The Wicked Day Part 17

Cerdic was a big man, with silvery hair and beard, and blue eyes. He wore a long robe of grey, with over it a caped blue mantle. He was unarmed save for his dagger, but a page behind him bore his sword, the heavy Saxon broadsword, sheathed in leather bound with worked gold. On his long, carefully combed hair was a tall crown also of gold, elaborately chased, and in his left hand he held a staff which, from its golden finial and carved shaft, appeared to be a staff of royal office. Beside him waited an interpreter, an elderly man who, it transpired, had been son and grandson of federates, and had spent all his life within the bounds of the Saxon Sh.o.r.e.

Behind Cerdic stood his thegns, or warrior lords, dressed like their king save that where he wore a crown, they had tall caps of brightly coloured leather. Their horses, small beasts that showed almost like ponies beside Arthur's carefully bred cavalry mounts, were held in the background by their grooms.

Arthur and his party dismounted. The kings greeted one another, two tall men, richly dressed and glittering with jewels, dark and fair, eyeing one another over the unspoken truce like big dogs held back on leash. Then, as if some spark of liking had suddenly been kindled between them, they both smiled and, each at the same moment, held out a hand. They grasped one another's arms, and kissed.

It was the signal. The ranks of tall blond warriors broke, moving forward with shouts of welcome. The grooms came running forward with the horses, and the party remounted. Mordred, beckoned forward by the King, received Cerdic's ceremonial kiss, then found himself riding between the Saxon king and a red-haired thegn who was a cousin of Cerdic's queen.

It was not far to the Saxon capital, perhaps an hour's ride, and they took it slowly. The two kings seemed content to let their mounts pace gently, side by side, while they talked, with the interpreter craning to catch and relay what was said.

Mordred, on Cerdic's other side, could hear little, and after a while ceased trying to listen through the shouts and laughter of the troop, as Saxon and Briton tried to make themselves mutually understood. He and his neighbour, with gestures and grins, managed to exchange names: the red-haired thegn was called Bruning. A few of the Saxons - those who had spent all their lives in the federated territories of the Sh.o.r.e - knew enough of the others' language; these were mostly the older men; the younger men on both sides had to depend on goodwill and laughter to establish some sort of rapport. Agravain, scowling, rode apart with a small group of the younger Britons, who talked among themselves in low tones, and were ignored.

Mordred, looking about him, found plenty to interest him in the landscape that very soon began, even in the scant miles traversed, to look foreign. Lacking an interpreter, he and Bruning contented themselves with exchanging smiles from time to time, and occasionally pointing to some feature that they pa.s.sed. The fields here were differently tilled; the instruments used by the working peasants were strange, some crude, some ingenious. Such buildings as they pa.s.sed were very different from the stone-built structures he knew; here little stone was used, but the huts and shippons of the peasants showed great skill in the working of wood. The grazing cattle and flocks looked fat and well cared for.

A flock of geese, screaming, flapped across the road, sending the foremost of the horses rearing and plunging. The goosegirl, a flaxen child with round blue eyes and a lovely face aflame with blushes, scampered after them, waving her stick. Arthur, laughing, threw her a coin, and she called something in response, caught it, and ran off after her geese. The Saxons, it seemed, were not in awe of kings; indeed, the cavalcade that Agravain had angrily called a carnival now really began to bear that appearance. The younger men whistled and called after the running girl, who had kilted her long skirts up and was running as lightly as a boy, with a free display of long bare legs. Bruning, pointing, leaned across towards Mordred.

"Hwaet! Faeger maegden!"

Mordred nodded with a smile, then realized with surprise what had been slowly coming through to him now for some minutes. Through the shouting and laughter had come words here and there, and sometimes phrases, which, without consciously translating, he found himself understanding. "A fair maid!

See!" The half-musical, half-guttural sounds were linked in his brain to images of his childhood: the smell of the sea, the tossing boats, the voices of fishermen, the beauty of the sharp-prowed ships that sometimes crossed the fishing grounds of the islanders; the big blond sailors who put into the Orcadian harbours in rough weather to shelter, or in fine weather to trade. He did not think they had been Saxons, but there must be many words and inflections common to Saxon and Norseman alike. He set himself to listen, and found sense coming back to him in s.n.a.t.c.hes, as of poems learned in infancy.

But, being Mordred, he said nothing, and gave no sign. He rode on, listening.

Then they crossed the brow of a gra.s.sy hill, and the Saxon capital lay below them.

Mordred's first thought, on sighting Cerdic's capital, was that it was little more than a crudely built village. His second was amus.e.m.e.nt at the distance he, the fisherman's son, had travelled since the days when an even cruder village in the islands had struck him dumb with excitement and admiration.

The so-called capital of Cerdic was a large scattered collection of wooden buildings enclosed by a palisade. Within the palisade, centrally, stood the king's house, a big oblong structure, barnlike in size and made entirely of wood, with a steeply pitched roof of wattled thatch and a central vent for smoke. There was a door at either end of the hall, and windows, narrow and high, set at intervals along the walls. It was symmetrically built, and one would have said handsome, until memory recalled the gilded towers of Camelot and the great Roman-based stone structures of Caerleon or Aquae Sulis.

The other houses, also symmetrically built but much smaller, cl.u.s.tered around the king's house, apparently at random. Among them, beside them, even alongside their walls, stood the sheds for the beasts. The open s.p.a.ces between the buildings swarmed with hens, pigs and geese, and children and dogs played in and out of the wheels of ox-carts, or among the scattered trees where the woodpiles stood. The air smelled of dung and freshly mown gra.s.s and wood-smoke.

The big gates stood wide open. The party rode through, under a cross-beam from which blew Cerdic's pennant, a slim, forked blue flag that cracked in the breeze like a whiplash. At the door of the hall stood Cerdic's queen, ready to receive the visitors into her house as her husband had received them into the kingdom's boundaries. She was almost as tall as her husband, crowned like him, and with her long flax-hair plaits bound with gold. She greeted Arthur, and after him Mordred and Cei, with the ceremonial kiss of welcome, and thereafter, to Mordred's surprise, accompanied the royal party into the hall. The rest of the troop stayed outside, where, in time, the distant shouting and the clash of metal and the hammering of hoofs indicated that the younger warriors, Saxons and British together, were competing in sport on the field outside the palisade.

The royal party, with the interpreter in attendance, seated themselves beside the central hearth, where the fire, freshly piled, was not yet lighted. Two girls, like fair copies of Cerdic, came carrying jugs of mead and ale. The queen herself, rising, took the jugs from her daughters' hands and poured for the guests. Then the maidens went, but the queen remained, seating herself again on her lord's left.

The talk, necessarily slowed by the need for translation, went on through the afternoon. For a beginning, the discussion kept mainly to home matters, trade and markets, and a possible revision, in the future, of the boundary between the kingdoms. Only as a corollary to this, the talk turned eventually on the possibility of mutual military aid. Cerdic was already conscious of the growing pressures being exerted against his countrymen in their ever-narrowing territory on the Continent. The East Saxons, more vulnerable than Cerdic's people, were already seeking alliances with the English between the Thames and the Humber. He himself had approached the Middle Saxons of Suthrige. When Arthur asked if he, Cerdic, had also explored an alliance with the South Saxons, whose kingdom, in the far south-east corner of Britain, was the nearest landfall for any ships from across the Narrow Sea, Cerdic was guarded. Since the death of the great leader of the South Saxons, Aelle, there had been no ruler of note.

"Nithings" was the West Saxon king's expressive word. Arthur did not pursue the question, but turned to the news from the Continent. Cerdic had not heard of the death of Clodomir's children, and looked grave as he considered the probable changes that would ensue, and the increasingly hazardous position of Brittany, the only buffer state between the Sh.o.r.e territories of Britain and the threatened Prankish kingdoms. As the time wore on, it no longer seemed so outlandish an idea that at some time in the near future, Briton and Saxon might have to be at one in the defense of their country's sh.o.r.es. was the West Saxon king's expressive word. Arthur did not pursue the question, but turned to the news from the Continent. Cerdic had not heard of the death of Clodomir's children, and looked grave as he considered the probable changes that would ensue, and the increasingly hazardous position of Brittany, the only buffer state between the Sh.o.r.e territories of Britain and the threatened Prankish kingdoms. As the time wore on, it no longer seemed so outlandish an idea that at some time in the near future, Briton and Saxon might have to be at one in the defense of their country's sh.o.r.es.

At length the talk came to a close. In the doorway of the hall the sunlight slanted low and mellow. From the field outside, the sounds of sport had died down. Cattle were lowing as they were driven in for milking, and the smell of wood fires sharpened the air. The breeze had dropped. The queen rose and left the hall, and presently servants came running to set the boards up for supper, and to thrust a torch into the kindling for the fire.

Somewhere, a horn sounded. The warriors, Cerdic's and Arthur's together, came in still gay with their sport, and took their places, apparently at random, at the long tables, where, shouting as loudly as if still out on the open down, and hammering on the board with the handles of their daggers, they called for food and drink. The noise was tremendous. Arthur's Companions, after a few moments of deafened confusion, cheerfully joined in the tumult. Language ceased to matter. What was being said was more than clear to everyone. Then a fresh shouting arose as ale and mead were brought in, and after that the great trays of roasted meats, still smoking and sizzling from the ovens; and the Saxon thegns, who until then had been trying, with gestures and yells of laughter, to communicate, ceased abruptly and turned all their ferocious attention to eating and drinking. Someone handed Mordred a horn - it was polished like ivory and most beautifully mounted with gold - someone else filled it till it slopped over, then he in his turn had to give his full attention to his platter, which soon meant parrying his neighbours' efforts to pile his dish again and again with the best of the food.

The ale was strong and the mead stronger. Many of the warriors were soon drunk, and slept where they sat. Some, too, of Arthur's train succ.u.mbed to the overwhelming hospitality, and began to doze.

Mordred, still sober, but knowing that he was only so by an effort, narrowed his eyes against the low sun from the open door, and looked to see how the kings were faring. Cerdic was flushed, and leaning back in his chair, but still talked; Arthur, though his platter was empty, looked as cool as might be in that heated hall. Mordred saw how he had done it: His big hound, Cabal, lay by his chair, licking his chops under the table.

The sun set, and presently torches were lit, filling the hall with smoky light. In the still evening the fire burned brightly, the smoke filtering up through the vent in the thatch, or drifting among the diners to make them cough and wipe their eyes. At length, when the platters were empty, and the drinking horns held out less frequently for filling, the entertainment began.

First came a troop of gleemen, who danced to the music of trumpets and horns, and with them a pair of jugglers who, first with coloured b.a.l.l.s, then with daggers or with anything those lords still sober threw to them, made dazzling patterns in the smoky air. The two kings threw money down, and the gleemen, scooping it up, bowed and went, still jigging and dancing. Then the harper took his place. He was a thin dark man, in an embroidered robe that looked costly. He set his stool near the hearth, and bent his head to tune the strings. Mordred saw Arthur turn his head quickly at the sound, then sink back in his chair to listen, his face in shadow.

Gradually the noise in the hall sank to a silence qualified only by some drunken snoring, and an occasional snarling wrangle from the dogs fighting in the straw for sc.r.a.ps.

The harper began to sing. His voice was true, and, as such men are, he was learned in tongues. He sang first in the guests' language, a love song, and then a lament. Then, in his own tongue, he sang a song which, after the first half-dozen lines, held every man there who could hear it, whether he understood the words or not.

... Sad, sad the faithful man Who outlives his lord.

He sees the world stand waste As a wall blown on by the wind, As an empty castle, where the snow Sifts through the window-frames, Drifts on the broken bed And the black hearthstone....

Bruning the redhead, who was opposite Mordred, was sitting as still as a mouse, with the tears running down his face. Mordred, moved at the touch of some long-forgotten grief, had to exert all his self-command not to show his own emotion. Suddenly, as if his name had been called, he turned to find his father watching him. The two men's eyes, so like, locked and held. In Arthur's was something of the look that he had seen in Nimue's: a helpless sadness. In his own, he knew, were rebellion and a fierce will. Arthur smiled at him and looked away as the applause began. Mordred got swiftly to his feet and went out of the hall.

Throughout the long feasting men had gone out from time to time to relieve themselves, so no one queried his going, or even glanced after him.

The gates were shut, but within the palisade the place was clear. Beasts, poultry and children had all been herded in with sunset to supper and bed, and now the menfolk and their women were mostly withindoors. He paced slowly along in the shadow of the palisade, trying to think.

Nimue and her stark message: Your will is nothing, your existence is all. Your will is nothing, your existence is all. The King, who many years back had had the same message, and had left it to those cruel, clouded G.o.ds... The King, who many years back had had the same message, and had left it to those cruel, clouded G.o.ds...

But there would be ambition fulfilled, and his due of glory.

Not, of course, that a practical man believed in such soothsaying. Nor could he believe, by the same token, in the prophecies of doom....

He pressed a palm to his forehead. The air felt cool and sweet after the smoky reek of the hall.

Gradually his brain cleared. He knew how far he must be from realizing his ambitions, those secret ambitions and desires. It would be many years, surely, before he or the King need fear what the evil G.o.ds might have in store. What Arthur had done for him all those years ago, he could do for Arthur now.

Forget "doom," and wait for the future to show itself.

A movement in the shadow of a tall woodpile caught his eye. A man, one of Arthur's followers. Two men; no, three. One of them moved across the glow of a distant cooking fire, and Mordred recognized Agravain. Not out here simply to relieve himself. He had seated himself on the shaft of that cart that stood empty by the woodpile, and his two companions stood by him, bending near and talking eagerly. One of them, Calum, he knew; the other he thought he recognized. Both were young Celts, close friends of Agravain and formerly of Gaheris. When Agravain had left Mordred's side in anger during the ride, he had re-joined the group where these two were riding, and s.n.a.t.c.hes of their conversation had come from time to time to Mordred's ears.

Abruptly, all thought of Nimue and her cloudy stars went from his head. The Young Celts; the phrase had recently taken on something of a political meaning, in the sense of a party of young fighting men drawn mostly from the outland Celtic kingdoms, who were impatient with "the High King's peace" and the centralization of lowland government, and bored with the role of peaceful law-enforcement created for his knights-errant. There had been little open opposition; the young men tended to sneer at the "old man's market-place" of the Round Hall; they talked among themselves, and some of the talk, it was rumoured, verged on sedition.

Such as the whispering, which in recent weeks had grown as if somehow carefully fostered, about Bedwyr and Queen Guinevere.

Mordred moved silently away until a barn interposed its bulk between him and the little group of men.

Pacing, head bent, brain working coolly now, he thought back.

It was true that in all his close dealings with them, he had never seen the Queen favour Bedwyr by word or look above other men, except as Arthur's chief friend, and in Arthur's presence. Her bearing towards him was, if anything, almost too ceremonious. Mordred had wondered, sometimes, at the air of constraint that could occasionally be felt between two people who had known one another for so long, and in such intimacy. No - he checked himself - not constraint. Rather, a distance carefully kept, where no distance seemed to be necessary. Where in fact distance seemed hardly to matter. Several times Mordred had noticed that Bedwyr seemed to know what the Queen meant without her having to put her thoughts into words.

He shook the thought away. This was poison, the poison Agravain had tried to distil. He would not even think this way. But there was one thing he could do. Like it or not, he was linked with the Orkney brothers, and lately most closely with Agravain. If Agravain approached him again, he would listen, and find out if the Young Celts' dissatisfaction was anything more than the natural rebellion of young men against the rule of their elders. As for the whispering campaign concerning Bedwyr and the Queen, that was surely only a matter of policy, too. A wedge driven in between Arthur and his oldest friend, the trusted regent who held his seal and acted as his other self, that would be the aim of any party seeking to weaken the High King's position and undermine his policies. There, too, he must listen; there, too, if he dared, he must warn the King. Of the slanders only; there were no facts; there was no truth in tales of Bedwyr and the Queen....

He pushed the thought aside with a violence that was, he told himself, a tribute to his loyalty to his father, and his grat.i.tude to the lovely lady who had shown such kindness to the lonely boy from the islands.

On the ride home he stayed away from Agravain.

8.

HE COULD NOT AVOID HIM,though, once they were back in Camelot.

Some time after their return from Cerdic's capital the King sent again for Mordred, and asked him to stay close and watch his half-brother.

It transpired that word had come from Drustan, the famous fighting captain whom Arthur had hoped to attract to his standard, that, his term of service in Dumnonia being done, he himself, his northern stronghold and his troop of trained fighting men would soon be put at the High King's disposal. He was even now on his way north to his castle of Caer Mord, to put it in readiness, before coming on himself to Camelot.

"So far, good," said Arthur. "I need Caer Mord, and I had hoped for this. But Drustan, for some affair of honour in the past, is sworn blood-brother to Lamorak, and has, moreover, Lamorak's own brother, Drian, at present in his service. I believe you know this. Well, he has already made it clear that he will require me to invite Lamorak back to Camelot."

"And will you?"

"How can I avoid it? He did no wrong. Perhaps he chose his time badly, and perhaps he was deceived, but he was betrothed to her. And even if he had not been," said the King wryly, "I am the last man living who would have the right to condemn him for what he did."

"And I the next."

The King sent him a glance that was half a smile, but his voice was sober. "You see what will happen.

Lamorak will come back, and then, unless the three older brothers can be brought to see reason, we shall have a blood feud that will split the Companions straight through."

"So Lamorak is with Drustan?"

"No. Not yet. I have not told you the rest. I know now that he went to Brittany, and has been lodging there with Bedwyr's cousin, who keeps Benoic for him. I have had letters. They tell me that Lamorak has left Benoic, and it is believed that he has taken ship for Northumbria. It seems likely that he knows of Drustan's plans, and hopes to join him at Caer Mord. What is it?"

"Northumbria," said Mordred. "My lord, I believe - I know - that Agravain is in touch with Gaheris, and I also have reason to suspect that Gaheris is somewhere in Northumbria."

"Near Caer Mord?" asked Arthur sharply.

"I don't know. I doubt it. Northumbria is a big country, and Gaheris surely cannot know of Lamorak's movements."

"Unless he has news of Drustan's, and makes a guess, or Agravain has heard some rumour here at court, and got word to him," said Arthur. "Very well. There is only one thing to do: get your brothers back here to Camelot, where they may be watched and to some extent controlled. I shall send to Gawain with a strong warning, and summon him south again. Eventually, if I have to, and if Lamorak will agree, I shall let Gawain offer him combat, here, and publicly. That should surely suffice to cool this bad blood. How Gawain receives Gaheris is his own affair; there, I cannot interfere."

"You'd have Gaheris back?"

"If he is in Northumbria, and Lamorak is making for Caer Mord, I must."

"On the principle that it is better to watch the arrow flying, than leave it to strike unseen?"

For a moment Mordred thought he had made a mistake. The King flashed a quick glance at him, as if about to ask a question. Perhaps Nimue had used the same image to him, and about Mordred himself.

But Arthur pa.s.sed it by. He said: "I shall leave this to you, Mordred. You say that Agravain is in touch with his twin. I shall let it be known that the sentence on Gaheris is rescinded, and send Agravain to bring him back. I shall insist that you go with him. It's the best I can do; I distrust them, but beyond sending you I dare not show it. I can hardly send troops to make sure they come back. Do you think he will accept this?"

"I think so. I'll contrive it somehow."

"You realize that I am asking you to be a spy? To watch your own kinsmen? Is this something you can bring yourself to do?"

Mordred said, abruptly: "Have you ever watched a cuckoo in the nest?"

"No."

"They are all over the moors at home. Almost as soon as they are hatched, they throw their kin out of the nest, and remain-" He had been going to add "to rule," but stopped himself in time. He did not even know that he had thought the words. He finished, lamely: "I only meant that I shall be breaking no natural law, my lord."

The King smiled. "Well, I am the first to a.s.sert that my son would be better than any of Lot's. So watch Agravain for me, Mordred, and bring them both back here. Then perhaps," he finished a little wearily, "given time, the Orkney swords may go back into the sheath."

Soon after this, on a bright day at the beginning of October, Agravain followed Mordred as he walked through the market-place in Camelot, and overtook him near the fountain.

"I have the King's permission to ride north. But not alone, he says. And you are the only one of the knights he can spare. Will you come with me?"

Mordred stopped, and allowed a look of surprise to show. "To the islands? I think not."

"Not to the islands. D'you think I'd go there in October? No." Agravain lowered his voice, though no one was near except two children dabbling their hands in the fountain. "He tells me that he will revoke the ban on Gaheris. He'll let him come back to court. He asked me where he might send the courier, but I told him I was pledged, and couldn't break a pledge. So he says now that I may go myself to bring him back, if you go with me." A sneer, thinly veiled. "It seems he trusts you."

Mordred ignored the sneer. "This is good news. Very well, I'll go with you, and willingly. When?"

"As soon as may be."

"And where?"

Agravain laughed. "You'll find out when you get there. I told you I was pledged."

"You've been in touch all this time, then?"

"Of course. Wouldn't you expect it?"

"How? By letter?"

"How could he send letters? He has no scribe to read or write for him. No, from time to time I've had messages from traders, fellows like that merchant over there who is setting up his cloth stall. So get yourself ready, brother, and we'll go in the morning."

"A long journey? You'll have to tell me that, at least."

"Long enough."

The children, back at their play, sent a ball rolling past Mordred's feet. He reached a toe after it, flipped it up, caught it, and sent it back to them. He dusted his hands together, smiling.

"Very well. I'd like to go with you. It will be good to ride north again. You still won't tell me where we'll be bound for?"

"I'll show you when we get there," repeated Agravain.

They came at length, at the end of a dull and misty afternoon, to a small half-ruined turret on the Northumbrian moors.

The place was wild and desolate. Even the empty moors of mainland Orkney, with their lochs, and the light that spoke of the ever-present sea, seemed lively in comparison with this.

On every hand stretched the rolling fells, the heather dark purple in the misty light of evening. The sky was piled with clouds, and no glimmer of sun spilled through. The air was still, with no wind, no fresh breath from the sea. Here and there streams or small rivers, their courses marked with alders and pale rushes, divided the hills. The tower was set in a hollow near one such stream. The land was boggy, and boulders had been set as stepping-stones across a stretch of mire. The tower, thickly covered with ivy, and surrounded with stumps of mossy fruit trees and elderberries, seemed, once, to have been a pleasant dwelling; could be still, on a sunny day. But on this misty autumn evening it was a gloomy place. At one window of the tower a dim light showed.

They tethered their horses to a thorn tree, and rapped at the door. It was opened by Gaheris himself.

He had only been away from court for a few months, but already he looked as if he had never been in civilized company. His beard, carrot red, was half grown, his hair unkempt and hanging loose over his shoulders. The leather jerkin that he wore was greased and dirty. But his face lit with pleasure at seeing the two men, and the embrace he gave Mordred was the warmest that the latter had yet received from him.