The Idylls of the Queen. Phyllis Ann Karr

The red-haired, six-fingered giant’s son Ironside and old, balding Persant of Inde were Gareth’s adherents rather than Gawain’s. Persant had never been a vicious man, simply a sporting fellow who fought all comers for the love of it and offered the survivors free hospitality. Ironside’s history was not so genial. While besieging Dame Lyonors in her castle, before Beaumains defeated and converted him, Ironside had hanged between thirty and fifty knights in their armor. Which was naturally forgiven him because he had murdered them in fulfillment of a promise made to an old paramour. If Kay the Churl were to mention Ironside’s early deeds after all these years of Ironside’s good behavior, the whole court would cry shame on Kay’s rudeness. But the jolly red giant had also sworn a vow, in those old days, against Lancelot and Gawain. He had never carried it out, but now Lancelot was missing and Gawain had barely escaped poison.

      Lancelot’s partisans outnumbered Gawain’s in the small banquet chamber this afternoon: Lancelot’s bastard half-brother Ector de Maris, fathered by King Ban, under the influence of Merlin’s magical aphrodisiac, during his stay in Britain; Lancelot’s French cousins Lionel of the lion-shaped birthmark, who had once tried to cut down his brother in hot blood; and Bors de Ganis, our last surviving Sir Saint, almost a virgin, the only man to have fully achieved the adventure of the Holy Grail and returned alive, who now sat in a posture befitting his reputation, hands clasped, blue eyes closed, and head bowed to show the tonsure-like cut of his grizzled hair; Lancelot’s British-born cousins, the twins Blamore and Bleoberis, who looked alike, acted in concert, and probably had the same dreams every night. Lancelot’s protege Breunor the Black-Haired and seldom-washed, otherwise known as Sir La Cote Male Taile or Ill-Fitting Coat—my own name for him; he went on wearing the name as stubbornly as he had worn the filthy, bloodstained coat of his father’s until he had avenged his father’s murder. Lancelot’s less dedicated partisans, Galihodin and Galihud, the princes of Surluse, who had slowly swung to Lancelot’s party from Gawain’s, but still maintained friendly relations, at least on the surface.

      The Queen’s last five guests were harder to place by faction. Palomides and his brother Safere, the lean, scarred, dark-skinned former Saracens, might well end in Lancelot’s camp if an open split should ever come, but meanwhile they maintained neutrality. Aliduk, the honorable old fox of a Breton warleader, was another distant cousin of Lancelot; but Aliduk was only marking time with us until whenever his old liege lord Hoel of Brittany called him back from his more or less self-imposed exile. I had objected to Aliduk’s election to the Round Table on grounds that when he sailed home to Brittany we would be left with another Tristram situation—a companion permanently absent from his place—but as usual, when my opinion stands alone, it was ignored.

      Pinel of Carbonek had returned with Lancelot from the Grail Quest, but had rarely been seen in Lancelot’s company since. Elected to the Table on the strength of being a nephew of old King Pellam, the last of the Rich Fishers, Pinel’s favorite sport was talking. The only subject he kept quiet about was which of Pellam’s three brothers had actually fathered him; maybe he hoped the mystery would make other folk speculate about him as eagerly as he speculated about them. His voice would have been pleasant if it had been less loud. At the present moment, quiet for once in his life, Pinel sat at his table staring down into his goblet like old Merlin reading the future in a bowl of slime.

      When Pinel first came to court, Astamore had been one of the earliest to strike up a friendship with him, and one of the most faithful in keeping to it, although lately he sometimes appeared to be trying to disembarrass himself of Pinel’s company. One thing that held them together was their skill with the harp, even if Pinel did seem insistent on playing duets mainly to display his own superior ability. But Astamore was ten years younger, had been at court five years longer, and had finally, acknowledging though not playing on his own high kinsfolk, won his place at the Table on his own merits.

      Astamore’s worst fault was a maddening habit of turning his ring round and round on his finger—rather reminding me of Mordred, who had a habit of carving serpent-shaped rings out of wood in odd moments. Although Astamore’s ring, with its pretentious blue stone set in too much silver, looked more of a size for Ironside’s hand than Astamore’s, he claimed it did not interfere with his eating or harping; he did, however, hang it on a chain around his neck beneath his breastplate before putting on his gauntlets for battle. I was surprised to see that this afternoon, for once, he was not fondling his ring. Instead, he was prying nuts open with his knife, examining the nutmeats one by one, and then piling them up untasted on the table in front of him.

      Gawain had killed Astamore’s uncle, King Bagdemagus of Gorre, during the Grail Quest.

      Then there were the principal servers at our small, intimate dinner: Gouvernail, Elyzabel, Lore the Cupbearer, Bragwaine, and Senehauz. Gouvernail was a better man, in everything but might of arms, than his former master Tristram had ever been; and the only one of the four dames whose past might be as spotted as an honest knight’s was Bragwaine of Ireland, a silent, dark, aging woman, less handsome now than competent, who might know more than her share concerning plant juices and their use. Senehauz was almost as young as the pages, and as innocent.

      As for the pages who had helped serve, I knew them all, both as individuals and as types of the young trouble-courters Lucan and I have helped train through the years. But even when the minds of pages, following the sterling example of their elders, run to revenge feuds, they do not usually run to poison. Besides, a page would not have thought of putting the stuff in the apples—he would have put it in the wine.

      Had we a new cook or older scullion in the kitchen, anyone over ten years old who had been with us less than half a score of years, I would have wondered whether a spy had slipped in among the servants despite my watching. As matters stood, I knew my kitchen staff better even than I knew the pages, better than most of my fellow knights, and I would have fought to prove the innocence of the lowest scullion with as much assurance as I would have fought for the Queen herself… though not with a thousandth part of the reverence… if I could have fought for anyone in this case.

      I glanced at Dame Lore, the one who had remained when the other ladies and Gouvernail bore away the Queen. Lore was standing at the other side of the fireplace, staring around the room. Turning her head slightly, she looked straight back at me.

      Moving nearer so that we could hear each other above Mador’s wailing, I muttered, “Your opinion, Dame Cupbearer. Which of us poisoned the apple?”

      “I have been trying to think which of you it was meant for.”

      “And?”

      Dame Lore is another cousin of the Queen, and her eyes are almost the same noble gray. “I believe it was meant for Her Grace.”

      “Prove that,” I said, “and I’ll skewer the whoreson like a pigeon.”

      “Will you, Seneschal?”

      “I will.”

      “I think not. Remember that poison is more the enchantress’ weapon than the knight’s.”

      I stared back into the dying fire, remembering the different colors of the flames when Dame Guenevere had first thrown the fruit into them. “Morgan le Fay again?”

      Before Dame Cupbearer could answer, the men nearest the door started standing up. In a moment everyone was on his feet. The King had come.

      CHAPTER 3

      The Accusation

      “And ever Sir Mador stood still afore the king, and ever he appealed the queen of treason; for the custom was such that time that all manner of shameful death was called treason.”

      —Malory XVIII, 4

      Mador went on keening, eyes closed and back to the door, apparently unable to hear anything beyond the sound of his own grief. Arthur paused for a few moments, looking around at all of us, at Gawain and myself the longest. Then he went to Mador and laid one hand on the old knight’s shoulder.

      Mador stopped wailing at last and turned slowly to look at him. “Justice, my lord the King!”

      “When have I denied anyone justice?” said Arthur, probably