“Yes,” I said, ‘he really did.”
“And it wasn’t in a great church? With trumpets playing?”
“It was in a clearing beside a stream,” I said, ‘with frogs croaking and willow catkins piling up behind the beaver dam.”
“We were married in a feasting hall,” Igraine said, ‘and the smoke made my eyes water.” She shrugged. “So what did you change in the last part?” she asked accusingly. “What story-shaping did you do?”
I shook my head. “None.”
“But at Mordred’s acclamation,” she asked disappointedly, ‘the sword was only laid on the stone? Not thrust into it? Are you sure?”
“It was laid flat on top. I swear it’ – I made the sign of the cross’ on Christ’s blood, my Lady.”
She shrugged. “Dafydd ap Gruffud will translate the tale any way I want him to, and I like the idea of a sword in the stone. I’m glad you were kind about Cuneglas.”
“He was a good man,” I said. He was also Igraine’s husband’s grandfather.
“Was Ceinwyn really beautiful?” Igraine asked.
I nodded. “She was, she truly was. She had blue eyes.”
“Blue eyes!” Igraine shuddered at such Saxon features. “What happened to the brooch she gave you?”
“I wish I knew,” I said, lying. The brooch is in my cell, hidden there safe from even Sansum’s vigorous searches. The saint, whom God will surely exalt above all men living and dead, does not allow us to possess any treasures. All our goods must be surrendered to his keeping, that is the rule, and though I surrendered everything else to Sansum, including Hywelbane, God forgive me, I have Ceinwyn’s brooch still. The gold has been smoothed by the years, yet still I see Ceinwyn when, in the darkness, I take the brooch from its hiding place and let the moonlight gloss its intricate pattern of interlocking curves. Sometimes no, always I touch it to my lips. What a foolish old man I have become. Perhaps I shall give the brooch to Igraine, for I know she will value it, but I shall keep it a while for the gold is like a scrap of sunshine in this chill grey place. Of course, when Igraine reads this she will know the brooch exists, but if she is as kind as I know her to be, she will let me keep it as a small remembrance of a sinful life.
“I don’t like Guinevere,” Igraine said.
“Then I have failed,” I said.
“You make her sound very hard,” Igraine said.
I said nothing for a while, but just listened to the sheep bleating. “She could be wonderfully kind,” I said after the pause. “She knew how to make the sad happy, but she was impatient with the commonplace. She had a vision of a world that did not hold cripples or bores or ugly things, and she wanted to make that world real by banishing such inconveniences. Arthur had a vision, too, only his vision offered help to the cripples, and he wanted to make his world just as real.”
“He wanted Camelot,” Igraine said dreamily.
“We called it Dumnonia,” I said severely.
“You try to suck all the joy out of it, Derfel,” Igraine said crossly, though she was never truly angry with me. “I want it to be the poet’s Camelot: green grass and high towers and ladies in gowns and warriors strewing their paths with flowers. I want minstrels and laughter! Wasn’t it ever like that?”
“A little,” I said, ‘though I don’t remember many flowery paths. I do recall the warriors limping out of battle, and some of them crawling and weeping with their guts trailing behind in the dust.”
“Stop it!” Igraine said. “So why do the bards call it Camelot?” she challenged me.
“Because poets were ever fools,” I said, ‘otherwise why would they be poets?”
“No, Derfel! What was special about Camelot? Tell me.”
“It was special,” I answered, ‘because Arthur gave the land justice.”
Igraine frowned. “Is that all?”
“It is more, child,” I said, ‘than most rulers ever dream of doing, let alone do.”
She shrugged the topic away. “Was Guinevere clever?” she asked.
“Very,” I said.
Igraine played with the cross she wore about her neck.. “Tell me about Lancelot.”