Legacy: Arthurian Saga (141 page)

In fact he did not come for four more
days.

I spent the days within doors, writing
to Ygraine and Arthur, and the evenings in familiarizing myself
with the town and its environment. The town was small, and did not
attract many strangers, so, since I wanted to avoid attention, I
went out at dusk, when folk would mostly be at supper. For the same
reason I did not advertise my trade; anyone who approached our
party had his full attention claimed by Beltane, and did not think
to look further. They took me, I imagine, for a poor scribe of some
sort. Ulfin haunted the town gates, picking up what news he could,
and waiting for tidings of Lot's approach. Beltane, innocent and
unsuspicious, plied his trade. He set up his stove in the square
near the tavern, and began to teach Casso the elements of the
repairer's art. Inevitably, this drew interest, and then custom,
and soon the goldsmith was doing a roaring trade.

This, on the third day, brought just
the result we all hoped for. The girl Lind, passing through the
market square one day and seeing Beltane, approached and made
herself known. Beltane sent her back to her mistress with a
message, and a new buckle for herself, and soon got his reward.
Next day he was sent for to the castle, and went off triumphantly,
with a laden Casso in his wake.

Even had he not been dumb, Casso could
have reported nothing. When the two were passed in through the
postern gate,

Casso was detained to wait in the
porter's kennel, while an upper servant conducted the goldsmith to
the queen's chambers.

He came back to the tavern at dusk,
bubbling with his news. For all his talk of great people, this was
the first king's house he had been in, and Morgause the first queen
who would wear his jewels. The admiration he had conceived for her
in York had soared now to the point of worship; at close quarters,
even on him, her rose and gold beauty acted like a drug. He poured
his story out over supper, obviously never thinking for a moment
that I would not be absorbed in any item of gossip he might retail.
Casso and I (Ulfin was still out) were given a word-by-word account
of all that was said, of her graces, her praise of his work, her
generosity in buying three pieces and accepting a fourth; even of
the scent she wore.

He did his best, too, with a
description of her beauty, and of the splendors of the room where
she received him, but here we were dealing with impressions only:
the picture he conveyed was a perfumed haze of light and color; the
cool brightness from a window running along the sheen of an amber
robe, and lighting the wonderful rose-gold hair; the rustle of silk
and the glow and crackle of logs lit against the grey day. And
music, too; a girl's voice whispering a lullaby.

"So the child was there?"

"Indeed. Asleep in a high cradle near
the fire. I could see it, oh, clearly, outlined against the flames;
and the girl rocking it and singing. The cradle was canopied with
silk and gauze, with a little bell that chimed as she rocked it,
and glinted in the firelight. A royal cradle. Such a pretty sight!
I could have wished my old eyes different, for that
alone."

"And did you see the child
itself?"

It appeared that he had not. The baby
had woken once, and cried a little, and the nurse had hushed him
without lifting him from the blankets. The queen had been trying a
necklet at the time, and without looking round had taken the mirror
from the girl's hand, and bidden her sing to the baby.

"A pretty voice," said Beltane, "but
such a sad little song. And indeed, I would hardly have recognized
the maiden herself, if she had not come to speak to me yesterday.
So thin and creeping, like a mouse, and her voice gone thin, too,
like something pining. Lind, her name is, did I tell you? A strange
name for a maiden, surely? Does it not mean a snake?"

"I believe so. Did you hear the
child's name?"

"They called him Mordred."

Beltane showed a tendency here to go
back to his description of the cradle, and of the pretty picture
the girl had made, rocking it and singing, but I brought him back
to the point.

"Was anything said about King Lot's
coming home?"

Beltane, that single-minded artist,
did not even see the implications of the questions. They were
expecting him, he told me cheerfully, at any time. The queen had
seemed as excited as a young girl. Indeed, she could talk of
nothing else. Would her lord like the necklet? Did the earrings
make her eyes look brighter? Why, added Beltane, he owed half the
sale to the king's coming.

"She did not seem afraid at
all?"

"Afraid?" He looked blank. "No. Why
should she? She was happy and excited.'Just wait,' she was saying
to the ladies, just like any young mother with her lord away at the
wars,'just wait till my lord sees the fine son I bore him, and as
like his father as one wolf to another.' And she laughed and
laughed; It was a jest, you understand, Master Emrys. They call Lot
the Wolf in these parts, and take pride in him, which is only
natural among savage folks like these of the north. Only a jest.
Why should she be afraid?"

"I was thinking of the rumors you
spoke of once before. You told me of things you heard in York, and
then, you said, there were looks and whispers here among the common
folk in the market-place."

"Oh, those, yes...well, but that was
only talk. I know what you're getting at, Master Emrys, the wicked
stories that have been going about. You know that always happens
when a birth comes before its time, and there's bound to be more
talk in a king's house, because, you might say, more hangs on
it..."

"So it was before its
time?"

"Yes, so they say. It took them all by
surprise. It was born before even the king's own doctors could get
here, that were sent north from the army to tend to the queen. It
was the women delivered her, but safely, by God's mercy. You
remember we were told it was a sickly child? And indeed, I could
tell as much from the way he cried. But now he thrives and puts on
weight. The maid Lind told me so, when I spoke to her on the way
back to the gate.'And is it true he's the image of King Lot?' I
said to her. She gives me a look, as much as to say, that will
silence the gossip, but all she says aloud is,'Yes, as like as can
be.'"

He leaned across the table, nodding
with cheerful emphasis. "So you see it was all lies, Master Emrys.
And indeed, one only has to talk to her. That pretty creature
deceive her lord? Why, she was like a bride again at the thought of
him coming home. And she would laugh that pretty laugh, like the
silver bell on the cradle. Oh, yes, you can be sure the stories
were all lies. Put around in York, they would be, by those that had
cause to be jealous...You know who I mean, eh? And the child the
image of him. They were all saying the same.'King Lot will see
himself in a mirror, just as sure as you see yourself, madam. Look
at him, the image, the little lamb...' You know how women talk,
Master Emrys.'The very image of his royal father.'"

So he talked on, while Casso, busying
himself with polishing some cheap buckles, listened and smiled, and
I, only a little less silent, let the talk go by me while I thought
my own thoughts.

Like his father? Dark hair, dark eyes,
the description could fit both Lot and Arthur. Was there some
faintest chance that fate was on Arthur's side? That she had
conceived by Lot, and then seduced Arthur in an attempt to shackle
him to her?

Reluctantly, I put the hope aside.
When, at Luguvallium, I had felt doom impending, it had been in a
time of power. And it did not need even that to tell me to mistrust
Morgause. I had come north to watch her, and now the new fragment
of information I just heard from Beltane might well have told me
what to watch for.

Ulfin came in then, shaking a fine
rain from his cloak. He looked across, saw us, and gave a barely
perceptible sign to me. I got to my feet, and, with a word to
Beltane, went over to him.

He spoke softly. "There's news. The
queen's messenger rode in just now. I saw him. The horse was hard
ridden, almost foundered. I told you I was on terms with one of the
gatehouse guards? He says King Lot's on his way home. He's
traveling fast. They're expecting him tonight or
tomorrow."

"Thank you," I said. "Now, you've been
out all day. Get yourself into some dry clothes, and get something
to eat. I've just heard something from Beltane that persuades me
that a watch on the postern gate might be profitable. I'll tell you
about it later. When you've eaten, come down and join me. I'll find
somewhere dry to wait, where we won't be seen." We rejoined the
others, and I asked: "Beltane, can you spare Casso to me for half
an hour?"

"Of course, of course. But I shall
need him later on. I was bidden back there tomorrow, with this
buckle mended for the chamberlain, and I need Casso's help for
that."

"I shan't keep him. Casso?"

The slave was already on his feet.
Ulfin said, with a shade of apprehension: "So you know what to do
now?"

"I am guessing," I said. "I have no
power in this, as I told you." I spoke softly, and above the
tavern's roar Beltane could not hear me, but Casso did, and looked
quickly from me to Ulfin and back again. I smiled at him. "Don't
let it concern you. Ulfin and I have affairs here which will not
touch you or your master. Come with me now."

"I could come myself," said Ulfin
quickly.

"No. Do as I told you, and eat first.
It could be a long watch. Casso..."

We went through the maze of dirty
streets. The rain, steady now, made muddy puddles, and splashed the
dung into stinking pools. Where lights showed at all in the houses,
they were feeble, smoking glints of flame, curtained from the wet
night by hides or sacking. Nothing interfered with our night-sight,
and presently we could pick our way cleanly across the gleaming
runnels. After a while the tree-banked slope of the castle rock
loomed above us.

A lantern hung high in the blackness,
marking the postern gate.

Casso, who had been following me,
touched my arm and pointed where a narrow alley, little more than a
funnel for rain-water, led steeply downward. It was not a way I had
been before.

At the bottom I could hear, loud above
the steady hissing of the rain, the noise of the river.

"A short cut to the footbridge?" I
asked.

He nodded vigorously.

We picked our way down over the filthy
cobbles. The roar of the river grew louder. I could see the white
water of the lasher, and against it the great wheel of a mill.
Beyond this, outlined by the reflected glimmer of the foam, was the
footbridge.

No one was about. The mill was not
running; the miller probably lived above it, but he had locked his
doors and no light showed. A narrow path, deep in mud, led past the
shuttered mill and along the soaked grasses of the riverside toward
the bridge.

I wondered, half irritably, why Casso
had chosen this way. He must have grasped some need for secrecy,
though the main street was surely, in this weather and at this
time, deserted. But then voices and the swinging light of a lantern
brought me up short in the shelter of the miller's
doorway.

Three men were coming down the street.
They were hurrying, talking together in undertones. I saw a bottle
passed from hand to hand. Castle servants, no doubt, on their way
back from the tavern. They stopped at the end of the bridge and
looked back. Now something furtive could be seen in their
movements. One of them said something, and there was a laugh,
quickly stifled. They moved on, but not before I had seen them,
clearly enough, in the lantern's glow: they were armed, and they
were sober.

Casso was close beside me, pressed
back in the dark doorway. The men had not glanced our way. They
went quickly across the bridge, their footsteps sounding hollow on
the wet planks.

Something else the passing light had
showed me. Just beyond the mill, at the corner of the alley,
another doorway stood open. From the pile of timber stocks and sawn
felloes outside in the weedy strip of yard, I took it to be a
wheelwright's shop. It was deserted for the night, but inside the
main shed the remains of a fire still glowed. From that sheltering
darkness I should be able to hear and see all who approached the
bridge.

Casso ran ahead of me into the warm
cave of the shop, and lifted a couple of faggots. Taking them to
the fire, he made the motion of throwing them on the
ashes.

"Only one," I said softly. "Good man.
Now, if you will go back and get Ulfin, and bring him here to me,
you can get yourself dried and warm, and then forget all about
us."

A nod, then, smiling, a pantomime to
show me that my secret, whatever it was, would be safe with him.
God knew what he thought I was doing: an assignation, perhaps, or
spy's work. Even at that, he knew about as much as I knew
myself.

"Casso. Would you like to learn to
read and write?"

Stillness. The smile vanished. In the
growing flicker of the fire I saw him rigid, all eyes, unbelieving,
like the lost traveler who has the clue, against all hope, thrust
into his hand. He nodded once, jerkily.