The Last Enchantment

by Mary Stewart

  "Be welcome here. Now go back to the gatehouse, and wait."

  They went, Mordred with a backward look at his mother. For a moment I saw terror in her face, then the mask of calm came down again. Some message must have passed, for now the chamber-groom came forward, in a hurry, from the gatehouse, bearing in his hands the box that they had brought from Segontium. The things of power... unbelievably, she had brought them for the King. Unbelievably, she hoped to buy her way to his favour with the treasure of Macsen...

  The man knelt at the King's feet. He opened the box. The light shone down on the treasure that lay within. I saw it all, as clearly as if it lay at my feet. Silver, all silver; cups and bracelets, and a necklet made of silver plaques, designed with those fluid and interlocking lines with which the northern silversmiths invoke their magic. There was no sign of Macsen's emblems of power, no grail studded with emeralds, no lance-head, no dish crusted with sapphire and amethyst. Arthur gave it barely a glance. As the chamber-groom scuttled back into the shelter of the gatehouse, the King turned again to Morgause, leaving the gift lying on the frosty ground. And as he had ignored the gift, so he ignored all that, until now, she had been saying. I heard his voice quite clearly.

  "I sent for you, Morgause, for reasons which may not be clear to you. You were wise to obey me. One of my reasons concerns your children; you must have guessed this; but you need not fear for them. I promised you that none of them should be harmed, and I shall keep my promise. But for yourself, no such promise was made. You do well to kneel and sue for mercy. And what mercy can you expect? You killed Merlin. It was you who fed him the poison that in the end brought him to his death."

  She had not expected this. I saw her gasp. The white hands fluttered, as if she would have put them to her throat. But she held them still. "Who has told you this lie?"

  "It is no lie. When he lay dying, he himself accused you."

  "He was always my enemy!" she cried.

  "And who is to say he was wrong? You know what you have done. Do you deny it?"

  "Of course I deny it! He hated me, always! And you know why. He wanted no one to have power over you but himself. We sinned, yes, you and I, but we sinned in innocence —"

  "If you are wise, you will not speak of that." His voice was dry and icy. "You know, as well as I do, what sins were committed, and why. If you hope for any mercy now, or ever, you will not speak of it."

  She bowed her head. Her fingers twisted together. Her pose was humble. When she spoke, she spoke quietly. "You are right, my lord. I should not have spoken so. I will not encumber you with memories. I have obeyed you, and brought your son to you, and I leave your heart and conscience to deal rightly with him. You will not deny that he is innocent."

  He said nothing. She tried again, with the hint of her old sideways, glinting look.

  "For myself, I admit that I stand accused of folly. I come to you, Arthur, as a sister, who —"

  "I have two sisters," he said stonily. "The other one has just now tried to betray me. Do not speak to me of sisters."

  Her head went up. The thin disguise of suppliant was shed. She faced him, a queen to his king. "Then what can I say, except that I come to you as the mother of your son?"

  "You have come to me as the murderer of the man who was more to me than my own father. And as nothing else. You are no more to me, and no less. This is why I sent for you, and what I shall judge you for."

  "He would have killed me. He would have had you kill your own son."

  "That is not true," said the King. "He prevented me from killing you both. Yes, I see that shakes you. When I heard of the child's birth, my first thought was to send someone up to kill him. But, if you remember, Lot was before me... And Merlin, of all men, would have saved the child because he is mine." For the first time passion showed through a crack in his composure. "But he is not here now, Morgause. He will not protect you again. Why do you think I refused to receive you in the open hall tonight, in the presence of the Queen and the knights? That is what you hoped for, is it not? You, with your pretty face and voice, your four fine boys by Lot, and this youth here with those dark eyes, and the look of his royal kindred..."

  "He has done you no harm!" she cried.

  "No, he has done me no harm. Now listen to me. Your four sons by Lot I will take from you, and have them trained here at Camelot. I will not have them left in your care, to be brought up as traitors, to hate their King. As for Mordred, he has done me no wrong, though I have wronged him sorely, and so have you. I will not add sin to sin. I have been warned of him, but a man must do right, even to his own hurt. And who can read the gods accurately? You will leave him with me also."

  "And have you murder him as soon as I am gone?"

  "And if I do, what choice have you but to let me?"

  "You've changed, brother," she said, spitefully.

  For the first time, something like a smile touched his mouth. "You might say so. For what comfort it is to you now, I shall not kill him. But you, Morgause, because you slew Merlin, who was the best man in all this realm —"

  He was interrupted. From the gatehouse came a clatter of hoofs, the quick challenge from the sentries, a breathless word, then the creak and crash of the gates opening. A horse, tagged with foam, clattered through, and came to a halt beside the King and stood. Its head went down to its knees. Its limbs trembled. The courier slid down from the saddle, grabbed at the girth to keep his own limbs from folding under him, then went carefully on one knee, and saluted the King.

  It was hardly a comfortable interruption. Arthur faced about, his brows drawn, and anger in his face. "Well?" he asked. His voice was even. He knew that no courier would have got through to him at such a moment, and in such a state, unless his business drove him. "Wait, I remember you, don't I? Perseus, is it not? What news can you possibly bring from Glevum that makes it worth your while to kill a good horse, and break in on my private councils?"

  "My lord — " The man cleared his throat, with a glance at Morgause. "My lord, it is urgent news, most urgent, that I must deliver privately. Forgive me." This half to Morgause, who was standing like a statue, hands to her throat. Some wisp of forgotten magic, trailing, may have warned her what the news might be.

  The King regarded him in silence for a moment, then nodded. He called out an order, and two of the guards came forward, halting one on either side of Morgause. Then he turned, with a sign to the courier, and walked back up the roadway with the man following him.

  At the foot of the palace steps he paused and turned.

  "Your message?"

  Perseus held out the package I had given him. "I met an old man on the road who gave me this token, and told me that he is on his way to Camelot to see the King. But he can only make his way slowly, so if the King wishes to see him, he must come to him. He is travelling by the road that runs over the hills between Aquae Sulis and Camelot. He told me —"

  "He gave you this?" The brooch lay in the King's hand. The Dragon winked and glittered. Arthur looked up from it, his face colourless.

  "Yes, my lord." The clipped recital hurried. "I was to tell you that he paid me for my service with the ferryman's guerdon." He held out his hand with the gold coin in the palm.

  The King took it like a man in a dream, glanced at it, and handed it back. In his other hand he was turning the brooch this way and that, so that the Dragon flashed in the torchlight. "You know what this is?"

  "Indeed, my lord. It's the Dragon. When I saw it first I asked what his right to it was, but then I knew him. My lord, yes..." The King, his face quite bloodless now, was staring. The man licked his lips, and somehow got the rest of the message out. "When he stopped me, yesterday, he was near the thirteenth milestone. He — he didn't look too good, my lord. If you do ride to meet him, it's my guess he won't have got much beyond the next inn. It stands back from the road, on the south side, and the sign's a bush of holly."

  "A bush of holly." Arthur repeated it with no expression at all, like a man talking in hi
s sleep. Then, suddenly, the trance that held him shattered. Colour flooded his face. He threw the brooch up in the air, flashing and turning, and caught it again. He laughed aloud. "I might have known! I might have known... This is real, at any rate!"

  "He told me," said Perseus, "he told me he was no ghost. And that it wasn't every tomb that was the gate of death."

  "Even his ghost," said Arthur. "Even his ghost..." He whirled and shouted. Men came running. Orders were flung at them. "My grey stallion. My cloak and sword. I give you four minutes." He put out a hand to the courier. "You will stay here in Camelot till my return. You have done more than well, Perseus. I'll remember it. Now go and rest... Ah, Ulfin. Tell Bedwyr to bring twenty of the knights and follow me. This man will direct them. Give him food, and tend his horse and keep him till I come again."

  "And the lady?" asked someone.

  "Who?" It was plain that the King had forgotten all about Morgause. He said indifferently: "Hold her until I have time for her, and let her speak to no one. No one, do you understand me?"

  The stallion was brought, with two grooms clinging to the bit. Someone came running with cloak and sword. The gates crashed open. Arthur was in the saddle. The grey stallion screamed and climbed the torchlit air, then leaped forward under the spur, and was out of the gate with the speed of a thrown spear. It went down the steep, winding causeway as if it had been a level plain in daylight. It was the way the boy Arthur had once ridden through the Wild Forest, and to the same assignation...

  Morgause, her virgin white spattered with thrown turf and sods, stood stiffly between her guards, as men-at-arms clattered past her. The boys were in their midst, and Mordred among them. They vanished towards the palace without a backward look.

  For the first time since I had known her, I saw her, no more than a frightened woman, making the sign against strong enchantment.

  7

  NEXT MORNING THE INNKEEPER and his wife, to their alarm and distress, found me lying on the cooling hearth, apparently in a faint. They got me into bed, wrapped winter-stones to warm me, piled blankets around me, and got the fire going once more. When, in time, I wakened, the good folk looked after me with the anxious care they might have accorded their own father. I was not much the worse. Moments of vision have always to be paid for; first with the pain of the vision itself, then afterwards in the long trance of exhausted sleep.

  Reckoning out the distances, I let myself rest quietly for the remainder of that day, then next morning, putting my hosts' protests aside, had them saddle my horse. They were reassured when I told them I would not ride far, but only a mile or so down the road, where a friend could be expected to meet me. I further allayed their fears by asking them to prepare a dinner "for myself and my friend."

  "For," I said, "he loves good food, and the goodwife's cooking is as tasty as any, I'll swear, at the King's court of Camelot."

  At that the innkeeper's wife laughed and bridled, and began to talk of capons, so I left money to pay for the food, and went my way.

  After the spell of hard frost, the weather had slackened. The sun was up, and dealing some warmth. The air was mild enough, but still everywhere was the hint of winter's coming; in the bare trees of the heights, the fieldfares busy in the berried holly, redwings flocking on the bushes, nuts ripe in the hazel coppices. The bracken was fading gold, and there were still flowers out on the gorse.

  My horse, after his long rest, was fresh and eager, and we covered the first stretch of road at a fast canter. We met no one. Soon the road left the high crest of the limestone hills, and slanted downward along a valley-side. All along the lower reaches of the valley the slopes were crowded with trees in the flaming colours of autumn; beech, oak and chestnut, birch in its yellow gold, with everywhere the dark spires of the pine trees and the glossy green of holly. Through the trees I caught the glint of moving water. Down by the river, the innkeeper had told me, the way forked. The road itself held straight across the river, which here was paved in a shallow ford, and just beyond the water another way led off to the right, through the forest. This was a little-used track, and a rough one, which cut off a corner to rejoin the gravelled road some miles farther toward the east.

  This was the place I was making for. It was a full mile since I had seen any sort of dwelling; the ford was as private for our meeting as a midnight bedchamber. I dared not go farther to meet him. Whenever Arthur had to ride, he made all speed, and cut all corners. Not knowing the forest track, I could not count on his using it, so might miss him if I took one way or the other.

  It was a good place to wait. Down in the hollow the sun shone warmly, and the air was mild but fresh. It smelled of pines. Two jays wrestled and scolded in a shaw of hollies, then flew low across the road with a flash of sky-blue in their wings. Distantly, in the woods to the southeast, I heard the long rasping noise that meant a woodpecker at work. The river whispered across the road, running gently, no more than a foot deep across the Roman setts of the ford.

  I unsaddled my horse and slacked his bit, then unbuckled an end of the rein, tied it to a hazel stem, and left him to graze. There was a fallen pine a few paces from the river's edge, full in the sun. I set the saddle down by the tree trunk, then sat down beside it to wait.

  My timing had been good. I had waited there barely an hour when I caught the sound of hoofs on the gravel road. So he had kept to the high road, not cutting the corner through the forest. He was not hurrying, but riding easily, no doubt resting his horse. Nor was he alone. Bedwyr, hard on his heels, had perhaps been allowed to come up with him.

  I walked out into the road and stood waiting for him.

  Three horsemen came trotting through the forest, and down the gentle slope leading to the far side of the ford. They were all strangers; moreover, they were a kind of man who nowadays was rare enough. In times past, the roads, especially those in the wilder lands to the north and west, were rife with danger for the lonely traveller, but Ambrosius, and Arthur after him, had swept the main posting-roads clear of outlaws and masterless men. But not quite, it seemed. These three had been soldiers; they still wore the leather armour of their calling, and two of them sported battered metal caps. The youngest of them, sprucer than the others, had stuck a sprig of scarlet berries behind one ear. All three were unshaven, and armed with knives and short-swords. The oldest of them, with streaks of grey in a heavy brown beard, had an ugly-looking cudgel strapped to his saddle. Their horses were sturdy mountain cobs, cream, brown and black, their hides thick with dirt and damp, but well fed, and powerful. It did not need any prophet's instinct to know that here were three dangerous men.

  They halted their horses at the river's brink and looked me over. I stood my ground and returned the look. I had the knife at my belt, but my sword was with the saddlebags. And flight, with my horse stripped and tethered, was out of the question. If truth be told, I was still no more than faintly apprehensive; there had been a time when no one, however wild and desperate, would have dared lay a finger on Merlin; and I suppose that the confidence of power was still with me.

  They looked at one another, and a message passed. It was danger, then. The leader, he with the greying beard and the black horse, walked the beast forward a pace, so that the water swirled past its fetlocks. Then he turned, grinning, to his fellows.

  "Why, look you, here's a brave fellow, disputing the ford with us. Or are you the Hermes, come to wish us Godspeed? I must say, you're not what one expects of the Herm." This with a guffaw in which his fellows joined.

  I moved aside from the center of the road. "I'm afraid I can't claim any of his talents, gentlemen. Nor do I mean to dispute the way with you. When I heard you coming I took you for the outriders of the troop that is due this way very soon. Did you see any sign of troopers on the road?"

  Another glance. The youngest — he of the cream cob and the woodbine spray — set his horse at the water and came splashing out beside me. "There was no one on the road," he said. "Troopers? What troopers would you be expecting?
The High King himself, maybe?" He winked at his companions.

  "The High King," I said equably, "will be riding this way soon, by all accounts, and he likes the law of the roads looked to. So go your ways in peace, gentlemen, and let me go mine."

  They were all through the ford now, ranged round me. They looked relaxed and pleasant enough, good-tempered even. Brown Beard said: "Oh, we'll let you go, won't we, Red? Free as air to go you'll be, good sir, free as air, and travelling light."

  "Light as a feather," said Red, with a laugh. He was the one with the brown horse. He shifted the belt round from his thick thighs, so that the haft of his knife lay nearer to his hand. The youngest of the three was already moving toward the fallen pine where the saddlebags lay.

  I began to speak, but the leader kicked his horse in closer, dropped the reins on its withers, then suddenly reached down, catching hold of me by the neck of my robe. He gathered the stuff in a choking grip, and half lifted me toward him. He was immensely strong.

  "So, who were you waiting for, eh? A troop, was it? Was that the truth, or were you lying to scare us off?"

  The second man, Red, thrust his horse near on the other side. There was no faintest chance of escaping them. The third one had dismounted, and, without troubling to undo them, had a long knife out and was slitting the leather of the saddlebags. He had not even glanced over his shoulder to see what his fellows did.

  Red had his knife in his hand. "Of course he was lying," he said roughly. "There were no troops on the road. Nor any sign of them. And they wouldn't be coming by the forest track, Erec, you can be sure of that."

  Erec reached back with his free hand and slipped the knobbed cudgel from its moorings. "Well, so it was a lie," he said. "You can do better than that, old man. Tell us who you are and where you're bound for. This troop you're talking about, where are they coming from?"

  "If you let me go," I said with difficulty, for he was half choking me, "I will tell you. And tell your fellow to leave my things alone."