Legacy: Arthurian Saga (194 page)

To his immediate relief, Sula was
alone. She was wiping her hands on a rag. Blood from a grazed
finger mingled on the rag with the slime and scales from the fish.
The flint knife lying on the table showed a rim of blood,
too.

"Your hand. Mother, you've cut
it!"

"It's nothing. They kept you a long
time."

"I know. The queen herself wanted to
talk to me. Wait till I tell you! The palace, it's a wonderful
place, and I went right into the queen's own house... But look here
first, Mother! She gave me presents."

He set the box on the table, and
opened it.

"Mother, look! The silver is for you
and Father, and the cloth, see, isn't it fine? Thick, too, good for
winter. And a flask of good wine, with a capon from the palace
kitchen. All this is for you...."

His voice trailed away uneasily. Sula
had not even glanced at the treasures; she was still wiping her
hands, over and over again, on the greasy rag.

Suddenly, Mordred was impatient. He
took the rag from her and threw it down, shoving the box nearer.
"Aren't you even going to look at them? Don't you even want to know
what the queen said to me?"

"I can see she was generous. We all
know she can be generous when it takes her. What was there for
you?"

"Promises." Gabran spoke from the
doorway as he stooped to enter. When he straightened his head was
only a finger's breadth from the stones of the roof. He was dressed
in a knee-length robe of yellow, with a deep tagged border of
green. Yellow stones winked at his belt, and he wore a collar of
worked copper. He was a fair man, with a crisp mane as blond as
barley straw falling to his shoulders, and the blue eyes of the
north. His presence filled the room and made the cottage seem more
poverty-stricken and dingy even than before.

If Mordred was conscious of this, Sula
was not. Unimpressed, she faced Gabran squarely, as she would have
faced an enemy. "What sort of promises?"

Gabran smiled. "Only what every man
should have, and Mordred has proved himself a man now -- or at
least the queen thinks so. A cup and a platter for his meat, and
tools for his work."

She stared at him, her lips working.
She did not ask what he meant. Nor did she make any of the gestures
of hospitality that came naturally to the folk of the
islands.

She said harshly: "These he
has."

"But not such as he should have," said
Gabran, gently. "You know as well as I, woman, that there should be
silver on his cup, and that his tools are not mattocks and fish
hooks, but a sword and a spear."

To expect and dread a thing for a
lifetime does not prepare one for the thing itself. It was as if he
had set the very spear to her breast. She threw up her hands,
hiding her face with her apron, and sank onto the stool beside the
table.

"Mother, don't!" cried Mordred. "The
queen -- she told me -- you must know what she told me!" Then, to
Gabran, distressed: "I thought she knew. I thought she would
understand."

"She does understand. Do you not,
Sula?"

A nod. She had begun to rock herself,
as if in grief, but she made no sound.

Mordred hesitated. Among the rough
folk of the islands, affectionate gestures were rarely made. He
went to her, but contented himself with a touch on the shoulder.
"Mother, the queen told me the whole story. How you and my father
took me from the sea-captain who had found me, and reared me for
your own. She told me who I am... at least, who my real father is.
So now she thinks I should go up to the palace with the other--King
Lot's other sons, and the nobles, and train as a fighting
man."

Still she said nothing. Gabran,
watching by the door, never moved.

Mordred tried again. "Mother, you must
have known I would be told someday. And now that I know... you
mustn't be sorry. still can't be sorry, you must see that. It
doesn't change anything here, this is still my home, and you and
Father are still..." He swallowed. "You'll always be my folk, you
will, believe me! Someday--"

"Aye, someday," she interrupted him,
harshly. The apron came down. In the wavering light of the lamp her
face was sickly pale, smeared with dirt from the apron. She did not
look at Gabran, elegant in the doorway. Mordred watched her
appealingly; there was love in his face, and distress, but there
was also something she recognized, a high look of excitement,
ambition, the iron-hard will to go his way. She had never set eyes
on Arthur, High King of Britain, but looking at Mordred, she
recognized his son.

She said, heavily: "Aye, someday.
Someday you'll come back, grown and grand, and carrying gold to
give the poor folk who nursed you. But now you try to tell me that
nothing's changed. For all you say it makes no difference who you
are--"

"I didn't say that! Of course it makes
a difference! Who wouldn't be glad to know he was a king's son? Who
wouldn't be glad to have the chance to bear arms, and maybe someday
to travel abroad and see the mainland kingdoms, where things are
happening that matter to the world? When I said nothing would
change, I mean the way I feel -- the way I feel about you and my
father. But I can't help wanting to go! Please try to understand. I
can't pretend, not all the way, that I'm sorry."

At the distress in his face and voice
she softened suddenly. "Of course you can't, boy. You must forgive
an old woman who's dreaded this moment for so long. Yes, you must
go. But do you have to go now? Is yon fine gentleman waiting to
take you back with him?"

"Yes. They said I had just to get my
things and go straight back."

"Then get them. Your father won't be
back till the dawn tide. You can come and see him as soon as they
let you." A glimmer of something that was almost a smile. "Don't
you worry, boy, I'll tell him what's happened."

"He knows all about it, too, doesn't
he?"

"Of course he does. And he'll see that
it had to come. He's made himself forget it, I think, though I've
seen it coming this past year or so. Yes, in you, Mordred. Blood
tells. Still, you've been a good son to us, for all there's been
something in you fretting after a different way...We took pay for
you, you know that...Where did you think we got the money for the
good boat, and the foreign nets? I'd have nursed you for nothing,
in place of the one I lost, and then you were as good as our own,
and better. Aye, we'll miss you sorely. It's a hard trade for a man
as he gets older, and you've pulled your weight on the rope, that
you have."

Something was working in the boy's
face. He burst out: "I won't go! I won't leave you. Mother! They
can't make me!"

She looked sadly at him. "You will,
lad. Now you've had a sight of it, and a taste of it, you will. So
get your things. Yon gentleman's on the fidget to be
gone."

Mordred glanced from her to Gabran.
The latter nodded and said, not unkindly: "We should hurry. The
gates will soon be shut."

The boy went across to his bedplace.
This was a stone shelf, with a bag stuffed full of dried bracken
for a mattress, and a blue blanket spread across. From a recess in
the wall below the shelf he took his possessions. A sling, some
fish hooks, a knife, his old working tunic. He had no shoes. He
laid the fish hooks back on the bed, and the working tunic with
them. He hesitated over the sling. He felt the smooth wood that
fitted so readily into his hand, and fingered the bag of pebbles,
rounded and glossy, gathered so carefully from the beach. Then
these, too, he laid aside. Sula watched him, saying nothing.
Between them the words hung, unspoken, the tools for his work; a
sword and a spear...

He turned back. "I'm ready now." He
was empty-handed, but for his knife.

If any of the three noticed the
symbolism of the moment, nothing was said. Gabran reached for the
door curtain. Before he could touch it it was pushed aside, as the
goat shouldered her way into the room. Sula got up from her stool,
and reached for the bowl to hold the milk. "You'd best go, then.
Come back when they let you, and tell us what it's like up there at
the palace."

Gabran held the curtain wide. Mordred
went slowly towards the door. What was there to say? Thanks were
not enough, and yet were more than enough. He said awkwardly:
"Goodbye then, Mother," and went out. Gabran let the curtain fall
behind them.

Outside, the tide was on the turn, and
the wind had freshened, dispersing the smell of fish. The sweet air
met him. It was like plunging into a different stream.

Gabran was untying the horse. In the
growing darkness the knots were awkward, and he fumbled over them.
Mordred hesitated, then ran back into the stink of the hut. Sula
was milking the goat. She did not look up. He could see a track of
moisture in the dirt on her cheek like the track of a snail. He
stopped in the doorway, clutching the curtain, and said hoarsely
and rapidly: "I'll come back whenever they let me, truly I will. I
-- I'll see you're all right, you and he. Someday... someday I
promise I'll be somebody, and I'll look after you both."

She made no sign.

"Mother."

She did not look up. Her hands never
stopped.

"I hope," said Mordred, "that I never
do find out who my real mother is." He turned and ran out again
into the dusk.

"Well?" asked Morgause.

It was well past dawn. She and Gabran
were alone together in her bedchamber.

In the outer room her women slept, and
in the chamber beyond that the five boys -- Lot's four and her son
by Arthur -- had been asleep long since. But the queen and her
lover were not abed. She sat beside a glowing bank of peat. She
wore a long night robe of creamy white, and furred slippers made
from the winter skin of the blue hare that runs on the High Island.
Her hair was loose over her shoulders, glimmering in the peat
fire's glow. In that soft light she looked little more than twenty
years old, and very beautiful.

Though, as ever, she stirred his
senses, the young man knew that this was not the moment to show it.
Still fully dressed, his damp cloak over his arm, he kept his
distance and answered her, subject to monarch: "All is very well,
madam. It's done, just as you wished it done."

"No trace of violence?"

"None. They were asleep -- either
that, or they had drunk too much of the wine you sent
them."

A small smile, that innocence would
have thought innocent, hung on her pretty mouth. "If they only
sipped it, Gabran, it was enough." She lifted the lovely eyes to
his, saw nothing there but dazzled admiration, and added: "Did you
think I would take chances? You should know better. So, it was
easy?"

"Very easy. All that will appear is
that they drank too deeply, and were careless, and that the lamp
fell and the oil spilled on the bedding, and--" A gesture finished
it for him.

She drew a breath of satisfaction, but
something in his voice gave her pause. Though Morgause valued, and
was even fond of, her handsome young lover, she would have got rid
of him in a moment if it had suited her to do so; but as yet she
had need of him, and must keep him faithful. She said gently: "Too
easy, I think you mean, Gabran? I know, my dear. Men like you don't
like an easy killing, and killing these folk is like slaughtering
beasts -- no work for a fighting man. But it was necessary. You
know that."

"I suppose so."

"You told me that you thought the
woman knew something."

"Or guessed. It was hard to tell.
These folk all look like weathered kelp. I couldn't be certain.
There was something in the way she spoke to him, and the way she
looked when he said you had told him the whole story." He
hesitated. "If so, then she -- both of them -- have kept silence
all these years."

"So?" said the queen. She held a hand
out to the fire's warmth. "That is not to say they would have gone
on keeping it. With the boy gone, they might begin to feel they had
a grievance, and folk with a grievance are dangerous."

"Would they have dared speak? And to
whom?"

"Why, to the boy himself. You told me
that Sula urged him to go back there, and naturally -- at first --
he would have been eager to go. One word, one hint, would have been
enough. You know whose son he is; and you have seen him. Do you
think it needs more than a breath to kindle a blaze of ambition
that could destroy all my plans for the future? Take my word for
it, it was necessary. Gabran, dear boy, you may be the best lover a
woman ever took to her bed, but you could never rule any kingdom
wider than that same bed."

"Why should I ever want
to?"

She threw him a smile, part affection,
part mockery. Emboldened, he took half a step towards her, but she
stopped him. "Wait. Consider. This time I'll tell you why. And
don't pretend you've never made a guess at my plans concerning this
bastard." She turned her hand this way and that, apparently
admiring the glitter of her rings. Then she looked up, confidingly.
"You may be right in part. I may have flown my hawk too early and
too fast, but the chance came to take the boy from his foster home
and bring him here without too much questioning. Besides, he is ten
years old, high time he should be trained in the skills and manners
of a prince. And once I had taken that step, the other had to
follow. Until the right moment comes, my brother Arthur must hear
no hint of his whereabouts. Nor must that arch-mage Merlin, and in
his heyday he could have heard the very rushes whispering on the
Holy Isle. Old and foolish as he is, we can risk nothing. I have
not kept my son and Arthur's secret all these years, to have him
taken from me now. He is my pass to the mainland. When he is ready
to go there, I shall go with him."