Legacy: Arthurian Saga (212 page)

"Where our kinsman the great Ambrosius
is buried, and our grandfather Uther Pendragon beside him," said
Agravain to Mordred, with a touch of his old arrogance. Mordred
said nothing, but caught Gawain's quick look, and smiled to
himself. From Lamorak's sidelong glance it could be guessed that
he, too, knew the truth about Arthur's eldest "nephew."

As befitted the convent's guests, they
all went to the evening service. A little to Mordred's surprise,
Morgause attended, too. As Lamorak and the boys approached the
chapel door, the nuns went by two by two, with slow steps and
downcast eyes. At the rear of the little procession walked
Morgause, dressed simply in black, her face veiled. Two women
attended her; one was the waiting-woman who had been riding with
her, the other looked younger, with the ageless face of extreme
stupidity, and the heavy pale look of ill-health. Last came the
abbess, a slightly built, sweet-faced woman, with an air of gentle
innocence which was perhaps not the best quality for the ruler of
such a community. She had been appointed head of the women's side
of the convent by the abbot, who was not the man to brook any rival
in authority. Since Morgause's coming Abbot Luke had had cause to
regret his choice; Mother Mary was not the woman to control her
royal prisoner. On the other hand the convent, since that
prisoner's coming, had flourished exceedingly, so, as long as the
Queen of Orkney was safely held, Abbot Luke could see no need to
interfere with the too-gentle rule of the abbess. He himself was
not entirely immune to the flattering respect Morgause showed him,
or to the fragile charm she exhibited in his presence, and besides,
there was always the possibility that someday she would be
reinstated, if not in her own kingdom, then at court, where she
was, after all, the High King's half-sister....

The younger of Morgause's women
brought the queen's message soon after chapel. The four younger
princes were to sup with their mother. She would send for them
later. She would see Prince Mordred now.

Across the barrage of objections and
questions that this provoked Mordred met Gawain's eyes. Alone of
the four, he looked commiserating rather than resentful.

"Well, good luck," he said, and
Mordred thanked him, smoothing his hair and settling his belt and
the hanger at his hip, while the woman stood waiting by the door,
staring with pale eyes out of that lard-like face and repeating, as
if she could only speak by rote: "The young princes are to take
supper with Madam, but now she will see Prince Mordred,
alone."

Mordred, as he followed her, heard
Gawain say in a low quick aside to Gaheris: "Don't be a fool, it's
hardly a privilege. She never even looked at him this morning, did
she? And you must know why. You can't surely have forgotten Gabran?
Poor Mordred, don't envy him this!"

He followed the woman across the lawn.
Blackbirds hopped about on the grass, pecking for worms, and a
thrush sang somewhere among the apple trees. The sun was still
warm, and the place full of the scent of apple blossom and
primroses and the yellow wallflowers beside the path.

He was aware of none of it. All his
being was turned inward, centered on the coming interview, wishing
now that he had had the hardihood to disagree when the King had
said to him: "I have refused to see her, ever again, but you are
her son, and I think you owe her this, if only as a courtesy. You
need never go back. But this time, this one time, you must. I have
taken her kingdom from her, and her sons; let it not be said that I
did so with brutality."

And in his head, over this voice of
memory, two other voices persisted, of the boy Mordred, the
fisherman's son, and of Mordred the prince, son of the High King
Arthur, and a man grown.

Why should you fear her? She can do
nothing. She is a prisoner and helpless.

That was the prince, tall and brave in
his silver-trimmed tunic and new green mantle.

She is a witch, said the
fisher-boy.

She is a prisoner of the High King,
and he is my father. My father, said the prince.

She is my mother, and a
witch.

She is no longer a queen. She has no
power.

She is a witch, and she murdered my
mother.

You are afraid, of her? The prince was
contemptuous.

Yes.

Why? What can she do? She cannot even
cast a spell. Not here. You are not alone with her now in an
underground tomb.

I know. I don't know why. She is a
woman alone, and a prisoner, and without help, and I am
afraid.

A side door stood open under the
arcade of the nuns' courtyard. The woman beckoned, and he followed
her in, along a short passage which ended in another
door.

His heart was hammering now, his hands
damp. He clenched them at his sides, then loosened them
deliberately, fighting back towards calmness.

I am Mordred. I am my own man,
beholden neither to her nor to the High King. I shall listen to
her, and then go. I need never see her again. Whatever she is,
whatever she says, it cannot matter. lam my own man, and I do my
own will.

The woman opened the door without
knocking, and stood aside for him to enter.

The room was large, but chilly and
sparsely furnished. The walls were of daubed wattle, roughly
plastered and painted, the floor of stone, bare of any rugs or
coverings. To one side, looking out on the arcade, was a window,
unglazed and open to the evening breeze. Opposite this was another
door. Against the long wall of the room stood a heavy table and
bench of carved and polished wood. At one end of the table was the
room's single chair, high-backed and ornately carved, but without
cushions. A couple of wooden stools flanked it. The table was set
as if for the evening meal, with platters and cups of pewter and
red clay and even wood. One part of Mordred's brain -- the part
that stayed coolly observant in spite of moist skin and rushing
heart -- noted with a twist of amusement that his half-brothers
looked to be in for a meal frugal even by monkish standards. Then
the far door opened, and Morgause came into the room.

Once before, when for the first time
the ragged fisher-boy had been brought, among the lights and colors
of the palace, face to face with the queen, he had had eyes for
nothing else; now in this bare and chilly room he forgot it all,
and stared at her. She was still dressed in her chapel-going black,
without color or ornament except a silver cross (a cross?) which
hung on her breast. Her hair was plainly braided in two long
plaits. She was no longer veiled. She moved forward to stand beside
the chair, one hand on its tall back, the other holding a fold of
her gown. She waited there in unmoving silence while the
waiting-woman latched the door and went with her heavy, deliberate
tread across the room to leave by the inner door. As it opened and
shut behind her, Mordred caught a glimpse of stacked chairs and the
gleam of silver hidden by a pile of colored stuffs. Someone spoke
quickly and was hushed. Then the door shut quietly and he was alone
with the queen.

He stood still, waiting. She turned
her head on its poised neck and let the silence hang longer. Light
from the window moved in the heavy folds of her skirt, and the
silver cross on her breast quivered. Suddenly, like a diver coming
up into air, he saw two things clearly: the whitened knuckles of
the fist that gripped the black cloth at her side, and the movement
of her breast with her quickened breathing. She, too, faced this
interview with something less than equanimity. She was as tense as
he.

He saw more. The marks against the
plaster where hangings had been hastily removed; the lighter
patches on the floor where rugs had lain; scratches where chairs
and lamps and tables -- all the furnishings light enough for the
women to handle -- had been dragged out and stacked in the inner
room, along with the cushions and silver and all the luxuries
without which Morgause would have felt herself sadly ill-used. And
this was the point. Once more, as had been her habit, Morgause had
set the scene. The plain black clothes, the bare chilly chamber,
the lack of attendants -- the Queen of Orkney was concerned still
with the report that would go back to Arthur, and with what her
sons would find. They were to see her as a lonely and oppressed
prisoner, kept in sad confinement.

It was enough. Mordred's fear faded.
He gave a courtly bow and thereafter stood easily, waiting,
apparently quite unperturbed by the silence and the scrutiny of the
queen.

She let her hand fall from the
chair-back, and taking up a fold of the heavy skirt on the other
side, swept to the front of the chair, and sat. She smoothed the
black cloth over her knees, folded her hands, white against black,
lifted her head, and looked him slowly up and down from head to
foot. He saw then that she was wearing the royal circlet of Lothian
and Orkney. Its pearls and citrines, set in white gold, glimmered
in the red gold of her hair.

When it was apparent that he was
neither awed nor disconcerted, she spoke.

"Come nearer. Here, where I can see
you. Hm. Yes, very fine. 'Prince Mordred,' it is now, they tell me.
One of the ornaments of Camelot, and a hopeful sword at Arthur's
service."

He bowed again, and said nothing. Her
lips thinned.

"So he told you, did he?"

"Yes, madam."

"The truth? Did he dare?" Her voice
was sharp with scorn.

"It seems like the truth. No one would
invent such a tale to boast of it."

"Ah, so the young serpent can hiss. I
thought you were my devoted servant, Mordred the
fisher-boy?"

"I was, madam. What I owe you, I owe
you. But what I owe him, I owe likewise."

"A moment's lust." She spoke
contemptuously. "A boy after his first battle. An untried young pup
that came running to the first woman that whistled him."

Silence. Her voice rose a fraction.
"Did he tell you that?"

Mordred spoke steadily, in a voice
almost devoid of expression. "He told me that I am his son,
begotten by him in ignorance on his half-sister, after the battle
at Luguvallium. That immediately afterwards you contrived to marry
King Lot, who should have been your sister's lord, and with him
went as his queen to Dunpeldyr, where I was born. That King Lot,
hearing of the birth too soon after the marriage, and fearful of
nurturing what he suspected to be a bastard of the High King's,
tried to have me killed, and to that end drowned all the young
children in Dunpeldyr, putting the blame for this upon the King.
That you, madam, helped him in this, knowing that you had already
sent me to safety in the islands, where Brude and Sula had been
paid to care for me."

She leaned forward. Her hands moved to
the chair-arms, gripping. "And did Arthur tell you that he, too,
wanted you dead? Did he tell you that, Mordred?"

"He did not need to. I would have
known it, anyway."

"What do you mean?" she asked
sharply.

Mordred shrugged. "It would have been
reasonable. The High King looked then to have other sons, by his
queen. Why should he wish to keep me, a bastard out of his enemy?"
His look challenged her. "You cannot deny that you are his enemy,
nor that Lot was. And that is why you kept me, isn't it? I used to
wonder why you paid Brude to keep me, Lot's son. And I was right to
wonder. You would never have kept Lot's son by another woman. There
was one called Macha, was there not? A woman whose baby son was put
in my cradle, to draw Lot's sword and let your son
escape?"

For a moment she made no answer. She
had lost color. Then she said, ignoring his last statement: "So, I
kept you from Lot's vengeance. You know that. You admit it. What
did you say a moment ago? That what you owe me, you owe me. Your
life, then. Twice, Mordred, twice." She leaned forward. Her voice
throbbed. "Mordred, I am your mother. Don't forget that. I bore
you. For you I suffered--"

His look stopped her. She had a moment
to consider that any of her four sons by Lot would have already
been at her knees. But not this one. Not Arthur's son.

He was speaking, coldly. "You gave me
life, yes, for a moment's lust. You said that, not I. But it was
true, was it not, madam? A woman whistling up a boy to her bed. A
boy she knew to be her half-brother, but who she also knew would
one day be a great king. I owe you nothing for that."

She flared suddenly, shrilly, into
anger. "How dare you? You, a bastard spawn, hatched in a hovel by a
pair of filthy peasants, to speak to me--"

He moved. Suddenly he was as angry as
she. His eyes blazed. "They say, don't they, that the sun begets
spawn on the reptiles as they lie in the mud?"

Silence. Then she drew in a hissing
breath. She sat back in her chair, and her hands clasped again in
her lap. With his momentary loss of control, she had regained hers.
She said, softly: "Do you remember going with me once into a
cave?"

Again silence. He moistened his lips,
but said nothing.

She nodded. "I thought you had
forgotten. Then let me remind you. Let me remind you to fear me, my
son Mordred. I am a witch. I shall remind you of that, and of a
curse I once laid on Merlin, who also took it upon himself to
berate me for that unguarded night of love. He, like you, forgot
that it takes two to make a child."