The Once and Future Camelot Read online

  The lady considered me with a grave expression. “It seems you have no place where they are, for you have given your allegiance to the Christian God, and his Son, Jesus Christ.”

  It was as I’d heard whispered to me while I was alone in the forest. Tears came into my eyes, for I felt as if I’d lost Guinglan anew now that this last, desperate hope that we might yet be reunited had been dashed by the lady.

  “But you have a task ahead of you, Marie, for the future depends on you. You must learn to practice the magical arts using the tools given to you by your mother.”

  “No! I will not.”

  Once again I felt the lady reaching out to me, using her powers to bend my will to her own. I stepped away, and then turned my back on her. I heard the lady sigh. “So be it,” she said. “But please think on it, Marie – and don’t take too long to change your mind, for I fear the consequences if you do not.”

  Thinking it safe to do so, believing that she’d accepted my decision, I turned back to ask some more questions – about Camelot, and about my father. I didn’t care what had happened to my mother but I loved my father still in spite of his betrayal of the king, and would have welcomed news of him. But Viviane was gone, her cloak swirling around her as she and her companions walked into the darkness at the back of the hall, and disappeared.

  I didn’t see them again. Meg reported that the snow that had hindered their passage and driven them to seek shelter at court had mysteriously disappeared, along with the party of travelers. It seemed clear to me that magic had been afoot and, in spite of my determination not to meddle, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed when I heard this, as Viviane had provided a welcome link with my home. Nevertheless I was completely determined not to honor her request. My mother’s magic had brought nothing but grief to all those who were touched by her. Despite Viviane’s reassurances, I would not go against the church’s teaching, nor would I risk interfering or trying to change anything that, by rights, should be according to God’s will and no one else’s.

  With the knowledge of Meg’s impending departure heavy in my mind, the next day I decided to entertain the court and at the same time lift my spirits by telling a new story that I’d been mulling over for some time.

  “In Brittany there lived a knight, brave and courtly, fierce and proud. Eliduc was his name, and there was no man in the country more valiant than he …” I began, and went on then to tell them the story of a knight who, on being falsely accused by those who were envious of his success, leaves the court to go adventuring and finds a home elsewhere. He serves his new king faithfully, but also falls in love with the king’s daughter, Guilliadun, and she with him. He has, however, made a vow to stay true to the wife he left behind, who loves him dearly.

  I realized, too late, that perhaps I hadn’t thought this tale through carefully enough, for how was I going to resolve this problem? As I related instances of the courtship between Eliduc and Guilliadun, and the love between them, my mind was busy trying to come up with a satisfying resolution for my story. To postpone the ending, I related how Eliduc was summoned home to Brittany by his king, who had found out the truth about his innocence and had banished those who’d sworn falsely against him. I hoped Eliduc’s meeting with his wife would resolve matters, for I’d soon realized that most of my sympathy was with his abandoned wife, not Guilliadun, even though she was pining for him to come back to her as he had promised he would.

  But if Eliduc was no longer in love with his wife, what then? He certainly needed to go back and see Guilliadun to fulfil his promise. Perhaps he should tell her he was already wed and they could then part forever. Or perhaps they could run away together and be drowned in a storm at sea? But I feared that would not be a pleasing end to the story either.

  I was tangling myself deeper and deeper into a coil of my own making as I continued with my story; that Eliduc did not confess the truth of his past but instead persuaded his new love to sail away with him. “But a storm blew up and, frightened that the ship would be driven onto the rocks and wrecked, a sailor berated Eliduc for defying God by bringing on board another woman when he already had a faithful wife. ‘Let us throw her into the sea so we can get home in safety,’” I said, quoting the sailor. And I went on to tell the court how, on hearing the news that Eliduc was already wed, Guilliadun fell into a swoon from which she did not awake. “But Eliduc could not bear to abandon her either,” I said. “After kicking the sailor into the sea, he took the helm and steered them safely to shore. But his true love still lay as if dead, and Eliduc lamented long and loudly and would take no comfort from anyone.”

  The end? No, not yet. “Not wanting to abandon his love, and being quite close to a chapel where a holy hermit lived, Eliduc decided to leave his love in the care of the hermit. When the time came, he planned to bury her with great honor and establish there a convent of monks or nuns who would always pray for her,” I continued. “He carried Guilliadun into the chapel, only to find out that the hermit had died and the chapel was deserted. Heartbroken, he swore to become a monk once his love was dead.” Was this the ending? I paused and took a few sips of wine, all the time wishing I had not embarked on this tale that had proved so ill thought out.

  An idea came to me. I decided to try it out on the court. And so I told them that Eliduc went home to his wife, but was sad and out of spirits. “He visited his lady love at the chapel every day, and one day his wife had him followed,” I said. “His wife then visited the chapel, along with a small escort, and there she discovered that she had a beautiful rival, but that the girl was lying close to death.”

  The members of the court were all looking at me expectantly. Should I let the girl die? If Eliduc had been my husband, I would have left the girl to die, I thought, although I was quite sure that Guinglan would never have betrayed me as this false knight had betrayed his wife. I decided then to make the wife far more noble than ever I could be. So what should she do about this girl?

  I remembered then an ancient tale the old nun had told me about a weasel that had healed its injured mate and so I recounted that same story as if the wife had been witness to it. “As Eliduc’s wife looked down at Guilliadun’s slender body and beautiful face, a weasel came into the chapel and found his mate there, grievously injured by one of the wife’s guards. At once the weasel ran off and returned later with a red flower which he put between the injured weasel’s teeth, and she revived at once. Understanding its properties, the wife cried out to the guard to retrieve the flower. And she used it in the same way to resuscitate her rival, Guilliadun.”

  And now? I sighed, knowing that the court would wish for love to triumph and for there to be a happy ending. Unfortunately I now knew that it would have to come at the hands of the selfless wife. “Seeing the girl now fully recovered, the wife was filled with compassion. She elected to become a nun, leaving the way free for Eliduc and Guilladun to wed,” I continued. “But she extracted a price for her generous gesture: she would do so only if Eliduc gave her some land and the means to build an abbey there. And so she established a life for herself, and for her order.” It seemed a good way out of the fix I was in, for I felt it only fair that the wife should have some recompense for her generosity of spirit.

  That was the end, but I was still not completely satisfied. I noticed too that everyone was still looking at me expectantly. I knew a moment’s panic, and took another, longer sip of wine. And then the answer came to me. I took up the story of the lovers once more.

  “They lived together for many days with perfect love between them. They gave alms and did great good until such time when they, too, turned to God.”

  And I went on then to tell how Eliduc founded a church, to which he gave most of his land and all his gold and silver. After placing Guilliadun in the abbey with his first wife, he himself became a monk, determined to serve God for the rest of his life. And I ended the lai with a few more lines about how they all loved God and all made a very good end.

  There was complete
silence when I’d finished, and then began a rustle and a clinking of knives as people shifted and stretched, and began to eat and drink once more. The courtiers close to me told me they’d enjoyed my new lai, but I knew that they were merely being polite, as my stories were usually met with cheers and applause. For me, it was an ordeal I never wished to repeat. I’d thought, when I’d stood up to recite it, that I had the truth of it; that love would conquer all, and that Eliduc and his new love would find happiness together. But I had discovered, in the telling, that someone else had to pay the price for that happiness, and that Eliduc was not so heroic and deserving as I’d first thought. In the end, I’d had no choice but to leave their fate in the hands of God, for I was unable to resolve the knot I had tied so unwittingly.

  Mulling over it later, as I lay sleepless through the quiet hours of darkness, I realized that the problem lay not in the situation I had presented. This was by no means uncommon; the court was always abuzz with tattle about affairs of the heart, most particularly the king’s. No, the difficulty lay in the solution I had found to the situation. Turning one’s back on the world and dedicating one’s life to God was a choice that obviously did not appeal to the courtiers. For me, life in an abbey held no fear; it was the life I’d known until I’d disobeyed my mother and gone to Camelot. But for the courtiers it must seem a desperate solution indeed to turn away from all the life and gaiety of a king’s court in order to live a life of prayer and solitude.

  I resolved not to tell that story again. But I would recraft it a little, and then write it down. It was becoming clear to me that my stories were all about love in its many manifestations – and surely the love of God was the most important of all?

  The love of God that had been at the heart of my life in the priory. The more I thought about it, and the more I remembered, the more I longed to return to that world. I came to realize how tired I was of the constant moving about with its attendant frenetic activity. The abbey was quiet, structured and peaceful. I would have time to read there, to meditate, to write my books but also to help the community with my medicaments. My mother had taught me well about herbs and their uses, and I in turn could teach my daughter. The knowledge of healing is a wonderful gift. In addition, Aline would receive a good education from the sisters, while also learning humility and obedience.

  I nodded to myself, satisfied that it was now time to ask Eleanor’s permission to let me move on, with the excuse that I needed time on my own to complete my book of lais for the king, and also for the queen. I decided I would go to the priory at Glastonbury, which was the closest to what I remembered from my own home, and beg admittance there for me and my daughter. I would shut myself away from the world, and the possibility of any more frightening visions.

  And so it was settled. I bade farewell to Meg, and paid my final homage to the king and queen. They insisted on providing me with an escort to the abbey, along with a letter of introduction and a request that the priory offer shelter “so that I may complete my important work.” This was accompanied by a command from the king to send him my book once I had completed it. And this I promised to do, with every intention of fulfilling my promise.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Morgan

  Morgan stretched out, and felt the cold sheet under her feet at the end of the bed. Her arm seemed to be tied to something and she tried to pull it free. She opened her eyes, and saw that her arm was attached to a drip. She frowned. “Wha…?” she whispered, as images came into her mind: flashing lights and pounding music, mud and darkness, a grinding pain. As her memory came crashing back, she shut her eyes and groaned aloud.

  “You’re awake?” The voice seemed half-familiar. Morgan risked a peek through half-shut eyes. A woman sat beside her. She reached forward to grasp Morgan’s hand. For a moment Morgan thought it was Gran. She settled back, relaxing with a sigh.

  “Morgan?”

  “Gran?” Morgan opened her eyes properly, only to find that she was looking at Elspeth. Trying to hide her disappointment, she looked around, trying to work out where she was.

  “Am I in hospital?” she asked.

  Elspeth nodded and squeezed her hand. “Do you remember anything about last night?” she asked.

  Morgan shut her eyes against the pain of memory. “Yes,” she whispered. Suddenly alarmed, she sat upright and her hand went to her stomach. “What’s happened? Is my baby …?” She could not bear to put her fear into words.

  “I’m afraid you’ve had a miscarriage,” Elspeth said gently. “You were found unconscious and taken to the hospital in Glastonbury. They transferred you here, to the district hospital in Taunton, once they realized what was happening. They did what they could, Morgan, but …” She shook her head.

  Tears blurred Morgan’s eyes, and she dashed them away. A sudden fury shook her. “It’s not fair!” she shouted. “This baby was all I had, I was going to make a life for us, I was going to …” She broke down, trying to stifle her cries, although she wanted to howl like a wolf, so great was her despair. She snatched her hand away from Elspeth’s and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow and wishing she could just stop breathing.

  “Shh, shh,” Elspeth murmured. She began to massage Morgan’s back in gentle circles, trying to soothe her. But Morgan continued to weep.

  “I know it’s no consolation now, but the doctor has told me that there’s no harm done; you’ll be able to have other children – when you’re older,” Elspeth said.

  “I don’t want any other children! This is the only baby I want.” Lance! Oh Lance! Sobs shook Morgan anew as she tried to come to terms with her double loss.

  “Would you like me to let the father of your child know what’s happened?”

  “No.” The word was muffled in the pillow.

  “Perhaps I could phone your parents? Surely you want your mum at a time like this? And I’m sure she’d want to be with you. You’re too young to face this all alone.”

  With a loud snort, Morgan took her face out of the pillow long enough to say, “I don’t want to see my mother ever again. And I’m sure she doesn’t want to see me either.”

  Elspeth was silent for a few moments. “Of course you can come home with Merlin and me, if you wish. The spare room is still vacant. And you’ve still got a job with Dru, if you want it? When you’re feeling strong enough to go back to the nursery?”

  “Thank you.”

  “But it does seem to me that you should be with your family at this time,” Elspeth persisted. “If not your mum, is there anyone else, someone who knows and loves you, that you can go and stay with – at least for a little while? A grandparent? Or maybe an aunt or uncle?”

  Gran, Morgan thought. But she didn’t say the word aloud.

  “You’re so young, Morgan. You might think your life is over now, but truly, it is only just beginning,” Elspeth said gently. “You’ll find that the world is a big place, and full of unexpected opportunities if only you’re equipped to make the most of them. Yes, you can stay on here at Glastonbury, but you might think of going back to school instead to finish your education and gain the qualifications you need to build a new life for yourself?”

  Morgan buried her head deeper into the pillow.

  Elspeth sighed. She gave Morgan’s back a final pat and stood up. “Take some time to think it over,” she advised. “You’ve lost a lot of blood so they want you to stay here another night, just to keep an eye on you. Merlin will be in later; he’s been so worried about you. And I’ll come and fetch you tomorrow. We’ll talk some more then, okay?”

  Morgan lifted her head out of the pillow, and wiped her nose on her hand. “Okay,” she mumbled. “Thanks.”

  Left alone, she tried to go back to sleep, to block out the awful feeling of loss and emptiness, and the sense that her life counted for nothing whatsoever. But her thoughts and emotions kept her awake as she struggled against despair. Why had this happened? She’d really thought she’d got her life together, and that she’d be able to take ca
re of her child as well as herself. She remembered her disquiet up on the Tor, her notion that the earth was at risk. But she’d got it wrong. It wasn’t the earth at risk, it was her baby. She remembered also how she’d seen her namesake in Merlin’s shop and out at Bride’s Mound, and finally at the festival just before everything descended into a frightening nightmare.

  It’s this place, she thought. I’ve got to get away from here. I’ve got to go somewhere else. But where?

  Gran. The thought came to her again, but this time she didn’t dismiss it out of hand. Instead, she remembered that she loved her grandmother, and she knew Gran loved her for she’d heard Gran’s thoughts whenever her mother had come to take her home. Her gran was always sad to see her go. And that sadness was usually followed by thoughts that echoed the conversation she’d overheard between the two women in the shop. Gran despised her mother, and thought her a self-centered, social-climbing gold-digger. More, Gran was also sure that Arthur was not her grandson. Morgan knew, if it came to it, that she would support her against anything her mother could do – if only she could persuade her gran to take her in?

  She closed her eyes and thought about it. She hadn’t seen Gran in ages, not since she’d been sent off to boarding school. When she’d asked if she could visit her during the holidays, her mother had always made the excuse that it was too far to drive and that she’d rather Morgan stay home with her. Which Morgan knew was a lie. It was more that her mother fancied herself as the Lady of the Manor, and didn’t want to be reminded of her own humble origins, for she’d been born in the same village as Gran and her dad. Like Gran, she, too, had lived in a small terraced cottage. Although only some miles distant, it was a whole lifestyle away from Lord Easterbrook’s stately home.

  Another thought occurred to Morgan. Gran would have aged by now; she might be too ancient and decrepit to want to be bothered with a teenager – especially a difficult one. And even if she did, would there be room enough for two in her small cottage?