Legacy: Arthurian Saga

by Mary Stewart

  In all those years I had never seen it so. I had been blinded by my larger purposes, thinking all the time of his safety, of the kingdom's future, of the gods' will. Until the boy Emrys had burst into my life that morning in the Wild Forest, he had hardly been a person to me, only a symbol, another life (as it were) for my father, a tool for me. After I came to know and love him I had seen only the deprivations we had subjected him to, with his high temper and leaping ambition to be first and best, and his quick generosity and affection. It was no use telling myself that without me he might never have come near his heritage at all; I had lived with guilt for all that he had been robbed of.

  No question but that he had felt the deprivation, the bite of dispossession. But even here, even now in the moment of finding himself, he could see clearly what that princely childhood would have meant. I knew he was right. Even apart from the daily dangers, he would have had a hard time of it beside Uther, and the high qualities, wasting with time and hope deferred, might have turned sour. But the admission, to absolve me, had to come from him. Now it lifted my guilt from me as cool air lifts a marsh mist. He was still speaking of his father. "I like him," he said. "He has been a good king as far as it was in him. Standing apart from him as I have done, I have been able to listen to men talking, and to judge. But as a father -- as to how we would have dealt together, that's another matter. There is time still to know my mother. She will need comfort soon, I think."

  He referred only once, briefly, to Morgause.

  "They say she has left the town?"

  "She went this morning while you were with the King."

  "You spoke with her? How did she take it?"

  "Without distress," I said, with perfect truth. "You needn't fear for her."

  "Did you send her away?"

  "I advised her to go. As I advise you to put it out of your mind. For the moment, at any rate, there is nothing to be done. Except -- I suggest -- sleep...Today has been hard, and will be harder for both of us before it's done. So if you can forget the crowds outside and the guard beyond the window, I suggest we both sleep till sundown."

  He yawned suddenly, widely, like a young cat, then laughed. "Have you put a spell on me to make sure of it? Suddenly I feel I could sleep for a week...All right, I'll do as you say, but may I send a message to Bedwyr?"

  He did not speak of Morgause again, and I think that soon, in the final preparations for the evening's feast, he forgot her. Certainly the haunted look of the morning had left him, and it seemed to me that no shadow touched him now; doubt and apprehension would have wisped off his charged and shining youth like waterdrops from whitehot metal. Even if he had guessed, as I did, what the future held -- that it was greater than he could have imagined, and in the end more terrible -- I doubt if it would have dimmed his brightness. When one is fourteen, death at forty seems still to be several lifetimes away. An hour after sundown, they came for us to lead us to the hall of feasting.

  8

  The hall was packed to the doors. If the place had seemed crowded before, by the time the trumpets sounded for the feast there was barely breathing-room in the corridors; it seemed as if even those sturdy Roman-built walls must bulge and crumble under the press of excited humanity. For rumor had run like a forest fire through the countryside that this was no ordinary victory feast, and even from parts of the province twenty or thirty miles off people were pouring into Luguvallium to be there for the great occasion.

  It would have been impossible to sift and select the followers of those privileged nobles who were allowed into the main hall where the King would sit. At a feast of this kind men expected to leave their weapons outside, and this was enforced, till the antechamber, stacked as it was with thickets of spears and swords, looked like a grove of the Wild Forest. More than this the guards could not do, save run an eye over each man's person as he entered the hall, to see that he carried only the knife or dagger he needed for his food. By the time the company was assembled the sky outside was paling to dusk, and torches were lit. Soon, with the smoky torchlight and the mild evening, the food and wine and talk and laughter, the place was uncomfortably warm, and I watched the King anxiously. He seemed in good enough spirits, but his color was too high and his skin had a glazed, transparent look that I have seen before in men who are pushed to the limits of their strength. But he was perfectly in command of himself, talking cheerfully and courteously to Arthur on his right, and to the others about him, though at times he would fall into silence and seem to be drifting, forgetfully, into some place far away from which he would recall himself with a jerk. At one point he asked me -- I was seated on his left -- if I knew why Morgause had not come to see him that day. He asked without concern, without even much interest; it was obvious that he had not taken in the fact that she had left the court. I told him that she had wanted to go to her sister at York, and that since the King had been unable to see her I myself had given her permission, and sent her with an escort. I added quickly that the King need have no fears for his health, since I was here and would attend him personally. He nodded and thanked me, but as if my offer of help was something no longer needed: "I have had the best doctors I could have had this day; victory, and this boy beside me." He laid a hand on Arthur's arm, and laughed. "You heard what the Saxon dogs were calling me? The half-dead King. I heard them shouting it when I was carried forward in my chair...And so in truth I think I was, but now I have both victory and life."

  He had spoken clearly, and men leaned forward to listen, and afterwards murmured approval, while the King went back to picking at his food. Ulfin and I had both warned him that he must eat and drink sparingly, but there had been no need for such advice; he had little appetite, and Ulfin saw to it that his wine was well watered. And Arthur's, too. He sat beside his father, his back straight as a spear, and the tension and excitement of the occasion had taken some of the color from his cheeks. For once he hardly seemed to notice what he was eating. He spoke little, and then only when he was addressed, answering briefly and obviously only for courtesy. Most of the time he sat silent, his eyes on the throng in the hall below the royal dais. I, who knew him, could see what he was doing; he was telling over face by face, blazon by blazon, the toll of the men who were there, and noting where they sat. Noting also how they looked. This face was hostile, that friendly, this undecided and ready to be swayed by promises of power or gain, that foolish or merely curious. I could read them myself, as clearly as if they were red and white pieces ready on the board to play, but for a youth not yet turned fifteen, and on such a highly charged occasion, it was a marvel that he could collect himself to watch them so. Years afterwards he was still able to tally exactly the forces which assembled for and against him that first night of his power. Only twice did that cool look linger and soften; on Ector, not far from where we sat, solid, dependable Ector, beaming a little moist-eyed across his wine as he watched his fosterson jeweled and resplendent in white and silver at the High King's side. (I thought that Cei's glance beside him was less than enthusiastic, but Cei had, at best, low brows and a narrow face that gave even his enthusiasms a grudging look.) Down the hall, beside his father the King of Benoic, was Bedwyr, his plain face flushed and his soul, as they say, in his eyes. The two boys' eyes met and met again during the feasting. Here, already, the next strong thread was being woven of the new kingdom's pattern.

  The feast wore on. I watched Uther carefully, wondering if he could last until the proclamation was made and the thing done, or if he would lack the strength to see it through. In which case I would have to choose the moment to intervene, or the work would have to be done with fighting. But his strength held. At last he looked round and raised a hand, and the trumpets rang out for silence. The clamor hushed, and all eyes turned to the high table. This had been deliberately raised, for it was beyond the King's strength to stand. Even so, upright in his great chair, with the blaze of lights and banners behind him, he looked alert and splendid, commanding silence. He laid his hands along the carved arms
of his chair, and began to speak. He was smiling.

  "My lords, you all know why we are met here tonight. Colgrim has been put to flight, and his brother Badulf, and already reports have been coming back that the enemy is fled in disorder back towards the coast, beyond the wild lands to the north." He went on to speak of the previous day's victory, as decisive, he said, as his brother's victory at Kaerconan had been, and as potent an augury for the future. "The power of our enemies, which has been massing and threatening for so many years, is broken and driven back for a time. We have a breathing space. But more important than this, my lords, we have seen how this breathing space was won; we have seen what unity can do, and what we might suffer from the lack of it. Singly, what could we do, the kings of the north, the kings of the south and west? But together, held and fighting together, with one leader and one plan, we can thrust the sword of Macsen again into the heart of the enemy."

  He had spoken, of course, figuratively, but I caught Arthur's half-start of recollection, and the flash of a glance across at me, before he went back to his steady scrutiny of the hall. The King had paused. Ulfin, behind him, moved forward with a goblet of wine, but the King motioned it aside, and began to speak again. His voice was stronger, with the ring almost of his old vigor. "For this is a lesson which the last years have taught us. There must be one leader, one strong High King to whom all the kingdoms pay undoubted homage. Without this, we are back where we were before the Romans came. We are divided and lost as Gaul and Germany have been divided and lost; we splinter into small peoples, fighting each other as wolves do for food and space, and never turning against the common enemy; we become a submerged province of Rome, sliding with her to her downfall, instead of a new kingdom emerging as a unit with its own laws, its own people, its own gods. With the right king, faithfully followed, I believe that this will come. Who knows, the Dragon of Britain may be lifted, if not as high as the Eagles of Rome, then with a pride and a vision that will be even farther seen."

  The silence was absolute. It could have been Ambrosius speaking. Or Maximus himself, I thought. So do the gods speak when they are waited for.

  This time the pause was longer. The King had contrived that it should seem like an orator's, a pause to gather eyes, but I saw how his hands whitened on the chairarms, how carefully he used the pause to gather strength. I thought I was the only one who noticed; hardly an eye was on Uther, they all watched the boy at his right. All, that is, except the King of Lothian; he was watching the High King, with a kind of eagerness in his face. Ulfin, as the King paused, was beside him again with the goblet; catching my eye, he touched it to his own lips, tasted, then gave it to the King, who drank. There was no way of disguising the tremor in the hand which raised the goblet to his mouth, but before he could betray his weakness further, Ulfin had gently taken the thing from his hand, and set it down. All this, I saw, Lot had followed, still with that same concentrated eagerness. He must recognize how sick Uther was, and minute by minute he must be hoping for the High King's strength to fail him. Either Morgause had told him, or he had guessed what I knew for certain, that Uther would not live long enough physically to establish Arthur on the throne, and that in the free-for-all which might develop round the person of so young a ruler, Arthur's enemies would find their chance.

  When Uther began to speak again his voice had lost much of its vigor, but the silence was so complete that he hardly needed to raise it. Even those men who had drunk too much were solemnly intent as the King began to speak again about the battle, about those who had distinguished themselves, and the men who had fallen; finally, about the part Arthur had played in saving the day, and then about Arthur himself.

  "You have all known, for these many years, that my son by Ygraine my Queen was being nurtured and trained for the kingship in lands away from these, and in hands stronger than, alas, my own have been since my malady overtook me. You have known that when the time came, and he was grown, he would be declared by name, Arthur, as my heir, and your new King. Now be it known to all men where their lawful prince has spent the years of his youth; first under the protection of my cousin Hoel of Brittany, then in the house of my faithful servant and fellow soldier, Count Ector of Galava. And all the time he has been guarded and taught by my kinsman Merlin called Ambrosius, to whose hands he was committed at his birth, and whose fitness for the guardianship no man can question. Nor will you question the reasons which prompted me to send the prince away until such time as he might publicly be shown to you. It is a practice common enough among the great, to rear their children in other courts, where they may stay unspoiled by arrogance, uncorrupted by flattery, and safe from the contriving of treachery and ambition." He waited for a moment to regain his breath. He was looking down at the table as he spoke, and met no one's eyes, but here and there a man shifted in his seat or glanced at another; and Arthur's cool gaze took note of it.

  The King went on: "And those of you who had wondered what sort of shifts might be used to train a prince, other than sending him as a boy into battle, and into council alongside his father, have seen yesterday how he received the King's sword easily from the King's hand, and led the troops to victory as surely as if he had been High King himself and a seasoned warrior."

  Uther's breath was short now, and his color bad. I saw Lot's eyes intent, and Ulfin's worried look. Cador was frowning. I thought briefly back, with thankfulness, to the talk I had had with him beside the lake. Cador and Lot: had Cador been less his father's son, how easy it would have been for the two of them to tear the land north and south, parcel it out between them like a pair of fighting dogs, while the landless pup whined starving.

  "And so," said the High King, and in the silence his gasping breath was horribly apparent, "I present to you all my true born and only son, Arthur called Pendragon, who will be High King after my death, and who will carry my sword in battle from this time on."

  He reached his hand to Arthur, and the boy stood up, straight and unsmiling, while the shouting and the cheering went roaring up into the smoky roof. The noise must have been heard clear through the town. When men paused to draw breath the echoes of the acclamation could be heard running out through the streets as a fire runs through stubble on a dry day. There was approval in the shouting, there was obvious relief that at last the issue was clear, and there was joy. I saw Arthur, cool as a cloud, assessing which lay where. But from where I sat I could also see the pulse leaping below the rigid jawline. He stood as a swordsman stands, at rest after one victory, but alert for the next challenge.

  It came. Clear above the shouting and the thumping of drinking vessels on the boards came Lot's voice, harsh and carrying. "I challenge the choice, King Uther!"

  It was like throwing a boulder down into the path of a fast-flowing stream. The noise checked; men stared, muttered, shifted and looked about them. Then all at once it could be seen that the stream divided. There was cheering still for Arthur and the King's choice, but here and there were shouts ' of "Lothian! Lothian!" and through it all Lot said strongly: "An untried boy? A boy who has seen one battle? I tell you, Colgrim will be back all too soon, and are we to have a boy to lead us? If you must hand on your sword, King Uther, hand it to a tried and seasoned leader, to be held in trust for this young boy when he is grown!" He finished the challenge with a crash of his fist on the table, and round him the clamor broke out again: "Lothian! Lothian!" and then farther off down the hall, confusedly, other challenges being shouted down by "Pendragon!" and "Cornwall!" and even "Arthur!" It was to be seen then, as the clamor mounted, that only the fact that men were unarmed prevented worse things than insults being hurled from side to side of the hall. The servants had backed to the walls, and chamberlains bustled here and there, white-faced and placatory. The King, ashen, threw up a hand, but the gesture went almost unnoticed. Arthur neither moved nor spoke, but he had gone rather pale.

  "My lords! My lords!" Uther was shaking, but with rage; and rage, as I knew, was as dangerous to him as a spear thrust. I saw t
hat Lot knew it, too. I laid a hand on Uther's arm. "All will be well," I told him softly. "Sit back now and let them shout it out. Look, Ector is speaking."

  "My lord King!" Ector's voice was brisk, friendly, matter-of-fact, cooling the atmosphere in the hall. He spoke as if addressing the King alone. The effect was noticeable; the hall grew quiet as men strained to hear him. "My lord King, the King of Lothian has challenged your choice. He has a right to speak, as all your subjects have a right to speak before you, but not to challenge, not even to question, what you have said tonight." Raising his voice a little he turned to the listening hall. "My lords, this is not a matter of choice or election; a king's heir is begotten, not chosen by him, and where chance has provided such a begetting as this, what question is there? Look at him now, this prince who has been presented to you. He has been in my household for ten years, and I, my lords, knowing him as I do, tell you that here is a prince to be followed -- not later, not when he is further grown,' but now. Even if I could not stand before you here to attest his birth, you have only to look at him and to think back to yesterday's field, to know that here, with all fortune and God's blessing, we have our true and rightful King. This is not open to challenge, even to question. Look at him, my lords, and remember yesterday! Who more fit to unite the kings from all the corners of Britain? Who more fit to wield his father's sword?"

  There were shouts of "True! True!" and "What doubt can there be? He is Pendragon, and therefore our King!" and a hubbub of voices that was louder and more confused even than before. Briefly, I remembered my father's councils, their power and order; then I saw again how Uther shook, ashen in his great chair. The times were different; this was the way he had had to do it; he could not enforce it other than by public acclaim.