Guinevere's Tale

by Nicole Evelina

  I looked at him sharply. “What have you done to him?”

  “Come with me and see.” He motioned for me to rise.

  Pulling my shawl close around me against a chill that could have no natural origin, I followed Mordred. Past the cellar where Marius had been kept, past the place of public execution, through Camelot’s gates, and into the forest, we trod. At the crossroads where two smaller Roman roads met to join the main road to Camelot, we stopped.

  I peered around, searching the empty dirt road and the thick underbrush on either side. The only thing I found was a pile of offal, the reeking, viscous remains of some animal’s recent kill. Other than that, we were utterly alone. I turned to Mordred, seeking an explanation.

  “Look up,” he said, pointing into the trees.

  I did as he instructed. Suspended high above me was a pen made of saplings, its crisscrossing bars and domed roof resembling a bird cage. But inside it was no bird; it could barely be called human. Marius lay naked on his belly, arms and ankles bound behind him at unnatural angles like a freshly trussed boar. Blood was slowly dripping from his wounds onto the leaves at my feet. A low moaning scream escaped my lips.

  As we watched, a carrion crow hopped from a nearby branch and landed on one of the bars. It cocked its head to one side, as though considering a thought, then craned its neck to peck something. Marius cried out in pain and the bird jerked away, launching itself into the air and taking with it a bit of Marius’s flesh.

  Marius moaned, his head on the bottom of the cage. He saw me, and his moans shaped into something resembling my name. Drawn as if by a spell, I moved closer until I was directly beneath him. I looked up, meeting his gaze. One of his eyes was obscured in shadow. No, it was missing altogether. One clear blue eye and one scabbed socket stared at me as he whimpered. I didn’t dare look down or move in case his eye was decaying at my feet.

  I twisted so I was facing Mordred, catching a glimpse of what I had taken for carrion earlier. No, not carrion. It was bits of Marius’s blood and skin and muscle torn away by animals. I took a few unsteady steps toward the hedge and vomited. When I turned back to Mordred, he was standing tall and proud, hands on his hips like some triumphant king returned from battle.

  “What is this?” was all I could think to say.

  “A gibbet,” he answered as though I’d asked what manner of animal we’d treed. “Our ancestors used them often. They provide the guilty with plenty of time to think about their crimes, while sending a strong message to anyone else who might be fool enough to cross the local leader. They say even Boudicca used them when she terrorized the Romans.” His voice reflected pride in being in such esteemed company.

  “This is not the way of Camelot. This is not our justice. This is”—I searched for the right word—“barbarous.” I scrutinized him, looking for any sign of the sweet boy I once knew. “I suppose you are the local leader with the message. Exactly what message would you send with this display of cruelty?” I gestured toward the dying priest.

  “Camelot has a new leader now. One who will not stand idly by while guilty men get away with attempted murder and treachery. The gods demand justice for his actions, and that he shall get.”

  “You,” I said slowly, “are a monster.” I wheeled around and pulled out the dagger I always wore at my side. Trying to avoid looking at Marius, who was now opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water, I followed the line of rope securing the cage in place to the base of a nearby tree and sawed at the knot.

  “What are you doing?” Mordred demanded.

  “No one should end their life this way,” I answered as the first cord snapped and the cage swayed. “No matter what they have done.”

  “You cannot free him. He will die anyway.”

  “Perhaps.” I grabbed the rope as the second cord snapped and sent the cage tilting wildly, then I fought for control as I lowered it to the ground. It hit the earth with a thud and Marius groaned. “I may not be able to save his life, nor in truth do I wish to, but I can offer him the quality that has always united Camelot and Avalon—mercy.”

  Mordred did not move to stop me as I pried open the door of the cage. Marius’s wounds were far worse than I’d anticipated. Infected lash marks covered his back, indicating Mordred had had him tortured before throwing him in the gibbet. His skin was pocked where the birds had plucked out divots of flesh. I untied his bindings and slowly turned him over. Entrails protruded through gaps where the birds had had prolonged exposure to his body.

  Marius was beyond sense now, trying to form words that would not come.

  I placed a gentle hand on his forehead, willing him to focus on me. “Be still. Be calm. Your suffering is at an end.” Despite all of my years of hating him, my eyes welled with tears and my heart bled pity for the broken man. “I may not know your god, but I know he would not condone this. The only thing I can do for you is assure you are quickly united with him. Do you understand?”

  Marius’s eye locked on mine and he whimpered. As I had on more battlefields than I could count, I took that for agreement.

  “May your god be merciful to you. Leave this world in peace.” I drew my blade swiftly across his throat, a trickle of red following in its wake.

  He was so weakened, it took but a moment for Marius to breathe his last.

  I wiped the blade on the grass, finding no vindication in his death, only a growing hatred of Arthur’s son. “Do what you will with his body, but know this. If you string him up again, you honor his soul by allowing his bones to be picked clean and bleached by the sun, rather than rotting in a grave. That is the tradition of our ancestors.”

  The bishop’s death only added to the rising anxiety of Camelot’s people. Christian and pagan alike condemned the brutality with which he was treated, while fearing succumbing to the same fate under Mordred’s increasingly brutal reign. Mordred was denounced from the pulpits of the Christian churches, and his name became anathema to those of the new faith. In Camelot and across Britain, priests urged Christian citizens to rise up against the usurper who’d martyred a man of the cloth.

  I paid little heed to the clamor at first, believing it to be merely the rhetoric of rage that flares bright and hot but burns out just as quickly. We had seen such demonstrations of moral outrage before—such as when Arthur refused to either divorce me or denounce his marriage to Morgan, choosing instead to live with both of us—but they were usually words without much follow-through.

  The first sign that this time was different came on a day in early autumn, a few weeks after Lughnasa. Earlier in the day, the Combrogi had arrested a handful of men for speaking out against Mordred in the market square, and six others had been detained for blocking the path of a party of Saxons come to meet with Mordred. But now as that meeting took place, all was calm.

  I swatted a fly buzzing around my right ear, trying to pay attention to what Ida, King of the Saxons, was debating with Bors and Mordred, when a commotion in the courtyard caught my attention.

  A man pointed to the west and gave the cry we all dreaded, “Fire!”

  His voice carried clearly into the room, which erupted into chaos after a moment of stunned silence. Men and women jostled one another, some seeking immediate escape, while others crowded around the windows to try to ascertain the location of the fire.

  I ran outside, dismayed to find smoke billowing from the western tower. By the time I’d crossed the massive courtyard and made my way to the foot of the tower, fire had consumed the upper floors. A bucket brigade tried in vain to douse the blaze, but it was slow, no match for the inferno raging above.

  The hiss of flames set my palms sweating and my heart pounding. It was too soon since my own encounter with deadly flame. I fought the urge to cover my ears and cower as memories rushed at me from every side. My wrists raw from fighting the rope that bound them. The soles of my feet burning as the wood beneath them began to
catch. The sulfurous odor of my hair catching fire as I leapt onto Lancelot’s horse. I shook my head to clear it. This was not the time to give into fear. Someone could be hurt or dying and as a priestess I had a better chance of reaching them unharmed than anyone else.

  “Is anyone inside?” I yelled to the people racing around me.

  Either they did not hear or chose to ignore me.

  I tried again, asking the same question of the man directing the line of volunteers snaking inside and up into the tower. “We don’t believe so.”

  But they don’t know for sure and I can’t take the chance. Dropping my cape to the ground, I raced inside the tower, shoving aside well-meaning men who tried to stop me. They had forgotten I could control the elements and so could shield myself from the flames. I called upon Brigid as I raced up the stairs, seeking the source.

  When the heat and smoke became too much, I mentally pushed outward, creating a pocket of clean air around me in every direction. I checked each room until I reached the end of the top floor. Only my chambers and Arthur’s lay ahead, with his library above, connected by a short staircase only accessible from this room. I started to open Arthur’s door but stopped, sensing the pulsing heart of the fire within. Even with my training, entering while the fire raged unchecked would be dangerous.

  I took a deep breath and sent my senses outward, searching for the nearest clouds. They were some distance out to sea, so I had to use the breeze to coax them in this direction, but that was easily accomplished. When they appeared on the horizon, I brought them together and drew them toward me. The sky darkened rapidly, wind whipping the flames into a frenzy. I raised my arms and brought them down swiftly, unleashing a torrent of rain. The fire hissed and sputtered as it fought the water, but it eventually gave in, curling in on itself only to expire in tendrils of steam.

  Once the walls around me were no longer alight, I kicked in the charred remains of Arthur’s door. Mordred had changed the room little since moving in when he ascended power. Here and there he had made it his own—the tusk of the boar he’d killed on the day he became a man hung on one wall, and the remains of his tunics dripped from their place inside a ruined wardrobe—but for the most part, it was as I remembered.

  I ventured farther in, turning, seeking anything out of place. My gaze swept over the far side of the room, and I started. A large, black, man-shaped figure loomed from the shadows, and I swallowed down a rush of bile. If the perpetrator had been caught in here, he wouldn’t have made it out alive. I took a few cautious steps closer and breathed a sigh of relief. The bulbous shape I had taken for a head was only the charred remains of a sheep’s bladder attached to a wooden sparring dummy. I squinted. Around its neck was Arthur’s torc, now melted into the wood, and the fabric draped over the form was the tattered remains of the ceremonial cape Morgan had gifted to Mordred when Arthur acknowledged him as his son.

  My hand flew to my mouth. This thing had been dressed as Mordred and set ablaze. The fire was no accident then. This was a deliberate move against the acting king. Mordred’s life was in danger. He had to be notified.

  I stumbled down the stairs, drained from the shock and the effort of calling the rain. My shield from the fire had slowly slipped away, but I was out of danger.

  When I emerged, a furious Mordred greeted me, water pouring from his cloak. “Are you mad? Who runs into a raging fire? What were you thinking?”

  I smiled at him tiredly, leaning against one wall of the archway. “I am a priestess. I was in no danger.”

  “Are you sure?” Mordred brushed soot off of one of my cheeks and held up a burned strand of my hair. “Gods, Guinevere, I’ve already saved you from one fire.”

  I gestured to the scars on my face, arm, and leg. “Which is why I was unafraid of this one.”

  Mordred sighed heavily. “Sometimes I question the logic of Avalon in teaching you those tricks.” He shook his head. “But I guess I should be grateful. It appears the worst is over.” He gestured around us at the rain. “Will you please make this stop?”

  I closed my eyes and thanked the gods and the elements for their aid. Then I commanded the rain to cease and swept my arms out in front of me, willing the clouds to disperse. The sky cleared.

  “Mordred, you need to know something about the fire.” He looked at me expectantly, so I hurried on. “It was not an accident. I found—I found an effigy of you in your quarters. It appears to be the source of the blaze.”

  Mordred stared at me, dumbfounded. “You’re saying someone went through the trouble of building my likeness and setting it on fire in the very room where I sleep?” His voice rose in volume and tightness with each word.

  I hadn’t had time to consider the intimacy of the location. It meant that the person who did this was no stranger, but rather someone who had access to our innermost circle. Memories coursed through me of another time at Camelot, when someone had left a series of increasingly threatening notes addressed to me in private places, forcing me to live in fear. I fought back a wave of dizziness and nausea. This was different, but the feeling of violation was the same.

  “Yes,” I answered, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I am so sorry. But I thought you should be warned to be on your guard.”

  We left the volunteers to keep watch for any smoldering areas, and Mordred returned to the hall where nobles and other dignitaries were once again assembled. I slipped past, taking one of the side halls into the garden. When the door shut behind me, I breathed a sigh of relief before dashing to the stone bench beneath the apple tree at the center of the labyrinth. I collapsed upon it, finally letting go of the fear, tension, and anger that had fueled my fight against the flames.

  Though my body gave in to exhaustion within the silent lullaby of this sacred place, my mind whirled, thoughts tripping over one another like water rushing over rapids. That had been far too close a call. Someone could have been hurt or even killed. Was that the point? Was this an assassination attempt gone awry? It certainly wouldn’t be the first I had experienced, though I prayed it was the last. We were lucky that no one had been in that part of the tower when the fire began. Or had it been planned that way? It was no secret we were meeting with the Saxon leaders today. Perhaps this was more of a warning. Otherwise wouldn’t they have attacked the hall?

  Soon my spiraling thoughts eased, melted into oblivion by the morning light that filtered through the leaves of the apple tree, warming my face and slowly replenishing the well of strength within me. I dozed beneath its strong branches, grateful once again for Arthur’s thoughtful gift of a protected place where I could gather myself in times such as these.

  As I slipped in and out of sleep, I was vaguely aware of the birdsong around me. Perhaps that was why I dreamed a crow and a dove were fighting on the windowsill outside my room. But it was not the larger crow who was the aggressor. The cooing mourning dove aggressively raced at the crow, pecking at its chest, feet, anywhere it could reach. The crow cried out and I woke with a start.

  I sat up from my slumped position and looked around. Something wasn’t right. At first I thought I must still be dreaming, because the air around me was silent. Far too silent. Even the birds, whose coos and caws I had been enjoying only moments before, now refused to sing. I rubbed my arms as the tiny hairs stood at attention. Slowly, I scanned the space in front of me, ears attuned to even the slightest sound. I peered through branches and into shadows, but as far as I could tell, I was alone.

  A shiver ran through me from neck to feet. It was time to return to the hall.

  I had just emerged from beneath the canopy of the tree when a shadow moved on the outer wall. Someone was there. I could make out the silhouette of a man but did not dare move closer for a better look. A brief spark of light illuminated his face. It was one of the deacons from the Grail Castle. Before I could call out to him, he threw something toward me. It landed with the crash of shattering clay within the boug
hs of the apple tree. The upper branches burst into flames. Stifling a scream, I raced for the door leading into the castle.

  “Run! There is another fire in the garden,” I called to those inside. Following them toward the main entrance, I met up with Sobian. “Find Grainne and Morgan. I am too weak yet to douse this fire myself. They will be able to help.”

  She nodded and scurried off, but help never came. Eventually, word reached me that Grainne was still in Carlisle and no one could locate Morgan. By the time they did, it was too late. We had prevented the fire from spreading, but the labyrinth and gardens were destroyed.

  As dusk fell, Mordred took me out on the walls to watch as a group of people in chains were herded into the courtyard below.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Those responsible for today’s fires.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They admitted as much when my men found them. Christians to a one, they rejoiced, shouting that Camelot’s last bastion of hell—your pagan labyrinth—was destroyed.” He reached into a pouch at his waist and produced a broken piece of clay that looked like the neck of a bottle. “We found this among the ashes. It appears to be part of a bottle that was filled with oil. They stoppered it with an alcohol-soaked rag, which was lit on fire. When it broke against the trunk of the tree, it spread flaming oil everywhere.”

  From below, voices raised in protest as the guards led the perpetrators into the cells.

  “You cannot arrest us for doing the Lord’s work,” yelled a bearded man I assumed was the rabble’s leader. “We act in the name of King Arthur!”

  “How can they claim to be working for Arthur when they have destroyed part of his capital and his home?” I asked.

  Mordred rubbed the back of his neck. “They are also, apparently, organized against me. They don’t like that I am a pagan. If they are the same group that burned that dummy, they don’t like that I live either.”