The Legend of the King Read online

  The king turned on his heel and strode away.

  Gawain slept for six hours, awoke and ate a hearty meal, then went back to bed, not so much to sleep as to avoid people. He and Terence talked quietly inside their tent for several hours, mostly about Gawain's faery wife, Lorie, on the Island of Avalon, until at last, sometime after midnight, Gawain went back to sleep.

  Terence woke his friend at ten, which left enough time for him to eat well but not feel heavy from the meal at noon. They made the rest of their preparations in silence, and when Lancelot emerged from Joyous Garde at midday, Gawain was armed and ready. The knights nodded to each other, waited for the signal, then threw themselves into battle.

  The contest was more deliberate than the one the day before. Both knights moved more slowly, even stiffly at first, but Gawain clearly held the early advantage. He continually pushed Lancelot backwards and once even drove him to his knees, but Lancelot escaped by lunging forward toward Gawain and making him stumble, rather than trying to avoid Gawain's sword. A blind parry behind his back deflected Gawain's off-balance stroke, and then Lancelot rolled to his feet, ready to fight again.

  Terence shook his head with awe. No other man, driven to the ground before a swordsman such as Gawain, could have escaped unharmed. In fact, Terence was surprised that even Lancelot had survived. Had Gawain hesitated? Frowning, Terence began to watch more critically. Within another half-hour, Terence was certain. Three times Gawain had had a slim opening and had either missed it by hesitating or had simply let it pass.

  Then the tide of the battle turned. Gawain's strength began to flag, and his blows were neither as swift nor as precise as they had been. Lancelot, encouraged by the signs that Gawain was faltering, seemed to find renewed strength. Now Gawain was on the defensive, fighting as Lancelot had the previous morning. Unfortunately, by nature Gawain was a less patient fighter than Lancelot, and thus was less adept at the defensive stance. With one perfectly aimed blow, Lancelot split Gawain's shield in half, rendering it useless. Gawain tried to defend himself with the largest half, then tossed it behind him impatiently. Lancelot stepped back and let Gawain recover his breath, then calmly threw his own shield aside.

  Gawain attacked; Lancelot parried. Gawain dived to one side and swung at Lancelot's legs; Lancelot leaped over Gawain's blow without losing his balance and landed a counterblow on Gawain's side. Gawain hit the turf hard and rolled to his feet, more swiftly than Terence would have imagined possible for a man in full armor, but Lancelot was waiting for him as he rose and knocked him backwards again. Lancelot lunged, clinched briefly, then threw Gawain to the ground. Gawain sat up and, with his sword, deflected one blow aimed at his helm, then a second one. He managed to get his feet under him, but as his sword arm lowered, Lancelot finally landed a heavy blow on Gawain's temple. Gawain sprawled to his right, nearly rolling over completely. His helm flew from his head and his sword to the ground, yards away from where he lay. Dazed but unconquered, Gawain pushed himself up and climbed shakily to one knee, but there he stopped. Lancelot stood before him, his blade at Gawain's throat.

  "Do you yield, Gawain?" gasped Lancelot.

  Gawain said nothing.

  "Do you yield?" Lancelot repeated.

  Gawain shook his head.

  "Damn it, Gawain! You're disarmed! Yield, I say!"

  Finally Gawain spoke. "Sorry, Lance, but I don't fight for myself. I fight for Arthur. You'll have to kill me."

  Lancelot raised his arms, and for a horrible, sick second Terence thought he was about to see Gawain die, but Lancelot only tore off his own helm and threw it on the ground behind him. His cheeks were streaked with tears. "No, by God! I will not! I'll die myself first!" Then he let his sword drop to the ground and knelt beside Gawain. "Forgive me, my friend."

  His own eyes wet, Gawain embraced Lancelot. Then he pushed him away and looked into his eyes. "Whatever I have to forgive is forgiven," he said.

  "I suppose we might all be wondering where we go from here," interposed a quiet voice. A slight man in black robes stepped out of the crowd of onlookers into the very center of the battleground. It was Nacien, Bishop of Glastonbury.

  Arthur rose from the chair where he had sat watching the combat. "Bishop Nacien," he said dully. "What brings you here?"

  "I sent for him, Arthur," growled Kai. "To serve as mediator."

  "And if I might presume to correct you, Your Highness," Nacien said, "it is no longer Bishop Nacien. At least I don't think so. A few days after I served you at the queen's trial, and just one day after you left Camelot, I received a letter from the Holy Father appointing me Archbishop of Canterbury."

  "Archbishop, then," Arthur said impatiently.

  "I only mention the fact," Nacien continued, "because if I choose to accept this dreadful position, I will have the job of doing my utmost to preserve the peace of God in England. Do you mind if I give it a go right away? As official representative of the pope, I mean?"

  All this was said in such a deferential, almost apologetic tone that it took King Arthur a few seconds for the import of it to sink in. "Do you mean to say that you've come as a papal legate to mediate peace?"

  Nacien smiled. "Yes, actually. If you don't mind."

  "Does it matter if I mind?" Arthur asked.

  "No, but I'd rather have your approval."

  Arthur scowled, but after a moment he waved his hand resignedly. Even the king of England had to recognize the authority of the pope in mediating disputes. Nacien turned to Gawain and Lancelot, who had both struggled to their feet, holding on to each other for support. Nacien spoke to Gawain. "I heard you say, Sir Gawain, that you have forgiven Sir Lancelot. I'm very glad to hear it. What exactly had you to forgive?"

  Gawain took a breath, then said, "He killed my brothers."

  "Brothers?" demanded Lancelot, his eyes widening. "I knew I killed Sir Agrivaine, but—"

  "The man you killed at the gate when you rescued the queen," Gawain interrupted. "That was Gareth."

  Lancelot's face grew still and empty. Then he bowed his head. "I did not know," he said at last. "In the heat of an attack ... but still, I am sorry. I loved Gareth, you know."

  "I already told you. You're forgiven," Gawain said, then he added, "Gary's dead, too."

  Lancelot swallowed. "Sir Gaheris?"

  "Your cousin Lamorak killed him," Gawain said. Terence blinked, then nodded. He had forgotten that Lamorak was a distant relative of Lancelot's. Gawain continued, "I killed Lamorak. I ask your forgiveness as well."

  Lancelot reached out and rested his hand on Gawain's shoulder. "My friend," he said.

  "So far so good," interposed Nacien calmly. "But I take it there is another rift to heal. Sir Lancelot, will you come with me?" Taking Lancelot's elbow, Nacien steered him toward King Arthur, who lifted his bleak eyes to glare challengingly at the knight.

  Lancelot evidently needed no prompting. Sinking to his knees at the king's feet, Lancelot said gruffly, "Sire, I have never begged your forgiveness for betraying you with your queen. I thought it best to let it be forgotten, but I was mistaken. A wrong that is never forgiven cannot be forgotten. Can you forgive me?"

  All who stood within hearing held their breath. Then the king said, "Do you speak of an old betrayal or a current one?"

  Lancelot looked up, surprised. "Sire, my relations with Queen Guinevere ended years ago, when I left the court. I thought you knew that."

  "And yet she is in your castle now, kept away from me," Arthur said. "What am I to make of that?"

  Lancelot's eyes narrowed. "Sire, you cannot think ... I only rescued her to keep her from being unjustly executed."

  The king raised one eyebrow. "You thought I would unjustly execute my own wife?"

  "But Sir Kai said—"

  "Sir Kai said what?" demanded Arthur.

  "He sent me a letter saying that you were going to try her for treason and that you meant to have her hanged."

  Now Sir Kai stepped in. "I sent you a letter?"

  Lance
lot nodded and rose to his feet. "Bors? Do you have the letter?"

  Sir Bors stepped forward, bringing a sheet of parchment and handing it to the king. Arthur examined it for a long moment, then reached into a pocket in his robe and produced another sheet of parchment. While all the court watched, Arthur looked back and forth between the two letters. Then his head sank to his chin, and for a long minute no one spoke. At last the king looked up, his eyes bleary.

  "This letter," he said, "purports to be from Sir Kai, telling Lancelot that I have gone mad and intend to kill the queen. It begs him to come and rescue her and promises that no one will stand in his way."

  "Arthur, I didn't—" began Kai.

  "I know you didn't write it, Kai," Arthur said. "I know your writing, and this is not it. It is, however, identical to the writing of the letter found on Lancelot's desk after he left the court."

  "A letter?" Lancelot asked.

  "A half-written letter from you to Mordred, promising to join his rebellion."

  "No, sire! I never—"

  Arthur waved his hand. "I know, Lance. I haven't been thinking clearly for several weeks, but I have enough wit left to realize that we have all been played for fools. Someone—Sir Mador, I would imagine—has been busily writing letters under false names, trying to split up the Round Table. Doing quite a good job of it, in fact."

  Terence sighed with relief and heard others around him doing the same. The war between the king and Lancelot was over. But then Nacien cleared his throat gently. "Your Highness?" he said.

  "Yes, your excellency?"

  "I am glad we have cleared up the confusion, but the matter is not over. These letters ... neither of you would have believed them for a moment had there not been a division between you. We still need to deal with Sir Lancelot's betrayal."

  "But all that was over years ago," Lancelot said.

  Nacien smiled. "Didn't you say yourself, just a moment ago, that an unforgiven wrong is never forgotten? You're right. In fact, that's quite insightful. Have you ever thought about becoming a priest?"

  "Me? A priest?"

  "Or a monk. I don't care. You have the aptitude. But that's not the issue now. The issue is that you betrayed the king many years ago and never confessed and were never forgiven."

  "I do confess it now, then," Lancelot said. "Before all these present, I confess my sin."

  "And I," Nacien said, "receive your confession and assign you penance. You must go from here on pilgrimage. For three weeks, go to every shrine, every hermitage that you can find, and there confess your sins to those you meet. And then, when you have completed your pilgrimage, you must leave England."

  9. The Last Enchantress

  Luneta

  On the night of the half-moon, Luneta sat up in bed as if she had been stuck with a pin. "Rhience!" she shouted.

  She waited a moment and was about to call out again when her chamber door opened and her husband entered, bleary-eyed but awake. He carried a candle. "What is it?"

  "Something's happened."

  Rhience set the candle on a table and sat beside it in an oaken chair. "Something good or bad?"

  "I don't know. Neither, maybe, or both."

  "Nearby or far away?"

  Luneta thought about this for a moment. It was a reasonable question. As an enchantress, her particular gift was in her awareness of others. Where her mother was an instinctive healer, Luneta had a natural ability to sense, even at great distances, what others were feeling and thinking. "Far away, I think. It's my mother."

  Rhience said nothing, waiting.

  A cold emptiness began to spread from Luneta's breast, hollowing out her whole body. "I think she's dead," Luneta said.

  Rhience rose at once. He made no effort to convince her that her feelings might be mistaken, but only took her in his arms and murmured, "Oh, my love, I'm so sorry."

  "She's not unhappy," Luneta added. "Mother, I mean. She's all right. Just dead."

  "What about your father?" Rhience asked, leaning away from her and gazing into her face. "Can you tell anything?"

  Luneta shook her head. "No. It must be very far away. I can sense Mother because of the connection between enchantresses, but not Father." She frowned. "There's something else, too: a lightening of darkness. Some heaviness that's been resting over England has started to lift. There's a presence that ... it's gone. I wasn't even aware that it was there until now, a dark fog that must have been growing gradually, but I can feel it, now that it's clearing. Oh, Rhience, I think everything has changed tonight."

  "Not for me," Rhience said firmly. "I still love you. You are still my world, and you are still here. So don't talk nonsense about everything changing. Everything else can bloody well change all it wants, but we are still together."

  Luneta shook herself briskly and said, "Thank you. Yes, you're right. But what are we going to do?"

  "Tonight we'll rest. Then tomorrow morning we'll start for Orkney to check on Sir Gaheris. If your mother has died, he'll need us."

  Rhience's steady good sense calmed her somewhat, even as she knew she wouldn't go back to sleep that night. "You're right," she said.

  "And I'll stay with you," Rhience said, taking her back in his arms and sliding under the bedclothes beside her. "Lie down. Tomorrow we'll face together whatever there is to face."

  As it turned out, they didn't leave for Orkney the next day. After breakfast, while Rhience was giving instructions to his steward for managing their Sussex estates in their absence, the castle gate flew open and a majestic woman with haughty eyes rode a gray palfrey into the courtyard.

  "Morgan?" Luneta said, staring at her great-aunt, the enchantress who had trained her.

  The proud eyes softened slightly. "Good morning, my dear." Morgan looked sharply around the yard, noting the horses saddled and baggage assembled. "You're going somewhere? Do you know, then?"

  "I know that Mother died last night," Luneta said, forcing her voice to remain steady even as she uttered the horrible words. "That's all."

  Morgan gazed at her thoughtfully. "You are more gifted than I knew. But is that really all?"

  "Something, no, someone else died, too, lifting a shadow from the land."

  Morgan nodded. "My sister Morgause."

  "Morgause is dead?" Luneta said, a spark of hope rising in her breast.

  "Yes. Your mother and my sister died last night, and with their deaths this world has changed for people like us."

  "Enchantresses, you mean?"

  "What else could I mean?" Morgan replied impatiently. "I've been sent to gather all the enchantresses of England and bring them to the Henge."

  "Who sent you?"

  "Ganscotter himself. The Enchanter of Avalon. The greatest of all the—"

  Rhience's sardonic voice broke in. "Ah, you mean Terence's daddy?"

  A look of distaste flitted across Morgan's countenance. Rhience had never been one of her favorites. Morgan was used to being taken more seriously than Rhience took anyone. "Yes, Rhience, the father of the Duke of Avalon."

  "I've always wanted to meet his papa," Rhience mused.

  Luneta looked up quickly at Morgan. "And what about the husbands of enchantresses? Does Ganscotter invite them, too?"

  "Yes," Morgan replied. From her tone it was clear that she thought poorly of this inclusion. "They're summoned as well."

  Rhience smiled. "Well, please tell Terence's dad that we're honored by his kind invitation, but that we have another engagement."

  Morgan's eyes widened. "You don't understand—" she began.

  "The thing is," Rhience explained, "we were just off to Orkney to check on Sir Gaheris. With Lady Lynet gone, he'll need—"

  "Sir Gaheris? Then you don't know that part?"

  "Don't know what?" Luneta demanded.

  "It was your father who killed Morgause, and he died doing it."

  "Father's dead, too?" Luneta repeated blankly.

  "Yes, perhaps I should have said so earlier," Morgan said.

  Rhien
ce at once stepped to Luneta's side, tenderly placing his arm around her shoulders. Now he glanced at Morgan with disdain. "Perhaps you should have," he said.

  "It slipped my mind," Morgan snapped.

  Luneta barely heard this exchange. For all that she was like her mother, she was even closer to her father. In her youth, Luneta had fought with her mother fiercely and often, but she had never been able to sustain anger against her father. When she tried, her wrath dissipated in his presence. He would simply grin at her, disarming her with his amused acceptance of whoever she happened to think she was at that moment.

  "I'm sorry, lass," Rhience said softly, and his voice and intonation were so like her father's that she was oddly comforted.

  "So you'll be coming with me," Morgan stated. "Come, we have other Ladies to gather."

  Luneta looked up to see Rhience watching her, waiting for her decision. "I ... I think we should, Rhience." He nodded and held her hand while she mounted, then kept holding it while they rode away with Morgan.

  Over the next two weeks, they gathered twelve other enchantresses, all of whom were stunningly beautiful. Upon completing their training in magical arts, enchantresses were offered a choice of three gifts, one of which was the gift of breathtaking physical beauty. Evidently that was the most popular choice. Luneta, who like her mother had chosen a healing potion instead, began to feel out of place in the growing cavalcade. She glanced speculatively at Rhience, who was gazing on the backs of two ravishing golden-haired sisters who rode ahead of him. "See something interesting, dear?" Luneta asked.

  Rhience glanced at her and chuckled. "I was just thinking how lucky I was to be married to you," he said.

  "Really?" Luneta asked suspiciously.

  Rhience nodded and explained earnestly, "Yes, because I shan't lose you in the crowd. It's so easy to tell you apart from the others, you see."

  Luneta tried to stifle her laughter but failed. She snorted in a very undignified way, spraying her horse's neck.

  Rhience handed her a kerchief, and she wiped her nose. "Seriously, I was only half joking about telling enchantresses apart," Rhience added. "I was just trying to remember which of those two girls was Felicia and which Patricia. As far as I can tell, they both look like your friend Laudine. Isn't it odd that the more beautiful a woman is, the more she looks like every other beautiful woman?"