Legacy: Arthurian Saga (196 page)

Some two hours later Gawain, sent from
the palace, found him there. Mordred was sitting on a boulder at
some distance from the cottage, staring out to sea. Nearby lay
Brude's upturned boat, unharmed. Gawain, pale and shocked, called
his name, but when Mordred gave no sign of having heard him, he
reluctantly approached to touch the unheeding boy on the arm.
"Mordred. They sent me to find you. What on earth's happened?" No
reply. "Are they -- your folk -- are they --in there?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"How do I know? It was like that when
I came down."

"Ought we to -- is there
anything--?"

Mordred moved at that. "Don't go near.
You are not to go. Let them."

He spoke sharply, authoritatively. It
was the tone of an elder brother. Gawain, held by horrified
curiosity, obeyed without thinking. The men who had come with him
were already at the cottage, peering about them with subdued
exclamations, whether of horror or simple disgust it was hard to
tell.

The two boys watched, Gawain half
sickened, half fascinated, Mordred pale, and stiff in every
muscle.

"Did you go in?" asked
Gawain.

"Of course. I had to, hadn't
I?"

Gawain swallowed. "Well, I think you
should come back now, with me. The queen must be told." Then, when
Mordred made no move: "I'm sorry, Mordred. It's a dreadful thing to
happen. I'm sorry. But there's nothing you can do now, you must see
that. Leave it to them. Let's go now, shall we? You look
ill."

"I'm all right. I was sick, that's
all." He slid down off the boulder, stooped to a rock pool, and
dashed a handful of the salt water into his face. He straightened,
rubbing his eyes as if coming out of sleep. "I'll come now. Where
have the men gone?" Then, angrily: "Have they gone inside? What's
it to them?"

"They have to," said Gawain quickly.
"Don't you see, the queen will have to know....It isn't as if they
-- your folk -- as if they had just been ordinary folk, is it?"
Then, as Mordred turned to stare at him, half blindly: "Don't
forget who you are now, and they were the king's servants,
themselves, in a way. She has to know what happened,
Mordred."

"It was an accident. What
else?"

"I know. But she has to have a report.
And they'll do whatever's decent. Come on, we don't have to stay.
There's nothing we can do, nothing at all."

"Yes, there is." Mordred pointed to
the cottage door, where the milch goat, bleating, pattered to and
fro, to and fro, frightened by the unaccustomed movement, the
smells, the chaos, but driven by the pain of her swollen udders.
"We can milk the goat. Have you ever milked a goat,
Gawain?"

"No, I haven't. Is it easy? Are you
going to milk it now? Here?"

Mordred laughed, the brittle, light
laugh of tensions released. "No. We'll take her with us. And the
hens, too. If you get that net that's drying on the boat's keel,
I'll see if I can catch them."

He dived for the nearest, secured it
in an expert grip, then swooped on another as it wrestled with some
titbit in the seaweed. The simple anticlimax to tragedy did its
work as grief and shock exploded thankfully into action. Gawain,
prince and king-designate of Orkney, stood irresolutely for a few
moments, then did as he was bidden, and ran to strip the net off
the upturned boat.

When the men at length emerged from
the cottage and stood, in a close-talking huddle, near the doorway,
they saw the two boys toiling up the path. Gawain led the goat, and
Mordred carried, slung over his shoulder, an improvised bag of
netting filled with protesting hens.

Neither boy looked back.

They were met at the palace gate by
Gabran, who listened in silence to the story Gawain poured out, and
thereafter, having spoken gently to Mordred, called up servants to
rid the boys of their livestock ("And she is to be milked straight
away!" insisted Mordred) and then hurried them straight into the
palace.

"The queen must be told. I shall go to
her now. Mordred, go in and change and make yourself decent. She
will want to see you. Gawain, go with him."

He hurried off. Gawain, looking after
him with narrowed eyes, as if seeing something far away and bright,
said under his breath: "And one day, my fine Gabran, you will not
command princes as if they were your dogs. We know whose dog you
are! Who are you to take news to my mother in my place?" He flashed
a sudden grin at Mordred. "All the same, I'd sooner he did today!
Come on, we'd better get clean."

The twins were in the boys' room,
ostensibly busy, but obviously waiting with some impatience for
their first sight of their new half-brother. Agravain was sitting
on the bed sharpening his dagger on a whetstone, while Gaheris, on
the floor, rubbed a leather belt with grease to flex it. Gareth was
not there.

The twins were stocky, well-built
boys, with the ruddy hair and high color that marked Morgause's
sons by Lot, and, at the moment, sullen expressions that were
something less than welcoming. But it had apparently been made
clear to them that Mordred must be welcomed, for they gave him a
civil enough greeting, and thereafter sat staring at him, much as
cattle do at something strange and perhaps dangerous that has
strayed into their pasture.

A servant hurried in with a bowl of
water and a napkin, which he set on the floor. Gawain ran to the
clothes-chest and threw Mordred's things off onto his bed. He
burrowed inside the chest for his own things, while Mordred began
to strip.

"What are you changing for?" asked
Agravain.

"Our mother wants us," said Gawain,
muffled.

"Why?" asked Gaheris.

Gawain shot a look at Mordred that
meant, plainly, Not a word. Not yet. Aloud, he said: "That's our
business. You'll hear later."

"Him, too?" Agravain pointed at
Mordred.

"Yes."

Agravain was silent, watching as
Mordred slipped into one of the new tunics, and reached for the
worked leather belt with its sheath for a dagger, and the hanger
for a drinking horn. He fastened the buckle, and looked about him
for the silver-mounted horn Ailsa had given him.

"It's there, on the window sill," said
Gaheris.

"Did she really give you that one?
You're lucky. It's a beauty. It's the one I asked for," said
Agravain. The words were not angry or sullen, in fact they
contained no expression at all, but Mordred's eyes flicked to him
and then away again, as he clipped the horn to his belt.

"There was only one." Gawain spoke
over his shoulder. "And you and Gaheris always have to have the
same."

"Gareth's to get the golden one," said
Gaheris. He spoke in the same flat, unboylike tone. Again Mordred
glanced, and again the lids dropped over his eyes. Something had
registered in that cool brain, and was stored away for the
future.

Gawain wiped his face and dried it,
then threw the napkin to Mordred, who caught it. "Be quick, then
we've got to do our feet. She's fussy about the rugs." He glanced
round. "Where's Gareth, anyway?"

"With her, of course," said
Gaheris.

"Did you expect a full council of
welcome, then, brother?" asked Agravain.

Conversing with the twins, thought
Mordred, drying his feet, was like talking with a boy and his
reflection. Gawain said sharply: "It'll keep. I'll see you later.
Come on, Mordred, we'd better go."

Mordred stood up, smoothing down the
soft folds of the new tunic, and followed Gawain to the doorway.
The servant, coming in at that moment for the bowl, held the door
wide. Gawain paused without thinking, the natural gesture of a host
letting the guest precede him through the doorway. Then, as if
remembering something, he went quickly through himself, leaving
Mordred to follow.

The queen's door was guarded as
before. The spears came down as the boys approached. "Not you,
Prince Gawain," said one of the men. "Orders. Just the other
one."

Gawain stopped short, then stood to
one side, his face stony. When Mordred glanced at him, with a word
of half-anxious apology ready, he turned quickly away without
speaking, and strode off down the corridor. His voice rang out,
calling for a servant, peremptory, self-consciously
royal.

All three of them, thought Mordred to
himself. Well, Gawain's still generous because of the cliffside
rescue, but the other two are angry. I'll have to go carefully. The
quick brain behind the smooth brow added it all together, and found
a total that did not displease him. So they saw him as a threat,
did they? Why? Because he was, in fact. King Lot's eldest son?
Somewhere deep inside him that tiny spark of emulation, of longing,
of desire for high doing, kindled and glowed as something new:
ambition. Disjointed but clear, his thoughts spun. Bastard or not,
I am the king's eldest son, and they don't like it. Does this mean
that I really am a threat? I must find out. Perhaps he married her,
my mother, whoever she was...? Or perhaps a bastard can inherit...
his Arthur himself was begotten out of wedlock, and so was Merlin,
that found the King's sword of Britain....Bastardy, what need it
matter after all? What a man is, is all that counts....

The spears lifted. The queen's door
was open. He pushed the contused and mounting thoughts aside, and
came to the core of the matter. I shall have to be careful, he
thought. More than careful. There is no reason at all why she
should favor me, but as she does, I must take care. Not just of
them. Of her. Most of all, of her.

He went in.

Mordred, during the lonely vigil on
the beach, and then the long, silent trudge back to the palace and
the bracing exchange with the twins in the boys' room, had had
ample time to regain something like his normal -- and formidably
adult -- self-command. Morgause, scanning him closely as he
approached her, did not guess at it. The delayed effects of shock
still showed, and the disgust and horror of what he had seen had
drained the blood from his face and the life from his movements.
The boy who walked forward and stood in front of the queen was
silent and white-faced and kept his downcast eyes on the floor,
while his hands, tucked into the new leather belt, gripped
themselves into fists which apparently fought to control his
emotion.

So Morgause interpreted it. She sat in
her chair by the window where the sun poured in and made a pool of
warmth. Gabran had gone out again, taking Gareth with him, but the
queen's women were there, at the far end of the room, three of them
at their stitchery, a fourth sorting a basketful of newly spun
wool. The distaff, polished from much use, lay beside her on the
floor. Mordred was reminded, sharply, at a moment when he least
wanted it, of Sula's long days spent in the cottage doorway,
spinning, a task which of late had been increasingly painful to her
knotted fingers. He looked away, staring at the floor, and hoping,
with violence, that the queen's condolences and kindness would not
overset his control.

He need have had no fear. Morgause set
her chin on her fist, regarding him. In the new clothes he looked
princely, and enough like Arthur to make her eyes narrow and her
mouth tighten as she said, in a light pretty voice as emotionless
as a bird's: "Gabran told me what has happened. I am
sorry."

She sounded completely indifferent. He
glanced up, then down again, and said nothing. Why, indeed, should
she care? For her it was a relief not to have to pay any more. But
for Mordred... In spite of all the trappings of princedom, he saw
his position. With no other place to go to, he was completely at
the mercy of a queen who, apart from the trivial debt of the cliff
climb, had no cause to wish him well. He did not speak.

Morgause proceeded to make the
situation plain. "It seems that, nonetheless, the Goddess watches
over you, Mordred. Had you not been brought to our notice, what
would have become of you now, without a home, or any way to make a
livelihood? Indeed, you might well have perished with your foster
parents in the flames. Even had you escaped, you would have had
nothing. You would have become a servant to any peasant who needed
a skilled hand with his boat and net. A serfdom, Mordred, as hard
to break out of as slavery."

He neither moved nor glanced up, but
she saw the faint tremor of bracing muscles, and smiled to
herself.

"Mordred. Look at me."

The boy's eyes lifted,
expressionless.

She spoke crisply. "You have had a sad
shock, but you must fight to put it behind you. You know now that
you are a king's bastard, and that all you have owed to your foster
home is your food and lodging -- and even that by the king's orders
many years ago. I also had my orders, and have obeyed them. I might
never have chosen to take you from your foster home, but chance and
fate willed it otherwise. The very day before you met Prince Gawain
on the cliff, I saw something in the crystal that warned
me."

She paused on the lie. There had been
a brief flash in the boy's eyes. She interpreted it as the
half-frightened, half-fascinated interest that the poor folk
accorded her pretensions to magic power. She was satisfied. He
would be her creature, as were the other palace folk. Without
magic, and the terror she took care that it invoked, a woman could
hardly have held this stark and violent kingdom, so far from the
protecting swords of the kings whose task it was to keep Britain as
one. She went on: "Don't misunderstand me. I had no warning of last
night's disaster. If I had looked into the pool -- well, perhaps.
But the Goddess works in strange ways, Mordred. She told me you
would come to me, and see, you have come. So now it is doubly right
that you should forget all that is past, and try your best to
become a fighting man who has a place here in the court." She eyed
him, then added, in a softer tone: "And indeed, you are welcome. We
shall see that you are made so. But, king's bastard or not,
Mordred, you must earn your place."