by Mary Stewart
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.
9
I walked slowly back across the platform towards the door. As I opened it I heard from below, clear and sharp, a knocking on the postern gate.
I took a stride through to the landing, pulling the door quietly shut behind me, just as Felix came out of the lodge below, and made for the postern. As his hand went out to the chain-bolt, Ralf whipped out behind him, his arm raised high. I caught the glint in his fist of a dagger, reversed. He jumped cat-footed, and struck with the hilt. Felix dropped where he stood. There must have been some slight sound audible to the man outside, above the roaring of the sea, for his voice came sharply: "What is it? Felix?" And the knocking came again, harder than before.
I was already halfway down the flight. Ralf had stooped to the porter's body, but turned as he saw me coming, and interpreted my gesture correctly, for he straightened, calling out clearly: "Who's there?"
"A pilgrim."
It was a man's voice, urgent and breathless. I ran lightly down the rest of the flight. As I ran I was stripping my cloak off and winding it round my left arm. Ralf threw me a look from which all the gaiety and daring had gone. He had no need even to ask the next question; we both knew the answer.
"Who makes the pi
lgrimage?" The boy's voice was hoarse.
"Brithael. Now open up, quickly."
"My lord Brithael! My lord -- I cannot -- I have no orders to admit anyone this way..." He was watching me as I stooped, took Felix under the armpits, and dragged him with as little noise as I could, back into the lodge and out of sight. I saw Ralf lick his lips. "Can you not ride to the main gate, my lord? The Duchess will be asleep, and I have no orders --"
"Who's that?" demanded Brithael. "Ralf, by your voice. Where's Felix?"
"Gone up to the guard-room, sir."
"Then get the key from him, or send him down." The man's voice roughened, and a fist thudded against the gate. "Do as I say, boy, or by God I'll have the skin off your back. I have a message for the Duchess, and she won't thank you for holding me here. Come now, hurry up!"
"The -- the key's here, my lord. A moment." He threw a desperate look over his shoulder as he made a business of fumbling with the lock. I left the unconscious man bundled out of sight, and was back at Ralf's shoulder, breathing into his ear: "See if he's alone first. Then let him in."
He nodded, and the door opened on its chain-bolt. Under cover of the noise it made I had my sword out, and melted into the shadow behind the boy, where the opening door would screen me from Brithael. I stood back against the wall. Ralf put his eye to the gap, then drew back, with a nod at me, and began to slide the chain out of its socket. "Excuse me, my lord Brithael." He sounded abject and confused. "I had to make sure...Is there trouble?"
"What else?" Brithael thrust the door open so sharply that it would have thudded into me if Ralf had not checked it. "Never mind, you did well enough." He strode in and stopped, towering over the boy. "Has anyone else been to this gate tonight?"
"Why, no, sir." Ralf sounded scared -- as well he might -- and therefore convincing. "Not while I've been here, and Felix said nothing...Why, what's happened?"
Brithael gave a grunt, and his accoutrements jingled as he shrugged. "There was a fellow down yonder, a horseman. He attacked us. I left Jordan to deal with him. There's been nothing here, then? No trouble at all?"
"None, my lord."
"Then lock the gate again and let none in but Jordan. And now I must see the Duchess. I bring grave news, Ralf. The Duke is dead."
"The Duke?" The boy began to stammer. He made no attempt to shut the gate, but left it swinging free. It hid Brithael from me still, but Ralf was just beside me, and in the dim light I saw his face go pinched and blank with shock. "The Duke -- d-dead, my lord? Murdered?"
Brithael, already moving, checked and turned. In another pace he would be clear of the door which hid me from him. I must not let him reach the steps and get above me.
"Murdered? Why, in God's name? Who would do that? That's not Uther's way. No, the Duke took the chance before the King got here, and we attacked the King's camp tonight, out of Dimilioc. But they were ready. Gorlois was killed in the first sally. I rode with Jordan to bring the news. We came straight from the field. Now lock that gate and do as I say."
He turned away and made for the steps. There was room, now, to use a sword. I stepped out from the shadow behind the door.
"Brithael."
The man whirled. His reactions were so quick that they cancelled out my advantage of surprise. I suppose I need not have spoken at all, but again there are certain things a prince must do. It cost me dear enough, and could have cost me my life. I should have remembered that tonight I was no prince; I was fate's creature, like Gorlois whom I had betrayed, and Brithael whom I now must kill. And I was the future's hostage. But the burden weighed heavy on me, and his sword was out almost before mine was raised, and then we stood measuring one another, eye to eye.
He recognized me then, as our eyes met. I saw the shock in his, and a quick flash of fear which vanished in a moment, the moment when my stance and my drawn sword told him that this would be his kind of fight, not mine. He may have seen in my face that I had already fought harder than he, that night.
"I should have known you were here. Jordan said it was your man down there, you damned enchanter. Ralf! Felix! Guard -- ho there, guard!"
I saw he had not grasped straight away that I had been inside the gate all along. Then the silence on the stairway, and Ralf's quick move away from me to shut the gate told its own story. Fast as a wolf, too quickly for me to do anything, Brithael swept his left arm with its clenched mailed fist smashing into the side of the boy's head. Ralf dropped without a sound, his body wedging the gate wide open.
Brithael leapt back into the gateway. "Jordan! Jordan ! To me! Treachery!"
Then I was on him, blundering somehow through his guard, breast to breast, and our swords bit and slithered together with whining metal and the clash of sparks.
Rapid steps down the stairs. Ulfin's voice: "My lord -- Ralf --"
I said, in gasps: "Ulfin...Tell the King...Gorlois is dead. We must get back...Hurry..."
I heard him go, fast up the stairs at a stumbling run. Brithael said through his teeth: "The King? Now I see, you pandering whoremaster."
He was a big man, a fighter in his prime, and justly angry. I was without experience, and hating what I must do, but I must do it. I was no longer a prince, or even a man fighting by the rules of men. I was a wild animal fighting to kill because it must.
With my free hand I struck him hard in the mouth and saw the surprise in his eyes as he jumped back to disengage his sword. Then he came in fast, the sword a flashing ring of iron round him. Somehow I ducked under the whistling blade, parried a blow and held it, and lashed a kick that took him full on the knee. The sword whipped down past my cheek with a hiss like a burn. I felt the hot sting of pain, and the blood running. Then as his weight went on the bruised knee, he trod crookedly, slipped on the soaked turf and fell heavily, his elbow striking a stone, and the sword flying from his hand.
Any other man would have stepped back to let him pick it up. I went down on him with all the weight I had, and my own sword shortened, stabbing for his throat.
It was light now, and growing lighter. I saw the contempt and fury in his eyes as he rolled away from the stabbing blade. It missed him, and drove deep into a spongy tuft of sea-pink. In the unguarded second as I fought to free it, his tactics shifted to match mine, and with that iron fist he struck me hard behind the ear, then, wrenching himself aside, was on his feet and plunging down the dreadful slope to where his own sword lay shining in the grass two paces from the cliff's edge.
If he reached it, he would kill me in seconds. I rolled, bunching to get to my feet, flinging myself anyhow down the slimy slope towards the sword. He caught me half on to my knees. His booted foot drove into my side, then into my back. The pain broke in me like a bubble of blood and my bones melted, throwing me flat again, but I felt my flailing foot catch the metal, and the sword jerked from its hold in the turf to skid, with how gentle a shimmer, over the edge. Seconds later, it seemed, we could hear, thin and sweet through the thunder of the waves, the whine of metal as it struck the rocks below.
But before even the sound reached us he was on me again. I had a knee under me and was dragging myself up painfully. Through the blood in my eyes I saw the blow coming, and tried to dodge, but his fist struck me in the throat, knocking me sideways with a savagery that spread-eagled me again on the wet turf with the breath gone from my body and the sight from my eyes. I felt myself roll and slip and, remembering what lay below, blindly drove my left hand into the turf to stop myself falling. My sword was still in my right hand. He jumped for me again, and with all the weight of his big body brought both feet down on my hand where it grasped the sword. The hand broke across the metal guard. I heard it go. The sword snapped upwards like a trap springing and caught him across his outstretched hand. He cursed in a gasp, without words, and recoiled momentarily. Somehow, I had the sword in my left hand. He came in again as quickly as before, and even as I tried to drag myself away, he made a quick stride forward and stamped again on my broken hand. Somebody screamed. I felt myself t
hrash over, mindless with pain, blind. With the last strength I had I jabbed the sword, hopelessly shortened, up at his straddled body, felt it torn from my hand, and then lay waiting, without resistance, for the last kick in my side that would send me over the cliff.
I lay there breathless, retching, choking on bile, my face to the ground and my left hand driven into the soft tufts of sea-pink, as if it clung to life for me. The beat and crash of the sea shook the cliff, and even this slight tremor seemed to grind pain through my body. It hurt at every point. My side pained as though the ribs were stove in, and the skin had been stripped from the cheek that lay pressed hard into the turf. There was blood in my mouth, and my right hand was a jelly of pain. I could hear someone, some other man a long way off, making small abject sounds of pain.
The blood in my mouth bubbled and oozed down my chin into the ground, and I knew it was I who was groaning. Merlin the son of Ambrosius, the prince, the great enchanter. I shut my mouth on the blood and began to push and claw my way to my feet.
The pain in my hand was cruel, the worst of all; I heard rather than felt the small bones grind where their ends were broken. I felt myself lurching as I got to my knees, and dared not try to stand upright so near the cliff's edge. Below me a master wave struck, thundered, fountained up into the greying light, then fell back to crash into the next rising wave. The cliff trembled. A sea-bird, the first of the day, sailed overhead, crying.
I crawled away from the edge and then stood up.
Brithael was lying near the postern gate, on his belly, as if he had been trying to crawl there. Behind him on the turf was a wake of blood, glossy on the grass like the track of a snail. He was dead. That last desperate stroke had caught the big vein in the groin, and the life had pumped out of him as he tried to crawl for help. Some of the blood that soaked me must be his.
I went on my knees beside him and made sure. Then I rolled him over and over till the slope took him, and he went after his sword into the sea. The blood would have to take care of itself. It was raining again, and with luck the blood would be gone before anyone saw it.
