"Intelligence has reached me that the Saxons have made some sort of treaty, killed a horse and sworn on its blood or some such rubbish, with the Northmen," Ambrosius said, "and the fighting may move into Cornwall this time. Uriens, you may have to guide our armies in the West land; you and Uther, who knows the Welsh hills as he knows the hilt of his own sword. The war may even come into your peaceful countryside, Gorlois."
"But you are guarded, as we are in the North, by the coasts and the crags lying below your lands," said Lot of Orkney in his smooth voice. "I do not think a horde of wild folk could come at Tintagel unless they knew the rocks and the harbors. And even from the land side, Tintagel could be defended, with that long causeway."
"True," Gorlois said, "but there are harbors, and shores where a boat can be beached, and even if they cannot reach the castle, there are farmsteads and rich lands and crops. I can defend the castle, but what of the countryside? I am their duke because I can defend my people."
"It seems to me that a duke, or a king, should be something more than this," Ambrosius said, "but I do not know what. I have never had peace to find out. Perhaps our sons will do so. It may come in your time, Lot, you are the youngest of us."
There was a sudden stir in the outer room, and then the tall, fair-haired Uther came into the room. He had a pair of dogs on leash in his hand, and the leashes tangled as the dogs yapped and snarled. He stood at the door patiently untangling them, then gave the leashes to his servant and came into the room.
"You are disturbing us all this morning, Uther," said Lot venomously, "first the priest at holy mass and then the King at his breakfast."
"Have I disturbed you? I beg your forgiveness, my lord," Uther said, smiling, and the King stretched out his hand, smiling as at a favorite child.
"You are forgiven, Uther, but send the dogs away, I pray you. Well, come and sit here, my boy," Ambrosius said, rising clumsily, and Uther . embraced the King; Igraine saw that he did so carefully, deferentially. She thought, Why, Uther loves the King, it is not just ambition or a courtier's currying of favor!
Gorlois would have given up his place next to Ambrosius, but the King motioned to him to sit still. Uther stretched his long leg across the bench and climbed across it, to slide into a seat beside Igraine. She drew her skirts aside, feeling awkward, as he stumbled-how clumsy he was! Like a big, friendly puppy! He had to put out a hand to save himself from falling directly on top of Igraine.
"Forgive my clumsiness, lady," he said, smiling down at her. "I am all too big to sit in your lap!"
Against her will, she laughed up at him. "Even your dogs are too big for that, my lord Uther!"
He helped himself to bread and fish, offering her the honey as he spooned it out of the jar. She refused courteously.
"I do not like sweets," she said.
"You have no need of them, my lady," he said, and she noticed that he was staring at her bosom again. Had he never seen a moonstone before? Or was he staring at the curve of her breast beneath it? She was suddenly, acutely conscious that her breasts were no longer quite as high and firm as they had been before she had suckled Morgaine. Igraine felt the heat rising in her face and quickly took a sip of the fresh cold milk.
He was tall and fair, his skin firm and unwrinkled. She could smell his sweat, clean and fresh as a child's. And yet he was not so very young, his light hair was already thinning over his sunburnt skull. She felt a curious unease, something she had never felt before; his thigh lay alongside hers on the bench and she was very conscious of it, as if it were a separate part of her own body. She cast her eyes down and took a nibble of buttered bread, listening to Gorlois and Lot talking about what would happen if the war were to come to the West country.
"The Saxons are fighters, yes," Uther said, joining in, "but they fight in something like civilized warfare. The Northmen, the Scots, the wild folk from the lands beyond-they are madmen, they rush naked and screaming into battle, and the important thing is to train troops to hold firm against them and not break in fear of their charge."
"That is where the legions had the advantage over our men," Gorlois said, "for they were soldiers by choice, and disciplined, trained to fight, not farmers and countrymen called up to fight without knowledge of that business, and going back to their farms when the danger is past. What we need are legions for Britain. Perhaps if we appealed again to the emperor-"
"The emperor," Ambrosius said, smiling a little, "has troubles enough of his own. We need horsemen, cavalry legions: but if we want legions for Britain, Uther, we will have to train them for ourselves."
"It cannot be done," Lot said positively, "for our men will fight in defense of their homes, and in loyalty to their own clan chiefs, but not for any High King or emperor. And what are they fighting for, if not to return to their homes and enjoy them in comfort afterward? The men who follow me, follow me-not some ideal of freedom. I have some trouble getting them to come this far south-they say with some justice that there are no Saxons where we are, so why should they fight away down here? They say, when the Saxons reach their homeland, time enough to fight then and defend it, but the lowlanders should look out for the defense of their own country."
"Can't they see, if they come to stop the Saxons here, the Saxons may never reach their country at all-" Uther began hotly, and Lot raised his slender hand, laughing.
"Peace, Uther! I know this-it is my men who do not know it! You will get no legions for Britain, nor any standing army, Ambrosius, from the men north of the great wall."
Gorlois said huskily, "Perhaps Caesar had the right idea, then; perhaps we should regarrison the wall. Not, as he did, to keep the wild Northmen from the cities, but to keep the Saxons from your homeland, Lot."
"We cannot spare troops for that," said Uther impatiently. "We cannot spare any trained troops at all! We may have to let the treaty people defend the Saxon Shores, and set up our stand in the West country, against the Scots and Northmen. I think we should make our main stand in the Summer Country; then in winter they will not be able to come down to sack our camps as they did three years ago, for they will not know their way around the islands."
Igraine listened sharply, for she had been born in the Summer Country and knew how, in winter, the seas moved inward and flooded the land. What was passable, though boggy, ground in summer, in the winter became lakes and long inland seas. Even an invading army would find it hard to come into that country, except in high summer.
"That is what the Merlin told me," Ambrosius said, "and he has offered us place for our people to establish camp for our armies in the Summer Country."
Uriens said in a rusty voice, "I do not like to abandon the Saxon Shores to the treaty troops. A Saxon is a Saxon, and he will keep an oath only while it suits him. I think the mistake of all our lives was when Constantine made compact with Vortigern-"
"No," Ambrosius said, "a dog who is part wolf will fight more hardily against other wolves than any other dog. Constantine gave Vortigern's Saxons their own land, and they fought to defend it. That is what a Saxon wants: land. They are farmers, and they will fight to the death to make their land safe. The treaty troops have fought valiantly against the Saxons who came to invade our shores-"
"But now there are so many of them," Uriens said, "that they are demanding to enlarge their treaty lands, and they have threatened that if we will not give them more land, they will come and take it. So now, as if it were not enough to fight the Saxons from beyond the sea, we must fight those whom Constantine brought into our lands-"
"Enough," said Ambrosius, raising a thin hand, and Igraine thought he looked terribly ill. "I cannot remedy mistakes, if they were mistakes, made by men who died before I was born; I have enough to do remedying my own mistakes, and I will not live long enough to set them all right. But I will do what I can while I live."
"I think the first thing and best to do," said Lot, "would be to drive forth the Saxons within our own kingdoms, and then fortify ourselves against their returning."
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br /> Ambrosius said, "I do not think we can do that. They have lived here since their fathers' and grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' time, some of them, and unless we are willing to kill them all, they will not leave the land they have a right to call their own; nor should we violate the treaty. If we fight among ourselves here within the shores of Britain, how will we have strength and weapons to fight when we are invaded from without? Also, some of the Saxons on the treaty shores are Christians, and will fight alongside us against the wild men and their heathen Gods."
"I think," Lot said, smiling in wry amusement, "that the bishops of Britain thought truly when they refused to send missionaries to save the souls of the Saxons on our shores, saying that if the Saxons were to be admitted to Heaven, they wanted no part of it for themselves! We have enough trouble on this earth with the Saxons, must we have their uncouth brawling in Heaven as well?"
"I think you mistake the nature of Heaven," said a familiar voice, and Igraine felt a strange, hollow awareness within herself. She looked down the table at the speaker, who wore a plain grey robe, monkish in cut. She would not have recognized the Merlin in this garb, but his voice she would have known anywhere. "Do you really think mankind's quarrels and imperfections will be carried on in Heaven, Lot?"
"Why, as to that, I have never spoken with anyone who has been in Heaven," Lot said, "nor, I think, have you, Lord Merlin. But you are talking as wisely as any priest-have you taken Holy Orders in your old age, sir?"
The Merlin laughed and said, "I have one thing in common with your priests. I have spent much time trying to separate the things of man from those that belong to the Divine, and when I have done separating them, I find there is not so great a difference. Here on Earth, we cannot see that, but when we have put off this body we will know more, and know that our differences make no difference at all to God."
"Then why are we fighting?" asked Uther, and grinned as if he were humoring the old man. "If all our differences will be resolved in Heaven, why do we not lay down our arms and embrace the Saxons as brethren?" The Merlin smiled again and said amiably, "When we are all perfected, it will be just so, Lord Uther, but they do not yet know it, any more than we do, and while human destiny provokes men to fight, well, we must do our part by playing the games of this mortal life. But we need peace in this land so that men may think of Heaven instead of battle and war."
Uther said, laughing, "I have little taste for sitting and thinking of Heaven, old man; I will leave that to you and the other priests. I am a man of battle, I have been so all my days, and I pray to live all my life in war, as befits a man and not a monk!"
"Be careful what you pray for," said Merlin, looking sharply at Uther, "for the Gods will certainly give it to you."
"I do not want to be old, and think of Heaven and peace," said Uther, "for they seem very dull to me. I want war and plunder and women-oh, yes, women-and the priests do not approve of any of those things."
Gorlois said, "Why, then, you are not much better than the Saxons, are you, Uther?"
"Your very priests say we must love our enemies, Gorlois," said Uther, laughing, and reaching across Igraine to clap her husband good-naturedly on the back, "and so I love the Saxon, for he gives me what I want from life! And so should you, for when we have peace like this for a little time, we' can enjoy feasting and women, and then back to the fight, as befits a real man! Do you think women care for the kind of man who wants to sit by the fire and till his home acres? Do you think your beautiful lady here would be as happy with a plowman as she is happy with a duke and leader of men?"
Gorlois said soberly, "You are young enough to say so, Uther. When you are my age, you will be sick of war too."
Uther chuckled and asked, "Are you sick of war, my lord Ambrosius?" Ambrosius smiled, but he looked very weary. He said, "It would not matter if I were sick of war, Uther; for God has chosen in his wisdom to send me war all my days, and so it shall be, according to his will. I will defend my people, and so must those who come after. Perhaps in your days, or the days of our sons, we will have enough time at peace to ask ourselves what we are fighting for."
Lot of Orkney broke in, in his smooth equivocal voice, "Why, we are philosophers here, my lord Merlin, my king; even you, Uther, you have taken to philosophy. But none of this tells us what we are to do against the wild men who come at us from east and from west, and from the Saxons on our own shores. I think we all know that we will have no help from Rome; if we want legions we must train them, and I think we needs must have our own Caesar as well, for just as soldiers need their own captains and their own king, so all the kings in this island need someone to rule over them."
"Why need we call our High King by the name of Caesar? Or think of him so?" asked a man Igraine had heard called by the name Ectorius. "The Caesars ruled Britain well enough in our day, but we see the fatal flaw of an empire thus-when there is trouble in their home city, they withdraw the legions and leave us to barbarians! Even Magnus Maximus-"
"He was no emperor," said Ambrosius, smiling. "Magnus Maximus wished to be emperor, when he commanded the legions here-it is a common ambition for a war duke." And Igraine saw the quick smile he gave Uther over their heads. "So he took his legions and marched on Rome, wishing to be proclaimed emperor-he would have been neither the first nor the last to do so, with the army to support him. But he never got so far as Rome, and all his ambitions came to nothing, except for some fine stories-in your Welsh hills, Uther, do they not talk still of Magnus the Great who will come again with his great sword, at the head of his legions, rescuing them from all invaders-"
"They do," said Uther, laughing, "they have put upon him the old legend from time out of mind, of the king who was and the king who will come again to save his people when the need is dire. Why, if I could find such a sword as that, I could myself go into the hills of my country and raise as many legions as I wanted."
"Perhaps," said Ectorius somberly, "that is what we need, a king out of legend, if the king come, the sword will not be far to seek."
"Your priest would say," the Merlin said evenly, "that the only king who was and is and will be, is their Christ in Heaven, and that, following in his holy cause, you need no other."
Ectorius laughed, a short harsh laugh. "Christ cannot lead us into battle. Nor-I intend no blasphemy, my lord King-would the soldiers follow a banner of the Prince of Peace."
"Perhaps we should find a king who will put them in memory of the legends," Uther said, and silence fell in the room. Igraine, who had never listened before to the councils of men, could still read enough thoughts to know what they were all hearing in the silence: the knowledge that the High King who sat before them now would not live to see another summer. Which of them would sit in his high seat, next year at this time?
Ambrosius leaned his head against the back of his chair, and that was Lot's signal to say, in his eager jealous voice, "You are weary, sire; we have tired you. Let me call your chamberlain."
Ambrosius smiled gently at him. "I will rest soon enough, cousin, and long enough-" but even the effort of speech was too much for him and he sighed, a long, shaking sound, letting Lot help him from the table. Behind him the men broke up into groups, talking, arguing in low tones.
The man called Ectorius came to join Gorlois. "My lord of Orkney loses no opportunity to plead his case, and disguise it as thoughtfulness for the King-now we are the evil men who have wearied Ambrosius and will shorten his life."
"Lot does not care who is named High King," Gorlois said, "so that Ambrosius has no opportunity to state his preference, by which many of us-I among them, I may as well tell you, Ectorius-would be bound."
Ectorius said, "How not? Ambrosius has no son and cannot name an heir, but his wish must guide us, and he knows it. Uther is far too eager for the purple of a Caesar to suit me, but all in all he is better than Lot, so if it should come to a choice of sour apples ... "
Gorlois nodded, slowly. "Our men will follow Uther. But the Tribes, Bendigeid Vra
n and that crew, they will not follow any man so Roman as that; and we need the Tribes. They would follow Orkney-"
"Lot has not the stuff to make a High King," Ectorius said. "Better we lose the support of the Tribes than the support of the entire countryside. Lot's way is to split everyone up into warring factions so that only he has the confidence of all. Paugh!" He spat. "The man's a snake and that's all there is to it."
"And yet he's persuasive," Gorlois said. "He has brains, and courage, and imagination-"
"So has Uther. And whether or not Ambrosius gets the chance to say so formally, Uther's the man he wants."
Gorlois set his teeth grimly and said, "True. True. I'm in honor bound to do Ambrosius' will. Yet I wish his choice had fallen on a man whose moral character matched his courage and his leadership. I don't trust Uther, and yet-" He shook his head, glanced at Igraine. "Child, this can be of no possible interest to you. I will have my man-at-arms escort you back to the house where we lay last night."
Dismissed like a little girl, Igraine went homeward in the noontime without protest. She had a good deal to think about. So men too, even Gorlois, could be bound in honor to endure what they did not want to do. She had never thought of that before.
And Uther's eyes, fixed on her, haunted her thoughts. How he had stared at her-no; not at her, at the moonstone. Had the Merlin enchanted it somehow so that Uther should be smitten with the woman who bore it?
Must I do the Merlin's will, and Viviane's, must I be given to Uther resistless, as I was given to Gorlois? The thought repelled her. And yet her mind perversely still felt Uther's touch on her hand, the intensity of his grey eyes meeting her own.
I might as well believe that the Merlin enchanted the stone so that my mind would turn to Uther! They had reached her lodging, and she went inside and took off the moonstone, thrusting it into the pouch tied at her waist. How foolish, she thought, I do not believe in those old tales of love charms and love spells. She was a woman grown, nineteen years, not a passive child. She had a husband, she might even now be bearing in her womb the seed that would become the son he desired. And if her fancy should light on some man other than her husband, if she should wish to play the wanton, surely there were other men more appealing than that great boor, with his untidy hair like a Saxon's and his Northman's manners, upsetting mass, interrupting the High King's breakfast. Why, she might as well take Gorlois's man-at-arms, who was at least young and clear-skinned and handsome, to her bed. Not that she, as a virtuous wife, had any interest in taking any man whatsoever to her bed except her lawful husband.
The Mists of Avalon Page 6
