The Chessboard Queen (36 page)

“I thought as much!” Arthur laughed in triumph. “Don’t be so shocked, Guinevere, it was really very clever. Pellas has apparently not been very lucky in finding a suitor for Elaine. This is a rather crude method, but he may have been desperate.

“However,” he added sternly, “it will not work. Go back and tell your master that I will not have my knights made fools of or tricked into marriage. Also, I am exceedingly angered by his use of my wife’s name as a part of this deception. I will send a messenger of my own at once, to make the matter clear and to return with a complete apology, both to me and to the Queen. You may go!”

Guinevere managed to sit silent until they were alone. Then she could wait no longer.

“Arthur, what was all that about?”

Arthur chewed the corner of his lip and Guinevere knew he was more upset than he had pretended.

“I’m not certain, my dear. It may be just a wild scheme of Pellas, but I’m not sure. That king owes allegiance to my sister, Morgause. Merlin has warned me more than once that she is not to be trusted, but I never had any evidence to prove it. I don’t know. But I am sure it did not happen as Pellas claims. We will have to wait until Lancelot returns to find the truth of it.”

Guinevere did not want to wait patiently for Lancelot to arrive. The story was impossible; Lancelot would never do such a thing. Everyone knew that. Everyone. But Guinevere knew the energy that constantly pulsed through him and had felt the emotions which were kept so tightly reined. What if he had found someone else who could release those emotions in him? Guinevere choked at the thought, all the while reminding herself that it was nothing to do with her. Nothing at all. She ate hardly anything and drummed her fingers on the dinner table, waiting for Arthur to finish. She drove Risa distracted by unpacking her own clothes and leaving them all over the room. She could not sit still long enough to hear a new poem composed in her honor and offended the poet highly by requesting that he finish reciting it later. Cei suggested that she go riding more often to wear down her nervousness. Anything to get away from Caerleon for a while, where her mood was starting to affect everyone. Arthur agreed. He did not want to think about what was making her act so oddly. It was interfering with his work too much. So Guinevere went in search of Caet.

She found him in the small room he had been assigned, at one end of the living quarters near the stables. Because he had refused to be billeted with either the stableboys or the knights, he and Arthur had found this room as a compromise. Guinevere paid no attention to his new prestige.

“Caet,” she announced. “I must go riding now. Come with me!”

Caet rose deliberately from his cot. “My Lady, my name is Briacu. Do you think it would be proper for you to go out with me alone?”

Guinevere stamped her foot. “Caet! Stop this now! I don’t know why you go on pretending. Father recognized you at once. He told me about it. If you didn’t like the name you were given, you were free to change it. I don’t care. But I won’t be treated as a stranger by you! I want to go riding. It never bothered you to come with me when we were children and I’m not going to let you start now.”

Caet’s jaw tightened. “When we were children, I was the slave boy who lived in the empty stall. I came along to hold the reins and carry the lunch. When you wanted me, I was there and when you didn’t, I was invisible.”

“That’s not true!” Guinevere protested, hoping she was right. “You were my friend then. You were the only one who had time to play with me when my brothers were gone. Do you remember all the times you hoisted me up into the apple trees so I could throw the good apples down? You were a servant—never a slave! No one in the house treated you like one. Matthew always brought you back something special. He taught you and Mark to ride and fight the same way. He cared about you just as he did his own brother.”

Caet wasn’t interested. “Matthew died. I would have fought with him, but no one thought to ask me to go. I was left behind to clean out the stables and mend harness. But I am just as good as any man here. I have been a hero in Armorica. I am Arthur’s master of the horse. If you tell them about me, I will be nothing more to these people than another runaway.”

“You are angry because no one would let you die with Matthew and John? Would you have been happy if you had gone into real slavery with Mark? I do not see why you could not have become a hero or whatever you wanted by staying here.”

Caet longed to tell her why he had really left. The pearl he had sent her for her wedding still lay on her throat. He felt the urge to tell her what he had done to earn it and how every woman he had flattered and taken had been faceless because he could see only her. He wanted to shake her until she really saw him for once. But he stood silent, glaring at her with sullen, angry eyes.

Guinevere’s lip trembled. “All right, be whomever you want to be. But you and Risa are the only people here from my childhood and sometimes I am very homesick. We could have helped each other and been friends again. But you do nothing here but hide. If you were such a hero in Armorica, why did you bother coming back?”

He took a step toward her, reaching out his arm, intending to twist the chain from her neck and smash it beneath his heel. She recoiled in panic.

“Never mind. I can go riding by myself. Don’t worry. I will tell no one who you are.”

Caet caught her wrist so tightly that her fingers grew white. She stared at him as if he were the stranger he wanted to be. He opened his mouth to speak and then, swiftly, like a spring flood, all the rancor against her drained out of him. His hold upon her loosened, but she didn’t run.

“Caet?” she pleaded. “What did I do to you? I don’t want you to hate me. I’m sorry if I was cruel. I didn’t mean to be. I never thought of you as a slave or even a servant. Please. I need you now to be my friend.”

He cursed himself in three languages and then gave in. He knew it was hopeless. Even as a child he had been unable to resist her. He didn’t remind her that he was the one who had been beaten for letting her climb the apple trees. She wouldn’t remember or understand.

“All right, Guinevere. Put on your boots and I’ll go with you. But this time, when I say the time has come to return, you listen to me!”

Guinevere flew at him and kissed his cheek. “Oh, Caet! Thank you! Thank you! It will be wonderful, just like the old days!” She ran off to get ready.

Caet walked slowly and unhappily to the stables to see that the horses were saddled, mentally kicking himself with each step. “Just like the old days,” she had said. He had no doubt that it would be.

They came back several hours later, wind-blown and tired. Arthur drew Caet aside after dinner and thanked him for his trouble.

“I know you have more important work to do, Briacu, than entertaining my wife. So I’m doubly grateful. She has been very restless these last few days. Perhaps she misses Geraldus. This is the time he usually arrived. If you could take her out again tomorrow, I would be grateful. Maybe when Gawain and Lancelot return, they can keep her occupied.”

• • •

Gawain was losing patience. They had been arguing for days about this.

“Lancelot, I know you’re upset, but you shouldn’t take it so seriously. No one is going to believe that you raped that girl. So what if you slept with her. You didn’t want to, did you? You didn’t enjoy it, obviously. How can you call it a sin when it wasn’t any fun?”

“I should have been stronger,” Lancelot reiterated. “I should have guessed what they were doing to me.”

Gawain shrugged. “I don’t see how. There isn’t a man alive who ever outguessed my Aunt Morgause and you can bet it was her strange mind that planned this. It is only her idea of a joke, believe me. You should hear about some of the ones she played on me. You wouldn’t believe the places and positions I’ve woken up in.”

But Lancelot wasn’t interested. He plodded along on Clades, weighted down with guilt, anger, and, most of all, fear of what Guinevere would say when she saw him. What Gawain could not understand was that the greatest sin he had committed was that he had believed the woman was Guinevere. He had given in to a desire he had refused to admit before. How could he face her now?

In spite of his reassurances to Lancelot, Gawain was worried. There was something wrong about this, something more complex than one of Aunt Morgause’s practical jokes. If they had just wanted to drug Lancelot and throw him in bed with someone, why did they have to send him to Corbyne? And why drag Guinevere into it at all? It seemed unnecessarily complicated. He felt a clammy chill at the memory of the look of unholy glee his aunt and mother had exchanged before he went to bed that night. They were plotting something grandiose. He wished he could guess what it was before it was unleashed on Britain.

They reached Caerleon all too soon for Lancelot. He knew by the look the guard gave them that the tale had preceded their arrival. There was a feel of thick dust in his throat as he set out for Arthur’s rooms. He hurried, dreading the interview but longing to have it done.

Arthur was alone except for Merlin when Lancelot entered. Arthur’s face shone with delight at seeing him again. He jumped up to greet him and offer a chair.

“Lancelot! It’s about time you got here. Briacu was telling me just this morning that the mare he bred to your Clades is due to foal soon. It’s late in the year for a birth, but Briacu is sure that the colt will be strong. He’ll want to get your permission to try again. Sit down. Are you hungry? Merlin, we can finish this later. How was your visit to Cornwall, Lancelot? We heard a rather bizarre story from King Pellas about you. I can’t think what they’ve been putting in his wine.”

Lancelot cringed. “I know all about it, Arthur. It wasn’t
his
cup that was tampered with.”

Merlin leaned back in his chair. He thought so. The whole story had been too improbable to be a complete fabrication. Pellas had neither the talent nor the imagination for such a thing.

“Where was that witch, Morgause, while you were being drugged?” he asked.

Lancelot gaped at him. He had heard the man could read minds. He wondered how much more he could discover. “She was at Tintagel, visiting Queen Morgan.”

Arthur brought the ale jug from under the table, brushed some papers aside, and poured himself a cup. “Do you think that my sisters had something to do with this?” he asked.

Merlin threw him a look of disgust. “You know very well that they did and why. Don’t deny it. I’ve warned you about them over and over, but you ignore me. The only question is, did they do this to hurt Lancelot, Elaine, or you?”

“Me!” Arthur thumped his cup on the table, spilling ale on the papers. He absently mopped it up with his sleeve. “What could any of this have to do with me?”

Merlin tipped his chair back again. He regarded Lancelot for a moment. “Look at him, Arthur. He is your model, isn’t he? The prototypic knight. Think of what has happened to him in the last year. How many times do you think he can be made a fool of before it makes you seem foolish, too?”

Lancelot groaned and sat down, his face buried in his hands. Merlin went on remorselessly.

“Do you really think that Meleagant had the idea of kidnapping Guinevere all by himself? Have you ever wondered why your sister Morgause has never bothered to come here? Do you have any promise of allegiance from either sister? When are you going to understand that these women hate you—not just your father, you! You stole their mother away as much as he did. They would rejoice to see you mocked and destroyed as their father was. The only thing that puzzles me about them is that they could not pass on their hatred to your nephews.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur.” Lancelot raised his head. “I let them trick me. I should have suspected something immediately. Gawain tried to warn me. I should not have returned here. It’s useless. I am only an embarrassment to you. Every time I try to behave like a proper knight, I end up looking like a clown.”

“There was nothing amusing about the way you fought Aelle at the Fords.” Arthur grabbed Lancelot’s shoulder and shook it. “I need you, Lancelot. I need you here, with me, no matter what people say. I will not allow anyone to make my decisions for me or drive my best knight away. Now Pellas wants us to believe that you came into a house full of men-at-arms, guards, and fosterlings, all armed; greeted them pleasantly; and then dragged Elaine off to the bedroom while they all sat around, quietly drinking your health.”

“But, Arthur, I never dragged—”

“I know that. Soon everyone else will, too. I’ve found out that, until a month ago, Elaine was living in the household of my sister, Morgause. Suddenly she was sent home to her father. I think she was seduced by a guard or potboy or someone Morgause would not wish to produce if Pellas found out. Just by chance, you happen to be at Tintagel with Gawain. Your pedigree and current station are both better than anything Pellas could arrange himself. They know you wouldn’t be interested, but something might be arranged. So, you see, Merlin. They weren’t trying to hurt anyone, they were trying to protect the girl. I’d be willing to bet that in about six or seven months Elaine just happens to have a premature, but very healthy, baby. Don’t worry, Lancelot. You won’t be the one who looks foolish then.”

Lancelot started to explain further, but Merlin silenced him. Guinevere’s name had not been mentioned. Without bothering to get a careful explanation, Arthur had devised his own. Arthur watched them now, daring them to add a word.

Poor Arthur! Merlin regretted fleetingly that he would be leaving so soon. Arthur would need someone to help ease the pain when it came. And it would. Even without a prophet’s eyes, he could see that. But Arthur would have to face it alone. When Nimuë came for him, Merlin knew he must go.

Chapter Twenty

Arthur’s prediction was not completely correct. It was not seven months, but nine, almost to the day, and the baby was small and sickly because Elaine had spent most of the pregnancy miserably longing for Lancelot to return and marry her. At least, that was what Morgause wrote to Arthur in a letter full of moral outrage. She insisted that Lancelot admit his actions, claim the child, and take on the responsibility of its support. Arthur snorted at that, in spite of Lancelot’s obvious misery and confusion.