Legacy: Arthurian Saga (159 page)

"Which suits me very well," said the
King indifferently. "But it creates certain difficulties in the
northeast."

He went on to explain. The problem lay
with Aguisel, who held the strong Castle of Bremenium, in a nest of
the Northumbrian hills, where Dere Street runs up into High
Cheviot. While Lot had ruled to the north, Aguisel had been content
to run with him, "as his jackal," said Arthur contemptuously,
"along with Tydwal and Urien. But now that Tydwal sits in Lot's
chair, Aguisel begins to be ambitious. I've heard a rumor -- I have
no proof of it -- that when last the Angles sent their ships up the
Alaunus River, Aguisel met them there, not in war, but to speak
with their leader. And Urien follows him still, brother jackals,
playing at being lions. They may think they are too far away from
me, but I intend to pay them a visit and disillusion them. My
excuse is to look at the work that has been done on the Black Dyke.
From all I hear, I should like a pretext to remove Aguisel for good
and all, but I must do it without rousing Tydwal and Urien to
defend him. The last thing I can afford, until I am sure of the
West Saxons, is a break-up of the allied kings in the north. If I
have to remove Tydwal, it may mean bringing Morgause back to
Dunpeldyr. A small thing, compared with the rest, but the day she
sits in a mainland castle again cannot be a good day for
me."

"Then let us hope the day will never
come."

"As you say. I'll do my best to
contrive it so." He looked round him again as he turned to go.
"It's a pleasant place. I'm afraid I shan't have time to see you
again before I ride, Merlin. I go before the week is
out."

"Then all the gods go with you, my
dear. May they be beside you, too, at your wedding. And someday,
come and see me again."

He went. The room seemed to tremble
and grow larger again, and the air to settle back into
tranquility.

2

And tranquility was the sum of the
months that followed. I went over to Camelot soon after Arthur's
departure for the north, to see how the building work was going;
then, satisfied, left Derwen to complete it, and retired to my
new-made fastness with almost the same feeling of homecoming as I
felt at Bryn Myrddin. The rest of that spring I spent about my own
affairs, planting my garden, writing to Blaise, and, as the
country-side burgeoned, collecting the herbs I needed for a renewal
of my stores.

I did not see Arthur again before the
wedding. A courier brought me news, which was brief but favorable.
Arthur had found proof of Aguisel's villainy and had attacked him
in Bremenium. The details I did not know, but the King had taken
the place and put Aguisel to death; and this without rousing either
Tydwal or Urien, or any of their kinsmen against him. In fact,
Tydwal had fought beside Arthur in the final storming of the walls.
How the King had achieved this, the report did not say, but with
the death of Aguisel the world would be cleaner, and, since he died
without sons, a man of Arthur's choosing could now hold the castle
that commanded the Cheviot pass. Arthur chose Brewyn, a man he
could be certain of, then went south to Caerleon well
content.

The Lady Guinevere duly arrived in
Caerleon, royally escorted by princes -- Melwas and Bedwyr and a
company of Arthur's knights. Cei had not gone with the party; as
Arthur's seneschal his duty lay in the palace at Caerleon, where
the wedding was celebrated with great splendor at Pentecost. I
heard later that the bride's father had suggested May Day, and that
Arthur, after the briefest hesitation, had said, "No," so flatly
that eyebrows were raised. But this was the only shadow. All else
seemed set fair. The pair were married late in the month on a
glorious day of sunshine, and Arthur took a bride to bed for the
second time, with, now, days and nights to spare. They came to
Camelot in early summer, and I had my first sight of the second
Guinevere.

Queen Guinevere of Northgalis was more
than "well enough and with a sweet breath"; she was a
beauty.

To describe her, one would have to rob
the bards of all their old conventions; hair like golden corn, eyes
like summer sky, a flower-fair skin and a lissom body -- but add to
all this the dazzle of personality, a sort of outgoing gaiety, and
a way of communicating joy, and you will have some idea of her
fascination. For fascinating she was: on the night she was brought
to Camelot I watched her through the feasting, and saw other eyes
than the King's fixed on her throughout the evening. It was obvious
that she would be Queen not only of Arthur, but of all the
Companions. Except perhaps Bedwyr. His were the only eyes that did
not seek hers constantly; he seemed quieter even than usual, lost
in his own thoughts, and as for Guinevere, she barely glanced his
way. I wondered if something had happened on the journey from
Northgalis that stung his memory. But Melwas, who sat near her,
hung on her every word, and watched her with the same eyes of
worship as the younger men.

That was a beautiful summer, I
remember. The sun shone blazing, but from time to time the sweet
rains came and the soft wind, so that the fields bore crops such as
few men could remember, and the cattle and sheep grew sleek, and
the land ripened toward a great harvest. Everywhere, though the
bells rang on Sundays in the Christian churches, and crosses were
to be seen nowadays where once cairns of stone or statues had stood
by the wayside, the country folk went about their tasks blessing
the young King for giving them, not only the peace in which to grow
their crops, but the wealth of the crops themselves.

For them, both wealth and glory
stemmed from their young ruler, as, during the last year of the
sick Uther's life, the land had lain under the black blight. And
the common folk waited confidently -- as at Camelot the nobles
waited -- for the announcement that an heir was begotten. But the
summer wore through, and autumn came, and, though the land yielded
its great harvest, the Queen, riding out daily with her ladies, was
as lissom and slender as ever, and no announcement was
made.

And here in Camelot, the memory of the
girl who had conceived the heir and died of him troubled no one.
All was new and shining and building and making. The palace was
completed, and now the carvers and gilders were at work, and women
wove and stitched, and wares of pottery and silver and gold came
into the new city daily, so that the roads seemed full of coming
and going. It was the time of youth and laughter, and building
after conquest; the grim years were forgotten. As for the "white
shadow" of my foreboding, I began to wonder if it had indeed been
the death of the other pretty Guenever that had cast that shadow
across the light, and seemed to linger still in corners like a
ghost. But I never saw her, and Arthur, if he once remembered her,
said nothing.

So four winters passed, and Camelot's
towers shone with new gilding, and the borders were quiet, the
harvests good, and the people grew accustomed to peace and safety.
Arthur was five and twenty, and rather more silent than of old; he
seemed to be away from home more, and each time for longer. Cador's
duchess bore him a son, and Arthur rode down into Cornwall to stand
sponsor, but Queen Guinevere did not go with him. For a few weeks
there was whispered hope that she had a good reason for refusing
the journey; but the King and his party went and returned, and then
left again, by sea, for Gwynedd, and still the Queen at Camelot
rode out and laughed and danced and held court, as slim as a
maiden, and, it seemed, as free of care.

Then one raining day of early spring,
just as dusk fell, a horseman came thudding to my gate with a
message. The King was still away, and was not looked for yet for
perhaps another week. And the Queen had vanished.

The messenger was Cei the seneschal,
Arthur's foster-brother, the son of Ector of Galava, a big man,
some three years older than the King, florid and broad-shouldered.
He was a good fighter and a brave man, though not, like Bedwyr, a
natural leader. Cei had neither nerves nor imagination, and, while
this makes for bravery in war, it does not make for good
leadership. Bedwyr, the poet and dreamer, who suffered ten times
over for one grief, was the finer man.

But Cei was staunch, and now, since he
was responsible for the ordering of the King's household, had come
himself to see me, attended only by one servant. This, though he
bore one arm in a rough sling, and looked tired and worried out of
his slow mind. He told me the story, sitting in my room with the
firelight flickering on the ceiling rafters. He accepted a cup of
mulled wine, and talked quickly, while, at my insistence, he
removed the sling and let me examine his injured arm.

"Bedwyr sent me to tell you. I was
hurt, so he sent me back. No, I didn't see a doctor. Damn it, there
hasn't been time! Anything could've happened, wait till I tell
you...She's been gone since daybreak. You remember how fair it was
this morning? She went out with her ladies, with only the grooms
and a couple of men for escort. That was usual -- you know it
was."

"Yes." It was true. Sometimes one or
more of the knights accompanied the Queen, but frequently they were
occupied on affairs more important than squiring her on her daily
rides. She had troopers and grooms, and nowadays there was no
danger, so near Camelot, from the kind of wild outlaw who had
frequented lonely places when I was a boy. So Guinevere had risen
early on what promised to be a fine morning, mounted her grey mare,
and set out with two of her ladies, and four men, of whom two were
soldiers. They had ridden out across a belt of dry moorland
bordered to the south by thick forest. To their right hand lay the
marshlands, where the rivers wound seaward through their deep,
reedy channels, and to the east the land showed rolling and
forested toward the high lift of the downs. The party had found
game in plenty; the little greyhounds had run wild after it, and,
said Cei, the grooms had their hands full riding after them to
bring them back. Meantime, the Queen had flown her merlin after a
hare, and had followed this herself, straight into the
forest.

Cei grunted as my probing fingers
found the injured muscle. "Well, but I told you that it was nothing
much. Only a sprain, isn't it? A pulled muscle? Will it take long?
Oh, well, it's not my sword arm...Well, she galloped the grey mare
in, and the women stayed back. Her maid's no rider, and the other,
the lady Melissa, is not young. The grooms were coming back with
the greyhounds on the saddle, and were still some way off. Nobody
was worrying. She's a great horsewoman -- you know she even rode
Arthur's white stallion and managed it? -- and besides, she's done
it before, just to tease them. So they took it easy, while the two
troopers rode after her."

The rest was easy to supply. It was
true that this had happened before, with no chance of ill, so the
troopers spurred after the Queen at no more than a hand-gallop.
They could hear her mare thudding through the thick forest ahead of
them, and the swish and crackling of the bushes and dead stuff
underfoot. The forest thickened; the two soldiers slowed to a
canter, ducking the boughs which still swung from the Queen's
passing, and guiding their horses through the tangle of fallen wood
and water-logged holes that made the forest floor such dangerous
terrain. Half cursing, half laughing, and wholly occupied, it was
some minutes before they realized that they could no longer hear
the Queen's mare. The tangled underbrush showed no trace of a
horse's passing. They pulled up to listen. Nothing but the distant
scolding of a jay. They shouted, and got no answer. Annoyed rather
than alarmed, they separated, riding one in the direction of the
jay's scolding, the other still deeper into the forest.

"I'll spare you the rest," said Cei.
"You know how it is. After a bit they foregathered, and by then, of
course, they were alarmed. They shouted some more, and the grooms
heard them, and went in and joined the search. Then after a while
they heard the mare again. She was going hard, they said, and they
heard her whinnying. They struck their spurs in and went after
her."

"Yes?" I settled the injured arm into
the freshly tied sling, and he thanked me.

"That's better. I'm grateful. Well,
they found the mare three miles off, lame, and trailing a broken
rein, but no sign of the Queen. They sent the women back with one
of the grooms, and they went on searching. Bedwyr and I took troops
out, and for the rest of the day we've been quartering the forest
as best we could, but nothing." He lifted his good hand. "You know
what that country's like. Where it isn't a tangle of tree and scrub
that would stop a fire-breathing dragon, it's marsh where a horse
or a man would sink over his head. And even in the forest there are
ditches as deep as a man, and too wide to leap. That's where I came
to grief. Dead fir boughs spread over a hole, for all the world
like a wolf-trap. I'm lucky to have got away with just this. My
horse got a spike in the belly, poor beast. It's doubtful if he'll
be good for much again."

"The mare," I said. "Had she fallen?
Was she mired?"

"To the eyeballs, but that means
nothing. She must have galloped through marsh and mire for an hour.
The saddlecloth was torn, though. I think she must have fallen; I
can't see the Queen falling off her else -- unless she was swept
off by a bough. Believe me, we must have searched every brake and
ditch in the forest. She'll be lying unconscious somewhere...if not
worse. God, if she had to do such a thing, why couldn't she do it
when the King was at home?"