Legacy: Arthurian Saga (232 page)

It is never easy to receive a bequest
from one still living. Mordred, for once at a loss for words, began
to speak, haltingly, but the King waved him into silence, coming at
last to the subject that, to Mordred, would have been
first.

"The Queen," said Arthur, his gaze on
the fire. "She will be under your protection. You will love and
care for her as her own son, and you will see to it that for the
rest of her days she lives safely, with the honor and comfort due
to her. I do not ask you to swear this, Mordred, knowing that I
need not,"

"I do swear it!" Mordred, on his knees
by his father's chair, spoke for once with uncontrolled emotion. "I
swear by all the gods there are, by the God of the kingdom's
churches, and the Goddess of the isles, and the spirits that live
in the air, that I will hold the kingdoms for the Queen, and love
and care for her and secure her honor as you would do were you
still High King."

Arthur reached to take the younger
man's hands between his own, and raising him, kissed him. Then he
smiled.

"So now we will stop talking about my
death, which will not come yet awhile, I assure you! But when it
does, I give my kingdoms and my Queen into your hands with a quiet
spirit, and with my blessing and God's."

Next day Mordred sailed for home. A
few days after he had gone, the embassy, gay with colored pennants
and tossing plumes, set out for Quintilianus Hiberus'
encampment.

Gawain and his friends rode at ease.
Though the talk was of the sort that Mordred would have recognized
-- the young men looking to Gawain for reckless leadership and
excitement -- they did contain themselves with decorum on the ride.
But none of the younger faction made any attempt to conceal their
hope that the peaceful overtures would fail, and that they would
see action.

"They say Quintilianus is a hot man,
and a clever soldier. Why should he listen to an old man giving
another old man's message?" Such was Mador's description of King
Hoel's embassy. Others chimed in: "If we don't get fighting, at
least they're sure to show us sport -- games, hunting -- and it
will go hard if we cannot show these foreigners what we can do!" Or
again: "They say the horses in Gaul are beauties. We might get some
trading done, if the worst comes to the worst."

But it seemed they were doomed to
disappointment on all counts. Quintilianus' headquarters was a
temporary camp built on a bleak stretch of moorland. The party
arrived towards evening of a dull day with a chilly wind carrying
rain. The dead springtime heather stretched black and wet on every
hand, the only color in the moorland being the livid green of the
boggy stretches, or the metallic gleam of water. The camp itself
was laid out on the Roman pattern. It was well built with turf's
and stout timber, and was impressive enough as a temporary stance,
but the young Britons, ignorant of warfare and accustomed to the
great Roman-based permanent structures of Caerleon and Segontium,
looked about them with disappointment and contempt.

It was hard to say whether caution or
care for his guests' comfort had impelled Quintilianus Hiberus to
house the British outside the walls of the camp. Tents had been
erected some hundred paces outside the surrounding ditch, with
their own horse lines and a pavilion which would serve as a hall.
There they were invited to dismount, while their own grooms took
their horses to the lines. Then on foot they were led up the main
way towards the camp's center, where the commander's headquarters
stood.

There Quintilianus Hiberus and
Marcellus, his second in command, received the embassy with chilly
courtesy. Speeches, previously prepared and learned by rote, were
exchanged. They were long, and so over-careful as to be almost
incomprehensible. No mention was made either of the emperor's
message or of Hoel's intentions. Rather, a rambling account of the
old king's health was produced in answer to their host's
indifferent query, with details, delicately touched on, of his
cousin Arthur's anxiety, which had provoked that warrior to visit
Brittany's king. That he had brought a sizeable force with him was
not stated, but the Roman consul knew it, and they knew that he
knew....

Only when the polite sharpening of
blades had been going on for some time did Guerin and Bors allow
themselves to approach a statement -- still far from direct -- of
Hoel's position and its backing by Arthur of Britain.

The young men, waiting formally behind
their ambassadors, chafing after the decorous inaction of the ride,
and thinking of food and recreation, had time to grow bored, to eye
their surroundings curiously, and to exchange stares with the
warriors of the opposite faction who waited in equal boredom behind
their own leaders.

These leaders, after a lengthy and
dragging parley, made more tedious than need be by the fact that
Bors spoke little or no Latin, and Marcellus spoke nothing else,
came at length to a stalemate pause. There would be, said
Quintilianus, drawing his mantle about him and rising, further
parley tomorrow. Meanwhile the visitors would no doubt care to rest
and refresh themselves. They would be shown now to the tents
prepared for them.

The ambassadors bowed gravely and
withdrew. Their hosts came forward, and the party was escorted back
through the camp. "No doubt," said the youth escorting Gawain, with
rather threadbare politeness, "you are weary after your journey?
You will find the lodgings rough, I am afraid, but we ourselves
have become accustomed to living in the field--"

He yawned as he spoke. This meant no
more than that he was as weary of the talks as the other young men,
but Gawain, bored, contemptuous, and beginning to see his hopes of
glory fading, chose to take it otherwise.

"Why should you think we are not used
to rough quarters? Because we have come with a peaceful embassy, it
doesn't mean that we are not fighters, and as ready in the field as
any rabble on this side of the Narrow Seal"

The youth, surprised, and then as
quickly angry as the other, flushed scarlet to his fair hair. "And
what field of battle have you ever been on. Sir Braggart? It's a
long time since Agned and Badon! Even the fabled Arthur, that your
fellows were boasting about in there, would be hard put to it to
wage a war nowadays, with men who are only good for
talking!"

Before Gawain could even draw breath,
"And not even too good at that," put in someone else, with a cruel
imitation of Bors's thick Latin.

There was laughter, and through it a
quick attempt by cooler spirits to pass the exchange off with
jesting, but Gawain's brow was dark, and hot words still flew. The
fair youth, who seemed to be someone of consequence, bore through
the talk with a ringing shout of anger: "So? Didn't you come all
this way to beg us not to fight you? And now you boast and brag
about what your leaders can do! What do you expect us to think of
such empty braggarts?"

Here Gawain drew his sword and ran him
through.

The stunned minutes that followed, of
unbelief, then of horror and confusion, as the fallen man's
companions ran to raise him and find if life remained in him, gave
the British just enough time to escape. Gawain, shouting, "Get to
the horses!" was already half-way to the picket lines, followed
closely by his friends who, from the moment the bitter words began
to pass, had seen the violent end coming. The ambassadors,
dismayed, hesitated only for a moment before following. If the
assailant had been any other than Arthur's nephew, they might have
given him over to the punishment due to one who broke a truce, but
as it was, the leaders knew that the embassy, never hopeful, was
now irretrievably shattered, and all their party, as
truce-breakers, were in great danger. Valerius, an old soldier used
to instant decisions, took swift command, and had his whole party
mounted and out of the lines at the gallop before their hosts had
well grasped what had occurred.

Gawain, wildly galloping with the
rest, struggled to pull his horse out of the troop and wheel
back.

"This is shameful! To run away, after
what they said? Shame on you, shame! They called us cowards before,
what will they call us now?"

"Dead men, you fool!" Valerius,
furiously angry, was in no mood to mince words, prince or no
prince. His hand came hard down on Gawain's rein, and dragged the
horse into the rapid gallop alongside his own. "It's shame on you,
prince! You knew what the kings wanted from this embassy. If we
come alive out of this, which is doubtful, then we shall see what
Arthur will have to say to you!"

Gawain, still rebellious and
unrepentant, would have replied, but at that moment the troop came
to a river, and they spread out to force their horses through it.
They could have forded it had there been time, but at that moment
the pursuing party came in sight, and there was nothing for it but
to fight. Valerius, furious and desperate, turned and gave orders
for the attack.

The engagement, with tempers high on
both sides, was short, ferocious and very bloody. The fight was a
running one, and ended only when half the embassy, and rather more
of the pursuing force, were dead. Then the Romans, gathered for a
few minutes' respite at the edge of a little wood, seemed to be
taking counsel, and presently two of their number turned and made
off towards the east.

Valerius, unwounded, but exhausted and
liberally stained with other men's blood, watched them go. Then he
said, grimly: "Gone for reinforcements. Right. There's nothing we
can do here. We leave. Now. Bring the loose horses and pick up that
man yonder. He's alive. The rest we'll have to leave."

This time there was no argument. The
British turned and rode off. The Romans made no attempt to stop
them, nor were any taunts exchanged. Gawain had had his way, and
proved what had not needed to be proved. And both sides knew what
must happen now.

6

Mordred sat at the window of the
King's business room in Camelot. The scents from the garden below
eddied on the warm breeze in sudden gusts of sweetness. The apple
blossom was gone, but there were cherries still in bloom, standing
deep among bluebells and the grey spears of iris. The air was full
of the sound of bees, and birds singing, while down in the town
bells rang for some Christian service.

The royal secretaries had gone, and he
was alone. He sat, still thinking over some of the work that had
been done that day, but gradually, in the scented warmth, his
thoughts drifted into dreaming. So little time ago, it seemed, he
had been in the islands, living as he had lived in boyhood,
thinking in bitterness that he had lost everything in that one
night when the Orkney brothers had risked all for themselves and
their friends on that mad, vicious attempt to finish Bedwyr.
Thinking, too, of the summer's tasks ahead of him: harvesting and
drying fish, cutting peats, rebuilding walls and repairing thatch
against the dreadful Orkney winter.

And now? His hand, resting on the
table, touched the royal seal. He smiled.

A movement outside the window caught
his eye. Guinevere the Queen was walking in the garden. She wore a
gown of soft dove-grey, that shimmered as she moved. Her two little
dogs, silver-white greyhounds, frisked round her. From time to time
she threw a gilded ball and they bounded after it, yelping and
wrangling as the winner carried it back to lay it at her feet. Two
of her women, both young and pretty girls, one in primrose yellow
and the other in blue, walked behind. Guinevere, still lovely, and
secure in her loveliness, was not one of those who seek to set her
beauty off by surrounding herself with plain women. The three
lovely creatures, with the dainty little dogs at their skirts,
moved with grace through the garden, and the flowers of that sweet
May were no fairer.

Or so thought Mordred, who was rarely
a poet. He gazed after the Queen, while his hand once more, but
quite unconsciously, reached out and touched the dragon of the
royal seal. Again he drifted into dream, but this time it was not a
dream of the islands.

He was brought sharply to himself by
the sounds, urgent and unmistakable, of a King's messenger being
ushered through the royal apartments. A chamberlain opened the door
to announce a courier, and even as he spoke the man hurried by him
and knelt at the regent's feet.

One glance told Mordred that here was
news from Brittany, and that it was not good. He sat in the great
chair and said, coolly: "Take your time. But first -- the King is
well?"

"Yes, my lord. God be thanked for it!
But the news is ill enough." The man reached into his pouch, and
Mordred put out a hand.

"You have letters? Then while I read
them, compose yourself and take a cup of wine."

The chamberlain, who missed nothing,
came in unbidden with the wine, and while the man drank gratefully,
Mordred broke the seal of the single letter he had brought, and
read it.

It was bad, but, to one remembering
that last conversation with the King, not yet tragic news. Once
again, thought Mordred, the evil fates summoned by Morgause were at
their work. To put it more practically, the Orkney rashness had yet
again brought the promise of disaster close. But possibly something
could be saved from near-disaster; it was to be hoped that all
Gawain had done was to bring matters to a head too soon.