The Legacy of Leonesse

It was midnight, or so the stars told him. The Good Sir Knight ventured on not for battle, nor quest, nor even on his steed; he traveled on foot. What, one might ask, was this venture that drove him on at such an hour, if not battle, nor quest, nor even the aid of his steed? The answer lay in his heart, driving Sir Lancelot on to the venture of loving his Lady Gwynivere.
Beneath the rough arms of a tree just outside the Mighty King's castle, she waited. Here was the 20th New Moon of her sins, but she thought well her husband knew naught of this concealed affair. She and her lover every night repented in prayer and always asked God to give them a sign from Heaven if He had forgiven them.
"M'Lady," he called gently.
She turned 'round, gasping.
"Good Sir Knight, you've frightened me!"
"Why, then, m'Lady must pardon me," Lancelot replied, taking her by the hand and pecking it with his blushing lips. His blushing lips seemed to touch her fair cheeks as they, too, turned a tingling rouge.
"Your lips are cold," she teased, giggling slightly.
"Aye, fairest maiden, because yours have yet to warm them."
"I pardon you, gentle Sir," Gwynivere sighed, embracing him, while closing his eyes with kisses.
"I will not hide your secret another hour!" cried the sky as it began to lighten. Or so it might have, if it could talk. But everything talked in its own way in this magical kingdom of Camelot. The wise wizard Merlin had told the Mighty King Arthur of this as a youth, and as a sage ruler now, Arthur made it known to all the people of his kingdom. Gwynivere and Lancelot began hearing its magic for themselves as they knew it was the time for good-byes.
"My dear," began Lancelot, "God is with you when I cannot be. He is my love for you always."
"Oh, sweet fate! You talk as though you made Him for me! Is that not a sin?" she said, eyes filling with tears.
"If it is, I shall drop my sword, and take it with open arms!"
The Good Sir Knight takes his stolen Lady in his arms to bid farewell to another meeting with one last hold.
"I cannot let go," exclaimed Gwynivere, straining to suppress her emotions.
"Then, M'Lady, do not let go. Hold tight to me, and release your ailing tears."
She, however, on hearing this released her embrace and only held tight to her tears as her love left her alone once more beneath the rough arms of a tree outside the Mighty King's castle.
The new day brought on its new adventures as in Gwynivere's chamber she so suddenly awakened, and saw the striking image of a little girl no more than eight years old. The vision had the Queen's olive eyes, brilliant sorrel-colored hair winding down in curls that scarcely came past her shoulder blades, and Lancelot's thick, blushing lips. The most curious thing about this vision to the queen was that it was dressed in rags. It began slowly striding toward Gwynivere who now sat up straight in her bed with awe.
"What do you want, my girl?" she asked the approaching child.
"Please, good Queen, might I touch your womb?"
"Who has sent you to me, my dear?"
"Only God knows, my queen," was the reply.
Gwynivere could not suppers a joyous smile as the girls tiny down faced palm firmly touched the flesh surrounding her womb, though neither her lips nor her face showed any kind of expression. Momentarily, the girl drew her hand off and away.
"I must go now," she said.
"Farewell, bright angel!"
The vision, without another word, quickly vanished. Gwynivere sank back into her bed, idly feeling the touched area of her flesh, and, as expected, she felt life writhing and twisting inside.
"God has given us a girl babe," "and a beautiful angel she shall be, born to Lancelot and me!"
Presently, the queen grew ill in her preparation, and this of course worried her King husband, but he still knew naught of her pregnancy. Cleverly, Gwynivere called upon her loyal nurse maids to convince Arthur that she must move to a Keep in Camelot to fully recover from illness. The Ignorant King swiftly gave permission for her nurse maids to move her there and care for her for as long as it took.
Within months, Gwynivere gave into the pains labor and a very pink babe began to show itself...legs first?!

"Milady, we know not want to do to prevent your daughter's certain death!" cried the head nurse maid.
"God, why must you play games with my heart?!!" shrilled an exhausted mother-to-be. She began to weep.
"Perhaps God did not forgive milady's sins after all," said another maid.
All at once, the unimaginable miracle happened: the babe girl with a burst of life and strength struggled and freed herself, took her first breath (or rather, scream), to leave every other girl in the Keep screaming herself.
Gwynivere fondled her very new babe in her arms, humming her a song she had known her mother (nurse) to sing to her about Gwynivere's childhood town to soothe the savage beast of a fussy child. The child instantly quieted and fell asleep as her mother sang the last extended, sweet note of the simplistic song.
"And your name must be after my beloved little town: Leonesse."
So it was that mother at last fell softly into sleep and join the girl once again in all the visions passing through her head--this time, with a name to call her by. Fate would soon again began to work its twisted magic around the kingdom of Camelot.
On a full moon night, Lancelot ran with astonishing speed to the rough-armed tree, for he knew so recently of Gwynivere's return to Camelot and of the urgency of her request to see him on this midnight.
"Milady, my life, I am here!"
"Hold out your hands, Good Sir Knight," was Gwynivere's odd reply. "Be gentle."
"Of course, milady."
Lancelot felt softness wiggling and heard a sweet coo of a sound. He gasped a chuckle.
"What gift is this?" he asked, his tone noticeably astounded.
"She is Leonesse--God's gift to us."
"Is this angel my daughter?"
"Aye, beloved."
Lancelot cradled the small babe and tenderly kissed her brow.
"I have fallen in love once again," he sighed.
Gwynivere proceeded to tell the complete story of the girl-vision and how she knew in her heart that she was destined for greatness; she carried heroic blood in her veins which saved her from Death before her passage into the world. Lancelot followed by harmonizing with her story and spoke of a similar vision he had of a little girl in rags the eve before.
"Lancelot, we must take our daughter to Merlin."
"Agreed. The old man will know what to do to keep her alive and out of harm's grasp."
They journeyed off deep into the forest, babe alternating in each other's arms, in search of the grove where the wizard often dwelled and slept. Lancelot's keen sense of direction soon found the old man sprawling across a boulder perhaps in preparation for a nap.
"Good Merlin, highest Sorcerer of grand England!" called Lancelot.
"Ahh, Sir Lancelot du Lake, and Lady Gwynivere, fate brings you here to me so late!"
"Indeed so," replied Gwynivere. "Our daughter urgently needs your guidance."
"So she does; bring the lass here to me!"
Lancelot carefully handed his babe-daughter to the wise magician and he disposed of the blanket 'round her chubby body and examined it in a wizard's detail.
"Leonesse, is it?"
"Aye," said the anxious couple in unison.
Merlin froze and hesitated to do any further examinations for a good minute or so.
"What's the trouble, good sir Merlin?" asked Gwynivere with a slight tone of fear in her voice.
"At ease, m'Lady. No trouble a'tall. Destiny is in my hands."
"Destiny? Of what sort?" inquired Lancelot, attempting in vain to hide excitement in his tone.
"Ahhhh, of the grandest sort, my good Sir Knight; but be forewarned: all destiny has costly prices."
"If our daughter is indeed to encounter the grandest of destiny in her lifetime, Lancelot and I will be more than willing to pay such costly prices," she replied strongly. Lancelot whole-heatedly agreed.
"Well said, my dear lady," said Merlin, now cradling the babe. Leonesse began to shiver, then fuss and cry, whereupon Merlin cast a spell on her to comfort her. She relaxed considerably.
"Babes are quite easy to please," noted the wizard, "if you have a little magic."
Gwynivere proceeded to tell the wizard of her vision in complete detail and asked him if God had indeed forgiven them for their sins. He told the couple that it seemed certain that that was God's message, but only if the prophecy was fulfilled.
"You both have already agreed to yield to the prophecy's conditions," began Merlin, "and yet you know not what any of them are. Either you are very determined or very foolish; ha-ha, no, a combination!"
"What, may we ask, O, Merlin are all these conditions?" questioned Lancelot.
"There are but two, and both shall test your strength."
"I am strong."
"Granted, physically, Sir Knight, but remember: there are several kinds of strength and these conditions should test them all!"
Lancelot quieted and he and Gwynivere looked at each other in fearful anticipation. Merlin continued in honor of golden silence.
"This young girl already has a mark of bravery," he stated outright, indicating a scar across her abdomen area. "Leonesse fought for her fragile life and won--therefore she has great potential. However, as her parents, you must heed these two conditions, or fate will turn its back on all of you! The first condition is forbidding anymore meetings between the two of you, secret or otherwise--else another babe might be born and Leonesse's density shall therefore be invalid. Second, and by far most trifling: neither of you must lay eyes on your daughter during any hours following the end of this night until Arthur's reign has permanently ended. At that time, Leonesse shall soon become England's first ruling queen of many more. She is destined to be a just and firm monarch. If either of you fail to abide by the second condition of this prophecy, Leonesse shall not live another day."
Though their emotions begged them to object to both the conditions, Lancelot and his love agreed to give up any evidence of their feelings for each other in hopes that the sweet magic of time would work its spell for a glorious future.
In one final embrace, the couple cradled their tiny babe between their bosoms, arms clasped tightly 'round the other. When they parted, trusting Merlin to find care for their child, they never uttered any farewells. 'Farewell,' after all, is much too final a word.
Although they often dreamed by night of their ever-growing child, Lancelot and Gwynivere had duties and events to carry out that would always cloud their minds by day...until there came such a time when the fine and fragile glass of protection could remain intact no longer.
The Good Sir Knight and the Mighty King swiftly led their brigade to the burnt and ruined village. Thick smoke poured over the Knights of the Round Table like honey. There had been raids by Camelot's First Knight turned foe, Prince Mallagant. Arthur gave strict orders to save the ladies and young children first and foremost. Lancelot and the other knights crawled along the tattered earth and used the Good air for comforting the people rather than for breathing.
"Little children, come to me!" called Lancelot repeatedly. He would get answer occasionally, but the poor little things would die because they did not think to crawl and the smoke took their air and thus their lives.
"I come, Sir, I come!" said a child.
And, almost at once, a hand, a life held to Lancelot so tightly, and he did his Knightly duty and carried the little one to safety in the Healing Church chamber of Arthur's domain. The child was badly scarred from the Fire's wrath beyond any sort of outward recognition; the best anyone there could tell was that the child was a little girl. It no less than amazed the Good Sir Knight that a young child could survive such a disaster when those over twice her estimated age had not.
"You are strong, my dear," he told her.
"As you are," she replied.
"With a will such as yours, you can outlive many here."
"Only God knows such, Sir. I think I should like to die soon, anyhow."
"For what reason should a child die, little one?"
"The smoke took my Mother and Father. I want to be with them!"
"I understand, dear; I was orphaned, too."
"Will you be my father now?"
"In spirit, my child."
"Then I am your daughter in spirit!"

With that last utterance, he clasped her in his arms and whispered in her ear, "We shall take good care of you!"
The troublesome events of the daytime in Camelot gradually faded out with its fires, leaving the winds to carry ashes with news of an Omen breathing on the future well-nigh.
The Witching Hour came creeping into King Arthur's head and the haunting Visions of a girl dressed in rags appeared, rattling his ear drums with screams and coating his robe with fresh blood.
"The King is dead! Long live the Queen," she chanted anew.
And abruptly, Arthur knew of the sins of two of his most trusted others, and in a mad rage, he awoke from the trance and stormed the Healing Church Chamber to find that Lancelot was the only obstacle between he and his victim. However, he was a poor one at that, because, like the girl- child he was fast asleep next to her.
The Vengeful King drew Excalibur from its sheathe. The unmistakable sound woke Lancelot in time to behold Arthur drive the blade into the child's heart. However brutal her death was, not even Excalibur could disturb her peacefulness.
Lancelot, fully aware of this murder by then, was aghast at the Mighty King's doings.
"M'Lord, have you indeed gone mad?!!!"
"Aye! Mad with outrage at this affair of yours!"
"What affair do you speak so ill of???"
"You know of what affair I speak!!! But I have triumphed--this child will not destroy the Mighty King Arthur!"
Lancelot's eyes filled with tears of pain--this child that had been through the fires of Hell on earth to survive was his babe-daughter. He drew a long breath.
"Arthur," he began rather daringly, for this was the first time he had addressed his commander by his given name. "Have you the heart--have you the soul--have you the ears--then you must listen! Gwynivere and I never meant to ail you. Love has made us his slaves. Leonesse--your 'triumph' as you so call her--was said to be destined by God Himself. Merlin spoke to us His word in prophecy, and she was to rule succeeding you- -not by destroying you. She lived eight years. No more. I must be Guilty of leaving her prophecy unfulfilled, for I, rather than having saved her precious life, have taken it. God has not forgiven any of us for our greedy sins--"
He suddenly broke off and paused as he looked up and saw the girl- vision of his daughter atop the altar with her tiny hands clasped in silent prayer. She mouthed a single word, which was "Faith!". Lancelot suddenly smiled. Arthur looked in the same direction, but saw nothing.
"Have you indeed gone mad, Sir Knight?" Arthur inquired.
"No...I have not taken her life a'tall! She merely waits to be reborn!"
The Mighty King searched his quick wit for a retort, but as quick as it was, it was no match for the speed of his awe as he felt for a moment the presence of an angel summoning the Magic of his own kingdom to silence him. Mortality had never weighed as heavy in the Mighty King's bones before, and seeing through the darkness of what was to come, Arthur knew his glory days were sharply over.
"God," he said. "Forgive me! Forgive us all!!!"

The End