Chapter 55 #2
When the bards sing of my madness, this is the moment they describe. The fit that consumed me as I barreled, unhinged, through the roads of Camelot, boar-eyed and shaking, running but trapped in the confines of my skull.
I cut through the central square. I needed to get to the docks, board the next departing ship and put as much distance between Camelot and me as possible.
I looked back. Galehaut and Gawain were paces behind me.
I turned into the livestock market, where butchers purchased their fare, hoping to lose them in the drive of cattle.
I darted between freckled cows, setting off a cascade of moos.
Donkeys stamped and huffed around me. A pen of pigs snorted.
The livestock market smelled like the barn on the Isle of Women, foul but earthy.
I was the nameless boy again, caged and alone.
“There he is!” I heard Gawain behind me.
“Lancelot, come back!” called Galehaut.
At the edge of the market, I jumped a pillory cart bound for the docks.
It was a disgrace to be seen inside such a cart, but it was the only way I could evade Galehaut and Gawain.
The wooden bars of the cart were spaced wide apart, so that onlookers could see who was inside.
I was spotted by many, and these sightings only contributed to the tales of my madness.
At the time I thought nothing of it, but the brief ride would stick to me. Even now, years later, I am still called the Knight of the Cart. If the criminals in the cart recognized me, however, they said nothing. All of us were someplace else.
At the docks, a small man, half my stature, led us towards a ship bound for Brittany. The other men were facing permanent banishment from Camelot. I got in line with them, ready to leave and never look back.
I was about to step onto the ship, when I felt a hard tug on my shoulder. Someone ripped off my cloak.
“Lancelot! What on earth are you doing?”
It was Guinevere, disguised in a house dress and common wimple. She seemed as shocked to see me as I her. She pulled me out of the line, and since I was not shackled, the guard didn’t seem to notice.
“Unless I’m mistaken, I’d say you were about to board a criminal ship.” She looked me up and down, noting the body tremors, the twitch of my eyes, the splashes of swan juice staining my tunic. “What happened? What’s going on? You are frightening me.”
I could not speak. I could barely breathe. Guinevere grabbed me by the shoulders and led me across the docks. The midday sun shimmered off the day’s catch, and I shielded my eyes. She pulled us into an empty oyster hut and locked the door.
“You look like you’ve gone mad!”
“I have,” I said.
“What is wrong?”
She ran her thumb across my cheek, forcing my frantic eyes to still. In moments like these I was struck by Guinevere’s instinct to nurture. Her tenderness emerged from a broken place.
“I need to leave,” I said. “I can’t stay here.”
“Well, that makes two of us.”
She pulled off the wimple, releasing her long golden hair.
“Why are you wearing that?” I asked. “Why are you down here?”
“I just told you. I need to leave, too.”
In the quiet of the oyster hut, I felt my pulse begin to settle.
“Don’t tell me you were also about to board a ship, too?”
“No. But Morgan just did.”
“Morgan? She was in Camelot?”
“Yes. But she just left for Gaul. I came to see her off.”
“Why?”
“Because she is helping me to escape.”
She spoke these words as if I already knew them, as if she were reminding me of something she’d told me many times before, something I kept forgetting.
“I am abandoning my station,” she said. “I am done being queen.”
I could hardly register her words. Guinevere was the very embodiment of Camelot’s magnificence. She was more than a figurehead. She was a cornerstone of peace.
“You cannot,” I said.
“Watch me.”
“The kingdom will fall.”
“It won’t. I assure you. I would not risk it otherwise.”
“But Arthur. He would be devastated.”
“Arthur knows.”
In all our late-night visits, never once had she hinted at a desire to escape. Her unhappiness, I realized with a wave of guilt, coursed deeper than I could ever fathom.
“I was going to tell you,” she said. “I would not have left without saying goodbye. Of all the people and things in Camelot, I will miss you the most.”
A wave of sadness. Her friendship meant more to me than almost anything.
“You’ll miss me more than the dogs?”
“I will miss you second most.”
“But how has Arthur accepted this? How will Camelot survive?”
Her mouth curved into a smile. “My sister will assume the throne in my stead.”
“Your sister?”
“We look nearly identical. No one will know.”
Now it was my turn to question her sanity.
“That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.”
She pressed a hand to my chest. “That is where Morgan comes in.”
I slumped against the wall as she explained her plan.
Morgan was on her way to Gaul to meet with Guinevere’s sister, Guinevak.
There, Morgan would infuse her with Guinevere’s knowledge of Camelot, and perform enchantments that would otherwise make others perceive her as Guinevere.
Only Arthur would see Guinevak for who she truly was.
“My sister and I were always very close,” Guinevere explained.
“She is two years younger, stunningly beautiful, with a ribald wit and a generosity of spirit I do not possess. She was always determined to live a different life than mine, lest others compare us. But now she finds herself with no husband or children or anything to tether her to our village. As much as she wished to carve out her own path, she is about to step into my exact life. She would never have admitted it, but this is everything she has ever wanted.”
“So you’re installing a… a False Guinevere?”
She nodded.
“But Arthur—”
“Has always been in love with Guinevak.”
The revelation struck like a cold blast of wind. Her inexplicable insecurity, her marital discontent, the vapor of heartbreak I could never quite square. Arthur had loved Guinevak. He had never truly been in love with Guinevere.
“Yet I was the one my father promised. And Arthur was too young at the time to speak up.”
“Forgive me,” I said, clutching my head again, fighting a spell of vertigo. “This is much to take in.”
“I know. I am sorry to tell you this way. In an oyster shed.”
We both laughed. The madness had receded and I was returning to myself. But I would miss her.
“How much time do we have left together?”
“A fortnight perhaps?”
“And Morgan. Can you really trust her?”
She gave me a playful slap on my arm. “Morgan is not as bad as they say. She is capable of good.”
“That wasn’t my experience.”
“Maybe someday it will be.”
“And where will you go once you leave? People will recognize you.”
“I have my ways of blending in. But once I get to the Isle of Women I won’t need to.”
“The Isle of…”
She gave me a weighed look and it dawned on me all at once.
The lake sword possessed her memory because she too was a descendant.
“You are the distant niece from Gaul.”
She gave me a stiff-lipped smile. I choked back tears.
“I am Viviana’s kin,” she said.
Eventually, she convinced me to come back to the castle.
We took a circuitous route through fields and back alleys to avoid being seen.
Guinevere had been raised in Gaul, but she was also Roman by birth and they claimed her.
If anyone knew she was a descendant, it would have upended the threadbare alliance her marriage with Arthur had wrought.
She was Viviana’s kin and therefore my kin, and I knew I could trust her with anything, even the dilemma that now divided my heart.
“Oh, Lancelot. Dear one. Anyone would be lucky to have one great love in a lifetime. But I do not envy you having two. Not this way.”
“I can’t bear to hurt either of them,” I said. “Look what happened with the Lady of Astolat.”
“You cannot compare that.”
It was not the same, but I carried the guilt of her death. It did not help that the bards had latched on to her story—a tragic tale of unrequited love.
“Mordred thinks I drove her to it,” I said. “He blames me.”
“Does he? And how did you kill her? By showing her courtesy? By treating her with respect? By refusing her advances? You carry more guilt than anyone I know. And why? Because your mother died in childbirth? Do you suppose her death is your fault, too?”
Her words scraped to the bone.
“You are not to blame for any of this, Lancelot,” she continued. “You did not throw Galehaut out a window. You didn’t erase his memory and deliver him to Ireland. If anyone is to blame, it’s Brunor. And it was Merlin who manipulated the situation. Look at me.”
I lifted my head, took in the kind, watery reflection of her eyes.
“You do not need to make a decision today,” she said. “But if you do not choose, fate will eventually choose for you, which is far worse.”
“What if I make the wrong choice?”
“You won’t make the wrong choice. One of them will be hurt. This is inevitable. But if they truly love you, they will understand.”
Back at the castle, she took me directly to her chambers. She installed me in the attendants’ extension and brought me a draft of betony.
“You have barely slept in two days. Tomorrow everything will be better.” She kissed my forehead, blew out the candle at my bedside. “I will let Gawain and Galehaut know you are safe.”
“Guinevere?” I called to her on her way out. “Thank you.”
“It is nothing,” she said. “You are my one true friend here. You are family.”
“You will find kindred souls on the Isle of Women.”
“Yes,” she said, in the shadows of the doorframe. “But none like you.”