The Wicked Day Part 27

But the alternatives were even less comfortable. Guinevere would have preferred to take refuge in a convent, but of the two best sanctuaries, the nearer - the Lake convent on Ynys Witrin - was in the Summer Country, and the Queen would on no account put herself under the protection of its king, Melwas. The other, at Amesbury, Arthur's own township, which would have welcomed her, had failed signally to protect the last queen it had housed. Morgause's murder still haunted the place.

So Mordred, making necessity a pleasure, chose Caerleon, where he had already convened meetings with those kings from the west and north with whom he had not already had the chance to talk. He escorted the Queen there himself, embarking with her at Ynys Witrin, and setting sail for the Isca's mouth on the sh.o.r.e of the Severn Sea.

The voyage was calm, the sea gentle, the breezes light and fresh. It was a golden interval in the turmoil of that violent summer. The Queen kept apart with her ladies, but in the morning and evening of the two days' voyage Mordred visited her and they talked. On one of these occasions she told him, briefly and without detail, why she had been so reluctant to take refuge with King Melwas. It appeared that many years ago, in the hot spring of youth, Melwas had abducted the Queen by force and stratagem, and carried her off to a remote island in the water-logged fens of the Summer Country. There, by his magic, Merlin had discovered her, and had led Bedwyr to a timely rescue. Later, Arthur and Melwas had fought, a notable combat, at the end of which the King, being the victor, had spared Melwas's life.

"After that?" said Mordred, shocked for once into bluntness. "I would have dragged him to your feet and killed him there, slowly."

"And had every man and woman in the kingdoms sure of his guilt and my shame?" She spoke calmly, but her cheeks had reddened, whether at the memory of that shame or at the young man's fervour it was impossible to guess.

Mordred bit his lip. He recalled the story that Agravain had once told at a meeting of the Young Celts, and that he, Mordred, had not believed. So it was true; and now the cryptic references made by Bedwyr and Arthur at the site of the Princess Elen's rape became clear. He remembered further: the girl's violated body lying under its scrambled covering of pine needles.

He said thickly: "Later, then. But policy or no policy, I would not have let him live."

He took his leave then. After he had gone the Queen sat for a long while without moving, looking out across the deck-rail at the shining water, and the distant sh.o.r.e sliding by, with its trees like clouds, and the clouds above them like towers.

Having installed Guinevere in comfort in the Queen's palace at Caerleon, Mordred plunged into the round of meetings with the leaders and petty kings a.s.sembled in the fortress to meet him. What he had not expected, and what Constantine, that western duke, knew well, was the dissatisfaction, even hostility, he found there for some of Arthur's policies. In the remoter highlands, the silver-age Romanization so dear to Ambrosius and Arthur had never been acceptable. It was not only the young men who wanted change; the older kings, too, were chafing against what they saw as the restrictive policies of a remote and lowland center of government. Arthur, in attempting to restore the territorial integrity of Roman Britain, had remodelled his federation of kingdoms in a way that to many of the rulers seemed outdated.

To these men Mordred, outlander and Young Celt, was the leader they hoped for. That Arthur had just stood against actual Roman domination in defense of the Celtic lands would do much to bring him nearer their hearts again, but Arthur was presumed dead, and it became increasingly apparent that in the Celtic Highlands his return would not be altogether welcome.

Mordred trod carefully, talked sparingly, counted the allies sworn to his banner, and went every evening to see the Queen.

It was perhaps a little sad to see how Guinevere lighted up at his visits, and how eagerly she plied him with questions. He answered her readily, keeping her more fully informed than Arthur had found time to do, of every move of state. She did not guess that he was simply taking every chance of seeing her, and every means of prolonging his meetings with her, letting her grow easier with him, become used to him in his role of ruler and protector. She thought merely that he was trying to bring her comfort and distraction, and was grateful accordingly, and her grat.i.tude, in that time of uncertainty, grief and fear, brought her (as Mordred had hoped) within touching distance of tenderness, and sighting distance of love. At any rate, when he held her hand to kiss it, or, greatly daring, laid his own over it by way of comfort, she no longer hurried to withdraw from his touch.

As for Mordred, with his new authority, the uncertainty, the brilliant starting of long-held plans, the closeness of the long-desired and lovely Guinevere, he was swept forward from day to day on a full tide of sovereignty and power, and it is doubtful if at this stage he could have gone back. In love, as in other things, there comes a time when the will resigns and franks the desire, and then not even Orpheus, turning back, could cause his love to vanish. He had had that one glimpse of her, the real Guinevere, a lonely woman afraid of life, a leaf to be blown into a safe corner by any strong wind. He would be - was - her safety. He was subtle enough to see that she recognized it, and used her gently. He could wait.

So the days went by, and the wind still closed the Narrow Sea, and each of them, constantly, watched the road and the harbour for the messenger from Brittany. And each spent hours of the night watching the dark and thinking, thinking, and when they finally slept it was not of each other they dreamed, but of Arthur.

Of Duke Constantine, brooding in his Cornish castle, they did not think at all.

7.

CONSTANTINE'S LETTER WAS BROUGHTto Arthur at his camp near Autun. King Hoel, feeling his years and his ailments now that the battle was over, had withdrawn towards home. But for Gawain, who in these days was always at his elbow, Arthur was alone.

He was also very tired. He had returned from the brief punitive foray into the mountains to find near-panic among the troops who, though still searching among the heaped dead for his body, believed themselves kingless. Even his return permitted little rejoicing, for Bedwyr, worse hurt than he had admitted, or that anyone had judged, was now seriously ill, and the surgeons shook their heads over the pallet where he lay unconscious in an annex of the royal pavilion.

So Arthur was alone in more ways than one. Bedwyr was dying. Cei, the elder foster-brother with whom he had been brought up, was dead. Caius Valerius, too, the ageing warrior, veteran of Ambrosius'

wars, and friend to Uther Pendragon and Merlin... The list seemed endless, the names a roll culled from the tale of Arthur's past glories, or even a simple tally of his friends. Of those close to him Gawain alone was unwounded, and he, flown with the joy of his first great fight and resounding victory, had proved himself a strong support. To him Arthur, feeling his age for the first time (though he was by many years King Hoel's junior), turned in grat.i.tude and affection.

He started to read the duke's letter. Through the skins of the tent wall he could hear the groaning and muttering where Bedwyr tossed on his sickbed. He would die before morning, they said, if the fever did not break.

The letter again. Mordred... making himself High King, talking with Cerdic, gathering the kings of Wales and the north...

"Well," said Arthur, frowning; his head ached and the torchlight made the words swim. "Well, all this is to be expected. If news of my supposed death was taken to Mordred, he would take exactly these steps. We spoke of it before he left Kerrec. He was to meet with Cerdic to ratify the treaty and talk over a possible new settlement in the future. Now, if my death was reported to him, he may well have thought it expedient to negotiate new terms, since the old treaty would then be invalid."

"New terms! An alliance that sounds like folly at its best, and at its worst a deadly peril! This about Cynric, raising fresh Saxon levies over here. Did you know, uncle?"

On the other side of the tent wall the sick man cried out, then was silent. Someone spoke hurriedly, there was muttering, quick footsteps, the swish of robes. The King was half on his feet, the parchment falling to the floor, forgotten, when the muttering began again. Not death yet, then; not quite yet. Arthur sank back in his chair.

"Did you know about Cynric?" persisted Gawain.

"Cynric? Oh, calling men to his standard in Saxony. No, but if it is true-"

"I'm pretty sure it's true," said Gawain. "I've already heard rumours going about the camp. Men ma.s.sing by the Neustrian sh.o.r.e. Longships lying in the harbours like arrows jammed in a quiver. And for what?

Cynric sails, and Cerdic moves towards the south-east ports to meet him, then the South Saxons are caught between the two, and the whole southeast will be Cerdic's, with freedom to invite whomsoever he pleases to come over and swell his army. The South Saxons have been the other wall that contained him, and who is to contain him now?"

His angry eyes glared into the King's, as if the latter's composure chafed him. If he heard the sounds from beyond the wall, he gave no sign of it. He had not attempted to lower his voice.

"No doubt the next courier will bring me a report of Cynric's doings." Arthur sounded weary but relatively unworried. "But for the rest of this letter, Gawain, remember who writes. Duke Constantine did not take kindly to Mordred's nomination as regent: He will have taken even less kindly to his appointment as my sole heir. Everything he says there-" He gestured to the letter on the floor, and Gawain stooped to pick it up. "Everything he says that Mordred has done, Mordred and I agreed should be done. We only have Constantine's word, which is hardly the word of a friend, for the way it is being done."

"But surely Mordred himself should have sent a report? If Constantine's man could get through-"

"If he believed the report of my death," said Arthur, "to whom would he send it?"

Gawain, with an impatient shrug, started to hand the letter back to his uncle. Then he checked. "There's more here. On the other side, see?"

Arthur took it from him, saw the last sentences on the back, and began to read them aloud.

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

He did not finish it, but Gawain did, on a rising note where genuine anger was shot with a kind of triumph.

" 'And consorts with her there'!" He swung away, then back to the King. "Uncle, whether or not he believes you dead, this is the act of a traitor! He has no proof as yet, no shadow of reason for haling the Queen off to Caerleon, and paying his court to her! You say the rest of this letter could be true.... If it is, in whatever fashion, then this must be true also!"

"Gawain!-" began the King, in a warning voice, but Gawain, burning, swept on: "No, you must hear me! I'm your kin. You'll hear truth from me. I can tell you this, uncle, Mordred wanted the kingdom always. I know how ambitious he was, even at home in the islands, even before he knew he was your son. Your son, yes! But still a fisher-brat, a peasant with a peasant's guile and greed, and a huckster's honour! He's taken the first chance to turn traitor and get what he wants. With the Saxons and the Welsh at his back, and the Queen at his side... "consorts" indeed! He wasted no time! I've seen the way he looked at her-"

Something in Arthur's face stopped him there. It was hard to say what it was, for the King looked like a dead man carved in grey stone. Something about him suggested a man who sees at his feet a deadly pitfall lined with spears, and who with sheer stubborn faith holds to the one frail sapling that may stop him from falling. There was silence now from the next room.

Arthur's voice was still steady, still reasonable, but without life or tone. "Gawain. The last thing I enjoined on my son was, in the event of my death, to care for and protect the Queen. He stands to her also as a son. What has been said, we shall forget."

Gawain bowed his head and muttered something that might have been an apology. Arthur handed him the letter.

"Burn this letter. Now. That's it," as Gawain held the parchment up to a torch and watched it blacken and curl into crow's feathers. "Now I must go to Bedwyr. In the morning-"

He did not finish. He began to get to his feet, moving slowly, putting weight on the arms of his chair like an old man, or a sick one. Gawain, who was fond of him, was seized with sudden compunction, and spoke more gently: "I'm sorry, uncle, believe me, I am. I know you don't want to believe this of Mordred, so let us hope there is news soon. Meanwhile, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Yes. You can go and give the orders for our return home. Whatever the truth of the matter, I shall have to go back. Either I must deal with Mordred, or with Constantine. This is not the time to pursue our victory further, or even to call for talks with the emperor. Instead, I shall send him a message."

"Yes?" queried Gawain, as the King paused.

Arthur's look was cryptic. "A task that will please you. See that Lucius Quintilia.n.u.s' body is disinterred and sent to the emperor, with this message: that this is the tribute that the British pay to Rome. Now leave me. I must go to Bedwyr."

Bedwyr did not die. The silence that had frightened the King was not death, or coma, but sleep, and the sick man woke from it with his fever gone and his wounds cool. Arthur, in spite of what might lie ahead of him, could set out for Britain with a free mind and a lighter heart.

The King set sail at last on a cloudy day with white spume blowing back from the wave-tops and the far sky leaning low over the heaving grey. The sea witch, it seemed, held sway over the Channel waters.

Though the wind had changed its quarter at last, sea and sky alike still seemed to conspire against Arthur her old enemy. Even the gulls, flakes ripped from the white waves, drove to and fro in the wind with shrieks of uncanny laughter, like a mockery. A gloomy, driving sea, without glitter, without light, heaved northward in the sudden turn of the wind. A gust took the Sea Dragon Sea Dragon 's standard and shredded it into streamers that whirled downwind. "An omen," men whispered, but Arthur, looking up, laughed, and said: 's standard and shredded it into streamers that whirled downwind. "An omen," men whispered, but Arthur, looking up, laughed, and said: "He has gone ahead of us. If we seize the weather, we shall fly as fast as he."

And fly they did. What they could not know was that Cynric's Saxons had seized the same chance of wind, and that the longboats were also on their way across the Narrow Sea. Long and low, in those heaving seas the British caught no sight of them until, in the final gleams of a late and clouded afternoon, as they scudded along with the line of the Saxon Sh.o.r.e like a white wall on the horizon, the Sea Dragon Sea Dragon 's lookout saw what looked like Saxon longships riding in nearer the coast.

But when the King, with the heavy slowness that he showed these days, clambered up to a viewpoint by the mast, the longships - or their shadows - were gone.

"South Saxon ships, caught by the change of wind," said the master, at Arthur's elbow. "Shallow draught. They're lucky. They'll be back at anchor now, and no trouble to us. If we- He did not finish. A shout from the masthead made them all look round.

Low over the sea, its rain tearing out like a witch's hair, came a squall. Its shadow fled on before like a doom. The master shouted. The seamen ran to their places. King, knights, sailors gripped the nearest stay.

The squall struck. In an instant all was screaming wind and rain. The air was black. Water cascaded down, whipping their faces so that they covered their eyes. The little ship shook and shuddered, stopped as if struck on a rock, then heeled over, reared and bucked like a frightened horse. Ropes strained and snapped. The whole ship's structure groaned. Somewhere a crack of timber gave warning.

The squall blew for perhaps ten minutes. When, as suddenly as it had come, it blew away, fleeing over the sea above its shadow, the fleet, scattered and damaged, found itself driven almost within hailing distance of the coast. But the coast was the West Saxon sh.o.r.e, and there was no way that they could beat farther westward against a capriciously veering wind, to make the Dumnonian harbours, or even the debated shelter of Potters' Bay.

The King, with water licking the lower deck of the Sea Dragon, Sea Dragon, and two of her sister ships wallowing badly alongside, gave the order. and two of her sister ships wallowing badly alongside, gave the order.

And so the sea witch drove Arthur ash.o.r.e in Saxon territory where Cerdic's son Cynric, watching for the stragglers of his own immigrant fleet, rested with a band of his men after their stormy voyage. To him, from the ruins of the Roman lighthouse, came the watchman, running. Ships - three ships, and others heading sh.o.r.ewards behind them - were coming into the deep harbour to westward. There was no standard, no device. But by their lines and rig they were British ships, and they were setting insh.o.r.e where they surely had no right to be. He had had, in the rapidly worsening light, no hint of their beaten condition.

Cynric did not know that the proposed immigration was known to, and approved by the British; nor could he know that, by Mordred's new treaty with Cerdic, the incoming British ships were welcome to land. He drew his own conclusions. His landing had been observed, and was now, perhaps, to be opposed. He sent a messenger urgently inland to report his arrival and summon Cerdic's help, then gathered his men together to oppose the British landing.

If the two forces could have held apart long enough for the leaders to recognize one another or dispatch and receive a message, all might have been well. But they met in the growing dusk of that murky day, each side bent on its own desperate course and blind to all else.

The Saxons were tired after a stormy voyage, and most of them strange to the country and therefore alive to apprehension. They also had with them their women and children. Primed with legends about the wars fought for each hide of land since Hengist's time, and seeing the incoming troops at a disadvantage as their craft ran insh.o.r.e, they seized their weapons and raced down to the attack.

Arthur was indeed at a sad disadvantage. His men were highly trained and seasoned troops, but they had had little rest, and were some of them still suffering badly from the effects of the voyage. He did have one stroke of luck: the horse carriers, seeking a flat beach, had ventured farther along the coast to land, so those of the cavalry mounts which had survived the crossing uninjured were safely got to sh.o.r.e some distance off. But they - Arthur's best troops - could be no help against Cynric's men. Arthur and those of his knights who were with him, met by armed Saxons as they struggled up the steep and streaming pebbles of the sh.o.r.e, fought on foot and in no sort of order. The struggle was disorganized, b.l.o.o.d.y and, on both sides, disastrous. Just before dark a panting messenger on a lathered pony came to Cynric's side. The message pa.s.sed. Cerdic was on his way and Britain's new king with him. Cynric was to withdraw.

Cynric, thankfully, withdrew as best he could, his men streaming off inland into the gathering darkness, guided by the messenger towards the oncoming army of the West Saxons.

Arthur, exhausted but unhurt, listened in silence to the report of someone who had heard the Saxon's shouted message.

"It was Cynric himself, my lord, who led this attack. Now he has sent to his father for help, and Cerdic is coming. With Britain's new king, I heard them say so, marching against you to help Cynric and these invaders."

Arthur, weary to death and grieving over his losses, which were even now being a.s.sessed, leaned heavily on his spear, confused, and, what was strange to him, irresolute. That "Britain's new king" must be Mordred was obvious. Even if Mordred believed him, Arthur, dead, he would hardly march with Saxons to intercept British troopships obviously bringing home Arthur's battle-weary troops, unless Constantine had been right, and he coveted the kingdom to the point of treachery.

Someone was approaching, his feet sliding in the grinding pebbles. As Arthur turned, half expecting the angry Orkney voice at his elbow, triumphant over this evidence of treachery, a man came up.

"My lord, my lord! Prince Gawain is hurt. His boat was wrecked as it drove ash.o.r.e, and he was wounded even before he could come to land. It is thought that he is dying."

"Take me there," said the King.

Gawain had been carried ash.o.r.e on a stretcher of smashed planking from the wrecked boat. The remains of this, splintered and gaping, lay tilted on the shingle in the edge of the tide. Bodies of the dead and wounded lay about on the beach, looking like heaps of sodden clothing.

Gawain was conscious, but it was plain that he had received his death wound. His face was waxen, and his breathing shallow and spa.r.s.e.

Arthur bent over him. "How is it with you, nephew?"

The pale lips gaped. In a while Gawain whispered: "My evil luck. Just as the war starts."

The war he had wanted, had almost worked for. The King put the thought aside, and stooping lower, moistened the dying man's lips from his wine flask.

The lips moved again.

"What's that? I didn't hear."

"Bedwyr," said Gawain.

"Yes," said the King, wondering. "Bedwyr is well enough. They say he is recovering fast."

"Bedwyr..."

"Gawain, I know that you have much to forgive Bedwyr for, but if you are asking me to take any message other than one of forgiveness and friendship, you ask in vain, dying or no."

"Not that. Bring Bedwyr back now. Needed. Help you kill... the traitor... Mordred."

Arthur made no reply to that. But in a few moments he could see that none was needed.

So, still counselling murder and strife, died the fourth of Morgause's sons. Leaving only the one, Mordred, his own son. Mordred, the traitor? Mordred, the traitor?

8.

MORDRED WAS BACK IN CAMELOTwhen the news reached him of fighting on the south coast.

No details were given. Mindful of his commitment to Cerdic, he gathered what troops were available and hastened southward, falling in with the West Saxon army just as a second messenger came panting with a fuller but strange-sounding version of what had happened.

His story was this: King Arthur's troopships had been sighted by the Saxon sh.o.r.e-dwellers, appearing soon after the longships, unable to reach the harbour at the mouth of the Itchen, had discharged their cargo of immigrants in the shallow, sheltered water behind Seal Island. Then a flying scud of cloud and mist had blotted out the fleet. The Saxon incomers, nervous, and not knowing what to expect from the approaching ships, had hurried their women and children inland away from the sh.o.r.e, and gathered in a defensive crowd within reach of signals from the lighthouse. The sh.o.r.e-folk who had come down to receive them gave them quick rea.s.surance. They were safe now. The High King's ships, whether or no the King himself was on board, would not come into the sh.o.r.e ports, which were by treaty ceded to the Saxons these many years.

But hard on the rea.s.surance came the runner from the lighthouse, gasping. The ships had turned under cover of the squall, had come insh.o.r.e, and were even now landing armed men on the beaches only a short way to the west. It was apparent that, having been warned of this fresh influx of Saxon immigrants, Arthur had hoped to stop them by sea, but having failed, had sent his troops ash.o.r.e to kill them or take them prisoner. To those who expressed doubt of this - these were the citizens of long standing, and Cynric himself was among them - the newcomers would not listen. The risk was too great. If the British meant business, and were allowed time to get their horses ash.o.r.e... Everyone knew the reputation of Arthur's cavalry....

So the Saxons, unorganized and weary as they were, had charged to the beaches and closed with Arthur's men. There they had met slaughter and defeat, and now, exhausted, were straggling inland with the frightened inhabitants of the sh.o.r.e villages, with Arthur and his cavalry in pursuit. And, the messenger concluded, with a sidelong glance of mistrust at Mordred, the Saxons - men, women, and little children - cried to their king for help against Arthur the breaker of treaties, the invader of their rightful kingdom, the slayer of lawful and peaceful incomers.

The distressful tale came pelting out, in the rough tongue of the Saxon peasant. It is doubtful if Mordred understood more than one word in three. But he grasped the central fact, and, rigid at Cerdic's side, felt the cold creep over him as if the blood drained from his body down into the chalky earth. The man stopped speaking, Cerdic began a question, but across it Mordred, for once heedless of courtesy, demanded harshly: "The High King? Is that what he is saying? That Arthur himself is there?"

"Yes. It seems," said Cerdic, with fierce self-control, "that we have moved too soon, Prince Mordred!"

"This is certain?"

"Certain."

"This changes everything." Mordred, with an effort, made the under statement calmly, but his mind was whirling. What had happened could lead - had already led - to complete disaster: for himself, for the Queen, for the future of Britain.