“Yes, sire,” said Lancelot, his head bowed.
Arthur’s tone hardened. “You came to see Guinevere.”
“I didn’t know she was here,” Lancelot replied. “This convent is known far and wide for its healing powers. I thought … perhaps the sisters could work their magic on Gawain.”
“First you nearly kill him,” Arthur growled, “then you want to heal him.”
Climbing to his feet,
Lancelot exclaimed, “I didn’t want to fight him! I didn’t want to fight his brother; Gareth gave me no choice.”
“Sir Gareth was defending my honor.” Arthur’s hand moved to grip Excalibur’s jeweled hilt.
Lancelot shook his head sadly. I realized all over again how small he really was, barely as tall as Arthur’s shoulder. Yet he was a demon in battle.
“My lord, your honor was never tarnished
by me,” he said earnestly. “I had come to Guinevere that evening to tell her that I had taken a wife, back in Brittany, to stop the stories that Modred was spreading. And…” Lancelot’s voice softened, “… and to help me forget her.”
“Then you truly did love her.”
“Yes,” Lancelot answered, in misery. “I do still. But I never touched her. I swear it, sire. We never even held hands.”
Arthur’s shoulders
slumped. He had known Lancelot since he’d been a reckless youth, keen to win glory and honor for his lord.
From his bed, Gawain said weakly, “I forgive you, Lancelot. I forgive you my brother’s death. And my own.”
Lancelot bent over the bed and clutched Gawain’s hand in both of his own, his eyes brimming. “Gawain,” he whispered. “Gawain…”
But Gawain heard nothing. Those dark eyes that had danced
with laughter so often now stared sightlessly into Lancelot’s tear-streaked face.
4
Arthur was grim faced as the abbess led us slowly up a flight of steep stone stairs to the chamber where Guinevere was housed. I could almost feel her pain as she toiled arthritically up the stairway.
“Has the queen been made comfortable?” he asked as we climbed.
“As comfortable as we can manage,” said the
abbess. “She is in the chamber that we keep for visitors. She is more comfortable than any of the sisters, I assure you.”
Arthur fell silent as he, Lancelot, and I followed the bone-thin abbess upward. The stone walls seemed to breathe coldly upon us. Through a narrow slit of a window I saw that it was fully night outside, with a crescent moon riding low over the hills. A wolf bayed in the distance,
a chilling mournful sound.
A middle-aged nun in gray habit was seated before Guinevere’s door, bent over a palm-size breviary, squinting painfully in the dim light of the sputtering candle in the wall sconce above her. She sprang to her feet at the sight of the abbess.
“Open,” said the old woman, and the nun fairly leaped to comply.
Turning to the three of us, the abbess commanded, “Wait here.”
Then she entered Guinevere’s chamber. I heard her voice, too low to make out the words, and then a younger, clearer voice replied, “Show them in, by all means.”
I had to duck slightly to get through the low stone doorway. There stood Guinevere, looking rather out of place in a richly wrought gown of golden cloth trimmed with dark fur about the neckline and cuffs. She had gained some weight over
the years; where before she had looked elf slim, now she was chunkier, fuller. Her face was still quite lovely, even though somewhat rounder.
“My lord and master,” she said to Arthur, sarcasm dripping from her words.
“My queen,” said Arthur, tightly.
We stood in the middle of the somewhat spacious room, in awkward silence. The chamber looked comfortable enough, with a big canopied bed in one
corner and a shuttered window on the other side. A broad table with four cushioned chairs, a chest of drawers, and a commode with a wash basin atop it. The abbess sank stiffly into the straight-backed chair by the open door.
“And Lancelot, how nice,” Guinevere went on. “Have you come to comfort me in my solitude?”
Lancelot stood tongue-tied before her.
Arthur did not bother to introduce me,
nor did Guinevere ask who I was. To her I was merely one of her husband’s men, a nonentity. Yet I realized that she eyed me carefully, with a hint of a smile curving the corners of her mouth.
“Gawain is dead,” Arthur said, without preamble.
“So now you must kill Lancelot, here,” she replied, her smile growing.
“No,” Arthur said wearily. “There’s been enough killing.”
“How Christian of you,
my husband, forgiving your enemy.”
Lancelot finally found his voice. “I’m not an enemy, my lady.”
Guinevere turned away from him and faced Arthur. “Why have you come here, Arthur? To see Sir Gawain or to see me?”
“Both,” he said.
Looking toward me, she asked, “And who is this handsome lout, standing there in silence?”
“This is Sir Orion, newly elevated to knighthood.”
She looked me over
again, quite boldly, from head to toe. “Have you brought him here to comfort me?”
Arthur’s face flamed. “Guinevere!”
“What do you expect of me?” she snapped. “You bundle me away in this … this … prison full of holy women who speak in whispers and tell me to spend my days in prayer and meditation. Do you expect me to thank you for this?”
Arthur took a deep breath before replying, “If I had kept
you at Cadbury you would have been brought to trial for adultery—”
“Sire, it’s not true!” Lancelot burst.
Arthur shook his head. “Not with you, lad. But there were others.”
“What of it?” Guinevere challenged. “You never loved me.”
“I am your husband!” Arthur thundered. “And the High King! You were making a mockery of me and everything I stand for!”
Guinevere scoffed, “And I am the queen,
am I not? Why must I obey the same laws that the commoners follow?”
“Because in my domain everyone obeys the law,” Arthur said, straining to keep his voice civil. “My kingdom is a kingdom of laws. How do you think we’ve kept the peace all these years?”
Guinevere turned away and started across the room.
“Don’t you understand?” Arthur called after her. “If I hadn’t spirited you away to this convent
you would have been brought to trial for adultery. You’d have been condemned to the stake!”
“Who would dare to testify against the queen?” she shot back.
“Modred would get a dozen witnesses to testify.”
“Your loving son.”
“I’m trying to save your life, Guinevere!”
“Why? Because you love me?” Before Arthur could reply she answered her own question. “No. It’s to save your throne, isn’t it?
To save your precious kingdom. To save yourself from looking like a cuckolded fool! That’s why I’m locked away in this barren confinement.”
For long moments Arthur did not reply. Lancelot stood mute also. Guinevere glared at them both, a mere woman standing before the High King and his bravest warrior, contempt etching hard lines on her face.
At last Arthur said, “I’m taking my host north, to
find Modred and do battle against him before he can organize a real army.”
Guinevere’s lips curled into a sneer. “He’s already organized an army. He’s waiting for you, up by the Wall, near his mother’s domain.”
“How do you know this?” Arthur demanded.
“Because Modred has been here to see me,” she said, with triumph in her voice. “Because he has told me that once you are dead, he will marry
the Queen of the Britons and rule this land.”
Arthur looked stunned. Lancelot shook his head and I could fairly hear what he was telling himself: To think that I loved this woman, that I thought she was the most desirable woman in the realm. What a romantic young fool I was!
And then, as if from a vast distance, in my mind I heard the scornful laughter of Aten, the Golden One. “What do you think
of your Arthur now, creature?” he jeered at me. “He is already destroyed. Everything he tried to achieve has been turned to dust and ashes. He will die an ignominious death, and soon, Orion, very soon. Nothing remains but to dispose of his body.”
5
We were three silent, saddened men as we left the convent. For hours neither Arthur nor Lancelot said a word. At last we descended from the jagged
rocks and our horses trotted onto a broad, grassy meadow. A stream gurgled nearby, clear and inviting.
“Deer will come for their evening watering,” I said, trying to sound hopeful, hearty. “We can eat venison this night.”
Arthur said, “The deer will stay in the forest, Orion. You know that.”
“Rabbits, then,” I said.
“Squirrels, more likely,” said Lancelot.
We made camp within sight of the
stream, and as the sun went down I bagged a brace of plump rabbits, hitting them with stones when they approached the water. If either Arthur or Lancelot noticed my prowess as a hunter, neither of them mentioned it as we gnawed at the half-raw meat by our meager campfire.
“Tomorrow we’ll rejoin my forces on their way north,” Arthur muttered, more as if he were talking to himself than us.
“I
must return to Brittany, sire,” said Lancelot.
Even in the flickering shadows of evening I could see the disappointment on Arthur’s face. “You won’t come with me to face Modred?”
Lancelot shook his head sadly. In a tortured voice he replied, “I’ve had enough of killing, sire. Gawain … he was my friend! I never want to fight again.”
I knew how he felt. Even though my Creator had built me to
be a warrior, a killer, the terrified look on the face of that young Saxon lad at Tintagel had sapped the bloodlust out of me.
“If what Guinevere told us is true,” Arthur said slowly, “then Modred already has an army waiting for us. He can choose the place of battle to suit himself.”
“I suppose so,” Lancelot agreed, in a voice so low I could barely hear him.
Arthur said, “I could use you, sir
knight. Your presence at my side would be worth a hundred valiant warriors.”
Lancelot shook his head once again. “It cannot be, sire. I just don’t have it in me. All I want is to return to my castle in Brittany and try to build a new life with my bride.”
Arthur sighed, but said nothing.
The next morning I followed Arthur as he made his way back to his army. Lancelot said a brief farewell and
turned his horse eastward, toward the sea.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Lady of the Lake
1
The days grew shorter, the nights colder, as we made our way northward. To the untrained eye we made a considerable sight, an army of knights and squires mounted on fine steeds, followed by wagon after wagon of provisions and arms, with workmen and camp followers trudging along after us. Our host stretched along the roads for miles, so huge that Arthur
split us into three separate columns so that the horses and mules could find enough fodder to munch on.
But to me, our host looked like an army trudging unwillingly toward defeat. From Arthur, riding beneath his red dragon pennants, on down to the lowliest churl, the morale of the army was dwindling. Men disappeared every night, deserters slinking away from the coming battle. Reports came from
the north that Modred’s host was huge, and growing stronger every day. Arthur’s army was melting away. Youngsters no longer sought to join us. Instead, the army was shrinking: slowly at first, but each morning there were fewer of us.
It was as if the entire army was gripped with despair, and already knew that fighting against Modred and his forces would be futile—and fatal.
One night, as we
huddled by our campfires, I heard a couple of knights whispering, “If Sir Lancelot has abandoned the High King, why should we stay with him? Better to go back home while we still have our whole skins.”
Gawain’s death and Lancelot’s departure had been bitter blows to Arthur, who now seemed to be going through the motions of preparing for combat without hope of victory. It was as if his will to
win—his will to live—had been sapped out of his soul.
I stayed at Arthur’s side as we traveled along the straight old Roman road heading north, toward Hadrian’s Wall. Guinevere had said that Modred was waiting for Arthur there, close by the land of Bernicia, which his mother, Morganna, still ruled. Morganna, who I knew was the Creator who styled herself Aphrodite. How many of the Creators would
engage in the coming battle? I wondered.
I decided to try to find out.
That night, as a cold rain turned our camp into a miserable muddy swamp, I left my sleeping blankets on a stretch of slimy wet rocks and walked off beyond the edges of our picket fires, into the dark and rain-soaked forest.
Anya, I called mentally with all the strength in me, Anya, help me. Show me what Arthur is facing.
Let me see the reality of the coming battle.
For long hours I tried to make contact with the goddess who I loved. The pelting rain slackened and finally stopped. The clouds broke apart, and through the black limbs of the trees I could see a crescent moon gazing lopsidedly down on the soaked forest. Humans would walk on that dusty, barren world, I knew. They would build cities beneath its battered
surface and go outward, across the solar system and to the stars.
But would that timeline actually come to pass? Or was it foredoomed by my failure to save Arthur?
Of all the Creators, only Anya would deem to help me, I knew. The others played their mad power games, driving the human race to blood and war to satisfy their own overweening egos.
“How little you understand, creature.”
I whirled
and beheld Aten, the Golden One, standing before me, resplendent in a skintight uniform of glittering metallic fabric, glowing like the sun in the darkness of the dripping, chill forest.
He was smirking at me. “My mad power game, as you put it, will determine the fate of the human race. I am working to save them, pitiful half apes though they are.”
“They are your ancestors,” I countered. “If
they die off, you will be snuffed out of existence.”
His sneer diminished, replaced by a more sober expression. “Which is why I won’t allow them to be driven into extinction, Orion.”
“And Arthur’s coming battle? That is part of your plan?”