AUTHOR: Mnemosyne
Disclaimer: Not mine! The characters belong to legend and Touchstone. The idea is all mine.
SUMMARY: Guinevere still grieves for her fallen lover. What does she do on those nights when she can no longer endure the pain?
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Lance/Gwen
NOTES:
This is a response to the LYRICS WHEEL challenge at KingArthurFanfiction. The challenge was to use lyrics from the song "Darkness" by Disturbed within the context of the story, as though it were part of regular conversation. In other words, not a songfic, but a song-INSPIRED fic. I'd been working on this story for a while, but couldn't figure out how to finish it. When I read this challenge, I immediately knew I could use it here. I hope it pleases!
The Silver Lady came always at night, but she did not come every night. Each time she bore an elegant silver pitcher, and wore a fine-woven gray cloak that shielded her face and masked her slender form. She seemed a specter as she drifted across the dew-dipped grass in the moonlight, and many believed this to be the case. Others suspected she was a flesh-and-bone woman, troubled by some private pain, and these had the right of it, though none guessed her true identity.
Each man, woman and child who saw the gray lady let her take a measure of their own sorrow, until it surrounded her like a shroud; living or dead, flesh or fairy, she had become a touchstone for the living to make their peace with the dead. They let her pass unmolested, and never a word was spoken to the Silver Lady. In exchange, she bore their silent prayers, painful regrets, secret hopes and lingering desires, and carried them on small feet into the dark forest that loomed in the shadow of Arthur's fortress.
Two men knew the Lady's name. One was her lord, and he spoke not a word. The other was her lover, and he dwelt with the dead.
The forest surrounded Guinevere like a blanket, enfolding her in its familiar scents, sounds and textures as she moved silently through the underbrush. Trees had been her companions long before she had ever met Arthur, and supped at his table, and shared his bed, and lived as queen to his king. Those early days of her life in the wilderness seemed little more than a dream now; the life of another woman, long forgotten by time. But sometimes, the call of woods and of dark, green places hummed in her bones with painful intensity, and she would sit very quietly on her balcony overlooking the forest, and listen to it say her name in its strange, woody language. And then the longing would pass, and she would be Guinevere again, queen of the Britons.
But there was another longing that made her ache, and it was a desire that could not be quenched by silence or tranquil company. It came most often on cold winter nights beneath a frigid December moon, when the snow fell in flakes the size of butterflies. She would sit at her window and brush her long black hair - lustrous and thick, now that she had maidens to tend it - and she would stare past the forest, away to the east, while silent, half-forgotten tears wound their way down the column of her neck. No amount of talking could console her, and her maidens had long since learned to stay away on nights such as this one, lest they suffer the full brunt of her temper. Even Arthur - good, kind Arthur - steered clear of her chamber on these nights; he knew all too well what grieved her. It was a grief he could share, to an extent, and though it left a portion of his heart hollow, he would not begrudge her her tears.
These were the nights when she stripped to her shift, donned her gray cloak and took up her silver pitcher, and stole away silently to the comforting confines of the familiar forest. Perhaps, had her aching been less, the soothing scent of evergreen would have been enough to balm her wounds. But if anything, the smells only made the pain greater, made the tears fall harder, until her eyes burned and her tongue felt like chalk in her mouth.
She did not run, though her feet begged for the privilege, but bore herself with stately grace to a place where the trees thinned and formed a natural cathedral, surrounding a bubbling silver spring. Merlin had dubbed the glade a holy place, site of a miracle, for the spring had never existed before the battle of Badon Hill. It had sprung up in the days following the slaughter, when Arthur and his new court had settled in the fortress of Camelot, home of the Round Table, to begin his reign. Merlin had declared the fountain a sign of purity, of new life springing from Saxon ashes, and Guinevere had watched as the elder Briton recited the incantations that hallowed the ground.
There is old magic, deep in the dark places of the forest, that dates to the beginning of the world. It is the magic of life, of Creation itself, embedded so deeply in the primordial bedrock that it leaves a taste on the air like new-fallen rain, and makes the trees grow tall and sleek and strong. Guinevere knew this to be true, which was why she always came to this majestic hollow when her heart could no longer bear its own weight, and she needed to achieve the impossible.
Without breaking her stride, Guinevere let fall her cloak, and it pooled on the moss behind her as she walked with slow purpose towards the spring. It bubbled up through a natural cairn of rocks before sluicing down the sides of the boulders and adding to the tiny stream that had formed at its base. The night was freezing, but the spring was hot, and inviting swaths of steam curled off the stones. Kneeling beside the cairn, Guinevere carefully set down her pitcher at the edge of the stream, then reached into the vessel and withdrew two objects. One was a talisman, well-worn by touch, which dangled from a leather thong.
The other was a dagger.
Laying these items aside, Guinevere set the pitcher to fill beneath a steaming flow of water, then sat back on her heels and stripped off her shift. The early-December cold made her skin prickle and her breath smoke, but she ignored the discomfort and folded the thin shift away beside the boulders. Then she lifted the decanter - filled now to the brim with steaming spring water - raised it to the moon as if in greeting, and tipped it out over her head in a shimmering silver cascade. The warmth was at first welcome, then instantly regretted as the icy cold assaulted her wet skin with sharp fingers. Guinevere was shivering, but she did not stop in her preparations. Filling the pitcher again, she poured the water down the front of her body, so that it sluiced between her breasts and over her belly. Then again, down her back. Then with trembling hands she began to scrub her limbs, using the holy water to cleanse her flesh before the ritual began.
Finally, fingers and lips blue from the cold, she lifted the dagger. Her hand was trembling to such an extent she could barely grip the handle, but she forced her fingers to function. The skin of her hand was not quite numb as she drew the blade across her palm, but her teeth were chattering too much for her to cry out in pain. She would not have done so anyway; the myriad of faded scars that criss-crossed her palm was proof that she had done this enough times to ignore the pain. A line of blood blossomed across her palm, and she set down the knife.
Guinevere picked up the talisman with her unwounded hand. For a moment she paused, running her shaking thumb over the lion's face carved into the amulet. The pendant was not hers; it had belonged to her champion. She had come to possess it in a desperate fit of grave robbery, when she had clawed at the cold ashes of his burial fire, blinded by tears and driven half mad by grief.
He was dead.
That was two years ago now, but at the time, mere days had passed since the battle. Days when she had walked in a fog, half believing she would meet him at dinner or in the corridors. When the realization came that he was gone, it half killed her. Guinevere remembered little about that day, except for the fractured pain of being torn in two by love, and the sharp agony of ragged fingernails mired in cold earth.
Then her hand had touched it, and the madness had passed as suddenly as it arrived. Slightly singed around the edges, but remarkably whole otherwise, the talisman had somehow made her feel less empty. It was true she'd never be full again, but feeling the comforting weight of his amulet in her hand made the emptiness more bearable.
Until nights like this one, when she couldn't bear it any longer, and came to the spring to beg.
Forgive me, she pleaded silently, squeezing her eyes shut and wrapping her wounded hand around the charm, holding it tight beneath her chin. Forgive me my selfish nature, that I cannot leave you to your rest, but every night without you is a torment. It compounds day after day, until I think my body will collapse under the weight of its misery. Worthless, worthless wight that I am - I cannot breathe without the thought of you haunting the air. I cannot eat, nor sleep, nor find comfort in the company of friends. I become a plague to them, just as I am to you. It is unbearable. I am unbearable. The thought of this weakness gnaws at me, and yet I am unraveled, because YOU are this weakness, and I would not extinguish your memory for all the riches of this world.
My knight. My champion. I miss your laughing eyes. Do not forsake your lady in the cold winter moonlight. I am waiting. I will always wait.
Shivering and half-frozen, Guinevere huddled beside the cairn, squeezing the talisman in a rigid fist. Time seemed to stop; she might have been waiting for hours, or seconds, or years.
Then the familiar hand touched her cheek, and the cold melted away, and she raised her head to gaze into the familiar brown eyes of her lover.
"You came," she murmured, dazed by cold, a smile curving her lips.
I will always come.
His eyes said the words, not his lips. He didn't speak. Lancelot never spoke when he came to her. Not for lack of desire, Guinevere was sure, but due to simple distance. He came to her across planes of existence she couldn't begin to understand. The magic made him substantial, and he could touch her and stroke her hair back from her forehead; but his voice remained steadfastly silent. It was no matter. His presence was more than enough to soothe her.
Lancelot knelt, folding his long, lanky body until he was at eye-level with her. Gathering her hands into his own, he looked at her bloody palm, the blue tips of her fingers, and raised his head. His eyes registered concern and frustration.
"A worthless wight," she reminded him wryly, her lips twisting in a self-derisive smile. Snaking her hands in his grip so that she held his wrists, she tugged him towards her. "Please. I am undone without you."
The knight reached up to caress her cheek with a ghostly hand, made eerily translucent by the moonlight. Guinevere closed her eyes and leaned into the elusive touch; gentle and distant, as though meadow grasses grazed her cheek. She felt his ghost cloak settle around her shoulders, blocking out the cold, and she moaned.
Arms closed around her slim frame, and the young queen opened her eyes to gaze up into the face of her champion as he pulled her against his chest. "You must think me a pitiful sight," she murmured, reaching up to trace his lips with her fingertip. "A useless woman brought low by grief." Sighing, she leaned her head on his shoulder and nestled deeper under his cloak.
"I have tried," Guinevere whispered, voice thick with tears. "I have gone months without you, and thought myself cured of this fracture. Then I see a black stallion, or a child with bottomless eyes, and I fall apart. The dressings unwind and the wounds reopen, and I sleep with you behind my eyelids."
His hand came up to touch her cheek, intercepting the tears that ebbed from her eyes. Guinevere looked up and found his gaze. "Does it disappoint you?" she murmured as he stroked her tears away, "To know that you died for a weak woman. Do I dismay you?"
Lancelot pressed his lips to her forehead, and she sighed. Opening her palm against his chest, she watched the movement of grass and shadow on the ground beneath his specter. He had been so solid once; so real. She had not known it at the time, but he had been her blood mate. Not her destiny, not her god; not even her true love. They had met, and she had KNOWN him. Everything that made him who he was - she knew it all, because it was the mirror of her own soul. The stubborn passion that drove him surged in her own veins. Together, they were harmony. Separated from him, she had become nothing but an echo in an empty room.
"I love Arthur," she murmured dreamily, watching moonlight filter through his spectral torso to fall in shadowy patches on the grass beneath him. "I do. He has uncovered pieces of my heart that I thought buried or long dead. He warms me in all weathers." Squeezing her eyes shut to block out his transparent body, she pressed her face into his collarbone and wound her fingers in his ghostly cloak. "But gods preserve me, Lancelot, I would trade it all for this moment beside you in the cold December wind, for it is only now that I feel complete." She raised her head, fixing him with a look of piercing intensity. "Your blood is my blood. Do you know what your death has done to me? We share a heart, Lancelot. I am half dead now you are gone."
Lancelot's dark eyes - made darker by the backdrop of cold winter stars that shone through them - softened, and he raised a hand to cup her cheek. The pad of his thumb passed over her lips, and she sighed, letting her eyes drift shut again as his hand stroked down her neck. She could feel the callouses on his fingertips, making her body hum like a lyre string.
Oh, Gods. How could she give this up again? How could she watch him fade like mist when the sun rose with the morning? Too many nights she'd held his hand as it melted like snow within her grasp. The respite between visitations was growing shorter as time passed. She had endured six months before she first summoned his spirit, in a fit of desperation and blinding tears. Then another four. Then three. Two. Now, she could go no longer than a month without his touch, and the weeks within that month were black, hellish things, devoid of hope and color. Her depression was a tangible thing. Arthur could sense it; she knew that without question. He was too sensitive a man not to notice the unwelcome house guest that sat at her elbow and shadowed her every move. It must have killed him quietly inside, to see how she suffered and know there was nothing he could do to help. The thought caused Guinevere no end of pain. Arthur was too good a man to be saddled with a selfish, pining woman as a wife. He deserved far better that she could hope to offer.
And Lancelot. Her dear Lancelot. Would he never be allowed to rest in peace? Must her sorrow cause such disruption to all those she loved?
"Better dead than a plague on my dear ones," she whispered, as Lancelot continued to stroke her hair. Sighing heavily, she pressed into his embrace.
Better dead than a plague on my dear ones…
Her eyes opened.
Better dead than a plague on my dear ones…
The world was a blur through her tears, yet she had never seen so clearly.
Better dead than a plague on my dear ones…
She raised her head and stared into his eyes.
"Take me with you," she whispered.
Lancelot's hand stilled, and he tilted his head, eyes confused.
"Take me with you," Guinevere repeated. Sitting up, she took his face between her hands. "Beyond the veil, to the other side. I cannot stay here, Lancelot. When this night is over, I cannot endure the morning that will follow." Her fingers pressed into his spectral flesh, and she pressed their foreheads together. For one who yearned for death, she had never felt so alive as she did right now, infused with fresh purpose.
Lancelot took her wrists and pulled her hands away from his temples, forcing her to sit back, though not far. He shook his head, and his eyes spoke volumes.
NO.
And he began to stand.
Guinevere's heart stopped dead in her chest. "No…!" she exclaimed, grabbing for him and keeping him seated beside her on the ground. He would not meet her eyes, and she felt fresh tears choke her voice. "Don't turn away," she begged tearfully. "Please? Lancelot, please!" She pressed her forehead against his sleeve, ignoring the cold wind that raked her skin with icy fingers, now that his cloak had fallen away. "I cannot live like this! I cannot bear this living death any longer! Do you think you are with me only now? I pray to you every night, Lancelot! I am not a holy woman, yet I pray to you in all my darkest moments!" She raised her head, tears streaking her pale face. "I pray you've heard the words I've spoken, night after night, every night since the day you fell! The guilt tears me to pieces, Lancelot. I have never KNOWN such guilt! You died for me. I KILLED YOU. I killed my love! And living as I do now, day after day, a waking dream… I am killing another! Arthur suffers as I do!" She felt Lancelot stiffen beneath her hands and pressed on. "Yes, Arthur. His wife yearns for another, the selfish woman. She craves the touch of his closest friend. He lost us both at Badon Hill, Lancelot. You he cast on the east wind, but with me he married a corpse."
Lancelot turned then, his wide, expressive eyes pained by her admission. Guinevere grabbed his hand and pressed it to her face. "You do not have to do anything, my love," she whispered, her voice little more than a fervent breath in the frosty air. "Let the winter take me. I ask only that you wait with me, to meet me in the afterworld." Her thumb stroked his wrist, as she held his gaze unblinking. "I will let the darkness cover me," she murmured, "and deny everything this world pretends to offer. I will slowly walk away from this empty body, to breathe again." She smiled. It felt so strange, to smile in this moment. "On my own in the next world, I should be afraid. But with YOU, my dearest… With you, there is no fear." Raising her hand to his face, she passed it over his eyes, feeling the phantom brush of his lashes on her palm.
"Carry me away," she whispered. "I need your strength to get me through this. Dare to believe in me for one last time. I will not fail you. I will not falter. Only wait for me, my love. Only wait…"
Her tongue felt stiff and heavy now; her limbs were rigid as stone. She had long since ceased to feel the cold. A warm lassitude had begun to settle in her bones. It would not be long now. When morning came, there would be no rising with the sun to return to her rooms at the fortress. Arthur would find her, and he would weep, and they would bury her in the cemetery overlooking the sounding sea. Then the world would move on with her anchor-weight gone, like a ship loosed from its moorings.
She felt Lancelot's ghost cloak settle around her shoulders; felt him gather her into his arms and onto his lap. Nestling closer, she forced her heavy eyes to open and gazed up into his face, a soft smile touching her lips. Her knight's dark eyes shone above her, and she could swear it was not starlight, but tears.
Heat.
Warmth surrounded Guinevere as her senses returned. Light glowed against her closed eyes, and she sighed.
Fingers she hadn't noticed squeezed her hand. "Guinevere?" a familiar voice spoke by her shoulder.
Slowly, careful not to move too quickly, she opened her eyes. Immediately she recognized the familiar stone and timber of her bedroom. A fire leapt in the hearth and an oil lamp burned on a table at her bedside. A book lay open upon it, obviously dropped hastily by the reader. A chair had been pulled up to sit next to the bed, and the man sitting in the chair was the same man holding her hand; the man who had spoken her name with such careful worry.
"Arthur," she whispered. Her voice would go no louder. The inside of her mouth felt dry as wool.
The king's answering smile was like sunrise to his dark, fretful features. "You remember my name," he said, beaming.
Guinevere couldn't help but smile then, though her face felt sore and foreign. "Of course," she murmured. "Why should I forget?"
Not letting go, he raised his free hand to stroke her hair back from her forehead, caressing her face as he did. "You have been unconscious for almost a day, Guinevere," he said softly, his thumb running over her cheekbone soothingly. "I feared…" He trailed off, and smiled again. "The healers will be as glad as I to see you returned to us. They shall get some sleep at last, without me hammering on their doors at all hours of the night."
Guinevere frowned. "I was unconscious?" she asked, confused. "Why?"
"A woodsman and his wife said they found you on their doorstep, in your shift and a cloak and little else to shield you from the cold." He ran his fingers through her hair. "The man said he heard a knock on his door, and when his wife went to answer it, there you were, curled up on the threshold, unconscious." His fingers tightened around her hand. "I thank God Almighty they were home."
Fragments of the previous night filtered into Guinevere's mind, but nothing solid. Dream images of eyes in the dark. Her brow furrowed and she rubbed her forehead as she tried to crystallize the pictures in her memory. "I… don't remember anything," she murmured, feeling lost.
"You mustn't fight it," Arthur soothed, squeezing her hand again. "You are safe now. Should the memories return, we will handle them as they come."
Guinevere nodded, then her eyes flew open. "My pitcher!" she exclaimed.
Arthur nodded to the other side of the bed, and Guinevere tilted her head to see her silver pitcher sitting once again in its customary place in her wash bowl. "Gawain found that beside the spring in the forest," Arthur murmured.
Dark eyes in the night
"Did he find nothing else?" she asked hoarsely.
Arthur shook his head. "Nothing, my love," he said softly.
Guinevere was no fool. Her actions of the previous night were a hazy memory, but she knew all too well her reasons for being in the forest. Where then was her dagger? Dear Gods, where was Lancelot's talisman?
What had she done?
"The villagers talk of a Silver Lady," Arthur said quietly, drawing her attention back to his brilliant eyes. He was watching her calmly, his fingers stroking the back of her hand. "They say she goes into the forest to mourn the dead, bearing a silver pitcher and wearing a gray woven cloak."
Guinevere swallowed. "Do they say such things?" She squeezed his hand.
Arthur nodded, watching their entangled fingers. "There are those who believe she is one of the dead herself. A ghost woman, come back to haunt the living." He raised his head, and the piercing intensity of his vivid eyes took her breath away. "I do not believe that. I believe she is a flesh and blood woman, and she suffers. I believe that perhaps there are times she wishes she was among the dead whom she mourns." He shook his head. "But I do not believe she is dead herself." A pause. Then… "And I am… glad of that."
The king looked down then, and Guinevere felt tears burning in her throat. This man… This dear, strong, good man, who had given her so much and asked so little. He humbled himself before her now, and would not meet her eyes. It broke her heart to see him bow his head as though he were somehow unworthy.
Raising her free hand - heavy as a flagstone - she placed it on his head, stroking his thick black hair. "If that is so," she whispered, "then there is hope for her, for life begets hope. She may yet remember that all that is good is not dead." She smiled; a tremulous, weary thing, but the strongest she could offer. "As I do."
When Arthur raised his head this time, there were tears in his gleaming eyes; but he did not acknowledge them. "Guinevere, I know-"
She dropped her hand from his hair to cover his lips, and shushed him quietly. "Shhh, Arthur," she whispered, smiling. "It is past now. I have lived in the past for far too long, and it has numbed me to all that is present." She managed a self-derisive chuckle. "It appears I needed to be numbed near to death before I could finally again begin to feel." Her smile faded, and the sudden burn of tears began to sting her eyes. "I am so sorry, my Arthur. How I have mistreated you."
Arthur gripped her hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a fervent kiss to her knuckles. "You have carried the burdens of our shared grief in that silver pitcher, my love," he whispered, "and I thank you for that. My only regret of these past few years is that I was too weak to offer to carry it for you."
Guinevere managed a smile through her tears. "No, my love," she whispered. "It was a burden I was meant to carry alone, until another took it from me. And now it is gone."
Without warning, a yawn widened her jaw, and she felt Arthur squeeze her hand yet again. "I have made you do too much talking," he chided himself, "and you are still weak. I will leave you to your rest, and tell the others you have awoken." He began to stand, but Guinevere stopped him.
"A kiss, my lord?" she asked.
Arthur smiled broadly, bent forward, and tenderly covered her mouth with his own. The familiar rough scrape of his stubble against her chin was a welcome counterpoint to the soft touch of his lips. When he pulled away, she couldn't resist a sigh of contentment.
"Sleep," the king murmured, laying corresponding kisses on both of her eyelids and the tip of her nose. "And dream sweet dreams."
Guinevere's eyes were too heavy to reopen, and she could not force her tongue to shape a response beyond a soft moan. She felt him arrange her hands comfortably over her stomach atop the comforter, then listened as he quietly made his way to the door. There was a soft creak as he opened the door, then an equally soft thud as he closed it behind him.
Alone with the crackle of the fire, Guinevere let her sleepy mind wander. Scraps of the previous night's events were filtering into her memory, but it would be some time before anything cohesive would come of them. It was no matter; she knew already what they would say.
His talisman was missing. So was her dagger. Lancelot obviously did not wish her to summon him again. Guinevere took no offense at the message, because she knew it was not meant as a slight. She remembered dark eyes in the night, brimming with starlit tears, and the message they communicated to her as clearly as speech.
Not yet, my Guinevere. Now, you must live.
Goodbye at last then, my love, she thought dreamily. I will live, as you wish it. And I will love Arthur, as I always should have done. Forgive me, love, that I have lingered so long in your memory. The onus should not have been placed on you to free me from my grief. Yet you have done so, and I am thankful. That is twice you have saved me, my dearest Lancelot; yet I feel no guilt this time. I feel only peace and security. Things are as they should be. And when the time does come for me to let the darkness cover me… I will welcome that blanket, for I know you will be waiting beneath it.
Dream sweet dreams, my champion. And I pray you will not think me rude if I hope you will dream now and then of me.
Contented, she let the sound of the fire lull her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
And the Silver Lady was never seen again.
THE END