by Mary Stewart
6
Ulfin, the King's chamberer, came at length to bid Arthur to the King's presence. I woke the boy, and later saw him go, silent and self-contained, showing a sort of impossible calm like smooth ice over a whirlpool. I think that, being young, he had already begun to put behind him the shadow of the night; the burden was mine now. This was a pattern which was common in the years to come.
As soon as he was gone, ushered out with a ceremony wherein I could see Ulfin remembering that night so long ago, of the boy's conception, and which Arthur himself accepted as if he had known it all his life, I called a servant and bade him bring the Lady Morgause to me. The man looked surprised, then doubtful; it was to be surmised that the lady was used to do her own summoning. I had neither time nor patience this morning for such things. I said briefly: "Do as I say," and the fellow went, scuttling.
She kept me waiting, of course, but she came. This morning she wore red, the color of cherries, and over the shoulders of the gown her hair looked rosy fair, larch buds in spring, the color of apricots. Her scent was heavy and sweet, apricots and honeysuckle mixed, and I felt my stomach twist at the memory. But there was no other resemblance to the girl I had loved — had tried to love — so long ago: in Morgause's long-lidded green eyes there was not even the pretense of innocence. She came in smiling that close-lipped smile, with the prick of a charming dimple at the corner of her mouth, and, making me a reverence, crossed the room gracefully to seat herself in the high-backed chair. She disposed her robe prettily about her, dismissed her women with a nod, then lifted her chin and looked at me enquiringly. Her hands lay still and folded against the soft swell of her belly, and in her the gesture was not demure, but possessive.
Somewhere, coldly, a memory stirred. My mother, standing with her hands held so, facing a man who would have murdered me. "I have a bastard to protect." I believe that Morgause read my thoughts. The dimple deepened prettily, and the gold-fringed lids drooped.
I did not sit, but remained standing across the window from her. I said, more harshly than I had intended: "You must know why I sent for you."
"And you must know, Prince Merlin, that I am not used to being sent for."
"Let us not waste time. You came, and it's just as well. I wish to speak with you while Arthur is still with the King."
She opened her eyes wide at me. "Arthur?"
"Don't make those innocent eyes at me, girl. You knew his name when you took him to your bed last night."
"Can the poor boy not even keep his bed secrets from you?" The light pretty voice was contemptuous, meant to sting. "Did he come running to your whistle to tell you about it, along with everything else? I'm surprised you let him off the chain long enough to take his pleasure last night. I wish you joy of him, Merlin the kingmaker. What sort of king is a half-trained puppy going to make?"
"The sort who is not ruled from his bed," I said. "You have had your night, and that was too much. The reckoning comes now."
Her hands moved slightly in her lap. "You can do me no harm."
"No, I shall do you no harm." The flicker in her eyes showed that she had noticed the change of phrase. "But I am also here," I said, "to see that you do Arthur no harm. You will leave Luguvallium today, and you will not come back to the court."
"I leave court? What nonsense is this? You know that I look after the King; he depends on me for his medicines, I am his nurse. I and his chamberer look after him in all things. You cannot imagine that the King will ever agree to let me go."
"After today," I said, "the King will never want to see you again."
She stared. Her color was high. This, I could see, mattered to her. "How can you say that? Even you, Merlin, cannot stop me from seeing my father, and I assure you he will not want to let me go. You surely don't mean to tell him what has happened? He's a sick man, a shock might kill him."
"I shall not tell him."
"Then what will you say to him? Why should he agree to having me sent away?"
"That is not what I said, Morgause."
"You said that after today the King would never want to see me again."
"I was not speaking of your father."
"I don't see — " She took a sharp breath, and the green-gilt eyes widened. "But you said...the King?" Her breath shortened. "You were speaking of that boy?"
"Of your brother, yes. Where is your skill? Uther is marked for death."
Her hands were working together in her lap. "I know. But...you say it comes today?"
I echoed my own question. "Where is your magic? It comes today. So you had better leave, had you not? Once Uther is gone, who will protect you here?"
She thought for a moment. The lovely green-gilt eyes were narrow and sly, not lovely at all. "Against what? Against Arthur? You're so sure you can make them accept him as King? Even if you do, are you trying to tell me that I will need protection against him?"
"You know as well as I do that he will be King. You have skill enough for that, and — in spite of what you said to anger me — skill enough to know what kind of a king. You may not need protection against him, Morgause, but it is certain that you will need it against me." Our eyes locked. I nodded. "Yes. Where he is, I am. Be warned, and go while you can. I can protect him from the kind of magic you wove last night,"
She was calm again, seeming to draw into herself. The small mouth tightened in its secret smile. Yes, she had power of a kind. "Are you so sure you are proof against women's magic? It will snare you in the end, Prince Merlin."
"I know it," I said calmly. "Do not think I have not seen my end. And all our ends, Morgause. I have seen power for you, and for the thing you carry, but no joy. No joy, now or ever."
Outside the window, against the wall, was an apricot tree. The sun warmed the fruit, globe on golden globe, scented and heavy. Warmth reflected from the stone wall, and wasps hummed among the glossy leaves, sleepy with scent. So, once before, in a sweet-smelling orchard, I had met hatred and murder, eye to eye.
She sat very still, her hands locked against her belly. Her eyes held mine, seeming to drink at them. The scent of honeysuckle thickened, visibly, drifting in green-gold haze across the lighted window, mingling with the sunshine and the smell of apricots...
"Stop it!" I said contemptuously. "Do you really think that your girl's magic can touch me? No more now than it could before. And what are you trying to do? This is hardly a matter of magic. Arthur knows now who he is, and he knows what he did last night with you. Do you think he will bear you near him? Do you think that he will watch daily, monthly, while a child grows in your belly? He is not a cold or a patient man. And he has a conscience. He believes that you sinned in innocence, as he did. If he thought otherwise, he might act."
"Kill me, you mean?"
"Do you not deserve killing?"
"He sinned, if you call it sin, as much as I."
"He did not know he was sinning, and you did. No, don't waste your breath on me. Why pretend? Even without your magic, you must know that half the court has whispered it since he and I rode in together yesterday. You knew he was Uther's son."
For the first time there was a shade of fear in her face. She said obstinately: "I did not know. You cannot prove I knew. Why should I do such a thing?"
I folded my arms and leaned a shoulder back against the wall. "I will tell you why. First, because you are Uther's daughter, and like him a seeker after casual lusts. Because you have the Pendragon blood in you that makes you desire power, so you take it as it mostly offers itself to women, in a man's bed. You knew your father the King was dying, and feared that there would be no place of power for you as half-sister of the young King whose Queen would later dispossess you. I think you would not have hesitated to kill Arthur, but that you would have less standing, even, at Lot's court, with your own sister as Queen. Whoever became High King would have no need of you, as Uther has. You would be married to some small king and taken to some corner of the land where you would pass your time bearing his children and weaving h
is war cloaks, with nothing in your hands but the petty power of a family, and what women's magic you have learned and can practise in your little kingdom. That is why you did what you did, Morgause. Because, no matter what it was, you wanted a claim on the young King, even if it was to be a claim of horror and of hatred. What you did last night you did coldly, in a bid for power."
"Who are you to talk to me so? You took power where you could find it."
"Not where I could find it; where it was given. What you have got you took, against all laws of God and men. If you had acted unknowingly, in simple lust, there would be no more to say. I told you, so far he thinks you have no blame. This morning, when he knew what he had done, his first thought was for your distress." I saw the flash of triumph in her eyes, and finished, gently: "But you are not dealing with him, you are dealing with me. And I say that you shall go."
She got swiftly to her feet. "Why did you not tell him then, and let him kill me? Would you not have wanted that?"
"To add another and worse sin? You talk like a fool."
"I shall go to the King!"
"To what purpose? He will spare no thought for you today."
"I am always by him. He will need his drugs."
"I am here now, and Gandar. He will not need you."
"He'll see me if I say I've come to say farewell! I tell you, I will go to him!"
"Then go," I said. "I'll not stop you. If you were thinking of telling him the truth, think again. If the shock kills him, Arthur will be High King all the sooner."
"He would not be accepted! They wouldn't accept him! Do you think Lot will stand by and listen to you? What if I tell them what Arthur did last night?"
"Then Lot would become High King," I said equably. "And how long would he let you live, bearing Arthur's child? Yes, you'd better think about it, hadn't you? Either way, there is nothing you can do, except go while you can. Once your sister is married at Christmas, get Lot to find you a husband. That way, you may be safe."
Suddenly, at this, she was angry, the anger of a spitting cat in a corner. "You condemn me, you! You were a bastard, too...All my life I have watched Morgian get everything. Morgian! That child to be a Queen, while I...Why, she even learns magic, but she has no more idea how to use it for her own ends than a kitten has! She'd do better in a nunnery than on a Queen's throne, and I — I..." She stopped on a little gasp, and caught her underlip in her teeth. I thought she changed what she had been about to say. "...I, who have something of the power which has made you great, Merlin my cousin, do you think I will be content to be nothing?" Her voice went flat, the voice of a wise-woman speaking a curse which will stick. "And that is what you will be, who are no man's friend, and no woman's lover. You are nothing, Merlin, you are nothing, and in the end you will only be a shadow and a name."
I smiled at her. "Do you think you can frighten me? I see further than you, I believe. I am nothing, yes; I am air and darkness, a word, a promise. I watch in the crystal and I wait in the hollow hills. But out there in the light I have a young king and a bright sword to do my work for me, and build what will stand when my name is only a word for forgotten songs and outworn wisdom, and when your name, Morgause, is only a hissing in the dark." I turned my head then, and called the servant. "Now enough of this, there is no more to say between us. Go and make yourself ready, and get you from court."
The man had come in, and was waiting inside the door glancing, I thought apprehensively, from one to the other of us. From his look, he was a black Celt from the mountains of the west; it is a race that still worships the old gods, so it is possible he could feel, if only partly, some of the stinging presences still haunting the room. But for me, now, the girl was only a girl, tilting a pretty, troubled face to mine, so that the rosegold hair streamed from her pale forehead down the cherry gown. To the servant waiting beside the door, it should have seemed an ordinary leavetaking, but for those stinging shadows. She never glanced his way, or guessed what he might see.
When she spoke her voice was composed, calm and low. "I shall go to my sister. She lies at York till the wedding."
"I shall see to it that an escort is ready. No doubt the wedding will still be at Christmas, according to plan. King Lot should join you soon, and give you a place at your sister's court."
There was a brief flash at that, discreetly veiled. I might have tried a guess at what she planned there — that she hoped, even at this late date, to take her sister's place at Lot's side — but I was weary of her. I said: "I'll bid you farewell, then, and a safe journey."
She made a reverence, saying, very low: "We shall meet again, cousin."
I said formally, "I shall look forward to it." She went then, slight, erect, hands folded close again, and the servant shut the door behind her.
I stood by the window, collecting my thoughts. I felt weary, and my eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, but my mind was clear and light, already free of the girl's presence. The fresh air of morning blew in to disperse the evil lingering in the room, till, with the last fading scent of honeysuckle, it was gone. When the servant came back I rinsed face and hands in cold water, then, bidding him follow me, went back to the hospital dormitory. The air was cleaner there, and the eyes of dying men easier to bear than the presence of the woman who was with child of Mordred, Arthur's nephew and bastard son.
7
King Lot, brooding on the edge of affairs, had not been idle. Certain busy gentlemen, friends of his, were seen to be hurrying here and there, protesting to anyone who would listen that it would be more appropriate for Uther to declare his heir from one of his great palaces in London or Winchester. This haste, they said, was unseemly: the thing should be done by custom, with due notice and ceremony, and backed by the blessing of the Church. But they whispered in vain. The ordinary people of Luguvallium, and the soldiers who at present outnumbered them, thought otherwise. It was obvious now that Uther was near his end, and it seemed not only necessary, but right, that he should declare his successor straight away, near the field where Arthur had in a fashion declared himself. And if there was no bishop present, what of it? This was a victory feast and was held, so to speak, still in the field.
The house where the King held court in Luguvallium was packed to the doors, and well beyond them. Outside, in the town and around it, where the troops held their own celebration, the air was blue with the smoke of fires, and thick with the smell of roasting meat. Officers on their way to the King's feast had to work quite hard to turn a blind eye to the drunkenness in camp and street, and a deaf ear to the squeals and giggles coming from quarters where women were not commonly allowed to be.
I hardly saw Arthur all day. He was closeted with the King until afternoon, and in the end only left to allow his father to rest before the feast. I spent most of the day in the hospital. It was peaceful there, compared with the crush near the royal apartments. All day, it seemed, the corridors outside my rooms and Arthur's were besieged; by men who wanted favors from the new prince, or just his notice; by men who wanted to talk with me, or to court my favor by gifts; or simply by the curious. I let it be known that Arthur was with the King, and would speak with no one before the time of the feast. To the guards I gave private orders that if Lot should seek me out, I was to be called. But he made no approach. Nor, according to the servants I questioned, was he to be seen in the town.
But I took no chances, and early that morning sent to Caius Valerius, a King's officer and an old acquaintance of mine, for extra guards for my rooms and Arthur's, to reinforce the duty sentries outside the main door, in the antechamber, and even at the windows. And before I went to the hospital I made my way to the King's rooms, to have a word with Ulfin. It may perhaps seem strange that a prophet who had seen Arthur's crowning so plain and clear and ringed with light should take such pains to guard him from his enemies. But those who have had to do with the gods know that when those gods make promises they hide them in light, and a smile on a god's lips is not always a sign that you may take his favor fo
r granted. Men have a duty to make sure. The gods like the taste of salt; the sweat of human effort is the savor of their sacrifices.
The guards on duty at the King's door lifted their spears without a challenge and let me straight through into the outer chamber. Here pages and servants waited, while in the second chamber sat the women who helped to nurse the King. Ulfin was, as ever, beside the door of the King's room. He rose when he saw me, and we talked for a little while, of the King's health, of Arthur, of the events of yesterday and the prospects for tonight; then — we were talking softly, apart from the women — I asked him:
"You knew Morgause had left the court?"
"I heard so, yes. Nobody knows why."
"Her sister Morgian is waiting in York for the wedding," I said, "and anxious for her company."
"Oh, yes, we heard that." It was to be inferred from the woodenness of his expression that nobody had believed it.
"Did she come to see the King?" I asked.
"Three times." Ulfin smiled. It was apparent that Morgause was no favorite of his. "And each time she was turned away because the prince was still with him."
A favored daughter for twenty years, and forgotten in as many hours for a true-born son. "You were a bastard, too" she had reminded me. Years ago, I remembered, I had wondered what would become of her. She had had position and authority of a sort here with Uther, and might well have been fond of him. She had (the King had hinted yesterday) refused marriage to stay near him. Perhaps I had been too harsh with her, driven by the horror of foreknowledge and my own single-minded love for the boy. I hesitated, then asked him: "Did she seem much distressed?"
"Distressed?" said Ulfin crisply. "No, she looked angry. She's bad to cross, is that lady. Always been so, from a child. One of her maids was crying, too; I think she'd been whipped." He nodded towards one of the pages, a fair boy, very young, kicking his heels at a window. "He was the one sent to turn her away the last time, and she laid his cheek open with her nails."
