The Guinevere's Tale Trilogy

Chapter 8-2

I slowed as I neared a room near the end of the hall on the uppermost floor. The soft flicker of candlelight spilled out through a door slightly ajar. It took me a moment to orient myself and then my heart stopped as I realized where I was. This was my mother’s chamber.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, steeling myself with a few deep breaths. Splinters pricked my fingertips as I clawed at the wall and squeezed my eyes tight, fighting back memories of all the times I played in my mother’s wardrobe or sat on her footstool while she braided or brushed my hair. She had nursed me in that room through many ailments, insisting I would rest easier sleeping in her bed, with her warmth to soothe me. A shiver shimmied down my spine. She died in that bed. It was only natural my father would be there.

I pressed my lips together and tiptoed over to the door. I could barely make out my father’s silhouette in the pale light of the single candle burning on the windowsill like a beacon, silently calling my mother’s soul back to the place she so loved. I took another deep breath. I had thought myself prepared to face my father and all our missing years, but I was not ready to face my mother’s ghost as well.

I took a tentative step into the room, knowing my father would soon be able to see me out of the corner of his eye. “Father,” I called softly as I approached, not wanting him to mistake me for a specter.

He lifted his head and looked at me, at first unseeing as though I had roused him from a waking dream. Then slowly, comprehension dawned and he smiled, brushing away the tears staining his cheeks. “Guinevere,” he breathed. “Daughter, my heart warms to see you.”

I raced over to him and hugged him tightly, alarmed to feel fragile bone rather than the hard muscle of the warrior king I remembered. After a moment, he released me, holding me at arm’s length and squinting to consider me in the dim light.

“You are not a little child anymore.” He sighed.

I reached for a blanket draped over the edge of the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. “That is true, but even grown women have need of their fathers,” I said, climbing up into his lap just like I did as a little girl.

He wrapped his arms around me, as if he feared I would disappear like the smoke rising from the candle wick. I closed my eyes and laid my head on the crook of his neck. His hair, now turning gray, still smelled of the same imported citrus oil that punctuated my youngest memories.

“You look just like her, you know,” he said in a small, soft voice. He paused thoughtfully before adding, “I miss her.”

“So do I,” I answered, tears streaming freely now.

In the silence, I could almost forget the years that had passed, that I was now fifteen and we were grieving the death of someone so dear. I could almost make myself believe I was still the little girl who had climbed into his arms after a terrible nightmare. And in some ways, I was, for this was the worst nightmare either of us could imagine.

“Please don’t leave me,” my father whispered in an unfamiliar tone of grief. He had always been so confident, so strong, but now he was broken, pleading. “Don’t go back to Avalon. I. . . I need you here.”

I pursed my lips, realizing he was right. Unfamiliar as it first seemed, this was my home. “I will stay. You will need someone to keep the servants in line.”

He laughed, the first joyful sound I had heard since coming home.

The following morning, I discovered Morgan had an ulterior motive for making the long journey to Northgallis. Not only was she seeing me safely returned to my family’s care in Viviane’s stead, but she was also under the Lady’s orders to accompany another of our household to her new life in Avalon. Octavia’s youngest, Nimue, a small plump girl who had inherited her mother’s thick mass of dark hair and her father’s haunting green eyes, was expressly requested to return to Avalon as its newest acolyte.

As Octavia and I watched them depart, memories of how quickly I bonded with Viviane came rushing back. If Nimue adored Morgan and clung to her as a mother figure like I had to Viviane, Nimue had little chance of emerging from her period of study with her innocent soul intact. Poor girl. I prayed for her sake she would take to some of the more kind-hearted priestesses like Grainne or Rowena instead. But I dared not voice this to Octavia. She was fretting enough for both of us.

“Nimue is too young. I should not have let them take her yet,” Octavia berated herself as she led me down a path over a gently sloping hill to the grove where my mother was buried. “A few more years and she would have been the same age as you were. She would have been old enough, prepared enough to survive this. First I sent Peredur off to be fostered. Now Nimue is gone too. Although I fear I had little choice. Not only did the Lady of the Lake request her presence, I could not very well let her grow up here. Your father would have sent her to a convent before the spring anyway.”

I stopped cold at her statement. “What did you say?”

She turned around at the sound of my voice, her pained expression making it obvious she knew she had transgressed. “Guinevere, I have told you your father is a changed man. It is time you knew the full extent.”

She led me into the grove of yew trees and sat me down on the soft grass before venturing into further explanation. “Your mother meant so much to Leodgrance that her death nearly drove him insane. For days he would neither eat nor sleep, only sit in her room and weep, uttering only a single word—why?—when visitors came to tend to him. For three days, he refused to allow her to be buried, insisting that she was not really dead. Then the fourth morning, he unexpectedly joined us at the breakfast table and announced she should be buried according to the rites and customs of her people. And so, she was laid to rest here.”

Octavia pointed toward the western end of the grove, where a large stone tablet protruded from the bare earth, which was stained red by ochre, a smattering of white quartz stones scattered at its base. The stones and pigment were talismans of the dead to my mother’s people, meant to ease the soul’s journey to the spirit world.

Slowly, painfully, fearfully, I made my way over to the burial site. Although my mother’s burial was performed according to her native traditions, the tombstone that marked her grave was set up by my father in the traditional Roman fashion of his ancestors. It bore the carved image of a slender, long-haired warrior woman in native dress, surrounded by thistles, her eyes cast to the heavens. I ran my hand over the rough surface of the stone, tracing the grooves as if doing so could bring her back again. Beneath the image was an inscription, which began—as all other Roman memorials did—with the words “Dis Manibus,” addressing the gods of the shades. It continued, “Corinna of the Votadini, wife of the king of Gwynedd, daughter of King Cunedda.” The memorial ended with the traditional Roman attribution naming the deceased’s patron. “Her husband Leodgrance set this up in her memory.”

I could no longer deny it. My mother really was dead. It was written in stone in front of me for the entire kingdom to see. The world around me faded in a blur of tears, and I dissolved in grief. Eventually Octavia’s arm encircled me, her warmth breathing life back into my frigid bones. I looked up, my eyes now parched from so much crying, never more grateful for this woman who, although officially a servant in my father’s employ, was also at once my confidant and dearest friend, more like family than many of my blood relations.

Octavia turned toward the fortress, shielding her eyes from the amber rays of the setting sun. “We must return home soon, Guinevere, but I have not yet finished what I wanted to say. I brought you here not only because you needed to come, but so you might better understand your father. You can see in this stone the love he possessed for your mother. After her burial, he was lost like a sailor without a star to guide him. He returned to his habit of sitting in her chamber. He spoke often of the dream that had prompted him to let her body go, though he would reveal its details to no one. We all knew he was still holding on to Corinna in spirit and feared what damage this would do to him. As he would speak to no one else, and your party from Avalon had not yet departed the isle, the local Christian priest was sent for in the hope that perhaps Leodgrance would speak to him.”

I bristled at the word Christian. I felt no enmity toward them as a group. In fact, they shared the Tor with us, also considering it sacred but for very different reasons. They believed Joseph of Arimathea, a follower of Jesus, settled there after Jesus’s crucifixion and brought with him magical relics of their savior. Today, they lived in crude huts of woven branches on the edges of the marsh, just beyond where the mists gave way to the outside world. But I had heard enough tales to know that not all Christians lived such humble, holy lives. Many considered the religion of Avalon in direct opposition to Christianity and, like the Romans before them, sought to destroy it. That fear was what made the hairs on my neck and arms stand at attention every time I heard the word.

Octavia noticed my reaction and patted my hand. “We did what we thought was best.” She sighed. “As it turned out, our good intentions only made things worse. The young priest, Father Marius, who came to our door did get your father to return somewhat to normal, but he also convinced him that his dream was a sign your father should give up the religion of his ancestors and embrace this new god, this Christ. Your father was so taken with this priest and his promises of an eternal life that he willingly agreed, intent on dragging the rest of us along with him.”

She pulled me to my feet, continuing her story as we ambled back to the hall, where we would soon be expected for the evening meal. “Of course, I would not go along with this outrageous notion, and I told him so. He was not pleased and threatened not only my position in his house but the future of my child as well, decreeing she would be reared in a Christian convent as soon as arrangements could be made. It was then I determined that my little rose would be transplanted to Avalon when you returned. Anything would be better for her than being raised in this household, such as it is now.”

Octavia’s words tore at my heart as surely as if she had stabbed me. Not only had I lost my mother, but my father, despite his love for me, had become a stranger as well, and I now faced a life in a home that did not recognize the religion I was vowed to serve. As we returned through the yawning castle gates, for the first time, I feared my future life at Northgallis.