Guinevere's Gift Read online

  That's what came of marrying a minor king of an isolated pagan kingdom like Northgallis. People were credulous fools. So many of them still believed in primitive gods, in magic, in witches and enchanters, and in the prophecies they uttered. The queen smiled bitterly. Folk were always claiming prophetic insights of one kind or another, and nothing ever came of it. The pagan witch who had descended from the hills and burst in on King Leodegrance on the night of Guinevere's birth had told the old king exactly what he wished to hear. His laboring wife would give birth to a daughter of surpassing beauty who would one day be the highest lady in the land, who would wed a great king and come to glory with him.

  Glory! Queen Alyse almost snorted in contempt. How glorious was it for a woman to betray her king and be herself betrayed? For that, too, had been part of the prophecy, the dark part that people never spoke aloud but discussed in whispers behind closed doors. It was a terrible fate, and yet the hill witch had promised King Leodegrance that his daughter would come to glory, that her name would be remembered beyond a thousand years.

  Queen Alyse shivered. It was so much stuff and nonsense. It was the result of ignorance, superstition, and a willingness to believe the rankest flattery. In any event, it could be prevented. Once the girl began her monthlies, Alyse would marry her off to the most obscure prince she could find.

  “Yes, yes,” she said impatiently to Cissa, who still held the blue cloth to Elaine's chin. “That will do. You shall have a gown of that, Elaine, provided you don't pout. And if you behave yourself, you may have your choice of another.”

  Elaine's face lit. She hurried to the trunk and pawed through the neatly folded cloth, lifting out a pale yellow linen threaded with gold. “Look at this one, Gwen. Isn't it beautiful?”

  “Perfect for summer,” Queen Alyse agreed. “And there's enough for a shawl to match.”

  Elaine draped a length of the shimmering cloth over her shoulder and spun around. The fabric floated with her, light and airy, the interlaced golden threads sparkling in the morning light. She would look every inch a princess in a gown made of this. And the other selections inside that trunk—golds, ivories, scarlets, greens, and purples, silks and velvets and linens as soft as down—they were equally fine. Surely her mother had some great project in mind.

  “Where are we going, Mama? Tell us what you are planning. Oh, I know what it must be—a journey to Londinium, at long last, to be presented to the High King and his court.” Elaine spun on her toes and whirled the linen overhead.

  “That will do, Elaine. If you tear the cloth, you shall have nothing from it.”

  The queen's sharp voice brought her back to earth, and with a sigh, Elaine let the fabric tumble from her arms. Cissa and Leonora hurried to snatch it up and smooth the wrinkles.

  “But I've got it right, haven't I, Mama? It's our turn to meet the High King, even if we are the last ones in all Britain. We're going to travel across the mountains and out of Wales and meet him and Father at Londinium or Caerleon or Aquae Sulis or somewhere grand and fine where all the court is gathered. Say it's so, Mama. I know it is.”

  Alyse raised an eyebrow. “Court? King Arthur has no court. He's a war leader. He lives in a tent surrounded by troops and servants. He hardly spends two nights in the same place. Where have you heard this foolish prattle about a court?”

  Elaine gulped, trying unsuccessfully to hide her disappointment. “But he was at Caerleon all winter. I heard the soldiers talking. People flocked to him there, through snow and storm, just to meet him or beg him for favors or offer him service. It was a—a court of sorts.”

  “He may have been at Caerleon all winter, but he's not there now. He and his men were planning the spring campaign against the Saxons during the cold months, and now they're fighting it. But you know that. You were in the hall six weeks ago when Arthur's summons came.”

  Elaine's eyes filled with tears. “Aren't we ever going to be presented to King Arthur, then? It's been four years since he pulled the Sword from the stone—four solid years—and still we haven't been within a hundred leagues of him.”

  Queen Alyse turned her lovely head to gaze back out the window. A pale shaft of sunlight warmed her cheeks, and she lifted her face to the blessed heat. After a long winter in a dank stone castle, nothing was so welcome as the springtime sun. She basked in it a moment, drowsy with warmth, and let her thoughts drift.

  The wheel of time seemed to turn faster every year. Could it really be only four years ago that she had gone to Caerleon with Pellinore to attend the coronation of Uther's astonishing son? It seemed like yesterday. She had not known what to expect of the fourteen-year-old fosterling of Sir Ector of Galava who had turned out to be the High King Uther's only son. A legitimate son, too, born to Ygraine of Cornwall, Uther's queen, but spirited away on the night of his birth by Merlin the Enchanter to be raised in secrecy, away from court, and kept ignorant of his parentage. Indeed, in the way that mattered, Merlin was more his father than Uther. Even when the boy had lived with Sir Ector in Galava, he had been under Merlin's protection. What kind of person could such a heritage produce? She had wondered about it all the way to Caerleon.

  The queen smiled to herself as she remembered young Arthur's serious boy's face, the steady calm of his composure, and the burning desire for achievement that shone like a beacon from his eyes. She could still see him standing surrounded by his battle captains, men twice and thrice his age, listening intently, his bright new crown forgotten, with little room in his head for thoughts of anything but Saxons, horses, and fighting tactics. Pellinore thought him a born leader, and he was not alone.

  Four years of war had made a man of Arthur, by all accounts. Now, if one could believe the rumors the courier reported, he was on the point of yielding to the advice of his Companions to build himself a fortress and find himself a wife.

  Alyse compressed her lips into a firm, straight line. She ought to have foreseen it earlier. She ought to have ordered the cloth last spring and scheduled this fitting months ago. The young King ready to marry, and Elaine with a dowry half complete! There was much to do and perhaps very little time.

  She turned from the window and regarded her daughter with speculation. “You are eager to see the High King in person, are you? You'd be disappointed. He is a war leader, not a landed king like your father. He's what my grandfather called a dux bellorum, a duke of battles. He lives in a soldiers' camp, full of mud and horses. It's not the sort of place any woman of standing would even wish to visit. If he survives, no doubt in time he'll build a fortress somewhere, if only to have a place to house his horses and his men. But he'll have to do it on someone else's land. He has none of his own.”

  “He has all Britain,” Elaine returned with a defiant lift of her chin. “ ‘Arthur of Britain’ the soldiers call him. Even Father calls him that.”

  “It's always politic to flatter leaders. But he's a landless prince. King Arthur has nothing to call his own.”

  “Then why does everyone serve him? Why does Father answer every summons? Why do men talk of nothing else but Arthur's victories, Arthur's plans, Arthur's Sword, Arthur's horse, Arthur's hound? He's a leader like none we've had before, that's why!”

  Queen Alyse allowed herself a smile. “Well, you have caught Pendragon fever, I see. It seems to be sweeping the land. I did not mean to disparage the High King, my dear. He is a surprisingly skillful leader for one so young. Someday, if he ever builds a fortress and establishes a court, I'm sure we'll all go to pay him our respects. You will meet him then. There's plenty of time.” She turned to the nurses. “Now, then, Grannic, Ailsa, undress these girls and let's begin the fitting.”

  “But what are the gowns for if they're not for court?” Elaine cried, unpacified by this vague promise. “You ordered the cloth last autumn, you must have, when that merchant from Londinium passed through Gwynedd. What is it you've been planning? Why won't you tell us?”

  Queen Alyse looked at her coolly. “Why do you think I employ Iakos to teach y
ou Greek, Latin, and mathematics? Why do you study the housekeeping accounts with my steward, Linias? Why do Cissa and Leonora instruct you in spinning, weaving, and stitching and Father Martin in Scripture? We are laboring, all of us, to prepare you for your futures.”

  “You mean, at last we'll be allowed to receive suitors? That's what the gowns are for?” Elaine clapped her hands for joy. “Oh, Mama, why didn't you tell us so last autumn? Gwen and I could have spent the long winter making plans instead of reading Homer. Does this mean we are done with lessons? Oh, hurrah!” She grabbed Guinevere and swung her around in a circle.

  “It means no such thing,” Alyse retorted. “Lessons will continue as before. If there are plans to be made, your father and I will make them.”

  Elaine faced her mother with a mulish gleam in her eye. “Lessons with Iakos are a waste of time. I hate history and mathematics. I can't keep all that information in my head, and writing makes my hand cramp. It's all right for Gwen; she likes it. But I hate it. Besides, we're not going to be scholars or scribes—we'll have servants who can do all that for us—why do we have to know such useless things?”

  Queen Alyse drew herself to her full height and scowled down at her daughter. Her women nailed their gazes to the floor.

  Guinevere tugged furtively at Elaine's sleeve. “Hush, Elaine. It's an honor to take lessons with a scholar like Iakos. It's a great privilege. You know it is.”

  “Snake in the grass!” Elaine turned on her. “You say that because Iakos likes you best.”

  “Silence.” The word fell, cold and contemptuous, like a stone from a precipice, and stilled Elaine. The queen glared at each girl in turn. “I won't tolerate such impudence. How do you know what it takes to be a queen, either of you? You are ignorant children. You value nothing you don't already know. Your Latin is atrocious. How do you propose to converse with anyone beyond the borders of Gwynedd? Do you think everyone in Britain, or even Wales, can understand your speech? You can read a smattering of Greek and quote a verse from Homer, and you think you're educated. God grant me patience! You know next to nothing about history, government, star-reading, or even housekeeping. You don't know how to keep a castle full of people fed and clothed over a long winter. You don't know how to keep accounts or take an inventory. You can't prepare a feast or preserve food. You can't set out a garden or harvest flax or care for cattle, pigs, sheep, or fowl. If you don't know these things, how will you know whether those you employ to do them for you are doing them well or ill?

  “Knowledge is power, Elaine. Never give it willingly into another's hands. If you wish to be a queen, the running of the household will be your responsibility, and if you are a strong queen, the running of the kingdom will be yours, as well, from time to time.”

  She paused, nostrils flared, her color high and her breathing quick and sharp. “I will not let any daughter—or ward—of mine beyond the borders of Gwynedd until you know enough to keep from being cheated or scorned by everyone you meet. You will be educated whether you like it or not.”

  The queen approached the girls and stood before them. “One thing more. You are women. You live in a world run almost entirely by men. If you want a modicum of joy in life, you will do well to earn their respect. I called you here to fit you for new gowns, but that is only a small step in the process. I will train you and groom you to attract a prince of standing. I will do everything in my power to see you marry well. But life does not end there. I am trying to fit you for a greater happiness. Beauty is a fleeting weapon. It's the use of your wits that will carve you a place in life and make you the women you will become: powerful or weak, respected or ignored, remembered or forgotten.”

  Queen Alyse watched their faces. Elaine pouted visibly and rubbed the toe of her slipper against the cracked mosaics of the floor. It had all gone over her head, the entire torrent of words, because it was not what she wished to hear. But Guinevere's eyes were open wide, and her blue gaze fastened on the queen's face. A rush of appreciation warmed Alyse's heart. Here was fertile ground for the seeds of her wisdom, but she shrank from willing cultivation. She was afraid of the harvest she might reap.

  Every time she saw Guinevere, something turned cold inside her and hardened her heart. The child was too much like Elen. Even standing silent, obedient, and blue with cold amid the whirl of women and cloth, she had the power to fill Alyse with dread. Like a vulture, Alyse thought, brooding on a branch, alone and unwelcome, but ready to swoop down and steal the prize when the time was ripe.

  She shrugged. Life was full of injustices, great and small. It had been unfair of Elen to delay marriage until she fell in love. It had been unfair of their father to prefer his elder daughter to his younger. Persevering in the face of injustice had made Alyse stronger. She did not pause to consider, as she turned away, that the effect on Guinevere might be the same.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dreams of the Ignorant

  Guinevere bent over the tablet before her and made deep, careful marks in the pliant wax. Sunlight flooded the schoolroom. Iakos had unshuttered the windows at long last, and all around her, tiny motes danced and floated in brilliant sunbeams. The day was turning warm and the air soft. She raised her head to gaze out the nearest window, but all she could see was a tumble of outbuildings nestled against the orchard wall. A dull view, no doubt desirable for a schoolroom. But beyond the wall, the slim branches of apple trees warmed to blossom in the welcome heat, and between the outbuildings, a worn path ran down to the stables. The path beckoned to her. It was a perfect day for riding out.

  She glanced up to see the tutor Iakos eyeing her down his long nose. With a sigh, she took up her stylus and bent her head obediently over her work. He had set them an easy problem, and she knew she could solve it if only she could muster her attention. But no sooner had she applied herself than her thoughts drifted away again.

  The fitting had taken most of the morning, thanks to Elaine's unwillingness to obey her mother without argument. The ordeal had spoiled everyone's temper. In the end, Alyse had marked the cloth herself to put an end to the wrangle over necklines and waistlines. Elaine's new gown would have a low neckline and a high waist to show off her budding figure to best advantage. Guinevere's gown would have a high neckline, all the way to the throat. “No need to accent a bust that isn't there,” the queen had said. And so it had gone, hour upon hour, with Guinevere shivering, undressed, while Elaine wheedled and coaxed from her mother the promise of two more gowns, a pair of slippers, an embroidered belt, and uncounted lengths of ribbon for her hair.

  “Oh, bother!” Beside her on the bench, Elaine threw down her stylus and yawned. “I don't care what Mother says, I'm never going to need to know the Pythagorean theorem and all these rules about ratios and diameters. Old Pythagoras must have been barking mad. Why on earth bother with numbers like pi that aren't really numbers at all? I can think of a thousand better ways to spend the day. Especially after the awful morning we've had. Don't you agree, Gwen?”

  Iakos rose from his stool by the window. “Do you find the problem too difficult, Lady Elaine? It's merely a demonstration of the principles we studied all last week.” He peered over her shoulder at the scratches on her tablet and sighed a little wearily. “I don't require your calculations to be exact, but I do require that the principle itself be understood.” He leaned down and drew another problem for her. “Try that one. You've solved it before.”

  Elaine scowled. “I'm not in the mood for solving problems.”

  Iakos glanced over Guinevere's shoulder. “That is correct, my lady. Would you like another, or do you want to get right to the translation?”

  “Oh, the translation, please.” She smiled up at him. “I'm dying to get out. It's much too nice a day to spend inside.”

  Iakos retrieved a scroll from the cupboard and laid it on the table between his two students. He smiled a fatherly smile. “I couldn't agree with you more. You may go as soon as you've done the first twenty lines.”

  “What about m
e?” Elaine demanded. “May I go when I've solved this problem?”

  “A problem you solved two days ago? No, my lady, that would defeat the point of the lesson. You may go when you've solved the original problem or when you've done twenty lines from Homer. You may take your pick.”

  Elaine fumed at him, but to no avail, and Guinevere bent cheerfully to her task. She liked Iakos for his patience, his evenhandedness, and his innate sense of fairness. He seemed to regard rank as an unimportant accident of birth. To him, it was the mind that mattered, ideas that carried weight. He was the only one she had ever met who looked at the world that way.

  Iakos was Greek by birth, a cultured man who had come to Britain when Uther Pendragon was High King because a priestess in Delphi had read portents of a coming golden age in Britain. Guinevere often stayed to talk to him after lessons were over. She loved learning about life in faraway lands, loved to imagine the sun-drenched shores of Iakos's homeland on the Inland Sea, where rain was a cause for celebration and one could walk outside without a cloak in winter. She liked learning other languages. She loved the mysteries of mathematics, the cerebral magic of symmetries and proportions. And he, like any good teacher, responded with praise and encouragement to her interest.

  She hoped his regard for her stemmed only from her willingness to learn. But she knew he had heard about the prophecy made at her birth. His only comment about it had been a subtle one. Once, he had revealed that Delphi was his birthplace, and she had asked him about the old priestess at the shrine of Apollo there. Were the prophecies voiced by the Pythia always true? Did he believe them? Iakos had regarded her for a long moment, replying at last in a gentle voice that prophecies were dreams of the ignorant fostered by the willing.

  He had been trying to comfort her. That meant he had heard about her own prophecy. And why not? Everyone in Gwynedd seemed to have known all about it before she even arrived. During her first year here, when she was eight years old, people had avoided her, made the sign against enchantment behind their backs as she passed by, averted their heads when she entered a room, and kept their distance. Now, after five years of acquaintance, they no longer treated her like a strangeling. Only on moments of great occasion would she see that ancient, superstitious fear flicker in their eyes and, reminded of what was expected of her, feel that sickening nausea grip her innards once again.