The Idylls of the Queen. Phyllis Ann Karr

told you before, keep your evil-meaning tongue off Her Grace.”

      “Ah, yes. I sometimes forget. We all love Guenevere, but some of us more than others, eh? Mador de la Porte is to be excluded from our meeting, of course.”

      “Whose inspiration was this meeting?”

      “Brother Gawain’s, naturally. Since all of us are prevented from defending the Queen, both because we are all under suspicion with her and because a few evil-minded ones among us suspect her ourselves, Gawain has had the incredibly novel idea that we should vow ourselves to another quest for our missing Lancelot. Who, sharing no kind of sympathy at all with Her Grace, could not possibly fall under suspicion of sharing any sort of plot whatsoever with her.”

      Gawain’s idea. As usual, one or other of the great ones had taken the credit before me. “At least this won’t be the usual year-and-a-day quest, not counting the time spent coming back,” I said.

      “I see no reason why it shouldn’t. A year and a day have never sufficed before to locate the noble Du Lac. Of course, if he is not found and brought back within… I reckon fifty-five days at the most that our King may claim custom and postponement… even Lancelot will be able to do little except clear the name of a small heap of ashes.”

      “God damn you to Hell, Mordred!”

      “Very likely.” It was his standard response whenever I, or anyone else, damned him. “Indeed, I have had it on the authority of a saint that my damnation is a fact already recorded wherever they record such matters. So you see, when I speak of Her Grace as a small heap of ashes, I have good reason to sympathize with that same small heap of ashes.” He turned his head to look at me, and for a moment his voice sounded sincere beneath the glaze of witticism. “I would prefer that the Queen not burn. Therefore I will join the new quest with a ready heart. But suppose whoever finds Lancelot is the true poisoner? Will he tell the great hero of the Queen’s danger, or will he find means to ensure that Lancelot stays away?”

      “We’ll go in pairs.”

      “And thus cover less country, which we would have little enough time to cover singly. Will you join the quest this time, Seneschal?”

      “Even if it means traveling with you.” If we went in pairs, it would probably come to that in any case. Mordred and I could get along more companionably with each other, most of the time, than most other men could get along with either of us.

      He nodded. “There is also the thought that we are misjudging our traitor. A man may wish to murder an enemy, and yet have no objection if another man desires to prevent an innocent dame from suffering for the deed.”

      “A man could also confess and save a great Queen from taking his blame.”

      “Ah, but poison is the coward’s weapon. Or the witch’s, of course. Returning to Aunt Morgan le Fay, have you thought that she may have another secret lover among us?”

      “Weren’t you the one who reminded us that she’s been presumed dead for years?”

      He shrugged. “I sometimes wonder if the line between life and death applies quite so strictly to folk like Morgan and Merlin as to the rest of us poor mortals. Who knows? Perhaps, from there beyond the grave, she took a fancy to our handsome young Sir Patrise and summoned him to her. But you haven’t been to see him laid out yet, I think?”

      “I’ve had other things to do.” Though they had not accomplished much.

      “I imagine many of us will watch with the corpse most of the night,” said Mordred. “Those of us, especially, who might have an uneasy conscience about his death… or might fear being thought to have an uneasy conscience.”

      * * * *

      I had planned to wake with the body only long enough for decency’s sake, but Mordred had a point. By tomorrow or the next day we would have scattered, so this would be one of my last chances to see them all, try to read their souls in their faces. Therefore I spent most of the night in the chapel, in a prie-dieu near the side, watching to see which of the twenty-two passed the longest time with Sir Patrise, and trying to determine who did it for love, who for piety, and who for an uneasy conscience.

      Mador, of course, waked the whole night with his cousin’s body. So did Bors de Ganis, kneeling almost as close to the corpse as Mador, but more silently. The court would have expected nothing less from the only knight to achieve the Grail and return alive.

      Gawain was there all night, too, or most of it, with Gareth near him. Lancelot’s absence and Gawain’s near-escape from death by poison seemed to have brought Beaumains closer to his eldest brother, at least temporarily, than he had been for years. The middle brothers, Agravain and Gaheris, stayed only long enough to save appearances.

      Persant of Inde spent quite a while, but it looked to me as if the old knight had dozed off on his knees, a good trick for a future hermit to learn. Gouvernail did not come until after midnight, probably having sensibly taken some sleep after seeing the remains of the dinner cleared up. When he came, he stayed near the back and I was not sure when he slipped out again—I probably dozed off myself for a few moments. The others seemed to have worked out some arrangement, two at a time for about an hour, then another pair to relieve them, almost as smoothly as monks in choir.

      If they had in fact planned their order for watching, they had left me out of the conference. Also, most likely, Mordred. Maybe Pinel, too—he knelt through at least two changes of the watch. But Pinel, coming from Carbonek, was acceptable company to Bors, when he kept quiet (even Bors seemed to find Pinel’s theological theories tedious and unsatisfying).

      All in all, I did not make an enlightening study of it. The candlelight and the angles made it next to impossible to read much in any man’s face and sometimes the Queen’s dinner guests were hidden among other knights, clerks, priests, and dames.

      If Patrise had had a paramour, she kept herself well hidden to the last. He had sometimes carried the favor of Dame Lynette, Gaheris’ wife; but she was as free with her scarves and sleeves as she was strict with her body. If Dame Lynette’s honor had finally cracked… but Gaheris would not have attacked his wife’s lover with poisoned fruit that his own brother was likely to eat. Besides, King Lot’s sons were in the habit of avenging their family’s wrongs with lance and sword, and Gaheris was easily better than Patrise in the field.

      It still being simplest to assume that mischance had led Patrise to take poison intended for Gawain, I tried to tally up the various blood feuds Gawain had been involved in over the years.

      The longest and ugliest was that between the sons of Lot and the family of King Pellinore. Pellinore had slain Lot in the battle of Castle Terrabil, when Lot was leading the second rebellion against Arthur. Despite the loss of her newly-born Mordred—for a few years only, as it turned out—Queen Morgawse and her older sons had remained loyal to Arthur and took his part against that of their husband and father; but they could not forgive his death when they had wanted his defeat, pardon, and logical place among Arthur’s knights along with King Uriens and other former rebels.

      Some of the witnesses claimed that Pellinore could as easily have taken Lot prisoner as killed him. A few even said they thought Lot was about to surrender, or had already surrendered; it was unlikely, considering Lot’s character—still, he had enough grievous wounds besides his cloven head, and finishing an enemy without taking time to hear his surrender would have been in keeping with Pellinore’s dogged singlemindedness. For all that, Lot’s death in battle probably should not have started the feud it did. We interred Lot and his fellow rebel kings with all honors and rich tombs, maybe a little too much—Arthur could hardly have buried his own foster-father with more dignity—and Pellinore, Lot’s killer, was the first to propose Gawain, Lot’s oldest son, for a seat at the Round Table. But Honor must be a shrew of a mistress. Lot’s sons waited for years, but at last Gawain fought it out with Pellinore one day, with nobody else around but Gaheris and the squires. Gawain saw to it that Pellinore got as fine a burial as Lot, and paid for part of the tomb and a century of Masses. If a rich tomb comforted Lot, it should comfort Pellinore, too.

      Pellinore’s