In loving memory of Sydney Sandell
For my two best friends …
Sharon, more than you know,
you are a source of inspiration,
of joy and love.
Liel, my partner, my muse,
you are the love and light of my life.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
XLII
XLIII
XLIV
Author’s Note
Suggestions for Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Sneak Peek
About the Author
Copyright
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right–
The leaves upon her falling light–
Thro’ the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
–“The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1842
I am Elaine
daughter of Barnard of Ascolat.
Motherless.
Sisterless.
I sing these words to you now,
because the point of light grows smaller,
ever smaller now,
ever more distant now.
And with this song, I pray I may
push back the tides of war and death.
So, I sing these words
that this light, this tiny
ray of light and hope may live on.
I dare not hope that I
may live on too.
Motherless.
Sisterless.
I am both.
But I have brothers,
dozens
nay, hundreds
of brothers.
Only two real ones:
brash Lavain
and my biggest brother, thoughtful Tirry.
The others are not brothers by blood.
There are so many of them;
I call a few my friends:
Lancelot, Arthur’s second,
but handsomer, still.
Arthur himself, who is a captain in
his uncle Ambrosius Aurelius’s army.
The men here follow Arthur, but ultimate
fealty is to Aurelius, dux bellorum.
There is Gawain, a sweet bear of a man,
and Tristan, who is all mystery
and mischief and glee.
We live here, in this army encampment,
where drums beat and beat
in my dreams and over breakfast,
at sunrise and sundown.
The here and home I speak of
is no more than the collection of dirty,
foul-smelling tents.
I live here, in this army encampment,
among men,
because my mother is dead,
delivered into the earth
nine years ago now,
and there is no one else.
My father brought me here
when I was eight years old.
Once I heard Lavain whisper
to Tirry that it was a good
thing our mother lived to
see me through eight years
of life.
Till I was old enough to learn
to use a thread and needle
and old enough to grow
skilled at mending clothes.
At least there is
someone
left to mend their clothes,
Lavain said.
But I am just one girl,
without nearly enough hands
to sew the tears
in every man’s clothing.
There are too many of them.
For, in these days,
dark battles rage on.
From all sides Britain’s enemies
press in on us,
the painted Picts from the north,
marauding Scots from the west,
and the barbarian Saxons from the south
and east.
Britain bleeds
and bleeds
as men like my father and
brothers
even Lavain
bleed and bleed.
We move as the fighting moves,
as the wind moves.
So there might be peace.
Before a battle begins,
the men swarm about camp
as bees in a hive, making ready.
Mount Breguoin is the eleventh fight
Arthur will lead in the war against
our Saxon enemy.
As they prepare for war, the men
ready their weapons,
sharpening blades and strengthening
shields and chain mail.
I do my part, too, tearing bandages
and brewing poultices
of healing leaves and flowers
for Cai, Arthur’s steward, to carry
to the battleground.
I wander through the camp,
from the stables, which lie just near
the banks of the River Usk, toward
the center, where dirty, greyish
tents radiate out from
the great fire pit that is
the Round Table.
All the time I am
tallying in my mind the numbers
of bandages and vials of powders and balm.
The tents wind in ever-narrowing circles,
like the curves of a snail’s shell.
Men huddle in groups outside
their tents, chortling with laughter at
jokes made at the enemy’s expense,
rowdily singing tunes of victory.
I know them all and wave
or nod to many.
Then I spot Arthur
near the Round Table, surrounded
by a small company of men, his nearest
friends. Arthur’s stance is graceful
and straight, his eyes dark as pools
in a deep wood.
There is an air of melancholy
entwined in his celebrated courage
and strength.
The men that we fight, Arthur told
me once, they are just men. Like us.
Well, like me, he said,
a crimson blush coloring his cheeks,
as those black eyes crinkled
at the corners with a smile.
And we fight, and ever they
come at us, like the tide
of the sea. I do not understand it.
This fighting and killing
and urge to conquer. His
gaze turned downward then.
&n
bsp; I touched his arm, and he glanced
at me, all the sorrow on this earth
filling his eyes then.
I will never understand it.
But I will fight and kill as
I must, to protect our
world and all that is
good and just in it.
And I remember asking
myself how there could
be men like Arthur and men
like our bloodthirsty enemies,
built of the same flesh, yet so
terribly unalike.
As I approach the four men, they turn
and welcome me, grins breaking
over their faces.
Elaine! Lancelot, Arthur’s
dearest friend and his fiercest
warrior calls, his emerald-green
eyes glowing.
He smiles warmly and waves me
over to join their circle.
The sight of him makes my heart
leap joyfully, and
I cannot help
but grin back at him.
Gawain is on Arthur’s other side,
his friendly face shining with good cheer.
He is large and his shadow looms
over the other men, though he
is the gentlest giant I have ever seen.
Our fourth companion is
Tristan, who is not much older than I.
His golden eyes penetrate like a
wolf ’s, ever alert,
ever watching, but they are filled
with a mischief that never fails to
snatch a giggle from my throat.
Hello, I greet my friends.
Elaine, we were just discussing
strategies for tomorrow’s battle,
Tristan informs me,
a crooked grin on his lips.
I think we should eat breakfast
before going to meet the Saxons.
We shall have to climb a mountain, after all.
We will need our strength.
But Lancelot, here, wishes to
fast in the morning, saving
himself for a celebratory lunch.
What think you? His smile widens.
I fold my hands and put my
fingers to my lips, as though I
am deep in thought.
I see I have interrupted a very serious
conversation, I reply wryly.
Yes, yes, Gawain jokes, most serious!
Truly, Elaine, Tristan continues
with the charade, your knowledge is deep.
We will do only as you command.
Ha, I crow, if I believed that, you would
have taken up sewing a long time ago.
The four men break into gales of
deep, rumbling laughter.
I believe our Elaine has bested you,
Tristan! Lancelot says, winking at me.
Come, friends, the hour grows late.
Let us to bed, for we are off at dawn,
Arthur suggests. The other three
nod their heads and we bid each other
good night.
Sleep well, and fight hard tomorrow, I tell them.
And do not forget to eat your breakfast.
I throw a smile at Lancelot as I turn to go,
their laughter following me as I make my
way back to my tent.
The scent of blood rides high
on the wind,
with its traces of cold, black iron,
rotted earth, dying flesh,
and I stagger backward
as the smell, pungent
and terrible,
fills my nostrils.
It stings and brings
tears to my eyes.
I hate this rank stench.
I stand on a hill,
on a mountain called Breguoin,
beneath a young rowan tree,
its slender
grey trunk, rising
above me,
sheltering and hiding me,
protecting me.
Also a witness
to awful events.
The rowan tree’s
graceful leaves and soft
white flowers
brush my arm like
a whisper. But
they do not shield me from
the stink of blood,
of death.
Men scurry beneath
me and this tree,
running hither and fro,
like ants busy at work,
but their work is the work
of nightmares.
Men in battle leathers and armor,
running hither and fro,
swords and shields raised,
and they run at each other,
hacking and slicing,
thrusting this way and that.
I watch the warring unfold,
my stomach clenched and
biting, yet I cannot look
away.
Nor can my friend,
my guardian,
the rowan tree.
Men run and fall,
sinking to their knees.
It is a dream too dreadful
to wake from.
Still, I look down, and
the grass is so green, I
cannot understand how it
does not wither and die
with sorrow. But against
an emerald carpet, the
warriors make war,
and it is like a dance,
almost beautiful,
always macabre.
The noise brings me back,
the fearsome noise of swords
striking swords,
a metallic clanging that rings in
my ears, echoing and echoing
the fearsome
din of men
screaming and crying as they
meet the sharp ends of blades.
They fall, they die.
The battle plays out like a game,
a game my brothers once played with
toy soldiers,
drums and shouts measuring
the beat.
But this war is no dance;
it is no game.
My father and brothers are down there.
My friends are down there.
In the manner of the Old Ways, I
shall sing you a song … I whisper
to my grey companion.
I pray to this rowan tree
to please, please keep my men safe.
I come to this place beneath the tree
to know what I, a girl,
am not supposed to know,
and never supposed to see.
So that I might know
what the men I love
endure,
that I might understand
even a little bit.
That I might have some
sense of whom and what
I will have to heal
when they return home.
Home, the woman’s domain.
But they will never keep me
at home.
I may not be allowed to fight
on the battleground,
but I share the battles
with my men
anyway.
As the clattering of swords
and shields and battle-axes
winds down, and the living
stagger from the field of
death and glory and
all that men love to
assign to fields of war,
I leave my rowan tree,
kissing her trunk, and thanking
her for keeping safe
the soldiers I love. And I
return home, ready to meet
the wounded and the well.
Ready with poultices and
ointments, bandages and
medicines.
Ready to play my part
Where is she? Tirry’s
voice mingles with the crunch
of footsteps on frozen turf.
It is dusk now,
and I have since returned
from the bedsides of the wounded,
where I gently washed away dried
blood, where I administered tinctures
of feverfew and marigold for fever,
where I applied ointments
of calendula and willow,
poultices of yarrow and comfrey
to cuts and festering sores.
Sometimes, as I sit at the
bedside of one of the injured,
nursing a sword or arrow
wound, I cannot help but
wonder at the magic of it —
the flowers and weeds of the
moorlands and meadows
are endowed with such purpose.
Such perfect purpose.
These unassuming leaves, these
unknowing roots.
And it is for me to wield them.
Me!
Elaine of Ascolat, plain and ordinary.
But when I mix the powders
and draw out a tincture,
I feel as though some measure
of the magic has gotten in me.
Now my healing tasks are done, and
I have been waiting since
the sun finished its course,
for my father,
my brothers.
Elaine?
My father’s voice,
ordinarily so gentle,
is filled with fear
and tinged with something I have not
heard in nine years.
Sorrow.
Father?
I poke my head out of the tent flap
just as Lavain pushes me aside and
charges into the tent.
He begins to light more candles,
then paces up and down the length
of the tent,
his fists and jaw clenched.
My breath catches.
Something is wrong.
Tirry and my father follow Lavain
into the tent, and
my father sits heavily on the
wooden dining bench,
his elbows leaning
on our roughly hewn table.
Each has blood,
dark brown spots, spattered
and streaked
across his face,
his hands,
his tunic.
The sight of it turns my stomach,
and I swallow back a thick,
sour taste from my mouth.
It coats my tongue.
Strange how the blood of my
patients does not sicken me.
Father, Tirry,
what has happened? I ask.
Elaine, my father begins, then
his voice wavers,
watery eyes betraying him.
My stomach catches in my throat,
again,
but the three men of Ascolat
are all here, safe.
Our men won the battle at Breguoin.
What could be wrong?
Please, tell me. What is it?
Tirry?
I look to my elder brother.
He returns my gaze,