by Joan Wolf
Chapter 38
“THE Saxons have sacked Angers.” Arthur picked up a scroll from his desk and read its contents aloud to Cai and Bedwyr. It was from Syagrius, the king who ruled northern Gaul. Like Arthur, Syagrius espoused the idea of Romanitas without necessarily espousing allegiance to the person of the emperor. And like Arthur, he had a disparate group of tribes under his rule: the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Britons in Armorica being the chief among them.
“‘Odovacar now occupies the south bank of the Loire and most of its islands,’ ” Arthur read aloud. “‘His presence poses a direct threat to all British settlements along the Loire. The Saxon army numbers some fifteen thousand which is more than I can raise. Between myself and Childeric, King of the Franks, we can raise perhaps eight thousand men. If we are to deal with this Saxon threat, we must have assistance from Britain.’”
Arthur looked up.
“Odovacar,” said Cai. “Another Saxon chief like Offa. Never content with what they have, always wanting more.”
“If Odovacar gets more,” said Bedwyr, “he may well look next across the Narrow Sea to Britain.”
“That thought,” said Arthur, “has crossed my mind.”
The three men looked at each other. “Better to fight him in Gaul than in Britain.” Cai spoke the words all were thinking.
Arthur’s dark face was grave. “Cai, you are to leave for Gaul immediately. See Syagrius. Find out exactly the kind of campaign he is planning and the number of men he can actually count on.”
Cai nodded. “What ship?”
“Take the Gull. It’s at Portus Adurni now. And make certain you see Childeric as well. I do not want to land in Gaul and find the Franks at my throat. Take Lionel with you. His opinion would be useful.”
Bedwyr grunted agreement and Arthur turned to him. “It seems as if the ‘old days’ may have returned after all, Bedwyr the Lion.”
Bedwyr’s blue eyes glinted. “But the ‘old days’ did not take us out of Britain. If you go to Gaul, who will act as your deputy in Camelot?.”
“Mordred,” said Arthur. “And Gwenhwyfar.”
Cai and Bedwyr exchanged a look but said nothing.
“It will be as well to learn now if he can do it,” Arthur said. “If he cannot, then we must look elsewhere for the next high king.”
Bedwyr felt a relief so great that he was momentarily dizzy with it. Arthur sees what I see, he had once told Gwenhwyfar. But Bedwyr had not been as certain as he sounded of the clarity of Arthur’s vision in the matter of his son.
He should have known that Arthur was always a king first.
“If Mordred cannot handle matters at home, Gwenhwyfar will,” said Cai matter-of-factly. “She is fully as competent as Igraine ever was.”
“I know.” Arthur was slowly rerolling the scroll. “The army is to be put into full preparation, Bedwyr. I shall speak to Valerius. Supplies and transports will have to be readied as well.”
Both Cai and Bedwyr recognized the note of dismissal and rose to their feet. Bedwyr grinned suddenly. “I feel as excited as an old warhorse when he hears the trumpet finally sounding.”
Cai slapped him affectionately on the back and Arthur laughed.
Mordred lay on his back in the grass, his eyes half-shut against the August sun. He had escaped from Camelot early in the morning and ridden Cloud partway along the track he knew led to Avalon. He was not going to see Morgan, he simply wanted to get away by himself for a while.
In Lothian there had never been any problem finding solitude. No one had checked on his movements, no one had greatly cared whether he came or whether he went. In Lothian he had been free.
He was not free in Camelot. He was scarcely ever alone. It wore on his spirit, and occasionally he took a horse and just disappeared for a day. Bedwyr did not like it, but took no steps to prevent Mordred’s periodic disappearances. It was the only way he exploited his position as the king’s son.
He wondered if he got this desire for quiet and solitude from Morgan. His father did not seem to mind being a public person, but Morgan stayed quietly at Avalon, leading her life away from the busy forum of public life. He had met his mother only once since their first emotional encounter. They had been polite to each other—very careful and very polite.
Morgan came rarely to Camelot. For the first time it occurred to Mordred that perhaps she was like him in her preference for a quiet life. He had thought before that she stayed away because of Gwenhywfar. It was quite clear to Mordred that the queen did not like Morgan.
Gwenhwyfar. Camelot could never seem a prison to him as long as Gwenhwyfar was there. His heart sang whenever he thought of her. It never worried him that he should feel this way about his father’s wife. It never occurred to him that he could ever be more than her adoring servant. Only his father was great enough to deserve Gwenhwyfar.
He pushed himself up on his elbow and rummaged in his saddlebag for his small harp. He ran his fingers across it once, then plucked a few separate notes. He was deeply concentrated on his music when a dog came panting up to him and tried to lick his fingers. Mordred laughed, put the harp down, and scratched the dog’s ears. “Where did you come from, eh?” he asked, and the dog moved his head so Mordred could scratch another spot.
There came the sound of a horse moving through the trees behind him, and he turned his head. A pony and rider appeared from a narrow track that wound deep into the heart of the woods. With a small shock of surprise he recognized his mother. After an almost imperceptible pause she advanced toward him.
“An escape?” she inquired sympathetically.
He looked into her small, delicate face and quite suddenly remembered what he had refused to think about for a very long time: all the long summer days of his childhood that he had spent in her company. It was Morgan who had roamed the hills and burns of Lothian with him, Morgan who had lain beside him in the grass and watched birds, who had helped him return frightened babies to their nests. It was Morgan who had given him his harp. He smiled quite naturally and said, “Yes.”
Another dog came cantering out of the woods and joined the first dog around Mordred. Morgan laughed and got off her pony. The dogs immediately came to her side.
“Any reason in particular?” she inquired. “Or just general suffocation?”
He gave her a charming, rueful look. “Bedwyr and my father rode down to Portus Adurni to look at ships, It seemed a good opportunity to get off by myself.”
“I see.” She left her pony to graze and came to sit beside him. It was the first time the two of them had been alone since that disastrous interview when he had first been told she was his mother. He found, a little to his surprise, that he was no longer angry with her. He was, instead, curious. He looked out the corner of his eye at her profile, at the long, shining, evenly cut brown hair. She didn’t look old enough to have a seventeen-year-old son, he thought.
“How old were you when I was born?” he asked, a little shyly.
“Fifteen.”
Fifteen. Two years younger than he was now. And his father had been sixteen. Hard to imagine them as being younger than himself.
He picked up a blade of grass and put it between his teeth. “Morgause has got married again,” he said.
Her head turned and the big brown eyes looked at him. “I didn’t know that.”
“Gawain heard from her only yesterday.”
There was a faint line between her brows. Seen up close like this, she did not look like a young girl any more. “Who?” she asked.
His mouth compressed itself into an austere line. “Lamorak.”
“Lamorak?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
There was a long pause before she asked, “What did Agravaine say?”
Lamorak was the son of a minor Lothian chief. He was twenty-five years old, twenty years younger than Morgause. Most of all, he and Agravaine had been inseparable for a whole year before Agravaine had left Lothian for Camelot.
&nb
sp; “He seemed to find it funny.” Mordred was clearly puzzled.
Morgan called to the pony, which had been moving closer to the woods as he grazed, and he raised his head and looked at her. She made a sound in her throat and the pony obediently began to graze back in her direction.
“Whatever can have possessed her, Morgan?” Mordred burst out. “Lamorak is so much younger than she is!”
“He probably makes Morgause feel young too.”
“I should have thought two husbands were enough,” he muttered. He took the grass from between his teeth and stared darkly at his shoes.
“Evidently Morgause did not agree.”
“But she looks so foolish!”
“I’m sure she doesn’t think so. She is probably happy. I hope she is. She deserves to be.”
His eyes jerked up from his feet to her face. Color stained his cheeks. “You’re right,” he said with swift contrition. “I’ve been thinking of myself, not of her.”
“Tell me of yourself,” she invited. “I hear you are to be regent while the king is in Gaul.”
He heaved a great sigh. “Yes.”
“Are you worried?”
He looked at her, Arthur’s eyes without Arthur’s power. “Yes. Everyone seems to expect me to be like my father. I suppose it’s because I look so much like him. But I’m not like him, Morgan. He sees things so clearly, makes such quick decisions . . . I’m not like that.”
“Because you are not like Arthur does not mean you cannot be a good king. You may be a fine king, but it will be in your way, not in Arthur’s.”
“I would rather be a doctor,” he said, and shot her a quick look.
She was watching him steadily. “You have a duty to your country to try to be a king.”
He sighed again. “Yes. And I have been trying.”
“Good.” She smiled at him, a warm, loving, approving smile, and got to her feet. The dogs, which had been sniffing around in the woods, came flying to her side. “I have been collecting herbs,” she said, and for the first time he noticed the sack hanging from her pony’s saddle. “I must be getting home.”
“I have never seen Avalon,” he remarked.
She paused, her hand holding her reins, and looked at him. “You are welcome anytime.”
He smiled at her shyly. “Thank you.”
A group of monks from Glastonbury rode to Camelot every Sunday to say Mass for the Christians in the capital. The abbot Gildas usually said Mass in the great hall of the palace for the king and queen and army officers, and the other monks held Mass in the common rooms of the main garrison buildings for the ordinary soldiers and civilians who were Christians.
After Mass it was Arthur’s practice to mingle with the men in the great hall It was everyone’s chance to have a brief personal moment with the king. Agravaine, watching Arthur with a group of lowly foot officers, thought cynically that the king was well aware of his own personal powers. He was giving the men such flattering attention that they fairly vibrated with pride and pleasure. Fools. They had no idea that they were being manipulated, that Camelot was peopled with the victims of the king’s cleverly wielded magnetism. Even the prince lit up like a candle when Arthur put a hand on his arm.
It infuriated Agravaine that no one saw through him. Agravaine did, though. Probably because he himself traded on his own charm quite as ruthlessly as did Arthur, he thought.
Gwenhwyfar had taken the abbot back to the little hall, where she always entertained him to breakfast. Agravaine looked around the crowded hall for the massive figure of Bedwyr. The prince never attended Mass, but he usually made an appearance at the reception afterward. Sunday was a day off for the army, and he and Bedwyr were going hunting together.
Time passed and the great hall began to empty. Arthur and Mordred disappeared in the direction of the little hall. Agravaine hesitated, wondering if he ought to go back to the princes’ quarters to await Bedwyr there. Just as he had decided that was what he would do, Bedwyr and Gwenhwyfar appeared on the far side of the hall. Gwenhwyfar was dressed for riding.
Agravaine stood stock-still as they came up to him. “I thought we were going hunting” he said to Bedwyr.
The golden brows rose and the prince looked down at him. “I’m sorry, Agravaine. I forgot. You can find one of the other boys to go with. I have promised to take the queen for a ride.”
Gwenhwyfar smiled. Her hair drifted like silk across the green wool of her riding tunic. Her eyelashes were long and dark. She really was extraordinarily beautiful, Agravaine thought, and he hated her.
He looked again at Bedwyr. “But I wanted to go with you.” Even he could hear that he sounded petulant.
Bedwyr frowned. “Go with Constantine. Or Gawain. I am taking the queen for a ride.”
Agravaine was certain he saw a flash of triumph in Gwenhwyfar’s green eyes. Then they were past him and moving into the vestibule. Agravaine looked after them, an expression of hate and fury marring the usual beauty of his fair-skinned face.
Chapter 39
“WILL you be ready to sail before the storms come on the Narrow Sea?” Morgan asked. She and Arthur were walking hand in hand through the small copse of wood that stretched for a mile behind the villa of Avalon. The wood had been left when the villa was built in order to protect it from the noise and the smells of the livestock. There was a path that led halfway into the wood, then turned and doubled back to the house. This was Arthur’s and Morgan’s habitual walk, taken just before they went to bed. A fine mistlike rain such as was falling tonight was never enough to keep them indoors.
“I think so,” Arthur answered. “Everything is in good order. We should embark in about two weeks.”
“No further trouble from the north?”
“No. At this point everyone seems reconciled to the necessity of our going.”
The council had been divided about taking the army to Gaul. Dumnonia and Wales had been in favor of the expedition, but the northern kingdoms had not been. Arthur had prevailed, as always, but there had been some rebellious mutterings about his “Roman” ambitions.
“Good,” she said, and curled her hand inside his. His fingers tightened. He had ridden into Avalon late that afternoon, and would have to leave the following morning. The army preparations had given him less time than usual to spend with her.
Morgan wished he was not going to Gaul. She had had an uneasy feeling of late that it would not be wise for him to leave the country, but she had said nothing to him. Arthur the man would have been sympathetic, but the king would never let his judgment be swayed by her “feeling.” It was better not to worry him at all, she thought.
The wood smelled sweet and damp and they heard the soft hooting of an owl, then the sound of its wings overhead. The dogs followed at their heels, making occasional forays off the path to chase some small nocturnal creature. They walked side by side, so familiar with their surroundings that the dark was no handicap. Their steps matched together perfectly. Arthur’s head was bent a little toward hers, and their voices were low and intimate.
“Mordred came to Avalon a few days ago” she said. “Did he tell you?”
“No.” He didn’t need to ask; he could feel the happiness that the visit had given her. “I told you he would come around.”
“I showed him our old tree house.”
“I hope you didn’t climb into it. It can’t possibly be safe after all these years.”
“Don’t worry. We just looked at it from the ground.” He could hear the amusement in her voice.
They had reached the end of the path and the house loomed a hundred feet ahead of them. A lamp was lit in the small vestibule that was just inside the back door, and they entered into its pool of brightness, blinking as their eyes adjusted from the dark. The dogs crowded in behind them and began to shake the rain from their coats, sending a small shower of drops in all directions.
“Dure has a tail full of burrs,” Arthur said, and bent to pull them out. Morgan watched his strong, slender h
ands dealing expertly with the burrs. He had not had a dog himself since Cabal died.
Arthur straightened. “There, that’s better.” He went to open the door of the small room off the vestibule where the dogs slept, and whistled to them. They both obediently trotted inside. He closed the door, tossed the wet hair off his forehead, and gave Morgan a faint smile.
She lit a candle, extinguished the lamp, and they both began to walk toward the passage that led to the bedroom wing of the house. In the villa’s prime there had been slaves sleeping in every nook and cranny, but the house was empty now save for a few servants who slept in the rooms near the kitchen. There were still large numbers of people working for Avalon, but they lived these days in the village Morgan had built for them and their families. There were no more slaves; Merlin had freed the last of them in his will.
“It’s always so peaceful here,” Arthur murmured. He rested his hand on the nape of her neck as they walked toward her bedroom.
They had long ago given up any pretense that Arthur slept in his own room. On the rare occasions when there was someone other than themselves in the house, they observed the fiction, but otherwise they trusted the servants to keep silence. Everyone left working in the house had known the two of them since they were children.
The window in Morgan’s bedroom was open, and the damp night air had filled the room. Arthur went to close it and Morgan lit the lamp with the candle she had been carrying. She blew out the candle, laid it on the table, and turned to him.
He was still standing at the window, pulling his tunic over his head. In the light from the lamp she could see the thin white scars that crisscrossed the smooth brown skin of his back. He turned around and tossed the tunic onto a wicker chair.
“I don’t want to go to Gaul either,” he said. “It will mean months and months without you.”
So he knew she did not want him to go. So much for trying to keep something from Arthur. She smiled a little wryly. “I’ve grown used to having you.”
He left the window and came to stand before her. He did not reply at once, but reached out to trace the curve of her cheek with his forefinger. Then: “We have been happy.” Their eyes held together, and then he bent his dark head to hers. His lips were hard and soft, cool and burning. She ran her hands up and down his bare back. “Come to bed,” he murmured against her mouth.
