awe. “Can I, Father?”

  “Yes!”

  “At the next tournament?”

  “The very next, my son.”

  Guenevere stared at Arthur in disbelief. “Arthur, he’s only—”

  What was she saying? Arthur knew how old he was!

  Gods above, the pride and pain of having a son! Guenevere looked at Amir, grieving for the safety of his small sturdy frame and well-formed limbs. Was he really old enough to ride with Arthur and take the reins alone?

  But Amir was fearless, she knew. And when the tournament came, he would not be denied. So Guenevere had to watch as the boy rode with Arthur at the head of the procession, leading the combatants down the field to open the tournament, a little figure almost lost between the great legs of the chargers and stallions.

  He’s so small, so near the dreadful hooves …

  She must not think of her mother going down under Lucan’s horse. Think of Amir if you love him, she commanded herself through the pain of unshed tears. Think what this means to him. Gripping the rail, she leaned out of the viewing gallery to watch his progress around the field.

  The knights were all parading round the arena now and out to the field beyond. As the blue flag of France passed below the gallery, Arthur’s old friend King Ban caught Guenevere’s eye. Riding beside his brother King Bors, he was resplendent in silver, blue, and white. “Greetings, Majesty!” he called merrily, raising his sword to the gallery and kissing the blade. “And greetings from our sons, who are here for the first time to honor your tournament!”

  King Bors bowed and turned to the three armored figures behind. “Lionel!” he called. “Bors! Lancelot!” At his command all three riders raised their swords and greeted her as King Ban had done.

  “King Ban,” she cried abstractedly, “and King Bors! You are welcome all, and your noble sons!” But her eyes were on Amir, and she hardly saw anything else.

  Afterward she could remember
glancing down at the three riders and knowing who they were, the two sons of King Bors and King Ban’s only son, the boy hero of the Battle of the Kings, young Lancelot. Later she tried to recall their faces, their weapons, or anything about them at all. But all she could call back through the mist of time was a clutch of tall young men riding behind Ban and Bors.

  That, and the white horse of the leader as the three of them followed their fathers into the field. A boyish form clad in shining silver armor, buffed and polished like no other on the field. And above it all, a pair of burning brown eyes raised in wonderment to the gallery as she sat on her golden throne all in white and gold, her gaze following Amir with a mother’s adoring love.

  CHAPTER 38

  Gold was the color of those years, she would always say, it was a life of gold. Joy filled the air like wine; they breathed it night and day. And this golden life they lived for seven years, while young Amir throve and grew tall.

  Yet did they know, did they feel the evil brewing far away? They knew that across the northern sea lay lands where gray plains stretched out to a cold horizon, whipped by an endless wind. They knew that gales from the ocean choked all the air there with salt, and rotted the crops on their stalks. And they knew that when famine gripped their wives and babes, the men of these lands would take to the boats and begin raiding again along the eastern shore.

  BUT IN THE warmth of the Summer Country, they did not know when the Saxon lands survived a winter famine only to meet a spring pestilence crueller than any before. The dry-burned crops would not thrive, and disease withered even the best of the tribe.

  Soon the cattle were casting their calves, and babes-in-arms were dying at the breast. The old king watched his people dwindle and dreamed of a new homeland where the sun always shone. Where cattle and children grew fat, horses fed in lush pastures, and rosy-faced women smiled at their sun-browned men. He remembered the place from voyages long gone by, when he led the men in raids on its eastern shore.

  His men waited it out while their slaves and elders died. They bore with some patience too their children’s deaths, for a man can always sow his seed again. But then a woman died whom the old man’s nephew had brought back as a captive from that eastern coast of the island across the sea, and had loved more than life.

  She had never once smiled since he took her from her land. She had never borne him a child, though he took her every way he knew. His brothers warned him that she must have found the old way to close up her womb, and he should drown her as barren, or burn her as a witch. But he loved her haunted eyes and downcast mouth, his flesh craved her thin body with its awkward bones, and his soul yearned to make her smile again. One day she would be his, body and soul, he knew. And when she died, he knew that that day would never come.

  Then his heart burst with hate for the old man. “My uncle has the dream sickness,” he announced to the younger men. “We must take to the boats, and cross the sea again. He can stay.”

  But his uncle would have to go with them, he knew. Then, as soon as the war ships were out of sight of the land, the old man would be told it was time to greet his Gods. He would be given to the sea, and the tides would wash his bones. His death would bless their expedition, and they would prosper in their raid. Then the tribe would have a new leader, for the nephew would take the king’s place. And the old man knew that too.

  Enough!

  No more dream-weaving, spinning out the frayed hopes of a tired, sick old man. It was the hour of the trysting horn, time to raise the boats and sharpen the swords and spears. He lifted his head, scenting like a wolf this way and that. “Ulf?” he called.

  NONE OF THIS could Guenevere have known or guessed. But afterward she would torment herself with the same endless refrain, picking at the scab of suffering till it ran.

  Was that the still point of the turning circle, the moment before we plunged into the dark? Had we risen so high on the wheel of fortune that the Dark Goddess herself was moved to throw us off?

  Or did I love too much? the endless lament went on. That is the most common crime against the heart. Amir’s body was so small and firm, his straight, smooth limbs without seam or scar, his hair as soft as thistledown and as sweet as summer hay. His golden skin and shining eyes made him so precious to me that after the christening I vowed never to let him leave my side again.

  When a man and woman in love create a child, that changes their love in ways they do not know. One love drives out another, as fire drives out fire and pain will kill pain. In the darkness of my heart now I loved Amir more than Arthur, more than I could ever love a man. That is the secret crime of motherhood, the truth so stark that women will not own it, even to themselves. That is the choice every mother has to make, if her child is to thrive. And that choice is the cruelty at the heart of life itself.

  When I had Amir, I was given another soul to love. I had another Arthur, and my love grew to take in both of them; it would have spread to include all the world.

  But for Arthur, the hard knowledge came to him, as it comes to all men, that he would never be loved in that way again. Never again would he have first place in my heart. And proud though he was to have a son, his world shook on its axis when he saw that he could no longer call himself the center of mine.

  And he had his own feelings about Amir, and they changed things too. Arthur never knew his own father, and then he lost in Merlin the only father he had ever had. Now with Amir, Arthur could be the missing father, become the man he had lost and never ceased to desire. He saw a line descending after him, all stretching down from Uther as High King. And as Amir grew, as Arthur’s own fame increased, and his knights won glory for him high and low, so little by little Arthur’s hopes were drawn away from me and more and more to his dream of the rule of kings—where I could not follow, where the Christians led, and where others too would have him go.

  Did I see this at the time? Only with hindsight, when I looked back. But I have to hurry to set it down now, quickly now, for the darkness is coming as I tell you this.

  We had our dream of gold. And afterward came the night.

  THE SHADOWY SHAPES stood frozen among the trees. In the fitful moonlight, they could have been trees themselves. But their horned headgear proclaimed them for what they were. They were blood predators, rank with the smell of death, and the wild creatures of the woodland shrank down in their holes in fear.

  The leader stood at a distance, ahead of his men. “Ulf?” he halloed softly like an owl.

  Ulf heard his name in the owl cry and could have snarled back in rage. What now, Cunric? What further madness are you leading us into tonight?

  He clenched his brawny fists. Since the start of this raid, his brother had turned to him again and again, and never once taken the advice he freely gave. Ulf had been forced to watch as everything went wrong, had been dragged into actions he knew were doomed from the start.

  What had come over Cunric? Ulf fretted as he moved forward, his long legs covering the ground with smooth silent strides. When the old man failed, there was no doubt who should follow him. They had all looked to Cunric to renew the life of the tribe.

  Was it the death of that sallow-faced slave girl of his? Or was it the word of his uncle as he met his death? The old man had stepped out into the cold gray waves calmly enough. But as he went he smiled and said, “Nephew, my sister calls from the other side. I shall tell her you will soon be there.”

  Ulf shuddered as he came up to Cunric’s side. A sister’s son was the dearest of any kin. So the curse of a uterine uncle was hardest to bear. That would be enough to rob any man of his power, and something had happened to weaken Cunric’s grip. From the first raid to tonight’s hurried flight, they had spent too many lives for too little gain, for none at all, in fact.

  “Ulf?” Cunric hissed. His eyes were fixed straight ahead.

  Ulf signified his presence with a soft grunt.

  Cunric inclined his head. His horns moved in the moonlight like living things. “There,” he
murmured. “See there!”

  Ulf’s face twisted with unexpected relief. A small village, undefended, hidden in the heart of the wood. No monastery, no church with the lure of gold crosses and jeweled reliquaries, but a simple hamlet trusting to its distance from the shore to give it protection from their lightning raids.

  Ulf gave an ugly grin. These people were not to know that this was no random strike—that they needed a place to lie up and recover till their Gods smiled again. His eyes roved over the snug dwellings with their tidy cattle byres by their back doors. There would be pigs to roast and chickens to kill. Bread too, and beans, and mead and beer for sure. The men would feast tonight as well as kings feasted in the lands they had left. And afterward there would be plump fowl of another kind, fat squealing village daughters and their mothers too, wide-eyed and panting, just as he liked them best.

  For a moment he was distracted by the thought of the pleasures to come. The whole troop of them taking turns with a weeping dame, slicing off her clothing strip by strip, while she tried in vain to cover her nakedness. Then mounting her by turns too, and forcing her husband to watch. Getting the boldest girl drunk and making her dance while they threw knives at her heels and ears. Spreading the fattest one out on the table amid the ruins of the feast, and teasing her pink nipples with his dagger point till the red blood flowed and he could suck it off—

  “And there …”

  Cunric’s hissing voice recalled him to himself. As they watched, the door of the nearest house opened onto the night and the owner strolled out, leaving the door ajar. Moving off into the wood, he turned in to a tree and began to relieve himself.