Morgan: The Curse Of Excalibur Part 9

Lancelot turned to me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Morgan, make it stop," he cried.

In awful, desperate panic, I realised that I did not remember how. I knew that Merlin had taken his hand away from my eyes, but, like in a dream, what I did with my body here did not seem to match what I was doing in real life.

"I don't know how," I confessed.

Lancelot ran his hands through his hair, pressing the heels of his hands into his forehead in despair. He turned back, as though he could not help himself, to Kay and Morgawse. Kay had pulled off Morgawse's dress, and she lay in her s.h.i.+ft, stretching her arms over her head while Kay, burying his face in her hair, his lips against her neck, ran a hand up the inside of her thigh. I looked away when I saw her gasp and her forehead crease in that almost-painful delight. Suddenly, now I too was desperate for it to stop, I felt aware enough of my real body to pull my hand away, and Lancelot and I stumbled apart, both shaken.

"That's a nasty trick, Morgan," Lancelot said.

I turned to him, shaken as he was, but strengthened by my anger. "It's the truth, Lancelot. Ask Kay if you don't believe me. He won't lie to you."

"Just go," Lancelot said, tense and angry, as he turned away from me. I had meant for him to understand that people did not need to love one another, that no one else was sleeping alone until they fell in love, and that he did not need to feel that he owed Kay some kind of misplaced fidelity. I had not meant to upset him. I had not meant to upset myself. It had been the way Kay said her name. Had he not loved me? He could not have possibly loved Morgawse. He had been different with Lancelot.

I left, wis.h.i.+ng I had never tried my hand at the new Black Arts I had learned on Lancelot. I wondered, suddenly, if Merlin were still screaming under that rock, the sound of the waves drowning him out. Perhaps he would scream for the rest of time, and no one would ever hear him again.

Lancelot did not speak to me after that, if he could help it. I felt awkward too, nervous and uneasy. I spent most of the time I was not with the other healing women with my nephews. They were always laughing and joking, and it was relaxing to listen to their easy chatter. None of them seemed to be worried by the war. All three were strong and brave, and Gawain a seasoned fighter already, so I did not worry for them. I only worried a little when I saw Aggravain watch his twin brother called into war councils with Arthur without him, or honoured always for his deeds on the battlefield while Aggravain was ignored. The rumour was that Aggravain was the elder, and certainly he was the more shrewd. I kept my eye on him. Perhaps this was what Aggravain wanted. Perhaps he thought he could have Lothian all for himself if Gawain grew close enough with Arthur. If such a thing would happen, Aggravain would know about it. Aggravain heard and repeated every sc.r.a.p of gossip that came through the court. It was from him I learned what had become of the awful bargain I had made with Merlin. He told me that everyone at Camelot said that Merlin had pulled the child from the Queen's womb as retribution for Arthur fathering a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child with his own sister. I knew that was not quite true, but I felt the cold clamp of guilt at my stomach that I had given away the life of the girl I had seen full grown for the sake of nothing at all. Well, Morgawse and her youngest son were safe. He told me, too, that it was only after that that Nimue had returned Excalibur to Arthur. I wondered if she had needed it for that awful magic that she had used to shut Merlin beneath the rock.

Chapter Eighteen.

The campaign against Lucius was going well. Arthur took Carhais back, and said that he would leave Kay and a small contingent of knights behind there to hold it while he turned his attention south to Lucius' forces that were still pressing upwards against him. Still, though there was already a sense of tentative victory around the camp, and though the knights now rode south from the camp rather than defensively back on themselves to the north, I sensed a change in Arthur. I did not see him often, since he was either on the battlefield or in his pavilion with his wife, but when I did he seemed tense and anxious. I noticed, too, that Guinevere no longer rode with the archers, who hung back from the battlefield, but right at Arthur's side.

My fears were proved correct one day when the spring was just shading in to summer. It was bright and warm, and I stood with the other women at the centre of the camp, waiting. Against the bright of the sun, I could see a knight riding from the glint off his armour, but it took me a long time to recognise him against the glare. It was only when I saw the sun catch on something bright red that, with a stab of fear, I realised there were two people on the horse riding towards us. A knight, and the Queen. I stepped forward first, and the two Breton women close behind me. I saw the older one cast me a suspicious look, but I ignored her. As the knight rode closer, I saw it was Lancelot from his red and white striped s.h.i.+eld. The Queen was slumped back against him, her eyes shut, her face pale. He had one hand around her waist, awkwardly holding her tight against him. It looked, from where I was, as though his hand was up under her armoured vest. That meant a wound. Her hair fell all around her; she had lost her mail cap, and there was mud on one side of her face and down one arm, as though she had fallen from her horse. I was sure that Arthur could not be far behind.

The two Breton women stepped forward to catch her off the horse as Lancelot stopped before them. He jumped off, tearing off his helm and throwing it aside, and he lifted her from their arms as they awkwardly tried to carry her, and strode ahead of them, the Queen in his arms, into Arthur's tent. I ran in after the Breton women.

Lancelot laid her gently on the bed and pulled off his breastplate and his greaves. His hands were already bare. One of his hands was dark with blood. He did not seem to notice. The Breton women rushed to her side, the little one gasping and fussing, the older one clicking her tongue. I thought she might have expected Lancelot to move back, but he did not. I walked around the other side of the bed to get a better look. The Queen did not look conscious.

The older Breton woman cast Lancelot a sharp look, as though she expected him to leave, but when he either did not notice, or did not care, she sighed in frustration and began to unbuckle Guinevere's armoured vest. She and the young girl lifted it away. Beneath, Guinevere had a thin vest of silk that was soaked all down one side with blood. The older woman, who was the one, I understood, with the knowledge of healing skills, leaned over her and slowly pulled up the vest at the side until the wound showed. It was a deep cut a few inches long, down her ribs, but there was no bruise, so I thought with a wary hope that the bones there were not broken. I leaned forward, to offer my help, the healing that was in my touch for there had been enough to heal Lancelot's wounds overnight and the older woman whom I had liked when I had come as the English maid to Guinevere's bedroom slapped my hand away.

"Get your death hands away from her," she snapped. Then under her breath she muttered, "Avalon. That's no school of medicine I have ever heard of."

Lancelot said something to her in French, too fast and low for me to understand, and she turned and started shouting at him in French. I imagined it was about me, and whether or not I should be allowed to touch the Queen. He had felt the power of my healing, so I was sure he was defending my right to be there. Lancelot was shaking his head and gesturing at the wound in her side, and the woman was shaking her head in return, her French too fast and heavily accented with Breton for me to follow. Then, suddenly, the younger woman, who had leaned over the Queen, gasped and the other two stopped. She had two fingers in the wound, and between them, covered in blood, I could see the dark grey of a shard of iron. She pulled, and a shard the size of her thumb came out, and with it, a gush of blood. The three of them froze, staring at it in disbelief. I walked around to pick up the armoured vest, and s.n.a.t.c.h the shard, and fit it into a broken plate of armour on it. Something had struck her to break her armour, and a shard of it had embedded in her side when she fell from her horse. I was pleased to see that the shard fitted exactly, so there was nothing left inside her.

The older woman was telling Lancelot to leave in French, but he was shaking his head, saying he wanted to stay until Arthur got there. The woman rolled her eyes, and pulled the blood-stained vest off Guinevere. Lancelot turned away. I saw him blush. He should have listened to her.

"You," the older woman said to me, sharply, "make yourself useful and get some hot water."

What would happen when Arthur came to find his wife unconscious, injured, and half-naked with one of his knights refusing to leave her side?

I came back quickly with the water. The woman quickly cleaned the wound, and wrapped it with linen and pulled a clean vest over Guinevere's head, casting another dirty look at Lancelot. He did not see, he was still looking away, but the young girl, Marie, kindly tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around. Marie moved so that he could see her properly, taking a cloth soaked in the hot water and placing it against her brow. Guinevere seemed to stir a little, and murmured.

Lancelot asked the girl something in Breton, and she replied. I was surprised. I had not known that he spoke Breton, though I supposed he had grown up in France.

I could hear Arthur shouting outside the tent, and I rushed outside. He was jumping from his horse, Kay close behind him. Neither of them saw me; they both rushed inside, as though I was not even there. Lancelot left as they came in, but he did not go far. He stood with me outside, listening. Kay had not gone in far, but hung back by the entrance to the pavilion. So, he was wary, too. That meant that Arthur was angry.

For a long time it was quiet; then I heard soft voices. The Queen must have woken up. However, the soft voices soon became shouting. I could hear Arthur shouting, and I could hear the raw anger in his voice, and I was surprised to hear her shouting back, her anger as powerful as his. So, she was not afraid of him. Was he angry because she had wanted to fight? But it was more than anger, really. I had seen him. He was afraid, and upset. Suddenly, Arthur strode angrily from the tent. As he pa.s.sed us, I heard him shout, "Someone take her back to Britain."

Lancelot looked at me, his eyes wide with dread. Kay followed Arthur out, shaking his head and rubbing his face. He glanced at us, gave a defeated half-smile, and walked off after Arthur.

Before the night came, a small party of knights and the older Breton woman left the camp, north, for Britain. I heard from Aggravain that Lancelot had asked to go with them and Arthur had refused, saying that he needed Lancelot with him. I sent a letter to Morgawse back with them. It said, "Your sons are doing well at war. Much better than the Queen, who has been sent back to Britain injured. Now might be a good time to send Gareth to Camelot. Hope all are thriving in Lothian. War is very dull, but we seem to be winning. Morgan."

And we were winning. I stayed with the medicine women, still wary around Lancelot. Now that Guinevere was in Britain, both Arthur and Lancelot seemed to fight harder on the battlefield. Arthur seemed relieved his Queen had gone home.

We marched south, all the way to the south of France when summer was at its height. We had left Kay and a small garrison of knights behind to hold the retaken Breton city of Carhais, and as the weeks wore on I grew jealous of those who had stayed in the cooler north. In the south, it was unbearably hot, and the men sweated hard in their armour, and I, too, under my black woollen dress. I thought we would turn back then for Britain, but we did not.

I was lonely, but none of the other women seemed to like talking to me that much. They were guarded, secretive, awkward when I tried to make conversation. Not that I often tried. Word had got around how quickly I had healed Lancelot, and how I had not been allowed to touch the Queen, and people whispered about me. I heard what they had begun to call me. Morgan le Fay. They began to say I could curse a man with a look, make a woman barren with my touch. But, in the depths of the night, a few of the women who followed the camp came to me, alone and afraid, asking me to give them the drink I had taken myself long ago, when I had been with Kay's child. I had been strong, and I had had magic in my blood, but some of the girls I gave it to were weak or sickly or somehow wrong-blooded, and when the bleeding began it did not stop, and they died. I warned them well enough when I gave it to them, but I was still blamed for their deaths. I did not ask, because I did not want to know, if those children I killed were fathered by my half-brother Arthur, or my old lover Kay, or my young nephews. I doubted some of the women would even have known the names of the men who had taken them up and then casually cast them away. I did not ask their names, nor did they often want to tell me. Those women were the casualties of war that men never spoke about.

By the autumn, the camp had moved south to Ma.r.s.eille. Arthur, no longer distracted by the presence of his wife, spent most of his time off the battlefield with Gawain and Lancelot, talking strategy. I was pleased that Lancelot was busy, still embarra.s.sed to have once again been kissed and rejected by him, and to have shaken us both with that awful spell. But I had learned from it, and would be more careful next time.

The time came when Arthur had to decide whether to march south into Italy and turn the attack on Lucius or, his lands defended and re-garrisoned, return home. I was surprised when I was called to his counsel on this.

When I arrived, it had already begun. Gawain was dressed in his armour with his helm in his hand, but Lancelot and Arthur were in their s.h.i.+rts and breeches. It was the end of the day, and someone had lit a brazier in the tent that threw a warm light through it, and warmed against the new chill of autumn in the air. There was something cosy, something homely about it that seemed desperately at odds with war, and made me long for Britain and home. Aggravain and Ector were there, too, but hanging back, listening. Arthur was pacing up and down before the other two when I arrived.

"If we pull back, securing our borders on the way, then we will lose no more men. If we march on Rome, it is riskier, but then the threat from Lucius is gone forever," he was saying, almost to himself.

"We have to attack Rome," Gawain said. "Lucius dishonoured you by attacking the lands under your protection, by demanding tribute from Britain. This is a question of honour, Arthur. We can't turn back."

Arthur nodded. I noticed Lancelot cast a wary look back at Ector, who said nothing. It must have been strange for him, having to keep his thoughts quiet around the boy he had raised as his own.

"Arthur," Lancelot began gently, "peace is better than ever more war. Lucius has suffered heavy losses. I do not think he will attack again. Meet and make terms for peace. A marriage, or something like that. Lucius has a daughter, and you have many unmarried nephews."

Gawain gave a derisive snort, as though he did not like the idea of marriage much, but Arthur seemed swayed a little by what Lancelot had said. Still, after Britain, Arthur had got a taste for war, for conquering. I knew he would want it. He was young, and he was tired of men questioning him because of it, tired, I thought, too, of being known only as Uther Pendragon's son. He had won back his father's kingdoms against the five kings, and the chance was offering itself to him, now, to be so much more than his father had been.

"Arthur," I stepped forward, cautiously, "it might be best to sue for peace. Make a marriage to seal it. Go home."

Arthur turned to look at me as though he had forgotten he had sent for me, but he did nod in agreement.

"But, Morgan, a man must have his honour," he replied softly.

"Arthur, don't you want to go back home? Back to your wife?" Arthur sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair.

"I cannot return to her without a proper victory." I did not think she would care.

"Arthur, my Lord Arthur!" A cry came from outside the tent, and a boy ran in, barely more than a child, his face flushed, his eyes wide with fear. He was gasping for his breath as though he had run or ridden hard all day to get to us. He was gasping too hard to speak as he handed Arthur a sc.r.a.p of parchment. When Arthur read it, I saw his face turn dark.

"What is it?" Lancelot asked.

Arthur crumpled the paper in his hands.

"It is Kay."

"Kay?" Lancelot asked.

"Lucius' forces have crept back up around us and attacked Carhais again. Kay and the knights with him killed them all. Kay has been injured. They are sending him back to Britain. Why?" Arthur shouted suddenly. He turned to me. "Morgan, why would they not send him here? You are here. You have saved many men's lives with your hands. Why have they sent Kay to Britain?" Arthur tore the letter in his hands into pieces and threw it in the fire. He rubbed his face, hard. "Well, then we have no choice," he said. "I cannot leave Kay unavenged. Lucius will be punished for this. We will march on Rome."

I saw the apprehension cross Lancelot's face, both for Kay and for the war. And I sensed the victory on Gawain's mind. Gawain had a hunger in him for glory, I could see that. I did not blame him entirely. He had knelt before Arthur in submission. I somewhat believed that Gawain wanted someone else to know how that felt. I could not say that we were entirely different, in that regard.

Kay, I thought. I had forgotten that I still cared for Kay. Certainly, I did not wish him dead. The Breton medicine woman was in Britain, at least. I did not think much of her skills, more science than art, but perhaps it would be enough.

"I want to go back to Britain," I said, suddenly. Arthur turned to me in disbelief.

"You can't, Morgan. I need you here," he said sharply.

I could feel Lancelot looking at me. He would step in to agree with Arthur, I was sure, if I objected. He would want to keep me away from Kay.

So, I was kept there, and the decision was made to march on Rome. The opposing forces were depleted, and Arthur's army swift, and so it was only the tail end of autumn when we reached the city. Lucius had gathered back his forces to defend the heart-centre of his Empire, but Arthur's army outnumbered them three to one, and when they descended on Rome it was over fast.

From where I stood in the camp with the other women, we could hear the screaming and the clas.h.i.+ng of steel. In the evening, when the late autumn sun was setting behind Lucius' huge palace, the men pushed the great gates open and we all walked in, through the smoking city, half in ruins, many of the houses still burning, right to its centre. Arthur's men had torn through it, hungry for destruction, and I could smell in the air that there had been slaughter, and it made me sick.

Arthur stood before his men on the steps of the ancient senate-house. They were all shouting and cheering. Gawain and Lancelot stood either side of him, too, Gawain grinning with victory, Lancelot still and pensive. They did not see me in the crowd. It was only after a moment that I saw, clasped by its grey beard in Arthur's hand, the head of the Emperor Lucius.

The knights pulled up the barrels of food and of wine from the cellars of the Emperor's palace, and pulled down the benches of the senate-house into its central floor for makes.h.i.+ft trestle tables. When Arthur saw me, he called me to his side at the high table he had set up, with Lancelot and Gawain at his side, and Ector and Gawain's brothers further from his special favour, and I sat with them and watched as Arthur's knights drank Rome's wine and shouted and cheered and sang. Over and over again they told and re-told the stories of the final conquest, the work of that day, and I looked out over the shouting, swearing, drinking men who had torn down the benches of the senate house to make themselves a mead hall, all dirty and sweaty and b.l.o.o.d.y from battle still, and I thought what savages we are.

I had read some histories of Rome in the abbey Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, the great epics of Virgil and Statius and I had read the work of Roman poets and philosophers the wry humour of Catullus and Horace, and the harsh philosophies of Seneca and the Stoics. I knew what they would make of Arthur and his rabble, who shook the heads of their enemies in front of their baying army, who tore down the ancient civilisation around them for the sake of a night of drinking and feasting. The men were wild with victory, and drunkenly grabbed at the women among them. I was glad to be far from it, to be on the high table if it could be called such a thing. Still, the talk here was hardly less crude. Gawain was laughing with his brothers about the Emperor's daughter. I had missed the beginning of his story, and I was glad of it. I did not want to listen to my nephews talk about such things. Arthur was drunk, flushed and grinning, talking to Lancelot, who was quiet and sober at his side. He should have been drinking like the rest of them.

"I will ride back to Britain," Arthur was saying, slightly too loud, slightly too slow, "and I will tell my wife that she is an Empress now, and then I will..." Arthur made an expressive gesture, and Lancelot blushed, "love her like an Emperor should."

"If she is not still angry with you," I said, before I realised I had spoken. Perhaps I had drunk more of the Roman wine than I thought I had.

Arthur turned to me. "What are you talking about, Morgan?" he demanded.

"It did not sound to me like she wanted to be sent back to Britain," I pointed out, haughtily. I did not like the way he talked about her. It made me think of the Breton queen, to whom I felt a strange sense of duty still, long after her death.

"You don't know what you are talking about, Morgan," he replied, with a shrug. He did not seem bothered. He did not seem worried. But Lancelot caught my eye, and I knew that he understood. I stayed quiet for the rest of the feast, and when the men began to disperse, I hung back, hoping that Lancelot might want to speak with me, but he left with Arthur once Gawain had dragged one of the women out with him, and I was left to walk back to the camp on my own. In the cold autumn night the stars seemed sharp and hostile.

Chapter Nineteen.

The journey back to Britain was slow. The army was tired and winter was setting in, and got colder and colder as we moved north. But, we returned with victory.

When we came in the great gates of Camelot, I heard the shout go up and the horns sound. There was crying and shouting with joy; it was a city welcoming back its conquering King. The boy Kay had teased as a child was now truly a great man. He had defeated an Emperor, he had made Britain safe. A small party had ridden ahead to warn of Arthur's coming, Lancelot among them, and when I rode into the courtyard beside Arthur, I saw the Queen waiting there. She had a cloak of thick grey furs around her, but beneath, a dress of plain, rough wool. She was not wearing a crown, or any jewels, and she looked thin. Was this how things had been in Camelot? I glanced through the crowd for Kay. News had not come to us of his death, so I hoped that he had survived, but it felt ill not to see him.

Arthur did not seem to notice how thin his Queen looked, how hungry his people, after his long war, but he jumped from his horse to lift her into his arms, and pull her against him in a pa.s.sionate kiss before she could even speak. I saw Lancelot walk out from the stables where he must have been setting his horse to feed, and his eyes followed Arthur as he took his wife by the hand and rushed her up the stairs of his tower with him.

I was not sure that Kay would want to see me, so I waited until I was alone in my room, and I took Lancelot's shape to go looking for him. The last book I had learned from allowed me to change the shape of my clothes, too, and it was easy for me to become the man I saw almost every time my eyes closed. He was easy, so easy for me to become. Too easy.

I knew where Kay's bedroom was, and I found him there. When I pushed the door open, Kay sat up on his bed, where he had been lying, and his familiar smile spread across his face.

"Lancelot, you look well. War suits you. It did not suit me so well, as I suppose you heard."

He pulled up his s.h.i.+rt, and at the side of his stomach, I could see the pale knot of a scar. It should not have looked so healed already. Someone with strength in healing as great as mine or more had done that. It made me feel wary, uneasy. Who could it have been? Not Nimue. Nimue was many things, but she was no healer.

"You are well healed," I said, hearing Lancelot's soft French tones come from my mouth.

To my surprise, Kay gestured him me further into the room. I stepped in and shut the door behind me. I was not sure that I was prepared enough for what was expected of me if Kay wanted to take Lancelot to bed, but he did not seem to want to. He stood up and rubbed his face, pacing before me.

"Lancelot, I am going to tell you something I should not," he said thickly.

"What is it, Kay?" I asked.

Kay ran his hands through his hair before turning to look at me. I could see that he was trying to work out what he wanted to say.

"So, you know that I was injured and I was brought back here? Well, when I was brought here, well, I don't remember the journey. I was feverish, had strange dreams, but through those dreams awful dreams I began hearing this voice. It was speaking to me... in Breton. I did not even know that I had arrived in Camelot, or that Guinevere was here, but it was her voice I heard over and over again, in Breton and in English, saying wish for life, wish for life. And I remember lying side by side with her on the Round Table. I was dying Lancelot, dying. I had disease in my wound, and she wished it away. I felt it. It was all her. Oh, I don't know how can it have been? But there was only darkness, and her voice. Then, when the fever pa.s.sed away, and I woke, I was in Arthur's bed and she was there, sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, asleep against her hand as though she had sat up with me all night, and it was like I was seeing her for the first time. I have heard the others talking about her Gawain, his brothers, you know, the men, the others but it was as though I had never truly seen her before that moment. She saved my life." Kay shook his head and ran his hands through his hair again. "You were gone a year. A year. It was a different world here I it is not as if anything was said, it is not as if anything was done I do not even know if she " Kay shook his head, as though he was trying to shake his troubled thoughts into order. "It was easy to forget the way things truly were. You were all long gone, we were here alone, struggling to feed everyone, to keep the castle in order but I should not have I have thought things ah, I know that sounds like nothing but I cannot pretend that I have not imagined what it would be like and then you all returned, and I stood at the window, and I watched Arthur jump from his horse and pick her up in his arms, and I... The world as it was here while you were all gone was an illusion. It was easy to forget, but I should not have done. He is my brother, whatever anyone says about blood. Arthur is my brother and I... But things will go back to the way they were. Yes. I am sure. I do not suppose you like to hear this, though we ought to be long past jealousy now," Kay added wryly. Then he sighed, "I wish I could undo this."

I did not know what to say. I had no comfort to offer Kay, and I was angry and disgusted that now even he was besotted with the Queen. Why would he tell Lancelot? Why would he tell Lancelot about this, and not about Morgawse, who I was sure had been meaningless to him?

"Perhaps you will forget," I offered, knowing it was a useless suggestion.

Kay reached out, and laid a hand against my arm Lancelot's arm and fixed me with a look that he had never given me as myself before.

"I did not forget you," he said. I opened my mouth to speak, but I had nothing to say.

I felt oddly embarra.s.sed by Kay, embarra.s.sed on his behalf, by how weak he was. Unable to let go of Lancelot, but teetering on the brink of something worse. A new obsession. I was angry with him, too, for forgetting me entirely. But, it did give me an idea. An idea of how I might begin to punish Arthur for the suffering he had caused me. He had made me a miserable marriage, and I could take his happy marriage from him. There was clearly no child involved, and so I did not see how I would be harming innocents. The only problem was, how would I convince the Queen that she should take a lover? I hoped that she was still angry with Arthur for sending her back to Britain. I hoped that would be enough.

There was a great feast held, and I did not go. I did not want to hear more men's talk of women and fighting and glory. I lay alone in my bedroom and tried to sleep, but more and more and more I thought of Lancelot, and the dream I had dreamed of him long ago. It had to come true. It had to.

The next day, I thought I would go disguised as the English maid to see the Queen. I wanted to see how easy it would be to push her from Arthur. I caught the girl, as I had before, on the way down the stairs, and sent her off on some fool's task. She went willingly. She was afraid of my woad as anyone else, and obeyed without question.

I found the other maids waiting outside, and when I approached, the older woman, whom I remembered my dislike of, but who seemed kind enough when she was among her own, put her finger to her lips. It was the middle of the morning, past prime already, so the only reason I could imagine for Guinevere's women waiting outside her door was that Arthur was in there. Supporting my a.s.sumption was the fact that the little maid, Marie, looked as though she was holding back giggles. I was glad that I did not stand so close to the door as her.

After a while, the door opened and Arthur stepped through in his s.h.i.+rt and breeches, with a friendly nod to the women, and disappeared down the stairs.

The older woman, whose name I had learned only after she had left the camp as Christine, led the way into the room. Guinevere was sat in the bed, which was spread with a rich fur over the covers for the winter, with her knees drawn up and her chin resting on them, and her arms around her legs. Her hair spread loose all around her, and she pushed out her bottom lip to blow it off her face, as I had seen her do before.

Marie was chattering to her in Breton and she was replying, shrugging her shoulders. She looked a little angry, a little petulant still.

Christine clicked her tongue. "English, Marie."

I noticed that she only scolded the maid, never Guinevere, though it was the pair of them talking in Breton.

"There will be a tournament tomorrow," Marie said, brightly. "A great great tournament, and all the brave knights from King Arthur's war will show their strength. I am very excited." She chirruped as she pulled out an unders.h.i.+ft from the bundle of clothes in her arms and handed it to Guinevere.

"I am not," Guinevere replied, slipping it over her head from under the warmth of the covers.

Christine clicked her tongue again. Guinevere slipped from the bed in her underdress. I saw her s.h.i.+ver against the cold as she stretched up, wriggling her wakefulness into her fingers.