by Mary Stewart
Morgause, who saw no need to ask permission for the journey, had already dispatched a letter to her sister, bidding her expect them. Now a courier was sent ahead, and at length the party, as carefully escorted as before, set out for King Urbgen's castle.
For Mordred, the ride was all too short. Once the party left the shore and struck inland through the hills he was passing through very different country from any that he had seen or even been able to imagine before.
What impressed him first was the abundance of trees. In Orkney the only trees were the few stunted alders and birches and wind-bitten thorns that huddled along the meager shelter of the glens. Here there were trees everywhere, huge canopied growths, each with its island of shadow and its dependent colony of bushes and ferns and trailing plants. Great forests of oak clothed the lower hillsides, giving way on higher ground to pines that grew right up to the foot of the tallest cliffs. Down every gully in those cliffs crowded more trees, rowan and holly and birch, the thickly wooded clefts seeming to hang from the silver mountain-crests like the ropes that held down the thatch of his parents' cottage. Willow and alder lined every smallest stream, and along the roadways, on the slopes, bordering the moorland stretches and sheltering every cottage and sheep-cote, were trees and more trees, all in the russet and gold and rich red of autumn, backed with the black glint of holly and the dark accent of the pines. Along the track where they rode the hazel-nuts dropped ripe from their fringed calyxes, and under the silver webs of autumn late blackberries glinted like garnets. Gareth pointed excitedly to a burnished slow-worm pouring itself away into the bracken, and Mordred saw small deer watching them from the ferns at the edge of the forest, as still and dappled as the forest floor where they stood.
Once, when their road led them over a high pass, and between the crests of the hills the country opened on a blue distance, Mordred checked his horse, staring. It was the first time he had seen so far with no sea visible. For miles and miles the only water was the small tarns that winked in the hanging valleys, and the white of streams running down through the grey rock to feed them. Hill after blue hill rose into the distance where a great chain of mountains lifted to one square-topped and white. Mountain or cloud? It was the same. This was the mainland, the kingdom of the kingdoms, the stuff of dreams.
One of the guards closed in then, with a smile and a word, and Mordred moved back into the troop.
Afterwards he was to have only the haziest recollections of his first sojourn in Rheged. The castle was huge, crowded, grand and troubled. The boys were handed straight to the king's sons; in fact the sharp impression was of being bundled out of the way while some crisis, never fully explained to them, was sorted out. King Urbgen, perfectly courteous, was abstracted and brief; Queen Morgan did not appear at all. It seemed that recently she had been kept in a seclusion that almost amounted to imprisonment.
"Something about a sword," said Gawain, who had managed to overhear a conversation in the guardroom. "The High King's sword. She took it from Camelot while he was abroad, and put a substitute in its place."
"Not just the sword," said Gaheris. "She took a lover, and gave the sword to him. But the High King killed him just the same, and now King Urbgen wants to put her away."
"Who told you that? Surely our uncle would never let him use his sister so, whatever she had done."
"Oh, yes. Because of the sword, which was treachery. So the High King will let him put her away," said Gaheris eagerly. "As for the lover--"
But at this point Gabran came across the courtyard to them, with a summons to the stables, and even Gaheris, not famed for his tact, thought it better to postpone the discussion for the time being.
They found out a little more, but only a little, from Urbgen's two sons. They were grown men, sons by the king's first marriage, seasoned fighters who had at first taken pride in their father's alliance with Arthur's young sister, but now wished her gone, and were ready to support Urbgen's petition to have the marriage set aside.
The truth, it appeared, was this. Morgan, tied by marriage to a man many years her senior, had taken as lover one of Arthur's Companions, a man called Accolon, brave, ambitious and high-spirited. Him she had persuaded, while Arthur was abroad from Camelot, to steal his great sword Caliburn, that men called the sword of Britain, and carry it to Rheged, leaving in its place a substitute fashioned secretly by some creature of Morgan's in the north.
What the queen intended was never satisfactorily explained. She cannot have thought that young Accolon, even with Urbgen out of the way, the sword of Britain in his hand, and Morgan married to him, could ever have been able to supplant Arthur as High King. It was more probable that she had used her lover to further her own ambition, and that the tale she eventually told to Urbgen was truthful in the main. She had had dreams, she said, which had led her to expect Arthur's sudden death abroad. So, to forestall the chaos following on this, she had taken it upon herself to secure the symbolic sword of Britain for King Urbgen, that tried and brilliant veteran of a dozen battles, and husband of Arthur's only legitimate sister. True, Arthur himself had declared the Duke of Cornwall to be his heir, but Duke Cador was dead, and his son Constantine still a child....
So went the tale. As for the substitution of a worthless copy for the royal sword, that, she alleged, had only been a device to help the theft. The sword hung habitually above the King's chair in the Round Hall at Camelot, and nowadays was taken down only for ceremony, or for battle. The copy had been hung there only to deceive the eye. But from it might have come tragedy. Arthur had returned unharmed from his travels, and afraid for himself and Morgan should the theft be discovered, challenged the King to fight, and with his own good sword attacked Arthur armed only with the brittle copy of Caliburn. The outcome of that fight was already part of the growing legend of the King. In spite of his treacherous advantage Accolon had been killed, and Morgan, afraid now of the vengeance of both brother and husband, declared to all who would listen that the fight was none of her making, but only Accolon's, and since he was dead, no one could contradict her. If she mourned her dead lover, she did so in secret. To those who would listen she deplored his folly, and protested her devotion--mistaken, she admitted, but real and deep--to her brother Arthur and to her own lord.
Hence the turmoil in the castle. No decisions had been made as yet. The lady Nimue, successor to Merlin as Arthur's adviser, and (it was said) to Merlin's power, had come north to recover the sword. Her message was uncompromising. Arthur was not prepared to forgive his sister for what he saw as treachery; and should Urbgen wish to avenge the betrayal of his bed, he had the King's leave to use his faithless queen as he saw fit.
As yet the King of Rheged had barely trusted himself to talk with his wife, let alone judge her. The lady Nimue was still housed in Luguvallium, though not in the castle itself; somewhat to Urbgen's relief she had declined his offer of hospitality, and was lodged in the town. Urbgen had had enough (as he confided to his sons) of women and their dabbling in dreams and sorcery. He would have liked to refuse Morgause's visit, but there were no grounds on which he could do so, and besides, he was curious to see "the witch of Orkney" and her sons. So the great King Urbgen steered his way cautiously between Nimue and Morgause, allowing the latter to visit and talk with her sister at will, and praying that the former, now that her business in the north was concluded, would leave Luguvallium without too embarrassing a confrontation with her old enemy Morgause.
After supper on the third night of their visit, Mordred, avoiding the other boys, walked back alone from the hall to the rooms where the princes were housed. His way took him through a strip of land which lay between the main block of the castle buildings and the river.
Here lay a garden, planted and tended for Queen Morgan's pleasure; her windows looked out over beds of roses and flowering shrubs, and lawns that edged the water. Now the stalks of dead lilies stood up in a tangle of sweetbriar and leafless honeysuckle, and fungus rings showed dark green on the grass. Marks on the wa
lls beside the queen's windows showed where the cages of her singing birds had hung before being carried indoors for the winter. Swans idled at the river's edge, no doubt waiting for the food the queen had brought them in less troubled days, and a pair of snow-white peacocks had flown to roost, like great ghosts, in a tall pine tree. In summer no doubt the place was pretty and full of scent and color and the songs of birds, but now, in the chill damp of an autumn evening, it looked deserted and sad, and smelled of unswept leaves and river mud.
But Mordred lingered, fascinated by this new example of mainland luxury. He had never seen a garden before, never even imagined that a piece of land could be carefully designed and planted simply for beauty, and its owner's pleasure. Earlier he had caught a glimpse, from a window, of a statue looking like a ghost against a dark tangle of leaves. He set himself to explore.
The statue was strange, too. A girl, airily draped, stooped as if to pour water from a foreign-looking shell into a stone basin below her. The only statues he had seen before were the crude gods of the islands, stones with watching eyes. This girl was lovely, and almost real. The dusk made gentle shadows of the grey lichen that patched her arms and gown. The fountain was dry now, the shell empty, but the stone bowl was still filled with water and the remains of the summer's water-lilies. Below the blackened leaves he could just see, dimly, the sluggish movement of fish.
He left the dead fountain, and trod softly across the lawn towards the river bank and the floating swans. There, facing the river and hidden from the palace windows by a brick wall thick with vines, was an arbor, a charming place, paved with mosaic work and furnished with a curved stone bench whose ends were richly carved with grapes and cupids.
Something was lying on the bench. He went across to look. It was an j, embroidery frame, holding its square of linen half worked with a pretty design of strawberries twined in their leaves and flowers. He picked it up curiously, to find that the linen was sodden, and marked by the stone where it had lain. It must have been there for some time, forgotten. He was not to know that Queen Morgan herself had dropped it when, here in their usual trysting-place, the news had been brought to her of her lover's death. She had not been in the garden since that day.
Mordred laid the spoiled linen back on the seat, and recrossed the lawn to the path below the windows. As he did so a light was kindled in one of them, and voices came clearly. One of these, raised in distress or anger, was unfamiliar, but the other, answering it, was the voice of Morgause. He caught the words "ship" and "Camelot," and then "the princes," and at that, without even pausing to think about it, he left the path and stepped up close to the wall under the window, listening.
The windows were unglazed, but set high in the wall, a few spans above his head. He could hear only in snatches, as the women raised their voices or moved nearer the window. Morgan -- for the first voice proved to be hers -- seemed to be pacing the chamber, restless, and half-distraught.
She was speaking. "If he puts me away...if he dares! I, the High King's own sister! Whose only fault is that she was led astray by care for her brother's kingdom and love of her lord! Could I help it if Accolon was mad for love of me? Could I help it if he attacked Arthur? All that I did--"
"Yes, yes, you have told me that tale already." Morgause was unsympathetic and impatient. "Spare me, I beg you! But have you managed to make Urbgen believe it?"
"He will not speak with me. If I could only come to him--"
Morgause interrupted again, amusement veiling contempt. "Why wait? You are Queen of Rheged, and you keep telling whoever will listen that you deserve nothing of your lord but gratitude and a little forgiveness for folly. So why hide away here? If I were you, sister, I would put on my finest gown, and the queen's crown of Rheged, and go into the hall, attended, when he is at meat, or in council. He will have to listen to you then. If he is still undecided about it, he won't risk slighting Arthur's sister in open court."
"With Nimue there?" asked Morgan bitterly.
"Nimue?" Morgause sounded considerably startled. "Merlin's trollop? Is she still here?"
"Yes, she's still here. And she's a queen now, too, sister, so watch your tongue! She married Pelleas since the old enchanter died, didn't you know? She sent the sword south, but she stayed on, lodging somewhere in the town. I suppose he didn't tell you that? Just holds his tongue and hopes you won't meet!" A shrill, edged laugh as Morgan turned away again. "Men! By Hecate, how I despise them! They have all the power, and none of the courage. He's afraid of her... and of me... and of you, too, I don't doubt! Like a big dog among spitting cats...Oh, well, perhaps you're right. Perhaps--"
The rest was lost. Mordred waited, though the subject held small interest for him. The outcome of the queen's trespass and the king's anger concerned him not at all. But he was intrigued by what he had heard of Morgan's reputation, and by the easy mention of great names that until now had only been the stuff of lamplight tales.
In a minute or so, when he could distinguish words again, he did hear something that made him prick up his ears.
Morgause was speaking. "When Arthur gets home will you go to see him?"
"Yes. I have no choice. He has sent for me, and they tell me that Urbgen is making arrangements for my escort."
"Guard, do you mean?"
"And if I do, why should you smile, Morgause? What do you call your escort of king's soldiers that is taking you south at Arthur's orders?"
There was spite in her voice. Morgause reacted to it swiftly.
"That is rather different. I never played my lord false--"
"Ha! Not after he married you, at any rate!"
"--nor proved traitor to Arthur--"
"No?" Morgan's laugh was wild.
"Traitor, well, no! Traitor isn't quite the word, is it? And he wasn't your king at the time, I grant you that!"
"I prefer not to understand you, sister. You can hardly mean to accuse me--"
"Oh, come, Morgause! Everyone knows about that now! And here, in this very castle! Well, all right, it's a long time ago. But you surely don't think he's sent for you now for old times' sake? You can't be deluding yourself that he'll want you near him? Even with Merlin gone, Arthur won't want you back at court. Depend on it, all he wants is the children, and once he has them--"
"He won't touch Lot's children." Morgause's voice was raised for the first time, edged and sharp. "Even he would not dare! And why should he? Whatever quarrel lay between him and Lot in the past. Lot died fighting under the Dragon banner, and Arthur will honor his sons in consequence. He must support Gawain's claims, he can do no other. He will not dare let it be said that he is finishing the murder of the children."
Morgan was right beside the window. Her voice, pitched low, and rather breathless, was nevertheless quite clear. "Finishing? He never began it. Oh, don't look like that. Everyone knows that, too. It was not Arthur who had the babies massacred. No, nor Merlin, either. Don't pretend to me, Morgause."
There was a slight pause, then Morgause spoke with her old indifference. "Past history, like the other thing. And for what you said just now, if all he wanted was the boys, he need not have sent for me at all, only for them. But no, I am ordered to bring them myself to him at Camelot. And call it what you like, the escort is a royal one...You will see, sister, that I shall take my rightful place again, and my sons with me."
"And the bastard? What do you imagine will happen to him? Or should I say, what do you plan to do with him?"
"Plan?"
Morgan's voice rose in sudden triumph. "Ah, yes, that's different, isn't it? That hit the center. There's danger there, Morgause, and you know it. You may tell what tale you like, but you only have to look at him to guess the truth...So, the murder's out, and what happens now? Merlin foretold what would come of it if you let him live. The massacre may be past history, but who's to say what Arthur will do, now that he's found him at last?"
The sentence broke off as somewhere a door opened and shut. Footsteps sounded, and a servant's voice w
ith some message, then the two queens moved away from the window. Someone else, the servant probably, came to the window and leaned out. Mordred kept close by the wall, in the deep shadow. He waited, perfectly still, till the oblong cast by the lighted window showed empty and bright on the lawn, then ran silently to the sleeping-chamber he shared with the other boys.
His pallet -- he slept alone here -- lay nearest the door, separated from the others by a stone buttress. Beyond the buttress Gawain lay with Gareth. Both were already asleep. From the far side of the chamber Agravain said something in a whisper, and Gaheris grunted and turned over. Mordred muttered a "Good night," then, without disrobing, drew a coverlet over himself and lay down to wait.
He lay rigid in the darkness, trying to school his racing thoughts and calm his breathing. He had been right, then. The chance that had taken him through the garden had proved it. He was not being taken south in honor, as a prince, but for some purpose he could not guess at, but which would almost certainly be dangerous. Imprisonment, perhaps, or even -- the shrill malice of Morgan's voice made this seem possible -- death at the hands of the High King. Morgause's patronage, for which until the night in the stillroom he had been grateful, seemed likely to prove useless. She would be powerless to protect him, and had in fact sounded indifferent.
He turned his head on the hard pillow, listening. No sound from the others except the soft regular breathing of slumber. Outside, the castle was still awake. The gates would still be open, but would soon be shut and guarded for the night. Tomorrow would see him back under escort with the Orkney party, bound for the ship, and Camelot, and whatever awaited him there. The Orc might not even dock again before putting in to Ynys Witrin, where Arthur's ally King Melwas held the island for the King. If he was to escape, it must be now.
