The Wicked Day Part 16

"Because he would not see Arthur stained with the wrong of murder, whatever the cause. Because he was wise enough to see that we cannot turn the G.o.ds aside, but must follow as best we can the paths they lay out for us. Because he knew that out of seeming evil can come great good, and out of welldoing may come bane and death. Because he saw also that in the moment of Arthur's death his glory would have reached and pa.s.sed its fullness, but that by that death the glory would live on to be a light and a trumpet-call and a breath of life for men to come."

When she stopped speaking it seemed as if a faint echo of her voice, like a harp string thrumming, wound on and on in the air, to vibrate at last into silence.

At length Mordred spoke. "But you must know that I would not willingly bring evil to the King. I owe him much, and none of it evil. He knew this prophecy from the start, and, believing it, yet took me into his court and accepted me as his son. How, then, can you suppose that I would willingly harm him?"

She said, more gently: "It does not have to be by your will."

"Are you trying to tell me that I can do nothing to avert this fate that you speak of?"

"What will be, will be," she said.

"You cannot help me?"

"To avoid what is in the stars? No."

Mordred, with a movement of violent impatience, got to his feet. She did not move, even when he took a stride forward and towered over her, as if he would strike her.

"This is absurd! The stars! You talk as if men are sheep, and worse than sheep, to be driven by blind fate to do the will of some ill-wis.h.i.+ng G.o.d! What of my will? Am I, despite anything I may wish or do, condemned to be the death or bane of a man I respect, a king I follow? Am I to be a sinner - more, the worst of sinners, a parricide? What G.o.ds are these?"

She did not reply. She tilted her head back, still watching him steadily.

He said, angrily: "Very well. You have said, and Merlin has said, and Queen Morgause, who like you was a witch" - her eyes nickered at that, perhaps with annoyance, and he felt a savage pleasure at getting through to her - "that through me the King will meet his doom. You say I cannot avoid this. So?

How if I took my dagger - thus - and killed myself here and now? Would that not avert the fate that you say hangs in the stars?"

She had not stirred at the dagger's flash, but now she moved. She rose from her stool and crossed to the window. She stood there with her back to him, looking out. Beyond the open frame was a pear tree, where a blackbird sang.

She spoke without turning.

"Prince Mordred, I did not say that Arthur would meet his doom by your hand or even by your action.

Through your existence is all. So kill yourself now if you will it, but through your death his fate might come on him all the sooner."

"But then-" he began desperately.

She turned. "Listen to me. Had Arthur slain you in infancy, it might have happened that men would have risen against him for his cruelty, and that in the uprising he would have been killed. If you kill yourself now, it might be that your brothers, blaming him, would bring him to ruin. Or even that Arthur himself, spurring here to Applegarth at the news, would take a fall from his horse and die, or lie a cripple while his kingdom crumbled round him." She lifted her hands. "Now do you understand? Fate has more than one arrow. The G.o.ds wait behind cloud."

"Then they are cruel!"

"You know that already, do you not?"

He remembered the sickening smell of the burned cottage, the feel of the sea-washed bone in his hand, the lonely cry of the gulls over the beach.

He met the grey eyes, and saw compa.s.sion there. He said quietly: "So what can a man do?"

"All that we have," she said, "is to live what life brings. Die what death comes."

"That is black counsel."

"Is it?" she said. "You cannot know that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you cannot know what life will bring. All I can tell you is this: that whatever years of life are left for you and for your father, they will see ambition realized, and will bring fulfilment and their need of glory, both for him and for you."

He stood silent at that. It was more than he had imagined or expected, that she would give him not only a qualified hope, but the promise of a life fulfilled.

He said: "So it won't serve for me to leave court, and stay away from him?"

"No."

He smiled for the first time. "Because he wants me where he can see me? Because the arrow by daylight is better to face than the knife in the dark?"

There was a glimmer of a smile in reply. "You are like him," was all she said, but he felt the interview begin to lighten. A sombre lady, this one. She was beautiful, yes, but he would as soon, he thought, have touched a rousing falcon.

"You can't tell me any more? Anything?"

"I do not know more."

"Would Merlin know? And would he tell me?"

"What he knew, I know," she said again. "I told you, I am Merlin."

"You said this before. Is it some kind of riddling way of telling me that his power is gone, or just that I may not approach him?" He spoke with renewed impatience. "All my life I seem to have been listening to rumours of magical deaths and vanis.h.i.+ngs, and they are never true. Tell me straightly, if you will: if I go to Bryn Myrddin, will I find him?"

"If he wishes it, yes."

"Then he is still there?"

"He is where he always was, with all his fires and travelling glories round him."

As they talked the sun had moved round, and the light from the window touched her face. He saw faint lines on the smooth brow, the shadow of fatigue under the eyes, a dew of transparency on her skin.

He said abruptly: "I am sorry if I have wearied you."

She did not deny it. She said merely: "I am glad you came," and followed him to the tower doorway.

"Thank you for your patience," he said, and drew breath for a formal farewell, but a shout from the courtyard below startled him. He swung round and looked down. Nimue came swiftly to his elbow.

"You'd better go down, and hurry! Your horse has slipped his tether, and I think he has eaten some of the new seedlings." Her face lit with mischief, young and alive, like that of a child who misbehaves in a shrine. "If Varro kills you with his spade, as seems likely, we shall see how the fates will deal with that!" that!"

He kissed her hand and ran down to retrieve his horse. As he rode away she watched him with eyes that were once again sad, but no longer hostile.

7.

MORDRED WAS HALF AFRAIDthat the King would ask him what his business had been with Nimue, but he did not. He sent for his son next day and spoke of the proposed visit to the Saxon king, Cerdic.

"I would have left you in charge at home, which would have been useful experience for you, but it will be even more useful for you to meet Cerdic and attend the talks, so as ever I am leaving Bedwyr. I might almost say as regent, since officially I am leaving my own kingdom for a foreign one. Have you ever met a Saxon, Mordred?"

"Never. Are they really all giants, who drink the blood of babies?"

The King laughed. "You will see. They are certainly most of them big men, and their customs are outlandish. But I am told, by those who know them and can speak their tongue, that their poets and artists are to be respected. Their fighting men certainly are. You will find it interesting."

"How many men will you take?"

"Under truce, only a hundred. A regal train, no more."

"You can trust a Saxon to keep a truce?"

"Cerdic, yes, though with most Saxons it's a case of trust only from strength, and keep the memory of Badon still green. But don't repeat that," said Arthur.

Agravain was also in the chosen hundred, but neither Gawain nor Gareth. These two had gone north together soon after the council meeting. Gawain had spoken of travelling to Dunpeldyr and perhaps thence to Orkney, and, though suspecting that his nephew's real quest was far otherwise, Arthur could think of no good reason for preventing him. Hoping that Lamorak might have ridden westward to join his brother under Drustan's standard, he had to content himself with sending a courier into Dumnonia with a warning.

The King and his hundred set out on a fine and blowy day of June. Their way took them over the high downs. Small blue b.u.t.terflies and dappled fritillaries fluttered in clouds over the flowery turf. Larks sang.

Sunlight fell in great gold swaths over the ripening cropfields, and peasants, white with the blowing chalk dust, looked up from their work and saluted the party with smiles. The troop rode at ease, talking and laughing together, and the mood was light.

Except, apparently, for Agravain. He drew alongside Mordred where he was riding a little apart, some way behind the King, who was talking with Cei and Bors.

"Our first sally with the High King, and look at it. A carnival." He spoke with contempt. "All that talk of war, and kingdoms changing hands, and raising armies to defend our sh.o.r.es again, and this is all it comes to! He's getting old, that's what it is. We should drive these Saxons back into the sea first, and then it would be time enough to talk.... But no! What do we do? Here we ride with the duke of battles, and on a peace mission. To Saxons. Ally with Saxons? Pah!" He spat. "He should have let me go with Gawain."

"Did you ask to?"

"Of course."

"That was a peace mission, too," said Mordred, woodenly, looking straight between his horse's ears.

"There was no trouble forecast in Dunpeldyr, only a little diplomatic talking with Tydwal, and Gareth along to keep it muted."

"Don't play the innocent with me!" said Agravain angrily. "You know , why he's gone."

"I can guess. Anyone can guess. But if he does find Lamorak, or news of him, let us hope that Gareth can persuade him to show a little sense. Why else do you suppose Gareth asked to go?" Mordred turned and looked straight at Agravain. "And if he should come across Gaheris, you may hope the same thing yourself. I suppose you know where Gaheris is? Well, if Gawain catches up with either of them, you'd best know nothing about it. And I want to know nothing."

"You? You're so deep in the King's counsels that I'm surprised you haven't warned him."

"There was no need. He must know as well as you do what Gawain hopes to do. But he can't mew him up for ever. What the King cannot prevent, he will not waste time over. All he can do is hope, probably in vain, that wise counsel will prevail."

"And if Gawain does run across Lamorak, which might happen, even by accident, what do you expect him to do then?"

"Lamorak must protect himself. He's quite capable of it." He added: "Live what life brings. Die what death comes."

Agravain stared. "What? What sort of talk is that?"

"Something I heard recently. So what about Gaheris? Are you content for Gawain to run across him, too?"

"He'll not find Gaheris," said Agravain confidently.

"Oh, so you do know where he is?"

"What do you think? He got word to me, of course. And the King doesn't know that, you may be sure!

He's not as all-knowing as you think, brother." He slid a sideways look at Mordred, and his lowered voice was sly. "There's quite a lot that he doesn't see."

Mordred did not answer, but Agravain went on without prompting: "Else he'd hardly go off on an unnecessary jaunt like this and leave Bedwyr in Camelot."

"Someone has to stay."

"With the Queen?"

Mordred turned to look at him again. The tone, the look, said what the bare words had not expressed.

He spoke with contemptuous anger: "I'm no fool, nor am I deaf. I hear what the dirty tongues say. But you'd best keep yours clean, brother."

"Are you threatening me?"

"I don't need to. Let the King once hear-"

"If it's true they're lovers, he ought to hear."

"It cannot be true! Bedwyr is close to the King and Queen, yes, but-"

"And they do say the husband is always the last to guess."

Mordred felt a wave of fury so strong that it startled him. He began to speak, then, glancing towards the King's back and the riders to either side, said merely, in a low, suppressed voice: "Leave it. It's fool's talk anywhere, and here you might be overheard. And keep your tongue off it with me. I want no part of it."

"You were ready enough to listen when your own mother's virtue was questioned."

Mordred said, exasperated: "Questioned! I was there, my G.o.d! I saw her lying with him!"

"And cared so little that you let the man escape!"

"Let it go, Agravain! If Gaheris had killed Lamorak there, while the King was still negotiating with Drustan to leave Dumnonia and join the Companions-"

"You thought of that? Then? that? Then? With her - them - With her - them - that that in front of your eyes?" in front of your eyes?"

"Yes."

Agravain stared with bolting eyes. The blood flushed his cheeks and ran into his forehead. Then, with a sound of contempt and helpless fury, he reined his horse back so sharply that blood sprang on the bit.

Mordred, relieved of his presence, rode on alone, until Arthur, turning, saw him there and beckoned him forward.

"See! There is the border. And we are awaited. The man in the center, the fair man in the blue mantle, that's Cerdic himself."