Legacy: Arthurian Saga (134 page)

"You said to me,'The gods are jealous,
and they insure against too much glory. Every man carries the seed
of his own death, and there must come a term to every life. All
that has happened tonight is that you yourself have set that
term.'"

I said nothing. He faced me with the
straight, uncompromising look that I was to come to know so
well.

"When you spoke to me like that, were
you telling me the truth? Was the prophecy a sure one, or were you
finding words of comfort for me, so that I could face what was to
come next day?"

"It was the truth."

"You meant that if she bore a child to
me, you could foresee that he -- she? -- would be my
death?"

"Arthur," I said, "prophecy does not
work like that. I neither knew, in the way most men think of
'knowing,' that Morgause would conceive, nor that the child would
be a mortal danger for you. I only knew, all the time you were with
the woman, that the birds of death were on my shoulders, weighing
me down and stinking of carrion. My heart was heavy with dread, and
I could see death, as I thought, linking the two of you together.
Death and treachery. But how, I did not know. By the time I
understood it, the thing was done, and all that was left was to
await what the gods chose to send."

He paced away from me again, over
toward the bedchamber door. He leaned there in silence, his
shoulder to the jamb, his face away from me, then thrust himself
off and turned. He crossed to the chair behind the big table, sat
down, and regarded me, chin on fist. His movements were controlled
and smooth, as always, but I, who knew him, could hear the
curb-chain ring. He still spoke quietly. "And now we know the
carrion-birds were right. She did conceive. You told me something
else that night, when I admitted my fault. You said I had sinned
unknowingly and was innocent. Is innocence, then, to be
punished?"

"It's not uncommon."

"'The sins of the
fathers'?"

I recognized the phrase as a quotation
from the Christian scriptures. "Uther's sin," I said, "visited on
you."

"And mine, now, on the
child?"

I said nothing. I did not like the way
the interview was going. For the first time, talking with Arthur, I
did not seem able to take control. I told myself I was weary, that
I was still in the ebbtide of power, that my time would come again;
but the truth is I was feeling a little like the fisherman in the
Eastern tale who unstopped a bottle and let out a genie many times
more powerful than himself.

"Very well," said the King. "My sin
and hers must be visited on the child. It must not be allowed to
live. You will go north and tell Morgause so. Or if you prefer, I
shall give you a letter telling her so myself."

I took breath, but he swept on without
giving me time to speak.

"Quite apart from your forebodings --
which God knows I would be a fool not to respect -- can you not see
how dangerous this thing could be now, if Lot should find out about
it? It's plain enough what has happened. She feared she might be
pregnant, and to save her shame she set herself to snare a husband.
Who better than Lot? She had been offered to him before; for all we
know she had wanted him, and now saw a chance to outshine her
sister and give herself a place and a name, which she would lack
after her father's death." His lips thinned. "And who knows better
than I that if she set herself to get a man, any man, he would go
to her for the whistle?"

"Arthur, you talk of her 'shame.' You
don't think you were the first she took to her bed, do
you?"

He said, a little too quickly: "I
never did think so."

"Then how do you know she had not lain
with Lot before you? That she was not already pregnant to him, and
took you in the hope of snaring some kind of power and favor to
herself? She knew Uther was dying; she feared that Lot, by his
action at Luguvallium, had forfeited the King's favor. If she could
father Lot's child on you..."

"This is guesswork. This is not what
you said that night."

"No. But think back. It would fit the
facts of my foreboding equally well."

"But not the force of them," he said
sharply. "If the danger from this child is real, then what does it
matter who fathered it? Guesswork won't help us."

"I'm not guessing when I tell you that
she and Lot were lovers before ever you went to her bed. I told you
I had had a dream that night at Nodens' shrine. I saw them meet at
a house some way off an ill-frequented road. It must have been by
prearrangement. They met like people who have been lovers for a
long time. This child may in fact be Lot's, and not
yours."

"And we've got it the wrong way round?
I was the one she whistled up to save her shame?"

"It's possible. You had come from
nowhere, eclipsing Lot as you would soon eclipse Uther. She made
her bid to father Lot's child on you, but then had to abandon the
attempt, for fear of me."

He was silent, thinking. "Well," he
said at length, "time will tell us. But are we to wait for it? No
matter whose child this is, it is a danger; and it doesn't take a
prophet to see how that could be...or a god to act on it. If Lot
ever knows -- or believes -- that his eldest child is fathered by
me, how long do you think this chary loyalty of his will last?
Lothian is a key point, you know that. I need that loyalty; I have
to have it. Even if he had wedded my own sister Morgan, I could
hardly have trusted him, whereas now..." He threw out a hand, palm
up. "Merlin, it's done every day, in every village in the kingdom.
Why not in a king's house? Go north for me, and talk to
Morgause."

"You think she would listen? If she
had not wanted the child, she would not have scrupled to get rid of
it long since. She didn't take you for love, Arthur, and she bears
you no friendship for letting her be driven from court. And to me"
-- I smiled sourly -- "she bears a most emphatic and justified
ill-will. She would laugh in my face. More than that: she would
listen, and laugh at the power her action had given her over us,
and then she would do whatever she thought would hurt us
most."

"But --"

"You thought she might have persuaded
Lot into marriage merely for her own sake, or to score from her
sister. No. She took him because I foiled her plans to corrupt and
own you, and because at heart, whatever the time may force him to
do now, Lot is your enemy and mine, and through him she may one day
do you harm."

A sharpening silence. "Do you believe
this?"

"Yes."

He stirred. "Then I am still right.
She must not bear the child."

"What are you going to do? Pay someone
to bake her bread with ergot?"

"You will find some way. You will go
--"

"I will do nothing in the
matter."

He came to his feet, like a bow
snapping upright when the string breaks. His eyes glittered in the
candlelight. "You told me you were my servant. You made me King,
you said by the god's wish. Now I am King, and you will obey
me."

I was taller than he, by two fingers'
breadth. I had outfaced kings before, and he was very young. I gave
it just long enough, then said, gently: "I am your servant, Arthur,
but I serve the god first. Do not make me choose. I have to let him
work the way he wills."

He held my eyes a moment longer, then
drew a long breath, and released it as if it had been a weight he
was holding. "To do this? To destroy, perhaps, the very kingdom you
said he had sent me to build?"

"If he sent you to build it, then it
will be built. Arthur, I don't pretend to understand this. I can
only tell you to trust the time, as I do, and wait. Now, do as you
did before, put it aside and try to forget it. Leave it with
me."

"What will you do?"

"Go north."

A moment of quickening stillness, then
he said: "To Lothian? But you said you would not go."

"No. I said I would do nothing about
killing the child. But I can watch Morgause, and perhaps, in time,
judge better what we must do. I will send to tell you what
happens."

There was another silence. Then the
tension went out of him, and he turned away, beginning to loosen
the clasp of his belt. "Very well." He started to ask some
question, then bit it back and smiled at me. Having shown the whip,
he was now concerned, it seemed, to retreat on the old trust and
affection. "But you will stay for the rest of the feasting: If the
wars allow, I have to stay here myself for eight days before I can
take horse again."

"No. I think I must be gone. Better
perhaps while Lot is still here with you. That way I can melt into
the countryside before ever he gets home, and watch and wait, and
take what action I can. With your leave, I'll go tomorrow
morning."

"Who goes with you?"

"Nobody. I can travel
alone."

"You must take someone. It's not like
riding home to Maridunum. Besides, you may need a
messenger."

"I'll use your couriers."

"All the same..." He had got the belt
undone. He threw it over a chair. "Ulfin!" A sound from the next
room, then discreet footsteps. Ulfin, carrying a long bedgown over
one arm, came in from the bedchamber, stifling a yawn. "My
lord?"

"Have you been in there all the
while?" I asked sharply.

Ulfin, wooden-faced, reached to undo
the clasps at the King's shoulder. He held the long outer robe as
the King stepped out of it. "I was asleep, my lord." Arthur sat
down and thrust out a foot. Ulfin knelt to ease the shoe from it.
"Ulfin, my cousin Prince Merlin goes north tomorrow, on what may
prove a long and hard journey. I shall dislike losing you, but I
want you to go with him."

Ulfin, shoe in hand, looked up at me
and smiled. "Willingly."

"Should you not stay with the King?" I
protested. "This week of all weeks --"

"I do as he tells me," said Ulfin
simply, and stooped to the other foot.

As you do, in the end. Arthur did not
say the words aloud, but they were there in the quick glance he
gave me as he stood again for Ulfin to gird the bedgown round
him.

I gave up. "Very well. I shall be glad
to have you. We leave tomorrow, and I should warn you that we may
be away for some considerable time." I gave him what instructions I
could, then turned back to Arthur. "Now, I had better go. I doubt
if I shall see you before I set off. I'll send you word as soon as
I can. No doubt I shall know where you are."

"No doubt." He sounded all at once
grim, very much the war-leader. "Can you spare a moment or two
more? Thank you, Ulfin, leave us now. You'll have your own
preparations to make...Merlin, come and see my new toy."

"Another?"

"Another? Oh, you're thinking about
the cavalry. Have you seen the horses Bedwyr brought?"

"Not yet. Valerius told me about
them."

His eyes kindled. "They are splendid!
Fast, fiery, and gentle. I am told they can live on hard rations if
they have to, and that their hearts are so high that they will
gallop all day, and then fight with you to the death. Bedwyr
brought grooms with them. If everything they say is true, then
surely we shall have a cavalry force to conquer the world! There
are two trained stallions, white ones, that are real beauties, even
finer than my Canrith. Bedwyr chose them especially for me. Over
here..." As he spoke he led the way across the room toward a
pillared archway closed by a curtain. "I haven't had time to try
them yet, but surely I can throw off my chains for an hour or two
tomorrow?"

His voice was that of a restive boy. I
laughed. "I hope so. I am more fortunate than the King: I shall be
on my way."

"On your old black gelding, no
doubt."

"Not even that. A mule."

"A mule? Ah, of course. You go
disguised?"

"I must. I can hardly ride into
Lothian's stronghold as Prince Merlin."

"Well, take care. You're certain you
don't want an escort, at least for the first part of the
way?"

"Certain. I shall be safe. What's this
you are going to show me?"

"Only a map. Here."

He pulled the curtain back. Beyond it
was a kind of anteroom, little more than a broad portico giving on
a small private courtyard. Torchlight winked on the spears of the
guards on duty there, but otherwise the place was empty, bare even
of furniture except for a huge table, rough-adzed out of oak. It
was a map table, but instead of the usual sandtray it held, I saw,
a map made of clay, with mountains and valleys, coasts and rivers,
modeled by some clever sculptor, so that there, plain to see, lay
the land of Britain as a high-flying bird might view it from the
heavens.

Arthur was plainly delighted at my
praise. "I knew you would be interested! They only finished setting
it up yesterday. Splendid, isn't it? Do you remember teaching me to
make maps in the dust? This is better than scraping the sand into
hills and valleys that change when you breathe on them. Of course,
it can still be remodeled as we find out more. North of Strathclyde
is anybody's guess...but then, by God's mercy, nothing north of
Strathclyde need concern me. Not yet, anyway." He fingered a peg,
carved and colored like a red dragon, that stood over
"Caerleon."