CHAPTER 28

“And then to see the King coming toward us, with Kay and all the others on his heels!” Lionel laughed, his bright young face creased with delight. “How we got ast them, I swear I’ll never know!”

“Hush,” Bors said uneasily, glancing around. Even in the heart of the forest, he feared the trees had ears. He looked up the track to the Queen and Lancelot riding ahead. Who could tell if they might not overhear, however absorbed in each other they looked now?

He drew a deep breath. What was he fretting about? It was not as if Lionel was laughing at the lovers’ desperate plight. Ina too was out of earshot, trailing behind in a world of her own. And it had all been weeks, no, months ago now. He summoned up a laugh. “It was a rare adventure, without a doubt.”

Lionel looked at him with a younger brother’s love. “How you came up with the idea of getting Lancelot out of the Queen’s chamber dressed as a monk, I’ll never know.”

Bors shrugged. “It came to me as soon as you said, ‘The King listens to his monks.’ Those robes of theirs make a perfect disguise. The King himself wouldn’t be recognized in one of them.”

“And then you said, ‘The spirit of brotherhood is our only hope,’ ” Lionel exulted, “but I still didn’t understand what you meant.”

Bors smiled. “Well, I knew if two Christian brothers could get in to see the Queen, two could come out. The rest fell into place.”

Lionel nodded, his smile fading away. “The Gods were with us,” he said soberly.

“They were.”

Silently the two shared the grim memory of that spring night, beginning with the raid on the monks’ quarters to purloin the robes. Then there was the fearsome business of getting past the Captain who guarded the Queen’s door. The final scare, when the guard had noticed their most un-Christian boots beneath their monkish robes, still made Bors sweat.

And even when they gained the safety of the Queen’s chamber, two monks entering meant that only two could come out. So while Lancelot donned the monkish habit that Bors had brought in concealed under his own robe, Lionel, habit and all, had climbed out through the window to make his escape. The risk he had taken was the greatest of all three, since all the court was likely to be awake with the King. But Lionel was known as a blameless youth, who meant no more to the Queen than any other knight. If he had been caught slipping around the Queen’s tower dressed as a monk, he would have been taken for a Maytime prankster, nothing more. His name, his presence would never compromise Guenevere.

But Lancelot—

Bors gritted his teeth. The horses were picking their way softly through the shining shadows on the path, and the midday sun trickled lazily through the trees. The autumnal smell of the forest enveloped them in its rich, sad scent of nature in decay. In other company, in another place, his soul would be reveling in beauty such as this.

But now—

Painfully Bors acknowledged that he did not understand his cousin anymore. Even trapped in the Queen’s chamber with the King on the way, Lancelot had laughed at the danger, and kissed the Queen like a man who would choose to die in her arms rather than save all their lives. Since then, Lancelot had not seen the Queen at all. For safety’s sake, the lovers had kept apart.

Then at dawn today, Lancelot had called Bors and Lionel to leave Camelot with him, and take the road north. Three hours after that, the Queen and Ina had ridden south. At a certain point, both parties had turned west to meet in the forest, in the heart of the deep green shade.

But for what? Bors felt his helplessness rising like bile. For the Queen to do nothing but weep, and heap angry reproaches on Lancelot’s silent head? Don’t listen to her, Lancelot, Bors prayed silently. Put an end to this; tell her you must go.

Tell her, Lancelot.

The low sound of Guenevere’s voice wove in and out of the branches overhead. Lancelot listened in moody silence till it died away. Then he looked at her, wild-eyed with disbelief. “You’re telling me I have to go away?”

“Yes.”

“And not see you again?”

Never again.

Guenevere turned her head. Beside the track grew a tree laden with ivy, its pale berries sprouting balefully beneath the glossy leaves. For the rest of her life she could never look at ivy without the memory of that pain.

“You must go, Lancelot,” she said stiffly. “We both know that.”

“You are angry with me because I left you alone all this time.” Strong emotion made his accent more pronounced. “But we had to be careful, we were nearly caught—”

“No.”

Why did she feel so bleak, so cold, so old? “No, I was not angry that you did not come. It was for the best.”

“Agravain,” he said suddenly.

She turned to him with a start. “What?”

“That morning, when I came late to meet the King, he spoke to me.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me if I had good hunting, nothing more.”

“Agravain?”

Unexpectedly she felt her eyes stinging and the furious grief starting up again. She straightened her back. No tears. “You think he suspects?”

“I thought he had noticed something. He was trying to test me out.”

“Ha!” She gave a short unhappy laugh. “All the more reason then for you to go.”

He shook his head. “You blame me, madame,” he persisted. “I do not want to leave because of that.”

“I told you no.” Can’t you see that I blame myself? That I can’t bear this guilt, this grief, this pain? “We can’t go on like this. We have to think of Arthur, not of ourselves.”

“Gods above, yes!” he groaned, covering his eyes with his hand. “I swore an oath to love and honor the King. And instead I take his wife behind his back, and dishonor him.”

“It’s not dishonor! Our love is above the honor code of men!”

“But that’s all I have, don’t you see?” he ground out. “Since I was fifteen, I have lived that life. To serve King Arthur is every young knight’s dream, and it was mine.”

“So you love Arthur more than you love me?”

He gasped with rage. “All this time, I have broken my vows for you. I have waited and endured, lived without hope. And still you reproach me with my lack of love.” He shook his head. “You were right, madame,” he said harshly under his breath. “It is time for me to go.”

She could not bear it. “Where?”

The look he turned on her was cold and blank. “Does it matter, as long as I am not here?”

“Of course it matters!” Gods above, what was wrong with him? “I want to know what you’ll do, where you’ll be...” And who will love you, when I am not there.

He threw her a glance. “You do not trust me,” he said with a savage laugh. “Already you see lovers in my bed!”

“I do not!”

“No matter.” His face was like marble now. “I must go, and I will. We must part.”

There was a silence in the forest as if all life had fled. Lancelot drew a ragged breath, and lifted his head with unconscious authority. “I am the son of a king, and I would have made you my queen. As it is, we can have less than the shepherd and the milkmaid in the fields. I have loved you more than anything in the world. But I was not born to love a married woman who will never be free.”

“Lancelot, I—”

“No more words. I go, madame, as soon as I speak to the King.”

He looked up. On either side of the track the trees were thinning as the path wound uphill toward a crossroads ahead. Across the skyline ran the broad highway leading back to Camelot.

In a silence like death, they mounted to the parting of the ways.

Lancelot reached for her hand, and pressed it to his lips. “Farewell, madame.”

She could not speak. He gave a broken smile, then swung his riding whip, pointing down the hill. “To Camelot, my Queen. There lies your way.”