Legacy: Arthurian Saga 1-4

My memory of that ride is all confusion now. Cei's party left us, and shortly afterwards we found boats, and Bedwyr embarked half the party by the short route across the Lake. The rest he divided, some by the shore road, others by the causeway that led directly to the wharf. The rain had stopped now, and mist lay everywhere with the night coming; above it the sky was filling with stars, as a net with flashing silver fish. More torches were lit, and the flat ferries crammed with men and horses were poled slowly through misty water that streamed with reflected light like smoke. As the troops on shore broke and reformed, their horses shoulder-deep in the rolling mist, we saw the glimmer of a distant torch mounting the Tor. Arthur's sails had been sighted.

  It was easy then for Bedwyr and myself to slip away. Our horses plunged down from the hard road, cantered heavily through a league of wet meadow-land, and gained the fast going of the road that led southwest.

  Soon the lights and sounds of the Island sank behind us and away. Mist curled from the water on either hand. The stars showed the way, but faintly, like lamps along a road for ghosts. Our horses settled into their stride, and soon the way widened, and we could ride knee to knee.

  "This lodge to the southwest." His voice was breathless. "Is that where we go?"

  "I hope so. Do you know it?"

  "I can find it. Is that why you needed Melwas' help? Surely, when he knows of the Queen's accident, he'll let our troops search his land from end to end. And if he's not at the lodge now"

  "Let us hope he is not."

  "Is that a riddle?" For the first time since I had known him, his voice was barely civil. "You said you'd explain. You said you knew where she was, and now you're looking for Melwas. Well, then —?"

  "Bedwyr, haven't you understood? I think Guinevere is at the lodge. Melwas took her."

  The silence that followed was more stormy than any oath. When he spoke I could hardly hear him. "I don't have to ask you if you're sure. You always are. And if you did have a vision, I can only accept it. But tell me how, and why?"

  "The why is obvious. The how I don't yet know. I suspect he has been planning this for some time. Her habits of riding out are known, and she often goes to the forest that edges the marsh. If she encountered him there, when she was riding ahead of her people, what more natural than that she should stop her mare and speak to him? That might account for the silence, while the troopers tried to find her at first."

  "Yes...And if he gripped the rein and tried to seize her, and she spurred her mare on...That would account for the broken rein and the marks we found by the banks. By all the gods, Merlin! It's rape you're talking about...! And you said he must have been planning this for some time?"

  "I can only guess at it," I said. "It seems likely that he must have made a few false casts before the chance came; the Queen unattended, and the boat ready nearby."

  I did not pursue my own thoughts further. I was remembering that lamplit room, so carefully prepared for her; the chess game; the Queen's demure composure, and her smiling look. I was thinking, too, of the long hours of daylight and dusk that had passed since she had vanished.

  So, obviously, was Bedwyr. "He must be mad! A petty king like Melwas to risk Arthur's anger? Is he out of his mind?"

  "You could say so," I said dryly. "It has happened before, where women are concerned."

  Another silence, broken at length by a gesture, dimly seen, and a change in his horse's stride. "Slow here. We leave the roadway soon."

  I obeyed him. Our horses slowed to a trot, a walk, as we peered around us in the mist. Then we saw it, a track leading, apparently, straight off into the marsh.

  "This is it?"

  "Yes. It's a bad track. We may have to swim the horses." I caught a glance back at me. "Will you be all right?"

  Memory plucked at me. Bedwyr and Arthur, in the Wild Forest, riding, necks for sale, as boys will, but always with a care for myself, the poor horseman plodding at heel.

  "I can manage."

  "Then down here." His horse plunged down the narrow twist of mud among the reeds, then took the water like a boat launching; mine went after it, and we were forging, wet to the thigh, through the smooth water. It was a strange sort of progress, because the mist hid the water; hid even our horses' heads. I wondered how Bedwyr could see the way, then glimpsed, myself, far out across the gleam of water and banks of mist, and the black shapes of trees and bushes, the tiny glimmer of light that meant a dwelling. I watched it inching nearer, my mind racing this way and that with the possibilities of what must be done. Arthur, Bedwyr, Melwas, Guinevere...and all the time, like the deep humming that a harp builds up below an intricate web of music, was that other pressure of power which was driving me toward — what?

  The horses heaved out of the water and stood, blowing and dripping, on a ridge of dry land. This stretched for some fifty paces ahead of us, and beyond it, some twenty paces farther, was the house, across another channel of water. There was no bridge.

  "And no boat either." I heard him swear under his breath. "This is where we swim."

  "Bedwyr, I'll have to let you do this last bit alone. But you —"

  "Yes, by God!" His sword whispered loose in its scabbard.

  I shot a hand out and gripped his horse's bridle above the bit. " — But you will do exactly as I tell you."

  A silence. Then his voice, gentle and stubborn: "I shall kill him, of course."

  "You will do no such thing. You will save the High King's name and hers. This is Arthur's business, not yours. Let him deal with it."

  Another silence, a long one. "Very well. I will be ruled by you."

  "Good." I turned my horse quietly into the cover of a clump of alder. His, perforce, followed, with me still gripping the bit. "Now wait. Look yonder."

  I pointed to the northeast, the way we had come. Far away in the night across the flat marshlands a cluster of lights showed, high up, like stars. Melwas' stronghold, alight with welcome. Unless the king himself was there, home from hunting, it could only mean one thing: Arthur had come back.

  Then, the sound so magnified by the water that it made us start, came the click and creak of a door opening nearby, and the soft ripple of a boat moving through the water. The sounds came from behind the house, where something invisible to us took to the water and moved away into the mist. A man's voice spoke once, softly.

  Bedwyr moved sharply, and his horse flung up its head against my restraining hand. His voice was strained. "Melwas. He's seen the lights. Damn it, Merlin, he's taking her —"

  "No. Wait. Listen."

  Light still showed from the house. A woman's voice called something. The cry had in it some kind of entreaty, but whether of fear, or longing, or sorrow at being left alone, it was impossible to tell. The boat's sound dwindled. The house door shut.

  I still held Bedwyr's bridle. "Now, go across and bring the Queen, and we will take her home."

  4

  Almost before I had finished speaking he was off his horse, had dropped his heavy cloak across the saddle, and was in the water, swimming like an otter for the grassy slope before the door. He reached it, and began to draw himself up from the water. I saw him check, heard a grunt of pain, a stifled gasp, an oath.

  "What is it?"

  He made no reply. He got a knee to the bank, then pulled himself slowly, with the aid of a hanging willow, to his feet. He paused only to shake the wet from his shoulders, then trod up the slippery slope to the house door. He went slowly, as if with difficulty. I thought he was limping. As he went, his sword came rasping from the sheath.

  He hammered on the door with the hilt. The sound echoed, as if from an empty house. There was no movement; no reply. (So much, I thought sourly, for the lady who waits for rescue.)

  Bedwyr hammered again. "Melwas! Open to Bedwyr of Benoic! Open in the King's name!"

  There was a long pause. It could be felt that someone within the house was waiting with held breath and beating heart. Then the door opened.

  It was opened, not with a slam of def
iance or bravery, but slowly, a crack only, which showed the small light of a taper, and the shadow of someone peering out. A slight figure, lissom and straight, with loose hair flowing, and a long gown of fine stuff with a creamy sheen.

  Bedwyr said, and it came strangled: "Madam? Lady! Are you safe?"

  "Prince Bedwyr." Her voice was breathless, but low, and apparently composed. "I thank God for you. When I heard you coming I was afraid...But then, when I knew it was you...How did you come here? How did you find me?"

  "Merlin guided me."

  I heard the swift intake of her breath clear from where I stood holding the horses. The taper lit the pale shape of her face as she turned her head sharply, and saw me beyond the water. "Merlin?" Then her voice was once more soft and steady. "Then I thank God again for his art. I thought no one would ever come this way."

  That, I thought, I can well believe. I said aloud: "Can you make ready, madam? We have come to take you back to the King."

  She did not answer me, but turned to go in, then paused, and said something to Bedwyr, too low for me to catch. He answered, and she pushed the door wide, and gestured him in after her. He went, leaving the door standing open. Inside the room I saw the pulsing ebb and flow of light that meant a fire. The room was softly lit by a lamp, and I caught glimpses through doorway and window of a room more richly furnished than any long-neglected hunting lodge could have shown, with gilded stools and scarlet cushions, and, through another half-open doorway, the corner of a bed or couch, with a coverlet thrown across a tumble of bed-linen. Melwas had prepared the nest well for her, then. My vision of firelight and supper table and the friendly game of chess had been accurate enough. The words that would tell Arthur moved and raced and re-formed in my brain. The mist smoked up round the house like white ghosts, white shadows...

  Bedwyr emerged from the house. His sword was back in its sheath, and in one hand he carried a lamp; the other held a pole such as marsh-men use to push their flat-bottomed craft through the reeds. He approached the water's edge, moving cautiously. "Merlin?"

  "Yes? Do you want me to swim the horses over?"

  "No!" sharply. "There are knives set below the water. I had forgotten that old trick, and drove a knee straight into them."

  "I thought you were limping. Are you badly hurt?"

  "No. Flesh wounds only. My lady has dressed them for me."

  "All the more reason why you can't swim back, then. How do you propose to get her over here? There must be some place where I can land the horses safely. Ask her."

  "I have. She doesn't know. And there's no boat."

  "So?" I said. "Has Melwas any gear that will float?"

  "That's what I was thinking. There's sure to be something we can use; and the costlier the better." A shadow of amusement lightened the grim voice. But neither of us cared to comment on the situation across twenty feet of echoing water with Guinevere herself within earshot.

  "She's dressing herself," he said shortly, as if in answer to my thought. He set the lamp down at the water's edge. We waited.

  "Prince Bedwyr?"

  The door opened again. She was in riding dress, and had braided her hair. Her cloak was over her arm.

  Bedwyr limped up the bank. He held the cloak for her, and she drew it close and pulled the hood to cover the bright hair. He said something, then vanished indoors to reappear in a short while, carrying a table.

  I suppose the next few minutes, if anyone had been in the mood to appreciate it, would have been rich in comedy, but as it was, Queen Guinevere on one side of the water, and myself on the other, stood in silence and watched Bedwyr improvising his absurd raft, then, as an afterthought, pitching a couple of cushions into it, and inviting the Queen to board it.

  This she did, and they came across, an undignified progress, with the Queen crouched low, holding on to one carved and gilded table leg, while the Prince of Benoic poled the contraption erratically across the channel.

  The thing came to the bank, and I caught a leg and held it. Bedwyr scrambled ashore, and turned to help the Queen. She came gracefully enough, with a little gasp of thanks, and stood shaking out her stained and crumpled cloak. Like her riding dress, it had been soaked and roughly dried. I saw that it was torn. Something pale shook from the folds and fell to the muddy turf. I stooped to pick it up. It was a chessman of white ivory. The king, broken.

  She had not noticed. Bedwyr pushed the table back into the water, and took his horse's bridle from me. I handed him his cloak and said formally to the Queen, so formally that my voice sounded stiff and cold: "I am glad to see you well and safe, lady. We have had a bad day, fearing for you."

  "I am sorry." Her voice was low, her face hidden from me under the hood. "I took a heavy toss when my mare fell in the forest. I — I don't remember much after that, until I woke here, in this house..."

  "And King Melwas with you?"

  "Yes. Yes. He found me lying, and carried me here. I was fainting, I suppose. I don't remember. His servant tended me."

  "He would have done better, perhaps, to have stayed by you till your own people came. They were searching the forest for you."

  A movement of the hand that held the hood close about her face. I thought it was trembling. "Yes, I suppose so. But this place was near, just across the water, and he was afraid for me, he said, and indeed, the boat seemed best. I could not have ridden."

  Bedwyr was in the saddle. I took the Queen's arm, to help her up in front of him. With surprise — nothing in that small composed voice had led me to suspect it — I felt her whole body shaking. I abandoned the questioning, and said merely: "We'll take this ride easily, then. The King is back, did you know?"

  I felt the shudder run through her, like an ague. She said nothing. Her body was light and slender, like a girl's, as I put her up in front of Bedwyr's saddle.

  We went gently on the way back. As we neared theIsland, it could be seen that the wharf was ablaze with lights, and milling with horsemen.

  We were still some distance off when we saw, lit by their moving torches, a group of horsemen detach themselves from the crowd, and come at the gallop along the causeway. A man on a black horse was in the lead, pointing the way. Then they saw us. There were shouts. Soon they came up with us. In the lead now was Arthur, his white stallion black with mud to the withers. Beside him on the black horse, loud with relief and concern for the Queen, rode Melwas, King of the Summer Country.

  I rode home alone. There was nothing to be gained, and too much to be lost, by confronting Arthur and Melwas now. So far, by Melwas' quick thinking in leaving the marsh house by the back way, and being present to greet Arthur as his ships put in to the wharf, the affair was saved from scandal, and Arthur would not be forced, whatever his private feelings when he found or guessed at the truth, into a hasty public quarrel with an ally. It was best left for the present.

  Melwas would take them all into his firelit palace and give them food and wine, and perhaps lodge them for the night, and by morning Guinevere would have told her story — some story — to her husband. I could not begin to guess what the story would be. There were elements in it which she would be hard put to it to explain away; the room so carefully ready for her; the loose robe she had worn; the tumbled bed; her lies to Bedwyr and myself about Melwas. And more than all, the broken chessman and its evidence of a true dream. But all this would have to wait until, at the very least, we were off Melwas' land, and no longer surrounded by his men-at-arms. As for Bedwyr, he had said nothing, and in the future, whatever his thoughts, his love for Arthur would keep his mouth shut.

  And I? Arthur was High King, and I was his chief adviser. I owed him a truth. But I would not stay tonight, to face his questions, and perhaps evade them, or parry them with lies. Later, I thought wearily, as my tired horse plodded along the shore of the Lake, I would see more clearly what to do.

  I went home the long way round, without troubling the ferryman. Even if he were willing to ply so late, I did not feel equal to his gossip, or that of
the troops who might be making their way back. I wanted silence, and the night, and the soft veils of the mist.

  The horse, scenting home and supper, pricked his ears and stepped out. Soon we had left the sounds and lights of the Island behind us, the Tor itself no more than a black shape of night, with stars behind its shoulder. Trees loomed, hung with mist, and below them lake water lapped on the flattened shingle. The smell of water and reeds and stirred mud, the steady plod of hoofs, the ripple of the Lake, and through it all, faint and infinitely distant, but tingling like salt on the tongue, the breath of the sea-tide, turning to its ebb here at its languid limit. A bird called hoarsely, splashing somewhere, invisible. The horse shook his damp neck, and plodded on.

  Silence and still air, and the calm of solitude. They drew a veil, as palpable as the mist, between the stresses of the day and the night's tranquillity. The god's hand had withdrawn. No vision printed itself on the dark. About tomorrow, and my part in it, I would not think. I had been led to prevent trespass by a prophetic dream; but what "high matters" the sudden renewal of the god's power in me portended I could not tell, and was too weary to guess at. I chirrupped to the horse, and he quickened his pace. The moon's edge, above a shaw of elms, showed the night black and silver. In a short half-mile we would leave the Lake shore, and make for home along the gravel of the road.

  The horse stopped, so suddenly that I was jerked forward on his neck. If he had not been so far spent, he would have shied, and perhaps thrown me. As it was he balked, both forefeet thrust stiffly in front of him, jarring me to the bone.

  Here the way ran along the crest of a bank that skirted theLake. There was a sheer drop, half the height of a man, down to the water's surface. The mist lay thickly, but some movement of air — perhaps from the tide itself — stirred it faintly, so that it swirled and rose in peaks like cream in a tub, or flowed, itself like water, thickened and slow.

  Then I heard a faint splashing, and saw what my horse had seen. A boat, being poled along a little way out from shore, and in it someone standing, balancing as delicately as a bird balances on a rocking twig. Only a glimpse I had, dim and shadowlike, of someone young-seeming and slight, in a cloak-like garment that hung to the thwarts and over the boat's edge to trail in the water. The boy stooped, and straightened again, wringing the stuff out. The mist coiled and broke round the movement, and its pallid drift reflected, briefly, the starlight. I saw his face. I felt shock thud under my heart like an arrow to its target.