The Wicked Day Part 24

She stared in the dimming light. It was apparent that she had either not heard before, or had not understood. She repeated, still only half believing: "Bedwyr of Benoic? Himself? Arthur of Britain?"

"Arthur is here, not far away, with a troop of soldiers. King Hoel is sick, but he sent us to find you.

Come now, Lady. Our boat is small, and none too seaworthy, but if you will come with us now to safety, we will return later and carry your lady back for a seemly burial."

So it was done. Two litters were improvised from pine boughs, and on them the girl's body, decently shrouded in a cloak, and the old nurse, collapsed into a feverish sleep, were sent to Kerrec under guard.

The remainder of Arthur's force, guided by Bedwyr, rode for the sea sh.o.r.e.

It was low tide. The sand stretched wide and flat and grey, shining faintly under the darkness. They splashed across the river mouth where the lake water and the tide mingled, and then, away ahead of them to seaward in the breaking dawn, they saw the steep cone of the sea-islet which, by Bedwyr's reckoning, must be the "island tower" of which the ruffians had spoken.

Since the old woman had been abandoned to die on the lake island, the tide had flowed and ebbed again, so there were no guiding marks on the sand, but inland on the flats where the river wound its way through its delta of salt turf to the sea, the tracks of horses were plain to be seen making straight for the sh.o.r.e and the rough causeway that led across, at low tide, to the island. Its high rocks, cloudy with trees, loomed out of a calm sea, the tide, just on the turn, creaming along the island's base and between the stones of the causeway. No light showed anywhere, but they could just see, guided by Bedwyr's pointing finger, the outlines of a tower at the summit.

The King regarded this, sitting his horse at the sea's edge, motionless but for the knuckle that tapped thoughtfully at his lip. He might have been contemplating the making of a rose-bed in the Queen's garden at Camelot. He looked no more warlike than he had done on that "peace mission" to Cerdic, when Agravain had inveighed so bitterly against the apparent tameness of the "duke of battles." But Mordred, at his side, watching with interest and a rising excitement that he found hard to conceal, knew that he was seeing for the first time, at last, the Arthur of the legends; this was a professional, an expert at his trade, the man who alone had saved Britain from the Saxon Terror, deciding how best to set about a very minor matter.

The King spoke at last. "The place looks half ruined. The fellow is a brigand, holed up here like a badger. This is not a case for siege, or even attack. By rights we should take hounds and bay him out like a boar."

There was a murmur from the others, like a growl. They had all seen the girl Elen's body as it was carried ash.o.r.e. Bedwyr's horse reared suddenly, as if sharing its rider's tension. Bedwyr's hand was already at his sword, and behind, among the Companions, metal gleamed in the chill dawn light.

"Put up your swords." Arthur neither glanced aside, nor raised his voice. He sat relaxed and quiet, knuckle to lip. "I was about to say that this was a matter for One man only. Myself. Do not forget that the Princess Elen was kin to me, and I am here for King Hoel, whose niece and subject she was. This beast's blood is for me." He turned then, stilling the renewed murmur. "If he kills me, then you, Mordred, will take him. After you, if it becomes necessary, then Bedwyr and the others will do as they wish.

Understood?"

There were a.s.senting noises, some of them obviously reluctant. Mordred saw Arthur smile as he went on: "Now listen to me, before we scale the island. There are apparently at least three other men with him.

There may be more. They are your meat; tackle them how you will. Now, they may have seen our approach; they will surely suspect it. They may come out to face us, or they may try to barricade themselves in the tower. In that case it will be your task to bay or burn them out, and bring their leader to face me." He shook the reins, and his horse moved forward, fetlock deep in the sea. "We must cross now. If we delay longer the tide will be over the causeway, and they will come down to take us at a loss as we swim our beasts ash.o.r.e."

In this he proved wrong. The gang, secure in their knowledge of the rising tide, and, with the stupidity of their brutish natures, unheeding of pursuit, were all within the tower's walls, and had set no watch. Round the remains of their supper fire they slept, four of them, in a litter of gnawed bones and greasy remnants of food. The leader was still awake, nearest the fire, turning over in filthy hands a pair of golden bangles and the jewelled charm that he had torn from Elen's pretty neck. Then some sound must have caught his ear. He looked up, to see Arthur in the moonlight beyond the tower doorway.

The roar he gave was indeed like a bayed boar. And he was as swift, a giant of a man, with thews like a smith, and eyes blazing red as a wild beast's. The King would not have scrupled to kill him unarmed - this was no fight, as he had said, but the slaughter of mad brutes - but no sword could have been wielded within the tower's walls, so Arthur perforce stayed where he was, and let the man s.n.a.t.c.h up his weapon, a ma.s.sive club which outreached the shorter man's weapon by inches, and rush out on him. His fellows, slower with sleep and surprise, tumbled out in his wake, to be seized by the knights who waited to either side of the tower door, and killed forthwith. Mordred, hand to hand with a burly fellow who stank, and whose breath reeked like an open drain, found himself forgetting all the knightly practice that the years had taught him, and reverting to the tricks that had once served the fisherman's son in the rough tussles of his boyhood. And it was two to one in the end. As Mordred, tripping, went down under the other man's weight, Bedwyr, joining him almost casually, spitted the fellow like a fowl, then stooping, cleaned his sword on the gra.s.s. The dead man's clothes were too dirty for the office.

The gang were all dead within seconds of emerging from the tower. Then the Companions stood back to watch the execution of the leader.

To their trained eyes it seemed obvious that he had himself had some kind of training in the past. A brute he was, but a brave brute. He rushed on Arthur, club against sword, and with the first tremendous swipe of the club outreached the shorter man's sword with a blow that sent the King reeling, and dinted the metal of his shield. The heavy club, sliding across the metal, took the giant for a moment with its impetus, and in that moment Arthur, recovering his balance, cut past club and arm, straight for the unprotected throat above the thick leather jerkin. The giant, for all his size, was quick on his feet. He jumped back, the club beating upward again and striking the sword out of line. But Arthur's arm and body went with the thrust, taking the blow higher, over the club and straight at the giant's face. The point just sc.r.a.ped his forehead, a short cut but a deep one, right above the eyes. The man yelled, and Arthur jumped back as the great club flailed round again. Blood spurted and flowed down the giant's face. It blinded him, but the very blindness almost proved Arthur's undoing, for the man, maddened by the sting of the wound, hurled himself straight at the King, ignoring the ready sword, and with the surprise of his rashness getting past it so that he came breast to breast with his opponent, and with his great weight and wrestling grip began to bear Arthur backward to the ground.

Perhaps Mordred was the only one there to appreciate the swift and very foul blow with which the King extricated himself. He wrenched out of the monster's grip, dodged the club again with apparent ease, and cut the man across the back of the knees. Yelling, the giant fell with a crash like a tree, thrashing about him as he went. The King waited, poised like a dancer, till the club's head thudded into the turf, then cut the wrist that held it. The club lay where it had struck. Before the giant could even feel the pain of the fresh wound the King stepped past through the gush of blood and stabbed him cleanly through the throat.

They recovered the princess's jewels from the tower, threw the bodies into it, and set fire to it. Then the troop rode back to catch up with their companions, and carry their heavy news to King Hoel.

3.

ONE POSITIVE GOOD CAMEout of the tragedy of the Princess Elen. It was certain that Hoel's Prankish neighbours had had nothing to do with the rape, and, when it was known that the "giant" and his ruffianly companions were dead, the villagers and the forest folk who had suffered from the robbers'

depredations dared speak out at last, making it quickly apparent that the recent raids and hara.s.sments had all been the work of the same robber band.

Accordingly, as soon as the funeral was done with, but before the time of mourning was past, Hoel and Arthur were able to sit down and discuss the demand made by the consul Quintilia.n.u.s Hiberus. They decided to send an emba.s.sy to him, ostensibly to discuss the Roman emperor's proposals, but in reality to see for themselves what his strength was. Hoel had already sent to King Childebert and his brothers to find out if they had encountered the same demands, and if so, what stand they were prepared to take.

"It will take a little time," said Hoel, stretching his feet nearer the fire, and rubbing a hand over an arthritic knee, "but you'll stay, I trust, cousin?"

"To deploy my troops with yours in full sight, while your emba.s.sy goes to nose out Hiberus' intentions?

Willingly," said Arthur.

"I'd hoped that you might lend some weight to the emba.s.sy, too," said Hoel. "I'm sending Guerin. He's as wily an old fox as ever wasted a council's time. They'll never understand half he says, let alone what his proposals mean. He'll make time for us, and meanwhile we'll get an answer from the Franks. Well, cousin?"

"Of course. For me, then, Bors. He has no wiles at all, but his honesty is patent, and therefore disarming.

We can instruct him to leave the politics to Guerin. I'd like Valerius to command the escort."

Hoel nodded approvingly. They were in his private apartments in the palace at Kerrec. The old king was now free of his bedchamber, but spent the days sitting, wrapped in furs, over a blazing fire. His muscular bulk had run, with age, to overweight, and this had brought with it the usual attendant ills; his bones, as he put it, creaked in the draughts of his old-fashioned and relatively comfortless stronghold.

Arthur, with Mordred, and two or three of Hoel's own lords, had supped with the king, and now sat over a bowl of mulled and spicy wine. Bedwyr was not with them. He had gone back at his own request to his lands in the north of Brittany. The reason he gave was his young bride's health. He had confided to Mordred, on the ride south with the body of the murdered princess, that his own Elen, being subject to the fears of her condition, had dreamed of death, and could not rest until her husband returned to her in safety. So, the funeral once over, Bedwyr had ridden north, leaving those of the Young Celts' faction who were present with Arthur's forces to whisper that he had gone sooner than come face to face with Gawain.

For Gawain was on his way to Brittany. Arthur had judged it wise to invite his nephew, now back in the ranks of the Companions, to follow him and share such action as might ensue. The expected fighting had proved to be merely a punitive skirmish with a robber gang, and for this Gawain had sailed too late. So now, discussing with Hoel the composition of the joint emba.s.sy, Arthur suggested that Gawain should be part of it. Since Hoel could not go, and Arthur judged it better that he himself should not, some representative of the royal house ought to be present to lend the right dignity to the occasion.

Hoel, humming and huffing in his beard, cast a look at Mordred, misinterpreted the frown he saw there, and cleared his throat to speak, but Arthur, catching the exchange of glances, said quickly: "Not Mordred, no. He is the obvious choice, but I need him elsewhere. If I am to stay here till this is settled then he must go back to Greater Britain in my place. The Queen and Council make a stopgap government, but that is all it is, and there are matters outstanding that must be dealt with, with more authority than I have left with them."

He turned to his son. "After all my talk, eh? Re-training, indeed! Rowing a boat on a lagoon, and killing a robber or two. I'm sorry, Mordred, but a dispatch I had today makes it necessary. Will you go?"

"Whatever you bid me, sir. Of course."

"Then we'll talk later," said the King, and turned back to the discussion.

Mordred, half disappointed and half elated, was nevertheless wholly puzzled. What could be the urgent business that was forcing the King to change his plans? Only yesterday he had spoken of sending Mordred with the emba.s.sy. Now it was to be Gawain. And Mordred doubted the wisdom of that choice. His half-brother would be sailing over with the hope of some sort of action; he would be disappointed, not to say angry, to find himself taking part in a peaceable deputation. But Arthur seemed sure. Speaking now in answer to some question of Hoel's, he was declaring that recently, over the affair of Queen Morgan, and during the past months in Orkney, and finally in the moderate tone he was now taking over Gareth's killer, Bedwyr, Gawain had shown himself to have acquired a certain steadiness, and would find the adventure on foreign soil, though it might prove merely to be a diplomatic mission, a rewarding experience.

In which Arthur, as seemed his fate whenever he had to deal with Morgause's blood and brood, was mistaken. Even as he spoke, Gawain and his young cronies, while their ship neared the Breton coast, were busily burnishing up their war weapons, and talking eagerly of the fighting to come.

Later Arthur, having bidden Hoel good night, bore Mordred off with him to his own apartments for the promised talk.

It was a long talk, lasting well into the night. The King spoke first of the message that had caused his change of plan. It was a letter from the Queen. She gave no details, but confessed herself far from happy in her increasingly precarious role. She reported that Duke Constantine, having removed to Caerleon with his train of knights, had announced his intention of proceeding to Camelot "as more fitting for one ruling the High Kingdom." The Queen had sent begging him to hold to what Arthur had bidden, but his reply had been "eager and intemperate."

"I fear what may happen," she had written. "Already I have had reports that in Caerleon, far from holding his force there at the disposal of the Council, he acts and speaks like one already ruling in his own right, or as sole and rightful deputy of the High King. My lord Arthur, I look daily for your return. And I live in fear of what may come if some ill should befall you or your son."

Reading the letter, Mordred was eager to go. He did not pause, did not want, to a.n.a.lyze his feelings towards Duke Constantine. Enough that the man still acted as if Arthur had no son of his body, let alone the blood-kin of his half-sister's son Gawain. And as Arthur had said, the stories of some of Constantine's doings augured ill for the kingdom. He was a stark ruler and a cruel man, and the note of fear in Guinevere's letter was easy to interpret.

Any regret Mordred might have felt at leaving the King's side vanished. This regency, brief though it might be, was the time he had wanted, a trial period when he would rule alone with full authority. He had no fear that Constantine, once he, Mordred, was back in Camelot and at the head of the royal bodyguard there, would persist in his arrogant pretensions. Mordred's return, with the King's authority and the King's seal, should be enough. "And you will find there," said the King, touching the pouch of letters that bore his seal, "my mandate to raise whatever force you may think needful, to keep the peace at home, and to make ready in case of trouble here."

So, in mutual trust, they talked, while the night wore away, and the future seemed set as fair behind the clouded present as the dawn that slowly gilded the sea's edge beyond the windows. If Morgause's ghost had drifted across the chamber in the hazy light and whispered to them of the doom foretold so many years ago, they would have laughed, and watched for the phantasm to blow away on their laughter. But it was the last time that they would ever meet, except as enemies.

At length the King came back to the subject of the coming emba.s.sy. Hoel had high hopes of its success, but Arthur, though he had concealed it from his cousin, was less sanguine.

"It may come to a fight yet," he said. "Quintilia.n.u.s is serving a new master, and is himself on trial, and though I know little enough about those surrounding him, I have a suspicion that he will be afraid to lose credit with that master by treating with us. He, too, needs to make a show of strength."

"A dangerous situation. Why do you not go yourself, sir?"

Arthur smiled. "You might say that that, too, is a question of credit. If I go as an amba.s.sador I cannot take my troops, and if the emba.s.sy should fail, then I am seen to fail. I am here in Brittany as a deterrent, not as a weapon.... I dare not be seen to lose, Mordred."

"You cannot lose."

"That is the belief that will subdue Quintilia.n.u.s and the hopefuls of the new Rome."

Mordred hesitated, then said frankly: "Forgive me, but there's something else. Let me speak now as your deputy, if not your son. Can you trust Gawain and the young men on a mission of this kind? If they go with Valerius and Bors, I think there may be fighting."

"You may be right. But we shall lose little by it. Sooner or later there must be fighting, and I would rather fight here, against an enemy not yet fully prepared, than on my own borders the other side of the Narrow Sea. If the Franks hold the line with us, then we may well succeed in deterring this emperor. If they do not, then for the present the worst that can happen is that we lose Brittany. In that case we take our people, those who are left, back to their homeland, and find ourselves once again embattled behind our blessed seas." He looked away, staring into the heart of the fire, and his eyes were grave. "But in the end it will all come again, Mordred. Not in my time, nor, please G.o.d, in yours, but before your sons are old men it will come. It will not be an easy task, whoever attempts it. First the Narrow Sea, and then the ramparts of the Saxon and English kingdoms, manned by men fighting for their own lands. Why do you think I have been determined to let the Saxons own their settled lands? Men fight for what is theirs. And by the time our sh.o.r.es are seriously threatened, I shall have Cerdic on my side."

"I see. I wondered why you did not seem more worried about the emba.s.sy."

"We need the time it may buy for us. If it fails we fight now. As simple as that. Now it grows late, so to finish our business." He reached a hand towards the table where a letter lay, sealed with the dragon seal.

"Invincible or not, I have given thought to the chance of my death. Here is a letter, which in that event you are to use. In it I have informed the Council that you are my heir. Duke Constantine knows well that my oath to his father was only valid in default of a son of my body. Like it or not, he must accept it. I have written to him, too, a letter that he cannot gainsay. With it comes a grant of land; his dukedom will include the lands that came to me with my first wife, Guenever of Cornwall. I hope he will be content. If he is not" - a glint in the King's eyes as he glanced up at his son - "then that will be your affair, not mine.

Watch him, Mordred. If I live, then I myself will call the Council as soon as I return to Camelot, and all this will be settled publicly once and for all."

It is never easy to receive a bequest from one still living. Mordred, for once at a loss for words, began to speak, haltingly, but the King waved him into silence, coming at last to the subject that, to Mordred, would have been first.

"The Queen," said Arthur, his gaze on the fire. "She will be under your protection. You will love and care for her as her own son, and you will see to it that for the rest of her days she lives safely, with the honour and comfort due to her. I do not ask you to swear this, Mordred, knowing that I need not,"

"I do swear it!" Mordred, on his knees by his father's chair, spoke for once with uncontrolled emotion. "I swear by all the G.o.ds there are, by the G.o.d of the kingdom's churches, and the G.o.ddess of the isles, and the spirits that live in the air, that I will hold the kingdoms for the Queen, and love and care for her and secure her honour as you would do were you still High King."

Arthur reached to take the younger man's hands between his own, and raising him, kissed him. Then he smiled.

"So now we will stop talking about my death, which will not come yet awhile, I a.s.sure you! But when it does, I give my kingdoms and my Queen into your hands with a quiet spirit, and with my blessing and G.o.d's."

Next day Mordred sailed for home. A few days after he had gone, the emba.s.sy, gay with coloured pennants and tossing plumes, set out for Quintilia.n.u.s Hiberus' encampment.

Gawain and his friends rode at ease. Though the talk was of the sort that Mordred would have recognized - the young men looking to Gawain for reckless leadership and excitement - they did contain themselves with decorum on the ride. But none of the younger faction made any attempt to conceal their hope that the peaceful overtures would fail, and that they would see action.

"They say Quintilia.n.u.s is a hot man, and a clever soldier. Why should he listen to an old man giving another old man's message?" Such was Mador's description of King Hoel's emba.s.sy. Others chimed in: "If we don't get fighting, at least they're sure to show us sport - games, hunting - and it will go hard if we cannot show these foreigners what we can do!" Or again: "They say the horses in Gaul are beauties.

We might get some trading done, if the worst comes to the worst."

But it seemed they were doomed to disappointment on all counts. Quintilia.n.u.s' headquarters was a temporary camp built on a bleak stretch of moorland. The party arrived towards evening of a dull day with a chilly wind carrying rain. The dead springtime heather stretched black and wet on every hand, the only colour in the moorland being the livid green of the boggy stretches, or the metallic gleam of water.

The camp itself was laid out on the Roman pattern. It was well built with turf's and stout timber, and was impressive enough as a temporary stance, but the young Britons, ignorant of warfare and accustomed to the great Roman-based permanent structures of Caerleon and Segontium, looked about them with disappointment and contempt.

It was hard to say whether caution or care for his guests' comfort had impelled Quintilia.n.u.s Hiberus to house the British outside the walls of the camp. Tents had been erected some hundred paces outside the surrounding ditch, with their own horse lines and a pavilion which would serve as a hall. There they were invited to dismount, while their own grooms took their horses to the lines. Then on foot they were led up the main way towards the camp's center, where the commander's headquarters stood.

There Quintilia.n.u.s Hiberus and Marcellus, his second in command, received the emba.s.sy with chilly courtesy. Speeches, previously prepared and learned by rote, were exchanged. They were long, and so over-careful as to be almost incomprehensible. No mention was made either of the emperor's message or of Hoel's intentions. Rather, a rambling account of the old king's health was produced in answer to their host's indifferent query, with details, delicately touched on, of his cousin Arthur's anxiety, which had provoked that warrior to visit Brittany's king. That he had brought a sizeable force with him was not stated, but the Roman consul knew it, and they knew that he knew....

Only when the polite sharpening of blades had been going on for some time did Guerin and Bors allow themselves to approach a statement - still far from direct - of Hoel's position and its backing by Arthur of Britain.

The young men, waiting formally behind their amba.s.sadors, chafing after the decorous inaction of the ride, and thinking of food and recreation, had time to grow bored, to eye their surroundings curiously, and to exchange stares with the warriors of the opposite faction who waited in equal boredom behind their own leaders.

These leaders, after a lengthy and dragging parley, made more tedious than need be by the fact that Bors spoke little or no Latin, and Marcellus spoke nothing else, came at length to a stalemate pause. There would be, said Quintilia.n.u.s, drawing his mantle about him and rising, further parley tomorrow. Meanwhile the visitors would no doubt care to rest and refresh themselves. They would be shown now to the tents prepared for them.

The amba.s.sadors bowed gravely and withdrew. Their hosts came forward, and the party was escorted back through the camp. "No doubt," said the youth escorting Gawain, with rather threadbare politeness, "you are weary after your journey? You will find the lodgings rough, I am afraid, but we ourselves have become accustomed to living in the field-"

He yawned as he spoke. This meant no more than that he was as weary of the talks as the other young men, but Gawain, bored, contemptuous, and beginning to see his hopes of glory fading, chose to take it otherwise.

"Why should you think we are not used to rough quarters? Because we have come with a peaceful emba.s.sy, it doesn't mean that we are not fighters, and as ready in the field as any rabble on this side of the Narrow Seal"

The youth, surprised, and then as quickly angry as the other, flushed scarlet to his fair hair. "And what field of battle have you ever been on. Sir Braggart? It's a long time since Agned and Badon! Even the fabled Arthur, that your fellows were boasting about in there, would be hard put to it to wage a war nowadays, with men who are only good for talking!"

Before Gawain could even draw breath, "And not even too good at that," put in someone else, with a cruel imitation of Bors's thick Latin.

There was laughter, and through it a quick attempt by cooler spirits to pa.s.s the exchange off with jesting, but Gawain's brow was dark, and hot words still flew. The fair youth, who seemed to be someone of consequence, bore through the talk with a ringing shout of anger: "So? Didn't you come all this way to beg us not to fight you? And now you boast and brag about what your leaders can do! What do you expect us to think of such empty braggarts?"

Here Gawain drew his sword and ran him through.

The stunned minutes that followed, of unbelief, then of horror and confusion, as the fallen man's companions ran to raise him and find if life remained in him, gave the British just enough time to escape.

Gawain, shouting, "Get to the horses!" was already half-way to the picket lines, followed closely by his friends who, from the moment the bitter words began to pa.s.s, had seen the violent end coming. The amba.s.sadors, dismayed, hesitated only for a moment before following. If the a.s.sailant had been any other than Arthur's nephew, they might have given him over to the punishment due to one who broke a truce, but as it was, the leaders knew that the emba.s.sy, never hopeful, was now irretrievably shattered, and all their party, as truce-breakers, were in great danger. Valerius, an old soldier used to instant decisions, took swift command, and had his whole party mounted and out of the lines at the gallop before their hosts had well grasped what had occurred.

Gawain, wildly galloping with the rest, struggled to pull his horse out of the troop and wheel back.

"This is shameful! To run away, after what they said? Shame on you, shame! They called us cowards before, what will they call us now?"

"Dead men, you fool!" Valerius, furiously angry, was in no mood to mince words, prince or no prince.

His hand came hard down on Gawain's rein, and dragged the horse into the rapid gallop alongside his own. "It's shame on you, prince! You knew what the kings wanted from this emba.s.sy. If we come alive out of this, which is doubtful, then we shall see what Arthur will have to say to you!"

Gawain, still rebellious and unrepentant, would have replied, but at that moment the troop came to a river, and they spread out to force their horses through it. They could have forded it had there been time, but at that moment the pursuing party came in sight, and there was nothing for it but to fight. Valerius, furious and desperate, turned and gave orders for the attack.

The engagement, with tempers high on both sides, was short, ferocious and very b.l.o.o.d.y. The fight was a running one, and ended only when half the emba.s.sy, and rather more of the pursuing force, were dead.

Then the Romans, gathered for a few minutes' respite at the edge of a little wood, seemed to be taking counsel, and presently two of their number turned and made off towards the east.

Valerius, unwounded, but exhausted and liberally stained with other men's blood, watched them go.

Then he said, grimly: "Gone for reinforcements. Right. There's nothing we can do here. We leave. Now.

Bring the loose horses and pick up that man yonder. He's alive. The rest we'll have to leave."

This time there was no argument. The British turned and rode off. The Romans made no attempt to stop them, nor were any taunts exchanged. Gawain had had his way, and proved what had not needed to be proved. And both sides knew what must happen now.

4.