Chapter 12
The following spring, Sir Manassen returned, bringing distraction from the problems I could not solve.
We had not seen him as much in recent years—he had been fighting in Arthur’s northern war, and since then had been back and forth to Gaul with increasing regularity.
Nevertheless, whenever he was in Camelot he came to Belle Garde, this time breaking away from Easter court, as the valley filled with blossom and the scents of spring.
Manassen spent the first several hours greeting the household, catching up on the months since he had last visited.
He was heartily welcomed: everyone wanted to hear of his life and knightly adventures; of Robin and how he was faring in the ten years since he had ridden off to achieve his spurs.
An afternoon banquet was arranged in celebration, so by the time he and I climbed the turret stairs to my study, the sun had almost set.
We took up our usual discussion spot on the balcony, wine in hand, watching a cloud of starlings pulse across a pink evening sky.
He told me that his wife suspected they were having a fourth child; his forays into horse breeding were proving successful after advice from Belle Garde’s stablemaster; and Robin was in Brittany, jousting to great renown and thinking seriously of marriage.
“I’d like to say it’s far too soon,” I said. “But time has swept us along, hasn’t it?”
“At an alarming pace,” he agreed.
With his sigh, I felt a flicker of portent. Life was about to change.
“What is it?” I asked.
He smiled ruefully at my prescience. “I have asked the King for leave to relinquish my place in the court and move permanently to Gaul. He has granted my petition.”
It landed hard in my gut, but my happiness for him outstripped the swoop of loss. “I’m glad for you,” I said. “It is the right thing to do. When will you go?”
“Me, my lady wife and the children will sail before Pentecost.” He looked at me doubtfully. “Though, as your sworn knight, yours is the leave I should truly ask.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand. “You owe me nothing. But I will miss you deeply, Sir Manassen, I admit.”
“I will miss you too, Lady Morgan. If there ever is anything you need, at any time—send for me. Upon my honour, it will be done.”
A thought struck, and I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Is there something?” he asked, but I shook my head. It was too much.
“All I ask of you is that you ride off to your homeland and not look back,” I said. “Promise me, Manassen of Gaul.”
At my deflection, he glanced away and cleared his throat, casting his gaze upon the joust meadow.
“You do not know this, but when Accolon died, the fealty I had sworn to you was all that kept me rising each morning.” He spoke slowly, as if afraid his voice might break.
“There would be no future, no happiness, no freedom for me and my family, if not for my oath to you. That day you rescued me on the road, when you told me dying was too easy and accepted my service, you saved my life. In more ways than one.”
When he looked back at me, his eyes were bright but calm, more serious than they had ever been. “I swore my duty to you, as your faithful knight,” he said. “Call upon it.”
The words tugged in my chest, knowing it was the last time he would speak them.
From the day he had awkwardly knelt and insisted he become my knight, through a decade of secret alliance and navigating our shared grief, we had found mutual respect, then friendship; another soul with whom to walk through the fog.
“My son,” I said. “Sir Yvain. You and I have never discussed him, but he is not long knighted and I…Have you seen him, in Camelot?”
Sir Manassen smiled softly, pleased I had trusted him. Taking my hand, he kissed my father’s ring then released me with a bow, formal and courteous to the last.
“I have seen Sir Yvain,” he said. “We have spoken on occasion. A fine young man—personable, good-humoured. Skilled as a knight and well liked, by all accounts.”
My heart ached more than I thought possible. “Thank you,” I said. “Was he there, this time? Before you left.”
“No, he was not in attendance,” he replied. “Which is probably for the best, given the unrest in the court.”
“Unrest?” I echoed. “Is Yvain in trouble?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I believe he’s spent the past few months questing abroad. I meant, it’s better he has not been present for the recent disruption.” He regarded me in disbelief. “Have you not heard?”
I shook my head. “Only of the kingdom’s great unity and faith in the King since the war. Camelot’s glory and renewed strength.”
“Sacredieu, I thought something such as that would have reached even here.”
“By the Devil—tell me,” I exclaimed. “I can hardly bear the suspense.”
A gleam came to his eye, the pleasure of bringing me something important. “The High King and Queen have been living apart,” Manassen said. “He sent her away and declared them divorced.”
It hit like a thunderstrike. “He…what?”
“I know—it sounds unbelievable,” he said.
“Given my time in Gaul, I hardly know the full story myself. But from what I’ve heard, King Arthur declared that Queen Guinevere was false, and their marriage was rendered invalid because of some deceit she had perpetrated.
She’s been gone from the court for a year, banished upon pain of treason. ”
“Treason?” For once, the word brought a thrill of satisfaction, and something else thrumming beneath—a low note of potential. “This cannot be true. It is too fantastical.”
“Oh, it is true and strange both,” he replied. “Though now, he has called her back and wishes her to be Queen again. If, of course, she can prove her innocence to the court. He has summoned his most prominent knights and powerful lords to Camelot to bear witness.”
“Bear witness to what?” I asked. “How will she prove her innocence?”
“The usual way when one is accused of treason,” he said. “Queen Guinevere is being put on public trial for her life.”
“No,” I gasped.
“Yes,” replied Manassen. “A trial by combat. She will be found innocent, of course—her champion knight is famed for his fighting prowess and will be impossible to defeat, as King Arthur is well aware. However, rumours say this incident has caused chaos in the royal inner circle, and it has certainly unsettled the national unity fostered during the Saxon Rock war. By making the trial public, the King hopes it will put the matter to rest.”
“Will it work—to restore her reputation?” I asked.
“Who can say,” he said. “King Arthur still has a hold over the people’s hearts and minds, but Queen Guinevere has waxed and waned in popularity. Not all were upset to have her branded an imposter and sent away.”
There was a certain satisfying poetry to it, imagining Guinevere thrust into exile quite as abruptly as she had done to me.
Better still, Camelot’s claims of strength, the story told that both court and realm were more unified than ever, had been a subterfuge, denial of a serious royal problem.
That Arthur had sought to hide such instability was a subtle weakness, but obvious to one who knew him as well as I did.
The golden castle’s walls had not yielded to my efforts at disruption, but perhaps its foundations were where the fissures could be found, ready to be exploited.
“When and where will this trial be held?” I asked.
“In Camelot, on May Day itself. The King wants a large crowd, to… ” He trailed off, casting sharp grey-brown eyes at me. “You should not go.”
I smiled. “Whoever said I was?”
“I know you, Lady Morgan. Of course you will want to see the Queen who wronged you publicly tried. But you should not risk it—they have never stopped being alert for your presence, and will surely expect you for this.”
The idea of my dreaded arrival rather pleased me, but I made no reply, instead picking up the wine jug to refill our empty goblets. Manassen watched me pour, then took his cup from my hand with a sigh.
“I’ll escort you there,” he said. “As a good knight should.”
“There is no there,” I insisted. “You are a good knight—nothing will change that—and I would never risk getting you in trouble. Because we are friends, are we not?”
It raised a wry smile in him. “Oui, I suppose we are. In that spirit, I must be bold and say again—for your own sake, you shouldn’t go.”
“I don’t fear them,” I said.
“I know, and that is not what I mean. Under no circumstances would Morgan le Fay be able to ride into the city. They fear you.”
As well they should, I thought.
I looked up at the deepening night sky, last sunrays gilding the spring bloom. The longest days would soon be upon us, but light or dark, midsummer or midwinter, every moment for the past ten years had felt endless. I was due some relief.
“Don’t worry, Sir Manassen,” I said. “Morgan le Fay won’t be going to Camelot.”