Guinevere: The Legend in Autumn (37 page)

Perhaps that was enough.

Chapter XXIX

The Trial

And so the nightmare began…noisy at first, with Arthur returning, ferocious as a bear routed out of hibernation…

“Yea Gods, Gwen!” He roared as he stamped furiously about the room. “Did you have to walk right into their trap?”

“
Me
walk into a trap?” I shot back, lifting my hands as high as the manacles allowed. “That trap was to discredit both of us, fashioned by Morgan le Fey and set by the Orcadians, at her suggestion.”

“Only Agravain and Gaheris,” he corrected me grimly. “Gareth was not privy to it, and Gawain refused to be involved. As for Mordred…”

His voice trailed off, and I shied away from the implication, still unwilling to reconcile my stepson’s actions with my belief in his worthiness.

“You should have told me there was more in Morgan’s letter than concern over the church at Camelot,” I declared, coming back to the bone of contention. “Why, Arthur—when she accused Lance and me of treason—why didn’t you ask me?”

My husband abruptly stopped pacing and stared silently out the window. He stood with one shoulder raised, as if prepared to deflect a blow, though the only thing stirring in the room was a breeze that carried the sound of a bargeman poling his wares up the river. Finally Arthur shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t want to know.”

“Of all the damned stupidity!” I howled, my own frustration flaring out of control. “So you believed someone else’s false accusations rather than ask your wife for the truth? I could have told you—do tell you now—that Lancelot and I have always been loyal to you…have never, could never,
will
never, plot against you.”

“I believe you,” he said softly, resuming his trek across the rushes.

“Then why on earth did you let them talk you into an overnight excursion, away from Carlisle, so they’d have a chance to catch Lance and me together?”

“They agreed to retract their claims if he didn’t come to your chamber.”

Oh, Glory, I thought, heaving a sigh. The only time in all our lives together he’s crossed my threshold, and that for succor more basic and needed than bed would ever be. I was as angry at the Gods who let this happen as I was at the men who set it up.

“They have agreed to a trial by jury,” Arthur was saying, trying to move away from arguing. “Your defense will be heard by a panel of your peers.”

“And where are you going to find enough High Queens to sit on it?” I lashed back, wondering how anyone other than a ruling monarch could understand the principles involved.

But my husband just raised an eyebrow and ignored my jibe. “As for Lance—he and his followers have all left Carlisle. Ector, Bors, Lionel, Melias, the lot of them…gone into hiding in the woods, no doubt.”

Or back to Joyous Gard, if they had any sense. No point in staying around to be picked off like Pellinore and Lamorak. The focus of my wrath was beginning to shift from Morgan to her nephews.

“Gaheris died this morning,” Arthur continued. “Brings to four the men Lance killed before he escaped.”

Well, at least something good came of it, I thought bitterly. One less viper to worry about.

“I…I have said I will not sit as judge.” Arthur was speaking quietly, now. His ire having run its course, he was concentrating on the miserable details of salvaging my reputation from Morgan’s attack. “Father Baldwin has suggested someone from the Church—maybe the monk Gildas—should take my place.”

“No!” I hurled the word across the room. In no event would I consider letting that narrowminded prig sit in judgment of me. “There are reasons why he can’t be impartial, Arthur. My father turned him down when he was suggested as a husband for me, back before you and I married.”

“Wonder how
he’d
have coped with you as a wife?” my husband mused, then gave me a long, speculative look. “I’m glad he didn’t get a chance to try.”

The half-hidden compliment caught me off guard, making me smile in spite of everything, and I took a step toward him.

“Arthur,” I said gently, “truly, it wasn’t the way they make it sound. Lance and I have never even bedded.”

“It would be none of my business if you had.” His response was brusque, but he added softly, “Thank you for telling me…I’m glad to know.”

I caught the unguarded moment of admission, the words that had slipped around his barrier of silence like the first trickle of water that begins to seep out a crack in a dam when the pool behind it becomes too great to contain. Now, I thought. Now is the chance I’ve been waiting all our marriage for. If I can just reassure him…But even as I started to speak his name there was a loud knock at the door, and Agravain entered without being bidden.

“It’s time, Your Highness,” he announced, though which of us he was addressing wasn’t clear. Arthur blanched and turned away and the Orcadian pushed me roughly toward the door. As I stumbled into the hall I caught one last glimpse of my husband. Arthur stood there, alone—an isolated man drawn in on himself, struggling with a dozen inner demons. I wanted desperately to go to him, to reach out and hold him and encourage him to give voice to the fears and dreads he had so long denied. But Agravain slammed the door between us and led me, sobbing, back to the room in the wine cellar they were using as a dungeon.

After that came silence as I languished in the cell, closed in, bereft of friend or freedom…

It could have been worse: the guard didn’t keep me chained, Cook sent a tray of hot food from the kitchen every day, and I could see both treetops and sky through the high window. Even the long days of inactivity were bearable. But what the days didn’t bring in torture, the nights did.

Horrible dreams—dreadful, familiar nightmares that have haunted me in times of terror since childhood. There was the vision of my father, jigging and capering atop the Beltane blaze, only this time he wasn’t thrusting the flaming brand into the center of the pyre. He danced in the heart of that inferno, not scrambling down as he had in reality but endlessly giving up his life for his people as I wailed disconsolately and woke sobbing.

Or Morgan’s laughter, silky and gleeful, gloating over the loss of my only child. Anger and pitiful helplessness knotted my stomach, and I woke, retching.

But worst of all was the sight of Arthur in battle, slowly, inexorably run through by a spear when he fought Maelgwn in retribution for my having been kidnapped and raped. Fatally skewered, his death agony sent wave after wave of pain through my sleep as he reached out to me from the blood-blackened pool of disaster and I woke, screaming.

Just so the most awful fears of my life came back, parading grotesquely through the dark. In between, I prayed. As hard as I’d prayed for Lance when he was so close to death, now I prayed for his safety and that the trial might prove our innocence…

By the time the trial was held, my eyes were sunken from lack of sleep, my spirit dampened by so much horror. I moved slowly into the big room with the mosaic floor and sank down on the chair Agravain gestured to—a plain, hard-backed piece of furniture that was a far cry from the carved chairs I had used for years as Queen. Those at least had cushions.

The position of judge was eliminated after Arthur stepped down, and since no one would accept the job of sitting on the jury, the entire household was enlisted. I looked slowly around the room, blinking at the sight of so many strangers. Here and there I found a familiar face—Enid and Elyzabel sitting together, Lynette with her newest babe at breast, Frieda holding a grandchild on her lap, Cook still wearing her apron. Nimue was present, but she kept herself separate from the rest, as befits a priestess.

Among the men, the Companions fidgeted—adjusting belts, studying their boots, playing with their daggers. Gareth and Griflet held my gaze and tried to smile encouragingly; Gawain stared at the ceiling; Cei sat beside Arthur with Palomides on the other side, offering whispered comments. Of the rest, not even Ironside met my eyes.

It was Agravain who presented the case against me, swaggering about the small open area in the center of the group, making his points with flair and dramatic gestures.

“Captured in her own chamber,” he stressed. “As good as lying naked in her lover’s arms…”

“I wasn’t naked, and we were standing,” I interrupted, but my voice was too weak to carry, and he ignored my statement.

Holding up Morgan’s letter, the handsome Orcadian declared that Arthur deserved better in a wife. Watching him, I wondered vaguely what drove the man to attack me so. His jealousy of Lancelot was well known, as was his devotion to the Lady who had absolved him of matricide. Still, to carry the charges from the two of us being lovers to that of treason was preposterous. I listened to his ravings and had trouble taking them seriously, so outlandish did they seem.

When Bedivere rose to defend me, he pointed out the flaws in Agravain’s argument, the lack of evidence, and the fact that Morgan herself had once attempted to have Arthur killed by her lover, Accolon. “Is it not a bit of irony,” he said dryly, “that the Lady of the Lake should now accuse the High King’s wife of the very action she herself was guilty of?”

He went on to note the lack of proof in Agravain’s case.

“But you have years of proof of loyalty, years of service to the King and Round Table—by both Lancelot and the Queen. The Breton brought honor and courtesy and courage, while M’lady brought the human touch that kept the Fellowship from being just another gathering of warriors. Has she not always been there to listen to your problems, cheer you when you were down, lead the celebrations when you triumphed?”

And, as his final argument, he reminded the Court that by ancient custom Celtic women have the right to choose their bed partners on the basis of merit. If I had chosen to exercise that right, what would be more natural than that I turn to my personal Champion and finest warrior in the realm?

When Bedivere was finished, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had begged him to find a way to defend me without ever casting doubts on Arthur as a husband, and he had done it brilliantly.

It was a splendid and spirited defense. Every God I had petitioned, every spirit I had called forth guided Bedivere’s rhetoric. At the end I would have applauded if I’d had more strength.

His words had their effect; the newcomers looked at me with curiosity, and possibly respect, while the rest nodded in agreement and reminded each other of this favor I had done or that trouble I had taken on their behalf. The hope that Arthur’s hard won legal system might produce justice after all gave me confidence. I sat up straighter in my chair and resolutely faced my accusers.

That’s when the Bishop from Carlisle’s cathedral stepped forth—the man Vinnie used to encourage me to entertain. Old and venerable now, with a long white beard, he looked kindly and wise as he leaned against his shepherd’s crook and sealed my fate in a thunderous voice…

“Can you say you are innocent of adultery in spirit as well as body?” he demanded.

“What right have you to judge my spirit?” I flashed back, stung by the old man’s righteousness.

But the moment the words were out of my mouth, I wished desperately I could take them back. The patriarch turned from me to the household with the grace of a born orator.

“Thus you see clearly the dangers of a prideful Pagan monarch ruling a Christian Court, my children. Overweening pride invariably leads to other sins—unbridled lust, treason against her husband, all forms of arrogance and plotting for personal ends. I have heard that this Queen thwarted the true and rightful union of Lancelot and Elaine, and banished the girl from Court, simply to keep her lover close at hand. What was that but a misuse of power, a corruption of her position? And yet she continues to go among you with a total lack of shame.”

He paused and turned back to me, making such a sweeping gesture with his arm that everyone’s eyes traveled from his accusing finger to where I sat, transfixed, in my chair.

“Look at her now,” he intoned. “Even now, defiant when her vile actions are exposed. Only if she confesses her sins, renounces her proud ways, and submits to the authority of God and her husband can she be saved.”

It was then I knew the cause was lost. A cold chill reached my heart, and I lowered my head lest my judges see the despair in my eyes. The Bishop, naturally, took it as a sign of belated contrition.

I stayed in the cell while they all deliberated, and when Lucan came to escort me back for the verdict tears were running down his face. Elyzabel walked beside me, ostensibly to hold me up should I feel faint, though I noticed that it was she who clutched my hand. I avoided looking at Arthur, glancing only at those who had known me well; yet whether Christian or Pagan, their faces reflected a terrible doom, and not a few among them cried. For the rest, a bare few looked away in shame. The others stared me down, scornful of the monarch they were about to depose and send packing back to Rheged. Once more I bowed my head.

Standing there in the sandals and shift of a penitent, long since stripped of crown or robes, or even the golden torc I had so loved, I witnessed the indictment of Pagan Queenhood; the ending of co-ruling as an equal and respected partner…

They had heeded their Bishop’s demand, and I heard, rather than saw, their verdict. “Guilty.” “Guilty.” “Death at the stake come dawn.”