The Wicked Day Part 19

My lord Drustan, your back!"

Before the words were done Drustan had wheeled his horse. He met the two of them together. Agravain struck first. The older knight smashed the blow to one side and cut him across the head. The sword's edge sliced deep into metal and leather, and bit into the neck between shoulder and throat. Agravain fell, blood spurting. Gaheris yelled and drove his horse in, his sword hacking down as Drustan stooped from the saddle to withdraw his blade. But Drustan's horse reared back. Its armed hoofs caught Gaheris's mount on the chest. It squealed and swerved, and the blow missed. Drustan drove his own horse in, striking straight at Gaheris's shield, and sent him, off-balance as he was, crashing to the ground, where he lay still.

Gareth was there at the gallop. Drustan, swinging to face him, saw that his sword was still in its sheath, and put his own weapon up.

Here the men-at-arms, having left their burden, came hastening back. At their master's orders, they roughly bound Agravain's wound, helped Gaheris, giddy but unharmed, to his feet, then caught the brothers' horses for them. Drustan, coldly formal, offered the hospitality of the castle "until your brother shall be healed of his hurt," but Gaheris, as ungracious as he had been treacherous, merely cursed and turned away. Drustan signed to the troopers, who closed in. Gaheris, shouting again about "my kinsman the High King," tried to resist, but was overpowered. The invitation had become an arrest. At length the troopers rode off at walking pace, with Gaheris between them, his brother's unconscious body propped against him.

Gareth watched them go, making no move to follow. He had not stirred a hand to help Gaheris.

"Gareth?" said Drustan. His sword was clean and sheathed. "Gareth, what choice have I?"

"None," said Gareth. He shook the reins and brought his horse round alongside Drustan's. They rode together towards Caer Mord.

The roadway was empty in the growing dusk. A thin moon rose over the sea. Mordred, emerging at last from the shadow, rode south.

That night he slept in the woods. It was chilly, but wrapped in his cloak he was warm enough, and for supper there was something left of the bread and meat the girl had given him. His horse, tethered on a long rein, grazed in the glade. Next day, early, he rode on, this time to the south-west. Arthur would be on his way to Caerleon, and he would meet him there. There was no haste. Drustan would already have sent a courier with the news of Lamorak's murder. Since Mordred had not appeared on the scene the King would no doubt a.s.sume the truth, that the brothers by some trick had managed to evade him. His a.s.signment had not been Lamorak's safety; that was Lamorak's own concern, and he had paid for the risk he had taken; Mordred's task had been to find Gaheris and take him south. Now, once the twins'

hurts were healed, Drustan would see to that. Mordred could still stay out of the affair, and this he was sure the King would approve. Even if the brothers did not survive the King's anger, the other troublemakers among the Young Celts, a.s.suming Mordred to be ambitious for whatever power he could grasp for himself, might turn to him and invite him to join their counsels. This, he suspected, the King would soon ask him to do. And if you do, murmured that other, ice-cold voice in his brain, and the campaign goes on that is to unseat Bedwyr and destroy him, who better to take his place in the King's confidence, and the Queen's love, than you, the King's own son?

It was a golden October, with chill nights and bright, crisp days. The mornings glittered with a dusting of bright frost, and in the evenings the sky was full of the sound of rooks going home. He took his time, sparing his horse, and, where he could, lodging in small, simple places and avoiding the towns. The loneliness, the falling melancholy of autumn, suited his mood. He went by smooth hills and gra.s.sy valleys, through golden woods and by steep rocky pa.s.ses where, on the heights, the trees were already bare. His good bay horse was all the company he needed. Though the nights were cold, and grew colder, he always found shelter of a sort-a sheep-cote, a cave, even a wooded bank-and there was no rain. He would tether the bay to graze, eat the rations he carried, and roll himself in his cloak for the night, to wake in the grey, frost-glittering morning, wash in an icy stream, and ride on again.

Gradually the simplicity, the silence, the very hardships of the ride soothed him; he was Medraut the fisher-boy again, and life was simple and clean.

So he came at last to the Welsh hills, and Viroconium where the four roads meet. And there, at the crossways, like another welcome from home, was a standing stone with its altar at its foot.

He slept that night in a thicket of hazel and holly by the crossroads, in the lee of a fallen trunk. The night was warmer, with stars out. He slept, and dreamed that he was in the boat with Brude, netting mackerel for Sula to split and dry for winter. The nets came in laden with leaping silver, and across the hush of the waves he could hear Sula singing.

He woke to thick mist. The air was warmer; the sudden change in temperature overnight had brought the fog. He shook the crowded droplets from his cloak, ate his breakfast, then on a sudden impulse took the remains of the food and laid it on the altar at the foot of the standing stone.

Then, moved by another impulse which he would not begin to recognize, he took a silver piece from his wallet and laid it beside the food. Only then did he realize that, as in his dream, someone was singing.

It was a woman's voice, high and sweet, and the song was one that Sula had sung. His flesh crept. He thought of magic, and waking dreams. Then out of the mist, no more than twelve paces away, came a man leading a mule with a girl mounted sideways on its back. He took them at first for a peasant with his wife going out to work, and then saw that the man was dressed in a priest's robe, and the girl as simply, sackcloth and wimple, and the pretty feet dangling against the mule's ribs were bare. They were Christians, it appeared; a wooden cross hung from the man's waist, and a smaller one lay on the girl's bosom. There was a silver bell on the mule's collar, which rang as it moved.

The priest checked in his stride when he saw the armed man with the big horse, then, as Mordred gave him a greeting, smiled and came forward.

"Maridunum?" he repeated, in response to Mordred's query. He pointed to the road that led due west.

"That way is best. It is rough, but pa.s.sable everywhere, and it is shorter than the main road south by Caerleon. Have you come far, sir?"

Mordred answered him civilly, giving him what news he could. The man did not speak with a peasant's accent. He might have been someone gently bred, a courtier, even. The girl, Mordred saw now, was beautiful. Even the bare feet, dangling by the mule's ribs, were clean and white, fine-boned and veined with blue. She sat silently watching him, and listening, in no way discomposed by his look. Mordred caught the priest's glance at the altar stone where the silver coin gleamed beside the food. "Do you know whose altar this is? Or whose stone at the crossways?"

The man smiled. "Not mine, sir. That is all I know. That is your offering?"

"Yes."

"Then G.o.d knows who will receive it," said the man, gently, "but if you have need of blessing, sir, then my G.o.d can, through me, give it to you. Unless," he added, on a troubled afterthought, "there is blood on your hands?"

"No," said Mordred. "But there is a curse that says I shall have. How do I lift that?"

"A curse? Who laid it?"

"A witch," said Mordred, shortly, "but she is dead."

"Then the curse may well have died with her."

"But before her, a fate was spoken of, and by Merlin."

"What fate?"

"That I cannot tell you."

"Then ask him."

"Ah," said Mordred. "Then it is true he is still there?"

"They say so. He is there in his cave on the hill, for those who have the need or the fortune to find him.

Well then, sir, I cannot help you, other than give you my Christian blessing, and send you on your way."

He raised a hand, and Mordred bowed his head, then thanked him, hesitated over a coin, decided against it, and rode on. He took the west road to Maridunum. Soon the mule's bell died out in the distance, and he was alone again.

He came to the hill called Bryn Myrddin at dusk, and slept again by a wood. When he woke there was mist again, with the sun rising behind it. The haze was tinged with rose, and a faint glimmer showed on the grey trunks of the beech trees.

He waited patiently, eating the hard biscuit and raisins that were his breakfast ration. The world was silent, no movement but the slow eddying of the mist between the trees, and the steady cropping of the horse. There was no haste. He had ceased to feel any curiosity about the old man whom he sought, the King's enchanter of a thousand legends who had been his enemy (and since Morgause had said so, he took it without question as a lie) since the day of his conception. Nor was there any apprehension. If the curse could be lifted, then no doubt Merlin would lift it. If not, then no doubt he would explain it.

Quite suddenly, the mist was gone. A slight breeze, warm for the time of year, rustled through the wood, swept the eddies aside and dispersed them down the hillside like smoke from a bonfire. The sun, climbing the hilltop across the valley, blazed scarlet and gold into his eyes. The landscape dazzled.

He mounted, turning towards the sun. Now he saw where he was. The travelling priest's directions had been accurate and vivid enough to guide anyone even through this rolling and featureless landscape.

"By the time you reach the wood, you will have gone past the upper slopes of Bryn Myrddin. Go down to the stream, cross it, and you will find a track. Turn uphill again and ride as far as a grove of thorn trees.

There is a little cliff, with a path curling up beside it. At the head of the cliff is the holy well, and by it the enchanter's cave."

He came to the thicket of whitethorn. There, beside the cliff, he dismounted and tied the horse. He trod quickly up the path and came out on level ground and into mist again, thick and still and stained red gold by the sun, standing as still as lake water over the turf. He could see nothing. He felt his way forward.

The turf was level and fine. At his feet, peering, he could just discern small late daisies, frost-nipped, and shut against the damp. Somewhere to his left was the trickle of water. The holy well? He groped forward, but could not find it. He trod on a stone, which rolled away, almost bringing him to his knees.

The silence, broken only by the trickle of the spring, was eerie. In spite of himself, he felt the chill p.r.i.c.kles of sweat creep down his spine.

He stopped. He stood squarely, and shouted aloud.

"Ho, there! Is anyone there?"

An echo, ringing from the wall of mist, rebounded again and again from the invisible depths of the valley, and died into silence.

"Is anyone there? This is Mordred, Prince of Britain, to speak with Merlin his kinsman. I come in peace.

I seek peace."

Again the echo. Again the silence. He moved cautiously towards the sound of water, and his groping fingers touched the stone rim of the well. He stooped towards the water. Breaths of mist furred and fumed from the smooth gla.s.s of the surface. He bent nearer. Below that gla.s.s the clear depths, darkly shining, led the eye down, away from the mist. At the bottom of the well was the gleam of silver, the offerings to the G.o.d.

From nowhere came a memory: the pool below the ancient tomb where Morgause had bidden him watch the depths for vision. There he had seen nothing but what should rightly be there. Here, on the holy hilltop, the same.

He straightened. Mordred, the realist, did not know that a burden had dropped from him. He would have said only that Merlin's magic was no doubt as harmless as Morgause's. What he had seen as a cursed fate, foreseen with grief by Merlin and twisted into evil by Morgause, dwindled in this world of clear water and lighted mist into its proper form. It was not even a curse. It was a fact, something due to happen in the future, that had been seen by an eye doomed to foresee, whatever the pain of that Seeing.

It would come, yes, but only as, soon or late, all deaths came. He, Mordred, was not the instrument of a blind and brutal fate, but of whatever, whoever, made the pattern to which the world moved. Live what life brings; die what death comes. He did not see the comfort even as cold.

Nor did he, in fact, even know that he had been comforted. He reached for the cup that stood above the water, filled it and drank, and felt refreshed. He poured for the G.o.d, and as he returned the cup to its place said, in the tongue of his childhood, "Thank you," and turned to go.

The mist was thicker than ever, the silence as intense. The sun was right up now, but the light, instead of sweeping the air clear, blazed like a fire in the middle of a great cloud. The hillside was a swirl of flame and smoke, cool to the skin, clean to the nostrils, but blinding to the eye and filling the mind with confusion and wonder. The very air was crystal, was rainbow, was flowing diamond. "He is where he always was," Nimue had said, "with all his fires and travelling glories round him." And "If he wishes it, you may find him."

He had found, and been answered. He began to feel his way back towards the head of the cliff. Behind him, invisible, the falling drops of the spring sounded for all the world like the sweet, faint notes of a harp.

Above him was the swirl of light where the sun stood. Guided by these he felt his way forward until his foot found the drop to the path.

When he reached the base of the hill he turned east and rode straight and fast for Caerleon and his father.

10.

BY THE TIME MORDRED REACHEDCaerleon matters had begun to settle themselves. The King had been very angry over Lamorak's murder, and it was certainly to Agravain's advantage that his wound would keep him, and Gaheris with him, in the north until it was healed. Drustan duly sent an account of the incident to Arthur, but its bearer was not a royal courier, it was Gareth; and Gareth, though far from trying to excuse his brothers, pleaded successfully with the King for their pardon. For Gaheris he pleaded madness; Gaheris, who had loved Morgause and had killed her. Gareth, out of his own grief, could make a guess at what had pa.s.sed in his brother's bruised mind as he knelt there in his mother's blood. And Agravain, as ever, had acted as the shield and dagger alongside his twin's sword. Now that Lamorak was dead, urged Gareth, it was surely possible that Gaheris could put the b.l.o.o.d.y past behind him, and take his place again as a loyal man. And Drustan, though sorely provoked, had held his hand, so it might well be that now the swinging pendulum of revenge could be stilled.

Unexpectedly enough, the main opposition to Gareth's pleading came from Bedwyr. Bedwyr, deploring the blood tie that linked Arthur to the Orkney brothers, disliked and distrusted them, and lost no chance to set the King on guard against them. He was known throughout the court to be using all his considerable influence to prevent the twins from being recalled. And where, Bedwyr insisted, with growing suspicion, was Mordred? Had he, too, perhaps, a.s.sisted in the murder, and fled before Drustan and Gareth came on the scene? Mordred himself arrived in Caerleon in time to save confusion about his part in the affair, and eventually, in spite of Bedwyr, Gareth was sent north again, to bring his brothers back to court when they were both, in mind and body, whole once more.

Gawain came back, briefly, soon after the court returned to Camelot, while Agravain and Gaheris were still in the north. He had a long interview with Arthur, and after it another with Mordred, who told him what he had seen of Lamorak's murder and its aftermath, and finished by urging Gawain to listen to the King's pleas and show the same restraint as Drustan, and to refrain from adding another stone to the b.l.o.o.d.y cairn of revenge.

"Lamorak leaves a young brother, Drian, who rides with Drustan's men. By the kind of logic that you use, he has the right now to kill either of your brothers, or you yourself. Even Gareth," said Mordred, "though I doubt if that is likely. Drustan will have seen to it that Drian knows what happened, and that - the G.o.ddess be thanked! - Gareth kept his head and acted like a sensible man. He could see - as indeed any man could who was there - that Gaheris was crazed in his wits. If we make much of that circ.u.mstance, it is possible that when he comes back healed, no one will attempt to strike at him." He added, meaningly: "I believe that neither of the twins will ever be trusted again by the King, but if you can bring yourself to forgive Gaheris for our mother's murder, or at any rate not to take action against him, then you may, with Gareth and myself, stay within the edges of the King's favour. There may yet be a n.o.ble future for you and for me. Do you ever want to rule your northern kingdom, Gawain?"

Mordred knew his man. Gawain was anxious that nothing should interfere with his t.i.tle to the Orkneys, or eventually to the kingdom of Lothian. Neither t.i.tle would be worth anything without Arthur's continued support. So the matter was settled, but when the time came for the twins' return, the King saw to it that their elder brother was away from Camelot. Queen Morgan, at Castell Aur in Wales, provided him with just the excuse he needed. Gawain was dispatched there, ostensibly to investigate complaints from the peasants about abuses of authority by Morgan's guardians, and carefully kept there out of the way until the dust on the Lamorak murder should settle.

It was apparent, though, to Mordred, that Bedwyr's doubts about him were not quite resolved. In place of the guarded friendliness that Arthur's chief marshal had lately shown, Mordred was to observe a return to the wary watchfulness that Bedwyr also accorded Agravain and certain other of the Young Celts.

The phrase "Young Celts," used lightly enough at first to denote the young outlanders who tended to stick together, had by this time taken on the ring of a sobriquet, a t.i.tle as clearly defined as that of the High King's companion knights. And here and there the two lines crossed; Agravain was in both, and Gaheris, and so, eventually, was Mordred. Arthur, as Mordred had antic.i.p.ated, sent for him and asked him, once his half-brothers were back at court, to keep watch on them, and on the others of the Young Celts' party. A little to Mordred's surprise he found that, though there was still discontent with some of Arthur's home policies, there was no talk that could be called seditious. Loyalty to Arthur's name and fame still held them; he was duke of battles still, and enough of glory and authority hung about him to keep them loyal. His talk of wars to come, moreover, bound them to him. But there was enmity for Bedwyr. The men from Orkney who had come south to join Lot's sons in Arthur's train, and others from Lothian who hoped for Gawain's succession there (and who had some small grievances, real or imagined, against the Northumbrian lord of Benoic), knew that Bedwyr distrusted them, and that he had done his best to block the return of Agravain and Gaheris to court; had advocated, rather, their banishment back to their island home. So when, as was inevitable among the young men, the talk turned to the gossip about Bedwyr and the Queen, Mordred soon realized that this was prompted mainly by hatred of Bedwyr, and the desire to shut him out of the King's favour. When Mordred, moving carefully, let it be known that he might be persuaded to take their part, the Young Celts a.s.sumed his motive to be the natural jealousy of a King's son who might, if Bedwyr could be discredited, become his father's deputy.

As such, Mordred would be a notable acquisition to the party.

So he was accepted, and in time regarded as one of the party's leaders, even by Agravain and Gaheris.

Mordred had his own rooms within the royal palace at Camelot, but he had also, for the last year or so, owned a pleasant little house in the town. A girl of the town kept house for him, and made him welcome whenever he could spare the time for her. Here, from time to time, came the Young Celts, ostensibly to supper, or for a day's fowling in the marshes, but in reality to talk, and for Mordred to listen.

The purchase of the house had in fact been the King's suggestion. If Mordred was to share the party's activities, this was not likely to happen in his rooms within the royal palace. In the easier atmosphere of his leman's house Mordred could more readily keep in touch with the currents of thought that moved the younger men.

To his house one evening came Agravain, with Colles, and Mador, and others of the Young Celts. After supper, when the woman had placed the wine near them and then withdrawn, Agravain brought the talk abruptly round to the subject that, of late, had obsessed him.

"Bedwyr! No man in the kingdom can get anywhere, become anybody, without that man's approval!

The King's besotted. Boyhood friends, indeed! Boyhood lovers, more like! And still he has to listen whenever my lord high and mighty Bedwyr chooses to speak! What d'ye say, Colles? We know, eh?

Eh?"

Agravain, as was usual these days, was three parts drunken, early as it was in the night. This was plain speaking, even for him. Colles, usually a hopeful sycophant, tried an uneasy withdrawal. "Well, but everyone knows they fought together since years back. Brothers-in-arms, and all that. It's only natural-"

"Too natural by half." Agravain gave a hiccup of laughter. "Brothers-in-arms, how right you are! In the Queen's arms, too... , Haven't you heard the latest? Last time the King was from court, there was my lord Bedwyr, snugged down right and tight in the Queen's bed before Arthur's horse was well out of the King's Gate."

"Where did you get that?" This, sharply, from Mador.

And from Colles, beginning to look scared: "You told me. But it's only talk, and it can't be true. For one thing the King's not that kind of a fool, and if he trusts Bedwyr-and trusts her, come to that-"

"Not a fool? It's a fool's part to trust. Mordred would agree. Wouldn't you, brother?"

Mordred, with his back to the company, pouring wine, was heard to a.s.sent, shortly.

"If it were true," began someone, longingly, but Mador cut across him.

"You're a fool yourself to talk like that without proof. It can't be true. Even if they wanted to, how would they dare? The Queen's ladies are always there with her, and even at night-"

Agravain gave a shout of laughter, and Gaheris, lounging back beside him, said, grinning: "My poor innocent. You're beginning to sound like my saintly brother Gareth. Don't you ever listen to the dirt?

Agravain's been laying one of Guinevere's maids for nigh on a month now. If anyone hears the gossip, he should."

"And you mean that she says he's been in there at night? Bedwyr?"

Agravain nodded into his wine, and Gaheris gave a crow of triumph. "Then we've got him!"

But Colles insisted: "She saw him? Herself?"

"No." Agravain looked round defiantly. "But we all know the talk that's been going round for long enough, and we also know that there's no fire without smoke. Let us look past the smoke, and put out the fire. If I do get proof, will you all act with me?"

"Act? How?"

"Do the King a service, and get rid of Bedwyr, from the King's bed and and the King's counsels!" the King's counsels!"

Calum said doubtfully: "You mean just tell the King?"

"How else? He'll be furious, who wouldn't, but afterwards he's got to be grateful. Any man would want to know-"

"But the Queen?" This was a young man called Cian, who came from the Queen's own country of North Wales. "He'll kill her. Any man, finding out..." He flushed, and fell silent. It was to be noticed that he avoided looking at Gaheris.

Agravain was confident and scornful. "He would never hurt the Queen. Have you never heard what happened when Melwas of the Summer Country took her and held her for a day and a night in his lodge on one of the Lake islands? You can't tell me that that lecher never had his way with her, but the King took her back without a word, and gave her his promise that, for that or even for her barrenness, he would never put her aside. No, he'd never harm her. Mordred, you know him better than most, and you're with the Queen half your time as well. What do you say?"

"About the King's tenderness towards her, I agree." Mordred set the wine jug down again, and leaned back against the table's edge, surveying them. "But all this is moonshine, surely? There is talk, I've heard it, but it seems to me that it comes mostly from here, and without proof. Without any kind of proof. Until proof is found, the talk must remain only talk, concocted from wishes and ambitions, not from facts."