He laid his unbandaged fingers over mine, though still without looking at me. “Sometimes it feels as though no matter how hard I work, no matter how hard I try, I’ll never quite see the dream realized. And I can’t tell if it is because of anger on the part of the Gods or because I’ve not planned something out as well as I should have.”
“Perhaps,” I suggested softly, “it’s not so much the fault of the potter as the fabric of the clay. You’re not exactly dealing with the most malleable materials, you know.”
There was a long silence during which he stroked my hand, and at last the shadow of a smile crept across his face. He looked up at me with one of those slow, sidewise glances. “You’re just not going to let me lie around and feel sorry for myself, are you? In case I haven’t told you lately, I’m awfully glad you’re my wife.”
My eyes started to brim with tears, and I looked down at our intertwined fingers, a dozen loving words clamoring to be said. But before I could begin, he withdrew his hand and clenched it into a fist in his lap.
“Now as long as I’m facing things, tell me what happened in London while the ‘ceremony’ was going on,” he demanded.
I stared at him blankly, wondering what that had to do with love.
“Well, go on,” he said. “It’s about time I hear the details.”
So I swallowed my emotions and recounted how Morgan had tried to kill her husband with his own sword. Arthur winced at that, well aware that she had even managed to use Excalibur against him.
“But Bedivere said she fled after Accolon was killed.”
I nodded. “It seems the dwarf managed to get her out of the Palace. Her women may have helped and simply stayed on at Court afterward so as to distract us and not slow down the fleeing couple.”
“Ummm,” Arthur ruminated. “Or it may have been Uwain. One can’t ignore the bond between mother and son.”
I glanced at him quickly, surprised he should think of that when he was so cold to his own mother. Of course, his foster-mother might have been a different matter.
“I can’t believe Uwain could be involved,” I said. “He was too badly shaken to be feigning surprise, and if he was complicit, he would not have stopped the attack on his father.”
“Unless his gorge couldn’t quite accept it at the last minute,” Arthur noted. “Urien I trust; he’s been a solid ally since the Great Battle. But the boy was too cowardly to stay and protect you at Penrith.”
I started to explain that Griflet had sent him for help, but Gawain came to the door just then, full of tales of a wild-man loose in the Wood of Wirral, so we dropped the subject. It wasn’t until a week later, when Arthur decreed that Uwain must be banished, that I realized how deep Arthur’s suspicion had run.
“It’s unfair, Your Highness,” Gawain slung at him, storming into the room and pounding his fist on the table where Arthur and I were working. “Bloody unfair, and you know it!”
“Steady there, nephew,” Arthur warned, easing himself back among the cushions that propped him up in the chair. “Regicide is not a pretty matter, and I can’t afford to keep the whelp of a traitor within my den.”
“But Uwain had nothing to do with the attempt on your life,” the redhead protested. “He’s my cousin—I’ve known the boy since he was a toddler—”
“And he’s my nephew, just as much as you are,” Arthur cut in, moving restlessly in the chair. For a man so used to action, the inability to get up and move about was tantamount to being imprisoned, and he had to struggle to keep his voice even.
“I didn’t exile him from Britain, or forbid him to have contact with his mother, either one of which would have been a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I’ve said I don’t want to see him here, within my Court, and that is that. Do you understand?”
Arthur was glaring at his nephew, and the Orcadian glared back, as stubborn and hot-tempered as ever. But he blinked and looked away first, perhaps startled to see what I was beginning to think of as “Uther’s nature” overcome Arthur’s usual reserve. With a curt bow Gawain turned and stalked out.
“Don’t say a word,” Arthur growled, not even looking at me. “I neither enslaved nor killed the Saxons last year, though they would have done as much to me without a moment’s pause. Nor did I mount an army and take my revenge on Maelgwn, though I had every right and desire to. But I have to draw the line somewhere, Gwen, and this is where. If he is as blameless as you say, and keeps out of trouble for the next few years, perhaps he can come back later. But for now I say he is banished, and my word is law!”
It was clear he was deeply upset, for the last statement flew in the face of all his concepts of fairness and justice. There was no point in continuing the conversation, so I picked up the tablet with my notes on the salt centers and brought my attention back to the problem of how to get that necessary stuff to those places that were not endowed with it by nature.
Arthur continued to snarl at everyone for a day or two more, but his punishment of Uwain seemed to have lanced the rage that festered within, and he gradually settled into a calmer mood.
Finally, as we were coming up to the midwinter festival, he could look the world in the face with his old confidence again. The mark of Morgan’s betrayal was there for those who knew him well to see, but our subjects rejoiced in his outward recovery.
I thanked the Goddess that her plans and the High Priestess’s were not the same.
***
With spring and the melting of snow, the Roads opened to the west and we began to see the first straggle of visitors. One in particular had caught my women’s attention, and when I came into the room for tea they were all discussing the newcomer.
“She’s even brought a kitten with her!” Ettard’s voice rose with astonishment, and Vinnie’s eyebrows did likewise. “It’s a pet, not a barn animal, and goes everywhere she does,” the convent girl added.
“Well, she may be terribly pretty,” Augusta said, raising her tea cup with her little finger extended, “but I’ll bet she’s got fleas.”
There was much giggling at that, and I looked to Vinnie. “Who are you talking about?” I asked, plumping down in my chair with a general greeting to the rest of the women.
They nodded in return, and the matron explained it was the new girl from Carbonek.
“Carbonek?”
“The kingdom poor old Pellam rules.” Vinnie pursed her lips primly and poured me a cup of tea. “The place that’s become a wasteland because his wound won’t heal.”
A shiver ran down my spine, and though I couldn’t blame any father for wanting to send his daughter away from such a situation, I wished she hadn’t come here.
“I was sure you’d accept them, so I gave her the room at the end of the corridor. I imagine they’re busy unpacking right now,” Vinnie noted.
“What kind of entourage did she bring, and does she have a name?” I inquired.
“Only her chaperone.” The matron sniffed. “Pushy woman, intent on catching the best husband for her charge. The girl is called Elaine.”
Oh, Glory, I thought…another namesake for that Greek temptress of men. I hoped that this one was only a little eccentric, not mentally incompetent.
“What’s this?” Gawain bellowed at dinner that night, rising to his feet in alarm. “Did I hear you right, Pelleas? Marriage, you say?”
The horseman flushed a deep red, and Gawain turned with elaborate surprise to Arthur, then back to his pupil.
“I do believe it’s true. The Lady Ettard seems to have agreed to wed this fellow.” Good humor filled Gawain’s countenance, and he lifted his drinking horn in a toast. “To the best pupil I’ve ever had; he’s a staunch friend, fine horseman, and only a little backward with the ladies.”
Ettard was sitting next to Pelleas, and she ducked her head in embarrassment and stared at her lap. Laughter was running round the room, and when Arthur raised his goblet his nephew reached across and filled it.
“Where do you plan to live?” the King asked, and Pelleas smiled.
“In the land you gave me after the Battle of Mt. Badon.” He lifted his own mug in a toast. “To the most generous King in Britain.”
Bedivere was sitting beside me, and he leaned closer. “That young man has grown up rather nicely, hasn’t he? And going to be landed gentry after all.”
I nodded, remembering the thin, ragged youth who had come to Court after the Irish campaign.
Ettard was looking imploringly at Arthur. “Perhaps we can stay on here?”
“Of course, you’ll both be welcome whenever you wish to return,” he responded kindly.
I wondered how she would fare out on a steading when she’d grown so used to being in the heart of the High King’s Court but reminded myself not to borrow trouble; there was plenty enough around without looking for more.
Gawain was teasing Pelleas about his lack of experience as a lover, and soon the Companions were convulsed with laughter.
But just when Arthur’s nephew tired of the subject and was getting ready to sit down, a peculiar expression crossed his face, and he bent to peer into the shadows beneath the table.
“By the Horned One!” he exclaimed, lifting something up for all to see. “We have a new kind of varmint, and it’s mistaken my shin for a tree trunk!”
He was holding a small mottled kitten by the scruff of the neck, turning it from side to side at arm’s length.
A young woman scrambled to her feet and rushed to rescue the animal without so much as pausing to acknowledge Arthur or me.
“Oh, Sir,” she cried, “be gentle with Tiger Fang, I beg you.”
A roar of amusement filled the Hall as Gawain mimicked the cat’s name and brought the homely little thing up to his face with a grimace of mock fear. The kitten had more spirit than size and, flattening its ears, hissed boldly at the stocky warrior. Gawain laughed all the harder as he turned to its owner.
“And who may you be?” he asked, cocking his head to one side and keeping the pet well beyond reach. The entire Hall had gone silent, watching to see what would happen.
“Elaine…Elaine of Carbonek,” the girl answered, her bright gaze traveling from the little cat to the Orcadian.
She was very pretty in a saucy way, and the hair that flounced about her head was as red as Gawain’s own. For a long moment the two of them took each other’s measure. There was no question of her deferring to his size, nature, or status.
“Have you met the King, Elaine?” he asked casually.
“Not yet.” She dimpled, never taking her eyes from his face. “Perhaps you should introduce me…after you return my pet.”
“Perhaps I should.” He nodded, watching her shrewdly. “Why are you here, my dear?”
“Because my chaperone is,” she shot back, blithe as milk.
“To find a husband?” he inquired.
“Only if someone extraordinary comes along.”
Agravain and Gaheris burst out laughing, and Gawain himself started to grin. It was the first time he had met his match since Ragnell, and it occurred to me that Elaine could do far worse.
With a grand gesture the Prince of Orkney restored the kitten to the young woman, then formally presented her to us. She made a deep curtsy, clutching her golden-eyed kit to her breast, but I noticed that when she looked up, the long, slow sweep of her glance went only to Arthur, not to the both of us.
After she rejoined her chaperone my husband turned to me. “Now that’s a pleasant breath of freshness, isn’t it?”
“Mmmm,” I responded, thinking she had a good bit to learn about life in a High Queen’s Court.
***
“Oh, M’lady,” Ettard wailed, “Pelleas’s holdings are so far away. Whatever am I going to do there?”
“Make a home for your husband,” I answered, not altogether kindly. It was clear Ettard had been crying, and I wondered again how pretty women manage to weep without their eyes getting red and puffy as mine did.
But later, when Nimue and I were in the pharmacia taking stock of which herbs we would need to replenish this spring, the doire reproved me for my brusqueness with Ettard. “Be a little gentle with her—she’s not got long to live.”
Her words brought goose bumps to my skin, and I looked up sharply. “How do you know?”
“I’m not sure.” She shrugged slightly. “It’s just a feeling. But the girl thinks she should have everything, and is caught betwixt too many desires. She wants to be married, but she also wants to stay at Court. She wants a fancy husband, but she’s afraid to wait much longer for fear of getting old. She can’t fill one need without being at cross purposes with another, and the strain of that conflict is likely to be her downfall.”
I tried to be more patient after that, and the day Pelleas left to go to his holdings and make them ready for his bride, I made a point of asking Ettard to serve tea with me.
“Oh, but Your Highness, I distinctly remember yesterday you promised you’d teach my Elaine how to pour,” the chaperone Brisane announced as Ettard set up the silver service next to me.
“I was so much looking forward to the lesson,” the girl from Carbonek put in hopefully.
I sighed ruefully, reminded that Brisane was right. “You can serve next time,” I promised Ettard as she moved away silently.
After that Brisane began pushing Elaine forward to garner attention or honor whenever possible. Often the woman sought special favors for her charge, explaining that the girl’s hands were too delicate for gardening or her nature too exuberant to spend hours spinning.