By noon Guenevere was half-crazed with rage and despair. She was afraid to leave her chamber in case he came. But she had to get out of the palace, or else she would go mad.
Now for the first time she felt the cruel illogic of adultery. Spending the night with the husband she had betrayed was a worse infidelity than sleeping with the man she loved. Did Lancelot hate her for it? Did he blame her for her shame?
Walking in the garden under the castle walls, she was soon surrounded by other knights, lords and ladies, pages and squires, and even the dogs that hung around the court. But there was no sign of the one man she longed to see.
She could not bear it. At last he appeared far off, walking with his cousins Bors and Lionel. All three drew up to her as stiff as wooden dolls. “Majesté?” said Bors.
Above them the sun burned in a cloudless sky. Nearby a blackbird poured out its soul in song, and nodding daisies danced around their feet. Lancelot raised his head, and she could not read his eyes.
“Lancelot?”
The scent of the grass hung heavy in the still summer air. Her hungry heart was ravening for a word from him, a look, the smallest smile. But now he was here, he seemed to have nothing to say. He looked about him distantly, staring over her head. “Would Your Majesty care to walk?”
He offered her his arm, and they moved away. All around them the smiling courtiers nodded and bowed. With a piercing shaft of memory she saw his arm as she had last seen it in Joyous Garde, thrown carelessly over the bedclothes. His whole body had been hers to delight in then, from his thick springing hair to the tips of his long bony toes. Now she could not even touch his hand.
His eyes were fixed on the horizon ahead. She remembered last night and Arthur, and felt sick. An aching silence stretched between them like a curse.
She had to speak. “Why didn’t you come this morning? Were you angry with me?”
“Angry?” He gave a brusque laugh. “No.”
“Then why didn’t you come to me?” Her nerves were screaming, and it was all she could do not to scream at him too.
He threw a swift glance over his shoulder at the courtiers nearby. Were they in earshot? She did not care. Why was he so cold? His lips hardly moved when he spoke. “Why should I come?”
“Why? After Joyous Garde—after all we were to each other there—?” Her voice dwindled away. Goddess, Mother, what have I done to be punished like this? The last vestiges of control left her, and the tears came like rain.
“Madame—”
She waved him away in a spasm of anguish so acute that she could hardly breathe. “Go—just go—”
“I did not mean—”
“Go!”
“Lady, listen to me!”
A roar of happy laughter ran through the group behind. Lancelot looked around in alarm.
“Cover your face!” he commanded urgently. “And hear me now, madame, I beg.” He groaned in despair. “How could I come to you this morning? You told me nothing of how it would be once we were back. I did not know if I would be welcome to you at all!”
“You? Not welcome?” she murmured through a haze of pain.
“You are the Queen of two kingdoms. I am nothing but a lowly knight. A knight obeys his queen; a queen obeys nothing but her will.”
She began to interrupt.
He silenced her angrily. “How was I to know what I meant to you?”
“Oh, Lancelot—”
“Or if our time in Joyous Garde was any more than a woman of power amusing herself with a young knight who caught her fancy—rewarding him briefly for saving her life?”
She could not stop the tears. “Is that what you thought of me?”
“No!” Furiously he tossed his head. “But you are the Queen! It is for you to say—you to command! I was awaiting your word as patiently as I knew how. I wanted to call for my horse and ride away. Only my cousins here could persuade me not to go—or else to put an end to my miseries with my sword!”
The group behind was almost upon them now. He dragged his hand roughly over his face. “Which I will still do, if you breathe the word. Or I will do whatever is your will.” He looked around at the laughing courtiers behind. “They must not see you in tears. Cover yourself!”
She fumbled to draw down her veil over her tear-stained face. “Oh, my love, my only love—forgive me?”
He snorted with anger. “There is nothing to forgive!”
“Your Majesty!” came a happy call from behind. She dared not turn around. “Tonight I shall be alone,” she whispered. “Come to me tonight.”
He frowned. “Walls have eyes.”
She turned away, a chill at her heart, hearing the approaching feet. “Am I not to see you, then?”
“I will work out a plan. Nothing is safe, if it is not planned.”
“Planned?” cried the nearest knight. “Tell us, Lancelot, what is being planned?”
His eyes met hers for a second, and he turned away.
“WE MUST CELEBRATE, Guenevere!” Arthur decreed, his sunken eyes in their dark sockets glowing with something of his old fire. “Let’s have minstrels and feasts and jousts, just as we always did. And when we get back to Caerleon, we’ll have a tournament—I want the world to know how much joy we have to share.”
“Just as you say, my lord.” Guenevere’s lips moved mechanically as her eyes flew to Lancelot, standing with Bors and Lionel at the foot of the throne.
Now the days would be fully occupied, and there would be no chance to see Lancelot alone. And already her whole being was crying and dying for him.
Goddess, Mother, have mercy, do not keep my love from me …
DECEIVING ARTHUR WAS a daily ache. Loving Lancelot wounded her mortally as it kept her alive. All that was beautiful in their love was cruel and ugly too. All this she saw every moment of every day.
Now she was riding the rollers of a rougher sea than she had ever known. At times she seemed to float on a broad shining ocean of love, hearing its endless hymn to the Mother and soothed by the signs of sweet love all around. Then without warning she would find herself cast up on a harsh and lonely shore, walking the night, weeping to the uncaring stars.
From minute to minute she twisted and turned like flotsam on the waves. She loved Lancelot now more than her own soul. But how could she love him, when she still loved Arthur?
If she still loved her husband, what was she doing with a lover?
And if she did not love Arthur, what did that make her?
Ina did her best to help. “In the land of the Goddess, all women have the right of thigh-friendship with the man of their choice,” she said firmly as she brushed Guenevere’s hair. “And in the Summer Country, you are the Queen. The Queen has the right to take a new consort in the seven-year cycle of her marriage with the land.”
Guenevere waved a hopeless hand. “When I married Arthur, I promised him that I would not take another chosen one.”
“Ah, lady,” she sighed. “It seems this promise was not yours to make. The Mother decided otherwise for you. No one defies Her will.”
“Yet to withdraw my love from Arthur, now he is failing—”
Ina’s voice hardened. “Now is the time to do it. Soon it will be too late. It is more than seven years since you chose him first. The land is groaning for another king.” Guenevere could hear Ina’s voice changing again. “And Sir Lancelot is a worthy, worthy choice.”
She could feel herself dissolving into tears. “He is, isn’t he, Ina? Oh, Gods above, let him come to me soon!”
WILL SHE COME, Gods above, will she come?
Lancelot prowled the woodland clearing, oblivious to the contented snuffling of the horses as they cropped the grass. Nor did he see the soft light filtering through the trees, or sense the anxious glances of his cousins Bors and Lionel watching from afar. It was all he could do not to trumpet his fears to the bright morning sky. Would he ever understand this capricious queen?
A dull color rose to his face as he thought of the madness of
her love. Surrounded by lords and knights, or in plain sight of Arthur’s creeping monks, the looks she gave him in the open court: Come to me! The rash letters, the messages sent with Ina or his page, all saying the same thing a hundred times a day. And when he sent back We must wait awhile, have patience, we must take care, the next time he saw her it was as if he had hit her in the face, disowned her, spat upon their love.
Her letters and messages were so unguarded that he was in terror she would betray herself.
“Tell your mistress that I cannot write or send as she demands!” he told Ina in anguish. “Surely she sees that only my care will protect her now!”
And didn’t she see that he longed for her too?
At last he found a place that would be safe. He chose a time, and sent her word with all the loving care at his command. Her reply was swift: I will not come.
Had she been waiting for the chance to punish him? His blood rose at the memory of her taunt, A queen does not honor a knight who does not honor her. Why did she mistrust him; why did she doubt his faith?
Nothing was safe if it was not planned; she had to understand that! The love they had shared at Joyous Garde could not be repeated—why did he have to spell it out for her? There they were private, but here at court a thousand eyes watched her every day.
Couldn’t she see that they had to behave as if nothing had happened? Only then could they find time to be together without courting death and ruin.
As she was now!
Yet he knew too that there was no freedom for those bound by love. There were only endurance and the faith to endure. So day after day he rode in the tiltyard as always, and won admiring cheers, and night after night he lay in his bed and wept. He went about the court with a firm smile, bowing courteously when Gawain guffawed and pointed out some blushing beauty sick with love for him, or a bold-eyed matron angled for his approach. Left to himself, he would never have noticed the sheeps’ eyes turned his way, or the pouting, inviting lips. But everything had to be as if he were still the man he was before, whatever the cost.
And it was hard, Gods, it was hard! To be surrounded by adoring women when only one mouth, one gaze commanded his waking thoughts. She— In the midst of his anger he gasped to think that she could love him, that she had taken him to her bed—
She—
Even in the silence of his mind, he could not say her name. But she— He clenched his fists in pain. He had to rule her desires, or she would destroy them both.
And now she said she would not come to him. He closed his eyes and breathed in the warm, clear air. He had forced himself to disregard what she had said. She did not mean it; she could not refuse to come, after all this time.
No, she meant it as a test of his love, a trial of his patience, no more. She would come. She had to, now it was safe at last. For him to ride out at dawn with Bors and Lionel would make no stir. For her to take a pony out much later would be no more than she might do any day. She would set off with Ina in the opposite direction, then loop around once Camelot was far behind. And then they could meet in the deep heart of the wood, where they would be together at last—
If she will come.
He stared through the trees till they began to shimmer before his eyes.
If she will only come.
SHE WOULD NOT GO!
Flushed with a sudden rage, Guenevere pulled her horse’s head around sharply, and came to a sudden halt. What was she doing, riding out into the wood to meet a faithless man?
Behind her Ina pulled up too, her soul already shrinking from the torrent of reproaches she knew would descend. She stifled a deep sigh. No woman in the world ever suffered for a man the way the Queen did for Lancelot. Ina, do you think he loves me? I’m so afraid. Or was he just using me in Joyous Garde?
He loves you, lady, you can see that in his face. Every time you come into court, he knows at once you’re there. You know he’s thinking of you; you can almost hear it, even though he never looks your way.
I know that he tries to protect me, and that he shows his love that way. But I hate it that he never sends a word of love to me, never writes a note—
Madam, it’s too dangerous! And now, see, he’s made a tryst at last; he will be there for you, when we can go.
Go? Oh, Ina, should we go? I’m afraid I’m making a fool of myself. Can he really love me, Ina? Do you think he ever did?
Unnoticed by its rider, Guenevere’s horse dropped its head and quietly began cropping the grass. Under the smiling eye of the sun, Guenevere sat on its back and wept. The same thoughts ran madly around in her brain.
I will not go.
I will go back to Camelot.
He does not love me.
Why should I love him, when he does not love me?
SHE WAS NOT COMING.
When would their wretched cousin see the truth of this, and go?
Wearily Sir Bors raised his eyes to the sky ahead, and avoided his brother Lionel’s troubled gaze. The afternoon sun was slanting through the forest, and the first birds of evening were coming home to roost. Not the Queen, though, thought Bors unhappily. She was not coming; surely Lancelot knew that by now?
Well, what on earth did he expect? A woodland tryst might suit a milkmaid, but it was far below a queen. Riding out secretly into the wood like this, they were like outlaws driven from court and town.
Yet where else could the pair of them hope to meet? If they found some obscure corner of Camelot, they would be like spies in the Queen’s own palace, plotting against the King. But once they were back in Caerleon, things would be even worse. In Arthur’s kingdom now the Christians were growing strong, and their love would not only be furtive, but traitorous and sinful too. Could a queen of two kingdoms learn to suffer that? Bors chewed wretchedly on his lower lip. And should a knight like Lancelot, who all his life had prized honor and nobleness, consent to live like this, even for the sake of his love?
No—it was madness and dishonor twice over. How could he do it? Bors’ plain mind shrank from the question, knowing that he could not understand. Things had been bad enough at Joyous Garde, when Lancelot had lost himself in love for the Queen. Surely they knew that what happened there should have ended there too.
His mind began to clear. The Queen was a woman blessed with a sense of duty and a strong mind. She would have seen all the difficulties, foreseen all the griefs, and decided that this tryst was wrong. And the same must be said of their love—it was dangerous, it was cruel, and it was bad for Lancelot and Arthur, two good men. In short, it must not be.
Bors cast a fearful glance through the trees. The lone figure still stood hunched in the clearing, tensely watching the woodland track. How long had he been there now? How many hours?
Beside him he heard Lionel sighing heavily, and knew that they shared the same thoughts. It would be grief beyond words for Lancelot, they both knew, when he accepted that the Queen had broken off their love. They’d have to take him away, as far as possible, back to Little Britain to join the fight against France. Or farther still, to fight in the Turkish wars, or to join the struggle in the Holy Land.
Acre, Jerusalem—yes, love could be buried there, and honor reborn. Bors heaved a sigh and felt some relief. He nodded to himself. That was what they must do.
And all would be well. Bors soothed his faithful heart. It would be for the best in the end, even though Lancelot would suffer terribly on the way. Queen Guenevere was a woman out of his sphere, a love that was beyond him in every way. By saying farewell now, she would leave him an untainted dream to carry all his life. And not only Lancelot, he swore to himself. He and Lionel too would help Lancelot to honor her name, and keep her memory green. Every battle they fought, every victory they won, they would dedicate to her.
So be it. Now he must say all this to Lancelot, or some of it, to begin. They would leave tomorrow; there was no time to be lost. Bors straightened his back, and his fingers flew unconsciously to the throbbing scar on his head. “Lionel—” he began
.
Lionel raised his hand. His eyes were fixed on the distant woodland ahead. To their right Lancelot had frozen in position, staring furiously through the trees. The birds had hushed their evening songs, and the whole forest seemed to hold its breath.
The sound of horses’ hooves floated toward them on the warm, night-scented air. Framed against the setting sun, Lancelot was straining like a falcon poised for flight, its earthbound body fretting for the sky. In the glimmering light, a slender shape was to be seen making her way slowly toward him through the trees, while another waited with the horses behind. Lionel turned to Bors, his eyes glowing. “The Queen!” he breathed ecstatically. “It’s the Queen!”
CHAPTER 60
“Jubilate Deo, Deo jubilate—Rejoice in the Lord, O be thankful in His name …”
The voices of the monks rang gravely around the chapel, weaving in and out of the old stone tracery of the roof. Arthur raised his head and sighed with joy. She was back; Guenevere was safe! He could feel his eyes filling with tears at the thought of losing her. Had he really believed she was gone from him for good, lost forever in the wood? He did not know. But even the dread void of unknowing he had endured was a place of terror to his memory now. To be without her, or even in fear of life without her, was a hell of its own.
Kneeling at the rail before the altar, he bent his head and tried to pray. Above him a flood of glorious sunshine poured through the stained glass windows and shattered on the flagstones in sharp fragments of red, blue, and gold. What a day to be back in his beloved country, King again in his own castle—and on top of this, to be playing host to the finest tournament Caerleon had ever seen! A fleeting hope of happiness brushed Arthur for the first time in a long while, and his bruised soul lifted to the sound of the chant. “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and His goodness endureth forever …”
At the altar, the priest-monk in charge was disposing of the remains of the communion breakfast. The morning service would be over very soon. Arthur eyed the busy monkish back thoughtfully as the robed figure chanted and prayed and solemnly swallowed the last of the bread and wine. In his hour of suffering, this holy father had been one of many Christian voices telling him that Guenevere was lost and must be given up for dead. And they all knew why God had taken her from him: as a punishment for his sins.
Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country Page 47
