Legacy: Arthurian Saga (129 page)

My host upended the bottle and shook
it. "It's out. And a better night's work it never did. Thank you,
sir, for your news. We live our own ways up here, but you'll know,
being down in the press of affairs, that even things happening out
yonder in Britain" -- he spoke of it as if of a foreign land, a
hundred miles from his quiet refuge -- "can have their echoes, in
pain and trouble sometimes, in the small and lonely places. We'll
pray you're right about the new King. You can tell him, if ever you
get near enough to have speech with him, that as long as he's loyal
to the true land, he has two men here who are his servants,
too."

"I shall tell him." I rose. "Thank you
for the welcome, and the drink. I'm sorry I disturbed your sleep.
I'll go and leave you to it now."

"Go now? Why, it's getting on for the
dawning. They'll have locked you out of your lodging, that's for
sure. Or were you in the camp down yonder? Then no sentry'll let
you through, without you've got the King's own token. You'd best
stay here. No," as I started some sort of protest, "there's a room
still kept, just as it was in the old days, when they came here
from far and wide to have the dreams. The bed's good, and the place
is kept dry. You'd fare worse in many a tavern. Do us the favor and
stay."

I hesitated. The boy nodded at me,
eyes bright, and the dog, which had risen when I rose, wagged its
tail and gave a wide, whining yawn, stretching the stiff
forepaws.

"Yes. Stay," begged the
boy.

I could see that it would mean
something to them if I complied. To stay would be to bring back
some of the ancient sanctity of the place; a guest in the
guest-house, so carefully swept and aired and kept for the guests
who no longer came.

"I shall be glad to," I
said.

Constant, beaming, thrust a torch into
the ashes and held it till it kindled. "Then come this
way."

As I followed him his father, settling
himself once more in his blankets by the hearth, said the
time-honored words of the healing-place.

"Sleep soundly, friend, and may the
god send you a dream."

Whoever sent it, the dream came, and
it was a true one.

I dreamed of Morgause, whom I had
driven from Uther's court at Luguvallium, with an escort detailed
to take her with safe ceremony across the high Pennines, and then
southeast to York, where her half-sister Morgan lay.

The dream came fitfully, like those
hilltop glimpses one gets through blowing cloud on a dark day.
Which, in the dream it was. I saw the party first on the evening of
a wet and windy day, when fine rain blowing downwind turned the
gravel of the road into a slippery track of mud. They had paused on
the bank of a river swollen by rain. I did not recognize the place.
The road led down into the river, in what should have been a
shallow ford, but now showed as a racing tumble of white water
which broke and foamed round an island that split the flood like a
ship sailing. There was no house in sight, not even a cave. Beyond
the ford the road twisted eastward among its sodden trees, and up
through rolling foothills toward the high fells.

With dusk falling fast, it seemed that
the party would have to spend the night here, and wait for the
river to go down. The officer in command of the party seemed to be
explaining as much to Morgause; I could not hear what was said, but
he looked angry, and his horse, tired though it was, kept on the
fret. I guessed that the choice of route had not been his: the
normal way from Luguvallium is by the high moorland road that
leaves the west highway at Brocavum and crosses the mountains by
Verterae. This last, kept fortified and in fine repair, would have
offered the party a staging post, and would have been the obvious
choice for a soldier. Instead, they must have taken the old hill
road which branches southeast from the five-way crossing near the
camp on the River Lune. I had never been that way. It was not a
road that had been kept in any kind of order. It led up the valley
of the Dubglas and across the high moors, and thence through the
mountains by the pass formed by the Tribuit and the Isara rivers.
Men call this pass the Pennine Gap, and in past time the Romans
kept it fortified and the roads open and patrolled. It is wild
country -- and still, among the remote summits and cliffs above the
tree line, are caves where the Old Ones live. If this was indeed
the road Morgause was taking, I could only wonder why.

Cloud and mist; rain in long grey
showers; the swollen river piling its white bow-waves against the
driftwood and bending willows of the river island. Then darkness
and a gap of time hid the scene from me.

Next time I saw them they were halted,
somewhere high in the pass, with tree-hung cliffs to the right of
the road, and to the left a wide, falling prospect of forest, with
a winding river at the foot of the valley, and hills beyond. They
had halted by a milestone near the crest of the pass. Here a track
branched off downhill to where, in a distant hollow of the valley,
lights showed. Morgause was pointing toward these, and it seemed
that there was an argument in progress.

Still I could hear nothing, but the
cause of the dispute was obvious. The officer had thrust forward to
Morgause's side and was leaning forward in his saddle, arguing
fiercely, pointing first at the milestone and then at the road
ahead. A late gleam from the west showed, etched by shadow on the
stone, the name OLICANA. I could not see the mileage, but what the
officer said was clear; that it would be folly to forgo the known
comforts that awaited them in Olicana for the chance that the
distant house (if such it was) could accommodate the party. His
men, crowding near, were openly supporting him. Beside her,
Morgause's women watched her anxiously, one might have said
beseechingly.

After a while, with a resigned
gesture, Morgause gave way. The escort re-formed. The women closed
up beside her, smiling. But before the party had gone ten paces one
of the women called out sharply, and then Morgause herself,
loosening the reins on her horse's neck; put out a hand delicately
into the air, as if groping for support, and swayed in her saddle.
Someone cried out again. The women crowded to hold her. The
officer, turning back, spurred his horse alongside hers and
stretched an arm to support her drooping form. She collapsed
against him, and lay inert.

There was nothing for it but to accept
defeat. Within minutes the party was slithering and thudding down
the track toward the distant light in the valley. Morgause,
shrouded fast in her big cloak, lay motionless and fainting in the
officer's arms.

But I knew, who am wary of witches,
that within the shelter of the rich furred hood she was awake, and
smiling her small triumphant smile, as Arthur's men carried her to
the house to which, for her own reasons, she had led them, and
where she planned to stay.

When the mists of vision parted next,
I saw a bedchamber finely appointed, with a gilded bed and crimson
covers, and a brazier burning red, throwing its light on the woman
who lay there against the pillows. Morgause's women were there, the
same who had attended her in Luguvallium, the young maid called
Lind who had led Arthur to her mistress's bed, and the old woman
who had slept the night through in a drugged slumber. The girl Lind
looked pale and tired; I remembered that Morgause, in her rage with
me, had had her whipped. She served her mistress warily, with shut
lips and downcast eyes, while the old woman, stiff from the long,
damp ride, went slowly about her tasks, grumbling as she went, but
with sidelong glances to make sure her mistress did not heed her.
As for Morgause, she showed no sign of sickness or even fatigue. I
had expected none. She lay back on the crimson pillows, the narrow
green-gilt eyes staring out through the chamber walls at something
far away and pleasurable, and smiling the same smile I had seen on
her lips as Arthur lay beside her, sleeping.

I must have woken here, shaken out of
the dream by hatred and distress, but the god's hand was still on
me, because I went back into sleep and into the same room. It must
have been later, after some span of time; days, even; however long
it had taken Lot, King of Lothian, to wait through the ceremonies
at Luguvallium, then gather troops together and head south and
eastward, by the same devious route, for York. No doubt his main
force had gone directly, but he, with a small party of fast
horsemen, had hastened to the meeting place with
Morgause.

For that it had been prearranged was
now clear. She must have got a message to him before she herself
left the court, then she had forced her escort to ride slowly,
taking time, and finally had contrived, by her feigned illness, to
seek shelter in the privacy of a friend's house. I thought I saw
her plan. Having failed in her bid for power through her seduction
of Arthur, she had somehow persuaded Lot to this tryst, and now
with her witch's wiles she would be set on winning his favor, to
find a position of some sort at the court of her sister, Lot's
future queen.

Next moment, as the dream changed, I
saw the sort of wiles that she was using; witchcraft of a king, I
suppose, but the kind that any woman knows how to use. There was
the bedchamber again, with the brazier dealing out a glow of
warmth, and beside it, on a low table, food and wine in silver
dishes. Morgause stood beside the brazier, the rosy glow playing on
the white gown and creamy skin, and glimmering on the long shining
hair that fell to her waist in rivulets of apricot light. Even I,
who loathed her, had to admit that she was very lovely. The long
green-gold eyes, thickly fringed by their golden lashes, watched
the door. She was alone.

The door opened and Lot came in. The
King of Lothian was a big dark man, with powerful shoulders and hot
eyes. He favored jewels, and glittered with arm rings and finger
rings and a chain on his breast set with citrine and amethyst. At
his shoulder, where the long black hair touched his cloak, was a
magnificent pin of garnet and worked gold, in the Saxon style. Fine
enough, I thought grimly, to have been a guest-gift from Colgrim
himself. There was rain on his hair and cloak.

Morgause was speaking. I could hear
nothing. It was a vision of movement and color only. She made no
move of welcome, nor did he seem to expect it. He showed no
surprise at seeing her. He spoke once, briefly, then stooped to the
table, and picking up the silver jug, splashed wine from it into a
cup with such haste and carelessness that the crimson stuff slopped
over the table and onto the floor. Morgause laughed. There was no
answering smile from Lot. He drank the wine down, deeply as if he
needed it, then threw the cup to the floor, strode past the
brazier, and with his big hands, still marked and muddied from the
ride, laid hold of the two sides of her gown at the neck, and
ripped it apart, baring her body to the navel. Then he had hold of
her, and his mouth was on hers, devouring her. He had not troubled
to shut the door. I saw it shift wider, and the girl Lind, scared
doubtless by the crash of the fallen cup, peer in, white-faced.
Like Lot, she showed no surprise at what she saw, but, frightened
perhaps by the man's violence, she hesitated, as if about to run to
her mistress's aid. But then she saw, as I had seen, the half-naked
body melt, clinging, against the man's, and the woman's hands
sliding up into the black wet hair. The torn gown slipped down to
lie in a huddle on the floor. Morgause said something, and laughed.
The man's grip on her shifted. Lind shrank back, and the door
closed, Lot swung Morgause up and took four long strides to the
bed.

Witch's wiles indeed. Even for a rape
it would have been precipitate: for a seduction it was a record.
Call me innocent, or stupid, or what you will, but at first I could
only think, held there in the clouds of dreaming, that some spell
had been at work. I believe I thought hazily of dragged wine,
Circe's cup, and men turned into rutting swine. It was not until
some time later, when the man reached a hand from the bed-covers
and turned up the wick of the lamp, and the woman, dazed with sex
and sleep, sat up smiling against the crimson pillows and drew the
furs up to cover herself, that I began to suspect the truth. He
padded across the floor, through the fallen wreck of his own
clothes, poured another cupful of wine, drained it, then refilled
it and took it back to Morgause. Then he heaved himself back into
the bed beside her, sat back himself against the bed-head, and
began to talk.

She, half sitting, half lying against
him, nodded and answered, seriously and at length. As they talked,
his hand slid down to fondle her breasts; he did it half absently,
as was natural enough in a man like Lot, who was used to women. But
Morgause, the maiden with the unbound hair and demure little voice?
Morgause noticed the gesture no more than the man. Only then, with
a jar like an arrow thudding deep into a shield, did I see the
truth. They had been here before. They were familiar. Even before
she had lain with Arthur, Lot had had her, and many times. They
were so used to one another that they could lie twined naked on a
bed and, busily and earnestly, talk...About what?

Treachery. That was, naturally, my
first thought. Treachery against the High King, whom both, for
differing reasons, had cause to hate. Morgause, long jealous of the
half-sister who must always take precedence of her, had laid siege
to Lot and taken him to her bed. There had, it was to be supposed,
been other lovers, too. Then came Lot's bid for power at
Luguvallium. It failed, and Morgause, not guessing at the strength
and clemency that would make Arthur accept him back among his
allies, turned to Arthur himself in her own desperate play for
power.