Guinevere: The Legend in Autumn (50 page)

It took a while to realize that, but by the time Bedivere requested permission to see me at the convent, I was beginning to come to terms with it.

I met him in a private room, away from the discreet but curious eyes of the nuns, and when the door was closed behind us, he immediately came to my side.

“Ah, Gwen, I do not know how to tell you…” His voice broke, and he took my hand and put it to his cheek. I felt the tears against my skin, and gently raised the other hand so as to hold his face between my palms.

“I saw it, Bedivere—I saw them kill each other in my dream.”

The craggy lieutenant stared down at me, his face furrowed with sorrow.

“And I heard of Gawain’s death at Dover,” I added, leading Arthur’s foster brother to the bench beneath the window. “Was it from Lance’s blow?”

“Aye, I’m afraid it was.” Bedivere sighed heavily. “But at the end the Prince of Orkney regretted all the trouble he’d caused. When it was clear that Mordred was close to claiming the whole of Britain for his own, and the Orcadian knew he was dying, he dictated a letter to Lancelot, begging the Breton’s forgiveness and asking him to come to Arthur’s aid.”

How like Gawain—impetuous, hotheaded, quick to love and hate, laugh and cry. I remembered the gap-toothed redhead and smiled.

“Who else, Bedivere? Who else was lost?”

“Almost everyone, M’lady. It looked to be working out well enough at first, when the armies were drawn up. Morgan le Fey and several of the Druids stepped into the space between the men and demanded, in the Old Way, that there be no fighting until the matter had been negotiated. Many of the warriors were uncertain—Saxons don’t have a tradition of priests who can stop wars, and the Christians weren’t sure they could trust the Lady. But she and Nimue convinced Mordred and Arthur to meet in the middle, so the armies stood down, with the warning that if a single sword was drawn, the battle would commence.”

Bedivere paused, as though reliving the scene in his mind. “I was at Arthur’s side, just as I had been when he won his first battle, and again when he was crowned. And yet I cannot tell you what was said. He and Mordred stared at each other, neither blinking, neither giving way. Morgan tried to talk with them, tried to find some common ground, but they only sat there, still as stone. Perhaps she could have softened them if there had been more time. But the day grew warm, as autumn days occasionally do, and somewhere in the grasses an adder stretched and crawled across a warrior’s boot. Without thinking the man drew his weapon to cut its head off—and all other warriors drew as well. So it began…and ended…that wicked, wicked day!”

“And Cei?” I asked, seeing the lopsided grin the Seneschal had favored me with during our last meeting in the Tower. “Where is he?”

“Long dead and buried in Brittany, lost in a melee with Lance’s men. But Griflet still lived at Camlann, M’lady. It was he and Lucan the Gatekeeper who helped me carry Arthur from the field.”

“From the field?” For a moment the smallest of hopes flickered before me. “Then he wasn’t killed by Mordred’s stroke?”

“Not outright.” Bedivere swallowed hard and looked away. “When the day was done and there was nothing left but broken bodies strewn about, I wandered through them, trying to find the King. I came upon him, propped against a tree, his hand resting on Mordred’s forehead as though in blessing, or maybe apology. But already he had grown weak, Gwen—pale and clammy with loss of blood, unable even to stand. I was trying to make some kind of litter when Lucan stumbled up, and Griflet as well.

“Together the three of us moved Arthur away from that awful place, taking him, at his request, down to the river-bank. Griflet wasn’t able to complete the trip; he staggered and fell before we reached the water. His tunic was hanging in shreds, and only after he collapsed did I realize his belly had been slit open. The wound was bad enough, but the exertion of carrying his King killed him. Before he died, he asked to be remembered to you.”

Tears filled my eyes for the Kennel Master. A quiet, self-effacing man, he’d been but a boy sent to accompany me south to marry Arthur, a boy who fell in love with a Saxon maid, and gave us all a lifetime of service, a full measure of devotion. It was men like him who had made Camelot possible.

“But Arthur—where is he now?”

“Gone, Gwen. Taken away by the Lady of the Lake. He sent me to hide Excalibur, not wanting it to fall into Saxon hands, and when I returned, I saw a small boat riding on the river current. The King was lying in the prow, with his head in Morgan’s lap, and it seemed they were drifting off toward Glastonbury—to Avalon, or the Isle of Glass. Whether he was dead or still living, I couldn’t tell, but his sister has care of him now, and if anyone can heal him, she can.”

So she kept her promise, and somewhere Arthur may or may not be alive. I smiled bleakly in the face of such uncertainty while Bedivere stood up and moved stiffly toward a table by the door. For the first time I realized he was limping, no doubt from wounds he himself had taken at Camlann.

“I have two reasons to come see you,” he said, reaching for a package that lay on the table. “Although Mordred died, the Saxons were swarming all over the area, and I was afraid they might find Excalibur. Nothing proves the death of a leader so much as having his sword captured by the enemy, so I retrieved it from its hiding place.”

He opened the oiled leather coverings of the bundle and lifted the sword and scabbard from the folds. Even in the dim light of the convent room it shone like a treasure from legend. Going down on one knee, he held it out to me, the hilt on his good hand, the tip supported by the hook on his gauntlet.

“There are some few of us left. Constantine of Cornwall survived, as did Gwyn of Neath, for all that he went coursing everywhere over that battlefield, like his namesake God who escorts the war-dead off to glory! He’d be willing to lead the Welsh, of that I’m sure. And Uwain in Northumbria, who refrained from coming to Camlann, would surely make common cause with us against the Saxons. If you would sanction such a coalition, and raise Excalibur as Arthur’s Queen…”

His voice trailed off when I shook my head, slowly and sadly. “Even if I wanted to pursue the warpath, I cannot, my friend. Arthur’s life, if he lives, is forfeit to my remaining in the convent. I dare not take the risk, unless it was absolutely certain he was dead. And even then, I have it on good authority I have too soft a heart to be a ‘great’ monarch…”

I reached out and ran my fingers along the sheathed sword, beginning at the chape. The designs on the scabbard were as elegant and mysterious as when Morgan first embroidered them, back before she turned against us. The gold-and-silver hilt was as bright as the first day I’d seen it, and I traced the intricate patterns with love and respect. Only the fire of the amethyst was gone; it lay cradled in its mounting like any other lump of stone, as though the spirit that had suffused its owner had now departed from it as well.

Knowing this was as close as I might come to saying farewell to my husband, I bent slowly and placed a kiss on the hilt so often held in his hand.

“If Arthur lives, he will need it again,” I said slowly. “If he doesn’t…I think you should cast it into a lake, as an offering to the Goddess who gave it to him to begin with. There is a kind of symmetry in that, since Morgan raised it for him by the waters of the Black Lake.”

Bedivere nodded silently and rose with a sigh to return Excalibur to its coverings. Then he came back to the bench, and sitting beside me again, he took my hand in his.

“There is one more thing you should know. Lancelot did come to Arthur’s aid, though he arrived too late. There were a few minor battles with various bands of Federates, but most of his warriors have gone back to Brittany without him. He is with me now—waiting in the courtyard—in the hope that you’ll see him.”

I heard the words as from a long way away, like the echo of the wind across the grassy hills, and my response was a bare whisper. “How is he, Bedivere? Is he whole? Sane? As shattered by this as the rest of us?”

Bedivere ducked his head and swallowed hard. “Aye, all of that. Some days he blames himself unmercifully for what has happened. Other days he spends in prayer, lapsing into the kind of trance the mystics seek. Arthur may have found his end, but Lance is still questing. I think that’s why he’s sought you out.”

Sitting very still, remembering the days and nights and years we’d shared, I reached out and covered Bedivere’s hand with my free one.

“Tell him,” I said softly, “that I can never take the place of God. I will always love him, as I have always loved Arthur. But he must find his Grail, just as I must honor my bargain with Morgan.” A single tear slid down my cheek and fell on the back of my hand. “Say I will not see him, but release him from all past promises.”

And so it came to an end, that fine, free dream of love that had raced against the clouds and leapt the rivers of time. Neither one of us, I knew, would cease to care, but each must stay apart from the other for the rest of our lives.

I said good-bye to Bedivere, but not before asking if he wished to see Brigit, whom he had loved as a girl, before she chose the holy life.

“I’ve already spoken to her, when I first arrived. She’s a fine lass, still—and I’m glad she’s by your side again.”

With a last craggy smile Arthur’s foster brother gathered up Excalibur and opened the door. Behind him the quiet of the convent stretched away down the corridors, and he turned to give me a last, final salute.

Only after the door closed behind him did I turn my face to the wall and begin to cry.

Epilogue

How many years ago that was! Hard to believe that I, Sister Gwenhwyvaer of Rheged, have spent as many years in this holy house as I did on the High Throne of Britain! It is as puzzling as the fact that I, who used to run through the morning of my life, am now grown old and frail, content to shuffle quietly from the crones’ bench in the garden to the back pew in the chapel. And where I once railed at the fate that shattered Camelot and limited my world to these four walls, I now look back and smile.
My horizons may have grown smaller, but not my heart.

Over the years bits and snippets of news fell by, winging their way through the beechwood like the hedge sparrows that return to the garden every spring. Arthur was said to have been buried at Glastonbury; to be sleeping in a cave; to be living in Avalon with Morgan. Everyone and no one knew where he was, or even if he was still alive. But if he lives, I dare not leave the convent, for I’m sure Morgan will never forget my promise.

It’s odd how, in the first half of my life, I always knew where Arthur was, and it was Lance who was off wandering. Now it is Arthur I pray for and wonder about, while Lance lives quietly at the hermitage in Glastonbury, with Bors and Bedivere.

They seem to have settled in there, telling their beads at the base of the Tor, in the shadow of Gwyn’s pagan fortlet. Someone said that Palomides was with them for a while, before setting off for the Holy Land in search of Perceval, with whom he plans to pursue the Grail.
It is not as unlikely an alliance as one might think—the worldly philosopher and the holy fool. Between the two of them, they ought to apprehend some kind of deity.

There has been other news as well, of Saxon victories and British loss. When London fell, both of Lynette’s daughters made their way here, though only Lora stayed. Megan was too full of life and the deeds of heroes to take the veil, so she left to join her brother, Lancelot, who had gone to fight at the side of Duke Constantine in Cornwall.

In the years after Father Baldwin came to live with us, we passed more than one wintery evening remembering the days of glory…laughing over this adventure, smiling gently at that. Sometimes I tried to make sense of it, to find the shadow of a God’s hand, or trace the moira through it all: Gawain pursuing honor until it became an all-consuming obsession; Lancelot questing for a God forever beyond reach; Galahad dedicated to his Grail while Arthur was salvaging some semblance of civilization from the dark threat of chaos and anarchy. And me—busy from dawn to dusk, living and laughing and loving every moment of it.

No doubt there is a pattern there, someplace, though I’ve never been able to say what it was. Of those that could be called the tragic aspects, the only ones I truly understand are Morgan’s little-girl heartbreak and the aching betrayal Mordred found in his father’s coldness.

One year Taliesin stopped to visit on his way north to become bard to Maelgwn’s son, Rhun. It seems my cousin left the monastery as soon as he learned Arthur was no longer on the High Throne, and returned to rule Gwynedd, where he went back to being a despot. But when the plague swept the land, he sought to avoid the disease by having himself walled up inside a small country chapel with a year’s supply of food. Unfortunately the servants, who were supposed to wait outside until the pestilence was gone, took sick and died, and when his food ran out, there was no one to unbrick the doors and windows.
Thus, ironically, he who had kidnapped me and kept me prisoner died as one himself. Perhaps there is some justice out there after all.

When he left, Taliesin gave me a tract written by the monk, Gildas. Writing in the most dreadful Latin, he scathes all Britons with his acid tongue and claims the Saxon victories are God’s punishment for our non-Christian ways. But nowhere does he mention Arthur—or me.
Petty, spiteful little man…did he think he could expunge us from history by pretending we didn’t exist?

If so, he’s wrong. There was a beekeeper came last night, asking room in the guest house in return for a comb of his thick, sweet treasure. For all that he was unlettered, he had a way with words, so after dinner we stayed on listening to his stories, while the fire flared up and the room grew warm and golden, almost like the Hall at Camelot.

There is, he said, a wild man who lives alone in the Caledonian Woods, making poems and magic and talking with a striped pig. Merlin, it is—Merlin come back, Merlin the King’s Enchanter, weaving his spells all over again. He didn’t die, the man said…didn’t die any more than Arthur did. Why, everyone knows Morgan le Fey healed the Pendragon’s wounds, and now he slumbers in a cave, waiting to return when Britain needs him most.

And if any proof is needed, one has only to go to South Cadbury, where the ruins of fabled Camelot stand. The locals, Saxon and Briton alike, will tell you that on any night when the wind has scoured the stars from the sky, ’tis Arthur and Gwyn of Neath who come riding out of the hollow hill, leading the Wild Hunt on their great black horses.

“It’s him,” the beekeeper swore. “King Arthur himself, with all the finest Champions of his Fellowship, racing to join the Queen who waits for them in the meadow, with May-flowers in her hair and joy in her heart.”

The beekeeper didn’t notice an old, old lady sitting in the granny-nook, smiling at his words. Why should he? I’ve become no more than the shadow of a time long gone.

But I heard the tale, and knew that Merlin’s promise that we would live forever was a true-spoke prophecy. The people need us, and they will not let us die. Because of them, Camelot still lives, where a Sorcerer’s dream became reality, and the Fellowship of the Round Table flowered. Camelot, where men of honor strive for noble causes, and a just king rules in a land of wonder…where love lasts forever, and I still watch Arthur and Lancelot come tramping across the courtyard from their morning rounds, heads bent in consultation…splendid men they were, for splendid times…

So I smile, knowing the truth of it, loving the humans at the heart of the myth.

Yes, it was magnificent, and no, it was never easy…yet, still in all…I’d do it all over again, tomorrow.