Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

She managed to writhe away from the concealing hand. "Run!" she screamed. "It's a trick, a trap-" "Hell's doors!" She could feel him, like a cat, springing back. Gwydion's lamp flared; somehow the light went from hand to hand, until the room was filled with light, and Gawaine, Cai, and Gareth, with a dozen shadowy forms behind them, stepped forward. Gwenhwyfar huddled under the bedcover, and Lancelet stood still, quite naked, weaponless. "Mordred," he said, in contempt. "Such a trick is worthy of you!" Gawaine said formally, "In the King's name, Lancelet, I accuse you of high treason. Get me your sword."

"Never mind that," said Gwydion, "go and take it."

"Gareth! In God's name, why did you lend yourself to this?" Gareth's eyes were glistening as if with tears in the lamplight. "I never believed it of you, Lancelet. I would to God I had fallen in battle before ever I saw this day."

Lancelet bent his head and Gwenhwyfar saw his eyes, panicky, move around the room. He muttered, "Oh, God, Pellinore looked at me so when they came with the torches to take me in Elaine's bed-must I betray everyone, everyone?" She wanted to reach out to him, to cry out with pity and pain, to shelter him in her arms. But he would not look at her.

"Your sword," said Gawaine quietly. "And dress yourself, Lancelet. I will not take you naked and disgraced into Arthur's presence. Enough men have witnessed your shame."

"Don't let him get at his sword-" some faceless voice in the darkness protested, but Gawaine gestured the speaker contemptuously into silence. Lancelet turned slowly away from them, into the tiny antechamber where he had left clothing, armor, weapons. She heard him drawing on his garments. Gareth stood, his hand on his sword, as Lancelet came into the room, dressed but weaponless, his hands in full view.

"I am glad for your sake that you will come with us quietly," said Gwydion. "Mother"-he turned into the shadows, and Gwenhwyfar saw, with consternation, Queen Morgause standing there-"see to the Queen. She shall be in your charge until Arthur may deal with her."

Morgause advanced on the bedside. Gwenhwyfar had never noticed before how large a woman Morgause was, and how ruthless her jaw line.

"Come along, my lady, get into your gown," she said. "And I will help you peg your hair-you do not want to go naked and shameless before the King. And be glad there was a woman here. These men-"she looked contemptuously at them-"meant to wait until they could catch him actually inside you." Gwenhwyfar shrank from the brutality of the words; slowly, with lagging fingers, she began to draw on her gown. "Must I dress before all these men?"

Gwydion did not wait for Morgause to answer. He said, "Don't try to cozen us, shameless woman! Dare you pretend you have anything left of decency or modesty? Put on that gown, madam, or my mother shall bundle you into it like a sack!"

He calls her mother. No wonder Gwydion is cruel and ruthless, with the Queen of Lothian to foster him! Yet Gwenhwyfar had seen Morgause so often as merely a lazy, jolly, greedy woman-what had brought her to this? She sat still, fastening the laces of her shoes.

Lancelet said quietly, "It is my sword you want, then?"

"You know it," Gawaine said.

"Why, then"-moving almost more swiftly than the eye could follow, Lancelet leaped for Gawaine, and in another catlike movement, had Gawaine's own sword in his hand-"come and take it, damn you!" He lunged with Gawaine's sword at Gwydion, who fell across the bed, howling, bleeding from a great slash in his backside; then, as Cai stepped forward, sword in hand, Lancelet caught up a cushion from the bed and pushed Cai backward with it so that he fell into the advancing men, who tripped over him. He leaped up on the bed and said, low and short to Gwenhwyfar, "Keep perfectly still and be ready!"

She gasped, shrinking back and making herself small in a corner. They were coming at him again; he ran one of them through, briefly engaged another, and over that one's body, lunged and slashed at a shadowy attacker. The giant form of Gareth crumpled slowly to the floor. Lancelet was already fighting someone else, but Gwydion, bleeding, cried out, "Gareth!" and flung himself across the body of his foster-brother. In that moment of horrified lull, while Gwydion knelt, sobbing, over Gareth's body, Gwenhwyfar felt Lancelet catch her up on his arm, whirl, kill someone at the door-she never knew who it was-and then she was on her feet in the corridor, and Lancelet was pushing her, with frantic haste, ahead of him. Someone came at him out of the dark and Lancelet killed him, and they ran on.

"Make for the stables," he gasped. "Horses, and out of here, fast."

"Wait!" She caught at his arm. "If we throw ourselves on Arthur's mercy-or you escape and I will stay and face Arthur-"

"Gareth might have seen justice done. But with Gwydion's hand in it, do you think either of us would ever reach the King alive? I named him well Mordred!" He hurried her into the stables, swiftly flung a saddle on his horse. "No time to find yours. Ride behind me, and hold on well-I'm going to have to ride down the guards at the gate." And Gwenhwyfar realized she was seeing a new Lancelet-not her lover, but the hardened warrior. How many men had he killed this night? She had no time for fear as he lifted her on his horse and sprang up before her.

"Hang on to me," he said. "I'll have no time to look after you." He turned then, and gave her one hard, long kiss. "This is my fault, I should have known that infernal bastard would be spying-well, whatever happens now, at least it's over. No more lies and no more hiding. You're mine forever-" and he broke off. She could feel him trembling, but he turned savagely to grip the reins. "And now we go!"

MORGAUSE LOOKED ON in horror as Gwydion, weeping, bent over her youngest son.

Words spoken in half earnest, years ago-Gwydion had refused to take the lists on the opposite side from Gareth, even in a mock battle. It seemed to me that you lay dying, he had said ... and I knew it was my doing you lay without the spark of life ... . I will not tempt that fate.

Lancelet had done this, Lancelet whom Gareth had always loved more than any other man.

One of the men in the room stepped forward and said, "They're getting away-"

"Do you think I care about that?" Gwydion winced, and Morgause realized that he was bleeding, that his blood was flowing and mingling with Gareth's on the floor of the chamber. She caught up the linen sheet from the bed, tore it, and wadded it against Gwydion's wound.

Gawaine said somberly, "No man in all of Britain will hide them now. Lancelet is everywhere outcast. He has been taken in treason to his king, and his very life is forfeit. God! How I wish it had not come to this!" He came and looked at Gwydion's wound, then shrugged. "No more than a flesh cut -see, the bleeding is slowed already, it will heal, but you will not sit in comfort for some days. Gareth-" His voice broke; the great, rough, greying man began to weep like a child. "Gareth had worse fortune, and I will have Lancelet's life for it, if I die myself at his hands. Ah God, Gareth, my little one, my little brother-" and Gawaine bent and cradled the big body against him. He said thickly, through sobs, "Was it worth it, Gwydion, was it worth Gareth's life?"

"Come away, my boy," said Morgause, through a tightness in her own throat-Gareth, her baby, her last child; she had lost him long ago to Arthur, but still she remembered a fair-haired little boy, clutching a wooden painted knight in his hand. And one day you and I shall go on quest together, sir Lancelet ... always Lancelet. But now Lancelet had overreached himself, and everywhere in the land every man's hand would be against him. And still she had Gwydion, her beloved, the one who would one day be King, and she at his side.