The Shadow of Camlann (King Arthur, PG13)
Aug. 6th, 2006 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aleathielTitle: The Shadow of Camlann
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aleathiel
Fandom: King Arthur (of the medieval revival of the Romances rather than the recent film - although, to be honest, it owes much to Rosemary Sutcliff)
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Arthur/Gawain (with Arthur/Guinevere and Guinevere/Lancelot)
Summary: Gawain tries to prevent Camlann.
A/N: Yes I have played with timelines, fates and relative ages. Who hasn't?
For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_deja_vu's Time Travel challenge
It was Merlin who Gawain sought out while his brother was ensconced with the King. It was something of a last resort because the knight believed in men and swords and had little time for enchantment. But he knew, sure as he knew that the tide would come in, that this could mean the end for the Logres they had worked to maintain and that it was not something he could face alone. Each year the brutish Saxons encroached further, each year another few of their brotherhood succumbed to death, through age, or sickness, or battle. They trained new knights and they trained them well, but none remembered the darkness before Camelot and none really understood what it was they fought to preserve.
The enchanter was in his rooms, standing amidst the dusty books, and gazing down at the youths in the gardens. He glanced up as Gawain approached.
“So it has come to pass.” His eyes looked weary and he looked as though he had aged far more than hours in the time since Gawain had seen him at the feast the night before.
“Mordred has gone to speak to the king,” Gawain confirmed. It seemed not unusual that Merlin would know already, would have seen, as Gawain had seen, the darkness spilling into their realm. “Nothing I could say could convince him to stay quiet. He said it was the King’s right to know.” Gawain’s face ached with the need to cry, with the bone-deep grief for his King, his friend. Neither he nor Merlin voiced what they both were thinking, that the King already knew, that he’d always known, that he’d chosen to be oblivious so that this awful day might never come to pass.
“His pretence will have to stop,” Merlin agreed, his thoughts following Gawain’s. “Once, once long ago, I tried to warn him, tried to steer him away, but as ever he was mulish and impulsive and he raced to embrace his fate regardless of my counsel. No one is above the law, not even our finest knight. Not even the Queen.”
Gawain stared long at the boys in the garden and his heart wept for the peace they would never know, the long lives they would never have. He heard a murmur behind him and turned, but Merlin was no longer beside him, instead he was whispering to himself, pouring over crackled pages of books whose titles were so faded Gawain could not make out the characters.
“He would not take my counsel,” the magician repeated, “but perhaps he would take yours.”
Gawain approached, mystified. “No one is above the law, you yourself just spoke. What counsel could I give? The Queen must burn for her adultery and Lancelot must lose his head.”
“Aye,” Merlin agreed, stretching out his hand to Gawain. “But perhaps we can prevent it from happening at all…”
* * *
It was Midsummer and the flower blooms were fragrant, the food was rich and the wine was potent. Gawain was dressed in a rich green brocade that flattered his red hair and enhanced his green eyes. The King himself, Gawain’s uncle, though they were but four years apart in age, had said himself that Gawain looked fair. The fairest knight who graced the banquet, he had said, and Gawain had stammered his thanks, certain he was blushing. Arthur had led the dancing, courteously attending to each and every maiden, the plain as often as the comely, and from him exuded waves of happiness. His delight was such that everyone seemed buoyed up on it – that and the fine wine – and the night was spent in glorious laughter as all celebrated the King’s good fortuned and toasted him over and over, he and his soon-to-be bride.
There were lanterns all through the woods, illuminating the way for couples slipping away from the feast to be alone. It was a night on which anything could happen. And yet Gawain walked the faerie-lit pathways in an ever deepening melancholy, away from the noise and the laughter and the music, away from his happy, expectant King.
“You will learn to conceal the pain, Gawain,” said a voice in the darkness, warm with understanding and care. “Love him unconditionally, as a King and a man and never, never let him see how much he hurts you.”
Gawain stopped, facing the gloom. He was unarmed, walking the castle grounds within hearing of the finest knights in Christendom. “Come out where I can see you,” he called.
The man who stepped from the trees took away Gawain’s breath. His father had been dead ten years, and yet here he seemed to be, the same grey streaked auburn hair, the same wise, sad eyes, the same weary smile. “I…” he began, before being interrupted.
“Listen to me Gawain, and do not question. Know only that I come for the sake of the King.” Gawain nodded, biting back his confusion. “Tomorrow, I believe, is Arthur’s wedding day.” Gawain nodded again, not having felt under such scrutiny since he left his mother’s halls. “Speak to the king, use whatever persuasion you can to convince him to end the betrothal. If he marries the maiden he has doomed the fellowship, and he has doomed Logres. She will betray him and cause civil war, half his knights will fight against him and in the end the darkness will come flooding in. Tell him, for all his love of Britain, put Guinevere aside.”
It was approaching dawn when Gawain returned to the banquet and much of the revelry had ceased, although inebriated guests still wandered about and one lone musician played on amid the birdsong. The king had retired to bed, Sir Bors replied, when Gawain inquired as to his whereabouts.
It was not wise to concern the king while he was abed, that Gawain knew. It was particularly unwise during the early hours of his wedding morning, when he had retired so late, having consumed so much. And so Gawain paced, up and down outside the King’s bedchambers, trying to decide whether the old man’s words had a value or whether Gawain himself, in his misery, had imbued them with more weight than they deserved. Once, when he looked up, Gawain thought he saw Merlin standing at the end of the corridor, but when he looked again the enchanter was gone.
When, at last, he could bear it no longer, he pounded on the chamber door, ready to face the wrath of the King.
Arthur’s eyelids were heavy and his strong body was wrapped in a robe of fine fur. He did not raise his voice at Gawain’s interruption, he did not speak at all, merely motioned the younger man in with something akin to anticipation. Gawain wondered if the king had been expecting him.
“Come, my dear nephew, my dear friend,” Arthur greeted him. “Come sit by my window and share a glass of wine and tell me why it is folly that I marry this girl.”
Gawain blinked. He accepted the proffered glass, although he did not sip it, and he sat on the wide bench that curved along the bowed window of the chamber.
“My lord,” he began hesitantly. “There was a man in the garden, or perhaps I fell into slumber and dreamt, but he was adamant that I speak to you, that I tell you Lady Guinevere would… would betray you and bring about your downfall.”
Arthur smiled softly and took Gawain’s hand. “I have always appreciated your love and I appreciate it still. Your concern matters deeply to me. I can see you are truly troubled over my choice of Queen.”
Gawain began to speak, to explain that it was not he who was troubled, but the man in the garden, and that he would simply rather that Arthur never married at all…
But Arthur’s voice cut over him. “Never again accuse the woman I love of treachery, Gawain, real or imagined. You have never before presumed on our familiarity, our shared blood, our regard for one another, so I will let it pass. I understand that my lady is not high in your favour, for reasons we will not dwell upon. But tomorrow she shall be your Queen and you will love her and honour her as such and you will never, never tell me she is unfaithful.”
Gawain nodded under his uncle’s fiery gaze. “Now come,” Arthur continued. “Let us talk of happier things.”
* * *
For seven years the King and Queen ruled over a joyful court, just and fair and merciful. Gawain could see the way their eyes lit up when they looked at each other and he kept his pain and his misgivings to himself.
In the eighth year of his uncle’s marriage, Gawain’s youngest brother came to court. Mordred was a good ten years younger than Gareth, Gawain’s next-youngest brother. In fact, so great was the difference in their ages that Gawain scarcely knew the child, now grown into a man. He was light haired, even fair, while Gawain and his other siblings had the red hair of their father. He was much more their mother’s child, her favoured one, born so soon after her husband’s death while Gawain had been brought up by his father and left for Arthur’s court as soon as he was old enough.
And Mordred was not the only new face at the table that year. Six of the squires had been knighted at Michaelmas and there was a youth from the north whose fealty Arthur accepted. A youth with dark wings of hair, a square jaw and a pronounced nose. A youth with a natural talent on horseback. A youth called Lancelot.
* * *
Years passed like the phases of the moon. Battles were won, others were lost. Gareth won his Enid and Tristan lost his Iseult. The brotherhood divided to seek the Grail and one by one returned empty handed. Gawain himself spent some time in the north, got embroiled with a knight who rose again when Gawain struck off his head and threatened to do the same to Gawain. Arthur aged slowly and Guinevere bore no children. It seemed to Gawain like it could go on forever.
But somewhere in the back of his mind were the words of the old man in the garden and sometimes, sitting in the hall in a high backed chair by the fire, or wandering through the castle grounds with his dogs, he chanced upon the Queen and watched her. And it seemed to him that while she loved Arthur, she spent a lot of time with the younger knights, and with Lancelot in particular.
And, having noticed this, Gawain began to watch in earnest and began to see things he did not like: the way Guinevere rested her hand on the knight’s arm when they spoke, the way she smiled when he entered a room, the way Arthur was always so careful not to see.
Gawain remembered the King’s words the night before his wedding and he wondered whether Arthur hadn’t somehow known that Gawain was right, that Guinevere would be unfaithful and whether he had bound Gawain to an oath of silence for the good of the kingdom. Lancelot was fast becoming their greatest knight and Guinevere, kind Guinevere, was beloved of all. Their betrayal would tear the country apart, force the knights’ brotherhood to choose sides: their hero or their king? And so Gawain remained silent and stopped any rumours he heard stirring, dismissed gossiping serving girls and beat inquisitive pages, while deep inside him stirred an increasing rage on behalf of the king and a deep longing to keep the inevitable from coming to pass.
So it continued for months and so, perhaps, it might have continued always, had Gawain and Mordred not returned early from a day of hunting one June and discovered Lancelot and the Queen, naked and entwined, in the garden.
Gawain pleaded and threatened, ever more frantically, but could not prevent his brother going to the King.
* * *
Most of the court went down to the courtyard to witness Guinevere’s execution. Lancelot had fought his way out of his chambers, killing two of his fellow knights, and retired to his citadel of Joyous Gard, calling all still loyal to him after.
Gawain stood beside the King in his tower room and urged his lord to mount an armed guard around the pyre. “Lancelot will come,” he argued. “He will not let his lady burn.”
And the King looked at him with sad eyes and asked, “and do you think I can?”
As ordered the knights who escorted Guinevere were unarmed and had no hope of preventing the rescue Lancelot mounted, snatching the shaven-headed, tunic-clad queen from amongst the King’s men.
Gawain saw them ride away with a great feeling of despair and in his mind he saw the walls of Camelot crumbling, piece by piece.
* * *
The siege had lasted three weeks. Lancelot’s castle at Benoick, across the narrow sea, was built to withstand armies. Gawain had taunted his former friend, challenged him to single combat even though he knew deep inside that he was not the greater fighter. And Lancelot had refused, time and time again, sitting high and proud in his fortress to outwait the King.
And outwait he did as a courier came from England bearing a single hastily scribbled note:
Mordred has taken Camelot.
Mordred, Gawain’s brother, who had been left in command of the realm, the youth who had engineered the civil war by stating plainly what all others had chosen to ignore, drawing their attention and making the King punish those he loved, had declared himself King and staged a coronation.
Furious, Arthur turned homewards, abandoning the fight against Lancelot in favour of war at home. They charged up the Thames estuary, beating back the men Mordred sent against them until, at last, they caught up with the traitor’s fleeing army on a plain in the west country called Camlann.
Arthur was incensed, pacing up and down in his tent and planning a dawn attack. His fists were balled so tight that Gawain could see blood where his nails had pierced his palms. Lancelot, it seemed, he could forgive for stealing his wife, but Mordred would have no mercy for stealing his kingdom.
Gawain counselled peace, an amnesty for the knights they had left behind, those who, perhaps, had had no choice but join the traitor. And, for a while, it seemed that Arthur might listen. But the betrayal cut too deep, which Gawain did not yet understand, and the attack was led from the camp at dawn.
It was harsh and vicious and the churned mud of the field was soon stained dark red with blood. Gawain fought beside his lord, forging an arrowhead towards the opposition command, again and again forced back just as they were making headway. Around them men were dying, killed by men they had laughed and feasted with, brothers in arms and friends.
When the sun began to set there were only three men standing, Arthur himself, Gawain, and Sir Bedivere. The King was bent double in pain, blinded by tears and covered in other men’s blood. Gawain stepped across corpses to embrace him, their armour preventing more than a clasp of shoulders, a show of love and support.
The broke apart at Sir Bedivere’s shout. There were four men standing. And the fourth was Mordred.
With a shout of rage Arthur turned and ran towards him, sword high. His killing blow was instant, but not before Mordred’s spear rammed up underneath the King’s mail with a horrific ripping sound.
* * *
Gawain held Arthur’s hand as the ghostly white boat drew into the lake shore and the elfin women in gauzy gowns lifted the King effortlessly away. Gawain followed into the shallows, only releasing Arthur’s hand as the boat began to move away. He would have followed his lord anywhere, but he could not cross to Avalon.
For days he drifted aimlessly around the country, careless of his appearance, not eating. He was taken in by some monks and cared for, but he hardly noticed and he no longer spoke. All that he had feared had come to pass.
Long days passed until, one day, a knight on a horse arrived at the monastery, asking for Gawain.
“I came as soon as I heard,” Lancelot said. “I came too late.”
And with him came Guinevere, pale as a feather and dressed in black.
Their visit drew Gawain back to life and one morning he prepared his horse and rode east, pushing as hard and as fast as he could until, saddle-sore and weary, he collapsed at the foot of the great hawthorn under which Merlin was buried.
And there he wept, for his friends who were dead, for his kingdom that was ruined, and for his lost King whom he had loved with all his heart.
“It didn’t work,” he sobbed. “It happened anyway and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. My brother, my brother. If only I could prevent his ever being born…”
Merlin was beyond his hearing, deep in an enchanted sleep, but Nimue, the lady who had cast the spell, took pity on the aged knight and stepped out of her woodland home to sit beside him.
“You are the one Merlin hoped for?” she asked. “The one he sent into the past?”
Gawain nodded. “But nothing I did made a difference. All I sought to preserve was undone by my brother.”
The lady took his hand, and hers was cold and light. “Did Arthur never tell you? Mordred was only half your brother. He was Arthur’s son.”
And then Gawain realised the full sense of the betrayal, and why it was the Mordred had been left to rule in Arthur’s absence and he felt a black hole where his heart had once beaten.
“My mother…” he began, hatred coating his words.
“She, like I, is an enchantress,” Nimue admitted. “And sometimes, like with men, our morals are not what they should be.” And then, one hand outstretched, she reached out to Gawain. “Perhaps you can prevent her wrongdoing.”
* * *
It was winter cold, that estate all frosted ice. A youth Gawain recognised was training a hawk in the yard, the bushes around him white and grey-green, the tree branches bare.
The youth looked up as Gawain approached. “Sir, the King is in the garden, sir,” he volunteered, his green eyes bright in his pale face, his fiery hair tucked under a woollen cap.
Gawain smiled. “It is you I want to speak to,” he explained. “Will you pass on a message to the King?” The boy nodded earnestly. “Tell him the lady is an enchantress, tell him that, in her usual form he would recognise her and that he would behave differently. And…” Gawain paused, looked at the eager boy. “Tell the King you love him.”
The boy blushed as vibrant a shade of red as his hair. “Go now,” Gawain ordered.
The boy ran, hawk still on his fist, through the arched gate towards the castle.
Author:
aleathielFandom: King Arthur (of the medieval revival of the Romances rather than the recent film - although, to be honest, it owes much to Rosemary Sutcliff)
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Arthur/Gawain (with Arthur/Guinevere and Guinevere/Lancelot)
Summary: Gawain tries to prevent Camlann.
A/N: Yes I have played with timelines, fates and relative ages. Who hasn't?
For
fandom_deja_vu's Time Travel challengeIt was Merlin who Gawain sought out while his brother was ensconced with the King. It was something of a last resort because the knight believed in men and swords and had little time for enchantment. But he knew, sure as he knew that the tide would come in, that this could mean the end for the Logres they had worked to maintain and that it was not something he could face alone. Each year the brutish Saxons encroached further, each year another few of their brotherhood succumbed to death, through age, or sickness, or battle. They trained new knights and they trained them well, but none remembered the darkness before Camelot and none really understood what it was they fought to preserve.
The enchanter was in his rooms, standing amidst the dusty books, and gazing down at the youths in the gardens. He glanced up as Gawain approached.
“So it has come to pass.” His eyes looked weary and he looked as though he had aged far more than hours in the time since Gawain had seen him at the feast the night before.
“Mordred has gone to speak to the king,” Gawain confirmed. It seemed not unusual that Merlin would know already, would have seen, as Gawain had seen, the darkness spilling into their realm. “Nothing I could say could convince him to stay quiet. He said it was the King’s right to know.” Gawain’s face ached with the need to cry, with the bone-deep grief for his King, his friend. Neither he nor Merlin voiced what they both were thinking, that the King already knew, that he’d always known, that he’d chosen to be oblivious so that this awful day might never come to pass.
“His pretence will have to stop,” Merlin agreed, his thoughts following Gawain’s. “Once, once long ago, I tried to warn him, tried to steer him away, but as ever he was mulish and impulsive and he raced to embrace his fate regardless of my counsel. No one is above the law, not even our finest knight. Not even the Queen.”
Gawain stared long at the boys in the garden and his heart wept for the peace they would never know, the long lives they would never have. He heard a murmur behind him and turned, but Merlin was no longer beside him, instead he was whispering to himself, pouring over crackled pages of books whose titles were so faded Gawain could not make out the characters.
“He would not take my counsel,” the magician repeated, “but perhaps he would take yours.”
Gawain approached, mystified. “No one is above the law, you yourself just spoke. What counsel could I give? The Queen must burn for her adultery and Lancelot must lose his head.”
“Aye,” Merlin agreed, stretching out his hand to Gawain. “But perhaps we can prevent it from happening at all…”
* * *
It was Midsummer and the flower blooms were fragrant, the food was rich and the wine was potent. Gawain was dressed in a rich green brocade that flattered his red hair and enhanced his green eyes. The King himself, Gawain’s uncle, though they were but four years apart in age, had said himself that Gawain looked fair. The fairest knight who graced the banquet, he had said, and Gawain had stammered his thanks, certain he was blushing. Arthur had led the dancing, courteously attending to each and every maiden, the plain as often as the comely, and from him exuded waves of happiness. His delight was such that everyone seemed buoyed up on it – that and the fine wine – and the night was spent in glorious laughter as all celebrated the King’s good fortuned and toasted him over and over, he and his soon-to-be bride.
There were lanterns all through the woods, illuminating the way for couples slipping away from the feast to be alone. It was a night on which anything could happen. And yet Gawain walked the faerie-lit pathways in an ever deepening melancholy, away from the noise and the laughter and the music, away from his happy, expectant King.
“You will learn to conceal the pain, Gawain,” said a voice in the darkness, warm with understanding and care. “Love him unconditionally, as a King and a man and never, never let him see how much he hurts you.”
Gawain stopped, facing the gloom. He was unarmed, walking the castle grounds within hearing of the finest knights in Christendom. “Come out where I can see you,” he called.
The man who stepped from the trees took away Gawain’s breath. His father had been dead ten years, and yet here he seemed to be, the same grey streaked auburn hair, the same wise, sad eyes, the same weary smile. “I…” he began, before being interrupted.
“Listen to me Gawain, and do not question. Know only that I come for the sake of the King.” Gawain nodded, biting back his confusion. “Tomorrow, I believe, is Arthur’s wedding day.” Gawain nodded again, not having felt under such scrutiny since he left his mother’s halls. “Speak to the king, use whatever persuasion you can to convince him to end the betrothal. If he marries the maiden he has doomed the fellowship, and he has doomed Logres. She will betray him and cause civil war, half his knights will fight against him and in the end the darkness will come flooding in. Tell him, for all his love of Britain, put Guinevere aside.”
It was approaching dawn when Gawain returned to the banquet and much of the revelry had ceased, although inebriated guests still wandered about and one lone musician played on amid the birdsong. The king had retired to bed, Sir Bors replied, when Gawain inquired as to his whereabouts.
It was not wise to concern the king while he was abed, that Gawain knew. It was particularly unwise during the early hours of his wedding morning, when he had retired so late, having consumed so much. And so Gawain paced, up and down outside the King’s bedchambers, trying to decide whether the old man’s words had a value or whether Gawain himself, in his misery, had imbued them with more weight than they deserved. Once, when he looked up, Gawain thought he saw Merlin standing at the end of the corridor, but when he looked again the enchanter was gone.
When, at last, he could bear it no longer, he pounded on the chamber door, ready to face the wrath of the King.
Arthur’s eyelids were heavy and his strong body was wrapped in a robe of fine fur. He did not raise his voice at Gawain’s interruption, he did not speak at all, merely motioned the younger man in with something akin to anticipation. Gawain wondered if the king had been expecting him.
“Come, my dear nephew, my dear friend,” Arthur greeted him. “Come sit by my window and share a glass of wine and tell me why it is folly that I marry this girl.”
Gawain blinked. He accepted the proffered glass, although he did not sip it, and he sat on the wide bench that curved along the bowed window of the chamber.
“My lord,” he began hesitantly. “There was a man in the garden, or perhaps I fell into slumber and dreamt, but he was adamant that I speak to you, that I tell you Lady Guinevere would… would betray you and bring about your downfall.”
Arthur smiled softly and took Gawain’s hand. “I have always appreciated your love and I appreciate it still. Your concern matters deeply to me. I can see you are truly troubled over my choice of Queen.”
Gawain began to speak, to explain that it was not he who was troubled, but the man in the garden, and that he would simply rather that Arthur never married at all…
But Arthur’s voice cut over him. “Never again accuse the woman I love of treachery, Gawain, real or imagined. You have never before presumed on our familiarity, our shared blood, our regard for one another, so I will let it pass. I understand that my lady is not high in your favour, for reasons we will not dwell upon. But tomorrow she shall be your Queen and you will love her and honour her as such and you will never, never tell me she is unfaithful.”
Gawain nodded under his uncle’s fiery gaze. “Now come,” Arthur continued. “Let us talk of happier things.”
* * *
For seven years the King and Queen ruled over a joyful court, just and fair and merciful. Gawain could see the way their eyes lit up when they looked at each other and he kept his pain and his misgivings to himself.
In the eighth year of his uncle’s marriage, Gawain’s youngest brother came to court. Mordred was a good ten years younger than Gareth, Gawain’s next-youngest brother. In fact, so great was the difference in their ages that Gawain scarcely knew the child, now grown into a man. He was light haired, even fair, while Gawain and his other siblings had the red hair of their father. He was much more their mother’s child, her favoured one, born so soon after her husband’s death while Gawain had been brought up by his father and left for Arthur’s court as soon as he was old enough.
And Mordred was not the only new face at the table that year. Six of the squires had been knighted at Michaelmas and there was a youth from the north whose fealty Arthur accepted. A youth with dark wings of hair, a square jaw and a pronounced nose. A youth with a natural talent on horseback. A youth called Lancelot.
* * *
Years passed like the phases of the moon. Battles were won, others were lost. Gareth won his Enid and Tristan lost his Iseult. The brotherhood divided to seek the Grail and one by one returned empty handed. Gawain himself spent some time in the north, got embroiled with a knight who rose again when Gawain struck off his head and threatened to do the same to Gawain. Arthur aged slowly and Guinevere bore no children. It seemed to Gawain like it could go on forever.
But somewhere in the back of his mind were the words of the old man in the garden and sometimes, sitting in the hall in a high backed chair by the fire, or wandering through the castle grounds with his dogs, he chanced upon the Queen and watched her. And it seemed to him that while she loved Arthur, she spent a lot of time with the younger knights, and with Lancelot in particular.
And, having noticed this, Gawain began to watch in earnest and began to see things he did not like: the way Guinevere rested her hand on the knight’s arm when they spoke, the way she smiled when he entered a room, the way Arthur was always so careful not to see.
Gawain remembered the King’s words the night before his wedding and he wondered whether Arthur hadn’t somehow known that Gawain was right, that Guinevere would be unfaithful and whether he had bound Gawain to an oath of silence for the good of the kingdom. Lancelot was fast becoming their greatest knight and Guinevere, kind Guinevere, was beloved of all. Their betrayal would tear the country apart, force the knights’ brotherhood to choose sides: their hero or their king? And so Gawain remained silent and stopped any rumours he heard stirring, dismissed gossiping serving girls and beat inquisitive pages, while deep inside him stirred an increasing rage on behalf of the king and a deep longing to keep the inevitable from coming to pass.
So it continued for months and so, perhaps, it might have continued always, had Gawain and Mordred not returned early from a day of hunting one June and discovered Lancelot and the Queen, naked and entwined, in the garden.
Gawain pleaded and threatened, ever more frantically, but could not prevent his brother going to the King.
* * *
Most of the court went down to the courtyard to witness Guinevere’s execution. Lancelot had fought his way out of his chambers, killing two of his fellow knights, and retired to his citadel of Joyous Gard, calling all still loyal to him after.
Gawain stood beside the King in his tower room and urged his lord to mount an armed guard around the pyre. “Lancelot will come,” he argued. “He will not let his lady burn.”
And the King looked at him with sad eyes and asked, “and do you think I can?”
As ordered the knights who escorted Guinevere were unarmed and had no hope of preventing the rescue Lancelot mounted, snatching the shaven-headed, tunic-clad queen from amongst the King’s men.
Gawain saw them ride away with a great feeling of despair and in his mind he saw the walls of Camelot crumbling, piece by piece.
* * *
The siege had lasted three weeks. Lancelot’s castle at Benoick, across the narrow sea, was built to withstand armies. Gawain had taunted his former friend, challenged him to single combat even though he knew deep inside that he was not the greater fighter. And Lancelot had refused, time and time again, sitting high and proud in his fortress to outwait the King.
And outwait he did as a courier came from England bearing a single hastily scribbled note:
Mordred has taken Camelot.
Mordred, Gawain’s brother, who had been left in command of the realm, the youth who had engineered the civil war by stating plainly what all others had chosen to ignore, drawing their attention and making the King punish those he loved, had declared himself King and staged a coronation.
Furious, Arthur turned homewards, abandoning the fight against Lancelot in favour of war at home. They charged up the Thames estuary, beating back the men Mordred sent against them until, at last, they caught up with the traitor’s fleeing army on a plain in the west country called Camlann.
Arthur was incensed, pacing up and down in his tent and planning a dawn attack. His fists were balled so tight that Gawain could see blood where his nails had pierced his palms. Lancelot, it seemed, he could forgive for stealing his wife, but Mordred would have no mercy for stealing his kingdom.
Gawain counselled peace, an amnesty for the knights they had left behind, those who, perhaps, had had no choice but join the traitor. And, for a while, it seemed that Arthur might listen. But the betrayal cut too deep, which Gawain did not yet understand, and the attack was led from the camp at dawn.
It was harsh and vicious and the churned mud of the field was soon stained dark red with blood. Gawain fought beside his lord, forging an arrowhead towards the opposition command, again and again forced back just as they were making headway. Around them men were dying, killed by men they had laughed and feasted with, brothers in arms and friends.
When the sun began to set there were only three men standing, Arthur himself, Gawain, and Sir Bedivere. The King was bent double in pain, blinded by tears and covered in other men’s blood. Gawain stepped across corpses to embrace him, their armour preventing more than a clasp of shoulders, a show of love and support.
The broke apart at Sir Bedivere’s shout. There were four men standing. And the fourth was Mordred.
With a shout of rage Arthur turned and ran towards him, sword high. His killing blow was instant, but not before Mordred’s spear rammed up underneath the King’s mail with a horrific ripping sound.
* * *
Gawain held Arthur’s hand as the ghostly white boat drew into the lake shore and the elfin women in gauzy gowns lifted the King effortlessly away. Gawain followed into the shallows, only releasing Arthur’s hand as the boat began to move away. He would have followed his lord anywhere, but he could not cross to Avalon.
For days he drifted aimlessly around the country, careless of his appearance, not eating. He was taken in by some monks and cared for, but he hardly noticed and he no longer spoke. All that he had feared had come to pass.
Long days passed until, one day, a knight on a horse arrived at the monastery, asking for Gawain.
“I came as soon as I heard,” Lancelot said. “I came too late.”
And with him came Guinevere, pale as a feather and dressed in black.
Their visit drew Gawain back to life and one morning he prepared his horse and rode east, pushing as hard and as fast as he could until, saddle-sore and weary, he collapsed at the foot of the great hawthorn under which Merlin was buried.
And there he wept, for his friends who were dead, for his kingdom that was ruined, and for his lost King whom he had loved with all his heart.
“It didn’t work,” he sobbed. “It happened anyway and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. My brother, my brother. If only I could prevent his ever being born…”
Merlin was beyond his hearing, deep in an enchanted sleep, but Nimue, the lady who had cast the spell, took pity on the aged knight and stepped out of her woodland home to sit beside him.
“You are the one Merlin hoped for?” she asked. “The one he sent into the past?”
Gawain nodded. “But nothing I did made a difference. All I sought to preserve was undone by my brother.”
The lady took his hand, and hers was cold and light. “Did Arthur never tell you? Mordred was only half your brother. He was Arthur’s son.”
And then Gawain realised the full sense of the betrayal, and why it was the Mordred had been left to rule in Arthur’s absence and he felt a black hole where his heart had once beaten.
“My mother…” he began, hatred coating his words.
“She, like I, is an enchantress,” Nimue admitted. “And sometimes, like with men, our morals are not what they should be.” And then, one hand outstretched, she reached out to Gawain. “Perhaps you can prevent her wrongdoing.”
* * *
It was winter cold, that estate all frosted ice. A youth Gawain recognised was training a hawk in the yard, the bushes around him white and grey-green, the tree branches bare.
The youth looked up as Gawain approached. “Sir, the King is in the garden, sir,” he volunteered, his green eyes bright in his pale face, his fiery hair tucked under a woollen cap.
Gawain smiled. “It is you I want to speak to,” he explained. “Will you pass on a message to the King?” The boy nodded earnestly. “Tell him the lady is an enchantress, tell him that, in her usual form he would recognise her and that he would behave differently. And…” Gawain paused, looked at the eager boy. “Tell the King you love him.”
The boy blushed as vibrant a shade of red as his hair. “Go now,” Gawain ordered.
The boy ran, hawk still on his fist, through the arched gate towards the castle.
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Date: 2006-08-07 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-21 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-21 01:37 pm (UTC)Also, you said to remind you, hehe, would you mind sending me a copy of your The Tempest inspired short story?
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Date: 2006-08-21 04:47 pm (UTC)*rereads*
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Date: 2006-08-22 01:51 pm (UTC)