Guinevere (2 page)

As she had hoped, the lessons for that day were not hard. Tenuantius was preoccupied with a letter he had just received purporting to be an exact copy of a newly discovered epistle of St. Paul. It was all in Greek, a language the copier didn’t speak, and Tenuantius was spending all his waking hours and most of his dreams trying to decipher the badly written letters. He barely listened as Guinevere progressed from the Age of Gold to the iniquities of the Iron Age. He didn’t even stop her for one of his lectures on the derivation of the proper names. So Guinevere enjoyed the story without interruption, until Tenuantius signaled that she might leave.

As soon as she was released, she rushed to her room and began to pull on her riding shoes, leather slippers attached to thick leather thongs, which were wrapped around wads of cloth reaching up to her knees. She tied them carefully so that there was no space at her ankle between the leather and the cloth. Then she hurried to find her father.

The air in the courtyard was still. The sunlight streamed in between the branches of the fruit trees or bounced off the dusty white walls. The rays were brilliant and seemed thick enough to hold. The only movement was that of the motes in the light, slowly twirling, spinning down. The only sound was the slap-flop of Guinevere’s shoes on the stone walk. At first she didn’t notice the strange silence. Then she stopped. She was almost to the stable gate and still there was no noise. She was vaguely annoyed.

“Where is everyone?” she muttered. “Have they forgotten that I was to ride today?”

She stamped her foot. “Very well, I’ll just follow them myself.”

The horses were all still in their stalls. The stable seemed deserted, too. Guinevere felt that someone was watching her. She swung around and saw the outline of someone standing in the shadows behind the open gate. She stared and then realized that it was only Caet, the stableboy.

“Caet, you frightened me!” she reproached him. “Where is my father? Where are the guards and the men-at-arms? Don’t they know I am to go riding today?”

Caet stepped into the light, but the shadows seemed to come with him. He was truly one of the Old People, not Celtic or Roman or Saxon, but one who must have sprung from the earth itself. His hair was a dark, sooty brown and his eyes gray. He was small, hardly taller than Guinevere, although he was four or five years older. He rarely spoke and therefore was considered simple by the garrulous families who lived in the area. His ancestors had been slaves for three hundred years. Leodegrance had freed his parents and he had been born free, but only in name and he knew it. Guinevere had played with him when she was small. He had made her toys and steadied her when she first learned to ride, and she was very fond of him in her unthinking way. She knew he wasn’t simple, but had never bothered to find out more about him. If she had paid attention, he would have given himself away many times. Even now he was staring at her so intently that it made her nervous.

“Caet, please go and find my father for me,” she smiled politely. “Tell him I am waiting here for him. I’m not letting anyone leave without me.”

Caet bowed and left.

Soon after, she heard the clatter of many voices. She ran to Leodegrance as he approached and hugged him reproachfully. “Father, you had forgotten me!”

“Not at all, my love,” he replied. “But I can’t take you with me today. A message has come from our cousin, Cador, and I must spend a few days riding to the villas of the other landholders to consult with them. Now, don’t be disappointed. There is nothing we can do about it. Come to your mother and perhaps we can think of something else you can do today.”

Guinevere didn’t complain, but she wasn’t happy. He had promised to take her out! She didn’t understand how anything could be that urgent. He could start out tomorrow. Nevertheless, she trotted obediently beside him as he thought lovingly of his docile daughter.

Guenlian smiled at the pouting face. “I think it would be good for you to get out in the sun today, even if you can’t ride. I was going to send the maids out to the meadow near the forest to gather herbs and wildflowers to dry for winter possets. You and Flora may go with them.”

Guinevere looked at her imploringly. It was a poor change from galloping freely through the woods with one’s father to primly picking flowers in a meadow with one’s nurse! Still, it was better than nothing They were so careful about letting her go out of the compound alone these days.

So, a short time later Guinevere and Flora with the maids and foster girls went off across the fields. They were dressed in light, loose robes with their arms bare and only a narrow fillet around their waists. The girls were laughing and swinging their baskets, for this was a holiday to them. Although she wanted to run with the others, at least, Guinevere followed with Flora.

“You stay with me, my dove,” the old woman ordered. “I’m too old to trot around like that and I need your strong shoulder to help me.”

Guinevere laughed at that. “Why, Flora, you can run faster than any of them. I’ve seen you. The time I fell from the walnut tree, you were across the court so quickly that you almost caught me. And when you found that Caet had pulled hairs from Sybil’s tail to make me a ring, why, you chased him completely around the house and caught him, even though he had a good start of you.”

Flora’s lined face grew sharp. “Are you making fun of your old nurse?” There was a warning in her voice that Guinevere knew well.

“No, Flora,” she answered meekly, although there was a teasing look in her eyes. “Would you like to lean on me for a while?”

“For a bit.” And Flora rested her arm heavily on the girl’s shoulder, causing her to stagger. But Guinevere set her teeth and bore it. Sometimes Flora could be very aggravating.

Soon they came to the meadow. Tall, scented grasses and flowers covered a series of small hills. At the western edge of it, with no prelude, the forest began. It was as if someone purposely kept the area clear, as if the forest was not allowed to encroach on that spot. The flowers waved, blue, white, red, and yellow in the warm sun, and the young women happily began to gather them. They flitted through the grasses, singing and laughing, and then finally sat on a little mound near the center of the meadow, to sort the blooms and buds and tie them in bunches, gossiping all the while. The long-forgotten queen buried beneath them would have smiled to see their pleasure and rejoiced that the world had changed so little.

Flora spread her shawl in the shade of a large oak tree and sat down to rest. She looked very tired and Guinevere noticed the silver glinting in her hair with a pang of remorse. Perhaps the long walk had really wearied her.

“Now, my dear,” the nurse told her. “You may walk a little into the woods if you like or stay with the serving girls and other ladies. But if you go, be sure to stay to the path and don’t walk more than a hundred steps in. The sun doesn’t reach very far into that forest and it’s easy to lose your direction. I will rest a while, since I was robbed of my sleep last night. Now take your basket and your cape and bring me back something beautiful and rare.”

Delighted, Guinevere gave her an apologetic kiss and skipped into the woods. Flora leaned her head wearily against the tree. She was getting old, she thought: too old to be leading a double life.

The forest started so suddenly that within a few steps it surrounded Guinevere. From the brilliant sun-drenched field she found herself in a cool, green opaque light. The path was soft with centuries of pine needles and spring rain. Here grew the tiny, shy flowers that Guinevere loved best, lily of the valley and star flowers. Others were delicate shades of red and lavender with clear yellow veins in their fragile petals. She had no name for these, which made them all the more remarkable and mysterious. She knelt so that her face was next to them and brushed one with her cheek.

“I cannot pick you,” she told it softly. “I tried once, to take you home to mother, but you crumpled and died in my hand. Stay here, where you are fresh and beautiful. I will find something else for Flora.”

And gently she left the little flower, safe among the ferns. Deep among the leaves, dark blue eyes shone approval.

Guinevere wandered here and there through the trees. She didn’t even pretend to stay to the path, for she was sure she could find it again. She went far more than a hundred steps because she had long since forgotten to count them. She was intensely happy. She was alone, a wonderful event in itself, and there was something rare and beautiful to be found. The sunlight scattered itself about her in such giddy patterns that she hardly noticed its slow downward slant. It was late afternoon and she was far into the forest when a sound in the bushes startled her into awareness.

“Flora will be furious!” was her first thought. She piled together the herbs and flowers she had picked, along with a few smooth stones and other curious things she had found. They were dumped randomly into her basket. A wild perfume arose as the stones crushed the plants. She stared about her as if she expected the path to appear at her feet. It was then that she realized how far she had wandered.

“I’ve lost myself, how stupid!” Guinevere was not overly concerned, for in her whole life she had never had a difficulty that someone hadn’t quickly helped her out of. Being lost in a forest with night approaching wasn’t any worse than climbing too high in the walnut tree or having a horse run away with one. Someone had climbed up and carried her down and someone had raced after her and calmed the horse. Someone would soon come to find her. She wrapped her cape about her shoulders and composed herself to wait.

After about fifteen minutes it occurred to her that she might just as well walk a bit toward home and help those hunting for her. After an hour of walking she began to wonder if she hadn’t missed them somewhere. A little later she noticed that the shadows under the trees were getting longer and darker.

“If they don’t come soon,” she reasoned, “it will be dark and they will have a lot of trouble finding me.”

She began to feel a whisper of concern then, as shreds of tales about forests at night came back to her. As a small child, she had been warned that ghosts and monsters walked the woods after dark, hunting for children to carry away to the underworld to be slaves. Guenlian had informed her daughter that they were Christians and civilized Romans and didn’t believe in such nonsense. In matters of that sort, Guinevere always trusted her mother over Flora. However, the dimming light made strange shapes among the trees and undergrowth. From the corner of her eye, Guinevere saw huge, scaly hands reaching out for her. When she turned to face them, they vanished into the shadows. She wasn’t panicky yet, but nervous. She found what looked like a narrow path and stumbled onto it. Tree roots rose from it, and stones that were eager to trip her or bruise her feet. The twilight above her head was deepening to night and a few pale stars glittered.

She was beginning to give way to fear, stumbling, her dress ripped from encounters with branches, her hair dusted with bark and cobwebs. She sank down, tears starting. Suddenly a light shone before her. It was somewhere behind the bushes; a silver gleam. It couldn’t be a lantern or torch, but perhaps the reflection of one off a shield. Guinevere plunged toward it, paying no attention to the stones and grasping branches. As she came to where she had seen it shining, the light moved on. Gasping with exertion, she tried to call out.

“Here I am! Wait! I’m just behind you! Please, stop! Wait for me!”

It was still moving away, becoming only a dim glow in the dark. She ran faster.

“Soldiers of Leodegrance! It is I, Guinevere!”

Still the light moved away from her.

On and on it went, always just too far away to be clearly seen. She was not aware of time or the forest about her, only the ache in her side and the dryness in her throat and the silver shining before her.

Suddenly, the light vanished. Guinevere gave a deep sobbing cry and dove through the thick stand of berry bushes where she had seen it last. Scratched and bleeding, she tumbled onto the main path, not far from where she had entered the forest that afternoon.

As she lay there, panting and coughing, her body numb with exhaustion and relief, she noticed something shining on a branch above her. Curious, she pulled herself partway up and crawled over to it. It was a long, thin strand of something silver. Guinevere couldn’t tell whether it was reflecting the moonlight or if it gave off a light of its own. She reached up and gently pulled it down. It wasn’t thread or wire.

“It’s too thick for hair and too fine to be anything else,” she thought.

Then, in spite of her pain and weariness, Guinevere smiled.

“Something rare and and lovely,” she almost laughed. “Now I shall have a gift for Flora.”

She started to put it into her basket and then realized that she had dropped it long ago. So she sat in the middle of the path, resting, passing the thin, silky light between her fingers.

A few minutes later she saw the good, honest gold and red of real torches and heard the worried voices of her father and the guards. With a joyful cry, she ran to them.

As soon as she saw her father’s face, she knew she had done something terribly wrong. It was gray with worry. His normally firm chin was trembling as he gathered her up. He only trusted himself to whisper her name. He held her close before him on the horse, his free arm wrapped about her so tightly that it hurt.

At home, nothing was said beyond the exclamations of Flora as she saw the scratched and bruised arms and feet. Guinevere was given a warm herbal bath, and ointment was rubbed on the wounds. It was not until she was safe in bed that her parents came in.

“We don’t want to hear any explanations, daughter,” Guenlian told her sternly. “You wandered away thoughtlessly, and any fear or pain you might have had was well deserved. You caused your father and the guards to spend several extra hours of hard work hunting for you, when they were already tired from their journey today. Flora should not have let you enter the woods alone, but you are old enough now to know what you should and should not do and to observe the limits set for you. Flora will not always be near to tell you what is right or wrong. Obviously we have not taught you well enough where else to seek guidance. For the next two weeks, instead of riding with your father or playing in the fields, you may spend your afternoons in the chapel, praying for wisdom and maturity and studying the works of the Holy Fathers. Perhaps there you can find counsel.”