that,” I said, “and I’ll skewer the whoreson like a pigeon.”
“Will you, Seneschal?”
“I will.”
“I think not. Remember that poison is more the enchantress’ weapon than the knight’s.”
I stared back into the dying fire, remembering the different colors of the flames when Dame Guenevere had first thrown the fruit into them. “Morgan le Fay again?”
Before Dame Cupbearer could answer, the men nearest the door started standing up. In a moment everyone was on his feet. The King had come.
CHAPTER 3
The Accusation
“And ever Sir Mador stood still afore the king, and ever he appealed the queen of treason; for the custom was such that time that all manner of shameful death was called treason.”
—Malory XVIII, 4
Mador went on keening, eyes closed and back to the door, apparently unable to hear anything beyond the sound of his own grief. Arthur paused for a few moments, looking around at all of us, at Gawain and myself the longest. Then he went to Mador and laid one hand on the old knight’s shoulder.
Mador stopped wailing at last and turned slowly to look at him. “Justice, my lord the King!”
“When have I denied anyone justice?” said Arthur, probably believing it himself.
Mador might have been thinking of the knights whom Lancelot, while half-asleep, had mowed down in their own pavilions; of the murder of Arthur’s own sister, Queen Morgawse, when Gawain had taken revenge into his own hands because the King would not allow Lamorak de Galis, the wonder of the age, to be put on trial; or of the various grievances which have never been openly brought against Gawain himself and his brothers because of their kinship to Arthur. But all Mador said was, “Justice, my lord, against your Queen!”
“Old friend,” said Arthur, “my Queen would never have done this.”
“Was it not her dinner?” Mador struck the table. “Who else could have done this?”
“A different queen,” I said. “The sometime queen of Gorre, Dame Morgan le Fay.” Not that I quite believed it yet, but Dame Morgan, wherever she was, would hardly notice another treachery or two laid at her door, and it might save Dame Guenevere.
“Yes!” said Pinel of Carbonek. He had never seen Morgan, but he was as ready to theorize about her as anyone else. “Yes, the Fay! Of course—she tried to kill us all, of course—”
“Despite the fact,” Mordred said calmly, “that Aunt Morgan has been presumed dead for several years.”
“Presumed, not proven,” began Dame Lore, but Mador broke in with a shout.
“Liars! Traitors, with the traitress! I claim justice, my lord the King!”
“You will have justice!” Arthur shouted back. “Against the murderer! But my wife is not the murderer!”
“You must admit, Uncle, the circumstances look damning,” remarked Agravain, with at least enough grace not to study his fingernails while he said it.
“Damn you, Agravain,” I said, “don’t the circumstances look damning for all of us here present?”
“Not for Sir Patrise,” said Agravain.
“Assuming, of course, that he was shriven before dinner,” added Mordred.
Arthur ignored us. “Mador, you have been my knight forty years and more,” he said. “Do you accuse your sovereign lady to my face?”
“I do! And I will make good the charge with my body.”
Arthur clenched his fist. “And do you accuse me along with my Queen, Mador de la Porte?”
Mador breathed heavily, but did not step back. “You are our King, my liege lord, but in this matter you are no more than another knight like the rest of us—less than the rest of us in that you were not here present.”
“By Ihesu, when you fight against your sovereign lady, you commit—”
“I do not fight against my sovereign lady!” said Mador. “I keep no allegiance with a destroyer of good knights!”
The Queen had returned. I saw her standing in the doorway, with her cousin Dame Elyzabel. Some of the others had also seen her, but the King had not.
“Do you also renounce allegiance to me, Sir Knight?” continued Arthur.
“To have justice for my kinsman’s death,” bawled Mador, “I would renounce allegiance to the Pope himself!”
The King pounded the table with his fist. “So be it! Then I will answer your charge with my own body!”
“My lord, no!” cried Dame Guenevere.
Arthur turned and they looked at each other. Tears were quivering on her cheeks. Go to her, I thought, go to her, Artus you idiot! Holy Mary, you didn’t understand what you had when you pulled that Sword out of the damn Stone, and you don’t understand what you have now! Aloud, I said, “The Queen is right, Sir Arthur. You’re trapped. Like all the rest of us.”
Aliduk nodded. The dispassionate, scarcely-involved arbiter. “You must serve as judge in this case, my liege lord. You cannot fight as champion.”
Arthur sat down, elbows on the table near Patrise’s feet, and rested his head on his hands. Dame Guenevere came up behind him and laid her palms on his shoulders, closing her eyes and tilting her glorious head so that the tears slanted backward over her cheeks. “As God is my witness,” she said, “I made this dinner for joy and never for harm.”
Arthur raised his head and looked around. “Press your charge, then, Sir Mador de la Porte. I may not fight for my wife, but I have other good knights who will.” He looked around at us again, as if searching for Lancelot. I tried to catch his attention, but his stare slid over me, uncomprehending, and finally rested on his favorite nephew.
Gawain started to speak in reply to that gaze.
“Fight for her, elder brother, and you associate yourself with the crime,” said Mordred.
“The poison was aimed at me,” said Gawain. “In Ihesu’s Name, would I have tried to poison myself?”
Mordred shrugged. “Aye, we all know your fondness for apples, brother. And, knowing it, folk will call it rather strange that this time you waited just long enough before biting into the fruit.”
Gawain stared at him, then at the Queen. “Madame, I… Madame, forgive me!”
He sat again, trapped like Arthur and the rest of us. Whoever fought for the Queen would seem to declare his own guilt. Worse, some of us, her guests, actually seemed to believe Mador’s accusation.
I would have championed her myself and damned the appearance. But I was
