Guinevere's Gamble

  For Elizabeth

  Contents

  Chapter One Royal Wedding

  Chapter Two Stannic’s Silver Coin

  Chapter Three Llyr’s Dream

  Chapter Four Caer Narfon

  Chapter Five Y Wyddfa

  Chapter Six The Crossroads

  Chapter Seven A Matter of Perspective

  Chapter Eight Deva

  Chapter Nine Trevor of Powys

  Chapter Ten The Presentation

  Chapter Eleven The Black Bowl

  Chapter Twelve Morgan’s Plight

  Chapter Thirteen Lord Riall’s Treasure

  Chapter Fourteen The Race

  Chapter Fifteen The Accident

  Chapter Sixteen A Letter to Arthur

  Chapter Seventeen True Aim

  Chapter Eighteen The Dagger

  Chapter Nineteen A King’s Gamble

  Chapter Twenty Queen Esdora

  Chapter Twenty-one Answered Prayers

  Chapter Twenty-two Trevor’s Warning

  Chapter Twenty-three Confessions

  Chapter Twenty-four The Body

  Chapter Twenty-five Secrets of the Beech Tree

  Chapter Twenty-six Foreign Soil

  Chapter Twenty-seven A Dark Time Coming

  Chapter Twenty-eight Lord Riall’s Dilemma

  Chapter Twenty-nine Royal Skirmish

  Chapter Thirty Striking the Head of the Snake

  Chapter Thirty-one Second Thoughts

  Chapter Thirty-two The Hearing

  Chapter Thirty-three Trespass

  Chapter Thirty-four A Kind Heart

  Chapter Thirty-five The Bonfire

  Chapter Thirty-six Morgan’s Revenge

  Chapter Thirty-seven Partings

  Chapter Thirty-eight Snowfall

  CHAPTER ONE

  Royal Wedding

  Guinevere stood at the narrow window and looked out on a bright September day. Grazing cattle dotted the fields and meadows beyond the orchard wall, and distant foothills rose dusty green to a cloudless sky. It was a warm day and still, with that special clarity of air that signaled the coming change of season. It was a perfect day for a ride.

  A fresh bout of sobbing from the bed behind her made Guinevere turn around. Princess Elaine of Gwynedd lay prostrate across the fur-trimmed coverlet, her golden curls flung dramatically against the pillow, her entire body trembling with the violence of her grief.

  “For pity’s sake, Laine, you’ll give yourself a headache.” The sobs increased in volume, and Guinevere turned back to the window. She had tried half the morning to comfort Elaine, but Elaine did not wish to be comforted. She was determined to make the most of her sorrows. Guinevere was used to her cousin’s weeping fits, as was the entire household, and usually had little patience with them. Today was different. This time Elaine’s grief was unfeigned and her plight unenviable, for there was nothing on earth that could ease her distress. Arthur Pendragon, High King of the Britons, was married at last.

  The event was hardly unexpected. Ever since the King’s betrothal last spring, few in Gwynedd had talked of anything else. Highborn women throughout the land had spent the summer refurbishing their gowns and polishing their jewels. Queen Alyse and King Pellinore, Elaine’s parents, had left three weeks ago to attend the royal wedding. Last night they had returned. And this morning Queen Alyse had gathered her household around her and told them all about it in exquisite detail.

  Guinevere wondered if Elaine would have reacted less dramatically had Queen Alyse broken the news more gently. Only six months ago, before the news of his betrothal reached Gwynedd, the queen, too, had been dreaming of a marriage between Arthur and her daughter. But Queen Alyse was nothing if not practical, and unlike Elaine, she had accepted the fact of the marriage and could look beyond it. Her excitement was contagious. This was a wedding all Britons had waited four long years to see.

  Since the High King Uther’s death four years ago, young Arthur had led the Briton kings against the invading Saxon hordes. He had gathered around him the finest warriors in the land and built them into a formidable fighting force. Men flocked to serve him, and he found a use for every skill he was offered. In four years he had grown from youth to man, from cavalry commander to king. Arthur of Britain, they called him now, for the rival kingdoms of the Britons had begun to regard themselves as allies in a single cause, led by a single leader, in the service of a single nation.

  Ever since his crowning, everyone had waited impatiently for Arthur to marry. It was the only subject more gossiped about than his victories. For four long years he had done nothing but fight, regroup, and fight again. His was a life lived in tents or on horseback, always on the move against the rising tide of Saxon invasions. Elaine’s father, King Pellinore, was gone six to twelve weeks at a time to fight for Arthur and stood high in the King’s graces on account of it, but at least he could come home to Gwynedd between campaigns. Arthur had no home to go to. His father’s old castle in Winchester now lay too close to the Saxon border for safety, and until this summer there hadn’t been time to start work on a proper fortress—a place to bring a wife to, a place to make a home. It was no surprise, really, that he hadn’t married.

  Now work had at last begun on the construction of a hilltop stronghold that the young High King could call his own. At the edge of the rolling hills of the Summer Country, and in sight of the Tor at Avalon, Caer Camel promised to be a fair fortress, a bulwark against the Saxon invaders, a center and a heart for the new Kingdom of the Britons. Arthur was no longer a youth of fourteen with only a splendid sword and his father’s word to recommend him. He was eighteen now, a survivor of four years of constant war, an acknowledged commander and a force to be respected. The general feeling among the people was that it was high time for the King to wed.

  Queen Alyse had spared no adjective in her praise of all she had seen at the royal wedding. She had held her women spellbound with her descriptions of Caerleon, the old Roman fortress town in the South Wales kingdom of Guent where the wedding had taken place. Set on a rise above a curve in the river Usk, the ruins of Roman occupation had become the focus of a small but growing town. Arthur, like a score of Briton kings before him, had patched up the barracks and rebuilt the walls. He had enlarged and refurbished the old commander’s villa and made it his headquarters. With so many soldiers about, Caerleon had become a safe haven in the west country, and people came in droves to live within the safety of its walls.

  Arthur had also built a Christian chapel on the site. Here, among a throng of rich and poor alike, and lit by the glow of a hundred candles, the Bishop of Caerleon had performed the rites so many Britons had waited so long to see. The crowd of guests had spilled out the chapel doors into the courtyard in a living stream of color, awash with the vibrant hues of expensive fabrics, the glitter of polished armor, the flash of jewels. Queen Alyse had counted six rubies larger than her own, but none that compared in quality to the bloodred stone in the ring of office on the High King’s hand.

  The bride had looked young for sixteen, the queen thought, and pale with the enormity of the event. But she had carried herself well when Cador, King of Cornwall, led her forward, and the sight of her had made the High King smile.

  Arthur himself, adorned only with a slim crown of beaten gold around his brow and his magnificent sword at his hip, had dressed plainly in white. A diplomatic color, Queen Alyse implied, but one that allowed him to stand out in any crowd. It was the way he dressed for battle, the soldiers said.

  The wedding feast had lasted until midnight, but the celebrations had gone on for days. Bonfires lit every village across the land. Queen Alyse had never seen so much free-flowing wine. In spite of such liberality, the High King, who was entitled to it, was ne
ver drunk. Nor were his Companions, that small cadre of young men who had first flocked to Arthur’s side four years ago and had since become his friends as well as his battle captains. All of them maintained a sense of watchfulness, as if expecting a call to war at any moment. Which they might well receive, Queen Alyse allowed. All spring and summer, the barbarian Saxons had been attacking up the rivers and along the coasts. It was a minor miracle that the High King had found a space of peace in which to wed. And now, with the King married and his bride bedded, there was at least a hope of a succession of leaders as strong as Arthur and a hope of lasting peace.

  Guinevere returned to Elaine’s bedside and tried again to reason with her. “I know you’ve always admired him, Elaine, but you can’t have expected to marry him. He—”

  “Why not?” Elaine’s head shot up and she glared at Guinevere with fierce, reddened eyes. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Well, after all, he’s the High King….”

  “I’m not good enough; is that it?” Elaine’s voice rose sharply. “Who else should Arthur Pendragon marry but the daughter of one of his chief nobles? Gwynedd is first among the Welsh kingdoms! Arthur depends on Father for influence in Wales, as well as for support in his campaigns. How many times in the last four years has Father gathered up his men and gone to answer Arthur’s call? What king has done more?”

  This time, Guinevere had the sense to stay silent.

  “Look at the girl he wed!” Elaine stormed on. “Who is she? Guenwyvar of Ifray, for pity’s sake, whom nobody’s ever heard of. Her father was a minor lord who served the king of Cornwall. My father serves Arthur himself. Nobody knows who her mother was. My mother is a king’s daughter and queen of Gwynedd in her own right. I outrank the girl, Gwen; even you must be able to see that.”

  “Of course,” Guinevere said evenly. “But birth isn’t everything, and she is sixteen.”

  Elaine sniffed. Her twelfth birthday was only three months behind her. “Twelve is old enough for betrothal, and thirteen for marriage. He could have waited another year. I’d have brought him more honor, more land, more power, more everything.” She gulped as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s all happened too fast and too soon. He doesn’t know I exist. He hasn’t had time.”

  Privately, Guinevere agreed with her. King Pellinore had probably never mentioned his daughter to the High King while they’d been on campaign. It would not have occurred to him. On the other hand, it might have made little difference if he had. A man of eighteen looking for a bride who could give him an heir was unlikely to choose a girl of twelve. Five months ago, when the betrothal was announced, Elaine had been eleven.

  Guinevere also thought, but did not say, that Arthur’s bride was not a nobody. When the lord of Ifray had died in Cador of Cornwall’s service, King Arthur’s mother, Queen Ygraine, had, with Cador’s blessing, taken the girl into her own household at Tintagel. Thus, Guenwyvar of Ifray had brought to the marriage the backing of both Arthur’s mother and Cador, one of the High King’s staunchest supporters and the man whose forces protected Tintagel. Guinevere could think of no stronger advocacy, except the High King’s own. Perhaps the girl had had that, too. Arthur might have met her on visits to his mother. Perhaps he had chosen her himself.

  “You should be glad for him, that he married a girl he knew,” she ventured. “It must be awful to marry a stranger.”

  “Glad?” wailed Elaine. “Don’t be a half-wit, Gwen. How can I be glad that he’s married someone else?”

  “Listen, Laine,” Guinevere said, sitting down beside her and stroking damp curls away from her cousin’s face. “You’d be glad for him if you really loved him. But you know you don’t. How could you? You’ve never even seen him. You can’t love a man you’ve never met.”

  “Can’t I?” Elaine shook off her hand. “What do you know about love? You’ve never loved anyone but your horse and that primitive savage who follows you about—”

  Guinevere rose to her feet. “Llyr is not a savage. He’s as civilized as you are. Besides, I don’t love him in the way you mean. He’s a friend.”

  “Friend or not, he’s an Old One. He’s like no one else we know. He’s certainly a far cry from Arthur.”

  Guinevere sighed wearily. “Enough about Arthur. You’ll make yourself ill and over nothing. You have no idea what he’s like.”

  “And you do?” Elaine’s voice, hoarse with weeping, grew shrill. “You’ve always been against him. You scoff at his virtues. You belittle his prowess and jest at his victories. You do it to hurt me. I know you do.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Guinevere turned sharply away and had to force herself to turn back. She took a deep breath and kept her voice calm. “I’ve never jested at his victories. He is without doubt the most successful war leader in a hundred years, since the Emperor Maximus himself. If I scoff, it’s at the legends that cling to him and make him seem larger than life. You don’t, you can’t know what he’s really like.”

  “But I do,” Elaine protested. “I know everything about him—every legend, every tale, every prophecy. He’s the greatest man alive. Look at all the astonishing things he’s done.”

  “Firedrakes across the heavens? Pulling swords from stones? Bards’ tales. Arthur is a war leader. He can organize men; he can lead armies; he can slay thousands. That makes him successful, but it doesn’t make him the kind of man you’d want to marry.”

  “Of course it does,” Elaine said fiercely. “A war leader as victorious as Arthur must be courageous and clearheaded, a man of intelligence, principle, strength, and skill. If he weren’t, men like Father wouldn’t follow him, and the Saxons would have killed him long ago.”

  Guinevere thought it equally likely that Arthur was simply more violent, more bloodthirsty, or luckier than other warriors, but she did not voice these doubts aloud. Instead, she merely said, “Kings like your father would follow anyone who could keep the Saxons off. I doubt it matters to fighting men what kind of person their leader is, so long as he wins.”

  “Nonsense!” Elaine snapped. “You ask Father about him. He admires King Arthur, and he actually knows him. You don’t.” She sniffed triumphantly when Guinevere did not reply. “Arthur is the greatest man of our age, and I am in love with him. Nothing you can say will ever alter that.”

  Guinevere went back to the window. The sky was deep blue and perfectly clear. It would be cool in the upper meadows. The grass would be fetlock-deep, and it was three days since she had given her filly a good gallop. “Then I pity you, cousin. I pity any girl who marries a man she sees only six weeks a year. Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be the High King’s wife? He fights three, sometimes four campaigns a year. He’s always on the move, always calling for more troops. The Saxons aren’t going away. That poor girl in Caerleon left everyone she knew and the country she called home to come out of Cornwall and marry the King. She’ll be sorry she did. She’ll never see him.”

  “Sorry!” Elaine screamed. “How do you dare?”

  A flung pillow caught Guinevere in the stomach. Elaine hurled another pillow, missed, and burst into wild sobs.

  The door opened and footsteps hurried across the antechamber. Grannic, Elaine’s nurse, came through the curtain at a run.

  She shot Guinevere an evil look on her way to the bed. “What have you done to her?” At the bedside, she grasped Elaine forcibly in her large, strong hands and made little cooing noises. “Now, now, my lady, now, now. Come along. Come along.”

  Guinevere picked up the pillows and returned them to the bed. “I’ve been trying to comfort her.”

  Grannic grunted. “A sad job you’ve made of it. She’ll be ill, she will, if this keeps on.”

  Another woman entered the room puffing, a plump woman with a kind, round face. Guinevere’s eyes lit at the sight of her own nurse.

  “Oh, Ailsa!”

  “Gwen, dear, what’s been going on?” She looked worriedly at the bed. “We could hear her from the workroom.”r />
  “She doesn’t want to be comforted. She’d rather weep.”

  Ailsa cast her a knowing look. Elaine’s weeping fits were a regular part of life in Gwynedd for both of them. The household routine would be disrupted for a day or more, with everyone’s attention focused securely on Elaine.

  Grannic scowled at them both. “Send for blankets and hot water. Be quick about it.”

  Ailsa pushed Guinevere ahead of her into the antechamber. “I’m sure to be busy here for the rest of the day. You’d best take yourself away somewhere until she’s ready for company again. Why don’t you go for a ride?”

  Guinevere kissed her quickly. “You’ve read my mind.”

  “That’s not hard these days.” Ailsa chuckled as Guinevere flung open a trunk and reached for her tunic and leggings. “If you’re not on that filly’s back, you’re trying to get there. Be home well before lamplighting. The queen wants both of you present at dinner. She has some sort of announcement to make.”

  “Do you know what it’s about?”

  Ailsa picked up the discarded gown and replaced it neatly in the open trunk. “A courier rode in a little while ago with a message for King Pellinore. I’ll wager it has something to do with that.”

  Guinevere pulled on her doeskin boots. “I wish you luck with Elaine. She won’t want to appear in hall with puffy eyes.”

  “She’ll have to. We’ve strict orders to get her ready in time. Whatever upset her, do you know?”

  Guinevere paused with her hand on the door latch. Ailsa, bless her dear and all-forgiving heart, could not keep secrets. It wasn’t entirely her fault; the queen’s women gossiped all day as they worked, and most of them were adept at prying information from unpolished souls like Ailsa. Elaine would not want her most private feelings made the focus of household gossip. Who would? On the other hand, Grannic and Ailsa might only make Elaine’s suffering worse if they said the wrong thing.

  “Try to pretend that the royal wedding never happened.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Stannic’s Silver Coin