Legacy: Arthurian Saga (219 page)

At length the talk came to a close. In
the doorway of the hall the sunlight slanted low and mellow. From
the field outside, the sounds of sport had died down. Cattle were
lowing as they were driven in for milking, and the smell of wood
fires sharpened the air. The breeze had dropped. The queen rose and
left the hall, and presently servants came running to set the
boards up for supper, and to thrust a torch into the kindling for
the fire.

Somewhere, a horn sounded. The
warriors, Cerdic's and Arthur's together, came in still gay with
their sport, and took their places, apparently at random, at the
long tables, where, shouting as loudly as if still out on the open
down, and hammering on the board with the handles of their daggers,
they called for food and drink. The noise was tremendous. Arthur's
Companions, after a few moments of deafened confusion, cheerfully
joined in the tumult. Language ceased to matter. What was being
said was more than clear to everyone. Then a fresh shouting arose
as ale and mead were brought in, and after that the great trays of
roasted meats, still smoking and sizzling from the ovens; and the
Saxon thegns, who until then had been trying, with gestures and
yells of laughter, to communicate, ceased abruptly and turned all
their ferocious attention to eating and drinking. Someone handed
Mordred a horn -- it was polished like ivory and most beautifully
mounted with gold -- someone else filled it till it slopped over,
then he in his turn had to give his full attention to his platter,
which soon meant parrying his neighbors' efforts to pile his dish
again and again with the best of the food.

The ale was strong and the mead
stronger. Many of the warriors were soon drunk, and slept where
they sat. Some, too, of Arthur's train succumbed to the
overwhelming hospitality, and began to doze. Mordred, still sober,
but knowing that he was only so by an effort, narrowed his eyes
against the low sun from the open door, and looked to see how the
kings were faring. Cerdic was flushed, and leaning back in his
chair, but still talked; Arthur, though his platter was empty,
looked as cool as might be in that heated hall. Mordred saw how he
had done it: His big hound, Cabal, lay by his chair, licking his
chops under the table.

The sun set, and presently torches
were lit, filling the hall with smoky light. In the still evening
the fire burned brightly, the smoke filtering up through the vent
in the thatch, or drifting among the diners to make them cough and
wipe their eyes. At length, when the platters were empty, and the
drinking horns held out less frequently for filling, the
entertainment began.

First came a troop of gleemen, who
danced to the music of trumpets and horns, and with them a pair of
jugglers who, first with colored balls, then with daggers or with
anything those lords still sober threw to them, made dazzling
patterns in the smoky air. The two kings threw money down, and the
gleemen, scooping it up, bowed and went, still jigging and dancing.
Then the harper took his place. He was a thin dark man, in an
embroidered robe that looked costly. He set his stool near the
hearth, and bent his head to tune the strings. Mordred saw Arthur
turn his head quickly at the sound, then sink back in his chair to
listen, his face in shadow.

Gradually the noise in the hall sank
to a silence qualified only by some drunken snoring, and an
occasional snarling wrangle from the dogs fighting in the straw for
scraps.

The harper began to sing. His voice
was true, and, as such men are, he was learned in tongues. He sang
first in the guests' language, a love song, and then a lament.
Then, in his own tongue, he sang a song which, after the first
half-dozen lines, held every man there who could hear it, whether
he understood the words or not....Sad, sad the faithful man who
outlives his lord. He sees the world stand waste as a wall blown on
by the wind, as an empty castle, where the snow sifts through the
window-frames, drifts on the broken bed and the black
hearthstone....

Bruning the redhead, who was opposite
Mordred, was sitting as still as a mouse, with the tears running
down his face. Mordred, moved at the touch of some long-forgotten
grief, had to exert all his self-command not to show his own
emotion. Suddenly, as if his name had been called, he turned to
find his father watching him. The two men's eyes, so like, locked
and held. In Arthur's was something of the look that he had seen in
Nimue's: a helpless sadness. In his own, he knew, were rebellion
and a fierce will. Arthur smiled at him and looked away as the
applause began. Mordred got swiftly to his feet and went out of the
hall.

Throughout the long feasting men had
gone out from time to time to relieve themselves, so no one queried
his going, or even glanced after him.

The gates were shut, but within the
palisade the place was clear. Beasts, poultry and children had all
been herded in with sunset to supper and bed, and now the menfolk
and their women were mostly withindoors. He paced slowly along in
the shadow of the palisade, trying to think.

Nimue and her stark message: Your will
is nothing, your existence is all. The King, who many years back
had had the same message, and had left it to those cruel, clouded
gods...

But there would be ambition fulfilled,
and his due of glory.

Not, of course, that a practical man
believed in such soothsaying. Nor could he believe, by the same
token, in the prophecies of doom....

He pressed a palm to his forehead. The
air felt cool and sweet after the smoky reek of the hall. Gradually
his brain cleared. He knew how far he must be from realizing his
ambitions, those secret ambitions and desires. It would be many
years, surely, before he or the King need fear what the evil gods
might have in store. What Arthur had done for him all those years
ago, he could do for Arthur now. Forget "doom," and wait for the
future to show itself.

A movement in the shadow of a tall
woodpile caught his eye. A man, one of Arthur's followers. Two men;
no, three. One of them moved across the glow of a distant cooking
fire, and Mordred recognized Agravain. Not out here simply to
relieve himself. He had seated himself on the shaft of that cart
that stood empty by the woodpile, and his two companions stood by
him, bending near and talking eagerly. One of them, Calum, he knew;
the other he thought he recognized. Both were young Celts, close
friends of Agravain and formerly of Gaheris. When Agravain had left
Mordred's side in anger during the ride, he had re-joined the group
where these two were riding, and snatches of their conversation had
come from time to time to Mordred's ears.

Abruptly, all thought of Nimue and her
cloudy stars went from his head. The Young Celts; the phrase had
recently taken on something of a political meaning, in the sense of
a party of young fighting men drawn mostly from the outland Celtic
kingdoms, who were impatient with "the High King's peace" and the
centralization of lowland government, and bored with the role of
peaceful law-enforcement created for his knights-errant. There had
been little open opposition; the young men tended to sneer at the
"old man's market-place" of the Round Hall; they talked among
themselves, and some of the talk, it was rumored, verged on
sedition.

Such as the whispering, which in
recent weeks had grown as if somehow carefully fostered, about
Bedwyr and Queen Guinevere.

Mordred moved silently away until a
barn interposed its bulk between him and the little group of men.
Pacing, head bent, brain working coolly now, he thought
back.

It was true that in all his close
dealings with them, he had never seen the Queen favor Bedwyr by
word or look above other men, except as Arthur's chief friend, and
in Arthur's presence. Her bearing towards him was, if anything,
almost too ceremonious. Mordred had wondered, sometimes, at the air
of constraint that could occasionally be felt between two people
who had known one another for so long, and in such intimacy. No --
he checked himself -- not constraint. Rather, a distance carefully
kept, where no distance seemed to be necessary. Where in fact
distance seemed hardly to matter. Several times Mordred had noticed
that Bedwyr seemed to know what the Queen meant without her having
to put her thoughts into words.

He shook the thought away. This was
poison, the poison Agravain had tried to distil. He would not even
think this way. But there was one thing he could do. Like it or
not, he was linked with the Orkney brothers, and lately most
closely with Agravain. If Agravain approached him again, he would
listen, and find out if the Young Celts' dissatisfaction was
anything more than the natural rebellion of young men against the
rule of their elders. As for the whispering campaign concerning
Bedwyr and the Queen, that was surely only a matter of policy, too.
A wedge driven in between Arthur and his oldest friend, the trusted
regent who held his seal and acted as his other self, that would be
the aim of any party seeking to weaken the High King's position and
undermine his policies. There, too, he must listen; there, too, if
he dared, he must warn the King. Of the slanders only; there were
no facts; there was no truth in tales of Bedwyr and the
Queen....

He pushed the thought aside with a
violence that was, he told himself, a tribute to his loyalty to his
father, and his gratitude to the lovely lady who had shown such
kindness to the lonely boy from the islands.

On the ride home he stayed away from
Agravain.

He could not avoid him...though, once
they were back in Camelot.

Sometime after their return from
Cerdic's capital the King sent again for Mordred, and asked him to
stay close and watch his half-brother.

It transpired that word had come from
Drustan, the famous fighting captain whom Arthur had hoped to
attract to his standard, that, his term of service in Dumnonia
being done, he himself, his northern stronghold and his troop of
trained fighting men would soon be put at the High King's disposal.
He was even now on his way north to his castle of Caer Mord, to put
it in readiness, before coming on himself to Camelot.

"So far, good," said Arthur. "I need
Caer Mord, and I had hoped for this. But Drustan, for some affair
of honor in the past, is sworn blood-brother to Lamorak, and has,
moreover, Lamorak's own brother, Drian, at present in his service.
I believe you know this. Well, he has already made it clear that he
will require me to invite Lamorak back to Camelot."

"And will you?"

"How can I avoid it? He did no wrong.
Perhaps he chose his time badly, and perhaps he was deceived, but
he was betrothed to her. And even if he had not been," said the
King wryly, "I am the last man living who would have the right to
condemn him for what he did."

"And I the next."

The King sent him a glance that was
half a smile, but his voice was sober. "You see what will happen.
Lamorak will come back, and then, unless the three older brothers
can be brought to see reason, we shall have a blood feud that will
split the Companions straight through."

"So Lamorak is with
Drustan?"

"No. Not yet. I have not told you the
rest. I know now that he went to Brittany, and has been lodging
there with Bedwyr's cousin, who keeps Benoic for him. I have had
letters. They tell me that Lamorak has left Benoic, and it is
believed that he has taken ship for Northumbria. It seems likely
that he knows of Drustan's plans, and hopes to join him at Caer
Mord. What is it?"

"Northumbria," said Mordred. "My lord,
I believe -- I know -- that Agravain is in touch with Gaheris, and
I also have reason to suspect that Gaheris is somewhere in
Northumbria."

"Near Caer Mord?" asked Arthur
sharply.

"I don't know. I doubt it. Northumbria
is a big country, and Gaheris surely cannot know of Lamorak's
movements."

"Unless he has news of Drustan's, and
makes a guess, or Agravain has heard some rumor here at court, and
got word to him," said Arthur. "Very well. There is only one thing
to do: get your brothers back here to Camelot, where they may be
watched and to some extent controlled. I shall send to Gawain with
a strong warning, and summon him south again. Eventually, if I have
to, and if Lamorak will agree, I shall let Gawain offer him combat,
here, and publicly. That should surely suffice to cool this bad
blood. How Gawain receives Gaheris is his own affair; there, I
cannot interfere."

"You'd have Gaheris back?"

"If he is in Northumbria, and Lamorak
is making for Caer Mord, I must."

"On the principle that it is better to
watch the arrow flying, than leave it to strike unseen?"

For a moment Mordred thought he had
made a mistake. The King flashed a quick glance at him, as if about
to ask a question. Perhaps Nimue had used the same image to him,
and about Mordred himself. But Arthur passed it by. He said: "I
shall leave this to you, Mordred. You say that Agravain is in touch
with his twin. I shall let it be known that the sentence on Gaheris
is rescinded, and send Agravain to bring him back. I shall insist
that you go with him. It's the best I can do; I distrust them, but
beyond sending you I dare not show it. I can hardly send troops to
make sure they come back. Do you think he will accept
this?"

"I think so. I'll contrive it
somehow."