The Wicked Day Part 12

There was a witness. There have been many killings, Mordred, and none of them clean."

"So many killings, and all for me. But why?" The one clue he had been given, all those years ago, he had, like Arthur, forgotten in the excitement and heady promise of this meeting. "Why did she keep me alive?

Why trouble to have me kept in secret all those years?"

"To use as a tool, a p.a.w.n, what you will." If the King remembered the prophecy now, he did not burden the boy with it. "Maybe as a hostage in case I found out she had murdered Merlin. It was after she reckoned herself safe that she took you out of hiding, and even then the disguise she chose for you - Lot's b.a.s.t.a.r.d son - was sufficient to conceal you. But I can't guess further than that about her motives. I have not got her kind of subtlety." He added, in answer to some kind of appeal in the boy's intense gaze: "It does not come from the blood we share with her, Mordred. I have killed many men in my time, but not in such ways, or for such motives. Morgause's mother was a Breton girl, a wise-woman, so I have heard. These things go from mother to daughter. You must not fear these dark powers in yourself."

"I don't fear them," said Mordred quickly. "I have nothing of the Sight, no magic, she told me so. She did once try to find out about it. I think now that she was afraid I might 'see' what had happened to my foster parents. So she took me down with her to the underground chamber where there is a magic pool, and told me to look there for visions."

"And what visions did you see?"

"Nothing. I saw an eel in the pool. But the queen said there were visions. She saw them."

Arthur smiled. "I told you that you were of my blood rather than hers. To me, water is only water, though I have seen the mage-fire that Merlin can call from the air, and other marvels, but they were all marvels of the light. Did Morgause show you any magic of her own?"

"No, sir. She took me to the chamber where she made her spells and mixed her magic potions-"

"Go on. What's the matter?"

"Nothing. It was nothing, really. Just something that happened there." He looked away, towards the fire, reliving the moments in the stillroom, the clasp, the kiss, the queen's words. He added, slowly, to himself, making the discovery: "And all the time she knew I was her own son."

Arthur, watching him, made a guess that was a certainty. The rush of anger that he felt shook him. Over it he said, very gently: "You, too, Mordred?"

"It was nothing," said the boy again, rapidly, as if to brush it aside. "Nothing, really. But now I know why I felt the way I did." A quick glance across the table. "Oh, it happens, everyone knows it does. But not like that. Brother and sister, that's one thing... but mother and son? Not that, ever. At least, I never heard of it. And she knew, didn't she? She knew. I wonder why she would want-?"

He let it die and was silent, looking down at the hands held fast now between his knees. He was not asking for a reply. He and the King already knew the answer. There was no emotion in his voice but puzzled distaste, such as one might accord some perverted appet.i.te. The flush had died from his cheeks, and he looked pale and strained.

The King was thinking, with growing relief and thankfulness, that here there would be no tie to break.

Violent emotions create their own ties, but what remained between Morgause and Mordred could surely be broken here and now.

He spoke at length in a carefully low key, equal to equal, prince to prince.

"I shall not put her to death. Merlin is alive, and her other killings are not my concern to punish here and now. Moreover, you will see that I cannot keep you near me - here in my court where so many people know the story, and suspect that you are my son - and forthwith put your mother to death. So Morgause lives. But she will not be released."

He paused, leaning back in the great chair, and regarding the boy kindly. "Well, Mordred, we are here, at the start of a new road. We cannot see where it will lead us. I promised to do right by you, and I meant it. You will stay here in my court, with the other Orkney princes, and you, like them, will have royal status as my nephew. Where men guess at your parentage, you will find that you have more respect, not less. But you must see that, because of what happened at Luguvallium, and because of the presence of Queen Guinevere, I cannot openly call you son."

Mordred looked down at his hands. "And when you have others by the Queen?"

"I shall not. She is barren. Mordred, leave this now. The future will come. Take what life offers you here in my household. All the princes of Orkney will have the honour due to royal orphans, and you - I believe you will in the end have more." He saw something leap again behind the boy's eyes. "I do not speak of kingdoms, Mordred. But perhaps that, too, if you are sufficiently my son."

All at once the boy's composure shattered. He began to shake. His hands went up to cover his face. He said, m.u.f.fled: "It's nothing. I thought I would be punished for Gabran. Killed, even. And now all this.

What will happen? What will happen, sir?"

"About Gabran, nothing," said the King. "He was to be pitied, but his death, in its way, was just. And about you, for the moment, very little, except that tonight you will not go to your bedchamber with the other boys. You will need time alone; to come to terms with all you have just learned. No one will wonder at this; they will think merely that you are being held apart because of Gabran's death."

"Gawain, the others? Are they to know?"

"I shall talk to Gawain. The others need know nothing more yet than that you are Morgause's son, and eldest of the High King's nephews. That will be sufficient to explain your standing here. But I shall tell Gawain the truth. He needs to know that you are not a rival for Lothian or the Orkneys." He turned his head. "Listen, there is the guard changing outside. Tomorrow is the feast of Mithras, and the Christmas of the Christians, and for you, I expect, some winter festival of your outland Orkney G.o.ds. For us all, a new beginning. So be welcome here, Mordred. Go now, and try to sleep."

BOOK II.

THE WITCH'S SONS.

1.

SNOW FELL THICKLY SOONafter Christmas, and the ways were blocked. It was almost a month before the regular service of royal couriers could be resumed. Not that it mattered; there was little of any moment to report. In the depths of winter men - even the most dedicated warriors - stayed at home hugging the fire and looking to their houses and the needs of their families. Saxons and Celts alike kept close to their hearthstones, and if they sat whetting their weapons by the light of the winter fires, all knew that there would be no need of them until the coming of spring.

For the Orkney boys life at Caerleon, though restricted by the weather, was still lively and full enough to banish thoughts of their island home, which in any case had been, in midwinter, a place of doubtful comfort. The exercise grounds by the fortress were cleared, and work went on almost daily, in spite of snow and ice. Already a difference could be seen. Lot's four sons - the twins especially - were still wild to the point of recklessness, but as their skills improved, so also did their sense of discipline, which brought with it a certain pride. The quartet still tended to divide naturally into two pairs, the twins on the one hand and Gawain with young Gareth on the other, but there were fewer quarrels. The main difference could be discerned in their bearing towards Mordred.

Arthur had duly spoken with Gawain, a long interview which must have held, with the truth about Mordred's birth, some weighty kind of warning. Gawain's att.i.tude to his half-brother had perceptibly altered. It was a mixture of reserve and relief. There was relief in the knowledge that his own status as Lot's eldest son would never be challenged, and that his t.i.tle to the Orkney kingdom was to be upheld by the High King himself. Behind this there could be seen something of his former reserve, perhaps a resentment that Mordred's status as b.a.s.t.a.r.d of the High King put him higher than Gawain; but with this went caution, bred of the knowledge of what the future might hold. It was known that Queen Guinevere was barren; hence there was, Gawain knew, every possibility that Mordred might some day be presented as Arthur's heir. Arthur himself had been begotten out of wedlock and acknowledged only when grown; Mordred's turn might come. The High King was, indeed, rumoured to have other b.a.s.t.a.r.ds - two, at least, were spoken of - but they were not at court, or seen to have his favour as Mordred had. And Queen Guinevere herself liked the boy and kept him near her. So Gawain, the only one of Lot's sons who knew the truth, bided his time, and edged his way back towards the guarded friendship that he and the older boy had originally shared.

Mordred noticed the change, recognized and understood its motives, and accepted the other boy's overtures without surprise. What did surprise him, though, was the change in the att.i.tude of the twins.

They knew nothing of Mordred's parentage, believing only that Arthur had accepted him as King Lot's b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and, so to speak, an outrider of the Orkney family. But the killing of Gabran had impressed them both. Agravain because a killing - any killing - was to his mind proof of what he called "manhood."

Gaheris because for him it was that, and more; it was a fully justified act that avenged all of them. Though outwardly as indifferent as his twin to his mother's rare moments of fondness, Gaheris had nursed through his childhood a sore and jealous heart. Now Mordred had killed his mother's lover, and for that he was prepared to accord him homage as well as admiration. As for Gareth, the act of violence had impressed even him with respect. During the last months in Orkney Gabran had grown too self-a.s.sured, and with it arrogant, so that even the gentle youngest son had bitterly resented him. Mordred, in avenging the woman he had called mother, had in a way acted for them all. So all five of the Orkney boys settled down to work together, and in the comradeship of the training fields and the knights' hall, some kind of seedling loyalty to the High King began to grow.

News got through from Camelot with the February thaw. The boys were given tidings of their mother, who was still in Amesbury. She was to be sent north to the convent at Caer Eidyn soon after the court moved to Camelot, and her sons would be allowed to see her before she went. They accepted this almost with indifference. Perhaps Gaheris, ironically, was the only one of them who still missed his mother; Gaheris, the one she had ignored. He dreamed about her still, fantasies of rescue and return to Orkney's throne, with her grateful, and himself triumphant. But with daylight the dreams faded; even for her, he would not have abandoned the new, exciting life of the High King's court, or the hopes of preferment eventually into the ranks of the favoured Companions.

At the end of April, when the court had settled itself again for the summer in Camelot, the King sent the boys to make their farewells to their mother. This, it was rumoured, against the advice of Nimue, who rode over from her home in Applegarth to greet the King. Merlin was no longer with the court: since his last illness he had lived in seclusion, and when the King removed from Caerleon the old enchanter retired to his hilltop home in Wales, leaving Nimue to take his place as Arthur's adviser. But this time her advice was overruled, and the boys were duly sent up to Amesbury, with a sufficient escort led by Cei himself, with Lamorak, one of the knights.

They lodged on the way at Sarum, where the headman gave them shelter, making much of the High King's nephews, and rode next morning for Amesbury, which lies at the edge of the Great Plain.

It was a bright morning, and Lot's sons were in high spirits. They had good horses, were royally equipped, and looked forward almost without reservation to seeing Morgause again and showing off their new-found splendour before her. Any fears they might have had for her had long since been laid to rest.

They had Arthur's word for it that she was not to be put to death, and though she was a prisoner, the kind of confinement that a convent would offer was not (so thought her sons in their youthful ignorance) so very different from the life she had led at home, where she had lived secluded for the most part among the women of her own household. Great ladies, indeed, they a.s.sured each other, often sought the life freely for themselves; it allowed no power of decision or rule, of course, but to the eager arrogance of youth this seemed hardly to be the woman's part. Morgause had acted as queen for her dead husband and her young son and heir, but such power could have been temporary only, and now (Gawain said it openly) was no longer necessary. There could be no more lovers, either; and this, to Gawain and Gaheris, the only ones who had really noticed or cared, was much to the good. Long might the convent keep her mewed up; in comfort, naturally, but prevented from interfering in their new lives, or bringing shame on them through lovers little older than themselves.

So they rode gaily. Gawain was already years away from her in spirit, and Gareth was concerned only with the adventure of the moment. Agravain thought about little but the horse he was riding, and the new tunic and weapons he sported ("really fit for a prince, at last!") and about all he would have to tell Morgause of his prowess at arms. Gaheris looked forward with a kind of guilty pleasure to the meeting; this time, surely, after so long an absence, she must show her delight in her sons, must give and receive caresses and loving words; and she would be alone, with no wary lover beside her chair, watching them, whispering against them.

Mordred alone rode in silence, once again apart, outside the pack. He noticed, with a stir of satisfaction, the attention, which was almost deference, paid him by Lamorak, and the careful eye that Cei kept on him. Rumour had run ahead of truth at court, and neither King nor Queen had made any attempt to scotch it. It was allowed to be seen that, of the five, Mordred was the one who mattered most. He was also the only one of the boys who felt some sort of dread of the coming interview. He did not know how much Morgause had been told, but surely she must know about her lover's death. And that death was on his hands.

So they came towards Amesbury on a fine sunny morning, with the dew splashing in glittering showers from their horses' hoofs, and met Morgause and her escort out riding in the woods.

It was a ride for exercise, not for pleasure. This much was immediately apparent. Though the queen was richly dressed, in her favourite amber cloth with a short furred mantle against the cool spring breezes, her mount was an indifferent-seeming mare, and to either side of her rode men in the uniform of Arthur's troops. From the hand of the man on her right a leading rein ran looping to the ring of the mare's bridle. A woman, plainly cloaked and hooded, rode a few paces in the rear, flanked in her turn by another pair of troopers.

It was Gareth who first recognized his mother in the little group of distant riders. He called out, stretching high in the saddle and waving. Then Gaheris spurred past him at a gallop, and the others, like a charge of cavalry, went racing across the s.p.a.ce of wooded ground, with laughter and hunting calls and a clamour of welcome. Morgause received the rush of young hors.e.m.e.n with smiling pleasure. To Gaheris, who pressed first to the mare's side, she gave a hand, and leaned a cheek to his eager kiss. Her other hand she reached towards Cei, who dutifully raised it to his lips, then, relinquishing it to Gawain, reined back to let the boys crowd in.

Morgause leaned forward, both arms reaching for her sons, her face glowing.

"See, they lead my horse, so I may ride without hands! I was told I might hope to see you soon, but we did not look for you yet! You must have longed for me, as I for you.... Gawain, Agravain, Gareth, my darling, come, kiss your mother, who has hungered all these long winter months for a sight of you....

There, there, now, that's enough.... Let me go, Gaheris, let me look at you all. Oh, my darling boys, it has been so long, so long...."

The turn towards pathos went unnoticed. Still too excited, too full of their new importance, the young hors.e.m.e.n caracoled around her. The scene took on the liveliness of a pleasure party.

"See, Mother, this is a stallion from the High King's own stable!"

"Look, lady, at this sword! And I've used it, too! The master-at-arms says that I promise as well as any man of my age."

"You are well, lady queen? They treat you well?" This was Gaheris.

"I am to be one of the Companions," Gawain put in, gruffly proud, "and if there is fighting in the coming summer, he has promised I shall be there."

"Will you be in Camelot for Pentecost?" asked Gareth.

Mordred had not spurred forward with the rest. She did not seem to notice. She had not even glanced his way, where he rode between Cei and Lamorak as the party turned back towards Amesbury. She laughed with her sons, and talked gaily, and let them shout and boast, and asked questions about Camelot and Caerleon, listening to their eager praises with flattering attention. From time to time she threw a gentle look, or a charming word, to Lamorak, the knight riding nearest, or even to the men of the escort. She was concerned, one might have guessed, with the report that would eventually go back to Arthur. Her looks were mild and sweet, her words innocent of anything but a mother's interest in her sons' progress, and a mother's grat.i.tude for what the High King and his deputies were doing for them.

When she spoke of Arthur - this was to Cei, across the heads of Gareth and Gaheris - it was with praise of his generosity towards her children ("my orphaned boys, who would otherwise be robbed of all protection") and for the King's grace, as she called it, towards herself. It was to be noticed that in a while she a.s.sumed a further, and complete, act of grace. She turned her lovely eyes full on Cei and asked, with sweet humility: "And did the King my brother send you to take me back to court?"

When Cei, flushing and looking away, told her no, she said nothing, but bowed her head and let a hand steal to her eyes. Mordred, who rode to that side of her and a little in the rear, saw that she was tearless, but Gaheris pushed forward to her other side and laid a hand on her arm.

"Soon, though, lady! It will surely be soon! As soon as we get back we will pet.i.tion him! By Pentecost, surely!"

She made no reply. She gave a little shiver, pulled her cloak closer, and glanced up at the sky, then, with an effort that was patent, straightened her shoulders. "Look, the day is clouding over. Let us not loiter here. Let us get back." Her smile was bright with bravery. "Today, at least, Amesbury will cease to seem a prison."

By the time the party neared the village of Amesbury, Cei, at her left hand, was visibly unbending, Lamorak stared with open admiration, and Lot's sons had forgotten that they had ever wanted to be free of her. The spell was woven again. Nimue had been right. The links so recently forged in Caerleon were wearing thin already. The Orkney brothers would take a less than perfect loyalty back to their uncle the High King.

2.

THE CONVENT GATE WAS OPEN,and the porter watching for them. He stared in surprise at the sight of the Camelot party, and shouted to a sack-clad youth - a novice - who was grubbing among lettuces in a weedy bed beside a wall. The novice went running, and by the time the party rode into the yard the abbot himself, slightly out of breath but with unimpaired dignity, appeared at the doorway of his house and stood waiting at the head of the steps to receive them.

Even here, under the abbot's eye, Morgause's spell held good. Cei, moving with stolid courtesy to help her dismount, was beaten to it by Lamorak, with Gawain and Gaheris close behind. Morgause, with a smile at her sons, slid gracefully into Lamorak's arms, and then held to him a moment, letting it be seen that the ride, and the excitement of the meeting, had taxed her frail strength. She thanked the knight prettily, then turned to the boys again. She would rest awhile in her own rooms, she told them, while Abbot Luke made them welcome, then later, when they were fed and changed and rested, she would receive them.

So, to the abbot's barely concealed irritation, Morgause, having turned her status as prisoner into that of a queen granting audience, moved off towards the women's side of the convent, supported on the arm of her waiting-woman, and followed, as if by a royal escort, by her four guards.

In the years since Arthur's crowning, and more especially since Morgause had come as his prisoner, the High King had sent gifts and money to the foundation at Amesbury, so the place was larger and better kept than when the young King had first ridden south to see his father buried in the Giants' Dance.

Where there had been fields behind the chapel, there was now a walled garden, with its orchard and fishpond, and beyond this a second courtyard had been built, so that the quarters of men and women could be separate. The abbot's house had been enlarged, and there was no longer any need for him to vacate his quarters for royal guests; a well-built wing of guest rooms faced south onto the garden. To this the travellers were escorted by the two young novices appointed to see to their comfort. The boys were shown into the guests' dorter, a long, sunny room with half-a-dozen beds, and with no convent-like austerity about it. The beds were new and good, with painted headboards, the floor was of stone, scrubbed white and covered with brightly woven rugs, and wax candles stood ready in silver sconces.

Mordred, glancing around him, and out of the broad windows where the sun shone warmly on lawn and fishpond and blossoming apple trees, reflected dryly that no doubt Morgause could take all the privileges she wanted, and welcome: She must be, in a quite literal sense, the most paying of guests.

The meal was good, too. The boys were served in the small refectory attached to the guest house, and afterwards made free of the convent grounds and the town - it was little more than a village - outside the walls. Their mother, they were told, would receive them after evening chapel. Cei did not appear; he was closeted with Abbot Luke; but Lamorak stayed with the boys, and in response to their pleading took them riding out on the Great Plain, where, two miles or so from Amesbury, stood the great circle of stones called the Giants' Dance.

"Where our kinsman the great Ambrosius is buried, and our grandfather Uther Pendragon beside him,"

said Agravain to Mordred, with a touch of his old arrogance. Mordred said nothing, but caught Gawain's quick look, and smiled to himself. From Lamorak's sidelong glance it could be guessed that he, too, knew the truth about Arthur's eldest "nephew."

As befitted the convent's guests, they all went to the evening service. A little to Mordred's surprise, Morgause attended, too. As Lamorak and the boys approached the chapel door, the nuns went by two by two, with slow steps and downcast eyes. At the rear of the little procession walked Morgause, dressed simply in black, her face veiled. Two women attended her; one was the waiting-woman who had been riding with her, the other looked younger, with the ageless face of extreme stupidity, and the heavy pale look of ill-health. Last came the abbess, a slightly built, sweet-faced woman, with an air of gentle innocence which was perhaps not the best quality for the ruler of such a community. She had been appointed head of the women's side of the convent by the abbot, who was not the man to brook any rival in authority. Since Morgause's coming Abbot Luke had had cause to regret his choice; Mother Mary was not the woman to control her royal prisoner. On the other hand the convent, since that prisoner's coming, had flourished exceedingly, so, as long as the Queen of Orkney was safely held, Abbot Luke could see no need to interfere with the too-gentle rule of the abbess. He himself was not entirely immune to the flattering respect Morgause showed him, or to the fragile charm she exhibited in his presence, and besides, there was always the possibility that some day she would be reinstated, if not in her own kingdom, then at court, where she was, after all, the High King's half-sister....

The younger of Morgause's women brought the queen's message soon after chapel. The four younger princes were to sup with their mother. She would send for them later. She would see Prince Mordred now.

Across the barrage of objections and questions that this provoked Mordred met Gawain's eyes. Alone of the four, he looked commiserating rather than resentful.

"Well, good luck," he said, and Mordred thanked him, smoothing his hair and settling his belt and the hanger at his hip, while the woman stood waiting by the door, staring with pale eyes out of that lard-like face and repeating, as if she could only speak by rote: "The young princes are to take supper with Madam, but now she will see Prince Mordred, alone."

Mordred, as he followed her, heard Gawain say in a low quick aside to Gaheris: "Don't be a fool, it's hardly a privilege. She never even looked at him this morning, did she? And you must know why. You can't surely have forgotten Gabran? Poor Mordred, don't envy him this!"

He followed the woman across the lawn. Blackbirds hopped about on the gra.s.s, pecking for worms, and a thrush sang somewhere among the apple trees. The sun was still warm, and the place full of the scent of apple blossom and primroses and the yellow wallflowers beside the path.

He was aware of none of it. All his being was turned inward, centered on the coming interview, wishing now that he had had the hardihood to disagree when the King had said to him: "I have refused to see her, ever again, but you are her son, and I think you owe her this, if only as a courtesy. You need never go back. But this time, this one time, you must. I have taken her kingdom from her, and her sons; let it not be said that I did so with brutality."

And in his head, over this voice of memory, two other voices persisted, of the boy Mordred, the fisherman's son, and of Mordred the prince, son of the High King Arthur, and a man grown.

Why should you fear her? She can do nothing. She is a prisoner and helpless.

That was the prince, tall and brave in his silver-trimmed tunic and new green mantle.

She is a witch, said the fisher-boy. said the fisher-boy.

She is a prisoner of the High King, and he is my father. My father, said the prince. said the prince.

She is my mother, and a witch.

She is no longer a queen. She has no power.

She is a witch, and she murdered my mother.

You are afraid, of her? The prince was contemptuous. The prince was contemptuous.

Yes.

Why? What can she do? She cannot even cast a spell. Not here. You are not alone with her now in an underground tomb.

I know. I don't know why. She is a woman alone, and a prisoner, and without help, and I am afraid.

A side door stood open under the arcade of the nuns' courtyard. The woman beckoned, and he followed her in, along a short pa.s.sage which ended in another door.

His heart was hammering now, his hands damp. He clenched them at his sides, then loosed them deliberately, fighting back towards calmness.

I am Mordred. I am my own man, beholden neither to her nor to the High King. I shall listen to her, and then go. I need never see her again. Whatever she is, whatever she says, it cannot matter. lam my own man, and I do my own will.

The woman opened the door without knocking, and stood aside for him to enter.

The room was large, but chilly and spa.r.s.ely furnished. The walls were of daubed wattle, roughly plastered and painted, the floor of stone, bare of any rugs or coverings. To one side, looking out on the arcade, was a window, unglazed and open to the evening breeze. Opposite this was another door.