by Mary Stewart
Mordred alone rode in silence, once again apart, outside the pack. He noticed, with a stir of satisfaction, the attention, which was almost deference, paid him by Lamorak, and the careful eye that Cei kept on him. Rumor had run ahead of truth at court, and neither King nor Queen had made any attempt to scotch it. It was allowed to be seen that, of the five, Mordred was the one who mattered most. He was also the only one of the boys who felt some sort of dread of the coming interview. He did not know how much Morgause had been told, but surely she must know about her lover's death. And that death was on his hands.
So they came towards Amesbury on a fine sunny morning, with the dew splashing in glittering showers from their horses' hoofs, and met Morgause and her escort out riding in the woods.
It was a ride for exercise, not for pleasure. This much was immediately apparent. Though the queen was richly dressed, in her favorite amber cloth with a short furred mantle against the cool spring breezes, her mount was an indifferent-seeming mare, and to either side of her rode men in the uniform of Arthur's troops. From the hand of the man on her right a leading rein ran looping to the ring of the mare's bridle. A woman, plainly cloaked and hooded, rode a few paces in the rear, flanked in her turn by another pair of troopers.
It was Gareth who first recognized his mother in the little group of distant riders. He called out, stretching high in the saddle and waving. Then Gaheris spurred past him at a gallop, and the others, like a charge of cavalry, went racing across the space of wooded ground, with laughter and hunting calls and a clamor of welcome. Morgause received the rush of young horsemen with smiling pleasure. To Gaheris, who pressed first to the mare's side, she gave a hand, and leaned a cheek to his eager kiss. Her other hand she reached towards Cei, who dutifully raised it to his lips, then, relinquishing it to Gawain, reined back to let the boys crowd in.
Morgause leaned forward, both arms reaching for her sons, her face glowing.
"See, they lead my horse, so I may ride without hands! I was told I might hope to see you soon, but we did not look for you yet! You must have longed for me, as I for you...Gawain, Agravain, Gareth, my darling, come, kiss your mother, who has hungered all these long winter months for a sight of you...There, there, now, that's enough...Let me go, Gaheris, let me look at you all. Oh, my darling boys, it has been so long, so long...."
The turn towards pathos went unnoticed. Still too excited, too full of their new importance, the young horsemen caracoled around her. The scene took on the liveliness of a pleasure party.
"See, Mother, this is a stallion from the High King's own stable!"
"Look, lady, at this sword! And I've used it, too! The master-at-arms says that I promise as well as any man of my age."
"You are well, lady queen? They treat you well?" This was Gaheris.
"I am to be one of the Companions," Gawain put in, gruffly proud, "and if there is fighting in the coming summer, he has promised I shall be there."
"Will you be in Camelot for Pentecost?" asked Gareth.
Mordred had not spurred forward with the rest. She did not seem to notice. She had not even glanced his way, where he rode between Cei and Lamorak as the party turned back towards Amesbury. She laughed with her sons, and talked gaily, and let them shout and boast, and asked questions about Camelot and Caerleon, listening to their eager praises with flattering attention. From time to time she threw a gentle look, or a charming word, to Lamorak, the knight riding nearest, or even to the men of the escort. She was concerned, one might have guessed, with the report that would eventually go back to Arthur. Her looks were mild and sweet, her words innocent of anything but a mother's interest in her sons' progress, and a mother's gratitude for what the High King and his deputies were doing for them. When she spoke of Arthur -- this was to Cei, across the heads of Gareth and Gaheris -- it was with praise of his generosity towards her children ("my orphaned boys, who would otherwise be robbed of all protection") and for the King's grace, as she called it, towards herself. It was to be noticed that in a while she assumed a further, and complete, act of grace. She turned her lovely eyes full on Cei and asked, with sweet humility: "And did the King my brother send you to take me back to court?"
When Cei, flushing and looking away, told her no, she said nothing, but bowed her head and let a hand steal to her eyes. Mordred, who rode to that side of her and a little in the rear, saw that she was tearless, but Gaheris pushed forward to her other side and laid a hand on her arm.
"Soon, though, lady! It will surely be soon! As soon as we get back we will petition him! By Pentecost, surely!"
She made no reply. She gave a little shiver, pulled her cloak closer, and glanced up at the sky, then, with an effort that was patent, straightened her shoulders. "Look, the day is clouding over. Let us not loiter here. Let us get back." Her smile was bright with bravery. "Today, at least, Amesbury will cease to seem a prison."
By the time the party neared the village of Amesbury, Cei, at her left hand, was visibly unbending, Lamorak stared with open admiration, and Lot's sons had forgotten that they had ever wanted to be free of her. The spell was woven again. Nimue had been right. The links so recently forged in Caerleon were wearing thin already. The Orkney brothers would take a less than perfect loyalty back to their uncle the High King.
The convent gate was open, and the porter watching for them. He stared in surprise at the sight of the Camelot party, and shouted to a sack-clad youth -- a novice -- who was grubbing among lettuces in a weedy bed beside a wall. The novice went running, and by the time the party rode into the yard the abbot himself, slightly out of breath but with unimpaired dignity, appeared at the doorway of his house and stood waiting at the head of the steps to receive them.
Even here, under the abbot's eye, Morgause's spell held good. Cei, moving with stolid courtesy to help her dismount, was beaten to it by Lamorak, with Gawain and Gaheris close behind. Morgause, with a smile at her sons, slid gracefully into Lamorak's arms, and then held to him a moment, letting it be seen that the ride, and the excitement of the meeting, had taxed her frail strength. She thanked the knight prettily, then turned to the boys again. She would rest awhile in her own rooms, she told them, while Abbot Luke made them welcome, then later, when they were fed and changed and rested, she would receive them.
So, to the abbot's barely concealed irritation, Morgause, having turned her status as prisoner into that of a queen granting audience, moved off towards the women's side of the convent, supported on the arm of her waiting-woman, and followed, as if by a royal escort, by her four guards.
In the years since Arthur's crowning, and more especially since Morgause had come as his prisoner, the High King had sent gifts and money to the foundation at Amesbury, so the place was larger and better kept than when the young King had first ridden south to see his father buried in the Giants' Dance.
Where there had been fields behind the chapel, there was now a walled garden, with its orchard and fishpond, and beyond this a second courtyard had been built, so that the quarters of men and women could be separate. The abbot's house had been enlarged, and there was no longer any need for him to vacate his quarters for royal guests; a well-built wing of guest rooms faced south onto the garden. To this the travelers were escorted by the two young novices appointed to see to their comfort. The boys were shown into the guests' dorter, a long, sunny room with half-a-dozen beds, and with no convent-like austerity about it. The beds were new and good, with painted headboards, the floor was of stone, scrubbed white and covered with brightly woven rugs, and wax candles stood ready in silver sconces. Mordred, glancing around him, and out of the broad windows where the sun shone warmly on lawn and fishpond and blossoming apple trees, reflected dryly that no doubt Morgause could take all the privileges she wanted, and welcome: She must be, in a quite literal sense, the most paying of guests.
The meal was good, too. The boys were served in the small refectory attached to the guest house, and afterwards made free of the convent grounds and the town -- it was little more
than a village -- outside the walls. Their mother, they were told, would receive them after evening chapel. Cei did not appear; he was closeted with Abbot Luke; but Lamorak stayed with the boys, and in response to their pleading took them riding out on the Great Plain, where, two miles or so from Amesbury, stood the great circle of stones called the Giants' Dance.
"Where our kinsman the great Ambrosius is buried, and our grandfather Uther Pendragon beside him," said Agravain to Mordred, with a touch of his old arrogance. Mordred said nothing, but caught Gawain's quick look, and smiled to himself. From Lamorak's sidelong glance it could be guessed that he, too, knew the truth about Arthur's eldest "nephew."
As befitted the convent's guests, they all went to the evening service. A little to Mordred's surprise, Morgause attended, too. As Lamorak and the boys approached the chapel door, the nuns went by two by two, with slow steps and downcast eyes. At the rear of the little procession walked Morgause, dressed simply in black, her face veiled. Two women attended her; one was the waiting-woman who had been riding with her, the other looked younger, with the ageless face of extreme stupidity, and the heavy pale look of ill-health. Last came the abbess, a slightly built, sweet-faced woman, with an air of gentle innocence which was perhaps not the best quality for the ruler of such a community. She had been appointed head of the women's side of the convent by the abbot, who was not the man to brook any rival in authority. Since Morgause's coming Abbot Luke had had cause to regret his choice; Mother Mary was not the woman to control her royal prisoner. On the other hand the convent, since that prisoner's coming, had flourished exceedingly, so, as long as the Queen of Orkney was safely held, Abbot Luke could see no need to interfere with the too-gentle rule of the abbess. He himself was not entirely immune to the flattering respect Morgause showed him, or to the fragile charm she exhibited in his presence, and besides, there was always the possibility that someday she would be reinstated, if not in her own kingdom, then at court, where she was, after all, the High King's half-sister....
The younger of Morgause's women brought the queen's message soon after chapel. The four younger princes were to sup with their mother. She would send for them later. She would see Prince Mordred now.
Across the barrage of objections and questions that this provoked Mordred met Gawain's eyes. Alone of the four, he looked commiserating rather than resentful.
"Well, good luck," he said, and Mordred thanked him, smoothing his hair and settling his belt and the hanger at his hip, while the woman stood waiting by the door, staring with pale eyes out of that lard-like face and repeating, as if she could only speak by rote: "The young princes are to take supper with Madam, but now she will see Prince Mordred, alone."
Mordred, as he followed her, heard Gawain say in a low quick aside to Gaheris: "Don't be a fool, it's hardly a privilege. She never even looked at him this morning, did she? And you must know why. You can't surely have forgotten Gabran? Poor Mordred, don't envy him this!"
He followed the woman across the lawn. Blackbirds hopped about on the grass, pecking for worms, and a thrush sang somewhere among the apple trees. The sun was still warm, and the place full of the scent of apple blossom and primroses and the yellow wallflowers beside the path.
He was aware of none of it. All his being was turned inward, centered on the coming interview, wishing now that he had had the hardihood to disagree when the King had said to him: "I have refused to see her, ever again, but you are her son, and I think you owe her this, if only as a courtesy. You need never go back. But this time, this one time, you must. I have taken her kingdom from her, and her sons; let it not be said that I did so with brutality."
And in his head, over this voice of memory, two other voices persisted, of the boy Mordred, the fisherman's son, and of Mordred the prince, son of the High King Arthur, and a man grown.
Why should you fear her? She can do nothing. She is a prisoner and helpless.
That was the prince, tall and brave in his silver-trimmed tunic and new green mantle.
She is a witch, said the fisher-boy.
She is a prisoner of the High King, and he is my father. My father, said the prince.
She is my mother, and a witch.
She is no longer a queen. She has no power.
She is a witch, and she murdered my mother.
You are afraid, of her? The prince was contemptuous.
Yes.
Why? What can she do? She cannot even cast a spell. Not here. You are not alone with her now in an underground tomb.
I know. I don't know why. She is a woman alone, and a prisoner, and without help, and I am afraid.
A side door stood open under the arcade of the nuns' courtyard. The woman beckoned, and he followed her in, along a short passage which ended in another door.
His heart was hammering now, his hands damp. He clenched them at his sides, then loosened them deliberately, fighting back towards calmness.
I am Mordred. I am my own man, beholden neither to her nor to the High King. I shall listen to her, and then go. I need never see her again. Whatever she is, whatever she says, it cannot matter. lam my own man, and I do my own will.
The woman opened the door without knocking, and stood aside for him to enter.
The room was large, but chilly and sparsely furnished. The walls were of daubed wattle, roughly plastered and painted, the floor of stone, bare of any rugs or coverings. To one side, looking out on the arcade, was a window, unglazed and open to the evening breeze. Opposite this was another door. Against the long wall of the room stood a heavy table and bench of carved and polished wood. At one end of the table was the room's single chair, high-backed and ornately carved, but without cushions. A couple of wooden stools flanked it. The table was set as if for the evening meal, with platters and cups of pewter and red clay and even wood. One part of Mordred's brain -- the part that stayed coolly observant in spite of moist skin and rushing heart -- noted with a twist of amusement that his half-brothers looked to be in for a meal frugal even by monkish standards. Then the far door opened, and Morgause came into the room.
Once before, when for the first time the ragged fisher-boy had been brought, among the lights and colors of the palace, face to face with the queen, he had had eyes for nothing else; now in this bare and chilly room he forgot it all, and stared at her. She was still dressed in her chapel-going black, without color or ornament except a silver cross (a cross?) which hung on her breast. Her hair was plainly braided in two long plaits. She was no longer veiled. She moved forward to stand beside the chair, one hand on its tall back, the other holding a fold of her gown. She waited there in unmoving silence while the waiting-woman latched the door and went with her heavy, deliberate tread across the room to leave by the inner door. As it opened and shut behind her, Mordred caught a glimpse of stacked chairs and the gleam of silver hidden by a pile of colored stuffs. Someone spoke quickly and was hushed. Then the door shut quietly and he was alone with the queen.
He stood still, waiting. She turned her head on its poised neck and let the silence hang longer. Light from the window moved in the heavy folds of her skirt, and the silver cross on her breast quivered. Suddenly, like a diver coming up into air, he saw two things clearly: the whitened knuckles of the fist that gripped the black cloth at her side, and the movement of her breast with her quickened breathing. She, too, faced this interview with something less than equanimity. She was as tense as he.
He saw more. The marks against the plaster where hangings had been hastily removed; the lighter patches on the floor where rugs had lain; scratches where chairs and lamps and tables -- all the furnishings light enough for the women to handle -- had been dragged out and stacked in the inner room, along with the cushions and silver and all the luxuries without which Morgause would have felt herself sadly ill-used. And this was the point. Once more, as had been her habit, Morgause had set the scene. The plain black clothes, the bare chilly chamber, the lack of attendants -- the Queen of Orkney was concerned still with the report that would g
o back to Arthur, and with what her sons would find. They were to see her as a lonely and oppressed prisoner, kept in sad confinement.
It was enough. Mordred's fear faded. He gave a courtly bow and thereafter stood easily, waiting, apparently quite unperturbed by the silence and the scrutiny of the queen.
She let her hand fall from the chair-back, and taking up a fold of the heavy skirt on the other side, swept to the front of the chair, and sat. She smoothed the black cloth over her knees, folded her hands, white against black, lifted her head, and looked him slowly up and down from head to foot. He saw then that she was wearing the royal circlet of Lothian and Orkney. Its pearls and citrines, set in white gold, glimmered in the red gold of her hair.
When it was apparent that he was neither awed nor disconcerted, she spoke.
"Come nearer. Here, where I can see you. Hm. Yes, very fine. 'Prince Mordred,' it is now, they tell me. One of the ornaments of Camelot, and a hopeful sword at Arthur's service."
He bowed again, and said nothing. Her lips thinned.
"So he told you, did he?"
"Yes, madam."
"The truth? Did he dare?" Her voice was sharp with scorn.
"It seems like the truth. No one would invent such a tale to boast of it."
"Ah, so the young serpent can hiss. I thought you were my devoted servant, Mordred the fisher-boy?"
"I was, madam. What I owe you, I owe you. But what I owe him, I owe likewise."
"A moment's lust." She spoke contemptuously. "A boy after his first battle. An untried young pup that came running to the first woman that whistled him."
