The Wicked Day Part 26

"Yes. Wait, then."

He took the letter across to a window, and with his back to the man, spread the page out on the sill. The careful script danced under his eyes. The drifting curtain of the rain seemed to have come between him and the letter. He dashed the back of his hand impatiently across his face and bent nearer.

In the end, and after three careful readings, the sense of it went right into his brain and lodged there, thrumming like the arrow that lodges deep in the flesh, spreading, not pain, but a numbing poison.

Arthur was dead. The news that followed, of complete and annihilating victory over the Romans and Burgundians, came as an irrelevance. Arthur was dead. The dispatch, dictated hastily in a field dressing station, gave few details. The High King's body had not yet been recovered from the field. Parties were still searching among the piled and pillaged dead. But if the King were still living, said Bedwyr tersely, he would by this time have made himself known. The regent must a.s.sume his death, and act accordingly.

The parchment slipped from Mordred's hand and floated to the floor. He did not notice. Through the window beside him, washed and sweet on the damp air, floated the scents of the Queen's garden. He looked out at the rain-heavy roses, the glittering leaves that quivered under the drifting drops, the misted gra.s.s. No one was there today. Wherever she was, she would know of the courier's coming, and she would be waiting for him. He would have to go to her and tell her. Arthur. And Bedwyr. Arthur and Bedwyr both. That was enough for her, and too much. But he must hear the rest first. He turned back to the courier. "Go on."

The man talked eagerly now, his fear forgotten. The regent was alive again, not composed exactly, but in command, his questions quick and direct.

"Yes, my lord, I was there myself. I left the field at full dark, as soon as the news was sure. The King was seen fighting still towards sunset, though by that time the main resistance was over, and Quintilia.n.u.s himself had fallen. Everywhere was chaos, and already men were robbing the bodies of the dead and killing the dying for their weapons and their clothes. Our men were not merciful, but the Franks... My lord, these are barbarians. They fight like mad wolves, and they can no more be controlled than wolves.

The enemy broke and fled in several directions, and were pursued. Some of them threw down their arms and held their hands out for chains, begging their lives. It was-was...

"The King. What of the King?"

"He was seen to fall. His standard had been cut down, and in the growing dark it could not be observed just where he was fighting, or what had happened. Bedwyr, wounded as he was, struggled to that part of the field and searched for him, and others with him, calling. But the King was not found. Many of the bodies were stripped already, and if the King had been among them-"

"You are telling me that his body had still not been recovered?"

"Yes, my lord. At least, not when I left the field. I was sent as soon as it became too dark to search further. It may well be that by this time another dispatch is on its way. But it was thought that the news should be brought to you before other rumours reached the country."

"So this is why no token, neither sword nor ring, has been brought back to me?"

"Yes, my lord."

Mordred was silent for a while. Then he spoke with difficulty. "Is there still thought to be hope for the High King?"

"My lord, if you had seen the field... But yes, there is hope. Even in naked death, the High King's body would surely have been known-"

Under Mordred's gaze, he stopped. "My lord."

After a few more questions Mordred sent him away, and sat alone, thinking.

There was still a chance that Arthur was not dead. But his duty was plain. Before the news reached these sh.o.r.es-and with the coming of the courier's ship the rumours must already be spreading like heath fires-he must take control of the country. His immediate moves were easily mapped: an emergency meeting of the Council; a public reading of Arthur's declaration of succession, with its ratification of his, Mordred's authority; a copy of this to be made and sent to each of the kings; a speech made to the army leaders.

Meanwhile the Queen waited, and while she waited, suffered. He would go to her, and take what comfort he could.

And what love he might.

Before he had taken three steps into the room she was on her feet. Afterwards he realized that he had not known to whom her first query related.

She said it, hands to throat. "He is dead?"

"Alas, madam, yes. That is the message as it came to me. He was seen to fall in the moment of victory, but, when the messenger was sent to me, they had not yet found his body."

She was so white that he thought she might fall. He went close quickly, and put out his hands. Hers flew out and held them tightly. He said urgently: "Madam, there is hope. And Bedwyr is alive, though wounded. He was well enough to order the search for the King's body before darkness fell."

She shut her eyes. Her lips, thin and gaping round a black 0, drew air in as if she were drowning. Her lids fluttered. Then as if some ghostly hand had slid under her chin and drawn her up, she stiffened and grew taller, then her eyes opened and her white face composed itself. She removed her hands quietly from Mordred's grasp, but let him lead her to a chair. Her women would have cl.u.s.tered near with hands and words of comfort, but she waved them back.

"Tell me all that you know."

"I know very little, madam. The letter was brief. But the messenger gave me a report." He recounted what the man had told him. She listened without interruption; indeed, a casual observer might have thought without attention; she seemed to be watching the raindrops following one another down the drooping stem of a rose that hung beyond the window-frame.

Mordred stopped speaking at last. The raindrops ran, gathered, swelled on a thorn, dropped splashing to the sill.

The Queen said quietly, in a calm, dead voice: "If there is indeed hope of the King's life, then surely a second courier will be following hard on the first. Meantime we must do as my lord commanded."

"a.s.suming his death," said Mordred.

"a.s.suming that." Then, with a sudden break of grief and terror: "Mordred, what will become of Britain now? What will come to us? So short a while ago we spoke of this, you and I - and now - now the day is upon us.

He made an involuntary move towards her, only a slight one, but it sufficed. She was still again, controlled, queenly. But her eyes betrayed her. She could not have spoken again without weeping. And that must not happen until she was alone.

He said, in as flat and matter-of-fact a tone as he could manage: "Two things must be done immediately.

I must see Cerdic. A meeting has already been arranged. And I have convened the Council. They meet tonight. Until tidings come that either confirm or deny this news, it is vital that men should see there is still a central power in Britain, with a ruler appointed by the King's command, and carrying out his wishes."

He added, gently: "For you, madam, I do not think anyone will wonder at it if you are not present at the Council meeting."

"I shall be present."

"If you so wish-"

"I do wish it. Mordred, the High King's body has not been found. You have his seal, which you and I, as co-regents here in Camelot, have been empowered to use. But his ring and his sword, the true symbols of kingship, cannot be brought to you except from his dead body."

"That is so, madam."

"So I shall attend the Council. With Arthur's Queen at your side to support you, there will be no man in the kingdoms who will not have to accept Arthur's son as his rightful ruler."

He found nothing to say. She put out a hand, and he bent his head and kissed it. Then he left her. She would have time for her mourning before she took her place in the Round Hall beside the new King of Britain.

In a pine wood at the foot of the hills east of Autun, Arthur stirred and woke.

He lay wrapped in his war cloak, his sword to his hand. His shoulder and side were stiff with bruising from the blow that had felled him during the battle, and his head ached abominably, but he was otherwise unhurt. His tethered horse grazed near him. His companions, some forty men, were, like him, rousing to the first misty light of the new day. Three of the men were busy already relighting the blackened remains of the night fire. Others brought water, carefully cradled in their leather helmets, from the river that slid over its sparkling boulders some fifty paces away. They were cheerful, and laughed and jested, but under their breath, for fear of rousing the sleeping King.

Birds were singing in the alders by the river, and from the steep valley side beyond came the bleating of sheep, where some herdboy watched his flock. A harsher sound turned Arthur's eyes to a place beyond the ridge of woodland where big black birds swung and called in the misty morning. There lay the enemy they had pursued from the field. A few survivors, bound, lay nearby under the trees, but thirty or so men lay still unburied, their stiffened bodies exposed with the waxing day to the crows and kites.

It was well after noon before the burial party had done its work, and the King headed back with the troop towards Autun.

A mile or so short of the battlefield, he came across two bodies. The messenger he had sent back to Bedwyr and Hoel to tell them that he was safe, and would return with the daylight, had fallen in with two stragglers from Quintilia.n.u.s' army. One he had killed; the other, though wounded and now near dead with exposure and loss of blood, had killed him.

Arthur killed the man himself, and spurred his horse into a gallop back to his headquarters.

6.

"THE TREATY IS VOID,"said Cerdic.

He and Mordred sat face to face. They had met on a high shelf of the downs. It was a fine morning, and larks sang wildly in the blue. To southward the smoke of a Saxon village could be seen hanging in the still air. Here and there, in cleared s.p.a.ces between the thickets of ash and thorn, the golden green of ripening barley showed among the white flints where some Saxon peasant had scratched a living from the bony land.

Mordred had come in kingly state. The Council, apprised of Arthur's wishes before he left for Brittany, had raised no slightest-objection to Mordred's a.s.sumption of leadership; on the contrary; those councillors who were left after the departure of Arthur and his Companions into Brittany were most of them greybeards, and in their grief and fear at the news from the battlefield they acclaimed Mordred with outspoken relief. Mordred, wise in the ways of councils, moved with care. He emphasized the doubtful nature of the news, spoke of his still-held hope of his father's life, disclaimed any t.i.tle but that of regent, and renewed his vows of faith to the Council, and liege homage to his father's Queen. After him Guinevere, speaking briefly and with obviously fragile composure in her husband's name, affirmed her belief that Mordred must now be invested with power to act as he saw fit, and, herself resigning, proposed him as sole regent. The Council, moved to a man, accepted her withdrawal and decided then and there to send a message to Constantine of Cornwall asking him to affirm his loyalty to the High King's successor.

Finally Mordred spoke again of urgency, and made clear his intention of riding south next day to the interview with Cerdic. He would take with him a detachment of the newly raised troops; it was never wise to approach their good Saxon neighbours without some show of strength. This, too, the Council voted him. So, escorted like a king, he faced Cerdic on the downs.

The Saxons, too, kept state. Cerdic's thegns crowded behind his chair, and an awning of brightly coloured cloth woven with gold and silver thread made a regal background to the thrones set for him and the regent. Mordred regarded Cerdic with interest. It was barely a year since he had last met the Saxon king, but in that time the latter had aged perceptibly and appeared not to be in robust health. Beside his chair stood his grandson Ceawlin, a young copy of the old fighter, who was said to have already fathered a brood of st.u.r.dy boys.

"The treaty is void."

The old king said it like a challenge. He was watching Mordred closely.

"Why else am I here?" Nothing could be gathered from the regent's smooth tone. "If it is true that the High King is dead, then the treaty - the same, or one revised as we may agree - must be ratified between myself and you."

"Until we know for certain, there is little point in talking," said Cerdic bluntly.

"On the contrary. When I last spoke with my father he gave me a mandate to make a new agreement with you, though I agree that there is little point in discussing that until another matter is cleared up. I doubt if I need to tell you what that is?"

"It would be best to come to the point," said Cerdic.

"Very well. It has lately come to my ears that Cynric, your son, and others of your thegns are even now back in your old lands beyond the Narrow Sea, and that more men daily flock to their standards. The bays fill with their longships. Now with the treaty between our peoples made void by the High King's death - supposing this to be true - what am I to think of this?"

"Not that we prepare war again. Until proof comes of Arthur's death this would not only be ign.o.ble, but folly." There was a gleam in the old king's eyes as he looked at the younger man. "I should perhaps make it clear that in no case are we contemplating war. Not with you, prince."

"Then what?"

"Only that with the advance of the Franks and the westward spread of people who are not our friends, we in our turn must move westward. Your King has halted this emperor's first sally, but there will be another, and after that another. My people want a safe frontier. They are gathering to embark for these sh.o.r.es, but in peace. We shall receive them."

"I see." Mordred was remembering what Arthur had said to him in their last discussion at Kerrec. "First "First the Narrow Sea, and then the ramparts of the Saxon and English kingdoms.... Men fight for what the Narrow Sea, and then the ramparts of the Saxon and English kingdoms.... Men fight for what is theirs." is theirs." So might Vortigern have reasoned when he first called Hengist and Horsa to these sh.o.r.es. So might Vortigern have reasoned when he first called Hengist and Horsa to these sh.o.r.es.

Arthur was no Vortigern, and so far he had been right not to doubt Cerdic: Men fight for what is theirs, and the more men manning the ramparts of the Sh.o.r.e, the more safely could the Celtic kingdoms lie behind them.

The old king was watching him closely, as if guessing what thoughts raced behind the smooth brow and unexpressive eyes. Mordred met his look.

"You are a man of honour, king, and also a man of wisdom and experience. You know that neither Saxon nor Briton wants another Badon Hill."

Cerdic smiled. "Now you have flashed your weapon at me. Prince Mordred, and I mine at you. That is done. I said they would come in peace. But they will come, and many of them. So, let us talk." He sat back in his chair, shifting a fold of the blue robe over his arm. "For the present I believe we must a.s.sume the High King's death?"

"I think so. If we make plans for that a.s.sumption they can be revised if necessary."

"Then I say this. I am willing, and Cynric with me, who will reign here when I am too old to fight, to remake the treaty with you that I made with your uncle." A sharp, twinkling look from under the s.h.a.ggy brows. "It was your uncle last time we met. Now your father, it seems?"

"Father, yes. And in return?"

"More land."

"That was easily guessed." Mordred smiled in his turn. "More men need more land. But you are already too close for some men's peace of mind. How can you move forward? Between your lands and ours there lies this stretch of high downland. You see it." He gestured to the thin patch of barley shoots. "No ploughs, not even yours. King Cerdic, can make these stony uplands into rich fields of grain. And I am told that your neighbours, the South Saxons, no longer grant you free movement there."

Cerdic made no immediate reply. He reached behind him, and a guard put a spear into his hand. Behind Mordred a rustle and a whisper of metal betrayed quick movement among his own fighting men. He gestured with a hand, palm down, and the movement stilled. Cerdic reversed the spear and, leaning forward in his chair, began to draw in the chalky dust.

"Here we are, the men of Wess.e.x. Here, in the rich corner lands, the South Saxons. And here stand you and I, now. The lands I am thinking of would be no nearer to your capital than our present borders.

Here. And here."

The spear moved gently northward, then, just as Mordred would have protested, veered to the east and across the downland towards the upper Thames valley. "This way. This part is thick forest, and here is marshland, thinly peopled and poor. Both can be made good."

"Surely much of that is already Saxon land? Where your spear is now, that is the southern region, as they call it, of the Middle Saxons?"

"The Suthrige. Yes. I told you that we would take nothing that need trouble you."

"Would these settlers accept your people?"

"It is agreed." The old king slanted a bright glance up at the other man. "They are not a strong people, and it is rumoured that the South Saxons are casting their eyes in that direction. They will welcome us.

And we will make the land good for ourselves and for them."

He went on to talk about his plans, and Mordred questioned, and they talked for some time. Later Mordred said: "Tell me, king. My information is not always correct." (this was not true, and he knew that Cerdic knew it, but the gambit brought a subject under discussion that neither had liked to broach openly.) "Since Aelle died, has there been a leader of note among the South Saxons? The land there is the best in the south, and it has long seemed to me that the king who held Rutupiae and the lands behind it held a key in his hand. The key to the mainland of the Continent and its trade."

There was a gleam of appreciation in the old king's eyes. He did not say in so many words that Aelle's descendants had no such grasp of the situation, but again, the two men understood one another.

He merely said, thoughtfully: "I am told - though of course my information is not always correct - that the harbour at Rutupiae is beginning to silt up, and no attempt is being made to keep it clear."

Mordred, who, too, had heard this, expressed surprise, and the two men talked for a while longer to their mutual satisfaction, with at the end a very clear idea that, should Cerdic decide that the gateway to the Continent would be worth a foray by the West Saxons, Mordred with the British would at the very least refrain from pushing in through the back door, and at the most would throw his weight in beside the West Saxon king.

"With eventual free access for British traders to the port, of course," he said.

"Of course," said Cerdic.

So, with a good deal of satisfaction on both sides, the conference ended. The old king set off southward with the elder thegns, while his younger warriors escorted Mordred and his troops part of the way north, with a joyous accompaniment of shouting and weapon-play. Mordred rode alone for most of the way, ahead of the troops. He was dimly conscious of the noise behind him, where Saxon and Briton alike seemed to be celebrating what was now an alliance, rather than a mere treaty of non-aggression. He knew, as Cerdic had known without saying it, that such an agreement could not so readily have been reached with the victor of Badon and its forerunning battles. A new start had been made. The day of the young men had begun. Change was in the air. Plans, long stifled, buzzed in his brain, and the blood he shared with Ambrosius and Arthur and Merlin the vanished statesman ran free at last with the power to do and to make.

It is certain that if, on his return to Camelot, he had found awaiting him the royal courier with the news of Arthur's safety and imminent return, there would have been a perceptible weight of disappointment among the relief and joy.

No courier was there. For days now the wind had blown steadily eastward across the Narrow Sea, keeping the British ships sealed in the Breton harbours. But it carried a ship from Cornwall to Brittany with letters from Constantine the duke. They were identical, addressed the one to King Hoel, and the other to Bedwyr, and the latter was carried straight to Arthur, where he lay still at Autun.

Mordred has shown himself in his true colours. He has given out through the kingdoms that King Arthur is slain, and he has a.s.sumed the kingship. The Queen has resigned her regency, and letters have come bidding me to resign my rights as Arthur's heir, and accept Mordred as High King. He treats now with Cerdic, who is to hold the ports of the Saxon Sh.o.r.e against all corners, and whose son is in Saxony raising his thousands, all of whom swear allegiance to Mordred.

Meanwhile Mordred the King talks with the kings of Dyfed and Guent, and men from Mona and Powys, and is riding even now to meet the leaders from the north who have long spoken against Arthur the High King, wanting freedom for every man to rule as he wills, without reference to the Round Hall and the Council. Mordred, perjurer that he is, promises them self-rule and a change of the law. So he makes allies.

Finally, with the High King gone, he plans to take Queen Guinevere to wife. He has lodged her at Caerleon, and consorts with her there.

Though the interpretation of Mordred's actions was Constantine's, the main facts as set out in the letter were true.

As soon as he returned from his meeting with Cerdic, Mordred had persuaded the Queen to go to Caerleon. Until the truth of Arthur's death was known, and the country - at present in the inevitable panic and turmoil following the sudden death of a powerful ruler - was more settled, and the new chain of command set up and working smoothly, he wanted, as he had promised, to ensure her safety. Camelot was as strong a city as Caerleon, but it was too far east; and any trouble that was coming, as Mordred judged, would come that way. The west was safe. (except, he reminded himself, from Duke Constantine, that silently resentful ex-heir of Arthur's, who had sent no answer to the courteous invitations of the Council to discuss the matter at the round table. But Caerleon, armed and defended, was as safe from him as from any other disaffected man.) It was too near for Guinevere's liking to her own homeland of Northgalis, where a cousin now ruled who had wanted once to marry her, and who said so rather too often to the wife he eventually had to take.