Queen of the Summer Stars (54 page)

“No,” I cried, remembering how well we’d all worked together, how deeply hurt Arthur would be…maybe more by the loss of his lieutenant than his wife. “I’d rather tell him myself.”

I stared up at my love, torn no matter which way I moved, and he smiled gently. “Until next time,” he whispered, lifting my fingers to his lips.

And then we were running pell-mell down the path to the green, mixing with the crowds who had gathered around fire eater and shaman, prize bull and prancing pony. Lance bade a noisy farewell to Arthur and galloped off toward London while I turned back to my husband and my subjects.

***

By autumn the construction of Camelot was virtually complete. Below the hill the workers’ tents at Cadbury were replaced by solid houses filled with people come to be part of the dream: merchants and craftsmen, vendors and artisans. Signs were hung, gardens were planned, fancy horses filled the stalls, and there was a new influx of youngsters coming to Court.

Sometimes I worried about what would happen to my women if I left with Lance. But at other times I could not get away from them fast enough, particularly the redhead from Carbonek, who spent her time crying because the Breton had not come back to Court. One or another of the warriors had attempted to distract her; even the Orkney brothers each tried their luck at courting, but she brushed them aside, saying only Lancelot would do.

Gawain appeared to be philosophical about it, casting his attention elsewhere, and Gaheris shrugged it off as well, but Agravain made snide remarks and brooded darkly on being rebuffed.

Elaine herself ignored them, continuing to praise the virtues of her “one true love,” and I tried to avoid her whenever possible. The only other thing she spoke of was the disappearance of her cat, who had, I suspected, gone off to produce another litter of kittens.

But one evening at dinner the girl let out such a scream that the entire Hall fell silent.

“Tiger Fang…my Tiger Fang,” she gibbered, pointing at Agravain with a trembling hand and fainting dead away.

The handsome warrior from Orkney never paused in his strut across the room, but his hand moved to the sporran he wore at his belt. Along with the other northern lairds he liked to carry his things in a fur purse, and the one he presently sported was made from the mottled skin of Elaine’s cat. The little creature’s skull had been removed, but the face was ghoulishly plumped out with stuffing and formed the flap of the purse.

“How could you!” I cried, enraged that he should kill a harmless pet and flaunt it in this stupid, senseless way.

He flicked me an insolent glance and kept on going, as cold and heartless as any Saxon I could imagine.

“Arthur, can’t you do something?” I begged, deeply shaken by the man’s cruelty.

“Nothing that would bring the lass’s pet back,” he answered. “I can’t banish him for it, vicious as it is.”

I was on my feet and moving toward Elaine as she came round to consciousness. Bedivere reached her at the same time, and between us and Vinnie we got the sobbing child upstairs.

As Arthur said, there was little one could do about the cat, but I vowed to keep a good distance from Agravain in the future.

***

Frieda’s brother and sister-in-law had joined us at Camelot, adding their skills as barrel makers to our household. Now that we had a fine supply of wooden kegs, I intended to fill them with that famous Somerset cider, scrumpy. Nimue was helping me check the goat-hair mats we’d filter the apple juice through when I told her about the demise of Tiger Fang.

“None of the Orkney boys are easy to get along with.” Nimue sighed. “Poor Pelleas is still recuperating from Gawain’s treachery.”

“Have you seen the horseman?” I asked.

“Ummmh,” she answered, holding up the end of a mat and scanning it for tears. Something in her tone caught my attention, and I paused to consider her more closely.

The doire had a newly solid look; more than the dignity I’d seen at the cave or the gracefulness and majesty that happened when the Goddess spoke through her. It was as though she had ripened, somehow.

“Are you pregnant?” I asked, absolutely without preamble.

“No.” She laughed good-naturedly at my lack of tact. “But I think I am in love. That is, we are…maybe.”

“Sounds like an awfully cautious, one-foot-out-the-door commitment,” I joked, and she grinned. “Do I know him? Has he been at Court? How did you meet?”

A hundred other questions leapt to mind, for I couldn’t imagine the sort of man Nimue might choose after having loved the great Magician—she and Merlin had seemed to be the God and Goddess incarnate.

“I grieved for Merlin for several years—seeing his face in the swirl of bark on a tree, hearing his voice in the murmur of wind through grasses. At night I’d grow dizzy watching for him in the stars, and sometimes he’d come to me in dreams. I even went to Bardsey Island, back to the cave where I had laid his body. I spent an entire night at the foot of his bier, but found I was no nearer to him there than in my sleep at home. It was then I realized Merlin no longer had any use for the physical plane. He could reach me spiritually any time he chose, and it was up to me to go on with my own living.”

Nimue lifted a small yellow apple and began tossing it absently in her hand. “So I made a tour of Arthur’s realm, and eventually came to Pelleas’s holdings. I had heard how devastated he was over the matter of Ettard, but even so was surprised to find the poor fellow had lost all will to live. I stayed with him a while, and together we began to put our pasts behind us in favor of the present…and here we are.”

“But isn’t he a Christian?” I queried.

Niume nodded and lifting the golden fruit, sniffed it reflectively. “He doesn’t want to renounce it, nor would I ask it. Somehow, when we are together we are just who we are—partners with a world of difference in our individual ways of doing things, who each hold sacred the haven we have made. He gives me a balance, and a wholeness I never knew was possible.”

“Like Lance,” I murmured, and the doire looked up sharply.

“So it is true?”

I nodded and put down the mat I was holding. “I suppose there are all sorts of rumors?”

It was her turn to nod. “Morgan seems to have started them, after your summer at Joyous Gard. Is that why he’s left the Court?”

“Yes. And he’s asked me to come away with him.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know…what
should
I do?”

The doire stared into some unfathomable distance before speaking. “For the love of Britain, I would say stay here, for you are the Queen and the people need you. For the love of Arthur, I would say stay with him, for whether he knows it or not, he needs you. For the love of life…for that, I would say go with Lance. You will never have a better chance, a deeper love, a richer future. And for the love of you, my dearest friend, I would counsel that you are the only one who can make the decision. It cannot be to please anyone else, but must come truly from what you need to do.”

There was a long pause during which she searched my face, after which she shrugged. “Not much help, is it?”

“No,” I admitted miserably. “Sometimes I think it will all be decided on the day Lance comes for his answer…that I won’t know what I’m going to say until he’s standing in front of me and the words simply come out of my mouth.”

***

But, in fact, the future was decided not in the summer, but in the month of tears, when Morgause came to the Hall at Camelot.

Morgause

She’s standing in the rain, Your Highness, soaked clean through,” the Gate Keeper said urgently. “Knowing the King’s feelings about his sisters, I dared not let her in, but since he’s not here…” Lucan’s voice trailed off uncertainly.

“Take me to her,” I answered, rising immediately and signaling for Lamorak to come with me. I had no idea what I expected to find—half ogre, half woman, wronged by a brother’s anger for which I saw no justification. At least now I would have a chance to judge Morgause for myself.

She stood in the middle of the cobbled court, making no effort to hide from the storm. Cloak and clothes, shoes and luggage ran with rivulets of water; her own hair and that of the boy she sheltered under one arm was plastered flat by the rain, and her skin had the clammy, cold look of one who is chilled to the bone. Yet she had not crept to the protection of the threshold when Lucan came to fetch me; Celtic pride forbade that she go where she was not wanted.

“You must be my brother’s wife,” Morgause announced as I came through the doorway. “We in the north have heard much about his Cumbrian bride.”

Her tone was pleasant, as though she were greatly pleased to meet me, and her voice sounded remarkably like Igraine’s. A playful smile lit her features while she looked Lamorak up and down. “But you are certainly not Arthur.”

The big warrior flushed as I hastened to explain that the High King had left on a hunting expedition that morning and was not expected back for several days. “What has brought you here, and on such a night as this?” I asked. April is a chancy month for traveling, with the weather being so changeable, and I was puzzled that she had not waited for milder conditions.

“Why, I had to keep my word to Mordred,” she answered, her eyes shifting for a moment to the boy. “When the older children went off to join their uncle at his Court, both Gareth and Mordred felt terribly left out. I promised each of them that when they were old enough to become pages I would bring them to Arthur so they might serve him as well as Gawain and Gaheris and Agravain have. Mordred will turn eleven next week, on May Day—and one doesn’t break a promise to a child, not for weather or politics or any other reason,” she added firmly.

I smiled at her reasoning, sure that if I had been a mother, I would have felt the same.

The rain was pelting down, driven by a cruel wind, and remembering the stew in our pots and the warmth by our fire, I invited her inside. In spite of Arthur’s edict, I could not bring myself to leave the woman and child shivering in the cold.

“But only for one night,” I cautioned. I didn’t know how to explain that my husband had left orders to drive her from his gates, but since she would be gone long before he returned, I decided not to worry about it. Under the circumstances it was the only humane thing to do.

They followed me into the kitchen, steam rising from their clothes like druid’s mist. It wreathed them in mystery, reminding me that Gawain had once boasted his mother was every bit as powerful as Morgan le Fey. But when they’d changed into the dry garments Lynette fetched from my wardrobe, they looked like any other travelers stranded on a wretched night.

Lamorak brought in their baggage, then waited around hoping to be useful. He beamed with pleasure as Morgause thanked him for his help, and the Orcadian Queen cast him a coquettish look while she toweled her hair.

Bigger and much fleshier than Morgan, she must once have borne the mark of Igraine’s beauty. Now she was overblown and voluptuous, and both her lips and eyes were painted. She made no effort to hide the strawberry mark on her cheek, but it didn’t detract from her looks. Certainly Lamorak found her attractive.

Watching their flirtation, I began to wonder if this proud, passionate woman who ruled alone in the cold northern islands was starved for male attention. Or perhaps, like her sister, she simply had a taste for younger men.

Mordred was a quiet, shy boy and looked, as Igraine had once told me, far more like Morgan than Morgause. Like his aunt, he was slight of build and his eyes moved quickly and restlessly everywhere. But at least they were brown in color and not the eerie green of the Lady’s.

“He’s such a good lad,” Morgause said fondly as we went into the Hall. “Learned everything I ever tried to teach him. Children are such a treasure in one’s older years, don’t you think?”

When I nodded silently she gave me a puzzled look and putting her hand on my arm, stared into my face.

“Oh, my dear, is it possible you don’t have any?” Pity and compassion flooded her voice, and I looked away hastily. I would have thought everyone in Britain knew I was barren, but perhaps the Orkney Isles were so remote, not even Court gossip reached them. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I had no idea…Well, there’s bound to be other pleasures in your life, if not offspring.” Her gaze slid over to Lamorak.

***

Seated next to me at the table, Morgause and her son ate as eagerly as young foxes.

“Did Gareth decide to stay home with you?” I asked, for he had never come to Court to be a page.

“Gareth?” The Orkney Queen’s voice quavered slightly. “Gareth was lost to me two years ago…drowned in the killing sea near the Old Man of Hoy. I thought Gawain would have told you. You know Gawain came to visit for the first time in more than a decade,” she confided, pushing away her empty bowl and brushing the crumbs from her lap. “Such a flamboyant fellow; like his father, one never knows what he’ll be up to next.”

I laughed, beginning to enjoy our visit. She had none of her sister’s tautness of spirit but exuded the comfort and blowsy good nature of a tavern-maid. One would never guess her husband had been a powerful king who had opposed mine, or that her bitterness had been so strong, she had disowned her firstborn because he espoused Arthur’s cause.