The Wicked Day Part 10

The faintest emphasis here, and another quick glance upward. "Now, my lord Arthur, I have come at your command, and pray you for your clemency towards us all."

Still no reply from the King, nor any movement of welcome. The light, pretty voice went on, the words like pebbles striking against the silence. Mordred, his eyes still downcast, felt something as strong as a touch, and looked up suddenly, to find the King's eyes fixed on him. He met them for the first time, eyes which were at the same time curiously familiar, and yet strange, charged with a look that sent a thrill through him, not of fear, but as if something had struck him below the heart and left him gasping. With the touch his fear was gone. Suddenly, and for the first time since Morgause had veiled logic with threats and sorcery, he saw clearly how foolish his fears had been. Why should this man, this king, trouble to pursue the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of an enemy dead these many years? It was beneath him. It was absurd. For Mordred the air cleared at last, as if a foul mist, magic-crammed, had blown aside.

He was here in the fabled city, the center of the mainland kingdoms. Long ago he had planned for this, dreamed of it, schemed for it. He had tried, in the fear and distrust engendered by Morgause, to escape from it, but here he had been brought, like something destined for sacrifice to her G.o.ddess of the black altar. Now no thought of flight remained. All his old ambitions, his boyhood dreams, flew back, lodged, crystallized. He wanted this, to be part of this. Whatever it took to win a place in this king's kingdoms, he would do it, be it....

Morgause was still speaking, with an unaccustomed note of humility. Mordred, with the new cold light illumining his brain, listened and thought: Every word she says is a lie. No, not a lie, the facts are true enough, but everything she is, everything she is trying to do... all is false. How does he bear it? Surely he cannot be deceived? Not this king. Not Arthur.

". . . So I pray you do not hold me to blame, brother, for coming now, instead of waiting for the morrow. How could I wait, with the lights of Camelot so near across the Lake? I had to come, and to make sure that in your heart you still bore me no malice. And see, I have obeyed you. I am here with all the boys. This on my left is Gawain, eldest of Orkney, my son and your servant. His brothers, too. And this on my right... this is Mordred." She looked up. "Brother, he knows nothing. Nothing. He will be-"

Arthur moved at last. He stopped her with a gesture, then stepped forward and held out a hand.

Morgause, on a sudden intake of breath, fell silent and laid hers in it. The King raised her. Among the boys, and the servants watching from the gate, there was a movement of relief. They had been received.

All would be well. Mordred, rising to his feet, felt something of the same lightening of tension. Even Gawain was smiling, and Mordred found himself responding. But instead of the ritual kiss of welcome, the embrace and the words of greeting, the King said merely: "I have something to say to you that cannot be said before these children." He turned to the boys. "Be welcome here. Now go back to the gatehouse, and wait."

They obeyed. "The gifts," said the chamberlain, "the gifts, quickly. All is not well yet, it seems." He seized the box from a servant, and hurried forward to lay it at the King's feet, then retreated hastily, disconcerted. Arthur did not even glance at the treasure. He was speaking to Morgause, and, though the people at the gate could neither hear what was said nor see her face, they watched how her pose stiffened to defiance, then pa.s.sed again to supplication and even to fear, and how through it all the King stood like stone, and with a face of stone. Only Mordred, with his new clear sight, saw grief there, and weariness.

There was an interruption. From beyond the gates came a sound, growing rapidly louder. Hoofbeats, a horse approaching at a stumbling gallop up the chariotway. A man's voice called out hoa.r.s.ely. One of the gate guards said, under his breath: "The courier from Glevum! By the thunder, he's made good time! He must bring hot news!"

The challenge, another shout, the creak and crash of the gates opening. A tired horse clattered through.

They smelled the reek of exhausted sweat. A breathless word from the courier, and the horse held on its way without pausing, straight up to where the King stood with Morgause.

The rider half fell from the saddle, and went down on one knee. The King looked angry at the interruption, but the courier spoke urgently, and after a pause Arthur beckoned to the guards. Two of them went forward, halting one on either side of Morgause. Then the King turned, with a sign to the courier, and walked back up the roadway with the man following him. At the foot of the palace steps he stopped. For a few minutes the two, King and courier, stood talking, but from the gatehouse the boys could see and hear nothing. Then, suddenly, the King swung round, and shouted.

In a moment, it seemed, the frozen tensions of the night were shattered; from uneasy peace the place sprang to something very like battle orders. A huge grey war-stallion was brought by two grooms, who clung to the bit as it plunged and screamed. Servants came running with the King's cloak and sword. The gates swung open. Arthur was in the saddle. The grey stallion screamed again and climbed the torchlit air, then leaped forward under the spur, and was past the boys and out of the gates with the speed of a thrown spear. The grooms led the courier's exhausted horse away, and the courier himself, walking like a lame man, followed.

In the gatehouse all was bustle and snapped orders. Melwas's men-at-arms withdrew, and the boys, with the chamberlain and the queen's servants, found themselves being hurried up the road towards the palace, past the place where Morgause still stood stiffly between her guards. Just as they reached the palace gate, a troop of armed riders burst out of it and went streaming past at a gallop to vanish downhill in the King's wake.

The gallop died. The outer gates crashed shut once more. The echoes faded into quiet. The place seemed to edge back, quivering, towards a kind of peace. The boys, waiting at the palace gates with the servants and guards, crowded together, wondering, confused and beginning to be scared. Gareth was crying. The twins muttered together, with glances at Mordred that were far from friendly. Avoiding them, and Gawain's puzzled scowl, Mordred felt, more than ever before, isolated from them. His thoughts darted like trapped birds. They all had time, now, to feel the cold.

At length someone - a big man with a red face and a high manner - came to them. He spoke straight to Mordred.

"I am Cei, the King's seneschal. You are to come with me."

"I?".

"All of you."

Gawain elbowed Mordred aside, stepped forward and spoke. He was curt to the point of arrogance. "I am Gawain of Orkney. Where are you taking us, and what has happened to my mother?"

"King's orders," said Cei, briefly, but hardly rea.s.suringly. "She's to wait till he gets back." He spoke more gently, to Gareth. "Don't be afraid. No harm will come to you. You heard him say you would be made welcome."

"Where's he gone?" demanded Gawain.

"Didn't you hear?" asked Cei. "It seems that Merlin's still alive, after all. The courier saw him on the road. The King's gone to meet him. Now, will you come with me?"

14.

THE BOYS HAD ONLY A BRIEFstay at Camelot before orders came that the court would remove to Caerleon for Christmas. Meanwhile they were lodged apart from the other boys and young men, under the special care of Cei, who was Arthur's foster brother, and privy to all his counsels. He saw to it that none of the rumours that went flying about among the people of Camelot came to the boys' ears. Until Arthur himself had spoken with Mordred, Mordred was to learn nothing. Cei guessed, and rightly, that the King would want to consult with Merlin before he decided what was to be done with the boy, or with Morgause herself. The boys did not see Morgause; she was lodged somewhere apart, not as a prisoner, they were told, but allowed to communicate with no one, until the King returned.

In fact he did not return. The story of his wild ride to greet his old friend was brought back to a city agog for news.

It was true that Merlin the enchanter was alive. An attack of his old sickness, a trance-like death, had been taken for death itself, but he had recovered, and at length escaped from the sealed tomb where he had been left for dead. Now he had ridden with the King for Caerleon, and Arthur's Companions - the picked group of knights who were his friends - had gone with them. The court would follow.

So for the time remaining at Camelot before the court's removal to Wales, the boys were kept busy with pursuits that exhausted them, but that were much to their taste.

They were taken in hand straight away by the master-at-arms, and what training they had had in the islands was commented on with a sarcasm that even Gawain did not care in this place to resent, and augmented with a rigorous course of work. There were long hours spent, too, on horseback, and here none of them pretended that the Orkney training had been adequate. The High King's horses were as far removed from the rough ponies of the islands as Morgause's men-at-arms were from Arthur's chosen Companions.

It was not all work. Play, too, there was in plenty, but consisting entirely of war games, hours spent over maps drawn in sand, or modelled - this to the boys' wide-eyed wonder - in clay relief. Hours, too, at mock fights or competing at archery. In this last they excelled, and of all of them Mordred had the steadiest draw and the best eye. And there was hunting. In winter the wild-fowling in the marshes was varied and exciting, but there was hunting to be had as well, deer and boar, in the rolling country to the eastward, or among the wooded slopes that rose towards the downlands in the south.

The court removed itself to Caerleon in the first week of December, and the Orkney boys with it. But not their mother. Morgause was taken on Arthur's orders to Amesbury, where she was lodged in the convent. It was a nominal imprisonment only, and a gentle one, but imprisonment nonetheless. Her rooms were guarded by King's troops, and the holy women replaced her own waiting-women. Amesbury, birthplace of Ambrosius, belonged to the High King, and would see his orders carried out to the letter.

When the spring weather came, and the roads opened, she would be taken north to Caer Eidyn, where her half-sister Queen Morgan was already immured.

"But what has she done?" demanded Gaheris furiously. "We know what Queen Morgan did, and she is rightly punished. But our mother? Why, she came to Orkney soon after our father was killed. The King must know that - it would be the spring after Queen Morgan's wedding in Rheged. Years ago! She's never been out of the islands since. Why should he imprison her now?"

"Because at that same wedding she tried to murder Merlin." The answer, uncompromising, came from Cei, who, alone among the n.o.bles, spent time with the boys during their hours of leisure.

They stared at him. "But that was years ago!" cried Gawain. "I was there - I know, because she's told me - but I don't remember it at all. I was only a baby. Why send for her now to account for something that happened then?"

"And what did happen?" This from Gaheris, red-faced and with jaw outthrust.

"He says she tried to murder Merlin," said Agravain. "Well, she didn't succeed, did she? So why-?"

"How?" asked Mordred quietly.

"Woman's way. Witch's way, if you like." Cei was unmoved by the younger boys' angry questions. "It happened at that very wedding feast. Merlin was there, representing the King. She drugged his wine, and saw to it that he would drink a deadlier poison later, when she was not there to be blamed. And so it fell.

He did recover, but it left him with the sickness that recently struck him down and caused him to be left for dead-and will kill him in the end. When Arthur sent for her, and for you, Merlin was believed dead, and in his tomb. So he sent for her to answer for the murder."

"It's not true!" shouted Gaheris.

"And if it were," said Gawain, cold now, and with that aggressive arrogance he had adopted since they came to Camelot, "what of it? Where is the law that says a queen may not destroy her enemy in her own way?"

"That's so," said Agravain quickly. "She always said he was her enemy. And what other way had she?

Women cannot fight."

"He must have been too strong for her spells," said Gareth. "They didn't work." The only emotion in his voice was regret.

Cei surveyed them. "There was a spell, certainly, and one tried many times, but in the end it was cold poisoning. This is known to be true." He added, kindly: "There's nothing to be gained in talking further about this until you see the King. What can you know of these matters? In your outland kingdom you were reared to think of Merlin, and maybe even the King himself, as your enemies."

He paused, looking at them again. The boys were silent.

"Yes, I see that you were. Well, until he talks with Merlin, and with Queen Morgause, we will leave the matter. She can count herself fortunate that Merlin is not dead. And as for you, you must content yourselves with the King's a.s.surance that he will not harm you. There are things to settle, old scores to resolve that you know nothing about. Believe me, the King is a just man, and Merlin's counsels are wise, and harsh only when it is needful."

When he left them, the boys burst out into angry talk and speculation. It seemed to Mordred, listening, that their anger was more on their own account than on their mother's. It was a matter of pride. None of them would have wanted to be, once again, under Morgause's rule. This new freedom, this world of men and men's actions, suited them all, and even Gareth, who in Orkney had run the risk of effeminacy, was hardening up to become one of them. He, like the rest, saw no reason for a prince to stop at murder if it suited his plans.

Mordred said nothing, and the others did not find this strange. What claim after all had the b.a.s.t.a.r.d on the queen? But Mordred did not even hear them. He was back in the darkness, with the smoke and the smell of fish and the frightened whispering. "Merlin is dead. They made a feast at the palace, and then" - and then - "the news came." And the queen's words in the stillroom, with the potions and the scent and the indefinable smell of evil, and the feel of her mouth on his. - "the news came." And the queen's words in the stillroom, with the potions and the scent and the indefinable smell of evil, and the feel of her mouth on his.

He shook himself free of the memories. So Morgause had poisoned the enchanter. She had gone north to the islands knowing that she had already sown the seeds of death. And why not? The old man had been her enemy: was his, Mordred's, enemy. And now the enemy was alive, and would be at Caerleon for Christmas along with the rest.

Caerleon, City of Legions, was very different from Camelot. The Romans had built a strong fortress there, on the river they called the Isca Silurum; this fortress, strategically placed on the curve of the river near its confluence with a smaller stream, had been restored first by Ambrosius, then later enlarged to something like its original proportions by Arthur. A city had grown up outside the walls, with market-place and church and palace near the Roman bridge which - patched here and there, and with new lamp-posts - spanned the river.

The King, with most of the court, lived in the palace outside the fortress walls. Many of his knights had lodgings within the fort, and so, to begin with, had the Orkney boys. They were still lodged apart, with some of Arthur's servants doing duty alongside the people brought from Orkney. Gabran, to his own obvious discomfort, had had perforce to remain with the boys; there had naturally been no question of his being allowed to follow Morgause to Amesbury. Gawain, still smarting from the painful mixture of shame on his mother's behalf and jealousy on his own, lost no opportunity of letting the man see that now he had no standing at all. Gaheris followed suit, but more openly, as was his habit, adding insults where he could to contempt for his mother's displaced lover. The other two, less conscious perhaps of Morgause's s.e.xual vagaries, scarcely noticed him. Mordred had other things on his mind.

But days pa.s.sed, and nothing happened. If Merlin, back from the dead, was indeed planning to spur Arthur to revenge on Morgause and her family, he was in no hurry to do so. The old man, weakened by the events of the summer and autumn, kept mainly to the rooms allotted to him in the King's house.

Arthur spent a good deal of time with him, and it was known that Merlin had attended one or two of the meetings of the privy council, but the Orkney boys saw nothing of him.

It was said that Merlin himself had advised against a public homecoming. There was no announcement, no scene of public rejoicing. As time went on, people came simply to accept his presence among them again, as if the "death" of the King's cousin and chief adviser, and the country-wide mourning, had been another and more elaborate example of the enchanter's habit of vanishing and reappearing at will. They had always known, men said wisely, that the great enchanter could not die. If he had chosen to lie in a death-like trance while his spirit visited the halls of the dead, why, then, he had come back wiser and more powerful than ever. Soon he would go back to his hollow hill again, the sacred Bryn Myrddin, and there he would remain, invisible at times maybe, but nevertheless present and powerful for those to call on who needed him.

Meantime, if Arthur had yet found time to discuss the Orkney boys - that Mordred was by far the most important of these none of them of course guessed - nothing was said. The truth was that Arthur, for once unsure of his ground, was procrastinating. Then his hand was forced, quite inadvertently, by Mordred himself.

It was on the evening before Christmas. All day a snowstorm had pre vented the boys from riding out, or exercising with their weapons. With the feast days, both of Christmas and the King's birthday, so near, no one troubled to give them the usual tuition, so the five of them spent an idle day kicking their heels in the big room where they slept with some of the servants. They ate too much, drank more than they were accustomed to of the strong Welsh metheglin, quarrelled, fought, and eventually subsided to watch a game of tables that had been going on for some time at the other end of the room. The final bout was in progress, watched, with advice and encouragement, by a crowd of onlookers. The players were Gabran and one of the local men, whose name was Llyr.

It was late, and the lamps burned low. The fire filled the room with smoke. A cold draught from the windows sent a gentle drift of snow to pile unheeded on the floor.

The dice rattled and fell, the counters clicked. The games went evenly enough, the piled coins being pushed from player to player as the luck changed. Slowly the piles grew to handfuls. There was silver in them, and even the glint of gold. Gradually the watchers fell silent; no more jesting, no more advice where so much was at stake. The boys crowded in, fascinated. Gawain, his hostility forgotten, peered closely over Gabran's shoulder. His brothers were as eager as he. The contest, in fact, showed signs of becoming Orkney against the rest, and for once even Gaheris found him self on Gabran's side. Mordred, no gambler himself, stood across the board from them, by chance in the opposing camp, and watched idly.

Gabran threw. A one and a two. The moves were negligible. Llyr, with a pair of fives, brought his last counter off and said exultantly: "A game! A game! That equals your last two hits! So, one more for the decider. And they are running for me, friend, so spit on your hands and pray to your outland G.o.ds."

Gabran was flushed with drinking, but still looked sober enough, and elegant enough, to obey neither of these exhortations. He pushed the stake across, saying doubtfully: "I think I'm cleaned out. Sorry, but we'll have to call that the decider. You've won, and I'm for bed."

"Oh, come on." Llyr shook the dice temptingly in his fist. "Your turn's coming. It's time the luck changed.

Come on, give it a try. You can owe me. Don't break it up now."

"But I really am cleaned out." Gabran pulled his pouch from its hangers and dug into the depths.

"Nothing, see? And where am I to get more if I lose again?" He thrust his fingers deep into the pouch, then pulled it inside out and shook it over the board. "There. Nothing." No coins fell, but something else dropped with a rattle and lay winking in the lamplight.

It was a charm, a circular amulet of wood bleached to silver by the sea, and carved crudely with eyes and a mouth. In the eye-holes were gummed a pair of blue river-pearls, and the curve of the grinning mouth had been filled with red clay. A G.o.ddess-charm of Orkney, crude and childishly made, but, to an Orcadian, a potent symbol.

Llyr poked at it with a finger. "Pearls, eh? Well, what's wrong with that for a stake? If she brings you luck you'll win her back and plenty else besides. Throw you for starters?"

The dice shook, fell, rattled to either side of the charm. Before they came to rest they were rudely disturbed. Mordred, suddenly cold sober, leaned forward, shot out a hand and grabbed the thing.

"Where did you get this?"

Gabran looked up, surprised. "I don't know. I've had it for years. Can't remember where I picked it up.

Perhaps the-"

He stopped. His mouth stayed half open. Still staring at Mordred, he slowly went white. If he had announced it aloud, he could not have confessed more openly that he remembered now where the charm had come from.

"What is it?" asked someone. No one answered him. Mordred was as white as Gabran.

"I made it myself." He spoke in a flat voice that those who did not know him would have thought empty of any emotion at all. "I made it for my mother. She wore it always. Always."

His eyes locked on Gabran's. He said nothing more, but the phrase finished itself in the silence. Till she died. And now, completely, as if it had been confessed aloud, he knew how she had died. Who had killed her, and who had ordered the killing.

He did not know how the knife came into his hand. Forgotten now were all the arguments about a queen's right to kill where she chose. But a prince could, and would. He kicked the board aside, and the pieces went flying. Gabran's own knife lay to hand. He grabbed it and started up. The others, slowed with drink and not yet seeing more than a sudden sharp wrangle over the game, reacted too slowly. Llyr was protesting good-naturedly: "Well, all right. So take it, if it's yours." Another man made a grab for the boy's knife-hand, but Mordred, eluding him, jumped for Gabran, knife held low and expertly, pointing upwards to the heart. Gabran, as sober now as he, saw that the threat was real and deadly, and struck out. The blades touched, but Mordred's blow went home. The knife went deep, in below the ribs, and lodged there.

Gabran's knife fell with a clatter. Both his hands went to clasp the hilt that lodged under his ribs. He bent, folded forward. Hands caught at him and lowered him. There was very little blood.

There was complete silence now in the room, broken only by the short, exhausted breathing of the wounded man. Mordred, standing over him, flung round the shocked company a look that could have been Arthur's own.

"He deserved it. He killed my parents. That charm was my mother's. I made it for her and she wore it always. He must have taken it when he killed them. He burned them."

There was not a man present who had not killed or seen killing done. But at that there were sick looks exchanged. "Burned them?" repeated Llyr.

"Burned them alive in their home. I saw it afterwards."

"Not alive."

The whisper was Gabran's. He lay half on his side, his body curled round the knife, his hands on the hilt, but shrinkingly, as if he would have withdrawn it, but feared the pain. The silver chasing quivered with his harsh, small breaths.

"I saw it, too." Gawain came to Mordred's side, looking down. "It was horrible. They were poor people, and old. They had nothing. If this is true, Gabran... Did you burn Mordred's home?"

Gabran drew a deep breath as if his lungs were running out of air. His face was pale as parchment and the gilt curls were dark with sweat.

"Yes."

"Then you deserve to die," said Gawain, shoulder to shoulder with Mordred.

"But they were dead," whispered Gabran. "I swear it. Burned... afterwards. To hide it."

"How did they die?" demanded Mordred.

Gabran did not reply. Mordred knelt by him quickly, and put a hand to the dagger's hilt. The man's hands twitched, but fell away, strengthless. Mordred said, still with that deceptive calm: "You will die anyway, Gabran. So tell me now. How did they die?"

"Poison."

The word sent a shiver through the company. Men repeated it to each other, so that the whisper ran through the air like a hissing. Poison. The woman's weapon. The witch's weapon.

Mordred, unmoving, felt Gawain stiffen beside him. "You took them poison?"

"Yes. Yes. With the gifts. A present of wine."

None of the local people spoke. And none of those from Orkney needed to. Mordred said softly, a statement, rather than a question: "From the queen."