Legacy: Arthurian Saga (236 page)

"Would these settlers accept your
people?"

"It is agreed." The old king slanted a
bright glance up at the other man. "They are not a strong people,
and it is rumored that the South Saxons are casting their eyes in
that direction. They will welcome us. And we will make the land
good for ourselves and for them."

He went on to talk about his plans,
and Mordred questioned, and they talked for some time. Later
Mordred said: "Tell me, king. My information is not always
correct." (this was not true, and he knew that Cerdic knew it, but
the gambit brought a subject under discussion that neither had
liked to broach openly.) "Since Aelle died, has there been a leader
of note among the South Saxons? The land there is the best in the
south, and it has long seemed to me that the king who held Rutupiae
and the lands behind it held a key in his hand. The key to the
mainland of the Continent and its trade."

There was a gleam of appreciation in
the old king's eyes. He did not say in so many words that Aelle's
descendants had no such grasp of the situation, but again, the two
men understood one another.

He merely said, thoughtfully: "I am
told -- though of course my information is not always correct --
that the harbor at Rutupiae is beginning to silt up, and no attempt
is being made to keep it clear."

Mordred, who, too, had heard this,
expressed surprise, and the two men talked for a while longer to
their mutual satisfaction, with at the end a very clear idea that,
should Cerdic decide that the gateway to the Continent would be
worth a foray by the West Saxons, Mordred with the British would at
the very least refrain from pushing in through the back door, and
at the most would throw his weight in beside the West Saxon
king.

"With eventual free access for British
traders to the port, of course," he said.

"Of course," said Cerdic.

So, with a good deal of satisfaction
on both sides, the conference ended. The old king set off southward
with the elder thegns, while his younger warriors escorted Mordred
and his troops part of the way north, with a joyous accompaniment
of shouting and weapon-play. Mordred rode alone for most of the
way, ahead of the troops. He was dimly conscious of the noise
behind him, where Saxon and Briton alike seemed to be celebrating
what was now an alliance, rather than a mere treaty of
non-aggression. He knew, as Cerdic had known without saying it,
that such an agreement could not so readily have been reached with
the victor of Badon and its forerunning battles. A new start had
been made. The day of the young men had begun. Change was in the
air. Plans, long stifled, buzzed in his brain, and the blood he
shared with Ambrosius and Arthur and Merlin the vanished statesman
ran free at last with the power to do and to make.

It is certain that if, on his return
to Camelot, he had found awaiting him the royal courier with the
news of Arthur's safety and imminent return, there would have been
a perceptible weight of disappointment among the relief and
joy.

No courier was there. For days now the
wind had blown steadily eastward across the Narrow Sea, keeping the
British ships sealed in the Breton harbors. But it carried a ship
from Cornwall to Brittany with letters from Constantine the duke.
They were identical, addressed the one to King Hoel, and the other
to Bedwyr, and the latter was carried straight to Arthur, where he
lay still at Autun.

Mordred has shown himself in his true
colors. He has given out through the kingdoms that King Arthur is
slain, and he has assumed the kingship. The Queen has resigned her
regency, and letters have come bidding me to resign my rights as
Arthur's heir, and accept Mordred as High King. He treats now with
Cerdic, who is to hold the ports of the Saxon Shore against all
corners, and whose son is in Saxony raising his thousands, all of
whom swear allegiance to Mordred.

Meanwhile Mordred the King talks with
the kings of Dyfed and Guent, and men from Mona and Powys, and is
riding even now to meet the leaders from the north who have long
spoken against Arthur the High King, wanting freedom forevery man
to rule as he wills, without reference to the Round Hall and the
Council. Mordred, perjurer that he is, promises them self-rule and
a change of the law. So he makes allies.

Finally, with the High King gone, he
plans to take Queen Guinevere to wife. He has lodged her at
Caerleon, and consorts with her there.

Though the interpretation of Mordred's
actions was Constantine's, the main facts as set out in the letter
were true.

As soon as he returned from his
meeting with Cerdic, Mordred had persuaded the Queen to go to
Caerleon. Until the truth of Arthur's death was known, and the
country -- at present in the inevitable panic and turmoil following
the sudden death of a powerful ruler -- was more settled, and the
new chain of command set up and working smoothly, he wanted, as he
had promised, to ensure her safety. Camelot was as strong a city as
Caerleon, but it was too far east; and any trouble that was coming,
as Mordred judged, would come that way. The west was safe. (except,
he reminded himself, from Duke Constantine, that silently resentful
ex-heir of Arthur's, who had sent no answer to the courteous
invitations of the Council to discuss the matter at the round
table. But Caerleon, armed and defended, was as safe from him as
from any other disaffected man.)

It was too near for Guinevere's liking
to her own homeland of Northgalis, where a cousin now ruled who had
wanted once to marry her, and who said so rather too often to the
wife he eventually had to take. But the alternatives were even less
comfortable. Guinevere would have preferred to take refuge in a
convent, but of the two best sanctuaries, the nearer -- the Lake
convent on Ynys Witrin -- was in the Summer Country, and the Queen
would on no account put herself under the protection of its king,
Melwas. The other, at Amesbury, Arthur's own township, which would
have welcomed her, had failed signally to protect the last queen it
had housed. Morgause's murder still haunted the place.

So Mordred, making necessity a
pleasure, chose Caerleon, where he had already convened meetings
with those kings from the west and north with whom he had not
already had the chance to talk. He escorted the Queen there
himself, embarking with her at Ynys Witrin, and setting sail for
the Isca's mouth on the shore of the Severn Sea.

The voyage was calm, the sea gentle,
the breezes light and fresh. It was a golden interval in the
turmoil of that violent summer. The Queen kept apart with her
ladies, but in the morning and evening of the two days' voyage
Mordred visited her and they talked. On one of these occasions she
told him, briefly and without detail, why she had been so reluctant
to take refuge with King Melwas. It appeared that many years ago,
in the hot spring of youth, Melwas had abducted the Queen by force
and stratagem, and carried her off to a remote island in the
water-logged fens of the Summer Country. There, by his magic,
Merlin had discovered her, and had led Bedwyr to a timely rescue.
Later, Arthur and Melwas had fought, a notable combat, at the end
of which the King, being the victor, had spared Melwas's
life.

"After that?" said Mordred, shocked
for once into bluntness. "I would have dragged him to your feet and
killed him there, slowly."

"And had every man and woman in the
kingdoms sure of his guilt and my shame?" She spoke calmly, but her
cheeks had reddened, whether at the memory of that shame or at the
young man's fervor it was impossible to guess.

Mordred bit his lip. He recalled the
story that Agravain had once told at a meeting of the Young Celts,
and that he, Mordred, had not believed. So it was true; and now the
cryptic references made by Bedwyr and Arthur at the site of the
Princess Elen's rape became clear. He remembered further: the
girl's violated body lying under its scrambled covering of pine
needles.

He said thickly: "Later, then. But
policy or no policy, I would not have let him live."

He took his leave then. After he had
gone the Queen sat for a long while without moving, looking out
across the deck-rail at the shining water, and the distant shore
sliding by, with its trees like clouds, and the clouds above them
like towers.

Having installed Guinevere in comfort
in the Queen's palace at Caerleon, Mordred plunged into the round
of meetings with the leaders and petty kings assembled in the
fortress to meet him. What he had not expected, and what
Constantine, that western duke, knew well, was the dissatisfaction,
even hostility, he found there for some of Arthur's policies. In
the remoter highlands, the silver-age Romanization so dear to
Ambrosius and Arthur had never been acceptable. It was not only the
young men who wanted change; the older kings, too, were chafing
against what they saw as the restrictive policies of a remote and
lowland center of government. Arthur, in attempting to restore the
territorial integrity of Roman Britain, had remodeled his
federation of kingdoms in a way that to many of the rulers seemed
outdated. To these men Mordred, outlander and Young Celt, was the
leader they hoped for. That Arthur had just stood against actual
Roman domination in defense of the Celtic lands would do much to
bring him nearer their hearts again, but Arthur was presumed dead,
and it became increasingly apparent that in the Celtic Highlands
his return would not be altogether welcome.

Mordred trod carefully, talked
sparingly, counted the allies sworn to his banner, and went every
evening to see the Queen.

It was perhaps a little sad to see how
Guinevere lighted up at his visits, and how eagerly she plied him
with questions. He answered her readily, keeping her more fully
informed than Arthur had found time to do, of every move of state.
She did not guess that he was simply taking every chance of seeing
her, and every means of prolonging his meetings with her, letting
her grow easier with him, become used to him in his role of ruler
and protector. She thought merely that he was trying to bring her
comfort and distraction, and was grateful accordingly, and her
gratitude, in that time of uncertainty, grief and fear, brought her
(as Mordred had hoped) within touching distance of tenderness, and
sighting distance of love. At any rate, when he held her hand to
kiss it, or, greatly daring, laid his own over it by way of
comfort, she no longer hurried to withdraw from his
touch.

As for Mordred, with his new
authority, the uncertainty, the brilliant starting of long-held
plans, the closeness of the long-desired and lovely Guinevere, he
was swept forward from day to day on a full tide of sovereignty and
power, and it is doubtful if at this stage he could have gone back.
In love, as in other things, there comes a time when the will
resigns and franks the desire, and then not even Orpheus, turning
back, could cause his love to vanish. He had had that one glimpse
of her, the real Guinevere, a lonely woman afraid of life, a leaf
to be blown into a safe corner by any strong wind. He would be --
was -- her safety. He was subtle enough to see that she recognized
it, and used her gently. He could wait.

So the days went by, and the wind
still closed the Narrow Sea, and each of them, constantly, watched
the road and the harbor for the messenger from Brittany. And each
spent hours of the night watching the dark and thinking, thinking,
and when they finally slept it was not of each other they dreamed,
but of Arthur.

Of Duke Constantine, brooding in his
Cornish castle, they did not think at all.

Constantine's letter was brought to
Arthur at his camp near Autun. King Hoel, feeling his years and his
ailments now that the battle was over, had withdrawn towards home.
But for Gawain, who in these days was always at his elbow, Arthur
was alone.

He was also very tired. He had
returned from the brief punitive foray into the mountains to find
near-panic among the troops who, though still searching among the
heaped dead for his body, believed themselves kingless. Even his
return permitted little rejoicing, for Bedwyr, worse hurt than he
had admitted, or that anyone had judged, was now seriously ill, and
the surgeons shook their heads over the pallet where he lay
unconscious in an annex of the royal pavilion.

So Arthur was alone in more ways than
one. Bedwyr was dying. Cei, the elder foster-brother with whom he
had been brought up, was dead. Caius Valerius, too, the ageing
warrior, veteran of Ambrosius' wars, and friend to Uther Pendragon
and Merlin... The list seemed endless, the names a roll culled from
the tale of Arthur's past glories, or even a simple tally of his
friends. Of those close to him Gawain alone was unwounded, and he,
flown with the joy of his first great fight and resounding victory,
had proved himself a strong support. To him Arthur, feeling his age
for the first time (though he was by many years King Hoel's
junior), turned in gratitude and affection.

He started to read the duke's letter.
Through the skins of the tent wall he could hear the groaning and
muttering where Bedwyr tossed on his sickbed. He would die before
morning, they said, if the fever did not break.

The letter again. Mordred... making
himself High King, talking with Cerdic, gathering the kings of
Wales and the north...

"Well," said Arthur, frowning; his
head ached and the torchlight made the words swim. "Well, all this
is to be expected. If news of my supposed death was taken to
Mordred, he would take exactly these steps. We spoke of it before
he left Kerrec. He was to meet with Cerdic to ratify the treaty and
talk over a possible new settlement in the future. Now, if my death
was reported to him, he may well have thought it expedient to
negotiate new terms, since the old treaty would then be
invalid."