She looked puzzled. “I see you are not. But for goodness’ sake, why not?”
“Never mind. I am bathed and clean now, dear Elaine, and Ailsa will dress my hair, and I shall wear the blue gown you embroidered with wildflowers, and I promise I will be a lady and try to make a good impression.”
“I should hope so,” she said crossly. “It’s important to Mother. And to me. You must be—that is, you must try to be—”
“Perfect,” I finished for her, sadly. “As everyone says Arthur is.”
She nodded. “I guess so. I suppose it’s a lot to ask.”
I fought off panic as the weight of responsibility descended upon me once again. “It’s far too much to ask. And everyone in Britain expects it. But at least I shall not be alone.” I was thinking of Lancelot, who had become my friend so quickly.
Elaine kissed my cheek. “I shall be there as long as you are, Gwen. Rely on it.”
Startled, I thanked her, and covered my confusion with some question about the progress of the bridegift. She answered with eagerness and filled me in on all the things I had missed while I was out—principally the arrival of the King’s men. I listened, but my thoughts drifted back to the clearing, and to the jumping field, and to a pair of clear gray eyes and serious black brows.
“Dress my hair with the little pearls and bluebells, Ailsa,” I said suddenly. “I wish to look my best tonight.”
Ailsa looked at me sharply, and Elaine smiled.
“Now I know what’s different about you today,” she said. “You are finally happy. You have been happy ever since you came in.”
“Have I?” I avoided Ailsa’s eyes. “Well, perhaps so. It was a glorious day.”
Queen Alyse led us into the greeting hall, where Pellinore waited with the King’s Companions. The mellow evening light filtered in through the open windows and picked out the jewels the men wore on shoulder, belt, and wrist. They were weaponless, for Pellinore followed the High King’s practice of leaving all weapons outside the meeting hall, except for the short dagger needed to cut food. King Pellinore presented Queen Alyse and Elaine; the courtiers bowed low. Lancelot wore a dark blue tunic of plain, fine wool. The silver buckle on his belt was worked in the shape of a hawk with wings outspread. He stood half a head taller than Pellinore, who was not considered a small man. Even as I looked at him, he dipped one knee to the floor and kissed my hand.
“King Arthur’s compliments, my lady,” he said formally. “He has sent us poor soldiers in his stead, not because he did not want to come, but because he could not.”
“So I understand, my lord.”
“He has sent me with words of greeting and begs for your forgiveness of his most untimely absence.”
“He is High King. My lord, I understand.”
“He would rather be here in Wales with you, my lady, than riding north to look at Saxons. He told me this himself.”
“Where Britain needs him most, there must the High King go,” I replied. “My lord may tell him he is forgiven.” At last, it seemed, I had said the right thing. Kay and Bedwyr were nodding, pleased.
“And he bade me present you with this gift,” Lancelot continued, “in the hope that it might ease your anger toward him and incline you to look favorably upon him.”
Lancelot proffered a small packet, wrapped in soft linen.
“Good Sir Lancelot. You speak as if Pendragon were one suitor among many. I do assure you, my lord, that I look with favor upon the High King so long as he holds the Saxons at bay. There is no cause for anger. He need send no gifts to win me. I know wherein my duty lies.”
Kay and Bedwyr were positively beaming. Alyse looked at me in wonder, hardly able to credit me capable of a diplomatic word.
When he spoke, Lancelot’s voice was low and gentle. “Will my lady not accept it, then, as a token of the King’s esteem?”
I smiled at him. “I would be honored to accept a token of the King’s esteem, my lord.”
Lancelot opened the soft wrappings and lifted from them a single sapphire set in silver, the size of a robin’s egg, and hung from a silver chain. It glowed in the evening light, dark blue and deep and clear. Lancelot came up to me and put his arms around my shoulders as he fastened it behind my neck. By sheer effort of will I stilled my trembling and stared hard past his shoulder at Kay, but I felt his breath on my skin, and then the warm touch of his hands as he struggled with the clasp. I felt it then for the first time—the hot lick of fire that set me ablaze with an emotion I did not then understand. He hesitated and leaned closer. “It is the color of your eyes,” he whispered in my ear, and stepped back slowly. I sank to the floor in a low curtsy, shaking, which sent light glittering off the great sapphire.
“Please—please tell King Arthur I am overwhelmed,” I managed.
Elaine and Alyse crowded round to view the stone and chatter in admiration. I was glad for their protection while I recovered my composure. I could not meet his eyes; it was like looking into flame. At last Pellinore offered me his arm and took me into dinner. Lancelot followed with Queen Alyse, and Kay with Elaine. At dinner, Pellinore placed me beside Lancelot, his foremost guest of honor.
As the wine was passed around, Bedwyr gave what news there was of the state of the Kingdom, but for once I was not attentive. I looked everywhere about me, at the troopers, Pellinore’s and the High King’s, eating together in the hall, at the bowl of jonquils and bluebells at the center of the round table, at the bodice of Elaine’s yellow gown, which I had embroidered with stars. Look where I might, I was conscious only of the man beside me, of the grip of his long fingers around the winecup, the turning of his head toward the speaker, the stillness of his body in his chair.
King Pellinore was proposing a series of hunts for the Companions to keep them busy while we finished the bridegift. To this Kay and Bedwyr readily agreed.
Then Lancelot spoke. “I have one favor to ask of you, Pellinore. Give me two hours each day to spend with the young princesses. The High King appreciates that leaving home to marry a man one has never seen may be hard on a young maid and he does not wish to meet Lady Guinevere as a stranger. He has instructed me to tell her aught she wishes to know about him and the life we lead at Caer Camel. If the young ladies are willing, I beg your permission to fulfill the High King’s desire.”
Kay and Bedwyr looked surprised, and it made me wonder if Lancelot had made the whole thing up. But Elaine looked ecstatic, and Pellinore of course agreed, so it was settled.
As dinner progressed and conversation became general, I gathered my courage and turned to Lancelot. “Forgive my impertinence, my lord, but did you speak the truth about the High King just now?”
He smiled. “Does my lady suspect me of inventing ways to spend more time in her presence?”
I flushed scarlet, I could feel the heat in my face, but his look was tender.
“It was truth, my lady. He spoke so only to me, but it is truly his desire to ease what fears you have of him. And I know now that you have them.” He lowered his gaze to his plate, and his voice went low. “But had he not said so, I would have invented it. Your suspicions are just.”
I felt triumphant and weak all at once and struggled to keep my voice steady. “I am glad you included Elaine. She is a great admirer of Arthur’s.”
He raised his eyes to me then and looked at me long and directly. “And so will you be, Guinevere, in time.”
I bowed my head.
Lancelot kept his word. Whatever the men were doing, hunting, hawking, drilling troops, he took time out every day to spend with Elaine and me. In the beginning all the queen’s ladies crowded round him to hear him speak of Arthur, but eventually, as the day of departure grew near and the bridegift lay unfinished, they kept to the sewing room, and we had just Leonora for chaperone. Elaine was almost always with me. On the four or five occasions when Lancelot and I went riding, we took several of Pellinore’s men along for escort and said very little to one another. And every time we spoke, Lancelot
was careful to bring King Arthur between us, gently and firmly. In my mind’s eye I saw him as our guardian, and in this I was not far off the mark.
When we sat together, usually in the queen’s garden, it was always Elaine who asked about Arthur.
“What is the truth of his birth?” Elaine wanted to know. “Why did no one ever see him? Where did Merlin hide him?”
Lancelot smiled. “In spite of the rumors that I know run rampant, Merlin did not spirit him away to a far-off land, nor change him into an eagle. He grew up in Galava, with Sir Ector as his foster father and Kay his brother. No one noticed him because he was not specially treated. When he traveled with Ector, he went not as a prince of the land but as a minor noble’s son in Ector’s protection, with small escort and smaller fanfare. Ector, a brave soldier who fought with Ambrosius, and a kind man, took him into his household for fostering when he was just a baby. Arthur and Kay grew up as brothers.” The source of Kay’s devotion lay revealed, and also of his readiness to disapprove of me.
“But where was Merlin all this time?” Elaine wondered. “I thought he raised the King himself.”
Lancelot smiled at her, but Elaine seemed unaffected. “So people say, but Merlin himself has never said so. And yet there is some truth in the claim. Behind the scenes, Merlin supervised the prince’s education and kept track of him through the power of his Sight. He sometimes lived as a holy hermit in the forest above Count Ector’s castle. There he would meet the boy and give him lessons and tell him the story of his begetting and his lineage, as if it all pertained to someone else. You might remember,” Lancelot continued, “Uther Pendragon proclaimed throughout Britain that he would not acknowledge the son he begot at Tintagel. Thus neither Ector nor Merlin could in all fairness tell him who he was.”
“But how was his true birth kept from him?” I asked. “I have always found that part of the tale difficult to believe. Sir Ector must have told him something.”
“But it is true, my lady. He did not know. Ector told him his parents were of noble birth, but that they could not claim him. Arthur assumed he was the bastard of some petty lord, and Kay his superior in birth and breeding. He heard all the tales about Prince Arthur that you have heard, but he never once thought they might apply to him.”
“But the name!” Elaine exclaimed. “And to have Merlin the Enchanter as a teacher! I’d have guessed, if it had been me!”
“Ah, but ‘Arthur’ was not his name.” Lancelot turned to me and smiled. My breath caught in my throat. “Sometime when he is deep in thought and not attending, call ‘Emreis’ softly, and judge the truth yourself by the unthinking quickness of his response.” I colored and looked down. “As for Merlin,” Lancelot continued gently, “he is a master at disguise. He transformed himself so completely into a wild holy man that Ector himself barely knew him. As Arthur had never seen him, it really is no wonder he did not guess.”
“Well, why is Merlin so dear to him, then,” Elaine objected, with a shake of her bountiful curls, “if Sir Ector was his foster father?”
“Perhaps because he valued more the things that Merlin taught him.” Lancelot shrugged. “Or perhaps it is just the chance agreement of two personalities.” He shot me a swift glance and looked away. I blushed uncontrollably.
“It may have been so for his childhood,” Elaine went on, “but surely, by the time he went to Caer Eden to fight for the High King, he must have guessed. Holy men are not so wise as Merlin and never stay so long in one place.”
Suddenly I saw what lay ahead and attempted to steer the conversation another way, but Elaine would not have it. She pressed Lancelot to answer.
“Ah, but Arthur did not know that. Galava is a small place, and his experience of wandering holy men was limited to one.”
“Then surely he must have guessed when Ector armed him for the battle. He was by rights too young to be a warrior.”
Lancelot smiled, unaware of the bog ahead. “While it is true that Ector brought him on Uther’s orders, it does not surprise me that Arthur did not guess. Think of the long years he had believed himself to be only a fosterling. And Galava is not far from Caer Eden. Had the Saxons won, his ‘homeland’ would have been directly threatened. He would have thought it strange had Ector not taken every able-bodied man and boy at his command, especially as Arthur, even at thirteen, was the best swordsman in Galava.”
Elaine sighed in resignation. “Then it’s true, after all, that Uther waited until the last minute to declare him?”
Still Lancelot went on, unseeing. “I have heard it was Uther’s intention to talk to the boy and reveal his identity to him before the battle, but the Saxons attacked unexpectedly, and there was no time.”
I looked down at my hands, twisted together in my lap. “And when, my lord, did he learn the truth?”
There was a long silence, and at last I glanced up. Lancelot looked stricken, having seen the pitfall too late. Elaine, in her innocence, merely waited for his answer. He cleared his throat and spoke stiffly.
“Uther told him the next day he was his father, in a public declaration, as he lay dying.” When it was too late, I thought bitterly, after he had lain with his half-sister. Lancelot’s eyes met mine, and he saw that I knew the tale, and I saw that the tale was true. If I felt grief, it was nothing to what Lancelot felt, having brought it upon me. Elaine continued unawares.
“You speak as if you were there, my lord. Did you attend, or did you hear these things from King Arthur?”
“I—I was there, my lady. I was young for it, just fourteen. I accompanied my father. He was convinced that our future lay with Britain, and he brought me over to fight at his side for Uther. He was wounded in the battle and, when he recovered, went home. I stayed to serve the new King.” He spoke absently, his attention focused on what he had not said.
The conversation lagged, for we had heard about the battle, and at length Elaine excused herself. Leonora sat nodding in the sun. I leaned toward Lancelot.
“These are heavy matters, Lancelot,” I whispered. “What has the High King said to you about it?”
Lancelot took a deep breath. “He has never spoken about it to anyone at all. Unless to Merlin. It is a subject the whole court avoids. I—I did not know you knew.”
“I have heard rumors only. I have told no one.”
He met my eyes. “Can you forgive him this, Guinevere? It is a great sin. It would be within your right to refuse him for this. No one could hold it against you.”
“But—then the whole Kingdom would know for certain,” I said softly.
He nodded and touched my hand. “Yes. But Arthur would survive it.”
I rose unsteadily and went to the parapet. Lancelot followed. “Before I answer, there is another question I must ask you. Since you love him, I know what you will say. But you must, you must tell me the truth.”
Lancelot took both my hands in his. “I will not lie to you. I swear it by most holy God.”
My whole body shook with fear at the risk I took, but somehow I found the courage to ask him. “Did Arthur kill the children at Dunpelder?”
Lancelot went white and stepped back, but his grip upon my hands was firm. “No. Never.”
“Everyone thinks he did.”
“No one who knows him thinks so.”
“That is not an answer. Perhaps you do not know him well enough.”
Anger darkened his eyes. “I know him better than I know myself. It is not in him. He did not do it.”
“Has he said so? To you?”
“Yes.”
“Who did the deed, then?”
“He does not know. But it must have been either Lot or Morgause herself.” He spoke the woman’s name reluctantly, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Then why do the rumors persist, if he is innocent?”
Lancelot shrugged. His face was cold. “Blame must land somewhere. The Witch of Orkney has seen to it that it fell on him.”
I struggled to hold back the final accusation
, but it was a moment of truth between us, and it came out. “He stood to gain so much.”
Lancelot’s features twisted in revulsion; still, he held my hands. “No one ever gains by killing children. The crime itself leaves a stain upon the soul. Had Arthur done it, he would not be the man he is now.”
I exhaled in relief, and warmth returned to his face. “But this other evil—you admit his guilt. Has that deed not left a mark upon his soul?”
Lancelot’s hands tightened around my own. “Indeed it has. So deep a mark, he will never be healed of it. That is why he cannot bear to hear her mentioned, though she is his kin. If you dare, you can make him talk about the massacre at Dunpelder. But you will never hear him speak the name ‘Morgause.’ ” Lancelot paused and dropped my hands. “You must decide, Gwen, if you can forgive him. You must decide now. If you wish to withdraw, I must get the word out soon.”
I looked down, hopelessly torn. Lancelot had offered me a way out, had opened the door, and now stood aside like a gentleman to let me go through, if I would. But what was beyond that door, I could not see. A tarnished Arthur, for certain. What would the people of Britain do when they knew the truth as I now knew it? What would Lancelot think of me if I refused? I felt a sob rise in my throat and squeezed my eyes shut. I knew what I must do.
I gathered my courage and met his eyes again, clear and gray and trusting. “It was done in ignorance,” I whispered. “One should not be punished for ignorance. I know I feel it is unjust when it is done to me. So I should not be honest with myself if I held it against the High King.”
Lancelot flung himself to his knees and clutched my hand, pressing it to his lips. “O noble heart!” he cried. “What forbearance is this in one so young and unworldly? May God in His Heaven bless you, I believe you are worthy of him!”
“What’s this? What’s this?” Leonora cried, waking suddenly. “What’s happened here?”
Lancelot jumped to his feet, coloring, and bowed in her direction. “If I am out of turn, good Leonora, please forgive me. Lady Guinevere has just revealed her noble soul, and I have thanked her on the King’s behalf.”