CHAPTER 38

Lady, lady, he’s back! There’s a page from the knights’ quarters with a message. A stranger from Little Britain craves your—”

Ina, Ina, do I care?

How many days had she spent living with the contant stabbing thought of Lancelot’s betrayal, yet having to smile and talk as if nothing were amiss? How many nights of endlessly prowling the floor, flinching at shadows, snapping at Ina, then weeping in her arms?

And all the time her anger with him grew.

“It can’t be, lady,” Ina protested, tight-lipped. Through it all, she believed in her lady’s knight as fervently as she loved Guenevere. “He can’t be married, not Sir Lancelot.”

“Why not?” Guenevere snarled. “Is he the first man to lie and betray? I’m sure she’s soft and sweet, and never contradicts a word he says.” She gave a hysterical laugh. “And she can’t be more than nineteen. Why should he be faithful to an old witch like me?”

She knew she was hurting Ina when she spoke like this. But not as much as she hurt herself.

It seemed to her now that her love for Lancelot had been almost alchemically pure before he had polluted it. Now it was poisoned, he had killed her love, and with it her hopes for the future, her reason to live.

And Arthur, too, had wounded her this way, first when his folly had cost Amir his life, and then when he took his sister to his bed. Now Lancelot had betrayed her as Arthur had. She thought she had suffered when Arthur loved Morgan. But nothing before had been as bad as this.

Guenevere wrapped her arms across her stomach to hold down the gnawing pain. Her body won’t have the marks of childbearing; she’ll be lithe and firm. And a virgin too, so she’ll think he’s wonderful. Wouldn’t any man choose a woman like that, soft and undemanding, easily satisfied, above a partnership of equals, with its constant wrestling of body and soul?

On her love-finger she still wore the ring he had given her, a pure-water moonstone of mystical silver-blue. But the comfort it gave her had departed now. On her left hand she bore the burden of her wedding ring. The heavy hoop of gold was a torment too.

He’s going to marry her, Gawain said. Well, she’ll want that, any girl would.

But Goddess, Mother, married? She was gasping now, tears sprouting with every breath. Yes, he’ll marry her, he’ll be with her, and I’ll be all alone...

In the end, her nature could not continue in such pain. She passed from numbness to indifference, then felt nothing at all. So when a glowing Ina slipped up to her in her chamber, moon-eyed and pink-cheeked, she did not care.

“My lady, he’s coming!” Ina breathed. Her wide-set eyes were gleaming with their Otherworldly light. “Now we’ll know the truth.”

Will we?

Guenevere turned away. The candles had burned down. It was hours since she had left Arthur and his knights reveling in the hall, and climbed the steps to seek refuge in her tower. There she had bathed her temples with patchouli, her mother’s long-beloved sweet musky scent, and lit fresh candles in bowls of rosewater and lime. Then she had moved in a cloud of soothing fragrance into the window to read the faraway stars. She was at peace in her own domain. Why should she bother now?

“Ina, say it’s too late—”

But Ina was already at the door.

“A traveler from Little Britain,” she announced loudly as she showed him in.

Standing in the window, Guenevere heard the words with a shrug of disregard. Once they had needed to be careful when he came to her chamber alone. But now it no longer mattered what the guards thought.

“This way, sir.” Her heart in her eyes, Ina disappeared behind the closing door.

Lancelot came in, and a chill of fear brushed his heart. Guenevere stood with her back to him across the chamber, looking out into the night. Before, she would have run to meet him and thrown herself into his arms. Now all he could see was a column of blood-red silk, and a veil of pale gauze covering her hair. Her familiar fragrance reached him like a new dimension of pain, and a ring of frozen stars danced around her head. She has heard it all, came to him like a curse. And she believes the worst.

He shrugged off his traveling cloak and threw it on a chair. “My lady,” he said.

“Your lady?” She whirled around, pouncing like a snake. Her eyes were glittering. “Not anymore, Lancelot, from what I hear.”

He stiffened. “Madame, allow me, I can explain—”

She had always loved his lightly accented voice. The girl from Astolat must have loved it too. “Oh, I’m sure you can, Lancelot,” she said with savage emphasis. “You’ve always been able to speak up for yourself.”

He stared, confused by her hostility. “Is that wrong? Surely a knight should be able to speak to a lady, even a queen?”

Goddess, Mother, how dare he! Her frail control collapsed. “Oh, I hear you gave a very good account of yourself while you were away! Sir Gawain says you have a new love. Her brothers call you brother, and you wore her favor at the tournament.”

His heart, his stomach clenched. “How did you know this?” he managed.

“Gawain saw you! He saw it all.”

“Gawain—” He shook his head. “I did not know he was there.”

“Evidently!” She took a gulping breath. “So! Is she as young and lovely as they say? Is she an heiress, Lancelot? Will she be rich?”

Lancelot shook his head. He had never before seen Guenevere like this. But still it never occurred to him to lie. “She is the heiress of all Astolat.”

“Ha!” Guenevere drew in her breath with a hiss. “And a beauty too, they say?” She gave a brittle laugh. “She must be, or they would not call her fair.”

She paced away and covered her eyes with her hands. Only moments before he came, you thought you did not care. And now?

Now I hate him! Now I can’t bear him, his brown eyes burning in his long, pale face, that body of his that she must have enjoyed too—

She clutched a hand to her head. Her eyes grew dim. She saw Lancelot lying in bed in a quiet white room. She saw his body stripped and then covered, tended, and stripped again by unknown hands. Night fell, and she saw a slender shape steal into the room. Then it was dawn, and she watched the girl slip out. But a fragrance, an aura lingered with pervasive force. Guenevere came to herself choking on pink and white.

“Madame?”

Lancelot was gripping her by the forearms, staring into her eyes. She gasped, and recoiled from him. “You have, haven’t you?” she spat.

“What, madame?”

“Made love to her! You have, I know, I’ve seen it!”

His eyes flared. “You see nothing but your own jealousy!”

“My jealousy? Not your treachery?” she cried.

Lancelot stepped back from her, and took a breath. “This is madness, lady.”

“Tell me the truth! I know you’ve married her!” A red rage was sweeping her like a storm. “Wedded her, bedded her, call it what you like. Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

“Madame.”

At last he felt his anger rising to answer hers. The French rhythms of his speech had never been more pronounced. “I speak your language well enough to speak the truth. I am not married, and not likely to be.”

“Oh, so?” She gave a scornful laugh.

He gritted his teeth and pressed on. “And I bedded no one. The maid of Astolat is a pure virgin for me.”

“You say that? When you wore her favor in the tournament? When all the world knew you were pledged to her?”

“She begged a favor before I could refuse. I never gave her my pledge.”

“Why should you owe her a favor?”

“She saved my life. I came to her house with a wound that would not heal. For months she took care of me as I lay in bed, day and night.”

The image of Lancelot in bed with the girl at his side came back to her again with all the force of a blow. “It must have been good to be ill,” she burst out, “to be nursed like that!”

“Gods above, enough!” He bounded forward, and gripped her by the wrists. “Why do you say these things and make us both suffer so? It was you who sent me away, and I left my heart with you. Yet the first gossip you hear, I am a liar, I am untrue!”

She turned her head toward him as if caught in a bad dream. “Words, words.”

“You are my lady! I am your knight. That means I am pledged to you.” He gave a scornful laugh. “To you! And you taunt me with being pledged to her, when—?” When you are married to the King, and sleep in his bed, he might have said, but could not. He shook his head, and turned toward the door. “I will leave you, lady. I have no stomach for your jealousy.”

“This girl—” She changed course with brutal suddenness. “This Elaine—she loved you, yes? Did you know?”

Lancelot gritted his teeth. “Madame—”

She assumed a lighter tone. “I want to know.”

He drew a breath. He should tell her the truth; he had nothing to fear. “When we met, she was very kind to me. I was sick in bed, and she was with me a lot.”

She tensed imperceptibly. So it was true. A throbbing pulse picked up on the side of her head.

Lancelot paused, his senses suddenly alert. “There was nothing in it. There’s really nothing to say.”

“No no, go on, it’s fine, I want to know.”

He wanted to believe her. “Then after that, she was always quiet when she saw me, and would sit by my bed and never say a word.”

“She was a quiet girl, then?” Her voice was calm, but the beating of her mind was growing faster as she spoke.

“Quiet and gentle,” he said unwarily.

“And pretty too?”

“Oh, yes. She’s a beautiful girl.”

“And kind and loving toward you?”

He did not see the pit his words had dug. “Always.”

“You did go to her bed!” She trembled in a panic of distress.

He felt an answering impulse of pure terror. “No, madame!”

“Or she came to yours!” she howled. “Did she seduce you? Who made the first move?”

He turned to face her. “No one! Listen to me!”

But the madness was running unchecked through her body now, drowning out her brain. She saw again the lean frame she had so much loved, and her smiling rival drifting up to his bed.

“No more, Lancelot!” she screamed. All her life’s loss and grief were in her cry. “You have betrayed me. You’re a faithless man. You’ve killed our love, Lancelot. You have to go!”

Fear flooded him. “Lady, let me speak—”

She was panting so hard that she could hardly breathe. “Get out.” She pointed a quivering finger toward the door. “Go!”

She is mad, he thought. He tried to take her hands. “My Queen, we should—”

She broke away and struck him in the face. “Go!” she screeched. “Don’t you see I hate you for what you’ve done?”

He drew into himself, hurt beyond thought, beyond speech. “So, madame,” he forced out at last, “if this is your will, I go. Till tomorrow, then, I kiss your hand.”

“Not till tomorrow!” she howled. “No more tomorrows, no more after today!”

He could not believe her. “I am not your tame falcon, lady,” he began angrily, “to be sent away, then whistled back as soon as you change your mind. I am—”

Her heart, her mind were breaking all at once. “I know who you are. And you’re nothing to me now. Get out!”

His face was set like stone. “Have a care, madame!”

Her voice dropped to a piercing hiss. “I mean it, Lancelot. Go, and don’t come back. You’re banished from the court, from the Summer Country, from my love. Get out, now! ”

He turned and left the room. Her last words were still ringing in his head as he slammed the door and started down the steps.

“Go! I never want to see you again!”