Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country

by Rosalind Miles

  Malgaunt’s eyes flared. “So then,” he exulted, “it’s agreed! When Beltain dawns, I’ll come for you, and we’ll ride out Maying, just as we used to do.”

  Guenevere paused. She couldn’t remember Malgaunt ever being among the knights and men clad all in green who attended the ladies on their Maying ride. Malgaunt never wooed women; they came to him. He had no reverence for them, using them briefly, then casting them aside. And as for the ceremony, Malgaunt had no more faith in the Great Mother than he had in the God of the Christians, or any God but himself.

  Something shadowed Guenevere’s pleasure, a vague unease. What was Malgaunt up to now? Why did he smile and smile, as he never had before?

  A moment later she was blaming herself again. Why did she always think the worst of him? This bitterness was poisoning her very soul! Malgaunt had changed, the King her father said, and it was clear tonight that her kinsman was only trying to be kind.

  She forced herself to smile. “Thank you, sir, it’s good of you to think of this for me. But there’s no need to drag you from your bed.” Malgaunt’s face darkened, and she hurried to explain. She nodded at Kay, Bors, and Lionel down the table. “I have my own knights here; they’ll be all the escort I shall need. We’ll let the maidens go on ahead as they always do, then we’ll ride out quietly later on. There’ll be no shortage of blossom, and we’ll have the whole forest to ourselves.” A sudden longing seized her. “Oh, it will be good to get out in the greenwood again!”

  Malgaunt nodded. Why was he looking at her like that? “Yet it would be better if you rode out with me. There are dangers in the depths of every forest, and with me you would be safe.”

  She stifled a sigh. It was her fault, she knew, but to her eye Malgaunt still had that look of a hungry wolf. “Thank you, Malgaunt,” she said with a small smile. “But what can befall the Queen of the Summer Country riding out in her own forest on May Day?”

  THE LAUGHING BAND of knights enjoying the evening air on the edge of Arthur’s camp did not catch the distant drumming of the hooves. But they knew to be silent when Bedivere raised his hand. The quiet voice among louder, bigger men, he often picked up what others noticed much later, if at all. “Hush!” he said softly. “We have a visitor.”

  “Lancelot!” Arthur cried. His wan face lit up as Lancelot was led in. “It’s good to see you!” He waved a hand around the sparsely furnished tent. “It’s not Camelot, but you’re welcome all the same. What are you doing here?”

  What indeed? Lancelot asked himself grimly as he stepped up to the makeshift table where Arthur sat. A wild thought seized him: I think your Queen is playing games with me. But there was not the slightest temptation to reveal it to the King.

  “Urgent messages from the Queen, sire,” he responded formally, pulling his bundle of papers from his saddlebag.

  “Sit with me, Lancelot,” Arthur urged, pushing forward a camp stool. He looked tired, Lancelot saw, but the warmth of his greeting was undimmed. “Have you eaten? Bear with me while I read these, if you will, and then you can tell me how the Queen was when you left.”

  He turned to the nearest page. “Food for Sir Lancelot at once, if you please, and wine for us both.” He eyed Lancelot with sympathy. “By the look of you, you haven’t slept for days!”

  Numbly Lancelot raised his hand to his unshaven face. He knew that he carried the dirt of the roads on his clothes, and the stink of his horse through to his very flesh. He was suddenly seized by a hot wave of shame. How dared he come before his King like this? Was he already forgetting his chivalry for the love of the Queen?

  The servants were laying a mug of coarse wine before him, and a plate of mixed meat. For a soldier’s meal, the leg of chicken and thick slice of brawn was as good as a feast. At Queen Aife’s camp, a slab of coarse brown bread and a jar of ale had been enough for him. But now he pushed the food aside in disgust. How could he eat, when he felt so bad?

  Across the table Arthur was frowning as he perused the documents Guenevere had sent. Carefully he read all the pages, then began on them again. At last he laid them to one side and turned to Lancelot with a mystified air. He forced a laugh. “So tell me, sir, what’s all this about?”

  To his horror Lancelot could feel his face turning red. “All what, sire?” he muttered at last. “I don’t understand.”

  Arthur reached for the papers and slapped them on the table. “These papers—the Queen sends loving greetings, page after page. But that’s all—no state matters, no decision of import—” He paused heavily. “No reason to send you after me at all.”

  Lancelot found himself choking, as if a hard lump of brawn had gone the wrong way down his throat. Arthur’s words confirmed all his fears. The Queen was playing with the love he had offered her.

  A fury like nothing he had known rose in Lancelot’s heart. So be it, he vowed, white-lipped and suffering. If she disdained his love and service, there was nothing he could do. Some knights were content to serve cruel mistresses who tortured them for love. He knew of course that a knight must make no demands. But to become a plaything between the Queen and the King! These letters must surely contain details of the sport, for the two of them to laugh at his expense.

  But Arthur seemed oblivious to Lancelot’s flushed face and resentful stare. He toyed again with the papers, though his mind was clearly elsewhere. At last a sweet smile lit his lips, and spread up to his eyes. “Ah, Guenevere!” he said fondly to himself. “I see what she’s up to now!” He turned to Lancelot. “This is all about you, sir knight!” he cried.

  Lancelot’s stomach took another lurch. “What, sire?” he said dumbly, struggling to understand. He felt himself grow hot. The raw color rose to his face again. What was coming now? What on earth did the King think he knew, when there was nothing on earth to know? And why was he, Lancelot, behaving like a guilty thing? It was only right for a knight to love his Queen. It was more than right, it was the duty of every knight—

  Gods above! he muttered to himself. If it is your will to sport with me, let me not hurt the King, or injure the Queen!

  “Yes, you, sir!” Arthur went on. He leaned toward Lancelot and the rickety table creaked under his weight. “The Queen knew how much I would want you at my side. So she spared you to me, putting my need above hers.” His eyes misted. “This isn’t the first time, either, that she’s done that. What a woman, eh, Lancelot? To part with her own sworn knight for the love of me!”

  “Yes, my lord.” Lancelot could hardly speak.

  Was this truly the reason the Queen had sent him away? And whether it was or not, if the King thought it was, what chance did he have of getting away again?

  HOURS LATER, LANCELOT stumbled out into the night. The King had kept him talking over a glass of wine, then another, then another three or four. He could see that the thick red drink with its deep lees and heavy scum was feeding a need in Arthur that mere words and passing company never could. And although he knew he could not keep up with the King in his cups, he had still finished by drinking more than he wanted to.

  And none of it helped the ache in his own heart. As he pushed back the flap of the tent and came out into the night, he heard himself gasp with a sudden renewal of pain. The Queen had sent him away for no reason at all. Yet now the King said he could return if he wished.

  “Go or stay, Lancelot!” Arthur had cried as he bade him good night and directed him to his tent. “If the Queen can spare you out of love for me, I can make the same sacrifice to her. You can go with me to the lost valley and do battle there, or return to the Queen and support her as she rules the Middle Kingdom while I’m away.”

  He shook his head. He did not know what to do.

  “Hey, Lancelot!”

  The urgent voice from the shadows outside Arthur’s tent would have made him jump at any other time. But deadened by drink and distracted by his woes, Lancelot hardly stirred. “Gawain,” he said without enthusiasm as the bulky form hove up. “What are you doing here?”

  “Guar
d duty, my son!” Gawain grinned expansively. “Someone has to look after the King while he feasts the Queen’s knight!” He laughed uproariously. Clearly Arthur was not the only one in camp who had been drinking that night. “So while you fed your face, you lucky hound, I was hanging my backside out here to keep you safe.” Gawain chucked his head at the figures of Lucan and Bedivere approaching, fully armed. “A task from which I am now relieved, it seems. And the night has hardly begun.”

  He threw a mighty arm around Lancelot’s shoulders and drew him across the grass. Carefully he steered him through the lines of tents. “You’ll have your own tent, of course, but first come back to mine. I’ve got some good wine there, both Rhenish and Canaries, take your pick!”

  “Thank you, no.” Lancelot tried not to show the distaste he felt. Wrestling with the conundrum Arthur had given him, Go or stay, the last thing he wanted was a drunken night with Gawain.

  “And that’s not all,” Gawain breezed on. “Look here!” With a brief word, the big knight greeted the soldier at the entrance of the next tent, and pushed Lancelot in. Without enthusiasm, Lancelot allowed himself to be propelled through the door.

  Inside the tent the light was very low. The red glow from the brazier showed rough canvas walls, and two simple lanterns shed small pools of gold on a carpet of some sort that covered the grassy floor. The large camp bed in the rear was obviously made up for Gawain or someone of his size. It was covered in fine wool blankets and piled with bright cushions that picked up the light. And spread out upon the cushions were two further ornaments.

  The elder was a woman around thirty, tall and well fleshed with an open, inviting mouth. Heavy breasts sprawled inside her loose bodice, and her thin skirt outlined a pair of ample hips and monumental thighs. Her dark red hair fell loosely around her face, and her eyes were dilated in the darkness of the tent. She lolled on her elbow and laughed at Gawain as he came in, bringing the point of her full red tongue to the tip of her front teeth. Lancelot could see Gawain’s eyes widen in response, then narrow with sharp interest like a dog’s. There could be little doubt what he was thinking now.

  The other girl was the older woman’s opposite. Small, thin, and fair, she was no more than twelve, a child who had had no childhood, old before her time. A dull fear lit her eyes, and her small work-worn hands lay twitching in her lap.

  Lancelot turned to Gawain with a shrug of recognition and reproach. “Camp followers.”

  “To be sure!” Gawain agreed without a trace of shame. “Well, men in camp must have some comforts.” He nodded appreciatively at the women on the bed. “Mother and daughter. An old hand, and a newcomer to the game. The girl has been kept back till she was ripe for it.” He guffawed. “Or so the old whore tells me, don’t you, my love?”

  He crossed to the older of the two lying on the bed, and applied a none-too-gentle slap to her full rump. “Woe betide you if I find you’ve been telling me tales!” He nodded at Lancelot. “I can’t offer my friend here fresh meat, and find that the child is already rotten goods. She’s a virgin, you say? You swear she is? Speak up.”

  “I do,” said the woman steadily, staring him in the eye. Again she grinned, and passed her tongue between her teeth.

  “How many knights have you told that tale?” demanded Gawain roughly. He slapped her again.

  She laughed, unafraid. “Only you, sir.” She shifted herself invitingly on the bed, and her breasts rolled in the confines of her shift.

  “Only me, eh?” Gawain laughed. Lancelot could feel the excitement rising in the thick body, the intensely focused eyes. “Well, there you have it, Lancelot. A virgin, so they claim, and all yours.” His voice grew thicker as he spoke. “For tonight at least. Tomorrow I might try her for myself.” He leaned down and gripped the older woman by her forearms, pulling her off the bed and lifting her to her feet. “But for now, this is mine. And let’s see—”

  With a loud laugh Gawain reached out for the woman’s bodice, tore the cross-lacing, and ripped open the front of her shift. The woman bore his rough treatment with the air of one who knew she would be well paid for anything he did. She would have known too that any woman would be proud to show off the breasts that now tumbled out before Gawain’s fixed gaze. Long, brown, and full, with thick nipples protruding from a wide freckled areola and purple with love bites, they invited handling from almost any man in the world.

  But not Lancelot. To buy women who were forced to trade in sex—to steal a girl’s innocence, to rape a child— He turned away. Gawain was already burrowing in the woman’s neck, one hand kneading her breast, the other struggling to strip her clothing off her back. “Take the girl then, Lancelot,” he cried with mounting urgency, “or give her to the guard, if you’re too pure!”

  Like a slave, the girl had risen mechanically to her feet, awaiting his command. In her eyes now there burned a light of panic and despair. She is a virgin, the knowledge came to Lancelot, and she will certainly be despoiled tonight. He also knew with equal surety that the poor drab could do worse, much worse, than spend the night with him. He would be saving her from what else would come.

  Suddenly Guenevere came into his mind, and he felt lower than the lees in Arthur’s wine. Serving a queen—and standing here with a whore—

  Yet the Queen had treated him as a male whore, a man of no consequence, to discard and throw away.

  He stood irresolute in the door of the tent. On the bed the action had become more vigorous. Gawain raised his head. “Do what you like with the wench, Lancelot,” he said hoarsely, “but take her now, go!”

  Stay or go …

  Lancelot nodded. He reached for the girl and, gripping her thin shoulder, pushed her out into the night. Then, ignoring the grinning guard, he led her firmly to his tent.

  CHAPTER 50

  A shaft of sunlight was streaming through the hangings of the bed. Guenevere stirred and stretched in a pool of living gold. She had slept long past dawn, and all the palace was awake, the busy hum and stir reaching her comfortably from below. Slowly she uncurled herself among the sunbeams and lay exploring her troubled thoughts as a tongue carefully probes a damaged tooth.

  Every day she awoke with a sense of nameless joy, then came the sick knowledge of loving where she should not. But today the dead weight of despair seemed less heavy on her heart, and a dim feeling of duty done brought comfort to her soul. It was wrong to keep him by her, having thoughts she tried to hide even from herself. It was right to send him away, when he had the power to disturb her so.

  And now new ideas dropped like stones into the quiet pool of her mind.

  If I can rest and restore myself here in Camelot, perhaps things can be again the way they were.

  Perhaps. But can you love Arthur as you did?

  Perhaps.

  Can he love you again in the way of a man?

  Perhaps not. But women live with less.

  How much less?

  He is my husband, and the father of my child. I made him my King, and I owe him that.

  Is it enough?

  It has to be.

  Even at the cost of love?

  Love now means banishing foolish dreams of handsome brown-eyed young men.

  “INA!” GUENEVERE STRETCHED her arms wide, sat up, and swung her feet to the floor. “Have you forgotten we’re going Maying today?”

  “Why, lady,” Ina was smiling by the window, throwing the curtains back, “would I forget?”

  Guenevere stretched luxuriously, then leaped to her feet. “Hurry, then, there’s not a moment to lose. The sun’s out, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and we should be in the greenwood. I want to be Queen of the May!”

  SOME DAYS COME like pearls on a chain, so perfect that you treasure them ever afterward. This would be one of those days, Ina promised herself silently as she lovingly robed her mistress all in green, bound up Guenevere’s hair with silver braid, and veiled her face from the sun in a cambric of white gold. As always her heart lurched at the beauty in Guenevere’s
sad face. Oh, lady, lady, she mourned, why did you turn your back on happiness? You lost Amir; you lost King Arthur; why did you send Sir Lancelot away?

  At the stables Sir Kay, Sir Bors, and Sir Lionel were mounted and waiting, garbed in woodland green. Kay bowed on behalf of them all. “Greetings, my lady. May we wish you a pleasant day?”

  Kay knew his face betrayed nothing of the tumult in his mind. But the fury he felt was not easily appeased. Maying now with the Queen, is it? he harangued himself in disgust. Gods above, we’ll be dancing round Maypoles next! The pain in his leg was a sharp reminder of his eternal loss. He shifted in his saddle and sadly relished turning his cruel humor against himself.

  No dancing, then, for him. And if he had to endure the Queen’s temperaments, at least this was better than standing by watching her stare at Lancelot and startle like a panicking mare. Kay shook his head. What was the matter with her? The lad was well enough, if only she’d leave him alone. Oh, they’d need to lick him into shape before he could call himself a knight of the Round Table, and one of them. He’d shown precious little interest in women, but Gawain would soon take care of that. Still, when he’d taught young Lancelot a trick or two, the boy would be as good as they all thought he was.

  But today it seemed that the Queen’s tomfool May Day ride was the duty of all three of them. Kay grinned. Bors and Lionel were no keener than he was for a day in the woods. But they would do their duty, and who knew? There might be some pleasure in the ride.

  Beside them two ponies stood ready, snuffling the sweet noon air. They were mild and docile, with great liquid eyes, and Guenevere was touched to learn that Malgaunt had commanded the pair himself.

  “No turn of speed about either of these two, madam,” commented the head groom as he saw to their stirrups and adjusted the ponies’ girths. “But Prince Malgaunt picked them out for you specially, as nice and quiet for a lady’s Maying ride. Where you’re going, he said, you’ll only need an ambler, and these two fit the bill.” He slapped one mare’s neck and lovingly stroked the other’s nose. “This one’s Fairy-light, and t’other’s Merrygold. Sisters they are, and never parted on a ride. They love May Day in the woods, don’t you, girls? You can leave it to them to find their way there and back.”