Legacy: Arthurian Saga (182 page)

She had not expected this. I saw her
gasp. The white hands fluttered, as if she would have put them to
her throat. But she held them still. "Who has told you this
lie?"

"It is no lie. When he lay dying, he
himself accused you."

"He was always my enemy!" she
cried.

"And who is to say he was wrong? You
know what you have done. Do you deny it?"

"Of course I deny it! He hated me,
always! And you know why. He wanted no one to have power over you
but himself. We sinned, yes, you and I, but we sinned in innocence
--"

"If you are wise, you will not speak
of that." His voice was dry and icy. "You know, as well as I do,
what sins were committed, and why. If you hope for any mercy now,
or ever, you will not speak of it."

She bowed her head. Her fingers
twisted together. Her pose was humble. When she spoke, she spoke
quietly. "You are right, my lord. I should not have spoken so. I
will not encumber you with memories. I have obeyed you, and brought
your son to you, and I leave your heart and conscience to deal
rightly with him. You will not deny that he is
innocent."

He said nothing. She tried again, with
the hint of her old sideways, glinting look.

"For myself, I admit that I stand
accused of folly. I come to you, Arthur, as a sister, who
--"

"I have two sisters," he said stonily.
"The other one has just now tried to betray me. Do not speak to me
of sisters."

Her head went up. The thin disguise of
suppliant was shed. She faced him, a queen to his king. "Then what
can I say, except that I come to you as the mother of your
son?"

"You have come to me as the murderer
of the man who was more to me than my own father. And as nothing
else. You are no more to me, and no less. This is why I sent for
you, and what I shall judge you for."

"He would have killed me. He would
have had you kill your own son."

"That is not true," said the King. "He
prevented me from killing you both. Yes, I see that shakes you.
When I heard of the child's birth, my first thought was to send
someone up to kill him. But, if you remember, Lot was before
me...And Merlin, of all men, would have saved the child because he
is mine." For the first time passion showed through a crack in his
composure. "But he is not here now, Morgause. He will not protect
you again. Why do you think I refused to receive you in the open
hall tonight, in the presence of the Queen and the knights? That is
what you hoped for, is it not? You, with your pretty face and
voice, your four fine boys by Lot, and this youth here with those
dark eyes, and the look of his royal kindred..."

"He has done you no harm!" she
cried.

"No, he has done me no harm. Now
listen to me. Your four sons by Lot I will take from you, and have
them trained here at Camelot. I will not have them left in your
care, to be brought up as traitors, to hate their King. As for
Mordred, he has done me no wrong, though I have wronged him sorely,
and so have you. I will not add sin to sin. I have been warned of
him, but a man must do right, even to his own hurt. And who can
read the gods accurately? You will leave him with me
also."

"And have you murder him as soon as I
am gone?"

"And if I do, what choice have you but
to let me?"

"You've changed, brother," she said,
spitefully.

For the first time, something like a
smile touched his mouth.

"You might say so. For what comfort it
is to you now, I shall not kill him. But you, Morgause, because you
slew Merlin, who was the best man in all this realm --"

He was interrupted. From the gatehouse
came a clatter of hoofs, the quick challenge from the sentries, a
breathless word, then the creak and crash of the gates opening. A
horse, tagged with foam, clattered through, and came to a halt
beside the King and stood. Its head went down to its knees. Its
limbs trembled. The courier slid down from the saddle, grabbed at
the girth to keep his own limbs from folding under him, then went
carefully on one knee, and saluted the King.

It was hardly a comfortable
interruption. Arthur faced about, his brows drawn, and anger in his
face. "Well?" he asked. His voice was even. He knew that no courier
would have got through to him at such a moment, and in such a
state, unless his business drove him. "Wait, I remember you, don't
I? Perseus, is it not? What news can you possibly bring from Glevum
that makes it worth your while to kill a good horse, and break in
on my private councils?"

"My lord -- " The man cleared his
throat, with a glance at Morgause. "My lord, it is urgent news,
most urgent, that I must deliver privately. Forgive me." This half
to Morgause, who was standing like a statue, hands to her throat.
Some wisp of forgotten magic, trailing, may have warned her what
the news might be.

The King regarded him in silence for a
moment, then nodded. He called out an order, and two of the guards
came forward, halting one on either side of Morgause. Then he
turned, with a sign to the courier, and walked back up the roadway
with the man following him.

At the foot of the palace steps he
paused and turned.

"Your message?"

Perseus held out the package I had
given him. "I met an old man on the road who gave me this token,
and told me that he is on his way to Camelot to see the King. But
he can only make his way slowly, so if the King wishes to see him,
he must come to him. He is traveling by the road that runs over the
hills between Aquae Sulis and Camelot. He told me --"

"He gave you this?" The brooch lay in
the King's hand. The Dragon winked and glittered. Arthur looked up
from it, his face colorless.

"Yes, my lord." The clipped recital
hurried. "I was to tell you that he paid me for my service with the
ferryman's guerdon." He held out his hand with the gold coin in the
palm.

The King took it like a man in a
dream, glanced at it, and handed it back. In his other hand he was
turning the brooch this way and that, so that the Dragon flashed in
the torchlight. "You know what this is?"

"Indeed, my lord. It's the Dragon.
When I saw it first I asked what his right to it was, but then I
knew him. My lord, yes..." The King, his face quite bloodless now,
was staring. The man licked his lips, and somehow got the rest of
the message out. "When he stopped me, yesterday, he was near the
thirteenth milestone. He -- he didn't look too good, my lord. If
you do ride to meet him, it's my guess he won't have got much
beyond the next inn. It stands back from the road, on the south
side, and the sign's a bush of holly."

"A bush of holly." Arthur repeated it
with no expression at all, like a man talking in his sleep. Then,
suddenly, the trance that held him shattered. Color flooded his
face. He threw the brooch up in the air, flashing and turning, and
caught it again. He laughed aloud. "I might have known! I might
have known...This is real, at any rate!"

"He told me," said Perseus, "he told
me he was no ghost. And that it wasn't every tomb that was the gate
of death."

"Even his ghost," said Arthur. "Even
his ghost..." He whirled and shouted. Men came running. Orders were
flung at them. "My grey stallion. My cloak and sword. I give you
four minutes." He put out a hand to the courier. "You will stay
here in Camelot till my return. You have done more than well,
Perseus. I'll remember it. Now go and rest...Ah, Ulfin. Tell Bedwyr
to bring twenty of the knights and follow me. This man will direct
them. Give him food, and tend his horse and keep him till I come
again."

"And the lady?" asked
someone.

"Who?" It was plain that the King had
forgotten all about Morgause. He said indifferently: "Hold her
until I have time for her, and let her speak to no one. No one, do
you understand me?"

The stallion was brought, with two
grooms clinging to the bit. Someone came running with cloak and
sword. The gates crashed open. Arthur was in the saddle. The grey
stallion screamed and climbed the torchlit air, then leaped forward
under the spur, and was out of the gate with the speed of a thrown
spear. It went down the steep, winding causeway as if it had been a
level plain in daylight. It was the way the boy Arthur had once
ridden through the Wild Forest, and to the same
assignation...

Morgause, her virgin white spattered
with thrown turf and sods, stood stiffly between her guards, as
men-at-arms clattered past her. The boys were in their midst, and
Mordred among them. They vanished towards the palace without a
backward look.

For the first time since I had known
her, I saw her, no more than a frightened woman, making the sign
against strong enchantment.

7

Next morning the innkeeper and his
wife, to their alarm and distress, found me lying on the cooling
hearth, apparently in a faint. They got me into bed, wrapped
winter-stones to warm me, piled blankets around me, and got the
fire going once more. When, in time, I wakened, the good folk
looked after me with the anxious care they might have accorded
their own father. I was not much the worse. Moments of vision have
always to be paid for; first with the pain of the vision itself,
then afterwards in the long trance of exhausted sleep.

Reckoning out the distances, I let
myself rest quietly for the remainder of that day, then next
morning, putting my hosts' protests aside, had them saddle my
horse. They were reassured when I told them I would not ride far,
but only a mile or so down the road, where a friend could be
expected to meet me. I further allayed their fears by asking them
to prepare a dinner "for myself and my friend."

"For," I said, "he loves good food,
and the goodwife's cooking is as tasty as any, I'll swear, at the
King's court of Camelot."

At that the innkeeper's wife laughed
and bridled, and began to talk of capons, so I left money to pay
for the food, and went my way.

After the spell of hard frost, the
weather had slackened. The sun was up, and dealing some warmth. The
air was mild enough, but still everywhere was the hint of winter's
coming; in the bare trees of the heights, the fieldfares busy in
the berried holly, redwings flocking on the bushes, nuts ripe in
the hazel coppices. The bracken was fading gold, and there were
still flowers out on the gorse.

My horse, after his long rest, was
fresh and eager, and we covered the first stretch of road at a fast
canter. We met no one. Soon the road left the high crest of the
limestone hills, and slanted downward along a valley-side. All
along the lower reaches of the valley the slopes were crowded with
trees in the flaming colors of autumn; beech, oak and chestnut,
birch in its yellow gold, with everywhere the dark spires of the
pine trees and the glossy green of holly. Through the trees I
caught the glint of moving water. Down by the river, the innkeeper
had told me, the way forked. The road itself held straight across
the river, which here was paved in a shallow ford, and just beyond
the water another way led off to the right, through the forest.
This was a little-used track, and a rough one, which cut off a
corner to rejoin the graveled road some miles farther toward the
east.

This was the place I was making for.
It was a full mile since I had seen any sort of dwelling; the ford
was as private for our meeting as a midnight bedchamber. I dared
not go farther to meet him. Whenever Arthur had to ride, he made
all speed, and cut all corners. Not knowing the forest track, I
could not count on his using it, so might miss him if I took one
way or the other.

It was a good place to wait. Down in
the hollow the sun shone warmly, and the air was mild but fresh. It
smelled of pines. Two jays wrestled and scolded in a shaw of
hollies, then flew low across the road with a flash of sky-blue in
their wings. Distantly, in the woods to the southeast, I heard the
long rasping noise that meant a woodpecker at work. The river
whispered across the road, running gently, no more than a foot deep
across the Roman setts of the ford.

I unsaddled my horse and slacked his
bit, then unbuckled an end of the rein, tied it to a hazel stem,
and left him to graze. There was a fallen pine a few paces from the
river's edge, full in the sun. I set the saddle down by the tree
trunk, then sat down beside it to wait.

My timing had been good. I had waited
there barely an hour when I caught the sound of hoofs on the gravel
road. So he had kept to the high road, not cutting the corner
through the forest. He was not hurrying, but riding easily, no
doubt resting his horse. Nor was he alone. Bedwyr, hard on his
heels, had perhaps been allowed to come up with him.

I walked out into the road and stood
waiting for him.

Three horsemen came trotting through
the forest, and down the gentle slope leading to the far side of
the ford. They were all strangers; moreover, they were a kind of
man who nowadays was rare enough. In times past, the roads,
especially those in the wilder lands to the north and west, were
rife with danger for the lonely traveler, but Ambrosius, and Arthur
after him, had swept the main posting-roads clear of outlaws and
masterless men. But not quite, it seemed. These three had been
soldiers; they still wore the leather armor of their calling, and
two of them sported battered metal caps. The youngest of them,
sprucer than the others, had stuck a sprig of scarlet berries
behind one ear. All three were unshaven, and armed with knives and
short-swords. The oldest of them, with streaks of grey in a heavy
brown beard, had an ugly-looking cudgel strapped to his saddle.
Their horses were sturdy mountain cobs, cream, brown and black,
their hides thick with dirt and damp, but well fed, and powerful.
It did not need any prophet's instinct to know that here were three
dangerous men.