CHAPTER 39

The antechamber to the King’s apartments was dull and devoid of life. The gray light of a late winter afternoon played over the groups of people waiting for the King to return, and lost itself in the shadows of the aloof. A few of the bystanders talked quietly among themselves. But where Bors and Lionel waited by the door the silence was almost too deep to break.

Lionel stared at the walls, gazed out through the window, and finally studied his feet. “We should have gone with the King,” he said at last.

Bors glanced around the room and found no relief from Lionel’s reproach. He knew they should not be idling away here among the grim-faced monks and sad-eyed lords too old for the hunt. They should have joined the laughing, shouting band that had streamed out joyfully in the winter dawn.

He nodded a weary assent.

Lionel pressed on. “And we should have stopped Lancelot from going straight to the Queen.”

Bors gave a savage laugh. “Or at least warned him how angry she might be.”

“He thought she would understand if he told her the truth.”

“The truth?” Bors smiled bitterly to himself. “She’s not interested in the truth. She believes whatever she wants to believe. She’s out of her mind!”

“Brother, you don’t mean—”

“How else to explain her sending him away?” Bors’ face darkened at the thought, and he could not contain his rage. “Think of it! A prince of Benoic to be banished like some evildoing wretch? A king’s son to be discarded like a servant who gives offense?”

Lionel glanced uneasily around. Nearby was a group of earnest monks, farther off a cluster of knights and aged lords. Some of their ancient ladies were there too, and mischief-making kept them all alive. Any of them might overhear Bors’ complaint. In a royal antechamber, even the walls had ears.

He lowered his voice. “He loved her too well,” he said placatingly.

“D’you call it love?” Bors spat. His eyes narrowed. “Sometimes I think she must be a witch. How else—?”

Lionel straightened up, stretched his long legs, and looked over his brother’s head. His clear gray eyes were veiled with a secret thought. He knew why men loved the Queen. He could have told Bors why their cousin was moved to the depths of his soul by the sight of her hand lifting her veil, by the tragic shadows around her mobile mouth, by her ever-youthful ways and her age-old soul. And he knew, too, why Bors, dutiful and precise, could never admire Guenevere.

But Bors did not have to hate her, as he did now. Lionel flinched. Hate was not the word. Bors loathed Guenevere for her treatment of Lancelot.

Their silence now was filled with private pain. Bors cursed himself. He did not want to go out hunting with the King. Yet least of all did he want to be in a dull chamber on a winter afternoon, waiting for him.

He raised his head as a cry came at the door.

“The hunt is back. Make way for the King and his knights!”

There was a flurry of cries and commands, and Arthur strode through the doors, tossing his cloak and gauntlets to a servant as he came. “Thank you, good sir!” he said. “And come—wine for my knights and guests—give them good cheer!”

He was glowing from his day in the saddle, bright-eyed and welcoming. “Greetings to you all,” he cried. He smiled on all, and gestured expansively. “Fill your glasses, come!”

He always did this, brightening a room as soon as he came in, Bors noted with an upsurge of love. When Arthur entered, the flames leaped up on the hearth, and the torches danced in their sconces to keep them company.

“Sir Niamh, you should have been with us—you too, Sir Lovell—”

Arthur moved across to the aged knights, greeting the graybeards tenderly, one by one. A bevy of scribes and councilors entered with the day’s missives and papers for him to sign. Behind them the knights tumbled noisily through the door, jostling one another like bullocks in a pen, reliving the day’s hunt.

Sir Gawain and his brothers were at the head of the troop. Gawain fetched Agravain a boisterous clout across the back. “Don’t look so bad-tempered, Agravain!” he crowed. “You missed the boar, but Gaheris got him in the end.”

He gave the grinning Gaheris a push that sent him spinning into Gareth, who, for all his bulk, was giggling like a girl.

“Lords, lords! Is this good behavior to show before the King?”

It was one of the clerics waiting to see Arthur. Gods above! Gawain swore to himself in a fury. How dared he address them like this? He turned to face the source of the rebuke. Clad all in black, with a huddle of monks on his heels, the gowned figure loomed like a column of basalt in the shadowed hall. The stink of stale incense and candle grease wafted ahead of him like a bad prayer, and he exuded an air of great holiness. But behind the lofty gaze and domed forehead lay a brain like a hunting knife, Gawain knew. Not to me, you don’t, he seethed in silence. None of your pious Christian lectures to me!

“Away the Orkneys!” he announced abruptly, turning on his heel. Startled, his three brothers followed without a word.

Gawain crossed to Arthur to take his leave. “My lord, we shall see you at dinner in the hall.”

“Before you go, Gawain...”

Arthur was flourishing a letter, wreathed in smiles. “I have good news for you. Your mother has written to beg a visit from her sons. And I intend to give you leave to go.”

“Sire?” Gawain was stupefied. Behind him Agravain stood in tense silence, while Gareth and Gaheris exchanged glances of surprise and joy.

“Your mother, Queen Morgause,” Arthur repeated with a smile. “She wants to see you, and I know you must want to see her.”

“Of course,” Gawain agreed hastily. He had to admit that his mother had been far from his mind, but now a host of cheerful memories flooded in. Long days of hunting through the golden Orkney air. White nights of reveling with the Queen’s knight companions, mighty drinkers to a man. A world where his mother was queen, and he was every man and woman’s future king.

Gawain felt himself expand and grow. Yes, a return to the Orkneys would do very well. He gave an elaborate bow. “The Orkneys, eh? You are gracious, sire. My brothers and I will gladly take leave to go. In the meantime, we shall attend you in the Hall.”

He bowed himself out, and his brothers followed suit.

There was a moment of silence after they had left. The Father Abbot pursed his lips in a cold smile. Gone, were they? So may all heathen shrivel in the fire of truth. And so may I separate the King from all his benighted kin, when they stand between him and the Lord as these Orkney louts do.

And so shall I part them all from the Great Whore. When I speak to the King—

“Father Abbot!”

He came to himself with a start. Arthur was standing before him, clasping his hand with delight. “I did not see you there! What, have you come all the way from London without sending word? The Queen and I would have sent out a troop of knights to welcome you, if we had known.”

The Queen? the Abbot mused dispassionately. No, he could never think of the concubine as a Queen. God alone knew why Arthur ever took a daughter of these pagans as his wife, when there were Christian princesses to be had. Surely he’d known that the women of the Summer Country gave their bodies like beasts, and offered their so-called thigh-friendship wherever they willed? But he had chosen her, and now he called her his Queen. Let him call her what he liked. To a man of God, she would never be more than a whore.

And this whore would never welcome him in Camelot. The Father Abbot stiffened along the length of his spine. Had he ever believed that he would find himself here in the stronghold of the Mother Goddess, almost in the arms of the Great Whore herself? No, in truth he had not—but such was the wonder of God’s plan. Already His soldiers were taking Avalon. Now Arthur would be apprised of their progress there. When they had succeeded in getting the Holy Grail, only time would be needed to bring Camelot down.

Time, Lord. Give me time.

“You are gracious, sire.” The Abbot forced his thin lips into a smile. “But I need no special welcome to do God’s work. A while ago, I begged you to spare the House of the Little Sisters of Mercy from the vengeance of Sir Yvain, when his grief at his father’s death made him want to put the whole nunnery to the sword. You spared their lives, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now you’ll rejoice to know that the convent is whole again.”

Arthur paused. “How can you be sure?” he demanded uneasily.

The Abbot treated him to a confident smile. “I found a spiritual father whose loving care has redeemed his tainted flock. And he has been favored, he tells me, in the help of a new young nun, a true child of God.”

The Abbot paused. Now what was the nun’s name? He laid a bony finger on the side of his sunken cheek. Gaynor, Gannor, what was she called?

A faint chill seized him. Suddenly he knew that he had to tell Arthur the name. Help me, God! He berated his lagging brain. His mind threw up a pair of dark eyes in a long, pale face, a long, thin body, and a long, mulberry-colored mouth. What was her name?

A growing urgency seized him, for a reason he could not tell. But it came to him with a force he could not deny that Arthur should know, must know of Sister—who?

But Arthur was not disposed for any further discussion on the theme.

“So, then,” he said brusquely, “the convent prospers? Good! Our brothers and sisters in Christ do well, it seems. I am glad to hear it.”

The Abbot smiled again. “Thank you, sire. Now I must beg your attention to another matter too. On Avalon—”

“My lord, my lord!”

It was the chamberlain, hurrying in with a face of sorrow and dread. “Oh, sire,” he gasped, “there’s a terrible thing come floating down the river. It’s at the water’s edge. They’re calling for you there, sir, will you come?”

HURRY, HURRY. Show that you don’t care.

Guenevere lengthened her stride as she hastened across the courtyard through the dusk. She could see her own breath making plume after plume in the frozen, starlit air. With every breath, she could feel knives of ice in her lungs. But the cold outside was nothing to the chill within. She shuddered, and feared she might vomit with distress.

“We must get to the Great Hall, Ina. The stewards will be ordering the dining by now.”

“My lady?” Ina struggled to throw a woolen wrap over Guenevere’s shoulders as she hurried along.

“Thank you, Ina.” Guenevere shivered, and burrowed into the cloak. “We’re late,” she said forlornly. “And it’s so cold.”

“Once we’re inside the Great Hall, madam, you’ll be as warm as your heart could desire.”

But the Great Hall loomed cold and silent as they drew near. The great bronze doors were standing back on their hinges, and not a soul was within. The fires had all died down, and the lofty space was empty of its welcoming throng.

A noise in the corner made Guenevere freeze with fear.

“Lady?” came a thick, distorted voice.

“Ina!” The hairs stood up on her neck, but she could not scream.

“It’s all right, lady,” said Ina’s voice, low and calm. Guenevere forced herself to turn around.

It was the son of one of the servants, a boy she had always known. He was a natural, one of the simple souls the Fair Ones called their own. His overlarge head, coarsely thatched with corn-colored hair, lolled on his shoulders, and his tongue hung from his mouth as he peered out excitedly from behind his hands.

Ina approached him and took his hands down from his face. He gave her a peg-toothed grin and crowed like a cock.

“Where are all the people, boy?” Ina asked briskly, patting his hands. “Where’s the King and the court?”

“Haroo!” he chortled in his strange thick tongue. “Down at the river, where the lady is.”

“What lady?” Guenevere did not know the sound of her own voice. But she could feel the onset of a sick fear.

He wriggled, and scratched himself front and back. “The lady in the river.” His round eyes swelled. “Go see! Go see!”

Ina laughed uncertainly. “He’s a simpleton, lady, poor thing. What does he know?”

Guenevere could hardly speak. “He knows something.”

“The river!” he hooted. “The river. See! Go see.”

WHY WERE THEY all at the river? Leaning on Ina’s arm, Guenevere hurried down Camelot’s winding streets and out through the water meadows toward the crowd clustered at the river’s edge. The dense throng of courtiers and townsfolk parted as she drew near. What are they looking at? Her nerves were on fire.

A long black barge lay at the water’s edge, draped in mourning silks of the same funereal shade. Arthur stood beside it in tears, his hand covering his eyes.

In the barge lay the body of a young woman, in a long gown of black. Her arms were crossed on her breast, and her hands held a parchment in a bold black script. Beneath her black headdress her hair tumbled down, golden like the end of summer sun. Traces of beauty still lingered in her face. But she was far beyond her earthly beauty now.

“May I, sire?”

Sir Kay gestured toward the letter on the lady’s breast. As Arthur nodded, he reached forward and drew it out.

“Read,” Arthur said.

Kay unfolded the black-lettered script. His sharp tones filled the hollow evening air. “ ‘I loved Sir Lancelot, but he would not return my love. I begged his favor, but what I wanted he could not give. Queen Guenevere is the lodestar of his life. My days are done, for I have no wish to live in a world where he is not. While I lived, I was called the Fair Maid of Astolat. But I die as poor Elaine, forlorn for Lancelot’s love.’ ”

Kay finished reading and handed the letter to the King. Guenevere ran forward and took it from his hand, although the sight of it scorched her eyes. Madly she read the words again and again, though already they were branded on her heart.

“Guenevere is the lodestar of his life.”

As you were of mine, my love, yet I sent you away.

The stink of her own betrayal rose to overwhelm her every sense. She gave one agonized scream and fell to the ground.