Part 22 (1/2)

The King has banished him. Not for anything that stains the Queen, but-”

”To keep him out of my reach. Yes. Well,” said Gawain stonily, ”I can wait.”

”If you do kill Bedwyr,” said Bors, desperately, ”be sure Arthur will kill you.”

The hot, blood-veined Orkney eyes turned to him. ”So?” Then the eyes turned away. Gawain's head went up. They were just in sight of the golden towers, and the sound of a bell tolling slowly came floating, echoing from the water that edged the roadway. They would be there for Gareth's burial.

Bors saw the tears on Gawain's cheeks, and, drawing his horse back, said no more.

What pa.s.sed between Gawain and his uncle the High King no one else ever knew. They were closeted together in the King's private rooms for the best part of a day, from the moment the funeral was over, right into the night and towards the next morning. Afterwards, without a word to any man, Gawain went to his rooms and slept for sixteen hours, then rose, armed himself, and rode to the practice field. That evening he ate at a tavern in the city, and stayed through the night with a girl there, reappearing next day in the field.

For eight days and nights he did this, talking with no one except as business required. On the ninth day he left Camelot, escorted, and rode the few miles to Ynys Witrin, where the King's s.h.i.+p, the latest Sea Sea Dragon, Dragon, lay. lay.

She set her golden sail, raised her crimson dragon to the autumn winds, and weighed anchor promptly for the north.

It was Arthur's bid for two things: to get a trouble-maker as far out of the way as possible, and into the cooling winds of distance and time; and to give Gawain's hurt and angry spirit some work to do.

He had done the obvious thing, the one thing Mordred had not even thought of. Gawain, King of the Orkneys, had gone back to take up the rule of his islands.

BOOK III.

THE WICKED DAY.

1.

WINTER Pa.s.sED, AND MARCHcame in with its roaring winds and spasmodic storms, then softened towards the sweetness of an early spring. Sea-pinks covered the cliffs with rose, white flowers danced along the arched bramble boughs, red campion and wild hyacinth shone in the gra.s.s. Nesting birds called over the lochs, and the moors echoed to the curlew's bubbling note. On every skerry, and every gra.s.sy bank near the water, swans had built their weedy castles, and on each one slept a great white bird, head under wing, while the watchful mate cruised nearby, head up and wings set like sails.

The water's surface echoed with the screaming of the oystercatchers and the gulls, and the upper sky quivered with lark-song.

A man and a boy were working on the stretch of moorland heather that covers the rolling center of Orkney's main island. At this time of year the heather was dark and dead-looking, but along the edges of the trodden roadway, and by every bank, crowded the pale, scented primroses. At the foot of the rolling moorland lay a thin strip of grazing, golden with dandelions. Beyond this a great loch stretched, and beyond that again, another, lying almost parallel, the two great waters separated at their southern extremities only by a narrow causeway and a strip of land well trodden by hoofs and feet, for this was a holy place in the islands. Here stood the great circles of stone, brooding, enigmatic, huge, and to be feared even by those who knew nothing of their purpose or their building. It was well known that no horse could be made to cross the causeway between dusk and dawning, and no deer had ever been seen to feed there. Only the goats, unchancy creatures always, would graze between the stones, keeping the gra.s.s smooth and short for the ceremonies still practiced there at the right seasons.

The two workers were busy on a level piece of moorland not far above these lochs with their guarded causeway. The man was tall, lean, hard, and though dressed as a peasant he did not move like one; his were the swift economical movements of a trained body. His face, young still, but en graved with bitter lines, was restless, in spite of the country tasks and the tranquil day. Beside him the boy, dark-eyed like his father, helped him peg together a board for one of the hives that would be carried to the moor when the heather bloomed, and set on the neat row of platforms that awaited them.

To them, with no warning but the soft pace of hoofs in the heather, and a shadow falling across the man's preoccupation, came Orkney's king, Gawain.

The man looked up. Gawain, starting a casual greeting, checked his horse sharply and stared.

”Mordred!”

Mordred let fall the mallet he had been using, and got slowly to his feet as a group of riders, a dozen or so with footmen and hounds, followed the king over the brow of the hill. The boy stopped his task and straightened to stare, open-mouthed.

Mordred laid a rea.s.suring hand on his son's shoulder. ”Why, Gawain! Greetings.”

”You?” said Gawain. ”Here? Since when? And who is this?” His look measured the boy. ”No, I don't need to ask that! He's more like Arthur-” He checked himself.

Mordred said dryly: ”Don't trouble. He speaks only the island tongue.”

”By the G.o.ds,” said Gawain, diverted in spite of himself, ”if you got that one before you left here you must have been up earlier than any of us!”

The other riders had come up with them. Gawain, with a gesture, sent them back to wait out of earshot.

He slipped from the saddle, and a groom ran forward to lead his horse aside. Gawain seated himself on one of the wooden platforms. Mordred, after a moment's hesitation, sat down on another. The boy, at a gesture from his father, began to gather up the tools they had been using. He did it slowly, stealing glances all the while at the king and his followers.

”Now,” said Gawain, ”tell me. How and why, all of it. The tale went out that you were dead, or you'd have been discovered long since, but I never believed that, somehow. What happened?”

”Do you need to ask? Gaheris must have told you. I a.s.sumed he was riding to join you.”

”You didn't know? But I'm a fool, how could you? Gaheris is dead.”

”Dead? How? Did the King catch up with him? I'd hardly have thought, even so-”

”Nothing to do with the King. Gaheris was wounded that night, nothing much, but he neglected it, and it went bad. If he had come to me - but he didn't. He must have known how little welcome he would be.

He went north to his leman, and by the time they got to him there, there was no help for him. Another,”

said Gawain bitterly, ”to Bedwyr's account.”

Mordred was silent. He himself could mourn none of them but Gareth, but to Gawain, the only survivor now of that busy and close Orkney clan, the loss was heavy. He said as much, and for a while they spoke of the past, memories made more vivid by the familiar landscape stretching around them. Then Mordred, choosing his words, began to feel his way.

”You spoke of Bedwyr with bitterness. I understand this, believe me, but Bedwyr was hardly to blame for Gaheris's own folly. Or, in fact, for anything that happened that night. I don't plan to hold him accountable even for this.” He touched his shoulder, briefly. ”You must see that, Gawain, now that you have had time to come to terms with your grief. Agravain was the leader that night, and Gaheris with him.

They were determined to destroy Bedwyr, even if it meant destroying the Queen as well. Nothing anyone could say-”

”I know. I knew them. Agravain was a fool, and Gaheris a mad fool, and still carrying the blood-guilt for a worse crime than any done that night. But I was not thinking of them. I was thinking of Gareth. He deserved better of life than to be murdered by a man he trusted, a man whom he had served.”

”For the G.o.ds' sake, that was no murder!” Mordred spoke explosively, and his son looked up quickly, alarmed. Mordred spoke quietly in the local tongue. ”Take the tools back to the house. We'll do no more work here today. Tell your mother I'll come down before long. Don't worry, all is well.”

The boy ran off. The two men watched, not speaking, while the slight figure dwindled downhill in the distance. There was a cottage set in a hollow near the loch-side, its thatch barely visible against the heather. The boy vanished through the low doorway.

Mordred turned back to Gawain. He spoke earnestly. ”Gawain, don't think I have not grieved for Gareth as much as any man could. But believe me, his death was an accident, as far as a killing in hot blood in a crazy melee can be an accident. And Gareth was armed. Bedwyr was not when he was attacked. I doubt if for the first minutes he even knew who was at the edge of his blade.”

”Ah, yes.” The bitterness was still in Gawain's voice. ”Everyone knows you were on his side.”

Mordred's head went up. He spoke incredulously. ”You know what?” what?”

”Well, even if you weren't for Bedwyr, at least it's known you were against the attack. Which was sense, I suppose. Even if they had been caught in bed together, twined naked, the King would have punished the attackers even before he dealt with Bedwyr and the Queen.”

”I don't understand you. And this is beside the point. There never was any question of adultery.”

Mordred spoke with stiff anger, a royal rebuke that came incongruously from the shabby workmanlike peasant to the splendidly dressed king. ”The King had sent a letter to the Queen, which she wished to show Bedwyr. I suppose it was to tell them he was on his way home. I saw it there, in her chamber. And when we broke in they were both fully clad - warmly wrapped, even - and her women were awake in the anteroom. One of them was in the bedchamber with Bedwyr and the Queen. Not an easy setting for adultery.”

”Yes, yes.” Gawain spoke impatiently. I know all this. I spoke with my uncle the High King.” Some echo in the words, in that place, brought memory back. His glance s.h.i.+fted. He said quickly: ”The King told me what had happened. It seems you tried to stop the fool Agravain, and you did prevent Gaheris from harming the Queen. If he had even touched her-”

”Wait. This is what I don't understand. How do you know this? Bedwyr could not have seen what happened, or he would not have attacked me as he did. And I think Bors had already gone for the guard.

So how did the King hear the truth of the matter?”