Fic: Ah, Child of Countless Trees

[rainbowjehan]

Title: Ah, Child of Countless Trees
Author: Soujin
Characters/Pairings: Ragnelle/Gawain, Mordred, Gaheris, Gareth, Agravain, Arthur, Guenever, Lynet, Lyonors, Laurel, Gwenhwyfach, Clarissant, Morgan le Fay, Peredur, Florence, Lovel, Guinglain, mentions of many, many others.
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Yes
Disclaimer: Copyright has presumably expired.
Summary: The life and times of Dame Ragnelle of Inglewood.
Notes: Beta-read by mhari and gileonnen.

Ah, Child of Countless Trees

I don't know how my brother and I were born, but I know it was not the way other children are. We were sired on trees by the Other People, or the fey folk, as sometimes they were called, and we were born, twins, in autumn, when the leaves were changing. We had no parents. None of the Other People would lay claim to us, so we were raised by them not singly but as a whole.

The forest where we were born was Inglewood. It was the widest forest in Britain in those days, and we could feel everything that happened in it. Most of the trees that were cut down were at the outskirts, and taken by Men who had need of them, either to shelter or warm themselves or cook their food, and we, the forest, did not begrudge them. We felt it, the bite of axe in wood, but we understood that it was a pain that could be forgiven. Necessity, we learned, could often be forgiven.

As the years passed the clearing grew more unnecessary, and hurt more. Now it hurts more than it ever has, but when I was a child it was customary.

Also customary was the change of seasons. We felt those too. In the winter we grew slow and stupid, both of us, and huddled in the brush, eating little cakes of meal the Other People brought to us. As spring advanced we turned lively, and began to grow--I was soon taller than my brother, and my hair grew long as a sweeping branch. By summer we ran through the woods like deer, fleet of foot. The Other People watched over us.

One of the women taught me that I had magic: very little, and not strong, but it would serve me. I could help speed a wound to healing, or ease a sickness; could bring comfort and a measure of warmth to someone who was suffering. I had little cause to use my skill, except on my brother, who was clumsy and prone to hurt himself.

When we were children, he and I were moderate good friends. We made a way of speaking with each other: a bastardised British that we had much filled with words of our own making, and words taught us by the Other People (so that no one else can ever fully understand me when I speak it--even Gawain, though he often took my meaning). We slept side by side and shared our food, and the Other People taught us together--we learned to hawk by calling the birds to us and offering friendship, and to ride upon stags. We were dressed in very fine cloth which the Other People made themselves from sweet-tongued spells and wool stolen from all manner of animals. They also traded this for gifts and rare herbs in the British cities. My brother and I were both beautiful, and together in our finery we made a good pair to look on. If we were horses we would have been a set a man would be a fool to break.

But we strained with each other as we grew older. He was short-tempered and when he grew angry he struck. I was impatient and proud. We soon found that we could not speak two minutes together but we were fighting, and he would slap my face and I would make him cold and before long we had both become exhausted from the misused magic. When we were forced to stop, often we sat and seethed at one another.

Finally, when we were fourteen, he left the forest for the city outside. It was after one of our worst fights, and he staggered up off the ground where he had fallen and cried,--

"I am going!"

"Go, then," I said, nursing the bruise above my eye. "Get thee gone."

"Aye. Aye, I am." He caught up a stick from the ground and held it like a sword before him. "I hate thee. Witch!"

I spat at him. "Fool! Devil!"

And then my brother turned away from me and walked with a straight back until I could no longer see him.

I stayed within to learn.

The Other People tempered my impatience and tricked me out of my pride as though I were fox's fur on the carding comb--like the cloth, which I too learned to make, they wove me; first they pulled out my burrs and spun me, but in the end they made a fine piece of material from me. I was a tall woman with dark hair and because either my mother or father was a tree I was forest-fair. The sunlight on me made me dance, as it does leaves, and sometimes a little soft moss would grow between my fingers or toes. I was for-ever finding a vine had curled halfway up my ankle, or a flower had bloomed behind my ear. I was blessedly not thin, like ash or beech, but thick and sturdy as oak or birch. There was a taint of sap in my blood.

I loved this. I loved myself. I found myself as beautiful as I was.

I never expected to see my brother again, but I was much content with the thought. I would live my life in the forest, making small magic, sleeping in winter and growing anew in spring, and giving what I made to the Other People for trading in cities I would never see. They brought me back surprising gifts, candied fruit or illuminated pages which I could not read but loved to look at, and I was satisfied.

One day I awoke to find a knight beside me, kneeling, in his full armour. He wore no helmet, and I could see that his dark hair had a twist of root in it he had tried hard to cut, that behind his eyes there was a memory of days when he rode upon deer.

"Ragnelle," he said. "Wake up." And he jabbed me in the side with his gauntlet.

I swore at him. "I am awake, fool, hast thou not eyes?"

"Eyes to see thee living here under no roof, in the cold of autumn," he said, and grasped my hand. "Come with me. In the city thou shalt have a house."

"Why should I desire that?"

"No true woman would live in these woods."

"Am I not woman? Mary, what hast thou thought thou didst live with all those years?"

"Sister, if thou art not woman but take that shape, thou art a devil."

"No more devil than thee." I plucked at the root in his hair, and he struck me across the face.

"Come with me. Thou wilt not live here longer."

"Why not? What use hast thou for me?"

"Thou shalt keep my house and be pleasant to my lady."

"Thy servant, that is what thou wish'st?"

"If that is what thou callst it."

"What wilt thou do? If I don't go with thee, wilt kill me?"

"I'll have thee burned," he said, softer than I had ever heard him speak, leaning close to me. "I will burn the woods first, and then thee."

I had never been afraid of him before, but I was then. I think now it was stupid of me, because I do not doubt I might have done something to get the better of him, my clumsy, hated brother, but at the time I was young and every shudder of the woods touched me within, and the thought of burning trees made my blood ache. I went with him. He had a horse, a very lovely gelded male, and we rode back to the city.

He was neither the best-known nor the most important man there, and the house he had was of a middle size and very plain. We ate together in bitter silence. During the day I did my best to make his life difficult--I performed no tasks he bade me do, and I would coax the root in his hair to grow overnight. He was courting a lady who stayed in the city and hoped I would be her friend, but I contrived always to be ill or busy or else I made some trouble for him when she was intended to come.

It happened that this lady had some liking of my brother, and at last she consented to come to our house despite me. She was fair, much fairer than I in the way of Men, and she made conversation with me while I answered unkindly and my brother lurked in the doorway, giving me evil looks.

Suddenly she turned to him and said, "Sir, your sister is insolent."

"Forgive me, my lady," he said.

"I do not bide insolence."

"I pray you forgive me."

I sat quietly by while they spoke.

"Sir, I believe that you are faithful and would be true to me."

"Anything, my lady," he said, with a loving fervour I had never before imagined in his voice. For a moment I felt in my own heart the longing of curled leaf-buds for sun, and I was almost sorry.

"Help me defeat my brother, and I will do the same to your sister."

"Aye," he said, before I could make move to defend myself. At once the lady turned and cursed me--as lightning strikes a tree, even so swift, and as she spake she cast me back into the forest.

I didn't know my brother's fate. I only knew that I had been returned to Inglewood. I was crippled and could hardly walk, but it was no matter to me. I found a tree deep within the woods and sat there, and stayed there, all through the rest of the winter and the advent of spring. The lady had made me very, very ugly in both the way of Men and the way of trees--I was so thin I could touch my ribs, and my skin was scaly and fell from me, leaving raw patches behind. I could see only badly because of rheum in my eyes, and my bones all hurt. The flowers that would bloom on me had been killed, and the moss died back as in winter, and, less terribly, I was what Men would call deformed: my face did not look like a face, and my limbs were not like limbs. This I did not so much mind, because I thought I looked more like the tree I sat beneath.

Still, I felt the ugliness, and I felt the fearful age that left me unable to move around my forest and lay my hands upon the trees. I had always been able to do this. The loss made me weep sometimes. I could not with all my magic do anything to ease the heartache of being kept from the thing I loved most in the world, and, moreover, was tied to.

For I cannot be too long from the woods. They always bring me back; I have no choice. During that year I didn't care, I loved nothing else, all I wanted was to give in. The Other People came to me and fed me, but they could do nothing to undo the lady's curse. As it is with all curses, there were conditions, but I did not know them, nor how I might free myself, and the Other People had no help for me.

I think I was a little mad when Arthur came.

He was handsome and fine, he was young, still, then. He was leading his horse and he was lonely: that I could easily feel on him. He missed his wife. He was a little frightened because he couldn't find what he was looking for.

I called to him.

He was a good man, Arthur. He came to me at once, though I know I was foul enough to Men that it was difficult to look at me. I, an old and ugly woman, I sat beneath the tree there and waited for him as if I had been waiting all my life.

"Grandmother?" he asked me.

"What troubles thee?" I tried to speak as well as I could, that he might understand me--I knew he was the King. I had never seen him before, or even heard of him, but I could feel it, as easily as I had felt his loneliness and his separate worries.

"I'm questing, Grandmother, but I can't find the thing I'm looking for," he answered. He had been taught, as children were, to answer strange old people he might meet in forests.

"What dost thou look for?"

"There's a knight who says these woods are his, and I gave them to another knight unlawfully. He has bound me to answer a question, and if I don't he'll kill me and take my kingdom."

"These woods are his?"

"His name is Sir Gromer Somer Joule."

"His name is Charlot, and he's my stupid bastard of a brother," I said, with a laugh. "What's his question?"

"'What is it women want'." He smiled ruefully. "I've asked every woman in a thousand miles, and Gawain has, too."

"Gawain?"

"My best knight, my nephew. He swore to ride with me and help me find the answer."

"I know it," I said.

"You, Grandmother?"

"It's obvious." I suddenly realised my cheeks were wet with tears, and I was amazed: I had never wept before. "Shall I tell thee?" I asked, too quickly, as the old heart that belonged to my worn body sat painful within me.

"I ask you humbly," he said.

"They want their own way. That's his answer. Go thou and tell him, and--do thou come back when thou hast done it."

He kissed me on both cheeks and rode away. I sat in silence. I did not know whether he would come again.

The woman who had taught me about my magic brought me a little supper that evening and crouched beside me on the ground. I could barely feed myself, so she broke what she had brought into small pieces and gave it to me. She sang to me like the wind in branches. She said she would miss me when I went away.

"I don't understand," I told her.

She told me I would go away with the King.

"To what purpose?" I asked.

She told me that I would be married.

"Why should I be married?" I asked.

To be myself again, she said.

"How should that be?"

I would ask my husband to give me my own way, and if he did, the lady's magic on me would lose hold.

After that I couldn't sleep. I sat awake all night, waiting for Arthur to return. Laughing, I cursed the Other People, that they should know my future but not tell me unless it was dragged from them. Oh, I was joyful. I could bear to leave the forest if it was to come back to it whole.

In the morning Arthur came to me. He was as happy as I was, full with the promise of safety and oh to see his sweet wife again, and he gladly knelt before me and bade me ask any gift of him I should conceive.

"Take me back with thee," I said, "and find me a husband."

Gawain defended Arthur when I told this story to him, saying that it was unquestionably not horror in his eyes, that it was only his wisdom thinking of the best way to suit my request; but Gawain was charitable to his young uncle. Arthur flinched.

"Grandmother," he said to me, "I'd marry you myself to keep my promise--"

"Choose me a husband from among thy knights."

He started to tell me it was impossible, and that he'd never put such a burden on one of his men, but he held back those words and instead told me he would, for he was indebted to me. He looked so disturbed at the thought of me married into his fellowship, this poor King. I think perhaps he hoped to move me with his looks. I was too happy with the prospect of becoming myself again: I did not imagine I would stay long with my husband, no longer than need be to be restored, and then I would leave again for Inglewood and live as I was meant. I happily thought better of telling him so, though it might have eased his mind a little.

He set me on his horse and sat behind me to hold me steady as we rode, saying that Gawain would have done better. I asked why, and he told me Gawain was the best horseman in Britain or elsewhere, and would have held me more gently and with more skill.

I made him tell me about Gawain.

Politely, Arthur said, "He's a good man, he's earned his place. My sister's son. He's the eldest of his brothers but one, and when he came he was only a boy, younger even than I was when I made king, but he took to the questing and the fighting as if he'd been born in his armour. He has great big hands, and he laughs easy--he has an accent, since from the north country," and, warming to the talk, he tried to mimic it for me, and I croaked my laugh. "He's friendly to everyone, and he's loyal to me and his brothers--heaven above knows it'd be an unlucky man who hurt any of us."

"What else?" I asked.

"He's called the Maiden's Knight. He owes a debt to all women: he killed a lady once mistakenly because he wouldn't show mercy, and now he fights for them to make penance. He does it with a passion," laughing. "Some of the men think he's a fool because he's from Orkney, and it's so out of the way. Gawain says they get all the news last of the country. And his accent, they call him a rustic. But he's as clever as anyone, and I think, truly, more good-hearted. He's a good man."

I was, despite my body, still a maiden. I was only twenty. If Gawain had been anybody less than the King's favourite, and his nephew besides, I might have been married to him, I thought. He might obey his provenance and be the one to take me. As it was, I expected that Arthur would find an older knight who could expect soon to be free of me, or someone with poor eyesight (I laughed again, but did not tell Arthur why).

Later we rode into Camelot, and it was shining. All the towers were tall and there was bright laundry hung from the windows and children running in the streets, and well-fed animals with their carts pushed along beside each other. It was never Eden, but it was beautiful, very beautiful, under Arthur's hands.

He called his knights together at once; left me in the ante-room, and went travel-stained to tell them they need not fear for him or the kingdom, the knight who meant to put an end to both had been destroyed, and a woman had saved them. He said woman very kindly. Still, he told them, she wished a husband in return for her service. He would not force any man to marry who had no wish--

He was drowned out by laughter.

"Jesu, my lord, what's she like?" one man cried. "You speak so fearfully! She must be hideous."

Arthur laughed with them for a moment and then sobered. "No, you must know--"

"Bring her in," a young voice said. "Let us see her, the woman who's saved us."

He came and let me in.

They hushed then, those brave boys. Most of them looked away. I had not until then realised the full extent of my ugliness--I had never truly hated my body for its appearance as I had for its limits. But to stand there in front of a room of men who could not look at me, that brought me aware of myself. I was ashamed, and I had never been ashamed in my life.

I saw a few men there who still looked on me. One was a dark-haired young one who stood very close to another with ruddy gold-red hair like all the trees at the change of the season. They were both short and small-bodied, and the red-head was smiling while the other spoke to him softly.

"Friends," said Arthur, "I have promised her a husband. I will not ask it of you if you will not, but we must find a good man for her somewhere. I would myself marry her if I were not already."

No one spoke.

Arthur looked pained, more for their sakes than mine, I think.

Then, suddenly, the red-headed young man stepped forward. His companion caught at his arm, a small, secret movement I almost did not see.

"I will, my lord." His accent was warm and thick.

"I don't ask it of you," Arthur said, too quickly.

"You swore to do her that honour, and you can't yourself fulfil it. Who has more cause than I do? My lady," he said to me. "My lady, will you take me for your husband?"

I would have taken anyone who asked. "I will," I answered, courteously as I could.

"I'm glad." He half-grinned at me. "Thank you. Will you marry me to-night? We shouldn't wait."

"I think so too."

"Good. My lord," turning to Arthur, "will you make ready for our wedding?"

"Yes. Of course."

"I'll go get dressed." He bounded off, followed closely by the black-haired boy, who I heard arguing with him.

That evening, after I had bathed--I was permitted to do so, it being my wedding--a harried woman came to do her best to fit a gown on me. It took much cutting and rearranging of pieces to make the gown lie smoothly along my humped back, and to keep the front hem at a manageable length, that I might walk in it. My hair could not be dressed, because I had almost none. The harried woman brought a crown of white flowers for my spotted head, and placed it there with gentleness I had not expected from her. She was very kind to my old body, though she made noises of complaint and exasperation when anything went wrong.

She was just pulling on my sleeve for the eleventh time (it rubbed a lump on my arm, and I kept pushing it up above my elbow) when a small, lovely woman entered the room and asked her to leave.

This woman I knew to be the Queen. She was young and childlike in her features, but a thoughtful woman nonetheless, wise in the way of youth without the wisdom of age. She glanced at me and then looked away; not, however, disturbed by my looks, I thought.

"My lady," she said. "The knight who is to be your husband--that is King Arthur's nephew."

"Ay?" I pushed my sleeve up.

"His eldest nephew but Sir Mordred. That is Sir Gawain."

I did not speak.

"He means much to my husband, he is his best knight, his favourite, and a graceful youth--surely you see that. He's young yet. I ask you--we're both women. Truly, I ask you, don't marry him. Refuse him. Surely there's someone else. He's so young, lady, understand."

"So am I," I said, thoughtlessly.

The Queen looked pained. "He's not from this country. We think he has a sweetheart back in Orkney. Please, let him go, take someone else."

"He said he would marry me."

"He's bound to!"

"I like him," I said. I did. I liked his warm accent, his open face, his easy movements. Besides, he had not turned from me.

She took a breath. Such a young Queen. "My husband has wealth at his disposal, lady. We hoped to use it for the good of the kingdom, but, if you will not otherwise be persuaded, I hope you will think of a sum pleasing to you and leave before your wedding."

I shook my head, which hurt. I was close to freedom, would soon be myself again, and was near-panicked at the thought that I might somehow be stopped, and I spoke to her more cruelly than I might have. "I will not. Hast thou seen him, Majesty? He's a fine man with a fine body. If I muster the strength, I should have a fine wedding night, as well. Look at me: I'll die soon at any rate, will I not?"

She closed her face to me and left.

The ceremony was slow and strange, and, had I been a child who had grown up with a picture of how my wedding should be, I would have been sorely disappointed. The music was sad and sonorous, the few knights who had come to see the spectacle looked grim, and Queen had not come at all. The King's priest married us in a little chapel, where Gawain had great difficulty fitting a ring onto my bent, swollen fingers. When he was permitted to kiss me, he did it gingerly. The black-haired young man, who was among the congregation, scowled fiercely at me throughout.

The feast afterwards was further disheartening. There was no music at all, for this, and my new husband ate sparingly, though he drank a little. The other young man, I learned, was his half-brother, Mordred, whom the Queen had earlier mentioned. Mordred drank somewhat more, and continued to look at me, sometimes whispering about me to Gawain. I wanted badly to leave, to be away from it, but instead I sat at table, doing my best to be cheerful. I could forgive Mordred. He didn't know I planned to leave. He thought I was ruining his brother's chance at marrying happily; of course he was angry.

At last it was done. The people who had come cleared away quickly, and very soon there was no one left but the three of us.

Gawain smiled at Mordred and bade him good-night, saying he would see him on the morrow. Mordred answered sullenly.

We went up.

Oh, then I was almost frightened. If the woman had been wrong, if this would do no good-- I had difficulty undressing, and Gawain politely looked away from me, though I saw that he was dutifully stripping off his shirt and hose. After that he sat naked on the side of the bed, waiting for my readiness. I tore the gown in taking it off, and nearly cried out in frustration. In the end, however, it lay in a heap on the floor, and I approached my new husband.

I could already feel my movements become less painful, my back straightening, my hands smoothing out. I held them before me. My nails were pale and grainy as beech bark. I threw my head back freely and felt my hair brush against my shoulders like a branch of fir. A long vine had wandered up my leg, spreading leaves against the inside of my thigh. At that moment I understood the conditions of the lady's curse on me: such curses are always the same.

I touched Gawain's shoulder as lightly as I could, and he turned to me; thereupon he nearly fell off the bed, and laughed with confusion.

"Lady, who are you?"

"Thy wife," I said.

"Lady, my wife is an old woman."

"That was me," I said, and joyfully. "Look thou, since thou hast married me, at night thou wilt see me fair. In the day I must be foul."

He laughed again, and reached out to me. "Truly? It doesn't matter to me. Excuse me, my lady."

"I could be fair during the day, when others must look at me."

"Is that your choice?"

"It should be thine. Thou art my husband."

Gawain ducked his head. "You're my lady. And if you're lovely at night, that's my good fortune, but if you're lovely in the day, people would treat you better--people being what they are, my lady, and I'm sorry for that. I can't choose that for you. Choose to satisfy yourself."

I am not a woman who weeps, but I might have wept then. I was to be myself. I could move, I could run, I could feel again. I could move again in the world, my body being awakened, and the cold of the autumn air chilled me, the warmth of Gawain's body warmed me, this skin of mine which for so long had been so hard and thick it let nothing in. When I came into his bed it was without pain, without the sideways limp my lumped back had given me.

We crushed the vine on my leg, but I have never been happier.

~~~

In the morning when we woke he put out his arms for me.

"Lady, you're still beautiful. Did you choose?"

"I have chosen to be fair all the time," I said, and I laughed as he drew me close again and kissed my hair.

We talked while we later dressed, telling about ourselves--he how he loved this cold weather because it reminded him of home, I explaining the moss between my fingers. He touched and kissed it.

"I should tell Mordred," he said. "He'll be glad to know."

"Dost think?"

"He warms to people. It takes a little while. He likes my friends."

But when I left our room Mordred scowled at me from the hall, despite my new fairness, and when I tried to speak to him he answered shortly. Gawain insisted that it would be some time before he regarded me as welcome, so I put off my return to the forest. At first I meant to wait a few days, but they became weeks, and then months, and I spent that time glad in the company of my husband and hard at work to win the favour of his elder brother.

But for the present: that morning, Gawain took me to meet his family. I had learned there were other brothers, and his sister, his aunt--young as I was, I worried that I might displease them as I had Mordred, but I wanted more to please my husband.

The aunt was the first. We came across her in the hall as we went down, and I stopped in astonishment and stared quite openly.

"Mary--" I caught hold of Gawain's arm.

The lady my brother had so loved stared back at me. "You? Insolent brat, did I not see you well got rid of?"

"Aunt Morgan?" Gawain asked politely, frowning between us.

"Thine aunt?"

"Yes, my mother's sister."

"Oh, I have met her before." I turned solemnly to Morgan. "Lady, I am thy nephew's wife. And thou--thou art the King's sister, is it not so? He is the brother thou didst speak of unto my brother?"

She scowled far more fierce than Mordred. "True."

Courteously I picked my skirts to her. "I pray thou wilt receive me into thy family."

"Have I choice else?" she asked me through her teeth.

Gawain smiled in confusion, and I hung on his arm. "I rejoice, lady. My lord, wilt thou take me to meet the others?"

We left Morgan in the hall.

His brothers I was made known to in Agravain's room--he was the middle brother, the third of five. When he saw me he at once said,--

"Brother, that's not the woman you married yesterday."

"Nay," I said. "I have a better temper by far."

"And fewer years," he remarked.

"More in the way of teeth."

"Doubtless that's useful."

"Else I could not leave the marks I have upon thy brother's throat."

"God's blood!" He made a face as Gawain blushed. "No, don't say that. I can't think about it. By Christ, woman, did your sense of shame die with that body?"

"She that I was, and I myself, we were neither of us shameful."

"Were either of you useful?"

"I cannot sew, but I can hawk."

He turned grudgingly to Gawain. "Keep her. She's pretty enough to lay and she talks well. I should have offered before you."

As he was one of the ones who had turned away, I laughed, even as Gawain reprimanded him sharply for his words about me. I laid my hand on his arm again.

"Let him say what he will, it hurts me not."

"You aren't human, are you?" Agravain reached out for the flower behind my ear and tugged on it lightly, but it did not immediately come lose, being as rooted as my hair; he nodded with satisfaction. "Fairy, aren't you?"

"I am half a tree."

"Can we trust you?"

"As I trust thee."

"Oh!" came a sudden cry, and a boy with a head of golden curls all but leapt upon me, smiling widely. "Are you Gawain's wife? I'm sorry I wasn't here for the wedding. I heard about it too late. I was just away for a few days, it always happens that way. Hello!" He embraced me, and I held him back.

"Which art thou?"

"Gareth! I'm the youngest. They all tease me."

"How old art thou?"

"Oh, eighteen. And I'm married already. But we're all so short, people think I'm younger. It's not really fair."

I laughed and kissed his hair. "But thou art the fairest."

"I am! But, really, it just looks tawny because of the light-- Oh, you made a joke, didn't you?" He beamed. "Thank you, my lady."

"Thou'rt most welcome. I am glad indeed to meet thee."

"So am I!" He had a face made for smiling, and he had not stopped since he had come in. "And you'll have to meet Lyonors, she's my wife, and probably you should meet Lady Lynet, but you'll have to be careful, because she's not as nice. I mean, there's nothing wrong with her. She's fine. But she's a little bit--sharp. I had to go questing with her."

"Yet didst survive."

"Well, that was mostly because she knew where we were going. And she was very clever about things."

"Mary, she must have been."

"Right, to marry Gaheris instead of him. I hate the runt," Agravain complained. "Get him out of my room."

"Where is Gaheris?" Gawain frowned lightly. "That's all of you but him."

"He's out again. You know how he is." Agravain shrugged.

"How is he?" I asked.

"Mad." That was Agravain again, of course. "He's touched. He can't do anything right, so Mother used to spell him, and I think she used a few too many. You should see him on the field--he drops everything. I think even Griflet could do better than he could."

Gawain rapped Agravain's head with his knuckles. "Gaheris does his best."

"But he's no good."

"He'll get better."

Gareth, meanwhile, was following me like a kitten, full with questions as a nest with eggs. He wanted to know my name, what my home was like, whether I had grown up with other children.

"Only my brother," I said, "and he was a devil. I am well rid of him, being here."

"I know," Gareth said, a little morose. "Sometimes I wish I didn't have brothers, either. But you can't help it."

"Canst thou not?"

"No. It's the way it is, with us. They all say so. Family's most important. Even if you don't like them, you have to watch out for them."

"Surely they all like thee?"

"Sometimes. Mostly they tease, though."

"Is the runt slandering our names?" Agravain shouted, ducking out of Gawain's reach. "Get him out of my room! Go sew with your wife, Gareth, help her mend her stockings! God knows you never do anything else when you're alone together," he added, as Gareth fled.

"You don't have any children either," Gawain said mildly.

"Not for lack of damn well trying. She's barren, that's what it is, just like the Queen."

"Don't speak ill of the Queen."

"I don't. It's true. They've been married nearly eleven years, and no heir."

"Is it so long?" I looked at him in surprise. "She's yet young."

"Ay, well, they married when she was seventeen."

"Truly?"

"He met her at her father's castle--he was twenty-eight himself, I've heard."

"Gossip." Gawain rapped him again. "Stop. Not about the Queen, or anyone else, for that matter. It's bad manners."

"Hell with manners."

"Don't make me drag you outside and knock you down."

He was so cheerful with his threats that I could scarcely credit Agravain's at once falling sulkily silent.

I found that I liked Agravain, though he reminded me of my brother, rough and impatient. His sense of humour consisted more of insults than wit, but I did not mind it. After that first day we often argued, increasingly more vulgar in our language, until someone interrupted us: then we fell into a silence where we met eyes around the person who had stopped us, and at length we both burst out laughing. He liked to have someone with whom to laugh at other people, and I was willing.

In the afternoon after I met him, we went hawking together. The weather was fine, and Arthur had need of Gawain, so I was left alone, and Agravain and I saddled two horses from the stable, borrowed merlins from among the King's own, and rode up into the hills. Agravain threw his face into the wind, his ruddy hair blowing and his shoulders taut with pleasure, and there was something poetic in him I had not seen indoors. He was happy.

Inside he was like a caged animal.

We rode and ran until evening, and came back with a fine pair of hares and a pheasant. Agravain by then was speaking freely to me. His wife, Laurel, he said, he had loved when he married, but no longer cared for. He could tell her nothing.

He wanted a companion, I think, and I was that.

I met Gaheris that night at supper, after we had returned and rubbed down the horses, and given our prizes to the King's cook. We went up to change from our riding clothes, and near the room I shared with Gawain I nearly knocked into a thin, pale young man with a face that was neither handsome nor ugly, only very resigned. Upon seeing me he gave a little stifled noise and started backwards. I held out my hands.

"Oh, forgive me, I meant not to startle thee. I did not see thee."

He let his breath out. "Gawain's wife. Yes? His new wife. I thought I saw you. Before. In the yard."

"Ay, I am."

He half-smiled, almost apologetically. "Good. He likes you."

"And thou? Dost thou like me?"

"I don't know you."

I saw the flicker. It was a little movement behind his eyes, an uncertainty, an unhappiness, a secret I could not guess, though I could feel it on him. I could not see into him as I had Arthur.

"No," I said. "Not yet dost thou."

"What's your name?"

"Ragnelle, from Inglewood."

"Gaheris. --I'm Gaheris." The corner of his mouth moved with that resignation that was on his face. "God--I'm usually better than this. I don't know what it is to-night. I can feel sick things everywhere--" He shook his head. "I think Mother's angry."

"Why should she be?"

"It's the way of things. She's never pleased with me."

"Why not?"

"I'm not good at anything. A poor speaker, a poor fighter, a poor lover. I shamed my father while he lived."

"I think thou speakst well." I offered him my hands again.

"I can't talk to you." He pulled back.

"Hush, nay, thou canst. Where wast thou to-day?"

"With Lynet."

"Who's Lynet?"

"My wife."

"Tell me of her."

"She's a shrew, she's a harpy." I began to dread that none of my new brothers had married happily, but suddenly he smiled, the strangest smile I had ever seen, a twist or a crinkle, like a root, that was both warm and wry. "She's a hellion. She's wonderful. She's Gareth's wife's sister--God knows I didn't do anything to win her, but she married me at any rate. You should meet her. She's beautiful."

I smiled back.

"But I can make her happy," he said.

"Good. I am glad," I said, and this time when I gave my hands he took them gingerly. He had flinched away when I touched him before, but this time he carefully did not.

"I talk too much. I'm sorry."

"Be not so." While I touched him, I pushed warmth into him from my little store of magic, willing him to be eased and calm. He did not resist, until I leaned forward to kiss his cheek; and then he flinched again.

"Forgive me."

"No--no. It's my fault. I'm sorry." He pulled away. "Good-night."

"Good-night," I called after him, as he turned down the hall.

Afterwards we often walked together, and he sometimes would laugh when he talked--he could be winning, though his charm was in his rueful talk of his own failings, which often he could speak of without trouble. It was only, I learned, when he had word of his mother that he showed the madness.

Gareth still trailed me when I was in the castle, asking to fetch me things or for answers to all the questions he conceived. I praised him freely for his eagerness and his favours; and he was joyful.

Still I was no closer to winning Mordred. I saw him nearly every day, but he was cold and brief and secret.

Soon after I had met my brothers I met their wives. Lyonors was a pleasant girl, childlike but more sensible than Gareth. We stood by the window and she looked down into the training yards, where he and Sir Lancelot went against each other with their swords.

"He is brave," she said softly.

I listened.

"He brought me from Castle Perilous. I didn't think I would ever leave." She laid her hand on the window-ledge and followed him with her eyes.

"He's a good boy," I said.

Lyonors cast her eyes up to me. "He loves me."

"Ay," I said. "Ay, I have heard him speak of thee."

"I'm glad I'm not Laurel."

"Ay?"

"Agravain doesn't love her."

"It seems not so."

"It's not." She traced a pattern on the stone. "Gareth says he used to. He says Agravain courted her for a year. But he doesn't love her now. I've seen them."

"I never have. Where does she live?"

"Not here. He goes back to her when he's not at court. He hasn't brought her since our wedding."

"That is a sorry thing."

"We're lucky," she said, as she looked at me. "I'm lucky. I'll always be kind to him. I don't want to be like Laurel."

Below us the practise ended, and Lyonors leaned out the window.

"My lord!"

They both looked up; Gareth smiled and waved to her.

"My lady!"

"Do thou wait! I'll come down to thee!" She spake fair-voiced, and I left her running down the stairs to meet him.

Lynet was not as sweet-tempered as her sister. Once, as I went down to bring Gaheris some steep of herbs I had made, I heard her--I heard them both, their voices raised--through their open door, though it would have made little difference were it closed.

"Damned harpy!" That was Gaheris.

"Bastard!" she shouted back. "Oh, thou hast a silver tongue, indeed, when thou speakst unto me!"

"God, thou wilt kill me before I grow older."

"It will serve the world well; we shall be glad to be rid of thee."

"How thou dost flatter."

"How thou dost fall short, thou fool! What insult is that? Is it to hurt me? Pah!"

"I could never hurt thee."

"Idiot. Thou dost nothing right. Thou canst not even fight with thy wife as thou shouldst."

Then I heard Gaheris laugh, and a moment later the two of them spilled out into the hall, in each other's arms.

"Should never have married thee," Lynet said.

"More my mistake than thine."

They laughed again, holding close, and I felt my heart so filled that I could not look, and turned away: I had never seen Gaheris truly happy before.

Mordred was married to the Queen's sister, Lady Gwenhwyfach, who was friendly and open. With her I spoke long hours about her homeland and mine, and of the sea, for she had seen it and I never had. We both much loved creatures, and we would lay down milk for the castle cats, and watch the falconers in the mews.

"I am afraid for him sometimes," she said, one day when we were down in the stables, offering a bit of stolen marzipan to the horses. "I shouldn't tell you, but I am."

Our shoulders brushed as the horses nosed us roughly, searching for more treats, licking in between our fingers. She spoke of Mordred.

"Why dost thou fear?" I asked.

"Because he hurts. Because he's bitter with being stared at and whispered about all his life. I do know it. He always comes to me to climb inside." She brushed back her hair with one hand. "It's all right for a little while."

I knew why they whispered: he was Arthur's bastard with Gawain's mother, who was Arthur's sister. It made him the King's son and nephew, and he could not be recognised for an heir.

"He doesn't want to be heir," Gwenhwyfach said. "He's just tired of knowing. Arthur tries to apologise with things--with me, it was meant to be an honour, to marry me. He doesn't want those things. He just wants to be Gawain's brother. I wish it could be changed."

I put my hand on her hair, and she turned to me and held me tight. It hurt, this: that I often had no answers but to offer myself. I had never felt the need to help another person before, but for all of them I ached to ease their separate troubles, and could not.

There was a sister, too: Clarissant, who was a Wise Woman with far more power than I had. She was mad, far madder than Gaheris, but she wore it well, and we were able to speak when we were together, though her words were often broken and in halves. She had laid charms on all her brothers, more strong than I could ever have given them. When I first perceived them, I asked what they were for.

"Colds. Otherwise they'll sneeze," she said, abruptly. "Probably when they shouldn't. They're all stupid."

I liked her.

I by then had all but despaired of ever winning Mordred's favour. I still thought on it wistfully, but I no longer expected it. The rest of them loved me, and I loved them, most truly and with all of me that did not still love Inglewood so much there was no room for else. My family--they were that. Before the word had meant my brother, my traitorous brother, and nothing good to me, nothing worth having. Now I had four brothers, and five sisters besides, all of whom were fiercely loyal to one another--they loved one another as I had never dreamed one could be loved. Moreover they had chosen to let me in, and make me part, and hold me like the roots of a tree held fast within the earth. I decided to be satisfied with what I had.

I had borne Gawain one son already when Mordred at last came to me. I was nursing my child, and he leaned in my doorway and finally said,--

"Lady."

"Sir?" I looked up.

"Thou'rt a picture of motherly comfort. God help us, ours never looked so."

"Mary, I am glad she did not, else I would question thy brother's choosing me."

"Ay, but thou dost not look now as thou didst when thou wast chosen."

"I think thy mother would be glad of that."

"Dost not know my mother."

"Something else to be glad of." I tucked Florence closer.

He laughed, and came to sit beside me, leaning on the edge of his chair. "Thou makest my brother happy."

"So too does he bring me much pleasure," I said. I often made remarks of this kind, chiefly because they made Gawain blush crimson and try to hush me if we were with others (if we were alone, he would kiss me).

Mordred touched the child's head, where the hair was downy and pale. He had a careful hand. He said to me, suddenly, "Do not hurt him. Never hurt him."

"I will not."

Then he smiled and stood, and lay his hand on my shoulder. "He is very happy. They all are."

And I knew he welcomed me.

---

It happened, when I wed Gawain, that his mother ruled Orkney, and did for the first six years of our marriage. His father, Lot, had been killed in one of the late small wars, and it was not expected that she would remarry; when she died or tired of her position Gawain would become King. He was in no hurry. He was much loved by his people, because he went to be with them often, and talked with them like a respected brother, and listened to them. They sent him gifts, and, oh, they made celebration when we came to stay, as if there had never been such a King on those isles. But his mother was youthful, though she was past forty, and showed no sign of being ready to give up her small throne; and Gawain would wait.

"She isn't kind," he told me. "That's the only reason I worry. She's clever--she knows how to manage a country, and she does it right, but she tries to fix things when she doesn't think they're good enough, and sometimes they don't need fixing. Like Gaheris. It would have been better if she'd left him alone."

"I know," I said.

"Lynet does well by him, at least. I don't think we can do more than that."

"Sometimes he'll speak with me."

"I'm glad." He kissed my hand. "What he needs most--it's not to be near Mother. It's better he's here with us. That's most important."

So by turns we did our best to keep Gaheris and Lynet in Camelot, and he did seem better. Sometimes even he laughed, and laughed well, and Lynet grew less sharp-tongued. Then, in winter, when Gawain was away at Arthur's request, and I too slow with the season to pay enough attention to my brothers, Gaheris came to me and told me he meant to go home. I hardly understood what he said to me: I only bade him be careful on his journey, and he promised me he would. This was two years after Mordred's twin boys had been born, and my second child, my Lovel, and I was much kept busy by him.

Scarce a month after Gaheris left us Clarissant sent word that Queen Morgause was dead. By then Gawain had returned from his business, and he at once left with Agravain and Mordred--Gareth stayed with his wife and me. When they arrived, Clarissant told them that Morgause had taken a lover, and he had killed her, and more than that she would not say: she locked herself in the castle.

Gaheris, of course, had been there. Mordred told me of it afterwards.

"He was running wild in the brush, and I had to coax him out." His mouth twisted, but he spake very even. "He was half-starved, half-dead, he had thorn-tree in his hair. Stupid fool."

He told them the name of the boy who had killed Morgause.

It was the son of King Pellinore, with whom they had great feud, because Pellinore had killed Lot, and Gawain had killed Pellinore in return. I little understood bloodfeud, but I understood that there was no help for it and that it was considered fair, and I persuaded myself to say nothing to my new brothers about it: truly, I thought, was I not vengeful myself? Had I not hated my own brother most of my life? In any case, young Lamorak had killed their mother, and bloodfeud meant that there was no choice what should be done about it.

"So we went after him and killed him," Mordred said. "And the next day I found Gaheris weeping his heart out in the heather. So I gathered him up and told him he was fine, I was there, it was over and done with, and he shouldn't cry over Mother at any rate, and he told me it wasn't Lamorak at all, that he'd done it. My poor idiot brother."

It was all quickly known. Gareth was horrified and heartbroken, childlike boy, who though he had taken me for his new mother did not forget the old one. Agravain was angrier than I had ever seen him, and would not forgive his brother; he cursed his name up and down the hall, loud enough for the castle to hear, and would not be calmed.

Arthur exiled Gaheris from Britain and he went with his wife to a little house in a distant country, still with something troubled behind his eyes, as if he didn't know why he was sent away. Their daughter was born there, far from home.

After he had gone, Gawain drank himself sick.

"That idiot," he told me that night, speaking thickly. "He should have come to me. Why not me, or Mordred? I thought he trusted either of us enough not to do something so stupid. He should have come to me and let me do the whole business myself, he was half-mad already, he should never have gone home. Idiot!"

I put my arms around him and lay my head on his shoulder, powerless to do more. "I should not have let him go."

"No, no, that's no right. It's just--oh, he should have gone to Mordred. He listened to him, at least. Oh, Mother--"

"I am sorry for thy mother. I would I could do aught to bring her back."

"I'm not mourning for Mother. We don't need her back, and not the youngers--she would only have done worse to them." He clasped my hand and my heart ached. "She did things--she chose things to defy us, she just hid them at the same time, she wasn't kind--I told you. She wasn't kind. I wish it hadn't been Gaheris, he's the one who could never have managed it. I wouldn't have gone off. But he's never been well, and not with her, and it was just all wrong to happen--"

I hushed him with kisses. Silently then he put his hands through my hair, and we took to bed, there being no other answer either of us could give.

After that we left for Orkney, and I made my home in the castle there, for Gawain was King. It is a cold country, and wet, but all the same beautiful, and it rocks in the heart like the waves and the wind in the fields. I hoped to love it--but no forest grows on Orkney, only a few scant single trees which look out of place on the broad land.

For Gawain's sake I tried to be happy. He was happy there, I could easily see, and he fell into the rhythms of ruling as the sea fell upon his shores, and I wished to be as he was; but I had begun to long for Inglewood.

A year later Gaheris returned. We welcomed him back, but he was changed, and he trusted none of us, nor much spoke to us. That first day when we met him on the sand, his eyes were skittish and moving with the promise of madness we could not soothe.

"Hello."

"It's good to see thee again," Gawain said, pulling him into an embrace. "How art thou?"

"All right."

"We missed thee. Come inside, it's cold out here. Come, bring thy family with thee," reaching out a hand to Lynet, which she took. She carried the girl in the crook of one arm.

"How dost thou?" I asked him softly.

He shook his head. "Well enough."

In the evening after supper, while we all sat by the hearth, he smiled at Lynet, and his child; and sometimes when he spoke to them he became almost like any other man--but only sometimes, and only then. It was clear he could not come back to us the way he had.

The firelight lit off his hair and his face when he looked at Mordred, who had always been his favourite.

"God, little brother, it's good you're home," Mordred said.

Gaheris looked away.

---

I thought, I prayed, that was the end of our troubles. Gawain was only near to thirty, but he had a worn face, and I hated to be so far from all my brothers when so much might be amiss with them. I would not know here. I could not help.

So, though I was near time with my third child, I asked Gawain whether we might go back to Camelot for a month, to see his uncle and his brothers, to stay at court awhile. He agreed, and convinced Clarissant, who was his regent, to take the country while we were gone, to which she grudgingly agreed.

When we arrived in Camelot, I quickly saw that we were certainly not done with trouble.

"Damn it!" was the first thing Agravain said to me when I met with him.

"Mary, brother, what dost thou send to hell?" I asked softly.

"The Queen. God, Ragnelle--"

"What has she done?"

"Can you credit I thought she was a good woman? I did. I thought she was a more than a damned little whore!"

It was well for him Gawain was not there. I set my hands on his shoulders and kissed his forehead. "If thy brother hears thee thou wilt have the devil to pay. What has happened?"

"She's sleeping with Arthur's favourite, that's all. Bad enough he's a bastard Frenchman and Arthur gave him Gawain's place, but our innocent-faced Queen opens her chamber doors to him every night--of all the damnable things."

"Dost thou know this certain?"

"I do. She's not clever enough to make it any decent secret. Arthur pretends not to notice, and he's doing it for them, because he doesn't want to have to put either of them on trial for treason. Damned soft-hearted--I would. I'd burn her and run him through and have done."

"Nor wouldst thou," I said, still holding him firmly.

"I would! I would indeed. For him everyone pretends just as much as he does, and the whole thing goes on in front of everyone's eyes. God," he said, "I thought she had a little honesty, but I can see I was wrong about that! It's the way of women, is what it is--damn. I can't believe this. God!" and then he pulled away from me.

Three weeks later I was brought to bed with my last son, Guinglain. He was a beautiful child, with his father's red-fair hair, and my blood, for he had a place on his shoulder where a leaf would open on warm days, and his skin to touch was like beech bark. He was the only of our three boys to bear this part of me: Florence only had my dark hair, and Lovel was as sturdy and strong.

While I was abed, I instructed Florence to watch what went on about the castle and among its people. One morning he came to me and leaned close.

"Mother."

"Ay, sweet?"

"Merlin's gone."

"What?" Merlin was Arthur's advisor, a bad-tempered magician who was not much loved. "Is it so? Good riddance."

Florence made a face. "The King isn't happy."

"Most like he wonders who will now counsel him."

"He went away with a girl," he said, soft, confiding.

"Mary, did he?"

"Ay. His apprentice."

"How is it thou dost know so much?"

"Because. I look at things. Nobody pays attention to anything now that Sir Peredur's here."

"Who is he? Have I missed so much? It seems the world hath changed over while I have been confined."

"Uncle Agravain hates him."

"Thine uncle Agravain hates everyone," I said. "Who is Sir Peredur?"

"He laughs a lot."

"So do many men."

"Sir Peredur is King Pellinore's bastard."

I tapped his knuckles, folded in my bedclothes. "How dost thou know that?"

"He said."

"Did he?"

"Ay. He's Sir Lamorak's half-brother. Uncle Agravain says at least Sir Lamorak was honestly got."

"And does thine uncle wish to fight Sir Peredur?"

"No, because Sir Peredur is fifteen."

"That is a fair answer for him, and so I do not believe it is his."

"Father likes him."

"Better."

"He doesn't want to feud."

"Poor. Agravain would take that as no answer."

"He's a little simple."

"Poorer."

"The King likes him, too. He championed for Lady Guenever when he first came."

"Mary, I see no reason at all for thine uncle to refrain."

"He's better than Uncle Agravain," Florence said.

"That is why," I said.

"He talks even thicker than Sir Dinadan. I cannot understand him almost at all."

"Where does he come from?"

"Wales. But he speaks that strangely, too, the way you speak British. Everybody laughs at him."

"Do they?"

"Ay. Because he's too nice."

"It must pain thine uncle very much not to be able to take him out and beat him."

Florence, who was a solemn child, did truly smile at me then. I tousled his hair, and he told me he would come back later, after he had observed more things.

Soon after I was again able to go about freely, with Guinglain always at my breast, and made my first meeting with Sir Peredur. He was indeed good-tempered, and entirely mannerless--he grinned at me and rubbed his hair sheepishly when we exchanged names.

"I like Gawain," he said. "I'm real pleased t'meet his lady."

"I am glad to meet thee," I said.

Sir Peredur, Gareth later told me, had come to Camelot dressed all in animal skins and carrying a homemade spear, and defeated a knight who had insulted Guenever within the hour of his arrival. He smiled and laughed at the scorn he earned for his ignorance, and behaved as though everyone were someone he was glad to meet.

We all became older.

Florence was now grown old enough to squire for his father, and Lovel would soon be; Gawain taught them in the yards, where I had once seen Gareth and Lancelot go against each other. Mordred's sons, Melehan and Melou, were not quite of age, but Mordred gave them instruction all the same. The five of them would go together.

When I watched them through the window, it seemed the practise halted often, as Gawain drew Mordred aside and spoke to him where the boys could not hear, before resuming. Mordred grew quickly flushed, and it looked as though he shouted.

After they had finished, and the boys been permitted to go about their own business, I caught Gawain.

"My lord, what do they?"

"My lady?"

"What hath made thy brother angered?"

Gawain's eyes darkened. "Naught, my lady. Truly, it's nothing."

He had never lied to me before.

I sought Mordred instead, and found him in the courtyard, splashing water on his face. His black hair was wet with sweat.

"Brother?"

His head came up sharply. "Ay, sister?"

"Art thou well?"

"Dost thou not know me better?"

"Nay, I do not," I said.

"I am ill indeed, sister," he said, and he laughed very harsh.

"Wherefore?"

"Why not? I can't teach them anything," jerking his chin at the practise yard, so that I knew he spoke of the twins. I think I frowned at him, for he had always been very gentle with them, and spake very kindly to them, though it discomforted him to have such responsibility as children.

"They are young for it yet," I said.

"Old enough to learn."

"Lovel has not yet gone to it."

"Lovel doesn't need to. They're ready."

"Ay, truly?" I said, not kindly. "I think it is thou art aready to set them to trials, as thy mother did Gaheris."

Mordred went very white.

"You don't know a damned thing about it. I'm not my mother."

"It is more like her than thee to hold thy children to what they cannot accomplish."

"God, her? It's Arthur who always expects more of me than I can do! He's the one who thinks giving me positions will make me forgive him for not admitting I'm his own blood, when everyone already damned well knows! I don't want to be High King, but if he'd just trouble himself to look a trouble in the eyes instead of ignoring it and hoping it will disappear! Hast not seen how he looks away from Lancelot and Guenever? I'm half a mind to join Agravain in his great sulk. Thou, fey, fair sister, canst thou not divine it? Dost thou not see how festering this wound has grown? God, it stinks, all of it. There's trial, there will be, oh, much amiss, and my sons will be ready for it. Perhaps I don't know how to father them, but I'll make them strong, not hide them with their mother so I don't have to look at them."

He broke off--he had flushed again, and was looking at me breathless, and I saw a hard place in his eyes that before had not been there. It was like Gaheris' flicker, but dark and still and angry.

And I had no answer for him, but let him walk away from me without a word to stop him. Guinglain, a year old, wept upon my breast.

Yet this was not the worst: the worst was that as Guinglain began to crawl further distances from me, my longing for Inglewood, which in Orkney had been terrible, became worse still. It is in me, and that taint of sap in my blood made it impossible I should ever do otherwise, but, oh, I had prayed it would not be so. Soon it happened that I could no longer sleep at night, for I lay awake and felt the length of land between myself and home. I wanted the trees, and the Other People who lived in them, and the openness and the ground and the noises and the magic, and I wanted to sleep under my tree, and every time I went near a window the moss in between my fingers ached to its roots for the place it had come from.

My brothers were mad: so was I like to go mad myself.

I made Gawain and Agravain take me hawking or riding every day, in hope that Camelot's forests might be enough for me, but when it grew dark I returned with a beating in my body as though my heart had flowed into my blood and gone throughout me, and meant to bruise me in all my parts.

Florence was nearly twelve years old--I had stayed for twelve years longer than I had ever meant. Evenings I gathered my children together in our rooms, and Gawain sat with us on the floor and we took turns telling stories. I thought to anchor myself with this.

"Say," Florence would command us solemnly, "how Father fought Sir Bertilak and was fought."

Gawain, who had grown worn and tired as Arthur, who could still laugh so sweetly I wished to give my soul up to him, whose accent was wearing away after so many years among the British, would turn his palms upwards and say,--

"Help me remember. How does the story begin?"

"The King was holding a feast for Christmas," Lovel answered one night. "He wouldn't let anybody eat until something interesting happened."

"Why not?"

"Because he didn't have anything better to do than make everyone wait for supper."

Gawain frowned. "Where didst thou hear that answer?"

"Uncle Agravain."

I laughed and Gawain put his face in his hands.

"Lovel, how oft hast thou been told to disregard aught thine uncle Agravain says to thee?"

"Because," Florence said, "he thought to make one of the young knights prove himself."

"Good," Gawain said. "That's right. And I had just come to court from home, so I was one of the youngest."

As I listened to him speak, warm-voiced, growing to his tale with such excitement it seemed he were still a boy, and still eager and afraid of the quest, the heartbeat in my blood began again. It had never hurt me so much as it did then. I fixed my eyes on Florence, who listened to his father in perfect still attention, and felt Lovel put his head against my shoulder, and Guinglain stir in my lap.

Wouldn't I die for them?, I begged myself, and answered myself: I would. Didn't I love them? I did. How could I leave them?

I did.

That night I woke in moonlight, dressed myself, and kissed Gawain as he lay sleeping. A flower opened in my hair, leaning towards the light. And then I left them all, children, husband, brothers and their wives, and went home.

I know what happened after. I know it well. I know I left Gawain to sadness for the rest of his life, and my sons with no mother.

In ten years Agravain lost hold on his anger and betrayal, and there was no going back from what he did; nor was there soon an end to the bloodshed he began. He was killed at the door he broke down, exposing Guenever and her lover. Then it was my poor innocent Gareth and lost Gaheris, slain without weapons on the day Lancelot came to rescue the Queen from burning for her sin.

Gawain lost himself then and went to war for them. I know that he came back again and again to fight Lancelot, and always lost; was always spared before he died, and so came back again, until finally Lancelot had mercy on him and killed him. My husband.

I felt it. I, safe among my trees, I felt that part of me torn asunder and the leaves inside me curl and die as though the frost had come too early, come in summer.

After Gawain it was my sons, first Florence and Lovel, and then Guinglain--and then came Mordred's battle. Half in the name of his brothers, and half for the hardness in his eyes, he went to war against his father, and there he was killed, nearly last of all. I know that during that war Clarissant tried to hide my brother's wives, but there was not time enough: Lynet and Lyonors, Gwenhwyfach and Laurel, and Gaheris' daughter Lunete, all were assassinated, one after another, to wound Mordred and his sons.

It was they who were the last, Melehan and Melou, killed carrying his colours and his device, days after he had died.

And I was still in the woods.

I, coward, who stayed not when I was most of all needed. I outlived every one of them.

I am here still. Time passes; I do not. I live as I used to think I would, working small magic in exchange for useless pretty things. They have built a city where my tree used to be, but the forest is still here, beneath the concrete--I know that it is. Things are changed, and I keep my work in a shopping basket and sleep on park benches. Children and homeless men ask favours of me, and I give them what I can. I laugh for them: I laugh well. I tell stories. I ease pain. I make people warm. Sometimes I pretend they are mine, my princes, my sons, my sisters-in-law, my beautiful husband with his sweet laugh.

It's the only way to live.