Risa clasped the hated necklace on over the red-and-gold silk tunic. She draped the veil over Guinevere’s head and tied her sandals.
“Modred doesn’t want anyone to see me limping,” Guinevere said dully. “He’s sending a chair for me, with bearers. A curtained sedan chair! I’ll feel like a fool.”
“I knew he was working up to declaring himself emperor,” Risa sneered. “You’ll be dripping wet in that box.”
She was. Modred handed her down from it and then had to wait while she regained her balance. He made as if to help her into the chapel, but it was more as if he feared she would somehow manage to get away, even then.
Father Antonius rushed through the Mass, stumbling on the old Latin and dropping the chalice after mixing the water and wine, so that he had to start again. Finally it was over. Modred had huge casks of beer opened for the soldiers. Morgause kissed Guinevere coldly. She gave Modred one also and whispered loudly, “I’ll be in my rooms later tonight, dearest.”
Guinevere fervently hoped Modred would be there, too.
She tried to stay at dinner as long as possible, but with a laugh echoed by his friends Modred swept her up and carried her to her room. He deposited her on the bed and began to remove his clothes.
“Hurry up!” he told her. “I’m not interested in waiting.”
She made one last plea.
“I’m your uncle’s widow, Modred. How can you do this? It’s like incest!”
To her astonishment, Modred began to laugh so hard that he collapsed into a chair.
“Guinevere, you can’t know how little that means to me! Incest is an old family custom. It’s a pity you can’t ask my mother. She knew all about it. Arthur, too. Your good and precious husband wasn’t above getting a son on his own sister. Shall I tell you his name, or can you guess?”
She shrunk away from him in horror. For some reason, she knew he wasn’t lying.
“Dear Lord! You tell me you’re his son and you expect me to lie with you? I’ll never let you touch me, Modred, never.”
“That’s all right my dear. I like rape.”
He blew out the light and came to the bed.
“I won’t scream,” she told herself. “He won’t make me scream and he won’t make me cry.”
She struck out at him, but he only grabbed her arm and twisted it high over her head. He took her other arm and held it hard against the bed. Then he pushed his knee between her legs, oblivious to her writhing.
“This is going to be fun,” he said, his eyes glittering. “For you, Father, all for you.”
Guinevere’s mind went numb as ice. She could only think, over and over again, “Stop him, please, somebody stop him.”
But, as she had expected, nobody did.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was a ragged and exhausted man who stood before Arthur at his camp in Armorica scarcely two weeks after his departure from Camelot. Aulan had never been across the sea and the new land he was in frightened him. But he knew that such a tale had to be brought at once and personally for anyone to believe it. Even then, it had been hard to make the King understand.
“Modred?” he repeated. “But he’s my . . . It can’t be! I trusted him! There must be some other explanation. What of the messengers I’ve been sending back each week? And the ones he’s sent me? When do you say you first heard of my death?”
“Almost two months ago, Sir,” Aulan replied. "There’s been no word that I know of since then. At least, that’s what the Lady Lydia told me.”
“Lydia! She’s safe?” Cei broke in.
“Yes, at Cameliard with all the other women and children. Only Queen Guinevere and her maid stayed behind.”
Cei let out a long breath of relief. Arthur leaned forward.
“I have received a message from Modred every week since we left. The last one came only yesterday. Is the man still here, Cei?”
“No, he asked for a fresh horse and left this morning, with our letters.”
Arthur chewed the corner of his mouth. “How can this be? It’s too hideous to be true.”
Aulan was impatient in his fear. “Please believe me, Sir. All Britain believes you to be dead and by your wishes or no, Sir Modred has filled Camelot with hired soldiers and, when I left, he planned to marry the Queen. I came here only hoping to find Sir Cei or Sir Constantine and beg them to come back with me to fight him. You can’t know how I felt when I saw you here, alive.”
“Yes. I understand. But Modred! Gawain always warned me, but it didn’t seem possible. Of all the men I trusted . . . And Guinevere! How could she marry him?”
“Risa told me, Sir. You mustn’t blame the Queen. She did it to save the others. They were scared still when they got to Cameliard, partly of the soldiers but also, some of them told me, scared of something bad at Camelot. They didn’t know what, but they didn’t want to stay there. They felt like they were being trapped inside it.”
The color drained from Arthur. He looked a hundred years old.
“Cei! Get all the men loyal to us together at once! Tell them we are leaving for home tonight! Constantine! Find King Hoel and explain the situation. Tell him I’ll meet with him later today. We can’t leave him stranded.”
“Sir Constantine?” Aulan stopped him. “It may not be the time, but you might want to know that the Lady Letitia gave birth a little over a month ago.”
Constantine stopped. “Letitia? She’s all right?”
“Was when I left, Sir,” Aulan answered, dropping into the vernacular. “And the baby, a fine big boy. The whole tribe of ’em’s so proud, you’d think they invented him. She says he has your ears and I’d have to agree, if you don’t mind my saying it.”
Constantine rubbed his ear with a slow foolish grin. Then he remembered his mission.
“Thank you! Aulan, is it? Thank you!” He left at a run. They could hear him hollering the news to his friends on the way.
Arthur, watching him go, felt as if someone were turning a knife in his gut.
“Yet a new life is wonderful," he told himself. “Another generation to carry on. Someone should have a son to be proud of. I have to stop Modred. Even if everything in my own life is ruined, he has to be vanquished for their sakes.”
But the knife kept turning.
• • •
As soon as Modred left the next morning, Risa crept in. She found Guinevere, half hysterical, huddled on the floor. She crouched down beside her, pushed the hair back and began sponging off her face. Guinevere moaned and tried to bury her face again.
“I know, darling, I know,” Risa murmured. “Let me help you, dear. A wash is what you need first and something clean to wear. I’d take you down to the baths but it would mean us having to pass all of them, staring at you.”
“No!”
“Of course not. We won’t leave here. I’ve brought you food, too. Here, Guinevere dear. I won’t leave you. He doesn’t know how I feel about him. Come, dear, give me your arm. That’s right. I’ll take care of you. There’ll be bruises there. My poor dear! That wicked, wicked man!”
“Oh, Risa,” Guinevere sobbed. “I tried to stop him. I thought I could get away. I didn’t know I was so weak! No one ever hurt me before!”
“Hush, hush! I know, dear. But listen to me. I sent Aulan for help. You’ve got to hold on. I know they’ll come.”
“But they didn’t come!” Guinevere’s voice rose.
She started crying again, and Risa just held and rocked her until she quieted. She kept up a litany of cursing, starting with Modred and what she’d do to him and surging out to include all men for all time. Her fluency was so amazing that Guinevere was shocked into silence.
“Risa?” she asked after a long time. “This has happened to other women, too?”
“Yes. Over and over.”
“How do they survive?”
“Some don’t,” Risa answered shortly, still too full of hatred to consider her words. “Some are killed; some kill themselves. Some go mad. But you won’t,” she added quickly. “You’re stronger than that. You can survive.”
“Can I? I never felt less strong in my life. That’s even worse than the pain. It was knowing that there was nothing I could do! And he’ll be back again, tonight! Risa, I think I’m going to throw up again.”
When she had finished, Risa sponged her face and neck once more. There was a look on Guinevere’s face she’d never seen before. Risa clenched her teeth. She had been with her lady since they were children and she had always been filled with awe and a little envy at the way life had managed with no apparent effort to keep her safe from evil. Not even barbarian Saxons could harm her. How could the gods have abandoned their favorite? Risa felt sick, too.
Guinevere was quiet a long time. Until she spoke, Risa thought she might have fallen asleep. When she spoke, it was haltingly, but with growing determination.
“All my life I’ve been protected; I’ve been loved. Someone always took care of me. Risa, help me! Teach me how to take care of myself.”
“My Lady, dear, it’s not your doing. We never wanted you to do for yourself. When we were girls I used to watch you, how you walked through a room. Everyone’s eyes would glow, not just from the beauty of you, but from something about you. We always knew you were special, like a secret we all shared. When visitors came to Camelot, they might not think it very different from their own castles. But we always waited and whispered among ourselves, ‘Wait until they meet our Queen!’ And when they did, we laughed behind our hands, because you were so much more wonderful and shining than anyone they’d ever known. We didn’t want you to worry about little things. It was enough that you just were.”
Guinevere laid her head on her maid’s shoulder. “Even if that once were true, it isn’t now. I don’t think I want it to be.”
Risa thought a moment. “No, perhaps you wouldn’t. But you will need all the belief that kept you so special. If we’re ever going to stop that Modred, it will have to be because we’re stronger than he is.”
Slowly, Guinevere straightened. “I’m afraid of him, more than I’ve ever been of anything. But I won’t ever let him know it. If I never submit to him then he can never defeat me.”
“But you musn’t let him hurt you anymore, Guinevere!”
“Risa, I don’t see how I
can
be hurt any more.”
• • •
Despite the heat, the room felt cold to Guinevere as she waited for Modred to return that evening. She had refused to come down for the evening meal and play hostess to his mercenaries. The sun had barely gone down when she heard his step. She closed her eyes and prayed for courage.
Modred opened the door and found Guinevere reclined on her couch, studying a commentary on Vergil. She didn’t look up. Her fingers trembled as she turned the page.
In three strides, he was at her side. He picked the codex from her hands and dropped it on the floor. He seated himself next to her, pressing his chest against hers and bringing his face too close for her to avoid.
“Are you ready to come to bed willingly with me, Wife?” he sneered.
“No.” She couldn’t believe she had said it without any sign of terror.
He got up, pulling her with him.
“Then we’ll play again, as we did last night, and again until you understand that I am now your master.”
“You aren’t, Modred, and you never will be.”
Her tone stopped him in blind fury. There was no bravado or contempt about it, just a simple declaration of fact. He took out his knife.
“I don’t want to mar your looks, pretty Queen. Your ornamental value is great. But I don’t value it so highly that I’m afraid to destroy it.”
“I don’t doubt you, Modred, but it will not change the truth.” She spoke calmly, trying to keep her eyes from the gleaming knife.
He held it to her throat. It was warmer than she had thought metal should be. She thought of Risa and something not quite a smile crossed her face. “I hope I’m something more than my looks, after all,” she thought in tired despair. “It appears that soon I’ll find out.”
For that moment, she really stopped caring what Modred would do to her. She knew that when he hurt her she would care vividly, but not just now.
She met Modred’s fierce glare. She waited.
He could sense the relaxation in her body. He looked into her eyes and what he saw there bewildered and frightened him. The Saxon Aelle, and Meleagant, and even Caradoc had seen the same thing, and none of them had understood it. Even though she was barely aware of it herself, Modred knew that there was nothing he could do to her that could reach what she was, and, after everything, the mysterious essence that was Guinevere would remain. The others had called it witchcraft but Modred knew it was nothing he had ever encountered before, and in that moment he knew she had won.
He threw the knife deep into the wall.
“Damn you, woman! Damn you!” he said with deep intensity. “I’ll be back, don’t think I won’t. I’ll find a way to destroy you yet!”
He slammed the door so hard that the lamp rattled on the table. Guinevere slumped back onto the couch, feeling that she had just stopped a hurricane with a toothpick, and totally astonished to find herself still alive. She heard him pounding on another door and the creak as that door opened. She sighed in relief.
“I know he’ll be back,” she thought. “But at least not tonight.”
Sometime later she heard screams coming from Morgause’s room. She couldn’t tell if they were of pleasure or pain, nor did she care.
• • •
Morgan le Fay was deliriously happy under the Lake. She was pretty again and desired. There was no need to work and no nasty children to bother her with their demands and ingratitude. Everything was beautiful, rich, and luxurious. Even the food was good. She wished she had found the place years ago. How she had wasted her life! If only she had known, she would never have spent all those years in a futile struggle for power over Arthur.
She stretched out on the warm grass in the sunshine. How perfect it all was. It did not occur to her to wonder how the sunlight penetrated to the Lady’s country below the Lake. She yawned. Idly, she thought of the sons she had left behind: Agravaine, Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, and Modred. She sleepily forgave them for running off to Camelot and abandoning her. She had the satisfaction, at least, of knowing they were actively perpetuating her image back in the other world.