The Idylls of the Queen Read online

  The Queen’s last five guests were harder to place by faction. Palomides and his brother Safere, the lean, scarred, dark-skinned former Saracens, might well end in Lancelot’s camp if an open split should ever come, but meanwhile they maintained neutrality. Aliduk, the honorable old fox of a Breton warleader, was another distant cousin of Lancelot; but Aliduk was only marking time with us until whenever his old liege lord Hoel of Brittany called him back from his more or less self-imposed exile. I had objected to Aliduk’s election to the Round Table on grounds that when he sailed home to Brittany we would be left with another Tristram situation—a companion permanently absent from his place—but as usual, when my opinion stands alone, it was ignored.

  Pinel of Carbonek had returned with Lancelot from the Grail Quest, but had rarely been seen in Lancelot’s company since. Elected to the Table on the strength of being a nephew of old King Pellam, the last of the Rich Fishers, Pinel’s favorite sport was talking. The only subject he kept quiet about was which of Pellam’s three brothers had actually fathered him; maybe he hoped the mystery would make other folk speculate about him as eagerly as he speculated about them. His voice would have been pleasant if it had been less loud. At the present moment, quiet for once in his life, Pinel sat at his table staring down into his goblet like old Merlin reading the future in a bowl of slime.

  When Pinel first came to court, Astamore had been one of the earliest to strike up a friendship with him, and one of the most faithful in keeping to it, although lately he sometimes appeared to be trying to disembarrass himself of Pinel’s company. One thing that held them together was their skill with the harp, even if Pinel did seem insistent on playing duets mainly to display his own superior ability. But Astamore was ten years younger, had been at court five years longer, and had finally, acknowledging though not playing on his own high kinsfolk, won his place at the Table on his own merits.

  Astamore’s worst fault was a maddening habit of turning his ring round and round on his finger—rather reminding me of Mordred, who had a habit of carving serpent-shaped rings out of wood in odd moments. Although Astamore’s ring, with its pretentious blue stone set in too much silver, looked more of a size for Ironside’s hand than Astamore’s, he claimed it did not interfere with his eating or harping; he did, however, hang it on a chain around his neck beneath his breastplate before putting on his gauntlets for battle. I was surprised to see that this afternoon, for once, he was not fondling his ring. Instead, he was prying nuts open with his knife, examining the nutmeats one by one, and then piling them up untasted on the table in front of him.

  Gawain had killed Astamore’s uncle, King Bagdemagus of Gorre, during the Grail Quest.

  Then there were the principal servers at our small, intimate dinner: Gouvernail, Elyzabel, Lore the Cupbearer, Bragwaine, and Senehauz. Gouvernail was a better man, in everything but might of arms, than his former master Tristram had ever been; and the only one of the four dames whose past might be as spotted as an honest knight’s was Bragwaine of Ireland, a silent, dark, aging woman, less handsome now than competent, who might know more than her share concerning plant juices and their use. Senehauz was almost as young as the pages, and as innocent.

  As for the pages who had helped serve, I knew them all, both as individuals and as types of the young trouble-courters Lucan and I have helped train through the years. But even when the minds of pages, following the sterling example of their elders, run to revenge feuds, they do not usually run to poison. Besides, a page would not have thought of putting the stuff in the apples—he would have put it in the wine.

  Had we a new cook or older scullion in the kitchen, anyone over ten years old who had been with us less than half a score of years, I would have wondered whether a spy had slipped in among the servants despite my watching. As matters stood, I knew my kitchen staff better even than I knew the pages, better than most of my fellow knights, and I would have fought to prove the innocence of the lowest scullion with as much assurance as I would have fought for the Queen herself… though not with a thousandth part of the reverence… if I could have fought for anyone in this case.

  I glanced at Dame Lore, the one who had remained when the other ladies and Gouvernail bore away the Queen. Lore was standing at the other side of the fireplace, staring around the room. Turning her head slightly, she looked straight back at me.

  Moving nearer so that we could hear each other above Mador’s wailing, I muttered, “Your opinion, Dame Cupbearer. Which of us poisoned the apple?”

  “I have been trying to think which of you it was meant for.”

  “And?”

  Dame Lore is another cousin of the Queen, and her eyes are almost the same noble gray. “I believe it was meant for Her Grace.”

  “Prove that,” I said, “and I’ll skewer the whoreson like a pigeon.”

  “Will you, Seneschal?”

  “I will.”

  “I think not. Remember that poison is more the enchantress’ weapon than the knight’s.”

  I stared back into the dying fire, remembering the different colors of the flames when Dame Guenevere had first thrown the fruit into them. “Morgan le Fay again?”

  Before Dame Cupbearer could answer, the men nearest the door started standing up. In a moment everyone was on his feet. The King had come.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Accusation

  “And ever Sir Mador stood still afore the king, and ever he appealed the queen of treason; for the custom was such that time that all manner of shameful death was called treason.”

  —Malory XVIII, 4

  Mador went on keening, eyes closed and back to the door, apparently unable to hear anything beyond the sound of his own grief. Arthur paused for a few moments, looking around at all of us, at Gawain and myself the longest. Then he went to Mador and laid one hand on the old knight’s shoulder.

  Mador stopped wailing at last and turned slowly to look at him. “Justice, my lord the King!”

  “When have I denied anyone justice?” said Arthur, probably believing it himself.

  Mador might have been thinking of the knights whom Lancelot, while half-asleep, had mowed down in their own pavilions; of the murder of Arthur’s own sister, Queen Morgawse, when Gawain had taken revenge into his own hands because the King would not allow Lamorak de Galis, the wonder of the age, to be put on trial; or of the various grievances which have never been openly brought against Gawain himself and his brothers because of their kinship to Arthur. But all Mador said was, “Justice, my lord, against your Queen!”

  “Old friend,” said Arthur, “my Queen would never have done this.”

  “Was it not her dinner?” Mador struck the table. “Who else could have done this?”

  “A different queen,” I said. “The sometime queen of Gorre, Dame Morgan le Fay.” Not that I quite believed it yet, but Dame Morgan, wherever she was, would hardly notice another treachery or two laid at her door, and it might save Dame Guenevere.

  “Yes!” said Pinel of Carbonek. He had never seen Morgan, but he was as ready to theorize about her as anyone else. “Yes, the Fay! Of course—she tried to kill us all, of course—”

  “Despite the fact,” Mordred said calmly, “that Aunt Morgan has been presumed dead for several years.”

  “Presumed, not proven,” began Dame Lore, but Mador broke in with a shout.

  “Liars! Traitors, with the traitress! I claim justice, my lord the King!”

  “You will have justice!” Arthur shouted back. “Against the murderer! But my wife is not the murderer!”

  “You must admit, Uncle, the circumstances look damning,” remarked Agravain, with at least enough grace not to study his fingernails while he said it.

  “Damn you, Agravain,” I said, “don’t the circumstances look damning for all of us here present?”

  “Not for Sir Patrise,” said Agravain.

  “Assuming, of course, that he was shriven before dinner,” added Mordred.

  Arthur ignored us. “Mador, you have b
een my knight forty years and more,” he said. “Do you accuse your sovereign lady to my face?”

  “I do! And I will make good the charge with my body.”

  Arthur clenched his fist. “And do you accuse me along with my Queen, Mador de la Porte?”

  Mador breathed heavily, but did not step back. “You are our King, my liege lord, but in this matter you are no more than another knight like the rest of us—less than the rest of us in that you were not here present.”

  “By Ihesu, when you fight against your sovereign lady, you commit—”

  “I do not fight against my sovereign lady!” said Mador. “I keep no allegiance with a destroyer of good knights!”

  The Queen had returned. I saw her standing in the doorway, with her cousin Dame Elyzabel. Some of the others had also seen her, but the King had not.

  “Do you also renounce allegiance to me, Sir Knight?” continued Arthur.

  “To have justice for my kinsman’s death,” bawled Mador, “I would renounce allegiance to the Pope himself!”

  The King pounded the table with his fist. “So be it! Then I will answer your charge with my own body!”

  “My lord, no!” cried Dame Guenevere.

  Arthur turned and they looked at each other. Tears were quivering on her cheeks. Go to her, I thought, go to her, Artus you idiot! Holy Mary, you didn’t understand what you had when you pulled that Sword out of the damn Stone, and you don’t understand what you have now! Aloud, I said, “The Queen is right, Sir Arthur. You’re trapped. Like all the rest of us.”

  Aliduk nodded. The dispassionate, scarcely-involved arbiter. “You must serve as judge in this case, my liege lord. You cannot fight as champion.”

  Arthur sat down, elbows on the table near Patrise’s feet, and rested his head on his hands. Dame Guenevere came up behind him and laid her palms on his shoulders, closing her eyes and tilting her glorious head so that the tears slanted backward over her cheeks. “As God is my witness,” she said, “I made this dinner for joy and never for harm.”

  Arthur raised his head and looked around. “Press your charge, then, Sir Mador de la Porte. I may not fight for my wife, but I have other good knights who will.” He looked around at us again, as if searching for Lancelot. I tried to catch his attention, but his stare slid over me, uncomprehending, and finally rested on his favorite nephew.

  Gawain started to speak in reply to that gaze.

  “Fight for her, elder brother, and you associate yourself with the crime,” said Mordred.

  “The poison was aimed at me,” said Gawain. “In Ihesu’s Name, would I have tried to poison myself?”

  Mordred shrugged. “Aye, we all know your fondness for apples, brother. And, knowing it, folk will call it rather strange that this time you waited just long enough before biting into the fruit.”

  Gawain stared at him, then at the Queen. “Madame, I… Madame, forgive me!”

  He sat again, trapped like Arthur and the rest of us. Whoever fought for the Queen would seem to declare his own guilt. Worse, some of us, her guests, actually seemed to believe Mador’s accusation.

  I would have championed her myself and damned the appearance. But I was no longer the same man of arms who had struck down the kings of Denmark and Soleise beside the Humber. A righteous cause strengthens the arm of an indifferent fighter—so Gawain would say—but let the Queen have a champion who could rely on his own arm in any cause, rather than leaving it to Heaven completely.

  Arthur got to his feet and looked around again. “Thank God, we have other knights as good as those here present. Call for your judgment, Sir Mador, but first remember that our Queen may not prove entirely friendless.”

  “I will prove my charge against Lancelot himself—if he is still in this world,” said Mador.

  The Queen gasped.

  “Name the day, my lord King,” Mador went on, with a glance at the Queen. Watching his face, I considered what would happen if Mador stopped living before that day came, and my hand twitched on my dagger’s hilt.

  “The meadow beside Westminster,” said the King at last. “This day fifteen days hence.”

  “It is not long enough!” exclaimed Dame Lore, behind me.

  “It is too long,” said Mador. “But have the stake ready and the fire burning.”

  “The stake will be ready,” said Arthur, his voice hard, “and the Queen will have her judgment. All things will be done lawfully.”

  Mador drove his knife into the table. “I am answered, Sire.” If no knight appeared to fight for her a fortnight from now, the Queen could still plead innocent and claim another forty days to find a champion. “But you cannot delay forever in the sight of God and man!” Mador went on. “The traitress will burn before Midsummer.”

  “See you do not attempt to take your former seat among us, Mador de la Porte,” said the King. Then he took the Queen from her cousin and slowly led her away, supporting her against his own shoulder.

  Dame Elyzabel looked around at us once more. “God!” she said scornfully, “for a sword and a suit of armor!” Then she followed Dame Guenevere. In the language of courtliness, we were free to go where we would.

  CHAPTER 4

  Of Morgan’s Duplicity and Kay’s Jealousy

  “And therewithal they set the queen in a barge into Humber; but always Queen Guenever praised Sir Kay for his deeds, and said, What lady that ye love, and she love you not again she were greatly to blame; and among ladies, said the queen, I shall bear your noble fame, for ye spake a great word, and fulfilled it worshipfully.”

  —Malory IV, 3

  Mordred rose, flipped a scrap of meat from his trencher to the hounds, and left the room. Agravain shrugged and followed him out, but Gaheris lingered. Gouvernail, who had returned behind the Queen, cleared the remaining platters off the table where Sir Patrise lay. Lionel and Mador lifted the board from the trestles, carrying the body out as if on a bier. Most of the others followed to watch Patrise laid out decently in chapel. Gaheris joined them, keeping toward the back. In a few moments I was left alone with Lore of Carlisle.

  “Morgan le Fay.” I shook my head. “It was a beautiful thought, Dame Lore, but—”

  “Not merely a thought. A certainty. Have you forgotten her poisoned cloak?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten the bloody cloak!” It had been years ago, shortly after Morgan’s second and permanent break with her husband and departure from Arthur’s court. She had sent the cloak to her brother as a pretended gift of reconciliation; but, on Dame Nimue’s advice, Arthur made the damsel-messenger who brought it try it on her own shoulders first. In an instant, the cloth had sucked around her small form and the lining glowed lividly, showing through the seams in the dark outer velvet like raw flesh in a new wound. A few moments of shrieks and writhing, and the girl collapsed, her body melting away like tallow. When it was over, and the cloth was cool enough to pull away, there were her feet, curled up like claws in the cracked leather slippers, and her head, hair singed and features screwed up with pain; there was nothing between but bones turned to charcoal. I hoped Morgan’s damsel had been in the plot with her mistress and not merely an innocent messenger, but the stench was not like the stink of Brumant’s death in the Siege Perilous or Corsabrin’s pagan soul going to Hell—it was plain, scorched human flesh.

  “Morgan is as dead as her damsel by now, anyway,” I went on.

  “You all assume she is dead because we’ve heard nothing of her for years,” replied dame Lore, “and therefore you say she was not responsible for this. I say that this proves she is not dead!”

  “She loved her nephews. Why would she try to poison Gawain?”

  “What is her love for Gawain compared with her hatred for Guenevere? She means to burn the Queen this time.”

  Trying not to see the flames leaping up around Her Grace, I thought it over. Dame Lore could be right—Arthur’s half-sister might still be alive. But, if so, why had she been so quiet these last several years, since before the Grail Quest? />
  Dame Morgan’s first attempt on Arthur’s life had been a complicated scheme involving a counterfeit of Excalibur, sword and scabbard. When that plot went askew and Morgan’s own paramour of the moment was killed instead of the King, she had tried to murder her husband Uriens in his sleep with his own sword and, that attempt foiled by her son Ywain of the Lion, she left court for good and took up residence in various castles of her own, one of them a former gift of Arthur to her. She had gained knowledge of magic somewhere, whether in the nunnery where she was raised or from old Merlin or elsewhere—enough to establish herself as perhaps the most skillful necromancer alive in Britain, as well as the most treacherous. At one time, she had been heart and head of a whole sorority of enchantresses. Yes, this could be the latest of Morgan’s periodic attempts to destroy the Queen and court. But…

  “She had to get the poison into the fruit,” I said. “I never heard of any magic strong enough to do that at a distance.”

  “At what distance? She could be anywhere. Have you forgotten how she turned herself and all her attendants into rocks when she escaped from the King? And how else does poison come to be found in uncooked fruit unless by magic?”

  “You poor, silly innocent, for all your silvering hairs,” I said. “Do you always look for the magical explanation first? Or do you simply assume that if it’s evil, it must be sorcery?”

  “The poison was not on the skin of the fruit, Sir Seneschal! Her Grace arranged those apples and pears with her own hands, and did not wash her fingers again before sitting to eat.”