23 The plans we make
"And with the power vested in me, I crown thee, Gwendolyn, Queen of Camelot and High Queen of Albion."
With a face livid from disgust and a mouth contorted as if he'd bitten into a lemon, Severinus lowered the new double crown of the Queen and High Queen Consort unto Gwendolyn's bent head that he had blessed into the holy state of matrimony with Arthur Pendragon only moments ago.
The crowd cheered ferociously as Arthur now kissed the bride.
As the incessant shouting and applauding drowned the rest of Severinus' meticulously prepared sermon, the bright spirit of Court and Crowd in Camelot did little to brighten the Bishop's sour mood.
"We are most grateful to Your Eminence" Arthur said consolingly while he and the Prelate embraced and kissed each other's cheeks. "The Queen and I could not have wished for a better, more suitable or tactful ceremony."
"It's a rare, sad thing, crowning two High Queens within four months" the Bishop shot back. "Without having a state funeral in between."
"I doubt the occasion could be jollier than it already is" Gwendolyn commented with a sneer "even if my predecessor did lie six feet underground."
Severinus winced, gulped and for a brief moment, he, in spite of all his fineries and adornments, looked like the awkward young clergyman he had once been. "I didn't mean …. Far be it from me to wish the Lady ill….."
"We should forgive you then" Gwendolyn turned the knife in the wound as long as the pain was still fresh and raw, "Your Eminence must be under such strain, preparing for a royal christening to take place four months after the royal wedding."
Now Severinus' face turned virtually green.
"I'll refer Your Eminence's good wishes for her eternal health to My Lady Guinivere" Arthur said in some haste. "Now, if you'll excuse…." The King's hand pointed at the restless crowd behind him, waiting for a chance to leave the church.
"Your Majesty" the Bishop bowed his way out.
"Your Eminence" Arthur returned the courtesy, allowing the crestfallen priest a decent exit.
"You should not have provoked him further" Arthur whispered at Gwendolyn when they turned to leave, too. "It's unfortunate enough Severinus feels so trampled upon."
"I can't stand the stuffy oaf" Gwendolyn hissed back. "Son of a swineherd, if it had not been for his stalling, my belly would not have been that visible."
"Whoever his father was" Arthur soberly pointed out "as the Bishop of Camelot he's entitled to an opinion of his own. It is a trifle odd for a Christian Bishop to bless a marriage whilst both partners could be considered married to somebody else."
Gwendolyn guffawed, unable to restrain herself any longer. "Oh, Arthur, Great King of Prudence and Understanding, save your breath for a worthier cause than Severinus-Pompous-Ass."
She took her newlywed husband by the hand, and dragged him after her. "Let's go, or they'll empty our last larders before we can have one bite from them!" Together they rushed down the rest of the aisle, greeting this one and that one, until they had finally made it to their seats and their well-filled plates in Camelot's palace.
Leon was the first of the knights to call for a toast, and all the others followed suit, until the sun was as low in the sky as the majority of the wedding guests were in their chairs.
"I hate being pregnant" the Queen whispered into her husband's ear. "All this wine, my favourite, and I'm stuck with apple juice and water. Can't stand the stuff. Gives me the hiccup!" She giggled.
"You're in the best of companies this land has to offer" Arthur good-humouredly reminded her of the not too discreet belching around them. "The highest in Camelot share your complaint. Just not because of apple juice."
"Speaking of the highest in the land …." Gwendolyn murmured, blushing a bit. "Would you mind …..?"
"No of course not. Give him my regards."
She rose, said some merry and very innocent good-byes which anyone accused her protruding belly for, and turned to leave the hall for her bedchambers.
"Gwen!" Arthur said, and she turned back to him with questioning eyes. "Something wrong, Arthur?"
"You should let him wait for once. You're the Queen now. And you do look the part. You're very beautiful, and he's an idiot."
She smiled again, and left.
She dismissed her Ladies and girls at the first opportunity, sat down in a window niche and pulled her naked feet under her legs.
She heard his soft steps on the carpet, and her nostrils flared a bit when his familiar smell hit them.
"I've come to offer Your Majesty my humble congratulations on your marriage and coronation" Malcolm said as he hugged her neck from behind. "And may I add that Your Majesty looks a picture in this setting."
"The setting sun is always kinder to women than the rising one" she murmured. "I've missed you."
"What, me? Could I have taken part in your wedding frolics? Hardly a seemly thing to do for your enraged and offended ex-husband" he joked. "I have been on humble pie and stale water all day!"
"As if Arthur would allow that!"
"How is he?"
"Content. Happy. Looking forward to holding the baby. Same as me."
"You are still good friends, then."
"We always were, since we were children. He's leaving come Monday, by the way. To inspect the newly built abbey villages in the west." She smirked, and it made her look quite cheeky.
"I strongly advised against it" Malcolm flared up in an instant. "It is too soon."
"You are here, Malcolm, my love. In what is supposed to be Arthur's wedding night" she retorted, and there was a needle in her voice. "Is that not even sooner?"
"There must be no breath of scandal that could tarnish the child's legitimacy" Malcolm growled, stamping the ground in his impatient pacing. "I told Arthur, again and again, that this is imperative. Sometimes there's no talking to him!"
"You invented the biggest scandal possible to make our son a Pendragon." She had risen to full height, and as always Malcolm was a bit put off that she was as tall as him. And twice as angry. "What has Arthur become today, my husband or your personal property?"
"Mercy, Your Majesty. Do not bit my poor head off, it still serves the King."
"It is no good, Malcolm. You won't sweet talk your way out of this one. I knew you'd get too big for your boots again, you always do. You won't get Arthur under your thumb, not with my help!"
"Gwendolyn…"
"Don't you 'Gwendolyn' me, Malcolm Branguard, it did not work when you returned home from your whoring, and it will not work now!"
He raised his hands in surrender "whatever My Lady wishes. I only came to tell you that the children are well."
"You left them with Angus?"
"I'm sure our little lambs will take good care of their uncle."
"They're 12, 10 and seven years old, our little lambs" she said. "Quite a handful, even if your brother really wasn't such a lambskin himself."
Malcolm laughed out loud.
"Angus is still mad at his wayward sister-in-law?" She tried to keep up her angry face, but the thought of her three rowdy boys tormenting My Lord the Duke of Cornwall made her smile, and Malcolm knew that he had won.
"Mad as a dog" he said. "He asked me, in all earnest, how I could stand to see you, ever again. Wanted me to give up all my Court Offices, and publicly tell Arthur to go and rot."
"Dear Angus" Gwendolyn smiled affectionately. "You're using him, as usual. You should have come clean with him by now, it's unworthy how you treat him."
"Tell Angus the truth? Heaven forbid. He'd run to Arthur, first thing in the morning, and shout it out in front of anyone, how sorry he is for having wrongly accused his King."
"Be reasonable Malcolm, he's your brother, and your Liege!
"He'll live! What the eye does not see, the heart cannot grieve over." Again, Malcolm took her shoulders, and gave her the best 'hurt-puppy-look' from his repertoire. "You said you missed me?"
"I missed my kids."
"Liar!"
"I am their mother!"
"Arthur will ask Angus to bring the boys to Court, as soon as the new Crown Prince is born. It will be a heart-wrenching scene of forgiveness and reunion. I think I shall weep. The people will love it, we'll make the top theme of every minstrel and bard in all of Albion."
"You are a cynic, Malcolm Branguard."
"I'm a politician. What of course is quite the same. Becoming a Saint is Arthur's part."
"And mine?" Gwendolyn asked coyly.
Instead of an answer, Malcolm let his hands slide down from her shoulders, down her arms. His breathing became deeper, faster when his fingers caressed her breasts through the thin veil of her nightgown. "I trust we'll both be damned" he whispered into her ear. "We can as well make the most of it."
When they made love, he was gentle, took every consideration of the baby, yet she could still sense his heat, his enrapture.
Her own body responded as it always had, but just as her own passion engulfed her, ready to take her conscious mind away, a bitter thought shot through her head.
He hadn't been like that since their first weeks of marriage, all these years ago. Back then he'd been loving an heiress. He was loving a High Queen now. But not her. Never really her.
For a second his touch, his voice, even his smell was repugnant to her. She wanted to struggle, wanted to spit into his face. "Malcolm, stop!"
He didn't listen.
"Malcolm!" She pushed him away violently.
"What?" He was clueless as to what the problem might be.
"This cannot go on. I'm Arthur's wife. I'll share his bed from now on."
Malcolm yelped with glee. "Never you fear, Gwenny. Arthur is besotted with his Guinivere, he won't come near you, neither drunk nor sober."
Again, his hands wandered purposefully over Gwendolyn's naked skin. Damn the woman, she was as cold as a corpse all of a sudden. And as stiff.
Well, never mind. He knew how to handle a woman's mysterious whims.
He kissed her neck, the soft skin over her throat. His sensitive fingertips found all the right spots.
Gwendolyn felt her skin ripple under his expert touch.
Yet inside her, a cold gaping hole made her sick.
Once, just once in all their years together she had wanted to come out on top.
She had wanted to take away the most precious thing he had.
For betraying her. For stepping on her love and honest devotion like on so much dirt. For handing her over to Arthur, and Arthur to her, as if they both were pawns in a chess game. Or cattle on the market.
She should have known it would not work.
"I love you" Malcolm now panted. "My love, my only one, I love you. I cannot live without you."
He had nothing she could take. Nothing but this ferocious lie.
Gwendolyn closed her eyes and abandoned her mind and body to the waves that shook them both.
When Malcolm felt her tremble, saw her tears, it made him proud.
Not bad for a man after a hard day's work, aye?
He snuggled up to her, yawned and fell asleep almost at once.
He did not stir when Gwendolyn slipped out of the bed, and wandered off.
She found Arthur in his own room, opposite hers. As usual he knew what had happened from her face. "Not so good an idea after all" he stated.
Gwendolyn shrugged with more indifference than she felt. "No."
"I told you he's an idiot when it comes to women."
"Maybe."
"You must be freezing." Arthur scrambled to the other side of the bed and held his blanket up invitingly.
He tucked her in, rubbed her feet until they were warm and ruffled her hair, just as she had done with him when he had been a kid with no one to turn to but her and the Court Physician.
They talked all night, and only the first light saw them slowly doze off to sleep.
By that time, the young maid Severinus had planted among the new Queen's staff shut her big mouth that had so far done all the blabbering. She had seen it all, how My Lord Branguard had come to the Queen's bedchamber, late that night. Lord Branguard, who was supposed to be confined in his own castle, miles away, contemplating his ill fate. Lord Branguard had left the Queen's bedchamber much later, even after Her Majesty had left it, to go to her newly wed husband. No, the maid had not understood what was said, but she had heard the sounds of it all, all right. Well, it was obvious, was it not?
The girl curtsied when the Bishop thanked her. "Now leave the castle" Severinus went on "as I told you. If you do your duty, I might use you again. And pay you."
"Thank you, Your Eminence" the girl bowed, and left him. She was as much pleased with herself as with the precious golden necklace she held in her hand. As a first instalment, the Bishop had said.
Severinus went to his desk and sat down. He took his time, collecting his thoughts. Finally, he came to a decision. He took a sheet of paper, dipped his feather into the ink and began writing:
My most gracious Lord,
Barely do I find the courage to report to you a most unnatural, most hideous plot to rob our most noble, most Christian Prince and future King Lord Galahad of his rightful inheritance to which the lord Jesus Christ has entitled him by God's Grace. The Lady Guinivere, a true daughter of our Church and sister in Christ has been shamelessly displaced and ill treated …..
On and on scribbled the feather, Severinus couldn't write as fast as the words came to him.
All the humiliation, all the disappointment, his disgraceful powerlessness, when he had known he was cheated, and ridiculed …. God's own laws had been shamed and ridiculed in him. And it had all been a plot, from the very start, a plot to bring back the Old Religion, to stamp out the young, fresh, pure faith as a sapling on the soil.
Oh, did he not knew the Branguards for what they were, for what they always had been. Heretics. Every prayer, every pious donation to the Church a blasphemy, an act of vile hypocrisy.
They may cast down their eyes before the Holy Cross, but their hearts were proud, vain and obdurate. It was Satan's power that stiffened their backs, Satan's power that had given them access to the heart of an otherwise noble and glorious King.
This King's mind and soul were Severinus' garden, the garden that he had tended with so much loving care, so that it may become fertile and a safe harbour for the good seed of Christ to thrive and flourish.
And yet, in spite of all his labours, Satan's breed had defiled this garden, had led Arthur Pendragon astray, until he had cast out his gentle, most worthy wife, to put a snake on the throne of the High Queen. Once this snake's child was born, Arthur's days were numbered. The same fate would, as true as the gospel truth, befall his lawful wife Guinivere and their son Galahad.
If the young, misguided King could not see it - Severinus, his loyal, trustful servant could see it all.
And he would protect King Arthur, by all means necessary, fair or foul.
It all found its way into the letter, until it could as well have been written with Severinus' own heart's blood.
Naturally the Bishop could trust none of the Knights of Camelot, especially not those of the Round Table. Fools, blind fools, the lot of them, that they could not see what was going on in front of their very eyes. Their beloved King, his immortal soul, was in jeopardy, and still they were blind, blind!
But, the Lord be praised, there were still strong swords in Albion, held by strong arms, and strong hearts!
The Bishop rang the moment he had dried the ink with sand. In came the man who had waited for this bell to ring through the whole night.
Severinus handed him the letter, and their fingers brushed against each other.
The Bishop jerked away as if he had touched acid. Hastily he rose, and stepped back. Recoiling from the creature in front of him.
Never had he found an explanation as to why he found the man so utterly repugnant. On his own, he'd never taken the old clerk on. But, as a year ago the bald, freckled scarecrow had come from Gaul with the best recommendations and letters of reference, the Bishop had overcome his instinctive rejection and had taken him into his employ.
So far there had been no reason for complaint. The only odd thing about the old man was that the other staff avoided him as they would avoid the plague.
"See to it that it is delivered into My Lord's own hands, nobody else's" Severinus commanded.
The man laughed soundlessly as he bowed and took the letter. His open mouth sported two or three rotten teeth, and a somewhat blackish tongue. More than ever he reminded his master of a corpse that had by some error of nature escaped his grave.
The servant's cracking voice, when he answered, gave Severinus the creep. "I shall deliver it myself, Your Eminence."
"Don't be foolish, it is a ride of many miles, and in bad weather." The Bishop made it his duty to see to his subjects' needs with all possible Christian charity and brotherly love, in line with his exalted rank, superior wisdom and their humble station.
"Nonetheless, Your Eminence" the servant cackled. "My pleasure, Sir, my pleasure indeed."
"Do as you wish. The letter is urgent, that's all."
"Naturally, Sir. It is urgent, Sir, naturally."
Severinus looked up, irritated. He saw the gaping mouth, the glittering, watery eyes, and waved the servant out, a grand, but somehow impatient, uneasy gesture.
The man was almost gone when Severinus called him back. "I expect His Lordship's answer, Geor…. No…. what was your name again?"
"Jeffrey" the old man wheezed. "Jeffrey from Gryffyn, at your service."
"Look sharp now, Jeffrey. Give His Lordship my regards."
When Severinus could have seen the wheezy, brittle skeleton sweep across the road on one of the Bishop's best horses, he would have rubbed his eyes in awe. Gone was the appearance of weakness and old age's fragility.
It took Jeffrey not more than two days before he reached the letter's addressee.
The old clerk grinned and wiped his brow when he spotted the crest of the Baron Lancelot du Lac.