Legacy: Arthurian Saga

  "Of course, of course. But I shall need him later on. I was bidden back there tomorrow, with this buckle mended for the chamberlain, and I need Casso's help for that."

  "I shan't keep him. Casso?"

  The slave was already on his feet. Ulfin said, with a shade of apprehension: "So you know what to do now?"

  "I am guessing," I said. "I have no power in this, as I told you." I spoke softly, and above the tavern's roar Beltane could not hear me, but Casso did, and looked quickly from me to Ulfin and back again. I smiled at him. "Don't let it concern you. Ulfin and I have affairs here which will not touch you or your master. Come with me now."

  "I could come myself," said Ulfin quickly.

  "No. Do as I told you, and eat first. It could be a long watch. Casso..."

  We went through the maze of dirty streets. The rain, steady now, made muddy puddles, and splashed the dung into stinking pools. Where lights showed at all in the houses, they were feeble, smoking glints of flame, curtained from the wet night by hides or sacking. Nothing interfered with our night-sight, and presently we could pick our way cleanly across the gleaming runnels. After a while the tree-banked slope of the castle rock loomed above us.

  A lantern hung high in the blackness, marking the postern gate.

  Casso, who had been following me, touched my arm and pointed where a narrow alley, little more than a funnel for rain-water, led steeply downward. It was not a way I had been before.

  At the bottom I could hear, loud above the steady hissing of the rain, the noise of the river.

  "A short cut to the footbridge?" I asked.

  He nodded vigorously.

  We picked our way down over the filthy cobbles. The roar of the river grew louder. I could see the white water of the lasher, and against it the great wheel of a mill. Beyond this, outlined by the reflected glimmer of the foam, was the footbridge.

  No one was about. The mill was not running; the miller probably lived above it, but he had locked his doors and no light showed. A narrow path, deep in mud, led past the shuttered mill and along the soaked grasses of the riverside toward the bridge.

  I wondered, half irritably, why Casso had chosen this way. He must have grasped some need for secrecy, though the main street was surely, in this weather and at this time, deserted. But then voices and the swinging light of a lantern brought me up short in the shelter of the miller's doorway.

  Three men were coming down the street. They were hurrying, talking together in undertones. I saw a bottle passed from hand to hand. Castle servants, no doubt, on their way back from the tavern. They stopped at the end of the bridge and looked back. Now something furtive could be seen in their movements. One of them said something, and there was a laugh, quickly stifled. They moved on, but not before I had seen them, clearly enough, in the lantern's glow: they were armed, and they were sober.

  Casso was close beside me, pressed back in the dark doorway. The men had not glanced our way. They went quickly across the bridge, their footsteps sounding hollow on the wet planks.

  Something else the passing light had showed me. Just beyond the mill, at the corner of the alley, another doorway stood open. From the pile of timber stocks and sawn felloes outside in the weedy strip of yard, I took it to be a wheelwright's shop. It was deserted for the night, but inside the main shed the remains of a fire still glowed. From that sheltering darkness I should be able to hear and see all who approached the bridge.

  Casso ran ahead of me into the warm cave of the shop, and lifted a couple of faggots. Taking them to the fire, he made the motion of throwing them on the ashes.

  "Only one," I said softly. "Good man. Now, if you will go back and get Ulfin, and bring him here to me, you can get yourself dried and warm, and then forget all about us."

  A nod, then, smiling, a pantomime to show me that my secret, whatever it was, would be safe with him. God knew what he thought I was doing: an assignation, perhaps, or spy's work. Even at that, he knew about as much as I knew myself.

  "Casso. Would you like to learn to read and write?"

  Stillness. The smile vanished. In the growing flicker of the fire I saw him rigid, all eyes, unbelieving, like the lost traveler who has the clue, against all hope, thrust into his hand. He nodded once, jerkily.

  "I shall see that you are taught. Go now, and thanks. Good night."

  He went, running, as if the stinking alley were as light as day. Halfway up it I saw him jump and spring, like a young animal suddenly let out of its pen on a fine morning. I went quietly back into the shop, picking my way past the wheel-pit and the heavy sledge left leaning by the pile of spokes. Near the fireplace was the stool where the boy sat who kept the bellows going. I sat down to wait, spreading my wet cloak to the warmth of the fire.

  Outside, drowning the soft sounds of the rain, the lasher roared. A loose paddle of the great wheel, hammered by the water, clacked and thudded. A pair of starving dogs raced by, wrangling over something unspeakable from a midden. The wheelwright's shop smelled of fresh wood, and sap drying, and the knots of burning elm. The faint tick of the fire was clearly audible in the warm darkness against the water noises outside. Time went by.

  Once before I had sat like this, by a fire, alone, with my mind on a birth-chamber, and a child's fate revealed to me by the god. That had been a night of stars, with a wind blowing over the clean sea, and the great king-star shining. I had been young then, sure of myself, and of the god who drove me. Now I was sure of nothing, save that I had as much hope of diverting whatever evil Morgause was planning as a dry bough had of damming the force of the lasher.

  But what power there was in knowledge, I would have. Human guesswork had brought me here, and we should see if I had read the witch aright. And though my god had deserted me, I still had more power than is granted to common men: I had a king at my call.

  And now here was Ulfin, to share this vigil with me as he had shared it in Tintagel. I heard nothing, only saw when his body blocked the dim sky in the doorway.

  "Here," I said, and he came in, groping his way over to the glow.

  "Nothing yet, my lord?"

  "Nothing."

  "What are you expecting?"

  "I'm not quite sure, but I think someone will come this way tonight, from the queen."

  I felt him turn to peer at me in the darkness. "Because Lot is due home?"

  "Yes. Is there any more news of that?"

  "Only what I told you before. They expect him to press hard for home. He could be here very soon."

  "I think so, too. In any case, Morgause will have to make sure."

  "Sure of what, my lord?"

  "Sure of the High King's son."

  A pause. "You mean you think they will smuggle him out, in case Lot believes the rumors and kills the child? But in that case --"

  "Yes? In that case?"

  "Nothing, my lord. I wondered, that's all...You think they will bring him this way?"

  "No. I think they have already brought him."

  "They have? Did you see which way?"

  "Not since I have been here. I am certain that the baby in the castle is not Arthur's child. They have exchanged it."

  A long breath beside me in the darkness. "For fear of Lot?"

  "Of course. Think about it, Ulfin. Whatever Morgause may tell Lot, he must have heard what everyone is saying, ever since it became known that she was with child. She has tried to persuade him that the child is his, but premature; and he may believe her. But do you think he will take the risk that she is lying, and that some other man's son, let alone Arthur's, lies there in that cradle, and will grow up heir to Lothian?

  Whatever he believes, there's a possibility that he may kill the boy. And Morgause knows it."

  "You think he has heard the rumors that it may be the High King's?"

  "He could hardly help it. Arthur made no secret of his visit to Morgause that night, and nor did she. She wanted it so. Afterwards, when I forced her to change her plans, she might persuade or terrify her women into secr
ecy, but the guards saw him, and by morning every man in Luguvallium would know of it. So what can Lot do? He would not tolerate a bastard of any man's; but Arthur's could be dangerous."

  He was silent for a while. "It puts me in mind of Tintagel. Not the night we took King Uther in, but the other time, when Queen Ygraine gave Arthur to you, to hide him out of King Uther's way."

  "Yes."

  "My lord, are you planning to take this child as well, to save him from Lot?"

  His voice, softly pitched as it was, sounded thin with some kind of strain. I hardly attended; far out somewhere in the night, beyond the noise of the weir, I had heard a beat of hoofs; not a sound so much as a vibration under our feet as the earth carried it. Then the faint pulse was gone, and the water's roar came back.

  "What did you say?"

  "I wondered, my lord, how sure you were about the child up at the castle."

  "Sure of what the facts say, no more. Look at them. She lied about the date of birth, so that it could be put about that the birth was premature. Very well; that could be a face-saver, no more; it's done all the time. But look how it was done. She contrived that no doctor was present, and then alleged that the birth was unexpected, and so quick that no witnesses could be called into the chamber, as is the custom with a royal birthing. Only her two women, who are her creatures."

  "Well, why, my lord? What more was there to gain?"

  "Only this, a child to show Lot that he could kill if he would, while Arthur's son and hers goes scatheless."

  A gasp of silence. "You mean --?"

  "It fits, doesn't it? She could already have arranged an exchange with some other woman due to bear at the same time, some poor woman, who would take the money and hold her tongue, and be glad of the chance to suckle the royal baby. We can only guess what Morgause told her; the woman can have no inkling that her own child might be at risk. So the changeling lies there in the castle, while Arthur's son, Morgause's tool of power, is hidden nearby. At my guess, not too far away. They will want news of him from time to time."

  "And if what you say is true, then when Lot gets here --"

  "Some move will be made. If he does harm the changeling, Morgause will have to see that the mother hears nothing of it. She may even have to find another home for Mordred."

  "But --"

  "Ulfin, there is nothing we can do to save the changeling. Only Morgause could save it, if she would. It's not even certain that it will be in danger; Lot is not quite a savage, after all. But you and I would only run on death ourselves, and the child with us."

  "I know. But what about all the talk up there in the castle? Beltane would tell you about it. He was talking while I got my supper. I mean, the baby being so like King Lot, the living image, they were all saying. Could this of yours just be a guess, sir? And the child be Lot's own, after all? The date could even have been right. They said it was a sickly child, and small."

  "It could be. I told you I was guessing. But we do know that Queen Morgause has no truth in her -- and that she is Arthur's enemy. Her actions, and Lot's, bear watching. Arthur himself will have to know, beyond doubt, what the truth is."

  "Of course. I see that. One thing we could do is find out who bore a male child at about the same time as the queen. I could ask around the place tomorrow. I've made a useful wine-friend or two already."

  "In a town this size it could be one of a score. And we have no time. Listen!"

  Up through the ground, clear now, the beat of hoofs. A troop, riding hard. Then the sound of them, close and coming closer, clear above the river noises, and soon the town noises as people crowded out to see. Men shouting; the crash of wood on stonework as the gates were flung open; the jingle of bits and the clash of armor; the snorting of hard-ridden horses. More shouting, and an echo from the castle rock high above us, then the sound of a trumpet.

  The main bridge thundered. The heavy gates creaked and slammed. The sounds dwindled toward the inner courtyard, and were lost in the other, nearer noises.

  I stood up and walked to the doorway of the wheelwright's shop, and looked up to where, beyond the mill roof, the castle towered against the clouded night. The rain had stopped. Lights were moving. Windows flared and darkened as the king's servants lighted him through the castle. To the west side were two windows bright with soft light. The moving lights went there, and stayed.

  "Lot comes home," I said.

  12

  Somewhere a bell clanged from the castle. Midnight. Leaning in the doorway of the wheelwright's shop, I stretched shoulders aching with the damp of the night. Behind me, Ulfin fed another faggot to the fire, carefully, so that no spurt of flame should attract the attention of anyone who might be waking. The town, sunk back into its night-time stupor, was silent, but for the barking of curs and now and again the scritch of an owl among the trees on the steep crag-side.

  I moved silently out from the door's shelter into the street near the end of the bridge. I looked up at the black bulk of the crag. The high windows of the castle still showed light, and light from the troopers' torches, red and smoking, moved behind the walls that masked the courtyard below.

  Ulfin, at my elbow, drew breath for a question.

  It was never asked. Someone, running chin on shoulder across the footbridge, ran headlong into me, gasped, gave a broken cry, and twisted to dodge past.

  Equally startled, I was slow to react, but Ulfin jumped, grasped an arm, and clapped a hand tightly to stifle the next cry. The newcomer twisted and fought in his grip, but was held with ease. "A girl," said Ulfin, surprised. "Into the shop," I said quickly, and led the way. Once there, I threw another piece of elm on the fire. The flames leaped. Ulfin brought his captive, still writhing and kicking, into the light. The hood had fallen from her face and head, and I recognized her, with satisfaction.

  "Lind." She stiffened in Ulfin's grip. I saw the gleam of frightened eyes staring at me above the stifling hand. Then they widened, and she went quite still, as a partridge does before a stoat. She knew, me, too.

  "Yes," I said. "I am Merlin. I was waiting for you, Lind. Now, if Ulfin loosens you, you will make no sound." Her head moved, assenting. He took his hand from her mouth, but kept his grip on her arm.

  "Let her go," I said. He obeyed me, moving back to get between her and the doorway, but he need not have troubled. As soon as he released her she ran toward me, and flung herself to her knees in the litter of shavings. She clung to my robe. Her body shook with her terrified weeping.

  "Oh, my lord, my lord! Help me!"

  "I am not here to harm you, or the child." To calm her, I spoke coldly. "The High King sent me here to get news of his son. You know I cannot come to the queen herself, so I waited here for you. What has happened up at the castle?" But she would not speak. I think she could not. She clung, and shook, and cried. I spoke more gently. "Whatever has happened, Lind, I cannot help you if I do not know. Come near the fire, and compose yourself, and tell me." But when I tried to draw my robe from her clutches she clung the harder. Her sobs were violent. "Don't keep me here, lord, let me go! Or else help me! You have the power -- you are Arthur's man -- you are not afraid of my lady --"

  "I will help you if you will talk to me. I want news of King Arthur's son. Was that King Lot who arrived just now?"

  "Yes. Oh, yes! He came home an hour ago. He is mad, mad, I tell you! And she did not even try to stop him. She laughed, and let him do it."

  "Let him do what?"

  "Kill the baby."

  "He killed the child Morgause has at the castle?"

  She was too distraught to see anything strange about the form of the question. "Yes, yes!" She gulped. "And all the while it was his own son, his very own son. I was there at the birth, and I swear it by my own hearth-gods. It was --"

  "What's that?" This, sharply, from Ulfin, on watch in the doorway.

  "Lind!" I stooped, pulled her to her feet, and held her steady.

  "This is no time for riddles. Go on. Tell me all that happened."

>   She pressed the back of one wrist to her mouth, and in a moment or two managed to speak with some sort of composure. "When he came, he was angry. We had been expecting it, but nothing like this. He had heard what people were saying, that the High King had lain with her. You knew that, lord, you knew it was true...So King Lot stormed and raved at her, calling her whore, adulteress...We were all there, her women, but he cared nothing for that. And she -- if she had talked sweetly to him, lied, even..."

  She swallowed. "It would have calmed him. He would have believed her. He never could resist her. That's what we all thought she would do, but she did not. She laughed in his face, and said, 'But do you now see how like you he is? Do you really think a boy like Arthur could get such a son?' He said, 'So it's true? You lay with him?' She said, 'Why not? You would not wed me. You took that little honey-miss, Morgan, instead of me. I was not yours, not then.' It made him angrier." She shivered. "If you had seen him then, even you would have been afraid."

  "No doubt. Was she?"

  "No. She never moved, just sat there, with the green gown and jewels, and smiled. You would have thought she was trying to make him angry."

  "As she was," I said. "Go on, Lind, quickly."

  She had control of herself now. I loosened her, and she stood, still trembling, but with her arms crossed on her breast, the way women stand when grieving. "He tore the hangings off the cradle. The baby started to cry. He said, 'Like me? The Pendragon brat is dark, and I am dark. No more than that.' Then he turned on us -- the women -- and sent us away. We ran. He looked like a mad wolf. The others ran away, but I hid behind the curtains in the outer chamber. I thought -- I thought --"

  "You thought?"

  She shook her head. Tears splashed, glinting, in the firelight. "That was when he did it. The baby stopped crying. There was a crash, as if the cradle fell over. The queen said, as calm as milk: 'You should have believed me. It was your own, by some slut you tumbled in the town. I told you there was a likeness.' And she laughed. He didn't speak for a bit. I could hear his breathing.