Legacy: Arthurian Saga (118 page)

The feast wore on. I watched Uther
carefully, wondering if he could last until the proclamation was
made and the thing done, or if he would lack the strength to see it
through. In which case I would have to choose the moment to
intervene, or the work would have to be done with fighting. But his
strength held. At last he looked round and raised a hand, and the
trumpets rang out for silence. The clamor hushed, and all eyes
turned to the high table. This had been deliberately raised, for it
was beyond the King's strength to stand. Even so, upright in his
great chair, with the blaze of lights and banners behind him, he
looked alert and splendid, commanding silence. He laid his hands
along the carved arms of his chair, and began to speak. He was
smiling.

"My lords, you all know why we are met
here tonight. Colgrim has been put to flight, and his brother
Badulf, and already reports have been coming back that the enemy is
fled in disorder back towards the coast, beyond the wild lands to
the north." He went on to speak of the previous day's victory, as
decisive, he said, as his brother's victory at Kaerconan had been,
and as potent an augury for the future. "The power of our enemies,
which has been massing and threatening for so many years, is broken
and driven back for a time. We have a breathing space. But more
important than this, my lords, we have seen how this breathing
space was won; we have seen what unity can do, and what we might
suffer from the lack of it. Singly, what could we do, the kings of
the north, the kings of the south and west? But together, held and
fighting together, with one leader and one plan, we can thrust the
sword of Macsen again into the heart of the enemy."

He had spoken, of course,
figuratively, but I caught Arthur's half-start of recollection, and
the flash of a glance across at me, before he went back to his
steady scrutiny of the hall. The King had paused. Ulfin, behind
him, moved forward with a goblet of wine, but the King motioned it
aside, and began to speak again. His voice was stronger, with the
ring almost of his old vigor. "For this is a lesson which the last
years have taught us. There must be one leader, one strong High
King to whom all the kingdoms pay undoubted homage. Without this,
we are back where we were before the Romans came. We are divided
and lost as Gaul and Germany have been divided and lost; we
splinter into small peoples, fighting each other as wolves do for
food and space, and never turning against the common enemy; we
become a submerged province of Rome, sliding with her to her
downfall, instead of a new kingdom emerging as a unit with its own
laws, its own people, its own gods. With the right king, faithfully
followed, I believe that this will come. Who knows, the Dragon of
Britain may be lifted, if not as high as the Eagles of Rome, then
with a pride and a vision that will be even farther
seen."

The silence was absolute. It could
have been Ambrosius speaking. Or Maximus himself, I thought. So do
the gods speak when they are waited for.

This time the pause was longer. The
King had contrived that it should seem like an orator's, a pause to
gather eyes, but I saw how his hands whitened on the chairarms, how
carefully he used the pause to gather strength. I thought I was the
only one who noticed; hardly an eye was on Uther, they all watched
the boy at his right. All, that is, except the King of Lothian; he
was watching the High King, with a kind of eagerness in his face.
Ulfin, as the King paused, was beside him again with the goblet;
catching my eye, he touched it to his own lips, tasted, then gave
it to the King, who drank. There was no way of disguising the
tremor in the hand which raised the goblet to his mouth, but before
he could betray his weakness further, Ulfin had gently taken the
thing from his hand, and set it down. All this, I saw, Lot had
followed, still with that same concentrated eagerness. He must
recognize how sick Uther was, and minute by minute he must be
hoping for the High King's strength to fail him. Either Morgause
had told him, or he had guessed what I knew for certain, that Uther
would not live long enough physically to establish Arthur on the
throne, and that in the free-for-all which might develop round the
person of so young a ruler, Arthur's enemies would find their
chance.

When Uther began to speak again his
voice had lost much of its vigor, but the silence was so complete
that he hardly needed to raise it. Even those men who had drunk too
much were solemnly intent as the King began to speak again about
the battle, about those who had distinguished themselves, and the
men who had fallen; finally, about the part Arthur had played in
saving the day, and then about Arthur himself.

"You have all known, for these many
years, that my son by Ygraine my Queen was being nurtured and
trained for the kingship in lands away from these, and in hands
stronger than, alas, my own have been since my malady overtook me.
You have known that when the time came, and he was grown, he would
be declared by name, Arthur, as my heir, and your new King. Now be
it known to all men where their lawful prince has spent the years
of his youth; first under the protection of my cousin Hoel of
Brittany, then in the house of my faithful servant and fellow
soldier, Count Ector of Galava. And all the time he has been
guarded and taught by my kinsman Merlin called Ambrosius, to whose
hands he was committed at his birth, and whose fitness for the
guardianship no man can question. Nor will you question the reasons
which prompted me to send the prince away until such time as he
might publicly be shown to you. It is a practice common enough
among the great, to rear their children in other courts, where they
may stay unspoiled by arrogance, uncorrupted by flattery, and safe
from the contriving of treachery and ambition." He waited for a
moment to regain his breath. He was looking down at the table as he
spoke, and met no one's eyes, but here and there a man shifted in
his seat or glanced at another; and Arthur's cool gaze took note of
it.

The King went on: "And those of you
who had wondered what sort of shifts might be used to train a
prince, other than sending him as a boy into battle, and into
council alongside his father, have seen yesterday how he received
the King's sword easily from the King's hand, and led the troops to
victory as surely as if he had been High King himself and a
seasoned warrior."

Uther's breath was short now, and his
color bad. I saw Lot's eyes intent, and Ulfin's worried look. Cador
was frowning. I thought briefly back, with thankfulness, to the
talk I had had with him beside the lake. Cador and Lot: had Cador
been less his father's son, how easy it would have been for the two
of them to tear the land north and south, parcel it out between
them like a pair of fighting dogs, while the landless pup whined
starving.

"And so," said the High King, and in
the silence his gasping breath was horribly apparent, "I present to
you all my true born and only son, Arthur called Pendragon, who
will be High King after my death, and who will carry my sword in
battle from this time on."

He reached his hand to Arthur, and the
boy stood up, straight and unsmiling, while the shouting and the
cheering went roaring up into the smoky roof. The noise must have
been heard clear through the town. When men paused to draw breath
the echoes of the acclamation could be heard running out through
the streets as a fire runs through stubble on a dry day. There was
approval in the shouting, there was obvious relief that at last the
issue was clear, and there was joy. I saw Arthur, cool as a cloud,
assessing which lay where. But from where I sat I could also see
the pulse leaping below the rigid jawline. He stood as a swordsman
stands, at rest after one victory, but alert for the next
challenge.

It came. Clear above the shouting and
the thumping of drinking vessels on the boards came Lot's voice,
harsh and carrying. "I challenge the choice, King
Uther!"

It was like throwing a boulder down
into the path of a fast-flowing stream. The noise checked; men
stared, muttered, shifted and looked about them. Then all at once
it could be seen that the stream divided. There was cheering still
for Arthur and the King's choice, but here and there were shouts '
of "Lothian! Lothian!" and through it all Lot said strongly: "An
untried boy? A boy who has seen one battle? I tell you, Colgrim
will be back all too soon, and are we to have a boy to lead us? If
you must hand on your sword, King Uther, hand it to a tried and
seasoned leader, to be held in trust for this young boy when he is
grown!" He finished the challenge with a crash of his fist on the
table, and round him the clamor broke out again: "Lothian!
Lothian!" and then farther off down the hall, confusedly, other
challenges being shouted down by "Pendragon!" and "Cornwall!" and
even "Arthur!" It was to be seen then, as the clamor mounted, that
only the fact that men were unarmed prevented worse things than
insults being hurled from side to side of the hall. The servants
had backed to the walls, and chamberlains bustled here and there,
white-faced and placatory. The King, ashen, threw up a hand, but
the gesture went almost unnoticed. Arthur neither moved nor spoke,
but he had gone rather pale.

"My lords! My lords!" Uther was
shaking, but with rage; and rage, as I knew, was as dangerous to
him as a spear thrust. I saw that Lot knew it, too. I laid a hand
on Uther's arm. "All will be well," I told him softly. "Sit back
now and let them shout it out. Look, Ector is speaking."

"My lord King!" Ector's voice was
brisk, friendly, matter-of-fact, cooling the atmosphere in the
hall. He spoke as if addressing the King alone. The effect was
noticeable; the hall grew quiet as men strained to hear him. "My
lord King, the King of Lothian has challenged your choice. He has a
right to speak, as all your subjects have a right to speak before
you, but not to challenge, not even to question, what you have said
tonight." Raising his voice a little he turned to the listening
hall. "My lords, this is not a matter of choice or election; a
king's heir is begotten, not chosen by him, and where chance has
provided such a begetting as this, what question is there? Look at
him now, this prince who has been presented to you. He has been in
my household for ten years, and I, my lords, knowing him as I do,
tell you that here is a prince to be followed -- not later, not
when he is further grown,' but now. Even if I could not stand
before you here to attest his birth, you have only to look at him
and to think back to yesterday's field, to know that here, with all
fortune and God's blessing, we have our true and rightful King.
This is not open to challenge, even to question. Look at him, my
lords, and remember yesterday! Who more fit to unite the kings from
all the corners of Britain? Who more fit to wield his father's
sword?"

There were shouts of "True! True!" and
"What doubt can there be? He is Pendragon, and therefore our King!"
and a hubbub of voices that was louder and more confused even than
before. Briefly, I remembered my father's councils, their power and
order; then I saw again how Uther shook, ashen in his great chair.
The times were different; this was the way he had had to do it; he
could not enforce it other than by public acclaim.

Before he could speak, Lot was
smoothly on his feet again. He was no longer shouting; he spoke
weightily, with an air of reason, and a courteous inclination
towards Ector. "It was not the prince's begetting that I
challenged, it was the fitness of a young and untried youth to lead
us. We know that the battle yesterday was only the preliminary, the
first move in a longer and more deadly fight even than Ambrosius
faced a struggle such as we have not seen since the days of
Maximus. We need better leadership than is shown by a day's luck it
a skirmish. We need, not a sick king's deputy, but a man vested
with all the authority and God-given blessing of an anointed ruler.
If this young prince is indeed fit to carry his father's sword,
would his father be content to yield it to him now, before us
all?"

Silence again, for three heart-beats.
Every man there knew what it meant for the King formally to hand
over the royal sword; it was abdication. Only I, of all the men in
the hall except perhaps Ulfin, knew that it mattered nothing
whether or not Uther abdicated now; Arthur would be King before
night. But Uther did not know, and whether, even knowing his
weakness, Uther was great enough to renounce publicly the power
which had been the breath of life to him was not known even to me.
He was sitting quite straight, apparently impassive, and only one
as near to him as I could see how the palsy from time to time shook
his body, so that light shivered in the circlet of red gold that
bound his brow, and shook in the jewels on his fingers. I rose
quietly from my chair and went to stand close beside him, at his
left hand. Arthur, frowning, glanced questioningly at me. I shook
my head at him.

The King licked his lips, hesitating.
Lot's change of tone had puzzled him, as, it could be seen, it had
puzzled others in the hall. But it had also relieved the waverers,
those who were scared by the idea of rebellion, but found relief
from their fear of the future in his air of reason and his
deference to the High King. There were murmurs of approval and
agreement. Lot spread his hands wide, as if including with him
everyone in the body of the hall, and said, with that air of
speaking reasonably for all of them: "My lords, if we could but see
the King give his chosen heir the royal sword with his own hands,
what could we do but acknowledge him? Afterwards, it will be time
enough to discuss how best to face the coming wars."