Maytime

"… (for the time
Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dream'd,)…"
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Idylls of the King

It was soon after Margarethe's birth that it began. How strange, I realize now, that it should have been that day -- exactly the point when it seemed as though all our life's hopes had been laid before us, like a feast upon a table, and all that remained was to enjoy. A third child blessed upon us; the kingdom in a long languorous peace; the land once again fertile and generous, as though in sisterhood with my own giving of life. A perfect day.

Yet for some reason, as I watched Arthur smiling at his new daughter, as I heard her laugh, I felt suddenly as though I were seeing them from a very long distance -- or perhaps through the veil of a dream. The scent of lilies in the garden was all at once oversweet, overpowering. I was obliged to excuse myself, to lie in the cool shadows of our bedroom.

Arthur was concerned until I assured him I was quite well, only made sleepy from the sunshine. He was always like this with me. How relieved he had been a few months before when this birth, too, had been short and untroubled. How happy he'd been, after receiving two strong sons, to be given a fair-haired, jewel-eyed daughter. (He'd had, I believe, a sister once -- an older sister, who'd died before his third birthday.)

Now, as ever, he was so tender with me, leading me to the bedchamber, laying me down, smoothing back my hair and staying with me until I laughed and pushed at his shoulder, ordering him to go. How loving we still are with each other, even after all these years. How blessed.

And yet.

My thoughts that afternoon, as I drowsed half-asleep on the coverlet, were strange, unsettled. I was remembering the May Day tournament, a week before. It was soon after I had fully recovered from the birth. I was relaxed, happy, laughing with my ladies-in-waiting, when something in the glint of a young knight's helmet, in his easy unthinking caracole, struck me like a physical blow.

Why should I have been reminded of a man I knew only briefly, and then over ten years ago?

It was when I had been very young, still a girl, still living in my father's house. I had been, to be truthful, a little frightened upon learning of my betrothal. It was only natural in a maiden's innocence -- all women know it -- but Arthur, in his wisdom, had somehow anticipated it as well. So he sent his best young knight to escort me to Camelot.

I've since forgotten his name -- there have been so many of them, these shining young knights -- but I will always remember his expression when he saw me. He recovered quickly, bowing as he took my hand, but not before I had seen his eyes in that first moment. They had been startled -- startled, and something more. As though, I thought at the time, there were something unsettling about me, that I was in some way unsuitable for his king to wife.

But he was courteous enough. No, he was more than courteous; no man besides Arthur has been more accommodating or considerate. Throughout the entire journey he inquired after my health, my comfort, my interests; he all but leaped to fulfill whatever I might in any way desire. But he never drew closer than an arm's length to me, and he asked his questions without meeting my eyes. And I, for my part, never felt entirely at ease when I was with him. Not because of any behavior inappropriate or untoward on his part -- he was, as I've said, as genuine and gentle as could be -- but because he was, for all my life before or since, the only man I've ever known who seemed at all times to be feeling more than he showed, to be saying more than he spoke.

What exactly he was trying to say, I never discovered. And then we arrived at Camelot, and I was taken to see Arthur, and, well. What could all past concerns do but disappear? What could all discontent be but forgotten?

I spoke to this young knight only once more, on the evening of my wedding. I was still in veil and train, still crowned with flowers when we found each other in a quieter corner of the hall. He raised his goblet to me, with a smile that somehow failed to reach his eyes.

"To the health of my new Queen, whom I swear to serve before any other. For the rest of my life."

Again it was as though he yearned for an answer to a question he hadn't asked, but I was too elated, too glowing with a newforged bond to realize it.

I laughed, unthinkingly. "I thank you for your fealty, good sir --" then I saw Arthur suddenly across the room, the brightness of his smile, the glow of candlelight on that golden hair -- "though I daresay my lord might be more obliged of it. It is no longer for me, I think, to be served, but to serve; and never before has a woman been blessed with a worthier master."

I was lost then in girlish fancy, and so I didn't hear the knight's reply, though I do remember it was quieter than I had expected, and belated. When I next turned to him, he had gone.

I seldom saw him after that night. It was he who volunteered to seek the fabled cup of Christ; it was he who insisted on going alone, when Arthur might have otherwise lost half his knights; and it was he who returned with it before a single month had passed. I remember thinking, as it was inspected and marveled at, how small and commonplace this ethereal relic seemed once discovered, brought to court, passed from hand to hand: how almost like any ordinary goblet.

I meant to mention this to him, but he had already ridden off into the night -- to a monastery, I heard later, in the land of his birth, beyond the great northern lake. We never saw him again.

And so I could not imagine why, of all people, I had thought of him on that impossibly lovely first morning of May. Nor can I understand why I've been unable to cast off this vague sense of unease that has settled on me since then.

It can't be dissatisfaction; my life is richer and happier than any woman might ever hope for. My husband is the noblest in the world; his kingdom, fruitful and vast; his battles, few and ever-won; his children, obedient and healthy. So why, at morning mass, do I sometimes look around me and feel I am slowly sinking into the spotless gleaming gold, the yards of pure white samite? Why do I sip wine at the feast and think it is each time so rich, the goodwill of our table so unfalteringly sweet, that I can no longer taste it? And why, when I walk in the courtyard, through the bright sunshine and past the endless undying fields of daisies and irises and lilies, do I feel their beauty is so absolute, the day so inexhaustibly mild, that all is joining together into one perfect, unbroken blur?

It's that somehow -- for reasons I cannot begin to explain -- it seems to me that the world was meant to descend beyond spring. That the flowers would someday fall to the grass in petals; that the warm fragrant air would someday grow colder, the days shorter.

I can't begin to know why I think this -- not when I am queen of a kingdom brighter-shining than any fairyland, living out my life in a world where every morning is as serene and idyllic as the first of May, where I can watch the husband to whom I am entirely devoted rule his country and the children of whom I am entirely proud prepare to inherit it. But it is that, in the end, which is most troubling. For when I watched Arthur hold our child in his arms that morning, it was as though, in his unspoken promise to live on through her, he himself was slowly disappearing, and I with him -- that the both of us were becoming lost in the morning's loveliness.

You must not misunderstand: I would not change the way our lives have gone, not for anything. Why, after all, would I?

Yet still I could not stop wondering, as I watched them, as I remembered that young knight, whether we were meant to live so long in May. I wondered then, and I wonder still, whether this eternal spring might not in the end prove the most irrevocable death of all.

Notes: What would the Arthur story be like if no tragedy had befallen Camelot? Very boring, that's what. Guinevere gets an unfair rap for simply making things interesting.

This was written for a class. It shows, I'm afraid.