Legacy: Arthurian Saga (59 page)

I saw Ralf give a long look upwards
before he led us in under the rock. There were no sentries above.
What need to post men on the seaward ramparts? He drew his dagger
and rapped sharply on the door, a pattern of knocks which we,
standing as we were at his shoulder, scarcely heard in the
gale.

The porter must have been waiting just
inside. The door opened immediately. It swung silently open for
about three inches, then stuck, and I heard the rattle of a chain
bolt. In the gap a hand showed, gripping a torch. Uther, beside me,
dragged his hood closer, and I stepped past him to Ralf's elbow,
holding my mantle tightly to my mouth and hunching my shoulders
against the volleying gusts of wind and rain.

The porter's face, half of it, showed
below the torch. An eye peered. Ralf, well forward into the light,
said urgently: "Quick, man. A pilgrim. It's me back, with the
Duke."

The torch moved fractionally higher. I
saw the big emerald on Uther's finger catch the light, and said
curtly, in Brithael's voice: "Open up, Felix, and let us get in out
of this, for pity's sake. The Duke had a fall from his horse this
morning, and his bandage is soaking. There are just the four of us
here. Make haste."

The chain bolt came off and the door
swung wide. Ralf put a hand to it so that, ostensibly holding it
for his master, he could step into the passage between Felix and
Uther as the King entered.

Uther strode in past the bowing man,
shaking the wet off himself like a dog, and returning some
half-heard sound in answer to the porter's greeting. Then with a
brief lift of the hand which set the emerald flashing again, he
turned straight for the steps which led upwards on our right, and
began quickly to mount them.

Ralf grabbed the torch from the
porter's hand as Ulfin and I pressed in after Uther. "I'll light
them up with this. Get the door shut and barred again. I'll come
down later and give you the news, Felix, but we're all drenched as
drowned dogs, and want to get to a fire. There's one in the
guard-room, I suppose?"

"Aye." The porter had already turned
away to bar the door. Ralf was holding the torch so that Ulfin and
I could go past in shadow.

I started quickly up the steps in
Uther's wake, with Ulfin on my heels. The stairs were lit only by a
smoking cresset which burned in a bracket on the wall of the wide
landing above us. It had been easy.

Too easy. Suddenly, above us on the
landing, the sullen light was augmented by that from a blazing
torch, and a couple of men-at-arms stepped from a doorway, swords
at the ready.

Uther, six steps above me, paused
fractionally and then went on. I saw his hand, under the cloak,
drop to his sword. Under my own I had my weapon loose in its
sheath.

Ralf's light tread came running up the
steps behind us.

"My lord Duke!"

Uther, I could guess how thankfully,
stopped and turned to wait for him, his back to the
guards.

"My lord Duke, let me light you -- ah,
they've a torch up there." He seemed only then to notice the guards
above us, with the blazing light. He ran on and up past Uther,
calling lightly: "Holà, Marcus, Sellic, give me that torch to light
my lord up to the Duchess. This wretched thing's nothing but
smoke."

The man with the torch had it held
high, and the pair of them were peering down the stairs at us. The
boy never hesitated. He ran up, straight between the swords, and
took the torch from the man's hand. Before they could reach for it,
he turned swiftly to douse the first torch in the tub of sand which
stood near the guard-room door. It went out into sullen smoke. The
new torch blazed cleanly, but swung and wavered as he moved so that
the shadows of the guards, flung gigantic and grotesque down the
steps, helped to hide us. Uther, taking advantage of the swaying
shadows, started again swiftly up the flight. The hand with
Gorlois' ring was half up before him to return the men's salutes.
The guards moved aside. But they moved one to each side of the head
of the steps, and their swords were still in their
hands.

Behind me, I heard the faint whisper
as Ulfin's blade loosened in its sheath. Under my cloak, mine was
half-drawn. There was no hope of getting past them. We would have
to kill them, and pray it made no noise. I heard Ulfin's step
lagging, and knew he was thinking of the porter. He might have to
go back to him while we dealt with the guards.

But there was no need. Suddenly, at
the head of the second flight of steps, a door opened wide, and
there, full in the blaze of light, stood Ygraine. She was in white,
as I had seen her before; but not this time in a night-robe. The
long gown shimmered like lake water. Over one arm and shoulder,
Roman fashion, she wore a mantle of soft dark blue. Her hair was
dressed with jewels. She stretched out both her hands, and the blue
robe and the white fell away from wrists where red gold
glimmered.

"Welcome, my lord!" Her voice, high
and clear, brought both guards round to face her. Uther took the
last half dozen steps to the landing in two leaps, then was past
them, his cloak brushing the sword-blades, past Ralf's blazing
torch, and starting quickly up the second flight of
steps.

The guards snapped back to attention,
one each side of the stair-head, their backs to the wall. Behind me
I heard Ulfin gasp, but he followed me quietly enough as, calmly
and without hurry, I mounted the last steps to the landing. It is
something, I suppose, to have been born a prince, even a bastard
one; I knew that the sentries' eyes were nailed to the wall in
front of them by the Duchess's presence as surely as if they were
blind. I went between the swords, and Ulfin after me.

Uther had reached the head of the
stairway. He took her hands, and there in front of the lighted
door, with his enemies' swords catching the torchlight below him,
the King bent his head and kissed Ygraine. The scarlet cloak swung
round both of them, engulfing the white. Beyond them I saw the
shadow of the old woman, Marcia, holding the door.

Then the King said: "Come," and with
the great cloak still covering them both, he led her into the
firelight, and the door shut behind them.

So we took Tintagel.

8

We were well served that night, Ulfin
and I. The chamber door had hardly shut, leaving us islanded
halfway up the flight between the door and the guards below, when I
heard Ralf's voice again, easy and quick above the slither of
swords being sheathed: "Gods and angels, what a night's work! And I
still have to guide him back when it's done! You've a fire in the
room yonder? Good. We'll have a chance to dry off while we're
waiting. You can get yourselves off now and leave this trick to us.
Go on, what are you waiting for? You've had your orders -- and no
word of this, mark you, to anyone that comes." One of the guards,
settling his sword home, turned straight back into the guard-room,
but the other hesitated, glancing up towards me.

"My lord Brithael, is that right? We
go off watch?" I started slowly down the stairs. "Quite right. You
can go. We'll send the porter for you when we want to leave. And
above all, not a word of the Duke's presence. See to it." I turned
to Ulfin, big-eyed on the stairs behind me. "Jordan, you go up to
the chamber door yonder and stand guard. No, give me your cloak.
I'll take it to the fire."

As he went thankfully, his sword at
last ready in his hand, I heard Ralf crossing the guard-room below,
underlining my orders with what threats I could only guess at. I
went down the steps, not hurrying, to give him time to get rid of
the men.

I heard the inner door shut, and went
in. The guardroom, brightly lit by the torch and the blazing fire,
was empty save for ourselves.

Ralf gave me a smile, gay and
threadbare with nerves. "Not again, even to please my lady, for all
the gold in Cornwall!"

"There will be no need again. You have
done more than well, Ralf. The King will not forget."

He reached up to put the torch in a
socket, saw my face, and said anxiously: "What is it, sir? Are you
ill?"

"No. Does that door lock?" I nodded at
the shut door through which the guards had gone.

"I have locked it. If they had had any
suspicion, they would not have given me the key. But they had none,
how could they? I could have sworn myself just now that it was
Brithael speaking there, from the stairs. It was -- like magic."
The last word held a question, and he eyed me with a look I knew,
but when I said nothing, he asked merely: "What now,
sir?"

"Get you down to the porter now, and
keep him away from here." I smiled. "You'll get your turn at the
fire, Ralf, when we have gone."

He went off, light-footed as ever,
down the steps. I heard him call something, and a laugh from Felix.
I stripped off my drenched cloak and spread it, with Ulfin's, to
the blaze. Below the cloak my clothes were dry enough. I sat for a
while, holding my hands before me to the fire. It was very still in
the firelit chamber, but outside the air was full of the surging
din of the waters and the storm tearing at the castle
walls.

My thoughts stung like sparks. I could
not sit still. I stood and walked about the little chamber,
restlessly. I listened to the storm outside and, going to the door,
heard the murmur of voices and the click of dice as Ralf and Felix
passed the time down by the gate. I looked the other way. No sound
from the head of the stairs, where I could just see Ulfin, or
perhaps his shadow, motionless by the chamber door...

Someone was coming softly down the
stairs; a woman, shrouded in a mantle, carrying something. She came
without a sound, and there had been neither sound nor movement from
Ulfin. I stepped out on to the landing, and the light from the
guard-room came after me, firelight and shadow.

It was Marcia. I saw the tears glisten
on her cheeks as she bent her head over what lay in her arms. A
child, wrapped warm against the winter night. She saw me and held
her burden out to me. "Take care of him," she said, and through the
shine of the tears I saw the treads of the stairway outline
themselves again behind her. "Take care of him..."

The whisper faded into the flutter of
the torch and the sound of the storm outside. I was alone on the
stairway, and above me a shut door. Ulfin had not moved.

I lowered my empty arms and went back
to the fire. This was dying down, and I made it burn up again, but
with small comfort to myself, for again the light stung me. Though
I had seen what I wanted to see, there was death somewhere before
the end, and I was afraid. My body ached, and the room was
stifling. I picked up my cloak, which was almost dry, slung it
round me, and crossed the landing to where in the outer wall was a
small door under which the wind drove like a knife. I thrust the
door open against the blast, and went outside.

At first, after the blaze of the
guard-room, I could see nothing. I shut the door behind me and
leaned back against the damp wall, while the night air poured over
me like a river. Then things took shape around me. In front and a
few paces away was a battlemented wall, waist high, the outer wall
of the castle. Between this wall and where I stood was a level
platform, and above me a wall rising again to a battlement, and
beyond this the soaring cliff and the walls climbing it, and the
shape of the fortress rising above me step by step to the peak of
the promontory. At the very head of the rise, where we had seen the
lighted window, the tower now showed black and lightless against
the sky.

I went forward to the battlement and
leaned over. Below was an apron of cliff, which would in daylight
be a grassy slope covered with sea-pink and white campion and the
nests of seabirds. Beyond it and below, the white rage of the bay.
I looked down to the right, the way we had come. Except for the
driving arcs of white foam, the bay where Cadal waited was
invisible under darkness.

It had stopped raining now, and the
clouds were running higher and thinner. The wind had veered a
little, slackening. It would drop towards dawn. Here and there,
high and black beyond the racing clouds, the spaces of the night
were filled with stars.

Then suddenly, directly overhead, the
clouds parted, and there, sailing through them like a ship through
running waves, the star.

It hung there among the dazzle of
smaller stars, flickering at first, then pulsing, growing, bursting
with light and all the colors that you see in dancing water. I
watched it wax and flame and break open in light, then a racing
wind would fling a web of cloud across it till it lay grey and dull
and distant, lost to the eye among the other, minor stars. Then, as
the swarm began their dance again it came again, gathering and
swelling and dilating with light till it stood among the other
stars like a torch throwing a whirl of sparks. So on through the
night, as I stood alone on the ramparts and watched it; vivid and
bright, then grey and sleeping, but each time waking to burn more
gently, till it breathed light rather than heat, and towards
morning hung glowing and quiet, with the light growing round it as
the new day promised to come in clear and still.

I drew breath, and wiped the sweat
from my face. I straightened up from where I had leaned against the
ramparts. My body was stiff, but the ache had gone. I looked up at
Ygraine's darkened window where, now, they slept.