“You’re the rutting emperor now,” Kay panted. “At least

wait till you’ve washed your face.”

“The ground’s full of kings who waited. I’ve work tordo.” I mounted and waved to Bedivere to bring the standard. All

across the dusty plain, my men rose and moved to horse.

“Gareth, tell the princes: I’ll count those men friends who

come in friendship tomorrow.”

He grinned up at me. “King of a hundred battles, it will be a sinful pleasure to carry the news.”

“And Cador?” asked wary Kay.

“Halfway to Eburacum now,” I judged. “And thinking on Guenevere. If he can’t have the crown, he can sleep with it. And he’ll love me with his whole ambition.”

A new young king going to claim his queen! There’s a ring to the notion. One can see the ranks of proud knights behind him, hear the blare of polished trumpets and cheers of the people as he dismounts to take his dewy-eyed virgin, royal consolation for the royal sacrifice. Actually it was a little taut at first: Cador’s archers eyeing us from the walls of Eburacum, my weary men in wide ranks behind me, just out of bowshot. And very still.

“Let them try something,” Geraint seethed. “One arrow, look you. One.”

The gates opened. Cador rode out in full ceremonials, Peredur at his side in armor, the polished shield with its blazon of a British circled cross catching the late afternoon sun.

“Come, Bedivere.” We paced the two horses over the flat ground, one eye on the walls. At ten yards’ interval, Cador and his son halted. Cador saluted formally.

“Ave, Imperator.”

But Peredur’s greeting was warmer. “Greetings to my most royal lord.”

“Peredur, sut mae’r mab\ Good to see you well again … Bedivere, stay up.”

Dismounting, I walked to the lords of Eburacum. “There are archers on your walls, Cador. You didn’t greet Ambrosius so.”

He spread his hands with a deprecating gesture. “A mere precaution such as you yourself would have ordered. We wondered if you truly came in peace … inasmuch.”

“Only for my queen, Cador. Is she ready?”

“This last hour,” Peredur affirmed. “And never have so many women toiled so fast.” He scanned my waiting men. “But where’s Lancelot?”

“Wounded saving me.” I threw a significant look at Cador. “I’ve sent him to Astolat with Geraint’s sister.”

“He was kind when I was ill,” Peredur remembered. “I’ll go to him when I can.”

“Well, Arthur.” An exquisite nuance to Cador’s brow. “You have the crown and the power and a queen fit for Solomon waiting. It’s a new game on a new board. So with a kiss we bury die past.”

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We exchanged the kiss of peace—Cador daintily, grimy as I was. Over his shoulder, I saw Guenevere coming alone OR foot through the gate. Cador glanced back at her with his slight, ambiguous smile.

“I would say we are all waiting, dearest son-in-law.”

Like my first sight of her, she was in white, a simple linen tunica cut sleeveless in the Roman fashion, head bare except for a working of pimpernels twined through her hair where summer sun brought more red to the auburn. We met alone between the crowded walls and my watching men. Guenevere knelt gracefully. Only she and Cador could do it and make you feel like the supplicant.

“Hail to my royal lord.”

For an asinine moment I had an urge to say something, imperial for the ages, but nothing came.

“They’ve made me king, Gwen.”

“That was clever of them,” she said in a voice that caught on something. “You’re all over blood.”

“It was your letter saved us. We’d never have known about Agrivaine.”

She touched my lacerated scalp. “What—?”

“You said you’d have flowers in your hair.”

“Just pimpernels, all they could find in a hurry. Oh, Arthur.” Her arms went around me, sudden and fierce and needing. My hands moved on her back as if to feed from it.

“Where’s your white veil?”

“Conscience denied that. 1 didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Will you like being queen?”

Her head moved against my stained shirt. “I’ve always fancied it.”

“Then where’s a priest?” I held her away from me; she was crying. “Not Anscopius, we’ll save him for Sunday best, but I want a priest now.”

“Idiot, what in the world for?”

“Damn it, we’re going to be solemnized six times over before we’re crowned and done. I want to do it this first time just for

us.”

Her eyes widened in excitement. “Now? Here?”

“Right here and the hell with all of *em.”

“What fun!” She laughed as she did the first time I fell in love with her, head thrown back and the sound lilting up and out in an arc of pleasure. “And it’s such a lovely day for it. Father! Someone up there on the wall. Find us a priest!”

To Wear the Crown

185

Guenevere kissed me hard, strangling in the middle of it with her mouth still against mine.

“What’s so damned funny?”

“I must do something about your clothes.” She surveyed my bedraggled shreds with vast pity. “You have absolutely no sense of style.”

We were married on the spot by a nervous young priest, to the cheers and weepy good wishes of my men, as well as the lords and ladies, merchants, fishwives and scullions of Eburacum. Of course it had to be done again at our coronation, but that would need time. All the nobles of free west Britain must assemble to see us solemnized and to swear their allegiance, always doubtful in a folk whose loyalties are first to blood and second to tribe. For the time, the old fort at Kaelcacaestir was my crude but watchful court.

Agrivaine raged in Eburacum. Once again I’d cheated him of a fight and taken Guenevere in the bargain. No doubt Cador salved that to some degree. “… Entirely out of my hands … by the way, have you met Lady Blodwen? Dazzling child, her father’s my tributary … dining tonight, you must come.”

Marcus Conomori grumbled about my method of succession, but made his peace and returned home. Not, however, without some tension. Geraint wanted to challenge him as a sneaking dastard and almost burst into flame when I forbade it.

“Mother of God, the scant snake’s a blot on royalty and manhood!”

But he would obey out of loyalty. Guenevere made the task easier by nudging it into the sphere of gallantry.

“For manhood, Geraint, there’s none in Britain who wears it more gracefully than yourself. Marcus is a slave, but having thrown it in his teeth, is it not manly to forgive?”

“Well, now …”

“Especially when your queen asks?”

“Well, I—” Fuming but confused, his lance blunted by the dove.

And Guenevere leaning’f&rward to stroke his anger-darkened cheek, close enough for Geraint to breathe the subtle perfume of her body.

“For me, Gerry-fach?”

Peace in Cornwall.

But Gawain was a different matter, thundering into camp and

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planting himself before us, livid. We were alone with Bedivere, who tried to interpose himself, but Gawain pushed him aside like a child.

“Damn your bloody, cheating eyes, Pendragon! Using me against my own brother who trusted me before God, but no longer. Damn you, why?”

“It was necessary, Gawain.”

“You admit it, then?”

Bedivere would have drawn on him, but 1 signaled no. “To save lives, yes. I knew he’d refuse peace and needed that time.”

Gawain trembled with the shame of it. “I’m dishonored among men, proud men who must someday support me as king. Men who have kept much grief from falling on Britain. My brother turns his back on me. On me who helped him take the first steps on his poor, unequal legs.”

Guenevere tried to gentle him. “Gawain, there was so much at stake. Would you have Marcus king? Or even my father, God save him? If Arthur is Britain, he is all Britain and can no longer play foolish games of honor.”

“Honor is not foolish! It is all a man has.” Gawain turned away with a breaking voice. “I swore to Arthur, but he to me as well. We are done.”

“I regret that.” I left my chair and faced him. “But when you swore, you said it was because I was right. And right is bigger than men; if not, the next assassin who doesn’t miss deserves that chair as well as me.”

“Listen to him, sly with words as he is.”

“As a king, I apologize for what had to be done. As a friend—”

“Friend! Oh, Jesus!”

“—I’d give anything to have you back.”

“I trusted you.” The vast, eloquent back to me. “Like no other lord. Did think you a man.”

I took off Kay’s borrowed coronet and tossed it to Bedivere. “As a man, I’ll make what answer your honor demands.”

Gawain fingered his gauntlet as if he might strip it off and throw it down, head lowered and mouth tight. The silence was heavy, the soft voice that broke it not threatening, but every syllable from Bedivere’s heart.

“Wronged you were, Gawain. But if you hurt Artos, there’s no place in God’s world so far but I’ll be waiting. On my salvation, think twice.”

Not prudence but something else stayed Gawain, ravaged him.

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187

His love and respect were not easily won; he had given me bom. He had a friend and a brother. One made him fool and pawn against the other and now both were gone, leaving only a stubborn habit of honor. He dropped his hands.

“Good-bye, my lord.”

My guts felt heavy as lead. “Good-bye, Gawain. If you can ever forgive me, please come back. God hold you in His hand.”

Kingship has its squalid side, but it allows little time for regrets. While summer waned, with Kay as my pro tern minister, plans went ahead for the crowning. Monies must be collected, the reins of the whole tax structure put in my hands, a hundred messengers dispatched with orders, questions, invitations.

The old fort was little more than a bank-and-ditch enclosed square to which a few buildings and a stockade had been added, then left to decay. Space within and without the palisade was crowded with tents for my men and Kay’s, the constant visitors, chiefs or their ambassadors, cooks, butchers, forge fires, the clang of hammers, the bustle of armorers, the sound and smell of horses, the throaty, jigging wood flutes and jingling tambourines of the players that sensed a paying audience like sharks and flocked to us.