The Prince and the Pilgrim (23 page)

“Well, he was played out. He could hardly
stand
when he got here, and they’ve been talking for three hours since dinner. We’ll see him here with her tomorrow, I’ve no doubt.”

This time they were not speaking of Alexander.

“The Queen of the Isles?” exclaimed Alexander.

“Well, she calls herself that.” In a less exalted personage than a queen, Morgan’s tone might have been called spiteful. “Some petty king she married, and lucky to get him, seeing that she’d been Merlin’s mistress for the gods know how many years, and he old enough to be her grandfather!”

They were sitting together in Queen Morgan’s chamber – the bower of bliss. Count Ferlas, having rested for two days at the castle, had gone back to his home, taking the sad news of his brother’s death to their mother, and since then the queen had been at some pains to soothe her young lover’s wounded feelings, and to show him that nothing was changed between them. It had crossed Alexander’s mind that, while Ferlas had remained in the castle, the interviews between the count and Queen Morgan were rather prolonged even for what they might have had to discuss. But (though he would not admit it even to himself) the respite from dancing attendance, and from ever more demanding love-making, had been rather welcome than otherwise.

For all that, when her summons came he
answered
it with alacrity, to find her alone in the royal apartments, sitting by the window that looked south over the river-valley. He was given her hand to kiss, no more, and rose from his knee to see a look of trouble shadowing the beautiful face.

No need to ask what irked her; she gestured him abruptly to a chair across from hers, and began to talk.

Count Ferlas and his brother, she told him, had been among the knights who had attended her even before she was banished to Caer Eidyn, and had stayed in her service through her confinement there and at Castell Aur. Though (this with a prettily rueful glance at Alexander) it could not truthfully be said that her imprisonment at her brother Arthur’s hands was unduly harsh, it was still imprisonment, and her loyal knights felt, had always felt, that it was unjust. So they had banded together to offer what help they could in persuading Arthur to release her. And they knew – everyone knew – that the biggest impediment in the way of this was the King’s adviser, Merlin’s successor, Nimuë, wife of King Pelleas of the Isles.

It was Nimuë of whom they spoke now. Alexander had of course heard of her, the young protégée and disciple of the great Merlin, who had been placed as a girl among the ladies of the Lake shrine at Avalon, but who had left them to live with Merlin and learn all his lore.

“As once,” said Queen Morgan, “he would have taught me, had he not been afraid that my power might outstrip his, so he persuaded my brother Arthur to pack me off north to marry King
Urbgen
of Rheged. It suited both kings to use me to tie their kingdoms to one another, so I was locked away in Urbgen’s castle at Luguvallium, with an old man whose two sons were older than I, and hated me.”

So the queen recounted her version of things past, where such well-known facts as must have come to Alexander’s ears were carefully twisted to adorn her story. The truth was that, on her way to a splendid marriage, escorted by Merlin as Arthur’s deputy, Morgan had tried to cajole the enchanter into teaching her some of his art. The cold set-down he gave her had made her his enemy, an enmity passed on to Nimuë his successor. Even the recent murder of her half-sister Morgause was somehow laid to Merlin’s door, though Merlin was no longer at court, and Morgause’s own son had been the murderer. But was it not known that Mordred, Arthur’s son by Morgause, had stood by, on who knew what instructions from the King’s adviser?

So Morgan, changing her tack to suit her lover’s tiresome loyalty to the High King. Carefully watching him under down-dropped lids, she proceeded to drive the point home. Knowing all this, who could tell what might come to another queen, herself, imprisoned like Morgause on some false charge of treachery, but, unlike Morgause, with no sons or kin to protect her, other than the royal brother who listened only to Nimuë’s jealous advice – advice meant to keep Morgan from her brother’s side, where she might have been able to bring to his service a power even greater than Nimuë’s?

Yes – at Alexander’s somewhat startled look she nodded – it might have been so. There was a way, one way only, for the helpless queen to assert herself against Nimuë’s magic and be reinstated at Arthur’s side. There was a talisman which, could she but lay hands on it, would give her this power. It was the quest for this talisman that Ferlas and his brother had undertaken for her. They had failed, as had another of her knights who had gone before them on the same quest.

So now how could she ask another man, however brave and gallant, to undertake so perilous a quest? Rather would she spend the rest of her days in this helpless isolation, to end, perhaps, even as Morgause had ended, by murder in the dark …

Whatever magic Queen Morgan undoubtedly possessed, there was one art that Merlin could not have taught her – and Alexander was not to know that most women could – the art that brought tears to the lovely eyes, a sob into the light pretty voice, and her lover back to her feet, his vague doubts forgotten, vowing by every god in the calendar that whatever she wished him to do for her, he would do, though it meant death. He was eager, burning, and very young. This was the adventure that, so long ago it seemed, he had set out from Craig Arian to seek. This was the stuff of poetry, of beauty and romance. A quest, on behalf of a queen, and so lovely and loving a queen.

Morgan, accepting his vows, his kisses, and a kerchief of fine linen to dry her tears, settled back in her chair to tell him about the quest so dear to
her
, a quest already attempted twice, and twice ending in failure and death.

It was the quest for the Grail.

Some of the story she began to tell him now he already knew. The secret love of King Uther and Ygraine, Duchess of Cornwall, that had resulted in Arthur’s birth, had already passed into legend, along with the tale of Arthur’s hidden childhood, and his sudden appearance at the dying Uther’s side in battle. The subsequent scene of mystery and wonder, when, led to it by Merlin the enchanter, the young king had raised the magical sword Caliburn from the stone, to be acclaimed rightful king of all Britain, was told in song and story by every fireside.

What was not generally known, being cast into shade by the dazzling events surrounding the young King’s accession, was how the sword had come originally into Merlin’s keeping. Morgan knew the story, having heard it from her sister Morgause, who in her turn had had it from spies set long ago to watch all the doings of the royal household.

The sword Caliburn had once belonged to the Emperor Maximus, whom the British had called Macsen during his brief reign in their country. It had been made for him by a British smith – legend said Weland himself – at a forge in the Welsh mountains, and was possessed of magic powers. It could belong only to the king, rightwise born, of Britain.

When Macsen died abroad, some of his faithful troops, determined that the sword should not fall into alien hands, carried it back to Britain, and buried it, along with other treasures, below the altar of the temple of Mithras at Segontium, Macsen’s last great stronghold on the coast of Wales. There, by his magic art, Merlin had found it, and, because he was Macsen’s kin, had taken the sword as of right, to hide it and keep it for Arthur’s coming.

“You know about that?” asked Morgan. Alexander nodded, and she went on: “I was too young to be there. I was with my mother Queen Ygraine in Cornwall, preparing for my marriage, but Morgause my half-sister was in the north with our father King Uther, and –” She broke off. “But never mind that. What she did then, she paid for.”

She was silent for a moment, and for once her face was not beautiful at all. Alexander did not notice. For the first time apprehension mingled with the former excitement. He was recalling the other tale, told sometimes in whispers, about the true reason for Queen Morgan’s disgrace and imprisonment, which went some way beyond the betrayal of her marriage-bed. It was said that she had persuaded her lover Accolon to steal the King’s sword Caliburn, substituting a copy of it to allay Arthur’s suspicions. What the pair had planned then could only be guessed at, since Arthur had fought and killed Accolon, and thereafter joined with King Urbgen to see that Morgan could wreak no more mischief.

She had, of course, maintained her innocence: that she only wanted the sword of power to give
to
her husband Urbgen, and that Accolon had persuaded her into the business, but no one believed it, and Alexander, having himself experienced Morgan’s ways with a young lover, doubted if Accolon had had any power over her at all.

He said, trying to hide the hesitation in his voice: “You cannot still want the sword?”

Morgan, back in the present, saw in one swift glance that her toils of magic needed to be re-woven. She laughed, and rose to pour wine for them both, then seated herself on the cushions of the wide window-seat and gestured him to sit beside her.

“No, no. Did I not say it was the grail?”

“Yes. But I didn’t understand. Grail? That is a cup, I think? What grail?”

“Don’t you remember what I said, that when Merlin found Macsen’s sword of power, it was with other treasures in the Mithraeum at Segontium?”

“Yes. This grail was there?”

“Indeed. A great golden cup, they say, jewelled and with wings for handles, along with other things – I forget what – but all priceless. Things saved from the emperor’s treasury and brought back to this country after his death abroad. It was kept secret somehow, and the treasure stayed buried while the Mithraeum rotted and fell in over it. Merlin took nothing but the sword. He –” Her voice was suddenly acid – “he thought he had no need of the grail.”

“But you have?”

“Need! I like to think not, but I desire it. Alex
my
love, I desire it!” She set her wine aside untasted, and turning with arms held out, took his face between her hands. “More, if it were possible, than I desire you! No, no, my dear, hear me out! That grail, cup as you call it, I believe it to be more magical even than the sword! I know that whoever owns it has power, and the protection of the greater gods. I have seen this in the crystal and heard it in the whispering of the dark spirits of the air.”

He would have drawn back at that, but her hands held him and her eyes compelled him. The fumes of the wine he had drunk were warm in his brain. He said, whispering in his turn: “I will get it for you, Morgan my enchantress. Of course I will! There can surely be no wrong in it, treasure buried by Macsen’s troops so many years back? And you are royal, of Macsen’s house; you have a right to it, as Arthur had to the sword! I will get it for you. At Segontium, you said? Only tell me where it is, this temple of Mithras!”

She let him go, and sank back among the cushions. “It’s there no longer. Nimuë has it.”

“Nimuë?”

“Yes, that bitch of Merlin’s. He told her where it was. She wormed it out of him as he lay sick and near death, and then she went and lifted the rest of the treasure, grail and all, from the ruins of the Mithraeum, and took it down to Arthur at Caerleon. I’m told that neither the High King nor old Merlin would touch it. So she took it back to her home in the north, and it has never been seen since that day.”

He said, after a pause: “And Count Ferlas?”

“Oh, yes. He went to Luguvallium and asked here and there, but no matter of that. It’s a long story, and he got nowhere. He could not come near Nimuë. He found out nothing, and his brother took ill of a fever, and died, so Ferlas came back.”

“Was it a spell, the sickness?”

“Who knows? Are you afraid?”

“I’m not afraid of witches, not now,” said Alexander, and laughed. She looked at him, momentarily startled by the suddenly adult and almost indulgent tone, then laughed with him.

“Nor you are, my lover. Then you will go and get this magical cup for me?”

“I said I would.” He hesitated again. “If you will promise me something.”

“Conditions? I have said I will love you.” A smile of charming mischief that hid a secret amusement. “I will even serve your wine in the grail when you bring it here.”

A half-shake of the head. He was quite serious now. “Only tell me – promise me – that when you have this magical cup in your hands with, what did you say? all the power of the greater gods, you will use it only to help yourself to freedom, and after that, in the service of the High King.”

For a moment he thought he had said too much. The sudden flash in her eyes reminded him that he was still, if not strictly a prisoner here in the Dark Tower, very much in her power. But she needed him. Her brother Arthur might move at any moment to have her transferred to stricter rule, and she had a shrewd idea that where the blunt soldier Ferlas and his predecessor had failed
to
come near Nimuë’s secret, the innocent and patently loyal Alexander might succeed. So she only smiled, with a kind of sad sweetness, and lifted a hand to touch his cheek again.