Legacy: Arthurian Saga (208 page)

He paused, looking at them again. The
boys were silent.

"Yes, I see that you were. Well, until
he talks with Merlin, and with Queen Morgause, we will leave the
matter. She can count herself fortunate that Merlin is not dead.
And as for you, you must content yourselves with the King's
assurance that he will not harm you. There are things to settle,
old scores to resolve that you know nothing about. Believe me, the
King is a just man, and Merlin's counsels are wise, and harsh only
when it is needful."

When he left them, the boys burst out
into angry talk and speculation. It seemed to Mordred, listening,
that their anger was more on their own account than on their
mother's. It was a matter of pride. None of them would have wanted
to be, once again, under Morgause's rule. This new freedom, this
world of men and men's actions, suited them all, and even Gareth,
who in Orkney had run the risk of effeminacy, was hardening up to
become one of them. He, like the rest, saw no reason for a prince
to stop at murder if it suited his plans.

Mordred said nothing, and the others
did not find this strange. What claim after all had the bastard on
the queen? But Mordred did not even hear them. He was back in the
darkness, with the smoke and the smell of fish and the frightened
whispering. "Merlin is dead. They made a feast at the palace, and
then" -- and then -- "the news came." And the queen's words in the
stillroom, with the potions and the scent and the indefinable smell
of evil, and the feel of her mouth on his.

He shook himself free of the memories.
So Morgause had poisoned the enchanter. She had gone north to the
islands knowing that she had already sown the seeds of death. And
why not? The old man had been her enemy: was his, Mordred's, enemy.
And now the enemy was alive, and would be at Caerleon for Christmas
along with the rest.

Caerleon, City of Legions, was very
different from Camelot. The Romans had built a strong fortress
there, on the river they called the Isca Silurum; this fortress,
strategically placed on the curve of the river near its confluence
with a smaller stream, had been restored first by Ambrosius, then
later enlarged to something like its original proportions by
Arthur. A city had grown up outside the walls, with market-place
and church and palace near the Roman bridge which -- patched here
and there, and with new lamp-posts -- spanned the river.

The King, with most of the court,
lived in the palace outside the fortress walls. Many of his knights
had lodgings within the fort, and so, to begin with, had the Orkney
boys. They were still lodged apart, with some of Arthur's servants
doing duty alongside the people brought from Orkney. Gabran, to his
own obvious discomfort, had had perforce to remain with the boys;
there had naturally been no question of his being allowed to follow
Morgause to Amesbury. Gawain, still smarting from the painful
mixture of shame on his mother's behalf and jealousy on his own,
lost no opportunity of letting the man see that now he had no
standing at all. Gaheris followed suit, but more openly, as was his
habit, adding insults where he could to contempt for his mother's
displaced lover. The other two, less conscious perhaps of
Morgause's sexual vagaries, scarcely noticed him. Mordred had other
things on his mind.

But days passed, and nothing happened.
If Merlin, back from the dead, was indeed planning to spur Arthur
to revenge on Morgause and her family, he was in no hurry to do so.
The old man, weakened by the events of the summer and autumn, kept
mainly to the rooms allotted to him in the King's house. Arthur
spent a good deal of time with him, and it was known that Merlin
had attended one or two of the meetings of the privy council, but
the Orkney boys saw nothing of him.

It was said that Merlin himself had
advised against a public homecoming. There was no announcement, no
scene of public rejoicing. As time went on, people came simply to
accept his presence among them again, as if the "death" of the
King's cousin and chief adviser, and the country-wide mourning, had
been another and more elaborate example of the enchanter's habit of
vanishing and reappearing at will. They had always known, men said
wisely, that the great enchanter could not die. If he had chosen to
lie in a death-like trance while his spirit visited the halls of
the dead, why, then, he had come back wiser and more powerful than
ever. Soon he would go back to his hollow hill again, the sacred
Bryn Myrddin, and there he would remain, invisible at times maybe,
but nevertheless present and powerful for those to call on who
needed him.

Meantime, if Arthur had yet found time
to discuss the Orkney boys -- that Mordred was by far the most
important of these none of them of course guessed -- nothing was
said. The truth was that Arthur, for once unsure of his ground, was
procrastinating. Then his hand was forced, quite inadvertently, by
Mordred himself.

It was on the evening before
Christmas. All day a snowstorm had pre vented the boys from riding
out, or exercising with their weapons. With the feast days, both of
Christmas and the King's birthday, so near, no one troubled to give
them the usual tuition, so the five of them spent an idle day
kicking their heels in the big room where they slept with some of
the servants. They ate too much, drank more than they were
accustomed to of the strong Welsh metheglin, quarreled, fought, and
eventually subsided to watch a game of tables that had been going
on for some time at the other end of the room. The final bout was
in progress, watched, with advice and encouragement, by a crowd of
onlookers. The players were Gabran and one of the local men, whose
name was Llyr.

It was late, and the lamps burned low.
The fire filled the room with smoke. A cold draught from the
windows sent a gentle drift of snow to pile unheeded on the
floor.

The dice rattled and fell, the
counters clicked. The games went evenly enough, the piled coins
being pushed from player to player as the luck changed. Slowly the
piles grew to handfuls. There was silver in them, and even the
glint of gold. Gradually the watchers fell silent; no more jesting,
no more advice where so much was at stake. The boys crowded in,
fascinated. Gawain, his hostility forgotten, peered closely over
Gabran's shoulder. His brothers were as eager as he. The contest,
in fact, showed signs of becoming Orkney against the rest, and for
once even Gaheris found himself on Gabran's side. Mordred, no
gambler himself, stood across the board from them, by chance in the
opposing camp, and watched idly.

Gabran threw. A one and a two. The
moves were negligible. Llyr, with a pair of fives, brought his last
counter off and said exultantly: "A game! A game! That equals your
last two hits! So, one more for the decider. And they are running
for me, friend, so spit on your hands and pray to your outland
gods."

Gabran was flushed with drinking, but
still looked sober enough, and elegant enough, to obey neither of
these exhortations. He pushed the stake across, saying doubtfully:
"I think I'm cleaned out. Sorry, but we'll have to call that the
decider. You've won, and I'm for bed."

"Oh, come on." Llyr shook the dice
temptingly in his fist. "Your turn's coming. It's time the luck
changed. Come on, give it a try. You can owe me. Don't break it up
now."

"But I really am cleaned out." Gabran
pulled his pouch from its hangers and dug into the depths.
"Nothing, see? And where am I to get more if I lose again?" He
thrust his fingers deep into the pouch, then pulled it inside out
and shook it over the board. "There. Nothing." No coins fell, but
something else dropped with a rattle and lay winking in the
lamplight.

It was a charm, a circular amulet of
wood bleached to silver by the sea, and carved crudely with eyes
and a mouth. In the eye-holes were gummed a pair of blue
river-pearls, and the curve of the grinning mouth had been filled
with red clay. A goddess-charm of Orkney, crude and childishly
made, but, to an Orcadian, a potent symbol.

Llyr poked at it with a finger.
"Pearls, eh? Well, what's wrong with that for a stake? If she
brings you luck you'll win her back and plenty else besides. Throw
you for starters?"

The dice shook, fell, rattled to
either side of the charm. Before they came to rest they were rudely
disturbed. Mordred, suddenly cold sober, leaned forward, shot out a
hand and grabbed the thing.

"Where did you get this?"

Gabran looked up, surprised. "I don't
know. I've had it for years. Can't remember where I picked it up.
Perhaps the--"

He stopped. His mouth stayed half
open. Still staring at Mordred, he slowly went white. If he had
announced it aloud, he could not have confessed more openly that he
remembered now where the charm had come from.

"What is it?" asked someone. No one
answered him. Mordred was as white as Gabran.

"I made it myself." He spoke in a flat
voice that those who did not know him would have thought empty of
any emotion at all. "I made it for my mother. She wore it always.
Always."

His eyes locked on Gabran's. He said
nothing more, but the phrase finished itself in the silence. Till
she died. And now, completely, as if it had been confessed aloud,
he knew how she had died. Who had killed her, and who had ordered
the killing.

He did not know how the knife came
into his hand. Forgotten now were all the arguments about a queen's
right to kill where she chose. But a prince could, and would. He
kicked the board aside, and the pieces went flying. Gabran's own
knife lay to hand. He grabbed it and started up. The others, slowed
with drink and not yet seeing more than a sudden sharp wrangle over
the game, reacted too slowly. Llyr was protesting good-naturedly:
"Well, all right. So take it, if it's yours." Another man made a
grab for the boy's knife-hand, but Mordred, eluding him, jumped for
Gabran, knife held low and expertly, pointing upwards to the heart.
Gabran, as sober now as he, saw that the threat was real and
deadly, and struck out. The blades touched, but Mordred's blow went
home. The knife went deep, in below the ribs, and lodged
there.

Gabran's knife fell with a clatter.
Both his hands went to clasp the hilt that lodged under his ribs.
He bent, folded forward. Hands caught at him and lowered him. There
was very little blood.

There was complete silence now in the
room, broken only by the short, exhausted breathing of the wounded
man. Mordred, standing over him, flung round the shocked company a
look that could have been Arthur's own.

"He deserved it. He killed my parents.
That charm was my mother's. I made it for her and she wore it
always. He must have taken it when he killed them. He burned
them."

There was not a man present who had
not killed or seen killing done. But at that there were sick looks
exchanged. "Burned them?" repeated Llyr.

"Burned them alive in their home. I
saw it afterwards."

"Not alive."

The whisper was Gabran's. He lay half
on his side, his body curled round the knife, his hands on the
hilt, but shrinkingly, as if he would have withdrawn it, but feared
the pain. The silver chasing quivered with his harsh, small
breaths.

"I saw it, too." Gawain came to
Mordred's side, looking down. "It was horrible. They were poor
people, and old. They had nothing. If this is true, Gabran... Did
you burn Mordred's home?"

Gabran drew a deep breath as if his
lungs were running out of air. His face was pale as parchment and
the gilt curls were dark with sweat.

"Yes."

"Then you deserve to die," said
Gawain, shoulder to shoulder with Mordred.

"But they were dead," whispered
Gabran. "I swear it. Burned... afterward. To hide it."

"How did they die?" demanded
Mordred.

Gabran did not reply. Mordred knelt by
him quickly, and put a hand to the dagger's hilt. The man's hands
twitched, but fell away, strengthless. Mordred said, still with
that deceptive calm: "You will die anyway, Gabran. So tell me now.
How did they die?"

"Poison."

The word sent a shiver through the
company. Men repeated it to each other, so that the whisper ran
through the air like a hissing. Poison. The woman's weapon. The
witch's weapon.

Mordred, unmoving, felt Gawain stiffen
beside him. "You took them poison?"

"Yes. Yes. With the gifts. A present
of wine."

None of the local people spoke. And
none of those from Orkney needed to. Mordred said softly, a
statement, rather than a question: "From the queen."

Gabran said, on another long, gasping
breath: "Yes."

"Why?"

"In case the woman knew... guessed...
something about you."

"What about me?"

"I don't know."

"You are dying, Gabran. What about
me?"

Gabran, queen's minion, queen's dupe,
told his last lie for the queen. "I do not know. I... swear
it."

"Then die now," said Mordred, and
pulled the knife out.

They took him straight away to the
High King.

7

Arthur was doing nothing more alarming
than choose a hound puppy out of a litter of six. A boy from the
kennels had brought them in, with the bitch in anxious attendance,
and the six pups, white and brindled, rolled yapping and wrestling
with one another round the King's feet. The bitch, restless and
uneasy, darted in repeatedly to pick up a pup and restore it to the
basket, but before she had grabbed another, the first would clamber
straight out and re-join the tumble on the floor.