Legacy: Arthurian Saga (185 page)

"I understand that you're going to
keep them?"

"You saw that? Yes. You would also see
that your courier came just in time to save Morgause."

I thought of my own effort to reach
him with my dreaming will, when I thought she would use the stolen
grail against him. "You were going to kill her?"

"Certainly, for killing
you."

"Without proof?"

"I don't need proof to have a witch
put to death."

I raised a brow at him, and quoted
what had been said at the opening of the Round Hall: "‘No man nor
woman shall be harmed unjustly, or punished without trial or
manifest proof of their trespass.'"

He smiled. "Well, all right. I did
have proof. I had your own word that she tried to kill
you."

"So you said. I thought you said it to
frighten her. I told you nothing."

"I know. And why not? Why did you keep
it secret from me that it was her poison that sent you to your
death in the Wild Forest, and then left you with the sickness that
was almost your death again?"

"You've answered that yourself. You
would have killed her, after the Wild Forest. But she was the
mother of that young son, and heavy with another, and I knew that
one day they would come to you, and become, in time, your faithful
servants. So I did not tell you. Who did?"

"Nimue."

"I see. And she knew -- how? By
divination?"

"No. From you. Something you said in
your delirium."

Everything, she had taken from me;
every last secret. I said merely: "Ah, yes...And do I take it that
she also found Mordred for you? Or did Morgause bring him into the
open, once Lot and I were dead?"

"No. He was still hidden. I understand
that he was lodged somewhere in the Orkney Islands. Nimue had
nothing to do with that. It was by the purest chance that I heard
of him. I got a letter. A goldsmith from York, who had done work
for Morgause before, traveled that way with some jewels he hoped to
sell her. These fellows, as you know, get into every corner of the
kingdom, and see everything."

"Not Beltane."

His head came up, surprised. "You know
him?"

"Yes, He's as good as blind. He has to
travel with a servant --"

"Casso," said the King. Then, as I
stared: "I told you I got a letter."

"From Casso?"

"Yes. It seems he was in Dunpeldyr
when -- ah, I see, that was when you met them? Then you will know
they were there on the night of the massacre. Casso, it appears,
saw and heard a good deal of what went on; people talk in front of
a slave, and he must have understood more than he was meant to. His
master could never be brought to believe that Morgause had anything
to do with events so dreadful, so went up to Orkney to try his luck
again. Casso, being less credulous, watched and listened, and
managed at length to locate the child who went missing on the night
of the massacre. He sent a message straight to me. As it happened,
I had just heard from Nimue that it was Morgause who caused your
death. I sent for her, and saw to it that she brought Mordred with
her. Why are you looking so dumbfounded?"

"On two counts. What should make a
slave -- Casso was a quarryman's laborer when I first found him --
write 'straight to' the High King?"

"I forgot I had not told you: he
served me once before. Do you remember when I went north into
Lothian to attack Aguisel? And how hard it was to find some way of
destroying that dirty jackal without bringing Tydwal and Urien down
on my head, swearing vengeance? Some word of this must have got
around, because I got a message from this same slave, evidence --
with facts that could be proved -- of something he had seen when he
was in Aguisel's service. Aguisel had misused a page, one of
Tydwal's young sons, and then murdered him. Casso told us where to
find the body. We found it; and others besides. The child had been
killed just as Casso had told us."

"And afterwards," I said dryly,
"Aguisel cut out the tongues of the slaves who had witnessed
it."

"You mean the man is dumb? Well, that
might account for the free way men seem to talk in front of him.
Aguisel paid dearly for failing to make sure he could not read or
write."

"Neither he could. When I knew him in
Dunpeldyr he was both dumb and helpless. It was I who, for a
service he had done me -- or rather, for no reason that I remember,
except perhaps the prompting of the god -- arranged to have him
taught."

Arthur, smiling, raised his cup to me.
"Did I call it 'pure chance'? I should have remembered who I was
talking to. I rewarded Casso after the Aguisel affair, of course,
and told him where to send any other information. I believe he has
been useful once or twice. Then, over this last thing, he sent
straight to me."

We spoke of it for a while longer,
then I came back to present matters. "What will you do with
Morgause now?"

"I shall have to settle that, with
your help, when I get back. Meanwhile I shall send orders that she
is to be kept under guard, at the nunnery at Amesbury. The boys
will stay with me, and I'll have them brought down to Caerleon for
Christmas. Lot's sons will be no problem; they're young enough to
find life at court exciting, and old enough now to do without
Morgause. As for Mordred, he shall have his chance. I will do the
same for him."

I said nothing. In the pause, the cat
purred, suddenly loud, and then stopped short on a sighing breath,
and slept.

"Well," said Arthur, "what would you
have me do? He is in my protection now, so -- even if I could ever
have harmed him -- I cannot kill him. I haven't had time to think
this thing through, and there'll be time enough later to discuss it
with you. But it has always seemed to me that once the boy had
survived Lot's murderous purge, I would sooner have him near me,
and under my eye, than hidden somewhere in the kingdom, with the
threat that that might entail. Say you agree with me."

"I do. Yes."

"So, if I keep him by me, and grant
him the birthright that he must have thought he would never see
--"

"I doubt if that has crossed his
mind," I said. "I don't think she has told him who he
is."

"So? Then I shall tell him myself.
Better still. He'll know that I needn't have accepted him. Merlin,
it might be well. You and I both remember what it was like to live
our youth out as unfathered bastards, and then to be told we were
of Ambrosius' blood. And who am I to take on me yet again the wish
for my son's death? Once was too much. God knows I paid for it." He
looked away again into the flames. There was a bitter line to his
mouth. After a while he lifted a shoulder. "You asked about
Caliburn. It seems that my sister Morgan took herself a lover; he
was one of my knights, a man called Accolon, a good fighter and a
fine man -- but one who could never say no to a woman. When King
Urbgen was here with Morgan, she cast her eyes on Accolon, and soon
had him at her girdle, like a greyhound fawning. Before she came
south she had got some northern smith to make a copy of Caliburn,
and while she was here in Camelot she managed to get Accolon to
exchange this for the sword itself. She must have reckoned, in a
time of peace, on getting herself free of the court and back to the
north before the loss was discovered. I don't know what favors she
granted Accolon, but certainly when she went north again with King
Urbgen, Accolon took leave and went with them."

"But why did she do this?"

His quick, surprised look made me
realize how rarely I had had to ask such a question. "Oh, the usual
reason: ambition. She had some idea of putting her husband on the
high throne of Britain with herself as his queen. As for Accolon,
I'm not sure what she promised him, but whatever it was, it cost
him his life. It should have cost hers, too, but there was no
proof, and she is Urbgen's wife. Her being my sister should not
have helped her, but he knew nothing of the plot, and I cannot
afford to have him as my enemy."

"How did she hope to get away with
it?"

"You had gone," he said simply. "She
must have had word from Morgause that you were ailing, and she was
making ready for her time of greatness. She reckoned that any man
who held the sword could command a following, and if the King of
Rheged were to raise it...Before that, of course, I was to have
been killed. Accolon tried. He picked a quarrel and fought me. It
was the substitute sword, of course; the metal was brittle as
glass. As soon as I tested it for use, I knew there was something
wrong, but it was too late. At the first clash it broke off short
below the hilt."

"And?"

"Bedwyr and the rest were shouting
'treachery,' but they hardly needed to. I could see from Accolon's
face that treachery was there. For all that his sword was still
whole, and mine was broken, I think he was afraid. I drove the hilt
into his face, and killed him with my dagger. I don't think he made
any resistance. Perhaps he was a true man, after all. I like to
think so."

"And the true sword? How did you know
where it was?"

"Nimue," he said. "It was she who told
me what had happened. Do you remember that day, at Applegarth, when
she told me to beware Morgan and the sword?"

"Yes. I thought she must mean
Morgause."

"So did I. But she was right. All the
time Morgan was at court, Nimue hardly left her side. I wondered
why, because it was obvious there was no love lost between them."
He gave a rueful little laugh. "I'm afraid I took it as a women's
quarrel...she's not overly fond of Guinevere, either...but she was
right about Morgan. The witch corrupted her when she was no more
than a girl. How Nimue got the sword back I don't know. She sent it
down from Rheged with an armed escort. I haven't seen her since she
went north."

I started to ask something more, but
he suddenly raised his head, listening.

"And here comes Bedwyr, if I'm not
mistaken. We've had little enough time together, Merlin, but there
will be other times. As God is good, there will be other times." He
got to his feet, put his hands down, and raised me. "Now we have
talked enough. You look exhausted. Will you go to your rest now,
and leave me to face Bedwyr and the others, and give them the news?
I warn you, it won't be a quiet party. They're likely to clean our
good host out of anything drinkable he has in his cellars, and take
the night to drink it..."

But I stayed with him to receive the
knights, and afterwards to drink with them. Nobody, all through the
long, noisy celebration, mentioned Nimue to me, and I did not ask
again.

9

We spent another full day resting at
The Bush of Holly. A party went back to the ford to bury the dead
men, and from there on to Camelot with messages from the King.
Another party was sent to Caerleon to give warning of the King's
approach. Then, while I rested, the young men went hunting. Their
day's sport provided an excellent dinner, and their servants and
pages, who came up with us that day, helped the innkeeper and his
wife cook and serve it. Where everyone slept that night, I have no
idea; I suspect that the horses were turned out, and that the
stable was even fuller than the inn. On the following day, to our
hosts' evident regret, the royal party moved off for
Caerleon.

Even after the building of Camelot,
Caerleon had kept its status as Arthur's western stronghold. We
rode in on a bright, windy day, with the Dragon standards snapping
and rippling from the roofs, and the streets leading up to the
fortress gates crowded with people. At my own insistence, I rode
cloaked and hooded, and to the rear of the party, rather than
beside the King. Arthur had finally been brought to accept my
decision not to take my place near him again; one cannot go back on
an abdication, and mine had been complete. He still had not
mentioned Nimue's part in that, though he must have been wondering
(along with others, who also avoided mentioning her name to me)
just how much of my power she had managed to assume. Of all people,
she should have "seen" that I was above ground again, and with the
King; should have known, in fact, that I had been put still living
into my tomb...

But no one asked questions, and I was
not prepared to supply what I believed to be the
answers.

In Caerleon they had allotted royal
chambers to me, next to Arthur's own. Two young pages, eyeing me
with the liveliest curiosity, conducted me to the rooms through
corridors crowded with bustling servants. Many of them knew me, and
all had obviously heard some version of the strange story; some
merely hurried past, making the sign against strong enchantment,
but others came forward with greetings and offers of service. At
last we reached my rooms, sumptuous apartments where a chamberlain
awaited me, and showed me a splendid array of clothing sent by the
King for me to choose from, with jewels from the royal coffers. A
little to his disappointment I set aside the cloth of gold and
silver, the peacock and the scarlet and the azure, and chose a warm
robe of dark-red wool, with a girdle of gilded leather, and sandals
of the same. Then, saying: "I will send light, my lord, and water
for your washing," he withdrew. A little to my surprise he signed
to the two boys to leave the chamber with him, and left me there
unattended.