Avalon (50 page)

It was warm as they crossed the solid new stone bridge over the Tavy. She unpinned her mantle. From her present considerable wardrobe, she had chosen the gown which she felt was most becoming. It was dyed a very dark green like the foliage of a yew tree, it had been woven in France, like her mantle, and both were of a woolen more delicate and light than anything which could be made in England. She wore most of the jewels which Wulfric had given her. The garnet necklace, the gorgeous enamel brooch, the rings, the girdle clasp. All these were set in gold, except the slender chains of silver and crystals which she braided into her long plaits. As they neared the new Abbey, again whitewashed, though this time built of stone, she put on the royal circlet she had worn for Ethelred and Emma's wedding. Then she took it oflF again, and told one of Wulfric's housecarls to guard it. Three minutes later she demanded it back and placed it over her short white veil.

They made quite a procession as they approached the Portal — the two monks, three of Wulfric's housecarls, and Merewyn. Little Foss had been regretfully left behind.

She let Brother Laurance do the talking to the Porter, and it soon developed that Brother Rumon was lying in the monks' special garden, as he often did.

Merewyn dismounted, and made a gesture to Brother Laurence. "Please lead the way."

She heard that her voice quavered, she felt that her palms were wet, her knees wobbled as she followed the monk through a stone gate, past a brook and a dovecote, where a score of gray pigeons were flying in and out of their holes in the masonry. Merewyn and the monk entered a very small brick-walled garden. Merewyn was dimly aware of yellow flowers climbing up the walls, of moss under her feet as she stepped across a tiny rill, of a rowan with masses of scarlet berries, of tall blue flowers, of late roses, and the smell of lavender.

She saw at once the chairlike litter that was propped against the far wall, and contained a man.

"Here is the Lady Merewyn," said Brother Laurence gently to the man. "Brother Rumon, I've brought her as you asked."

Rumon, who had been drowsing, and thus forgetting the pains in his back, sat bolt upright. "I'm glad to see you," he said. "Forgive me that my useless legs will not let me get up to greet you properly."

"Oh Rumon —" Merewyn whispered. She was appalled by the emaciation of the face she scarcely recognized, of the black circles beneath the dark eyes. And it was strange to see Rumon in the habit of a Benedictine monk. Brother Laurence mmmured something and left the garden.

"Why do you think I wanted you to come to me, Merewyn?" said Rumon, his voice getting stronger.

"Because —" she said slowly, "Because I suppose there has always been a sort of love between us. First me, then you. Crisscross. But underneath — always something."

Rumon nodded. "I see now that's true. I'm glad that you came to me; after my last message to you, I wasn't sure. It was rude. I regret it. But I see also that you did not need my material help." He glanced at her dark green gown, at all her jewelry. "Nor has a Benedictine monk anything material to help uoith.^''

"Of course not."

"Merewyn!" he said abruptly. "Did you know that I killed

tw^o Vikings when they were raiding Tavistock Abbey church?"

"I've heard it," she answered very low. "And you saved the treasure. It was brave."

"Brave," he repeated with contempt. "I was mad with fury. I discovered strength I never knew I had, and the wish to kill. It was to save the treasure and the silver dove, yes — but do you know another thought I had in me?"

She did not answer; she sat down on a little mossy boulder near Rumon, and waited. He jfinally spoke in a thin dry voice. He did not look at her, he gazed over the garden towards the dovecote. "When I killed those two in the church, I was really killing Ketil and Sigurd. I did not know it for a long time. And it's because of this that God has willed that I be smitten. And I welcome His Will."

"Oh, poor Rumon —" she whispered. She put her hand on his shoulder. Then there was no sound in the garden but the cooing of doves, the purring of the little rill.

His head sank into the cowl, his breathing had become the fast shallow type she remembered all too well having heard from her Aunt Merwinna.

"Neither Ketil, nor Sigurd died by your hand," said Merewyn with force. "And as for the two you did kill, I've not a doubt they richly deserved it."

He let his arms rise and drop, a gesture she remembered piercingly from the long-ago. "When I was a boy in Provence, I vowed to the Blessed Lord Christ, to the Saintes Maries that I would do no violence. I broke the vow."

"So what if you did!" she cried. "You must have told all this to your confessor!"

"And was absolved at once, no hard penance. I told him of the murderous bloodlust I suddenly felt, and he would scarcely listen. He thought that my confessions about Ketil and Sigurd were nonsense. That they were vaporings from my injury. They made a hero of me at the Abbey. I wish Dunstan were back. He'd understand."

"/ understand," she said stoutly. "Rumon, you were always questing, searching for a blessed place called Avalon. I see that you have not found it, and for that I'm sorry."

Rumon suddenly sat upright again. "Unless it's here," he said with a faint smile. "In this little garden, or anywhere that one can find peace."

"The garden's very pretty," said Merewyn uncertainly. "It's not an island though."

"Always we live on islands of one kind or another," said Rumon, his voice deepening.

His cowl slipped back, and Merewyn was startled by the gleaming blackness of his hair around the white-scalped tonsure.

He looked much younger, and as his dark eyes now examined her, she saw in them a look of sorrow.

"You are very well dressed," said Rumon, "and bejeweled. I observe also that you wear on your head a royal golden circlet."

"It's necessary ... I mean everyone thinks so . . . especially Wulfric and it seemed so much easier . . . since everyone believes . . ." She touched the circlet, then snatched her hand away, frightened by the sternness of Rumon's face.

"This is why I sent for you, Merewyn! My concern for your soul's welfare. I have love for you, as for many years, but I'm a priest, and that love has begot more prayers for you than I can tell. I summoned you here to ask of you a brave act. Braver than / have ever done, for these motives will be pure."

Merewyn shrank inside. "What?" she said.

"Confess your deception."

"To — our Manor chaplain?" She recovered quickly, and said, "What deception?"

"You are not of royal British blood, my daughter," said Rumon. "And you well know it now, though you did not before your capture at Padstow, and are blameless for those early years. But now you are profiting from what you know is untrue. You have no right to wear that atheling's circlet. And it is not only for your soul's sake I say these things, but I think you are

unhappy in this life. Nobody can live a continuous lie and find serenity. I can see that you are not at peace with yourself. It shows in your mouth, and in your eyes."

"What do you mean, Rumon?" she said stiffly.

"I mean that you should go and tell your real parentage to the King and Queen first — and then to Thane Wulfric, your husband."

"Oh . . ." said Merewyn with a gasp which was half a sob. "I couldn't. I can't. You're cruel, Rumon. They would be so angry, and Wulfric so disappointed, he'd repudiate me."

*'Perhaps," Rumon was still sitting up and looking at her. "Then you can go to Romsey Abbey?"

"Elfled and I are not close anymore. She wouldn't want there a rejected wife with no money — and, and — no lineage."

"/ wanted you, I followed you to the very end of the world, when all the time I knew your true birth."

"Oh, Blessed Jesu, yes," and she began to cry.

Rumon leaned back again and gave an involuntary grunt of pain as he did so.

He listened a moment to the sounds of the garden. The brook back there, the rill here, the doves, and the bees buzzing to their skeps laden with nectar from the flowers. Also to small choking sounds from Merewyn.

"This request is for you, Merewyn," he said, "and you may remember that you were put in my charge by your mother, a long time ago. I did fulfill my vow to her, and now I wish you to answer my request. It is also a dying request, as you must have heard from Brother Laurence. I can't last much longer."

She wiped her eyes on her dark green skirt. Relief had come to her, a feeling of lightness and surety. The little garden seemed illumined by a rosy light. The yellow flowers quivered on the brick walls, the pink roses sparkled, and the berries of the rowan dotted their green tree with orange jewels.

She looked down at Rumon and saw that his quiet face was also touched with the light.

"I will do it," she said. At the joy in his sunken dark eyes, she leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. The only time they had kissed, except that moment on the Tor, when they had misunderstood each other so completely.

Merewyn spent the night in the Tavistock Abbey hostel, newly rebuilt by Lord Ordulf, and as luxurious a guesthouse as Merewyn had ever known.

She slept on a goose-feather bed, and slept well. She did not see Rumon again, but he saw her. He had been carried to a corner of the choir for early Mass, and as he looked into the nave, he saw her kneeling in her dark green hooded mantle. Something poignant stirred in him. He had seen her thus before? Not at Tavistock? Yes, at Tavistock. When he was searching for her. There had been a foreknowledge. He had thought then that one of the monks was Merewyn, now it was really she. And time did not run on neatly; it leaped ahead, or it might double back on itself. These years at Tavistock — seven of them — seemed very short.

He watched Merewyn with tenderness. Her devout face was outlined by the dark green hood. As the Abbey grew warm, she threw the hood back, and he saw that there was no circlet over the white veil. She'll go through with it, he thought. Had Merewyn ever failed in doing what she said she'd do! He looked at her a good deal, while he mechanically followed the Mass. Then he looked at the silver dove with shiny crystal eyes, which hung in the chancel near the altar. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Third Person of the Trinity. The Comforter.

Under the black habit he tried to flex his numb legs. He knew that they were turning a pecuHar dark color, the lay brother who dressed him had remarked on it today. He knew that the numbness was spreading up his back and would soon engulf the pain there. He heaved a long sigh and kissed the plain wooden crucifix which had replaced his gold one. "That I may be deemed worthy of being received by Thee, when the time

comes, and that from Thy great Mercy, Thou wilt help Mere-wyn in her ordeal."

The Mass was over. He watched as she crossed herself, and rose. She had not seen him lying in the chair litter at the corner by the chancel rail. She hurried out of the Abbey. She went to the hostel to collect her housecarls. Brother Laurence met her at the gate. "I'll guide you back across Dartmoor," said the monk. "The mists are rising, and Brother Rumon —" the monk made a peculiar sound, and Merewyn who had not really seen him as a person before, looked up at the gaunt face.

"Brother Rumon has requested this, and also that I give you a last message, lady. That if what he has asked of you is too hard, you may wait until you feel you can do it. And also —" here the monk paused because he understood nothing of all this himself, "that your race will soon, very soon make a better England ... he had a vision, I think." Brother Laurence finished apologetically. "I don't know what he meant, was it the Cornish, or the Welsh? I know that you have the ancient British royal blood — Arthur's."

"I haven't," said Merewyn flatly. "No royal blood of any kind."

The monk stared at her. But any vagaries this lady had were no concern of his. He had been told to guide her back across the moor, and he would obey whatever superior gave him an order. Yet this one from Rumon was especially important. He had a great reverence for Brother Rumon, who had several times been his confessor, and who had listened to some murky details of his past life with compassion.

Merewyn and the housecarls arrived near Ashley Manor on a midafternoon, and Merewyn hesitated. Down that lane to the right would be Wulfric, and the Manor— farther on eight miles was Winchester.

"Ask at the alehouse," she said pointing to a hut with a bush sticking out over the door, "if the King is in Winchester now."

One of her servants went into the alehouse.

"They think the King is back at the Palace, m'lady," he reported.

"Then we'll go on to Winchester," she said. "You will amuse yourselves there, no doubt — here is a penny for each of you, to insure it."

She gave each of the three a silver penny, and accepted their thanks with a tight, remote face.

They got to Winchester as the new Minster bell was ringing the summons to Vespers. They could see black-robed monks, walking two by two through the cloister garth towards the Minster. Merewyn led the way on to the Palace. "I don't know how long I shall be here," said Merewyn to her housecarls. "If I don't return, you'll have your own ways of finding out through the Palace carls what has happened to me."

" 'Appened to ye, my lady?" said the senior of her servants. "Wot could 'appen?"

"Anything," answered Merewyn.

At the Palace gate, she was at once recognized. The Gate Ward bowed, the knot of pages, retainers and hangers-on all bowed. Several hounds barked and were shushed, while the Gate Ward swung back the huge iron gate for her to enter.

"Where are the King and Queen?" she asked the Gate Ward, who was astonished.

"Feasting i' the Hall, at this hour, surely," he answered. He had seen the Lady Merewyn come and go to Court for many years, and he thought it odd that she should ask such an obvious question. Come to think of it, she looked odd too. Her face had lost its rosiness, her eyes didn't seem to see you. Before she'd always been a courteous lady, and would even remember to ask about his sickly grandson.