"Certainly, my lady." She was very much aware of his arm enfolding her, holding her. She let herself lean a little on him. She had bragged to Gwenhwyfar of her young lover, but she had never yet actually taken him to her bed-she had kept him delaying, dangling. She turned her head against his shoulder. "You have been faithful to your queen, Cormac."
"I am loyal to my royal house, as all my people have ever been," the young man said in their own language, and she smiled.
"Here is my chamber-help me inside, will you? I can scarce walk-"
He supported her, eased her down on her bed. "Is it my lady's will that I call her women?"
"No," she whispered, catching at his hands, aware that her tears were seductive. "You have been loyal to me, Cormac, and now is that loyalty to be rewarded-come here-"
She held out her arms, half shutting her eyes, then opened them, in shock, as he pulled awkwardly away.
"I-I think you are distraught, madam," he stammered. "What do you think I am? What do you take me for? Why, lady, I have as much respect for you as for my own grandmother! Should I take advantge of an old woman like you when you are beside yourself with grief? Let me call your waiting-woman, and she will make you a nice posset and I will forget what you said in the madness of grief, madam."
Morgause could feel the blow in the very pit of her stomach, repeated blows on her heart-my own grandmother ... old woman ... the madness of grief.... The whole of the world had suddenly gone mad-Gwydion insane with ingratitude, this man who had looked on her so long with desire turning on her ... she wanted to scream, to call for her servants and have him whipped till his back ran crimson with his blood and the walls rang with his shrieking for mercy. But even as she opened her mouth for that, the whole weight of her life seemed to descend on her in deadly weariness.
"Yes," she said dully, "I do not know what I was saying-call my women, Cormac, and tell them to bring me some wine. We will ride at daybreak for Lothian."
And when he had gone, she sat on the bed without the strength to lift her hands.
I am an old woman. And I have lost my son Gareth, and I have lost Gwydion, and I will never now be Queen in Camelot. I have lived too long.
17
Clinging to Lancelet's back, her gown pulled up above her knees and her bare legs hanging down, Gwenhwyfar closed her eyes as they rode hard through the night. She had no idea where they were going. Lancelet was a stranger, a hard-faced warrior, a man she had never known. There was a time, she thought, when I would have been terrified, out like this under the open sky, at night ... but she felt excited, exhilarated. At the back of her mind was pain too, mourning for the gentle Gareth who had been like a son to Arthur and deserved better of life than to be struck down so - she wondered if Lancelet even knew whom he had killed! And there was grief for the end of her years with Arthur, and all they had shared for so long. But from what had happened this night there could be no going back. She had to lean forward to hear Lancelet over the rushing of wind. "We must stop somewhere soon, the horse must rest - and if we ride in daylight, my face and yours are known all through this countryside."
She nodded; she had not breath enough to speak. After a time they came within a little wood, and there he pulled to a stop and lifted her gently from the horse's back. He led the horse to water, then spread his cloak on the ground for her to sit. He stared at the sword by his side. "I still have Gawaine's sword. When I was a boy - I heard tales of the fighting madness, but I knew not that it was within our blood - " and sighed heavily. "There is blood on the sword. Whom did I kill, Gwen?"
She could not bear to see his sorrow and guilt. "There was more than one - "
"I know I struck Gwydion - Mordred, damn him. I know I wounded him, I could still act with my own will then. I don't suppose" - his voice hardened - "that I had the luck to kill him?"
Silently she shook her head.
"Then who?" She did not speak; he leaned over and took her shoulders so roughly that for a moment she was afraid of the warrior as she had never been of the lover. "Gwen, tell me! In God's name-did I kill my cousin Gawaine?"
This she could answer without hesitation, glad it was Gawaine he had named. "No. I swear it, not Gawaine."
"It could have been anyone," he said, staring at the sword and suddenly shuddering. "I swear it to you, Gwen, I knew not even that I had a sword in my hand. I struck Gwydion as if he had been a dog, and then I remember no more until we were riding-" and he knelt before her, trembling. He whispered, "I am mad again, I think, as once I was mad-"
She reached out, caught him against her in a passion of wild tenderness. "No, no," she whispered, "ah, no, my love-I have brought all this on you, disgrace and exile-"
"You say that," he whispered, "when I have brought them on you, taken you away from everything that meant anything to you-"
Reckless, she pressed herself to him and said, "Would to God that you had done it before!"
"Ah, it is not too late-I am young again, with you beside me, and you-you have never been more beautiful, my own dear love-" He pushed her back on the cloak, suddenly laughing in abandon. "Ah, now there's none to come between us, none to interrupt us, my own-ah, Gwen, Gwen-"
As she came into his arms, she remembered the rising sun and a room in Meleagrant's castle. It was like that now; and she clung to him, as if there were nothing else in the world, nothing more for either of them, not ever.
They slept a little, curled together in the cloak, and wakened still in each other's arms, the sun searching for them through the green branches overhead. He smiled, touching her face.
"Do you know-never before have I wakened in your arms without fear. Yet now I am happy, in spite of all.. ." and he laughed at her, a note of wildness coming into the laughter. There were leaves in his white hair, and leaves caught in his beard, and his tunic was rumpled; she put up her hands and felt grass and leaves in her own hair, which was coming down. She had no way to comb it, but she caught it in handfuls and parted it to braid, then bound the end of the single braid with a scrap ripped from the edge of her torn skirt. She said, her voice catching with laughter, "What a pair of wild ragamuffins we are! Who would know the High Queen and the brave Lancelet?"
"Does it matter to you?"
"No, my love. Not in the least."
He brushed leaves and grass out of his hair and beard. "I must get up and catch the horse," he said, "and perhaps there will be a farm nearby where we can find you some bread or a drink of ale-I have not a single coin with me, nor anything worth money, save my sword, and this-" He touched a little gold pin on his tunic. "For the moment, at least, we are beggars, though if we could reach Pellinore's castle, I still have a house there, where I lived with Elaine, and servants-and gold, too, to pay our passage overseas. Will you come with me to Less Britain, Gwenhwyfar?"
"Anywhere," she whispered, her voice breaking, and at that moment she meant it absolutely-to Less Britain, or to Rome, or to the country beyond the world's end, only that she might be with him forever. She pulled him down to her again and forgot everything in his arms.
But when, hours later, he lifted her on the horse and they went on at a soberer pace, she fell silent, troubled. Yes, no doubt they could make their way overseas. Yet when this night's work was talked from one end of the world to the other, shame and scorn would come down on Arthur, so that for his own honor he must seek them out wherever they fled. And soon or late, Lancelet must know that he had slain the friend who was dearest to him in all the world save only Arthur's self. He had done it in madness, but she knew how grief and guilt would consume him and in time he would remember, when he looked on her, not that she was his love, but that he had killed his friend, unknowing, for her sake; and that he had betrayed Arthur for her sake. If he must make war on Arthur for her sake, he would hate her ... .