me?” Arthur finished.
Geraldus sat down wearily. “No, Arthur. You know how often I have tried. They will never leave their home again. Each time I visit, I find it harder to leave, too. There is such peace there and they found so little here. But you could come to them, both of you. It would be good for you, Arthur. Don’t you agree, Guinevere?”
Guinevere stretched out her arms to him. “First,” she said, “I think you should kiss me nicely, because you have been away so long and I have missed you.”
As she embraced him, Guinevere whispered, “We can’t make him rest. He won’t. Don’t try to convince him now. Ask him about Camelot.”
But Arthur did not wait to be asked. Camelot was all he wanted to talk about. He gestured broadly as he described it, sweeping cups and plates from the table as he tried to make diagrams in the air. And his face had the look of a man who sees visions.
“There are problems. Always. Thousands of problems. No one remembers how things were done in the old days. No one wants to try to find a new way. Sometimes we have been reduced to studying pictures on the walls in the old forts to see if they show how the stones were laid or the land cleared. But it is growing, taking shape at last. We sweat and curse and fall in the mud, dragging the walls with us. I begin to think it will never work, that I must be content with a lesser dream, that I will have to be satisfied with clumsy, unsure work. J ust when I despair, something happens. Someone appears who knows how to fire the tile, to make the floors lie even. Someone has an idea for building a hall that will be a fit place for the Round Table. And it’s working! Geraldus, as soon as the roads are clear again, you must come with me. The Hall is almost finished—a great open room supported by enormous pillars and beams of wood. I have walked through it, sat on the floor where my chair will one day be, and imagined it all.”
Geraldus was aware that Arthur could see it all and wished that he himself were not so blind. “When will it be ready?” he asked.
“What? Ready? I don’t know. It may never be exactly the way I have planned it. But I do know that I intend to spend the next summer there and properly begin the Round Table. We have waited far too long to set that in motion.”
Guinevere’s heart sank. She had hoped to spend the summer with her parents again while Arthur went from one place to another, busy with mustering soldiers for defense and recruiting knights for his government. “Perhaps,” she thought, brightening, “Arthur will not be able to get that awful table from the cave on my parents’ estate. Then he will have to forget the whole idea and settle here in Caerleon.”
She rose from the table. “I am going to my rooms, to rest. Geraldus, will you come and dine with us tonight? Constantine, Cador’s son, has just returned from Armorica. He has brought back his sister, Lydia. She was fostered for years at the home of Hoel, Arthur’s cousin. Constantine is leaving again soon. But she is going to stay with me. Do you remember them?”
“I know Constantine well, but Lydia was gone before I ever visited Cador and Sidra. I will be delighted to meet her.”
Geraldus noticed with amusement that Guinevere had directed her explanation of the relationships not at him, but at something apparently hovering over his left shoulder. Being around people who could see what he could only hear was a great comfort to him. They kept him from continually doubting his sanity.
• • •
Guinevere was relieved to be away from the noise of the Hall. Though Arthur had set up a school for the older children, the little ones were still enough to cover the floor on a winter afternoon. The babble of their playing was augmented by the gossiping of their mothers, conversations from which Guinevere was excluded, not because of her rank, but because she lacked the vital credential to join them: there was no warm, sticky
Geraldus sat down wearily. “No, Arthur. You know how often I have tried. They will never leave their home again. Each time I visit, I find it harder to leave, too. There is such peace there and they found so little here. But you could come to them, both of you. It would be good for you, Arthur. Don’t you agree, Guinevere?”
Guinevere stretched out her arms to him. “First,” she said, “I think you should kiss me nicely, because you have been away so long and I have missed you.”
As she embraced him, Guinevere whispered, “We can’t make him rest. He won’t. Don’t try to convince him now. Ask him about Camelot.”
But Arthur did not wait to be asked. Camelot was all he wanted to talk about. He gestured broadly as he described it, sweeping cups and plates from the table as he tried to make diagrams in the air. And his face had the look of a man who sees visions.
“There are problems. Always. Thousands of problems. No one remembers how things were done in the old days. No one wants to try to find a new way. Sometimes we have been reduced to studying pictures on the walls in the old forts to see if they show how the stones were laid or the land cleared. But it is growing, taking shape at last. We sweat and curse and fall in the mud, dragging the walls with us. I begin to think it will never work, that I must be content with a lesser dream, that I will have to be satisfied with clumsy, unsure work. J ust when I despair, something happens. Someone appears who knows how to fire the tile, to make the floors lie even. Someone has an idea for building a hall that will be a fit place for the Round Table. And it’s working! Geraldus, as soon as the roads are clear again, you must come with me. The Hall is almost finished—a great open room supported by enormous pillars and beams of wood. I have walked through it, sat on the floor where my chair will one day be, and imagined it all.”
Geraldus was aware that Arthur could see it all and wished that he himself were not so blind. “When will it be ready?” he asked.
“What? Ready? I don’t know. It may never be exactly the way I have planned it. But I do know that I intend to spend the next summer there and properly begin the Round Table. We have waited far too long to set that in motion.”
Guinevere’s heart sank. She had hoped to spend the summer with her parents again while Arthur went from one place to another, busy with mustering soldiers for defense and recruiting knights for his government. “Perhaps,” she thought, brightening, “Arthur will not be able to get that awful table from the cave on my parents’ estate. Then he will have to forget the whole idea and settle here in Caerleon.”
She rose from the table. “I am going to my rooms, to rest. Geraldus, will you come and dine with us tonight? Constantine, Cador’s son, has just returned from Armorica. He has brought back his sister, Lydia. She was fostered for years at the home of Hoel, Arthur’s cousin. Constantine is leaving again soon. But she is going to stay with me. Do you remember them?”
“I know Constantine well, but Lydia was gone before I ever visited Cador and Sidra. I will be delighted to meet her.”
Geraldus noticed with amusement that Guinevere had directed her explanation of the relationships not at him, but at something apparently hovering over his left shoulder. Being around people who could see what he could only hear was a great comfort to him. They kept him from continually doubting his sanity.
• • •
Guinevere was relieved to be away from the noise of the Hall. Though Arthur had set up a school for the older children, the little ones were still enough to cover the floor on a winter afternoon. The babble of their playing was augmented by the gossiping of their mothers, conversations from which Guinevere was excluded, not because of her rank, but because she lacked the vital credential to join them: there was no warm, sticky
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