Chapter 22
The court was no longer in Camelot but at Westminster, so it was there I went, to the same white-stoned, crenellated fortress where my brother and I had first met.
I knew the palace well. Arthur had thrown his usual luxury upon the public halls, until everything was brightly painted, gilded and hung with sweet-smelling garlands, but the snaking passageways and narrow staircases were the same as when I had crept around them as a child.
Now, as then, I was hiding, concealed once again beneath the glamour of Sir Lancelot’s damsel.
How little had changed since my neck was under Uther Pendragon’s boot.
To my relief, I found the Seneschal’s chambers closed.
Sir Kay didn’t like the London palaces, I knew; he preferred to see woodland out of his window, and if there was a quest he could convince Arthur to let him take, he always made it coincide with the court being summoned to the crowded, noisy cities along the Thames.
Though I would miss his cynical face, no part of me wanted to cause more trouble for him.
I drifted through the courtiers milling around the main entrance hall, and approached a pair of heralds near the Throne Room entrance.
“I must see King Arthur,” I said. “It is urgent.”
The senior of the two looked mildly irritated. “Young lady, you cannot simply speak to the High King. His Highness will make no Royal Appearance today. Sir Bedivere the Marshal is dealing with public matters—you may bring your petition to him when court convenes this afternoon.”
“You don’t understand,” I said impatiently. “I have news of Sir Lancelot.”
It was as if I had told them I’d shared wine with Christ Himself. “You’ve heard of his whereabouts?” the second herald exclaimed.
“I’ve seen him with my own eyes. Indeed, I carry a message from the knight’s very lips, and must speak it only to the High King before the court.”
Nothing further was needed. One herald hurried off towards the King’s chambers, while the other ushered me into the Throne Room and before the dais.
Within moments, bells began to ring, calling the court to assemble.
As fast as they could muster, knights, lords and ladies swept into the vaulted hall, whispering in fervent speculation.
When the room was almost full, a third herald appeared on the dais. “Arthur, High King of All Britain and Lord of the Seven Realms calls this court to order,” he declared.
The royal party entered without further ceremony, bringing the room’s bustle to attention.
Sir Gawain hastened in first, tall and russet as an autumn oak, taking Lancelot’s usual place between the thrones.
Behind him strode my brother, swathed in red-and-white silk, Guinevere on his arm in gold, looking pretty but drawn.
Arthur guided her to her seat, then took his own in preparation.
Silence fell. I was so close to the dais the thrones loomed over me, as if I stood at the foot of Olympus. Raising my chin, I met my brother’s gleaming grey gaze.
He recoiled, just barely. I had forgotten that as a mere subject, I was not permitted to look him directly in the eye until he invited such a privilege. Already, I was presumptuous.
Swiftly, I ducked my head and dipped to my knee. “Your Highness, a thousand thanks for meeting with me. I am humbled by your presence.”
Arthur chose graciousness. “Please rise, my lady, and I commend you to God. I believe you bring an important message for the court.”
The expression he cast upon me was benevolent, and so reassuring that for a moment I felt comforted, as if he were truly my High King who I was pleased to serve.
It had always been one of Arthur’s greatest powers, his ability to capture others within a moment of his own making, as though you were the only person in the room, the one voice he needed to hear.
A regal deception, of course, but a potent one.
“Yes, my lord,” I replied in my delicate voice. “A knight of your Royal Household bid me come here. But first, I beg you to bear me no ill will for the sad news I must deliver.”
“My lady, you are doing us a great service,” he said. “I guarantee with all my heart that you will not suffer punishment for anything you tell us here. This room, this court, is a safe haven.”
His assurance landed as an ache in my chest. It had felt like that, once, to be under my brother’s protection, made safe by his power, his lofty ideals. For a time, we had been happy in one another’s high regard, our familial love mutual, a feeling I could be sure of.
“Thank you,” I managed. “My lord is generous.”
He inclined his head courteously and I felt myself soothed.
Then, he flicked his eyes back to Guinevere and the feeling was gone, blown away on the reality of our intervening years: the long shadow of exile; Arthur’s part in Accolon’s death; his wife’s hatred and threats; the betrayals that led to the loss of both my children.
Everything those unpunished wrongs had left behind—my need for revenge, honed to a knife edge.
“I bring news of Sir Lancelot of the Lake,” I declared. “He will not return to the court, and will never again bear sword and shield.”
My words had their effect, a collective exclamation emanating from the audience. Both King and Queen paled to the colour of bone.
How does it feel? I thought bitterly.
Gawain stepped forwards. “I’ll set out immediately,” he said to his uncle. “I will bring him back.”
His control of the situation was quick, but it didn’t halt the escalating shock. Before Arthur could calm the room, Guinevere stood abruptly and turned to leave.
Her husband leapt up and caught her elbow. “What are you doing?”
“I cannot hear this,” she protested. “It’s too much, this so-called testimony… ”
I felt the room jolt, silenced by her loss of composure.
“Darling, this maiden has come to us,” Arthur said in a low voice. “It is our duty to hear what she has to say.”
“This maiden… ” She extended a brocaded arm at me. “What proof is there that she speaks the truth? You know how Lancelot has been pursued against his will. She could be another spurned pretty face.”
Arthur gazed at her hopelessly, then Guinevere swung away, stalking off with my advantage in her sweeping skirts. The moment was slipping from my grasp.
“King Arthur,” I called out. “If your lady Queen doesn’t stay, then I cannot tell you the rest. And I am far from finished.”
He glanced at me, discerning my conviction against his wife’s.
Then: “Guinevere!”
At the sound of her name without title or endearment, the Queen stopped, regarding him over her shoulder with pale-green coldness.
“Come back to your seat and let us continue,” he said simply. I had heard him use the tone many times—utterly reasonable, but somehow defying disagreement.
With a slow, deliberate obedience, Guinevere retook her throne. Arthur surveyed the room until it settled, then returned to sit beside her and addressed me once more.
“As you can see, our entire court regards Sir Lancelot with deep affection. Tell me—where does your news come from?”
“From the knight himself,” I replied. “He recently came to my mistress’s house, grievously injured. She took him in, tended his wounds as best she could—even put him in her own bed.”
Guinevere’s gaze tightened upon me like a turned screw.
I resisted the urge to smile. “Unfortunately, his injuries were too great,” I continued.
“We hoped God would gaze down in healing, but Sir Lancelot believed quite certainly he would die. Because of this, he decided to make his final confession. He insisted my mistress’s household be called in to hear his greatest sins told.
That is how I came to bear this message. ”
My brother leaned forwards, eyes keen. He did not suspect what was coming, and I wanted it to ring in his head like a sword against a steel helm.
“My lord, need we hear this now?” Guinevere’s voice interrupted, high and strained. “When we do not even know if our best knight lives?”
The court again took up in whispers, the odd groan of suspicion. Arthur did not heed his wife’s last-chance distraction from her deadliest secret; his focus remained on me.
“Did Lancelot die?” he asked.
His voice cracked just barely, indiscernible to any ear but mine. I understood then that Arthur feared the answer to this question only. Of Guinevere, he suspected nothing at all.
“Time has passed while I travelled here,” I replied. “But he still lived when I left.”
“Then this is not over,” Gawain insisted. “I will ride out at once and get him. Put him on a litter if necessary, bring him to our best healers.”
Arthur’s face flickered unexpectedly, a chord played along my spine.
He was thinking of me—his clever sister with death-defying skills at her fingertips; the one person in the entire kingdom who he could not ask, or command, or summon to his aid.
Five hundred of their “best healers” could not replace one Morgan le Fay, and my brother knew it.
“Excuse me, my lords,” I said. “But Sir Lancelot said that if he survived, he would take to the road and doesn’t wish to be found. He swore on my mistress’s crucifix that he would wander barefoot, wear rough clothing beside his skin and never again bear arms.”
My fabricated description sounded so much like Lancelot’s bouts of martyrish despair that I knew it would ring true. Arthur sagged back as if he had heard du Lac himself speak, and the room’s knightly cohort murmured in similar conviction. Even Gawain’s sceptical brow rose in recognition.
Only Guinevere resisted the charms of my shrewdly drawn portrait. “I still do not see why we should believe any of this,” she said. “We do not know this fair damsel from Eve. Again I contend she may have been rejected by Lancelot’s virtue and has come to cast shadows upon his reputation.”
Her refusal to be shaken, the strange astuteness she had always shown at times inopportune for myself—the fact that all ears listened intently when she spoke—burned in my gullet like vinegar.
Worse still, I had limited myself: the damsel was an obedient, respectful messenger, possessing neither the rank nor the disdain for the court that Morgan le Fay did.
Unlike me, she was not hungry to bring the news that could break an entire nation.
I forced nervousness into my false voice. “My lords, my lady. Sir Lancelot knew you might question my intentions, so he sent proof. He said I should seek Sir Gawain.”
“I’m Sir Gawain,” my nephew declared at once, to Guinevere’s obvious chagrin.
“Good Sir Knight.” I greeted him with a curtsey. “Sir Lancelot told me that if my truth was held in doubt, I should repeat to you the words he spoke to you on the night after he liberated the Dolorous Tower.”
The royal pair looked at him in enquiry.
“He came to me before he left,” Gawain confirmed. “I remember it exactly.”
“Tell us, young lady, please,” Arthur said.
I recounted the story with care. “Sir Lancelot said that when he told you he was leaving, you asked where he was going and he replied that he could not say. He asked you to stand in for him as Queen’s Knight.”
Gawain ducked his head. “Go on.”
“You said, ‘Lancelot, should I be worried?’ and he told you not to fear for him. Lastly, when he said goodbye, you urged him it was surely farewell, but he made no reply.”
“Well?” Guinevere demanded. “Is this true?”
My nephew looked up, his eyes misty. “That’s what was said.”
A pervasive hush fell, the terrible realization that Lancelot might never return or be seen alive again. Fairly easily, I had won over the court, but it wasn’t their belief I sought. I cast my eyes back to my brother.
“My lord,” I said. “Can I trust that I am now believed as a messenger of truth and integrity? Because there is still Sir Lancelot’s confession, which he wished spoken aloud.”
“My sincere apologies for our doubts,” Arthur said. “Please continue.”
A pall of sadness had fallen across his face, but I had not done all this for him to focus on the wrong tragedy. It was time to drive a lance through Arthur’s shield and send Camelot into freefall.
I looked at Guinevere, her eyes lowered, fingers picking at a spray of seed pearls sewn across her skirts.
“My lady,” I said. “This confession is also a message for you.”
She raised her head, looking pleasingly wretched. I drew a deep breath, the sweet taste of vengeance on my lips.
“Queen Guinevere,” I said. “Sir Lancelot gives to you his deepest love, and thanks you for your love in return. He wishes to confess his treason, and beg God and King Arthur for forgiveness. As your faithful knight, and lover in adultery.”