Guinevere (21 page)

“Your mother?”

“My mother, Guinevere, is Morgan, called Le Fay. She is wife to King Lot of Cornwall and daughter to Igraine, late wife of King Uther. Her sister is Morgause, a sorceress, some say. You may have heard of them all.”

He flushed a little as he confessed it, as if both ashamed and proud of his notorious family.

Guinevere was uncomfortable, too. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Really, I should have known. I have heard of your mother. She must be a very interesting person to know.”

Gawain laughed again, this time without humor. “So say half the men in Britain.”

“I didn’t mean that, Gawain. You should know. Never mind,” she brushed away his apologies. “Didn’t you ever ask your mother about your problem? Have you always been this way?”

“Yes, for as long as I can remember, I think since I was born. I did ask her once, when I was angry at what I was missing. My brothers would go exploring at night and I could never go with them. She thought it was very funny and said it must be my father’s fault. She told me that she hadn’t considered the possibility at the time but it was very nice that one of her children was certain never to interrupt her at night, just when she was busiest.”

“What could that mean?” Guinevere ignored the last part of his statement and concentrated on the first. “I have never heard of anyone in Lot’s family having to sleep the moment the sun went down.”

“My dear, just how bad is your cold? No one ever said Lot was my father. He’s a fine man and I like him, but I doubt that he sired me or any of my brothers, either. I don’t know who the man was. Knowing Mother, I sometimes fear that it was no man at all but some sort of incubus she conjured up from hell with one of her potions.”

“That doesn’t seem likely. I’ve always heard that such demons love the dark and dread the light of day.” She crossed herself piously. “May we be protected from them. That is the opposite of your problem so, if anything, he must have been one who loved the day.”

“That’s true. I hadn’t considered it that way. You are a comfort Guin. I hope you feel better soon.” He gave her a brotherly pat on the head and yawned.

“Still another month until spring. I must go and get some dinner before I’m too tired to eat. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

“Good afternoon, Gawain.”

He nearly collided at the curtain with Risa bringing a tray for her mistress. He excused himself as she edged around him silently, staring all the while with adoration.

Once he was out of sight, she collected herself and brought the tray over.

“The soup is cold now, my lady, from the long climb, but I’ll heat it again on the brazier and warm the wine also. There are some dried apples soaked in milk if you would like something now.”

“Yes, that would be fine,” Guinevere held out her hand for the bowl. “Risa, why do you stare at Gawain so? You watch and watch him but you never speak.”

Risa started and spilled some of the soup.

“Oh dear! Look at the mess! I didn’t realize I was being so obvious.”

“I have noticed you and so has he. He would like it if you spoke to him.”

“Then he must say something first. I’m not so bold as all that.”

She carefully poured what was left of the soup into a small iron pot and let it heat over the coals. Her cheeks were red and she held her face close to the heat to explain it. She spoke again casually, without turning her head.

“Did he tell you he wanted me to say something?”

“Not exactly. But I think he would like it.”

Risa waited silently while Guinevere finished her meal. Then she pulled a small roll of parchment from a fold in her robe. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I almost forgot, there was a letter from your mother.”

Guinevere unrolled the parchment carefully. It was only a short note full of daily happenings. But it brought a greater warmth than the mulled wine.

“Is there any news, my lady?”

“Nothing special,” Guinevere smiled. “My niece is demanding that her grandfather teach her to ride. She is an active little person and apparently keeps the whole household busy. She is so pretty and so much like Matthew. I can hardly wait to see her again. The roof in the solarium is leaking this winter and Father is worried that he can find no more tile makers to repair it properly.”

“Do they say if there is word of Caet?”

“No, I suppose that if he were heard from they would say something. It does seem odd, the way he ran off without asking anyone. Father was particularly disappointed.”

She read on awhile, lost in memories. Risa took the soup bowl and left. The room grayed in the growing twilight. Finally she put the letter down and looked about her. Despite the efforts of Guenlian and her hostess, the contrast between this room and the one she had grown up in was enormous. The floor and walls were cold stone. Attempts had been made to cover as much of them as possible, especially since the proximity to the ocean made the walls always damp and mossy. They had been draped with thick hangings of linen and wool, but the smell of mildew permeated everything. The floors were strewn with straw, which soon grew brown and broken from dropped food and muddy boots. In the great Hall it was far worse, as the animals were allowed to wander about, relieving themselves where ever they liked. The elegant long robes the women wore were crusted at the hems with every kind of filth. The stench was overpowering to Guinevere, but most people, enveloped in their own aroma, soon ceased to notice. Early on in her stay, Guinevere had discovered that water could only be procured by sending servants out to the well to draw it and then carry it in steaming buckets from the great fire in the hall to her room. It was tainted by the sea and no one drank it unless forced to. It was much more tolerable as ale. Guinevere longed to bathe every day, as she had at home, but her conscience would not allow all that trouble so often. Once a week annoyed the household quite enough.

Still, oddly, she had adjusted to life there. In many ways it was more exciting than her backwater home. Cador’s castle was part of a long string of watchtowers that had been manned for centuries to spot ships of traders and possible invaders. Messengers were always coming in with information on how the wars were going or to tell what ships had been sighted. The conversation and entertainment in the evenings were also different from the low tones and ancient lays heard in the villa. Life here was noisy and more intense; sometimes even a little wild. People were used to a chancy existence and lived as though they might not see another spring. It frightened Guinevere and exhilarated her. The only thing she could not accustom herself to was the lack of privacy. Outside of her own room she was rarely alone. Even there she had to share sleeping space with Risa. There were over a hundred people living, working, or passing through the castle on any given day. They came from all over the island and a few even from Armorica, Gaul, and farther east. They bumped and jostled, yelled and competed for space and attention until Guinevere’s only thought was to run from them all; anywhere, only to get away.

That was how she found her place, a small strip of beach at the end of a narrow path. It was covered by the sea, except at low tide. This night she knew it would be open and, even with her cold, she was determined to go down there, alone. She covered her head with a blanket and leaned her face through the narrow slit in the stones that served as a window. The wind cut her eyes so that tears blurred her vision. But she didn’t need sight. She was calling, calling again.

Finally, as from a great distance, she felt the answer come. “I will be with you tonight; wait for me.”

Her muscles relaxed and she covered the hole in the wall again with the oiled skin nailed above it.

An hour later, when she knew the rest of the household would be grouped by rank around the hearth, she slipped down the stairs and made for a side door she knew she could unbolt. She held her breath as she passed across the dark corner of the hall, but no one turned. They were all intent on a new arrival’s story, something involving a virgin miraculously saved from torture by a monk who turned out to be her lover in disguise. Guinevere had heard many of these stories before and didn’t even pause to listen as she hurried outside.

The door opened easily and Guinevere was free. Surefooted, she ran down the dark path. The beach was empty.

She tried to hear the unicorn in her mind, but apart from the constant knowledge of its presence, she felt nothing. Where was he? She reached out to him. It had been weeks since she had actually seen him, although they had communicated almost every day. She felt exhausted and discouraged and wondered if the feelings were her own or his. At first he had been delighted to be with her at the ocean, but as the months had passed he had changed, even as she had begun to grow up. Whether one was connected to the other neither was sure. Yet he was restless now in a way he had never been in the forest, and as Guinevere seemed to grow more and more comfortable in her world, his own contentment grew less and less.

A great wave threw itself upon the stones and wet Guinevere’s shoes. When it subsided, he was there, shining like the midnight sea. His spiral horn gleamed in the faint shreds of daylight. Guinevere ran to him. She wrapped her arms around his cold neck and pulled a strand of seaweed from his mane.

“Where have you been for so long?” she reproached him. “Have you found the others?”

He shook his head sadly. Droplets fell from his coat to the sand. “They must be there. I feel there are beings like myself and yet different living out there, just beyond my strength to reach them. I swim out, calling to them, but there is no answer.”

He sank down beside her betraying his fatigue. Now Guinevere knew it was his emotions that had depressed her earlier. “I wish I understood,” he sighed. “I wish I knew even if I ought to understand. Guinevere, my other self, I fear I have lived too long for one of my kind. We are meant to be born, to sing and to be killed. That is how it has always been. There are times when I want to beg you to call the hunters and let the cycle continue.”

She clutched him tightly. “I could not do it. It would kill me if they took you from me.”

“You needn’t worry,” he soothed her. “I am unable to take such control of my fate. If only I could stop wondering, questioning. My own nature is a mystery to me and yet I must discover it. I must know what a unicorn is meant to be. But I am so tired.”

His eyes closed and his head fell into her lap. Guinevere bent her face over his and wept for his sadness. She wished she could help him, find his answers. But since she had never questioned anything herself she did not know what it was to be torn and consumed by the need to know
why
. Her miseries were more concrete. So she could only comfort and love and caress his tormented mind with her own peace.

What he gave her in return, she couldn’t say, but she returned by first starlight to her room content to be where and who she was. Strengthened and sure, she was no longer bruised by the noise in the hall. Each time she was with the unicorn some of his radiance remained upon her. Gawain happened to glance up as she passed by his sleeping place and thought for a moment that she carried a candle before her face. But he was nearly asleep then and the next morning assumed it had been a dream.

• • •

The rumors had been flowing in and out of the castle for months. Everyone knew that Arthur had finally built up a unified force that was slowly pushing the invaders, particularly the Saxons, back to the sea. London had been saved from becoming a Germanic town and only the southeast areas and a few settlements of the invaders in the northeast remained. The autumn past he had scored a great victory over the most important of the Saxon warlords and forced them to leave hostages before they retreated, as a token of their sworn oath never to attack again. Now word had come that some of these hostages were to be brought to Cador and housed at the castle until proper treaties were made and conditions for their release ascertained. Opinions were mixed about the new arrivals and loudly voiced.

“Why should we take in these Saxon pigs and treat them as royal guests when we know how they have treated our own people in the places they have conquered?” spat a young soldier named Cheldric. “They should be kept in chains by the door and made to howl for their meat like the animals they are.”

Another answered him. “Arthur has some idea that we should treat them well so as to prove to the Saxons that we are civilized people. As if they would know a civilized country! They even refuse to live in the towns we have had to abandon to them. Instead they build ugly wood huts and crowd into them pigs, cattle, and wives.”

“If Arthur insists that we treat them well, I will, at least, not harm them,” Cheldric muttered. “But I will sleep with my knife in my hand if they are allowed to roam about unguarded and unfettered. You’d best, too, Mauron, if you don’t want your throat slit by night.”

The person who heard most of these comments was Sidra, Cador’s wife. She was a strong, proud woman who was saved from being a tyrant in her home by a sense of humor and a firm belief in her own ability to manage people without their knowing it. Certainly she had succeeded so well with her husband that he never realized he had not made a decision in his own home for twenty years. It was she who fed a hundred people a day and found places for them all to sleep. She had managed to get Guinevere a private room without anyone whining to her that she was showing favoritism. She kept guests, fosterlings, and servants busy maintaining the castle and doing the chores without anyone feeling put-upon or ill-used, and lastly, she had the rare talent of being able to listen to the crudest of stories without embarrassing the narrator or lowering her own status. This was crucial in a place that was full of soldiers, where no one could speak above a whisper without being heard by a dozen other people. It was generally understood that she knew everything that went on and kept order partly through the implied threat of using that knowledge.

Sidra was not beautiful. She had dark brown eyes and light brown hair, now almost totally gray. Her face was pleasant but not exciting, and scarred from a childhood case of smallpox. Her marriage had been an arranged one, and it had taken her husband several years to realize that it was the best thing that had ever been done for him. When it finally dawned on him, he went to her immediately and told her so. He was not a man of action for nothing. Since then her life had been perfect, suited to her talents and interests. It was almost totally through her good sense that Guinevere had learned to live in her home.