The younger woman laughed. "No, cousin. He is the same, bearded or shaven. Ah, look, there rides King Ceardig, and others-are they all to be guested here at Camelot? Madam, shall I go and tell the stewards?"
"Please do, my dear," Gwenhwyfar said, and Niniane moved toward the hall. The girls were shoving one another to get a better view, and Gwenhwyfar said, "Come, come-all of you, back to your spinning. It is unseemly to stare at young men this way. Have none of you anything better to do than talk so immodestly about the men? All of you now, be off with you, you will see them this night in the great hall. There is to be feasting, which means work for all of you."
They looked sulky, but they went obediently back to the hall, and Gwenhwyfar sighed and shook her head as she walked back at Morgause's side. "In Heaven's name, was there ever such a lot of unruly girls? And somehow I must keep them all chaste and under my guidance-it seems they spend all their time gossiping and giggling instead of minding their spinning. I am ashamed that my court should be so filled with empty-headed and immodest little hussies like this!"
"Oh, come, my dear," said Morgause lazily, "surely you too were fifteen once? Surely you were not such a model maiden as all that-did you never steal a look at a handsome young man and think and gossip about how it would be to kiss him, bearded or shaven?"
"I do not know what you did when you were fifteen," Gwenhwyfar flared at her, "but I was behind convent walls! It seems to me that would be a good place for these unmannerly maids!"
Morgause laughed. "When I was fourteen, I had an eye for everything that wore breeches. I recall that I used to sit in Gorlois's lap-he that was married to Igraine before Uther's eyes fell on her-and Igraine knew it well, for when she married Uther, her first act was to pack me off to be married to Lot, which was about as far from Uther's court as she could send me without crossing the ocean! Come, Gwenhwyfar, even behind your convent walls can you swear you never peeped out at any handsome young man who came to break your father's horses, or the crimson cloak of any young knight?"
Gwenhwyfar looked down at her sandals. "It seems so very long ago-" and then, recollecting herself, spoke briskly. "The hunters brought in a deer last night-I shall give orders that it be cut up and roasted for dinner, and perhaps we should have a pig killed too, if all these Saxons are to be guested here. And fresh straw must be spread in the rooms where they will sleep, there will never be enough beds for all these people!"
"Send the maidens to see to that too," said Morgause. "They must learn to manage guests in a great hall-for what other reason are they in your care, Gwenhwyfar? And it is the duty of a queen to welcome her lord when he returns from war."
"You are right." Gwenhwyfar sent her page to give the orders, and they walked toward the great gates of Camelot together. Morgause thought, Why, it is exactly as if we had been friends all our lives. And she thought, there were so few of them who had been young together.
She had much the same feeling when she sat that night in the great hall that was hung with decorations and brilliant with the fine clothes of the ladies and the knights. Almost it was like the great days of Camelot. Yet so many of the old Companions were gone in war, or on the Grail quest, and would never return. Morgause did not remember often that she was old, and it frightened her. Half the seats of the Round Table, it seemed, were filled now with hairy Saxons with their great beards and their rough cloaks, or with young men who seemed hardly old enough to hold weapons. Even her baby, Gareth, was one of the older knights of the Round Table, and the newer ones deferred to him amazingly, calling him sir, and asking his advice, or hesitating to argue with him if they differed. As for Gwydion -most of them called him sir Mordred-he seemed quite a leader among the younger men, new knights and the Saxons whom Arthur had chosen as his Companions.
Gwenhwyfar's ladies and stewards had done their task well; there was roast and boiled meat in plenty, and great meat pies with gravy, platters of early apples and grapes, hot bread and lentil porridge. At the high table, when the feasting was done and the Saxons were drinking and at their favorite game of asking riddles, Arthur called Niniane to sing for them. Gwenhwyfar had Lancelet at her side, his head bandaged and his arm in a sling-he had been wounded by a Northman's battleaxe. He could not use his arm, and Gwenhwyfar was cutting his meat for him. No one, Morgause thought, paid it the slightest attention.
Gareth and Gawaine were seated further down the table, and Gwydion close to them, sharing a dish with Niniane. Morgause went to greet them. Gwydion had bathed and combed his hair into curls, but one of his legs was bandaged, propped on a stool.
"Are you hurt, my son?"
"It does well enough," he said. "I am too big now, Mother, to run and climb into your lap when I stub my toe!"
"It looks worse than that," she said, looking at the bandage and the crusted blood at the edges, "but I will leave you alone, if you wish. Is that tunic new?"
It was made in a fashion she had seen many of the Saxons wearing, with sleeves so long that they came down past the wrist and half covered the knuckles of the hand. Gwydion's was of blue-dyed cloth, embroidered with crimson stitchery.
"It was a gift from Ceardig. He told me it was a good fashion for a Christian court, for it conceals the serpents of Avalon." His mouth twisted. "Perhaps I should give my lord Arthur such a tunic for a New Year's gift this winter!"
"I doubt if anyone would know the difference," said Gawaine. "No one, now, thinks of Avalon, and Arthur's wrists are so faded no one sees or would criticize if they did."
Morgause looked at Gawaine's bruised face and eyes. He had in truth lost more than one tooth, and his hands, too, looked cut and bruised.
"And you too are wounded, my son?"
"Not from the enemy," Gawaine growled. "This I got from our Saxon friends-one of the men in Ceardig's army. Damn them all, those unmannerly bastards! I think I liked it better when they were all our foes!"
"You fought him, then?"
"Aye, and will do so again, should he dare to open his clacking jaw about my king," Gawaine said angrily. "Nor did I need Gareth to come to my rescue, as if I were not big enough to fight my own battles without my little brother coming to my aid-"
"He was twice your size," said Gareth, putting down his spoon, "and he had you on the ground, and I thought he would break your back or crack your ribs-I am not sure yet that he did not. Was I to sit aside while that foul-tongued fellow beat my brother and slandered my kinsman? He will think twice and then thrice before he opens his evil mouth again with such words."
"Still," said Gwydion quietly, "you cannot silence the whole Saxon army, Gareth, especially when what they say is true. There's a name, and not a pretty one, for a man, even when that man's a king, who sits back and says nothing while another man does his husband's duty in his wife's bed-"
"You dare!" Gareth half rose, turning on Gwydion and gripping the Saxon tunic at the neck. Gwydion put up his hands to loosen Gareth's hold.
"Easy, foster-brother!" He looked like a child in the giant Gareth's grip. "Will you treat me as you treated yonder Saxon because here among kinsmen I speak truth, or am I too to keep to the pleasant lie of the court, when all men see the Queen with her paramour and say nothing?"
Gareth slowly relaxed his grip and eased Gwydion back to his seat. "If Arthur has nothing to complain of in the lady's conduct, who am I to speak?"
Gawaine muttered, "Damn the woman! Damn her anyhow! Would that Arthur had put her away while there was still time! I have no great love for so Christian a court as this has become, and filled with Saxons. When I was first knight at Arthur's side, there was not a Saxon in all this land with more of religion than a pig in his sty!"