Legacy: Arthurian Saga (203 page)

One of the guards closed in then, with
a smile and a word, and Mordred moved back into the
troop.

Afterwards he was to have only the
haziest recollections of his first sojourn in Rheged. The castle
was huge, crowded, grand and troubled. The boys were handed
straight to the king's sons; in fact the sharp impression was of
being bundled out of the way while some crisis, never fully
explained to them, was sorted out. King Urbgen, perfectly
courteous, was abstracted and brief; Queen Morgan did not appear at
all. It seemed that recently she had been kept in a seclusion that
almost amounted to imprisonment.

"Something about a sword," said
Gawain, who had managed to overhear a conversation in the
guardroom. "The High King's sword. She took it from Camelot while
he was abroad, and put a substitute in its place."

"Not just the sword," said Gaheris.
"She took a lover, and gave the sword to him. But the High King
killed him just the same, and now King Urbgen wants to put her
away."

"Who told you that? Surely our uncle
would never let him use his sister so, whatever she had
done."

"Oh, yes. Because of the sword, which
was treachery. So the High King will let him put her away," said
Gaheris eagerly. "As for the lover--"

But at this point Gabran came across
the courtyard to them, with a summons to the stables, and even
Gaheris, not famed for his tact, thought it better to postpone the
discussion for the time being.

They found out a little more, but only
a little, from Urbgen's two sons. They were grown men, sons by the
king's first marriage, seasoned fighters who had at first taken
pride in their father's alliance with Arthur's young sister, but
now wished her gone, and were ready to support Urbgen's petition to
have the marriage set aside.

The truth, it appeared, was this.
Morgan, tied by marriage to a man many years her senior, had taken
as lover one of Arthur's Companions, a man called Accolon, brave,
ambitious and high-spirited. Him she had persuaded, while Arthur
was abroad from Camelot, to steal his great sword Caliburn, that
men called the sword of Britain, and carry it to Rheged, leaving in
its place a substitute fashioned secretly by some creature of
Morgan's in the north.

What the queen intended was never
satisfactorily explained. She cannot have thought that young
Accolon, even with Urbgen out of the way, the sword of Britain in
his hand, and Morgan married to him, could ever have been able to
supplant Arthur as High King. It was more probable that she had
used her lover to further her own ambition, and that the tale she
eventually told to Urbgen was truthful in the main. She had had
dreams, she said, which had led her to expect Arthur's sudden death
abroad. So, to forestall the chaos following on this, she had taken
it upon herself to secure the symbolic sword of Britain for King
Urbgen, that tried and brilliant veteran of a dozen battles, and
husband of Arthur's only legitimate sister. True, Arthur himself
had declared the Duke of Cornwall to be his heir, but Duke Cador
was dead, and his son Constantine still a child....

So went the tale. As for the
substitution of a worthless copy for the royal sword, that, she
alleged, had only been a device to help the theft. The sword hung
habitually above the King's chair in the Round Hall at Camelot, and
nowadays was taken down only for ceremony, or for battle. The copy
had been hung there only to deceive the eye. But from it might have
come tragedy. Arthur had returned unharmed from his travels, and
afraid for himself and Morgan should the theft be discovered,
challenged the King to fight, and with his own good sword attacked
Arthur armed only with the brittle copy of Caliburn. The outcome of
that fight was already part of the growing legend of the King. In
spite of his treacherous advantage Accolon had been killed, and
Morgan, afraid now of the vengeance of both brother and husband,
declared to all who would listen that the fight was none of her
making, but only Accolon's, and since he was dead, no one could
contradict her. If she mourned her dead lover, she did so in
secret. To those who would listen she deplored his folly, and
protested her devotion--mistaken, she admitted, but real and
deep--to her brother Arthur and to her own lord.

Hence the turmoil in the castle. No
decisions had been made as yet. The lady Nimue, successor to Merlin
as Arthur's adviser, and (it was said) to Merlin's power, had come
north to recover the sword. Her message was uncompromising. Arthur
was not prepared to forgive his sister for what he saw as
treachery; and should Urbgen wish to avenge the betrayal of his
bed, he had the King's leave to use his faithless queen as he saw
fit.

As yet the King of Rheged had barely
trusted himself to talk with his wife, let alone judge her. The
lady Nimue was still housed in Luguvallium, though not in the
castle itself; somewhat to Urbgen's relief she had declined his
offer of hospitality, and was lodged in the town. Urbgen had had
enough (as he confided to his sons) of women and their dabbling in
dreams and sorcery. He would have liked to refuse Morgause's visit,
but there were no grounds on which he could do so, and besides, he
was curious to see "the witch of Orkney" and her sons. So the great
King Urbgen steered his way cautiously between Nimue and Morgause,
allowing the latter to visit and talk with her sister at will, and
praying that the former, now that her business in the north was
concluded, would leave Luguvallium without too embarrassing a
confrontation with her old enemy Morgause.

After supper on the third night of
their visit, Mordred, avoiding the other boys, walked back alone
from the hall to the rooms where the princes were housed. His way
took him through a strip of land which lay between the main block
of the castle buildings and the river.

Here lay a garden, planted and tended
for Queen Morgan's pleasure; her windows looked out over beds of
roses and flowering shrubs, and lawns that edged the water. Now the
stalks of dead lilies stood up in a tangle of sweetbriar and
leafless honeysuckle, and fungus rings showed dark green on the
grass. Marks on the walls beside the queen's windows showed where
the cages of her singing birds had hung before being carried
indoors for the winter. Swans idled at the river's edge, no doubt
waiting for the food the queen had brought them in less troubled
days, and a pair of snow-white peacocks had flown to roost, like
great ghosts, in a tall pine tree. In summer no doubt the place was
pretty and full of scent and color and the songs of birds, but now,
in the chill damp of an autumn evening, it looked deserted and sad,
and smelled of unswept leaves and river mud.

But Mordred lingered, fascinated by
this new example of mainland luxury. He had never seen a garden
before, never even imagined that a piece of land could be carefully
designed and planted simply for beauty, and its owner's pleasure.
Earlier he had caught a glimpse, from a window, of a statue looking
like a ghost against a dark tangle of leaves. He set himself to
explore.

The statue was strange, too. A girl,
airily draped, stooped as if to pour water from a foreign-looking
shell into a stone basin below her. The only statues he had seen
before were the crude gods of the islands, stones with watching
eyes. This girl was lovely, and almost real. The dusk made gentle
shadows of the grey lichen that patched her arms and gown. The
fountain was dry now, the shell empty, but the stone bowl was still
filled with water and the remains of the summer's water-lilies.
Below the blackened leaves he could just see, dimly, the sluggish
movement of fish.

He left the dead fountain, and trod
softly across the lawn towards the river bank and the floating
swans. There, facing the river and hidden from the palace windows
by a brick wall thick with vines, was an arbor, a charming place,
paved with mosaic work and furnished with a curved stone bench
whose ends were richly carved with grapes and cupids.

Something was lying on the bench. He
went across to look. It was an j, embroidery frame, holding its
square of linen half worked with a pretty design of strawberries
twined in their leaves and flowers. He picked it up curiously, to
find that the linen was sodden, and marked by the stone where it
had lain. It must have been there for some time, forgotten. He was
not to know that Queen Morgan herself had dropped it when, here in
their usual trysting-place, the news had been brought to her of her
lover's death. She had not been in the garden since that
day.

Mordred laid the spoiled linen back on
the seat, and recrossed the lawn to the path below the windows. As
he did so a light was kindled in one of them, and voices came
clearly. One of these, raised in distress or anger, was unfamiliar,
but the other, answering it, was the voice of Morgause. He caught
the words "ship" and "Camelot," and then "the princes," and at
that, without even pausing to think about it, he left the path and
stepped up close to the wall under the window,
listening.

The windows were unglazed, but set
high in the wall, a few spans above his head. He could hear only in
snatches, as the women raised their voices or moved nearer the
window. Morgan -- for the first voice proved to be hers -- seemed
to be pacing the chamber, restless, and half-distraught.

She was speaking. "If he puts me
away...if he dares! I, the High King's own sister! Whose only fault
is that she was led astray by care for her brother's kingdom and
love of her lord! Could I help it if Accolon was mad for love of
me? Could I help it if he attacked Arthur? All that I
did--"

"Yes, yes, you have told me that tale
already." Morgause was unsympathetic and impatient. "Spare me, I
beg you! But have you managed to make Urbgen believe
it?"

"He will not speak with me. If I could
only come to him--"

Morgause interrupted again, amusement
veiling contempt. "Why wait? You are Queen of Rheged, and you keep
telling whoever will listen that you deserve nothing of your lord
but gratitude and a little forgiveness for folly. So why hide away
here? If I were you, sister, I would put on my finest gown, and the
queen's crown of Rheged, and go into the hall, attended, when he is
at meat, or in council. He will have to listen to you then. If he
is still undecided about it, he won't risk slighting Arthur's
sister in open court."

"With Nimue there?" asked Morgan
bitterly.

"Nimue?" Morgause sounded considerably
startled. "Merlin's trollop? Is she still here?"

"Yes, she's still here. And she's a
queen now, too, sister, so watch your tongue! She married Pelleas
since the old enchanter died, didn't you know? She sent the sword
south, but she stayed on, lodging somewhere in the town. I suppose
he didn't tell you that? Just holds his tongue and hopes you won't
meet!" A shrill, edged laugh as Morgan turned away again. "Men! By
Hecate, how I despise them! They have all the power, and none of
the courage. He's afraid of her... and of me... and of you, too, I
don't doubt! Like a big dog among spitting cats...Oh, well, perhaps
you're right. Perhaps--"

The rest was lost. Mordred waited,
though the subject held small interest for him. The outcome of the
queen's trespass and the king's anger concerned him not at all. But
he was intrigued by what he had heard of Morgan's reputation, and
by the easy mention of great names that until now had only been the
stuff of lamplight tales.

In a minute or so, when he could
distinguish words again, he did hear something that made him prick
up his ears.

Morgause was speaking. "When Arthur
gets home will you go to see him?"

"Yes. I have no choice. He has sent
for me, and they tell me that Urbgen is making arrangements for my
escort."

"Guard, do you mean?"

"And if I do, why should you smile,
Morgause? What do you call your escort of king's soldiers that is
taking you south at Arthur's orders?"

There was spite in her voice. Morgause
reacted to it swiftly.

"That is rather different. I never
played my lord false--"

"Ha! Not after he married you, at any
rate!"

"--nor proved traitor to
Arthur--"

"No?" Morgan's laugh was
wild.

"Traitor, well, no! Traitor isn't
quite the word, is it? And he wasn't your king at the time, I grant
you that!"

"I prefer not to understand you,
sister. You can hardly mean to accuse me--"

"Oh, come, Morgause! Everyone knows
about that now! And here, in this very castle! Well, all right,
it's a long time ago. But you surely don't think he's sent for you
now for old times' sake? You can't be deluding yourself that he'll
want you near him? Even with Merlin gone, Arthur won't want you
back at court. Depend on it, all he wants is the children, and once
he has them--"

"He won't touch Lot's children."
Morgause's voice was raised for the first time, edged and sharp.
"Even he would not dare! And why should he? Whatever quarrel lay
between him and Lot in the past. Lot died fighting under the Dragon
banner, and Arthur will honor his sons in consequence. He must
support Gawain's claims, he can do no other. He will not dare let
it be said that he is finishing the murder of the
children."

Morgan was right beside the window.
Her voice, pitched low, and rather breathless, was nevertheless
quite clear. "Finishing? He never began it. Oh, don't look like
that. Everyone knows that, too. It was not Arthur who had the
babies massacred. No, nor Merlin, either. Don't pretend to me,
Morgause."