Legacy: Arthurian Saga (216 page)

So Morgause, in her death, did what
she had planned to do with her life. She had planted a canker in
the blossoming chivalry of Arthur's court: not, ironically, the
bastard she had reared to be his bane, but her three legitimate
oldest, her wild, unpredictable and now almost ungovernable
sons.

Outside it all stood Mordred. He had
shown himself resourceful and cool, had prevented further bloodshed
on that murderous night, and had gained time for good counsel. That
the Orkney princes would not -- some said could not -- respond to
good counsel was hardly his fault. It was noticeable that less and
less did the court count him as one of the "Orkney brood." Subtly,
the distance between him and his half-brothers increased. And with
Morgause dead, men hardly troubled any longer with the fiction of
"the High King's nephew." He was simply "Prince Mordred," and known
to be close to the King and Queen in-love and favor.

Sometime after Arthur's return to
Camelot he called a council in the Round Hall.

It was the first such council that the
two younger Orkney brothers had been entitled, as Companions, to
attend. Even Mordred, who with Gawain had been given that status
some years ago, met with a change: instead of sitting at the King's
left, as had been his privilege over the past two years, he was led
by the royal usher to the chair on Arthur's right, where Bedwyr
usually sat. Bedwyr took the seat to the left. If he felt demoted
he did not show it; he gave Mordred a smile that seemed genuine,
and a ceremonious little bow that acknowledged his new status to
the younger man.

Bedwyr, the King's friend of boyhood
days, and constant companion in the closest sense, was a quiet man
with the eyes of a poet, and, after the King's, the most deadly
sword in the kingdoms. He had fought at Arthur's side through all
the great campaigns, and with him shared the glory of wiping the
Saxon Terror from Britain's boundaries. Possibly alone of the
warrior lords, he showed no impatience with the long-drawn peace,
and when Arthur had had to travel abroad at the request of allies
or kinsmen, and take his fighting men with him, Bedwyr never seemed
to resent the necessity of staying behind as regent for his king.
Rumor, as Mordred well knew, gave reasons for this: Bedwyr had not
married, and in the close company as he was of both King and Queen,
it was whispered that he and Queen Guinevere were lovers. But
Mordred, also constantly with them, had never caught a look or
gesture that bore this out. Guinevere was as gay and kind to him as
he had ever seen her with Bedwyr, and, perhaps with a little of the
inbred jealousy taught by Morgause, he would have denied, even with
his sword, any overt hint of such a connection.

So he returned Bedwyr's smile, and sat
down in the new place of honor. He saw Gawain, leaning close to his
brother, whisper something, and Agravain nodding, then the King
spoke, opening the Council, and they fell silent. The meeting
droned on. Mordred noticed with amusement how Agravain and Gareth,
at first rigid with importance and attentive to every word, soon
grew bored and impatient, and sat in their seats as if on thorns.
Gawain, like the greybeard beside him, was frankly dozing in a
shaft of sunshine from a window. The King, patient and painstaking
as ever, seemed to throw off preoccupations with an effort. The
round table in the middle of the hall was loaded heavily with
papers and tablets, and by it the secretaries scribbled without
ceasing.

As usual at the Round Hall councils,
routine matters were dealt with first. Petitions were heard,
complaints tabled, judgments given. King's messengers brought what
information was fitted for the public ear, and later, those of the
King's knights-errant who had returned home would report on their
adventures to the Council.

These were the travelling knights who
acted at once as Arthur's eyes and as his deputies. Years ago, once
the Saxon wars were over and the country settled, Arthur had looked
around for means to occupy what Merlin had called "the idle swords
and the unfed spirits." He knew that the long and prosperous peace
which contented most men was not to the liking of some of his
knights, not the young men only, but the war veterans, men who knew
no other life but that of fighting. There was no longer any need
for the picked body of Companions, the knights who under Arthur had
led the force of cavalry which had been used as such a swift and
deadly weapon during the Saxon campaigns. The Companions remained
his personal friends, but their status as commanders was changed.
They were appointed personal representatives of the King himself,
and, as deputies armed with royal warrants, and each in command of
his own men, they travelled the kingdoms, answering the call of the
petty kings or leaders who needed help or guidance, and taking with
them the High King's justice and the High King's peace wherever
they went. They also policed the roads. Robbers still lurked in the
wilder parts of the country, haunting fords and crossways where
traders or rich travelers might be ambushed. These they sought out
and killed, or brought them back for the King's justice. One other
and most important task was the protection of monasteries. Arthur,
though not himself a Christian, recognized the growing importance
of these foundations as centers of learning and as an influence for
peace. Their hospitality, moreover, was a vital part of the
peaceful commerce of the roads.

Three of these knights presented
themselves now. As the first of them came forward there was a stir
of interest in the hall, and even the sleepers roused themselves to
attention. Sometimes the reports were of fighting; occasionally
prisoners were brought in, or tales told of strange happenings in
remote and wild parts of the country. This had given rise to the
belief held by the ignorant, that Arthur never sat down to supper
until he had heard some tale of marvels.

But there were no marvels to be
presented. One man came from North Wales, one from Northumbria, the
third -- one of the knights deputed to watch the Saxon boundaries
-- from the upper Thames valley. This man reported some activity,
though peaceful, in Suthrige, that region south of the Thames
occupied by Middle Saxon settlers; some kind of official visit, he
thought, from a party of Cerdic's West Saxons. The man from North
Wales told of a new monastic foundation where the Christian grail,
or cup of ceremonial, would be raised on the next feast day. The
man from Northumbria had nothing to report.

Mordred, watching from his place
beside the King, noticed with quickened interest that Agravain,
waiting with obvious impatience through the speeches of the first
two knights, went still and attentive while the last one spoke.
When the man had done, and been dismissed with the King's thanks,
Agravain visibly relaxed and went back to his yawning.

Northumbria? thought Mordred, then
filed the thought away and turned his attention to the
King.

At last the hall was cleared of all
but councilors and Companions. Arthur sat back in the royal chair,
and spoke.

He came straight to the news that had
caused him to call the Council.

A courier from the Continent had
arrived on the previous evening with grave tidings. Two of the
three young sons of Clodomir, the Frankish king, had been murdered,
and their brother had fled for sanctuary to a monastery, from which
it was thought that he would not dare emerge. The murderers, the
boys' uncles, would no doubt proceed to divide King Clodomir's
kingdom between them.

The news carried grave implications.
Clodomir (who had been killed a year ago in battle with the
Burgundians) had been one of the four sons of Clovis, King of the
Salian Franks, who had led his people out of their northerly lands
down into what had once been the prosperous country of Roman Gaul,
and had made it his own. Savage and ruthless, like all of the
Merwing dynasty, he had nevertheless created a powerful and stable
kingdom. At his death that kingdom had been divided, as was the
custom, among his four sons. Clodomir and Childebert, the eldest
legitimate sons, held the central part of Gaul: Clodomir to the
east, his lands bordering on those of the hostile Burgundians; and
Childebert to the west, in that part of Gaul which bordered and
contained the peninsula of Brittany.

And here lay the rub.

Brittany, called Less Britain in the
common tongue, was in fact almost a province of the High Kingdom.
Over a century ago it had been populated by men from Greater
Britain, and the tie remained strong; communication was easy and
trade brisk, and the tongue, with slight regional variations, was
the same. Brittany's king, Hoel, was cousin to Arthur, and the two
kings were bound to one another, not only through kinship and
treaties of alliance, but because Brittany was still as much part
of the federation of lands known as the High Kingdom as was
Cornwall, or the Summer Country round Camelot itself.

"The matter," said the King, "is not
desperate; indeed, it may turn out for the best, since infants
never make safe rulers. But you see the situation. Clodomir was
killed at Vézeronce last year by the Burgundians. They are still
hostile, and wait only for a chance to attack again. So we have the
vital central province of the Franks, with the Burgundians to the
east, and on the west the land ruled by King Childebert, which
contains our own Celtic province of Brittany. Now Clodomir's
kingdom will be divided yet again, in which case King Childebert
will extend his lands eastward, while his brothers move in from
north and south. Which means that, as long as we retain the
friendship of these kings, we have them as a barrier between
ourselves and the Germanic peoples to the east."

He paused, then, looking around,
repeated: "As long as we have the friendship of these kings. I said
the matter was not yet desperate. But in time it may be. We must
prepare for it. Not yet, as some of you wish, by raising armies.
That will come. But by forming alliances, bonds of friend ship,
cemented by offers of help and fair trading. If the kingdoms of
Britain are to remain secure against the destroyers from the east,
then all the kingdoms within our sea-girt coasts must join together
in their defense. I repeat, all."

"The Saxons!" said someone. It was
Cian, a young Celt from Gwynedd.

"Saxons or English," said Arthur,
"they own, by agreement, a good proportion of the eastern and
south-eastern coastal lands, those which were the territories of
the old Saxon Shore, with what other settlements were granted them
by Ambrosius, and by myself after Badon Hill. These Saxon Shore
lands lie like a wall along the Narrow Sea. They can be our
bulwark, or they can betray." He paused. There was no need to
gather eyes. All were fixed on him. "Now this is what I have to say
to the Council. I have called a meeting with the chief of their
kings, Cerdic of the West Saxons, to talk to him about defense. At
our next Council I shall be prepared to tell you the result of that
meeting."

He sat down then, and the ushers were
on their feet, preventing uproar and trying to sort into order the
men who wanted to speak. Under cover of the noise Arthur grinned at
Bedwyr. "You were right. A hornets' nest. But let them talk it out,
and have their say, and when I go it will be, nominally at least,
with their support."

He was right. By supper time all who
wanted to had said their say. Next day a courier rode to the
village which the West Saxon king called his capital, and the
meeting was arranged.

Mordred was to go with the King. He
used the interval before Cerdic's reply came to ride over to
Applegarth to see Nimue.

Since the day when Nimue had visited
King Urbgen of Rheged, and prevented Mordred's escape, he had never
seen her. She was married to Pelleas, king of the islands to the
west of the Summer Country, where the River Brue meets the Severn
Sea. Nimue herself had been born a princess of the River Isles, and
had known her husband since childhood. Their castle stood almost
within sight of the Tor, and when Pelleas, who was one of Arthur's
Companions, was with the King, Nimue would take her place as Lady
of the Lake maidens in the convent on Ynys Witrin, or else retire
alone to Applegarth, the house that Merlin had built near Camelot,
and which he had left to her, along with his title, and -- men
whispered -- how much more. It was fabled that during the long
illness that had weakened the old enchanter towards his seeming
death, he had made over all his knowledge to his pupil Nimue,
implanting in her brain even his own childhood's
memories.

Mordred had heard the stories, and
though with manhood and security he had grown more skeptical, he
remembered the impression he had received in Luguvallium of the
enchantress's power, so he approached Applegarth with something
that might even have been called nervousness.

It was a grey stone house, four-square
round a small courtyard. An old tower jutted at one corner. The
house stood cupped in rolling upland pastures, and was surrounded
by orchards. A stream ran downhill past the walls.

Mordred turned his horse off the road
and into the track that led uphill beside the stream. He was
halfway towards the house when another horseman approached him. To
his surprise he saw that it was the King, riding alone on his grey
mare.

Arthur drew rein beside him. "Were you
looking for me?"

"No, sir. I had no idea you were
here."