Part 28 (2/2)
”And the third?”
”Well, it may even be that Mordred has something to say. Not only does he lie between my men and their homes and wives, but between me and mine. That needs more explaining than even a sword can do.”
The two armies settled watchfully down, and messengers, duly honoured and escorted, pa.s.sed between them. Three other messengers went secretly and swiftly from Arthur's camp: one to Caerleon, with a letter to the Queen; one to Cornwall, bidding Constantine to his side; and the third to Brittany, asking for Bedwyr's help, and, when he could, his presence.
Sooner than expected, the looked-for herald came. Bedwyr, though still not fully recovered from his sick-bed, was on his way, and with his splendid cavalry would be at the King's side within a few days.
And none too soon. It had come to the King's ears that certain of the petty kings from the north were marching with the intention of joining Mordred. And the Saxons along the whole length of the Sh.o.r.e were reported to be ma.s.sing for a drive inland.
For neither of these things was Mordred responsible, and indeed, he would have prevented them if at this stage it had been possible; but Mordred, like Arthur, was, without the wish for it, without the reason, being thrust closer hour by hour to a brink from which neither man could take a backward step.
In a castle far to the north, beside a window where the birds of morning sang in the birch trees, Nimue the enchantress threw back the coverlets and rose from her bed.
”I must go to Applegarth.”
Pelleas, her husband, stretched a lazy hand out and pulled her to him where he still lay in bed.
”Within raven's stoop of the battlefield?”
”Who said it would be a battlefield?”
”You, my dear. In your sleep last night.”
She lifted herself from him, with her robe half round her, staring down. Her eyes were wide, blurred still with sleep, and tragic.
He said gently: ”Come, love, it's a hard gift to have, but you have grown used to it now. You've spoken of this, and looked for it, for a long time. There is nothing you can do.”
”Only warn, and warn again.”
”You have warned them both. And before you Merlin gave the same warning. Mordred will be Arthur's bane. Now it is coming, and though you say Mordred is no traitor in his heart, he has been led to act in ways that must appear treacherous to all men, and certainly to the King.”
”But I know the G.o.ds. I speak with them. I walk with them. They do not mean us to cease to act, just because we believe that action is dangerous. They have always hidden threats with smiles, and grace lurks behind every cloud. We may hear their words, but who is to interpret them beyond doubt?”
”But Mordred-”
”Merlin would have wished him dead at birth, and so would the King. But from him already much good has come. If even now they might be brought to talk together, the kingdom might be saved. I will not sit idly by and a.s.sume the G.o.ds” doom. I will go to Applegarth.”
”To do what?”
”Tell Arthur that there is no treachery here, only ambition and desire. Two things he himself showed in abundance in youth. He will listen to me, and believe me. They must talk together, or between them they will break our Britain in two, and let her enemies into the breach that they have made. And who, this time, will repair it?”
In the Queen's palace at Caerleon the courier brought the letter to Guinevere. She knew the man; he had gone many times between herself and Mordred.
She turned the letter over in her hand, saw the seal, and went as white as chalk.
”This is not the regent's seal. It is from the King's ring, that was on his hand. They have found him, then?
My lord is truly dead?”
The man, who was still on his knee, caught the roll as it fell from her hand, and rising, backed a step, staring.
”Why, no, madam. The King lives and is well. You have had no news, then? There have been sore happenings, lady, and all is far from well. But the King is safely back in Britain.”
”He lives? Arthur lives? Then the letter - give me the letter! - it is from the King himself?”
”Why, yes, madam.” The man gave it again into her hand. The colour was back in her cheeks, but the hand shook with which she tried to break the seal. A confusion of feelings played across her face like shadows driving over moving water. At the other end of the room her ladies, in a whispering cl.u.s.ter, watched anxiously, and the man, obedient to a gesture from the chief of them, went softly from the room.
The ladies, avid for his news, went rustling after him.
The Queen did not even notice their going. She had begun to read.
When the mistress of the ladies returned, she found Guinevere alone and in visible distress.
”What, my lady, weeping? When the High King is alive?”
All Guinevere would say was ”I am lost. They are at war, and whatever comes of it, I am lost.”
Later she rose. ”I cannot stay here. I must go back.”
”To Camelot, madam? The armies are there.”
”No, not to Camelot. I will go to Amesbury. None of you need come with me unless you wish it. I shall need nothing there. Tell them for me, please. And help me make ready. I shall go now. Yes, now, tonight.”
Mordred's messenger, arriving as the morning market-carts rumbled over the Isca bridge, found the palace in turmoil, and the Queen gone.
10.
IT WAS A BRIGHT DAY, THElast of summer. Early in the morning the heralds of the two hosts led the leaders to the long-awaited parley.
Mordred had not slept. All night long he had lain, thinking. What to say. How to say it. What words to use that would be straightforward enough to permit of no misinterpretation, but not so blunt as to antagonize. How to explain to a man as tired, as suspicious and full of grief as the ageing King, his, Mordred's, own dichotomy: the joy in command that could be, and was, unswervingly loyal, but that could never again be secondary. (co-rulers, perhaps? Kings of North and South? Would Arthur even consider it?) At the truce table tomorrow he and his father would be meeting for the first time as equal leaders, rather than as before. King and deputy. But two very different leaders. Mordred knew that when his time came he would be not a copy of his father, but a different king. Arthur was of his own generation; by nature his son had his thoughts and ambitions channelled otherwise. Even without the difference in their upbringing this would have been so. Mordred's hard necessity was not Arthur's, but each man's commitment was the same: total. Whether the old King could ever be brought to accept the new ways that Mordred could foresee, ways that had been embodied (though in the end discreditably) in the phrase ”Young Celts,” without seeing them as treachery, he could not guess. And then there was the Queen. That was one thing he could not say. ”Even were you dead, with Bedwyr still living, what chance had I?”
He groaned and turned on the pillow, then bit his lip in case the guards had heard him. Omens bred too fast when the armies were out.
He knew himself a leader. Even now, with the High King's standard flying over his encampment by the Lake, Mordred's men were loyal. And with them, encamped beyond the hill, were the Saxons. Between himself and Cerdic, even now, there might be the possibility of a fruitful alliance; a concourse of farmers, he had called it, and the old Saxon had laughed.... But not between Cerdic and Arthur; not now, not ever.... Dangerous ground; dangerous words. Even to think such thoughts was folly now. Was he, at this most hazardous of moments, seeing himself as a better king than Arthur? Different, yes. Better, perhaps, for the times, at any rate the times to come? But this was worse than folly. He turned again, seeking a cool place on the pillow, trying to think himself back into the mind of Arthur's son, dutiful, admiring, ready to conform and to obey.
Somewhere a c.o.c.k crew. From the scrambled edges of sleep, he saw the hens come running down the salt gra.s.s to the pebbled sh.o.r.e. Sula was scattering the food. Overhead the gulls swept and screamed, some of them daring to swoop for it. Sula, laughing, waved an arm to beat them aside.
Shrill as a gull's scream, the trumpet sounded for the day of parley.
Half a mile away, in his tent near the Lake sh.o.r.e, Arthur slept, but his sleep was an uneasy one, and in it came a dream.
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