Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [542]
“Later, my lads, later, there will be time enough to mourn. I am in no haste, God knows, to bear such news to Arthur, but delaying will make it no kinder. Let us ride on.”
The mist was thinning and burning away fast as the sun gained height. They set off down the road where Morgause and her men had ridden back and forth for hours in search of Camelot, but before they had gone very far there was another sound that broke the strange silence of the haunted morning. It was a trumpet call, clear and silver in the still air, from the heights of Camelot. And before her at the clump of four trees, broad and unmistakable in the growing sunlight, lay the wagon road built by Arthur’s men for his legions to ride.
It seemed appropriate that the first man Morgause should see on the heights of Camelot was her son Gareth. He strode forth to challenge them at the great gates of Camelot; then, recognizing Lancelet, hurried to him. Lancelet flung himself headlong from his horse and took Gareth into a strong embrace.
“So, cousin, it is you—”
“Aye, it is that—Cai is too old and lame to be patrolling the walls of Camelot in these days. Ah, it is a good day in which you return to Camelot, my cousin. But I see that you found not Galahad, Lance?”
“Aye, but I did,” said Lancelet sorrowfully, and Gareth’s open face, still boyish despite his full beard, was struck with dismay as he looked at the outlines of the dead man under the pall.
“I must bear this news to Arthur at once. Take me to him, Gareth.”
Gareth bowed his head, his hand resting on Lancelet’s shoulder. “Ah, this is an evil day for Camelot. I said once before, it seemed to me that yonder Grail was the work of some devil, not of God at all!”
Lancelet shook his head, and it seemed to Morgause that something bright shone through him, as if his body were transparent; and through his sad smile there was hidden joy. “No, my dear cousin,” he said, “you must put that from your mind forever. Galahad has had what God gave to him, and, God help us, so have we all. But his day is finished, and he is free of all human fate. Ours is still to come, dear Gareth—God grant us that we meet it with as much courage as he.”
“Amen to that,” said Gareth, and to Morgause’s horrified surprise he crossed himself. Then, with a start, he looked up at her.
“Mother, is it you? Forgive me—yours is the last company in which I would expect to find Lancelet.” He bent over her hand with a dutiful kiss. “Come, madam, let me summon a chamberlain and take you to the Queen. She will make you welcome among her ladies while Lancelet is with the King.”
Morgause let herself be led away, wondering now why she had come. In Lothian she ruled as queen in her own right, but here in Camelot she could only sit among Gwenhwyfar’s ladies, and know no more of what was going on than what one of her sons might see fit to tell her.
She said to the chamberlain, “Say to my son Gwydion—sir Mordred—that his mother has come, and bid him to wait upon me as soon as he can.” But she wondered, sunk in despondency, if in this strange court he would even be troubled to pay her such respects as Gareth had done. And once again, she felt she had done wrong to come to Camelot.
14
For many years, Gwenhwyfar had felt that when the Companions of the Round Table were present, Arthur belonged not to her but to them. She had resented their intrusion into her life, their presence at Camelot; often she had felt that if Arthur were not surrounded by the court, perhaps they might have had a life happier than the one they led as King and Queen of Camelot.
And yet in this year of the Grail quest, she began to realize that she had been fortunate after all, for Camelot was like a village of ghosts with all the Companions departed, and Arthur the ghost who haunted Camelot, moving silently through the deserted castle.
It was not that she took no pleasure in Arthur’s company when