The Book of Mordred (44 page)

"Stop," Alayna commanded. "Save your strength."

But he struggled to his feet, standing closer to where the hill overlooked the lake.

"The boat is on its way back," he said, slurring the words a bit. "Despite Morgana's opinion."

Kiera saw that the boat was again plainly visible.

Her mother said, "Mordred..."

He wasn't steady on his feet, and Kiera felt a sudden lurch in her stomach at the thought that he might intend to hurl himself off the edge. Alayna must have had the same idea, for they moved simultaneously, one on either side of him.

"Morgana, on the other hand, says it is all a matter of practice." Mordred turned to Kiera, and Alayna grabbed his arm to keep him from falling. He didn't seem to notice. "
She
says I could draw on our combined energy—mine, Nimue's, and Merlin's. Do you think so, Kiera?" He held the ring in the flat of his hand. "Could I still be the ruler of all of Britain?"

She avoided his eyes. "Perhaps."

"Perhaps," he repeated. His hand tightened into a fist. Then he drew his arm back, and flung the ring with all his might.

She saw the flash of gold, high over the lake. Then she lost it, but her eyes followed the path it must take.

The water rippled, bubbled, flew up in a great spray—too much to be a splash from such a small object. Then a lady's arm broke through the surface. The hand clasped shut, and then it disappeared back into the lake.

Mordred whispered, "Bedivere
wasn't
making it up," but the last word was lost in a gasp of pain. He dropped to his knees, bent over double, his breathing loud and ragged.

"Mordred!" Kiera cried. Her fingers and her mother's began to fumble with the fastenings of his armor.

"No," he said, though he still couldn't catch his breath.

They ignored him, got the breastplate off, then pushed the bulky armor out of the way.

He had stopped resisting. In fact, his eyes were clear and unafraid and filled, Kiera thought, with the wonder of someone surprised to be alive. His soft leather undergarment had a large gash and much of it was saturated with blood, but he didn't flinch at her touch.

Carefully, tenderly, Alayna pulled the shirt up.

The skin was smeared and crusted with blood, but there was none of the damage to flesh and internal organs that had to have occurred from the sword stroke Kiera had witnessed.

Mordred had his eyes closed, his head tipped back.

"Small healings," Kiera whispered.

Slowly, her mother nodded. "She always said her specialty was small healings." Alayna gave a short laugh, shook her head, then laughed again. She took Mordred's head between her hands and laughed and cried at the same time.

Mordred threw his arms around her, buried his face in her neck, between her shoulder and her hair, then drew Kiera into the circle with them.

Finally he held both of them back, at arm's length. He started to say something, but his attention was diverted below, to the shore.

Kiera followed his gaze and saw Vivien, just now climbing out of her boat.

The Lady shaded her eyes with her hand, searching the nearby hills.

Kiera waved her arm.

Vivien waved back, and started for the path that led up.

"You aren't going?" Alayna asked Mordred, her voice shaking. "Are you? Now that you don't need to? Or..." She didn't dare ask the question Kiera knew she wanted to:
Will you go there in the hope that Nimue, when she revives, will choose you over Merlin?

"No," Mordred said. He shook his head for emphasis. "No, there's nothing in Avalon for me."

Alayna looked light-headed from relief. "Shall we meet Vivien halfway?" she asked. "Let her know she made the trip back for nothing?"

Softly, hating to dispel the happiness so quickly, Kiera said, "No."

"Kiera." There was fear in her mother's voice once again.

"Mother." Kiera found it difficult to meet Alayna's eyes. "Mordred asked what there was in Avalon for him. What is there here for me? People afraid of me? People hating me? People wanting to use me?"

"No! It doesn't have to be like that. We'll find a place where nobody knows any of us, and we'll be happy together. We'll protect you. Won't we, Mordred?"

"Yes," he agreed, too quietly. "As best we could. As long as we could."

Kiera knew it was the truest answer he could give. It was the truest answer anybody could give.

Alayna turned back to Kiera. "I love you, Kiera," she said—in the end, the only argument she had.

And it was almost enough.

"And I love you," Kiera said. She reached for her mother's hair, caressed it away from her face as Alayna had so often done with hers. "Be happy," she wished them.

She turned back only once, just before the path curved away to the beach. But by then she was too far away to see them. And if they could see her, she never met them again to ask.

Britain was less a country than a gathering of battlefronts, fought over by innumerable petty kings and barons. Still, with the help of the enchanter Merlin, and a magical sword given him by the mysterious Lady of the Lake, Arthur Pendragon became King of Britain.

Queen Morgause of Orkney, the widow of one of the leaders of those opposing Arthur, was also Arthur's half-sister. Whether Morgause was aware of this relationship,
Le Morte D'Arthur
never says, though Malory takes care to mention several times that Arthur was not. In any case, Morgause came to court with her four sons, Gawain, Gaheris, Agravaine, and Gareth, and—m Malory's words—"She was a passing fair lady, wherefore the king cast great love unto her, and so was Mordred born."

Upon learning that he was guilty—however unwittingly—of incest, and haunted by Merlin's prophecy that Morgause's child would destroy him and all the knights of his realm, the young King tried to have his infant son killed. By the time he learned that Mordred had escaped, Arthur had come to regret his cruel plan, and he accepted Mordred at Camelot.

By then Merlin was gone.

Malory tells us that Merlin, the clever magician who could see into the future and knew that Nimue would betray him—and how, and when—was nevertheless "assot-ted upon" the damsel of the lake, and so he let her lock him in an underground cave, never to be heard from again.

What Malory doesn't explain is why, despite Arthur's love for Merlin, the King bore no grudge against Nimue. In fact, Nimue was welcomed at Camelot on several occasions. One of these times she warned Arthur about a gift sent by another of Arthur's half-sisters, Morgan le Fay—a cloak, which, it turned out, caused the wearer to burst into flame and be reduced to ashes.

Over the years, the knights of Arthur's Round Table had many adventures, and gained a reputation for helping women and the poor and weak. But a darker side to chivalry was beginning to show itself: an underlying disregard for human life, a perverse pleasure taken in anger and the seeking of revenge, an unwillingness to forgo any challenge—no matter the cost.

Throughout
Le Morte D'Arthur,
whenever Malory mentions Mordred, it's to say he was knocked off his horse at a tournament ("and there he smote Sir Mordred from his horse, and brised him sore"), or to show him in some cowardly act. Yet when—in Arthur's absence—Mordred declared himself King of Britain, he was able to rally enough support that Arthur was unable to win a decisive battle.

Unfortunately, when they met on the field to discuss terms, one of the other knights present drew his sword to kill a snake that had appeared out of nowhere, and the waiting armies converged.

Eventually, with hardly anyone left alive on either side, Arthur killed Mordred, just as Mordred gravely wounded Arthur. Then, says Malory, "pillers and robbers were come into the field ... And who that were not dead all out, there they slew them for their harness and their riches."

Morgan le Fay (Arthur's oft-times enemy) and the Lady of the Lake (his oft-times benefactor) came in a barge and, weeping, took the injured King and disappeared.

Queen Guenevere became a nun at Amesbury; and Lancelot, who had hastened back to Britain to help Arthur against Mordred—only to arrive too late—took the vows of priesthood. The remaining knights scattered, and the last of them were killed in the Holy Land.

As for Arthur, Malory says he died. He says the women on the boat had planned to take him to Avalon to be healed, but didn't get there in time. And he says a hermit buried him in a little chapel in the woods.

Then he says: But then again, maybe not.

Vivian Vande Velde
first became interested in the legend of King Arthur when she read T. H. White's
The Once and Future King
in the eighth grade. Since then she has written many award-winning novels for teens. In fact,
The Book of Mordred
is number twenty-five. She is also the author of
A Coming Evil
and
The Rumplestiltskin Problem,
and many other fantasy and adventure novels for young readers. She lives with her husband, Jim, in Rochester, New York.