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"The Last Tournament"
Every end has a beginning. This I learned the night I beheld the Lady of Shalott lying white-clad and lily-faced on her floating bier. Dead she was of invisible wounds, yet far lovelier than the living women who gathered at the river’s edge to gape and wonder. More beautiful even than I, Arthur’s queen, who am famed and cursed for beauty.
I see her face still, as if it were etched in fairyfire against the darkness that gathered about me that long-ago night – utter darkness, though I remember my old nurse stroking my hair and crooning that dawn was near. The long-faced women in my room were mere shadows, less real to me than the image of the dead maiden. Throughout that long, long night the Lady of Shalott haunted me, though not half so painfully as the memory of Lancelot’s eyes as he beheld the doomed fairy woman who knew his past, and ruled his heart.
I pushed past the memory of that night, and the grim-dawning day that followed. They were but the fruit of seeds I had planted two days before.
Beginnings are sweet, no matter how the path might end. Dawn’s golden clouds gilded the sky as I walked in the garden Arthur had given me, a high-walled retreat that even in summer’s last days was filled with flowering bowers and small, secret delights. This was my place; here, only Gwenhwyfar ruled. No one came but by my bidding, and the guards who watched at the outer gates were my father’s men, loyal only to him and to me.
The sound of a light step behind me sent me whirling about with a glad smile and dancing heart. But I knew my mistake even before my eyes settled upon the broad, freckled countenance of the servant girl. My champion walked in silence—I would not have heard him if he came, which of course, he did not. Once again, he had refused me.
My face must have spoken sharply of my anger, for the servant fell back a step and flinched away as if from an expected blow.
At once I schooled my face to calm. Elfgiva was a good girl, faithful as a hound, and though she was a Saxon wench I did not hesitate to place my life and my honor in her hands. None of my ladies could be trusted with such a message as Elfgiva carried. None would have been so fearful about returning with the obvious response. Fear requires little time to take root in the heart, but summer is short and chill in the hearts of Camelot’s ladies. They would deliver my champion’s message with a speed that the heralds’ runners might envy, so they might hasten off and prattle the news elsewhere.
"He will not be meeting me in my private garden," I said, speaking first to spare my servant the burden of bad news. "Once again, he declines his queen’s request."
"Most respectfully, my lady," she added hastily.
I suppressed a sigh, or perhaps a shriek. Of course his refusal would be polite. Lancelot was the most courteous of knights, as well as the greatest at arms. So skilled was he at both these arts that he could impale a woman’s heart with a few courtly words. That he did not recognize the wounds he inflicted made it all the worse. Cruelty I could bear, but not this. Not this.
Elfgiva seemed to be waiting for some further word. When I offered none, she ventured, "Sir Lancelot is a true and courteous knight, my lady, but he has many duties beyond that of queen’s champion."
I was stung by the pity in the maiden’s eyes, furious with my recalcitrant knight. "Don’t mock me with his virtue," I said sharply. "As for that, what could you know of such things? Perhaps your Saxon kin taught you courtesy when they burned your village?"
My servant’s face went very still. She bobbed a quick, graceless curtsy and hastened off. In remarkably short order, the heavy gate that led into the north bailey clanged shut behind her. Alone, I sank down onto an embowered bench and dropped my head into my hands.
"Skillfully done, my lady," observed a cool, mocking voice. "With but a few words, you cut as keenly as the raiders’ blades. Your lord Arthur brought Elfgiva to you, vowing that here she would suffer no further hurts. Do you mean to cheat him of his judgments, as well as his honor?"
The strange reprimand tore me from my reverie. Amazed, I looked up into eyes as green as summer, set in the fairest face I had ever beheld in a mortal man.
"Not mortal," my visitor corrected me, as if I had spoken aloud. "And strictly speaking, not a man, either."
I did not think to doubt him, nor did I ask him to name his kith and kind. Like my parents and theirs before them, I was a follower of the Christ. But the fairy folk had dwelt in the mountains of my father’s kingdom long before the Romans came. My priest would likely claim that this visitor was a demon who slipped through the door I’d left ajar for Lancelot. The priest, however, was not standing in my garden. This fairy lord was.
Quickly I gathered myself and rose to do him proper reverence. "Queen Gwenhwyfar greets you, my lord."
Courtesy demanded that he return the honor and supply his name. But fairies are slow to yield such advantage. As Merlin often reminded me, names hold great power. Not without reason, he claimed, was my name born of the old word for "shadow."
I pushed these thoughts aside, for the fairy lord stood silent, as if he, too, were cowed by the image my thoughts conjured of the great wizard.
"You may speak freely," I urged him. "I am daughter to King Leodegan, whose forebears befriended the fair folk. What passes between us will not leave these walls."
This vow seemed to amuse him. "Of that, I have no doubt! You mortals are fools, eager to do in love’s name that which could destroy love forever. Once the deed is done, you will sustain yourself with comforting lies. You will speak of this day only when you have nothing to lose from the tale’s telling."
For the first time, fear began to gnaw at the bright wonder of this visit. Stories of fairy lovers were plentiful in the hill country. I had no wish for such a paramour, but if this fairy lord were to put me in his thrall, my refusal would be a whisper on the wind. But my first concern was not for my person, but my name. There were enough stories about me already.
As soon as I formed this thought, my visitor laughed aloud—fairly shouted with laughter that proclaimed more clearly than words that my fears were absurd. Such mirth was ungallant, perhaps, but it set my mind at rest.
"Perhaps another day, fair Gwenhwyfar," he said when at last he could speak.
His eyes and voice mocked me far more sharply than did his laughter. Angry now, I demanded to know why he had come.
Merriment fled the fairy’s face, and he pondered his words carefully before he spoke. "Unlike though we be, it would seem that your troubles are much like mine," he mused. "You are wed to a king, I to a queen. You desire the Knight of the Lake, I would claim the Lady of Shalott. If either of us are to prevail, we must break the bond between these two."
"A bond between Lancelot and some other lady? That is impossible!" I protested. "Lancelot is my champion, and he has pledged me his love!"
"As he also swore love and fealty to Arthur," the fairy pointed out. "Tell me: how is this ‘great love’ he bears you any different from that he gives the king?"
His eyes pointedly dropped to the soft swell of my belly. "That is Arthur’s get, not Lancelot’s, however much you might dream otherwise when the king comes to your bed."
This bold truth left me too dumbfounded to be offended. "How do you know these things?" I whispered.
The fairy’s smile was as thin and sharp as a dagger. "This land was my realm before the stone circles rose, when the White Cliffs overlooked not a sea but a marsh, and the only ship a man needed to travel to Les Britain was his own two feet. Though Arthur is high king, he rules at my sufferance. I know all that happens—" He broke off, and again his pointed gaze skimmed over my belly. "Or does not happen, as may be. Your claim to Lancelot’s love is hollow and pitiful. And so will it remain, while the Lady of Shalott rules his heart."
Try though I might, I could not deny his words. Since I had no weapons but dignity, I reclaimed the garden bench as if it were my throne. Immediately a grand jeweled chair appeared opposite me, and the fairy king set up an opposing court.
Oddly enough, this saucy display strengthened my pride. Not since the days of Queen Goheris, my grandsire’s dame, had mortal and fairy held open council.
"Tell me of Lancelot’s lady," I demanded of him.
The fairy’s snort was surprisingly inelegant. "Does this kingdom lack bards? How is it possible that you’ve never heard of Shalott?"
It seemed an easy question. It was not. Carefully I considered my response. More and more of Arthur’s people followed the Christ. Most saw no reason to abandon the old in favor of the new. The rules they wrote for their White Queen, however, were far more narrow and stern. It could be unwise to speak of gates to the fairy realm, even behind these high walls.
"There is a old tower by that name," I said diffidently, "on an islet some distance upriver from Camelot."
"That is not the sum of your knowledge," the fairy scolded, his green eyes shrewd. "You are a daughter of Goheris. You have heard the legends."
Yes, I knew many legends, and I was canny enough to leave most of them unspoken—especially those that touched upon my lineage. It was said that Goheris had secured the friendship of fair folk by sending one of her children to be fostered in the fairy court. Certainly she had children to spare—eleven were born to her, and eight lived past infancy. Since fairies could grant blessings that they themselves could not claim, it was said that the women of Goheris’s line were fairy-blessed to bear children easily and often. I sometimes suspected that this legend had been whispered in Arthur’s ear in the days when he sought a queen to replace his first wife, a dark-eyed girl who did not survive her first childbed. Arthur was too wise a king to choose me merely for my beauty.
I wondered if this was the legend that the fairy king evoked. If so, to what purpose? Perhaps he thought to claim my unborn child, as his people had taken the son of Goheris. As I clasped my hands protectively over my belly, fear shimmered through me like an icy wind. I marveled that the fallen leaves did not stir, or the last roses droop and blacken.
I answered carefully, keeping my words on the narrow path that led past old Shalott. "Legends are told of the tower, that much is true, but the country folk whisper tales about every woodland spring and knotty old tree! The tower stands empty, and has since the days of Queen Goheris. No one claims it, for it is too small and remote to be of much value."
"None seek to claim Shalott because of the legends surrounding the place," he insisted. "The country folk say that a fairy lives there. Reapers hear her song in the soft hours before dawn, and again when the moon rises. A queen should listen more carefully to the words of her people."
So this was his meaning! My relief was mingled with exasperation. "Listen to my people," indeed. He would not be so quick with this advice if he knew the half of what my people said of me! Yet his error gave me hope. If he could be wrong in this, perhaps he was mistaken elsewhere.
"Why should I believe such tales about Lancelot? I’m no village maid, simpering over legends of fairy lovers," I said scornfully, forgetting for a moment the bright reality before me.
In response, the fairy king merely lifted one raven-wing brow. I sighed, defeated. "Then why has he never spoken of her? Never sung her name to the harp, never worn her token at the tourneys?"
"He is Lancelot of the Lake," the fairy said somberly. "Born of Vivienne, raised to the mysteries. He knows many things of which he cannot speak. You see him only as the first among the king’s knights, and the queen’s champion. You know nothing of his life before he came to Arthur’s court."
The truth of this stunned me into silence. I loved Lancelot well. No man, not even the king, was as good and fair in my eyes. Yet what did I truly see when I looked upon Lancelot, but my own desire?
I felt my cheeks flame as wonder gave way to a great and scalding shame. "Lancelot rides out often, either alone or with Arthur’s men," I whispered. "Does he go to this fairy woman? Does all the world know of this but me?"
"No. No one knows the whole of this tale but Lancelot and the lady," the fairy assured me. "Nor does Lancelot know where his love lies hidden. But you are right in thinking that he seeks her when he is not required at court. Tirelessly he seeks her in your world and in mine."
Again the fairy lord left me amazed. My head whirled with the immensity of this revelation. True, it was whispered that Lancelot was born of the Lady of the Lake, and the bards claimed that the blood of the fey folk danced through his veins. But it was also said that he was a giant of a man, and that the lance he carried into battle was as tall as the pines that forested the Picts’ wildest mountains. Such talk was never meant as truth. No one read the actual measure of a knight’s strength or a lady’s beauty by the songs that praised them. There were many stories of Lancelot, and I thought I had heard them all. But this simple truth outdid the most extravagant tale. My knight could pass into the fairy realm at will and leave whenever he desired! I could scarcely credit it.
It occurred to me that the fairy lord was talking again, and that he had been talking for some time. With difficulty I put my mind back upon the path of his words.
"And so you will devise a ruse that will cause Lancelot to ride past the lady’s tower," he concluded. He looked at me expectantly.
"You would have me bring them together?" I said with great scorn. "How will that serve your purpose or mine?"
The impatience on the fairy lord’s face suggested that the answer to this question had already been given. "The lady gave up more than you will ever know to leave the fairy realm. But wishes often carry hidden blades. The blessing she desired became a curse."
"Name this curse," I said cautiously.
"The lady is bound to the tower. She sees the world only through a mirror, and weaves what she sees into a tapestry. If she should leave her weaving even for a moment, the spell of binding will be broken. She will be returned to the fairy realm, and to me."
I considered this. When Lancelot passed by the towers of Camelot, high ladies and serving girls set aside their work to lean upon the window casements with sighs and whispered wishes. Why should this fairy wench be different?
Still and all, it seemed a far shot to me. "If this fairy must weave without pause, how will she see Lancelot pass?"
"You are the high queen. It is said you are as wise as you are fair. You will find a way."
I nodded slowly. Even now, a plan was taking shape. Yet something about the fairy’s request troubled me, mocking me like a dire but half-remembered dream.
"A wise king considers the field and numbers his enemy before he leads an army into battle," I mused. "Though Arthur never burdens the spirits of his knights with possible disasters, you can be sure he ponders such things and prepares to face them. I can do no less. Tell me: What is the worst that could happen?"
"You are a daughter of Goheris," the fairy repeated. "Yet we have not met before, nor have you known any of my people."
This did not seem like such a hardship to me, but I nodded in a thoughtful manner. As I did, my mimicry changed to true understanding. "Magic fades from the land. The old ways slip into hiding, the druids retreat to their island, the fairies keep to their mounds and hollows."
"Even so," he said somberly.
"But why?"
A shadow passed over the fairy lord’s face. "Nothing more can I say. I can only repeat to you what I once told the lady: wishes oftentimes carry a hidden blade. See that you don’t cut us all."
And then he was gone. I glanced at the grass that grew where his jeweled throne had been. It stood tall beneath its crown of emerald dew. No mark remained to prove the fairy’s passing, nothing for me to point to as I prattled this tale. Which, of course, I would not do. My visitor was right about that much. What I had heard, and what I would yet do, was no fitting tale for the White Queen to tell.