And since that night she had hungered for Lancelet, night and day; yet they had hardly been able to face each other. She could not look him in the eyes. Did he hate her as a shameful, adulterous woman? He must despise her. Yet she longed for him with terrible despair.
After that Pentecost, Lancelet had hardly been at court. She had never thought he had cared so much for his mother, nor yet for his brother Balan, yet he had mourned them both deeply. He had been away from court all this time.
"I wish," said Cai, "that Lancelet were here. Who should accompany the Queen on a mission of this sort, except that knight Arthur has named as his queen's champion and protector?"
"If Lancelet were here," said Morgaine, "many of our troubles would be over, for he would settle Meleagrant with a few words. But there is no good talking of what cannot be. Gwenhwyfar, shall I ride with you and protect you?"
"In God's name," said Gwenhwyfar, "I am not a child who cannot stir forth without a nurse! I will take my chamberlain, sir Lucan, and I will take Bracca to dress my hair and lace my gown if I am there for more than a night, and to sleep at the foot of my bed; what do I need more than that?"
"Still, Gwenhwyfar, you must have an escort fitting your rank. There are still some of Arthur's Companions here at court."
"I will take Ectorius," said Gwenhwyfar. "He is Arthur's foster-father, and nobly born, and a veteran of many of Arthur's wars."
Morgaine shook her head impatiently. "Old Ectorius, and Lucan who lost an arm at Mount Badon-why do you not take Cai and the Merlin with you as well, so that you may have all the old and the lame? You should have an escort of good fighting men who can protect you, Gwenhwyfar, in case it is in this man's mind to hold the Queen to ransom, or worse."
Gwenhwyfar repeated patiently, "If he does not treat me as his sister, then his claim is worthless. And what man would offer any threat to his sister?"
"I do not know if Meleagrant is so good a Christian as all that," Morgaine said, "but if you are not afraid of him, Gwenhwyfar, you know him better than I do. No doubt you can find an escort of old bumbling veterans to ride with you-so be it. You might offer to wed him to your kinswoman Elaine, to make his claim of kinship even more valid, and set him as regent in your place-"
Gwenhwyfar shuddered, remembering the great coarse man dressed in ill-tanned skins and furs. "Elaine is a gently reared lady; I would not give her to such a one," she said. "I will talk with him-if he seems to me an honest fighting man and such a one as will keep the peace in this kingdom, then if he will swear loyalty to my lord Arthur, he may reign upon the island-I like not all of Arthur's Companions either, but a man may be an honest king without being a good one to sit with ladies and talk in hall."
"I marvel to hear you say so," said Morgaine. "To hear you sing my kinsman Lancelet's praises, I thought you believed no man could be a good knight unless he were handsome and full of this kind of courtly matters."
Gwenhwyfar would not quarrel again with Morgaine. "Come, sister, I love Gawaine well, yet he is a rough Northman who trips over his own feet and has hardly a word to say to any woman. For all I know, Meleagrant too may be such a jewel in the wrappings of a knucklebone, and that is why I go thither-to judge for myself."
So the next morning Gwenhwyfar set forth, with her escort of six knights, Ectorius, the veteran Lucan, her waiting-woman, and a nine-year-old page boy. She had not visited her childhood home since that day she left it with Igraine, to be married to Arthur. It was not far: a few leagues down the hill, and to the shores of the lake, which at this season was drying up into boggy marshes, with cattle grazing in the summer fields and lush grasses filled with buttercup and dandelion and primrose. At the shore two boats were waiting, hung with her father's banners. This was arrogance, that Meleagrant should bear these unpermitted, but after all, it was possible that the man genuinely believed himself Leodegranz's heir. It might even be true; perhaps her father had lied about it.
She had landed at these very shores, bound for Caerleon, so many years ago ... how young she had been, and how innocent! Lancelet had been at her side, but fate had given her to Arthur-God knows, she had tried to be a good wife to him, though God had denied her children. And then despair washed over her again as she looked at the waiting boats. She might give her husband three or five or seven sons, and a year might come of plague, or smallpox, or the throat fever, and all her sons would be gone ... such things had happened. Her own mother had borne four sons, yet none of them had lived to be as much as five years old, and Alienor's son had died with her. Morgaine ... Morgaine had borne a son to their evil God of witches, and for all she knew, that son lived and thrived, while she, a faithful Christian wife, could not bear any child, and now she might soon be too old.
Meleagrant himself was at the landing, bowing, welcoming her as his honored sister, gesturing her toward his own boat, the smaller of the two. Gwenhwyfar never knew even afterward how it had happened that she was separated from all of her escort except for the little page. "My lady's servants may go in the other boat, I myself will be your escort here," said Meleagrant, taking her arm with an overfamiliarity she did not like; but after all, she must bear herself with diplomacy and not anger him. At the last moment, with a momentary sense of panic, she gestured to sir Ec-torius.
"I will have my chamberlain with me, as well," she insisted, and Meleagrant smiled, his great coarse face reddening.
"As my sister and queen desires," he said, and let Ectorius and Lucan step on to the smaller boat with her. He fussed about spreading a rug for her to sit on, and the oarsmen pulled out into the lake. It was shallow, grown heavily with weeds; in some seasons it was dry here. And suddenly, as Meleagrant seated himself beside her, Gwenhwyfar was seized with an attack of the old terror; her stomach heaved, and for a moment she thought she would vomit. She clung to the seat with both hands. Meleagrant was too near her; she moved as far away as the dimensions of the seat would allow. She would have felt more comfortable if Ectorius had been near; his presence was serene and fatherly. She noted the great axe Meleagrant wore through his belt-it was like the one he had left near the throne, the one Balin had seized to murder Viviane ... . Meleagrant said, leaning so close that his heavy breath sickened her, "Is my sister faint? Surely the motion of the boat does not trouble you, it is so calm-"
She edged away from him, struggling for self-control. She was alone here except for two old men, and she was out in the middle of the lake, with nothing around her but weed and water and the reedy horizon ... why had she come? Why was she not in her own walled garden at home, in Camelot? There was no safety here, she was out under the wide-open sky, so that she felt sick and naked and exposed ... .
"We will be on shore soon," Meleagrant said, "and if you wish to rest before we conduct our business, sister, I have had the queen's apartments prepared for you-"
The boat scraped on shore. The old path was still there, she noted, the narrow winding way up to the castle, and the old wall, where she had sat that afternoon watching Lancelet run among the horses. She felt confused, as if it might have been only the day before and she was that shy young girl. She reached out surreptitiously and touched the wall, feeling it firm and solid, and stepped through the gate with relief.
The old hall seemed smaller than when she had lived there; she had grown used to great spaces in Caerleon and later at Camelot. Her father's old high seat was spread with skins like those Meleagrant wore, and a great black bearskin lay at the foot of the seat. The whole looked uncared-for, the skins ragged and greasy, the hall unswept, with a sour, sweaty smell; she wrinkled her nose, but it was so much a relief to be within walls that she did not care. She wondered where her escort had gone.