Legacy: Arthurian Saga (119 page)

Arthur's head turned slightly, like a
hound's that catches an unfamiliar scent. Ector too looked round at
the other men, surprised perhaps and distrustful of the apparent
capitulation. Cador, silent at the other side of the room, stared
at Lot as though he would drag his soul out from his eyes. Uther
bent his head slightly, a gesture of abnegation which became him
like nothing I had seen in him before.

"I am willing."

A chamberlain went running. Uther,
leaned back in the great chair, shaking his head as Ulfin proffered
wine again, I dropped a hand unobtrusively to the wrist beside me;
his pulse was all anyhow, a grasshopper pulse in a wrist gone
suddenly frail and stringy, which before had been narrow with nerve
and sinew. His lips were dry, and his tongue came out to moisten
them. He said softly: "There's some trick here, but I can't see it.
Can you?"

"Not yet."

"He has no real following. Not even
among the army, after yesterday. But now...you may have to deal
with it. They don't want facts, or even promises. You know them,
what they want is a sign. Can you not give them one?"

"I don't know. Not yet. The gods come
when they come."

Arthur had caught the whisper. He was
as tight as a strung bow. Then he looked across the hall, and I saw
his mouth relax slightly. I followed his look. It was Bedwyr,
scarlet with fury, held down forcibly in his seat by his father's
heavy hand. Otherwise I think that he would have been at Lot's
throat with his bare hands. The chamberlain came running, with
Uther's battle sword laid, scabbarded, across his palms. The rubies
in the hilt glinted balefully. The scabbard was of silver gilded,
crusted with fine gold-work and gems. There was no man there but
had seen the sword a hundred times at Uther's side. The man laid it
flat on the table in front of the King. Uther's thin hand went out
to the hilt, the fingers curving round it without thinking, fitting
to the guard, a caress rather than a grip, the hold of the good
fighting man. Arthur watched him, and I could see the flicker of
puzzlement between his brows. He was thinking of the sword in the
stone up there in the Wild Forest, wondering no doubt where that
came into this formal scene of abdication.

But I, as the fire from the great
rubies burned against my eyes, knew at last what the gods were
doing. It was clear from the beginning, fire and dragonstar and the
sword in the stone. And the message did not come through the smoke
from the doubly-smiling god, it was clear as the flame in the ruby.
Uther's sword would fail, as Uther himself had failed. But the
other would not. It had come by water and by land and lay waiting
now for this, to bring Arthur his kingdom, and keep and hold it,
and afterwards go from men's sight forever...

The King laid firm hold of the hilt,
and drew his sword. "I, Uther Pendragon, do by this token give to
Arthur my son --"

There was a great gasp, then a hubbub
of noise. Men cried out fearfully, "A sign! A sign!" and someone
shouted, "Death! It means death!" and the whispers that had been
stilled by victory, waking again: "What hope for us, a wasted land,
and a maimed king, and a boy without a sword?"

As the sword came clear of the
scabbard Uther lurched to his feet. He held it crookedly,
half-lifted, staring down at it with ashen face and his mouth half
open, struck still like a man out of his wits. The sword was
broken. A handspan from the point the metal had snapped jaggedly,
and the break shone raw and bright in the torchlight.

The King made some sound; it was as if
he tried to speak, but the words choked in his throat. The sword
sank with a clatter to the board. As his legs failed under him,
Ulfin and I took him gently by the arms and eased him back into his
chair. Arthur moved, fast as a mountain cat, to bend over him.
"Sir? Sir?"

Then he straightened slowly, his eyes
on me. There was no need for me to tell him what every man in the
hall could see. Uther was dead.

9

Uther dead did more than Uther dying
could have done to control the panic that had swept the hall. Every
man there was held, silent and still, on his feet, watching the
High King as we lowered him gently against the back of the chair.
In the stillness the flames in the torches rustled like silk, and
the goblet Ulfin had dropped rolled ringing in a half circle and
back again. I leaned forward over the dead King and closed his
eyes.

Then Lot's voice, collected and
forceful: "A sign indeed! A dead king and a broken sword! Do you
still say, Ector, that God has appointed this boy to lead us
against the Saxon invader? A maimed land indeed, with nothing
between us and the Terror but a boy with a broken
sword!"

Confusion again. Men shouting, turning
to one another, staring about them in fear and amazement. Part of
my mind noted, coldly, that Lot had not been surprised. Arthur,
eyes blazing in a face paler than ever with shock, straightened
from his father's body and whipped round to face the shouting in
the hall, but I said swiftly, "No. Wait," and he obeyed me. But his
hand had dropped to his dagger and gripped there, whitening. I
doubt if he knew it, or, knowing, could have stopped himself. The
turmoil of astonishment and fear jarred from wall to wall like
waves in the wind.

Through the commotion came Ector's
voice again, harsh and shaken, but sturdily matter-of-fact as
before, brushing aside the strands of superstitious fear like a
broom clearing cobwebs. "My lords! Is this seemly? Our High King is
dead, here before our eyes. Dare we oppose his plain will when his
eyes are hardly closed? We all saw what caused his death, the sight
of the royal sword, which yesterday was whole, broken in its
sheath. Are we to let this -- accident" -- he dropped the word
heavily into the hush "frighten us like children from doing what it
is plain that we should do? If you look for a sign, there it is."
He pointed at Arthur, standing straight as a pine beside the dead
King's chair. "As one king falls, another is ready in his place.
God sent him today for this. We must acknowledge him."

A pause, full of murmuring, while men
looked at one another. There were nods, and shouts of agreement,
but here and there still looks of doubt, and voices calling out,
"But the sword? The broken sword?"

Ector said sturdily: "King Lot here
called it a sign, this broken sword. A sign of what? I say, my
lords, of treachery! This sword did not break in the High King's
hand, nor in his son's."

"That's true," said another voice
forcibly. Bedwyr's father, the King of Benoic, was on his feet. "We
all saw it, whole in the battle. And by God, we saw it
used!"

"But since then?" The questions came
from every quarter of the hall. "Afterwards? Would the King have
sent for it had he known it to be broken?" Then from some speaker
at the end of the hall, invisible in the press: "But would the High
King have consented to hand it to the boy, if it had still been
whole?" And another voice, which I thought was Urien's: "He knew he
was dying. He gave up the maimed land with the broken sword. It is
for the strongest now to take up the kingship."

Ector, darkly flushed, broke in again:
"I spoke the truth when I talked of treachery! In good time did the
High King present his heir to us, or Britain would indeed be
maimed, torn apart by disloyal dogs such as you, Urien of
Gore!"

Urien shouted with anger, and his hand
went to his dagger. Lot spoke to him, sharply, under cover of the
tumult, and he subsided. Lot was smiling, his eyes narrow and
watchful. His voice came smoothly: "We all know what interest Count
Ector has in proclaiming his ward High King."

There was a sudden, still pause. I saw
Ector glance round him, as if he would have conjured a weapon out
of the air. Arthur's hand clenched tighter on his dagger's hilt.
Then suddenly there was a stir from the right of the hall, where
Cador stood forward among his men. The white Boar of Cornwall
stretched and hunched itself on his sleeve as he moved. He looked
round for quiet, and got it. Lot turned his head quickly; it was
evident that he did not know what to expect. Ector controlled
himself and subsided, rumbling. All around I saw the frightened
men, the waverers, the timeservers, looking to Cador as men look
for a lead in danger.

Cador's voice was clear and totally
lacking in emotion. "What Ector says is true. I myself saw the High
King's sword after the battle, when his son handed it back to him.
It was whole and unmarked, save with the blood of the
enemy."

"Then how is it broken? Is it
treachery? Who broke it?"

"Who indeed?" said Cador. "Not the
gods, for sure, whatever King Lot may think. The gods do not break
the swords of the kings they favor with victory. They give them,
and give them whole."

"Then if Arthur is our king," cried
someone, "what sword have they given him?"

Cador looked up the hall: it was to be
seen that he was expecting me to speak. But I said nothing. I had
drawn back to stand behind Arthur in the shadow of the King's great
chair. It was my place, and it was time they saw me take it. There
was a kind of waiting pause, as heads turned to where I stood, a
black shadow behind the boy's white and silver. Men shuffled and
murmured. There were those here who had known my power, and there
was no man present who doubted it. Not even Lot; the whites of his
eyes showed as he looked askance. But when I still did not speak,
there were smiles. I could see the tension in Arthur's shoulders,
and I spoke to him in silence with my will. "Not yet, Arthur, not
yet. Wait."

He was silent. He had picked up the
broken sword, and was gently fitting it back into its scabbard As
it went, it gave one sharp flash and then was quenched.

"You see?" said Cador to the hall.
"Uther's sword is gone, and so is he. But Arthur has a sword, his
own, and greater than this royal one that men have broken. The gods
gave it to him. I saw it in his hand myself."

"When?" they asked. "Where? What gods?
What sword was this?"

Cador waited, smiling, for the buzz of
questions to die. He stood easily, a big man with that air of his
of relaxed but ready power. Lot was biting his lip, and frowning.
There was sweat thick on his forehead, and his eyes shifted round
the hall, reckoning the tally of those who still supported him.
From his look, he had still hoped that Cador might range himself
against Arthur.

Cador had not looked at him. "I saw
him once with Merlin," he told the company, "up in the Wild Forest,
and he carried a sword more splendid than any I have seen before,
jeweled like an Emperor's, and with a blade of light so bright that
it burned the eyes."

Lot cleared his throat. "An illusion.
It was done by magic. You said Merlin was there. We all know what
that means. If Merlin is Arthur's master --"

A man interrupted, smallish, with
black hair and a high color. I recognized Gwyl from the western
coast, on whose hills the druids meet still. "And if it was magic,
what then? Look you, a king who has magic in his hand is a king to
follow."

This brought a yell of approval. Fists
hammered on the tables. Many of the men in the hall were mountain
Celts, and this was talk they understood. "That is true, that is
true! Strength is good, but of what use is it without luck? And our
new King, though he is young, has both. It was true what Uther
said, good training and good counsel. What better counsel could he
have, than Merlin to stand beside him?"

"Good training indeed," shouted a
boy's voice, "that doesn't hang back in battle till it's almost too
late!" It was Bedwyr, forgetting himself. His father quenched him
with a cuff to the side of the head, but the blow fell lightly, and
the admonitory hand slid over to ruffle the boy's hair. There were
smiles. The heat was cooling. The ferment brought about by the
stroke of superstitious fear had passed, and men were calming,
ready now to listen and to think. One or two who had seemed to
favor Lot and his faction were seen to withdraw a little from him.
Then someone called out: "Why doesn't Merlin speak? Merlin knows
what we should do. Let him tell us!" Then the shouting began:
"Merlin! Merlin! Let Merlin speak!"

I let them shout for a few minutes.
Then when they were ready to tear the hall stone from stone to hear
me, I spoke. I neither moved nor raised my voice, standing there
between the dead King and the living one, but they hushed,
listening.

"I have two things to tell you," I
said. "First, that the King of Lothian was wrong. I am not Arthur's
master. I am his servant. And the second is what the Duke of
Cornwall has already told you; that between us and the Saxon Terror
is a King, young and whole, with a sword given straight into his
hand by God."

Lot could see the moment slipping from
him. He looked around him, shouting: "A fine sword indeed, that
appears in his hand as an illusion, and vanishes from it in
battle!"

"Don't be a fool," said Ector gruffly.
"That was one I lent him that was cut from him in the fight. My
second best, too, so I'm not repining."

Someone laughed. There were smiles,
and when Lot spoke again there was defeat under the sick rage in
his voice. "Then where did he get this sword of marvels, and where
is it now?"