"Why do you smile, sir?" Mordred was thinking, with thankfulness: He cannot begin to guess what was in my mind. Surely he cannot guess. But Nimue...?
"If you have never met Nimue, then gird your loins and put up your shield," said Arthur, laughing. "There's no mystery, at least not the kind ordinary mortals such as you and I can understand. She would know you were coming because she knows everything. As simple as that. She will even know why."
"That must save a world of words," said Mordred dryly.
"I used to say that. To Merlin." A shadow touched the King's face, and was gone. The amusement came back. "Well, good luck to you, Mordred. It is time you met the ruler of your ruler." And still laughing, he rode down the hill to the road.
Mordred left his horse at the archway that led into the courtyard, and went in. The place was full of flowers, and the scent of herbs and lavender, and doves crooned on the wall. There was an old man by the well, a gardener by his clothes, drawing water. He glanced up, touched a hand to his brow, and pointed the way to the tower door.
Well, thought Mordred, she is expecting me, isn't she?
He mounted the stone steps and pushed open the door.
The room was small and square, with one large window opening to the south, and beneath it a table. The only other furnishings were a cupboard, a heavy chair, and a couple of stools. A box stood on the table with books, neatly rolled, inside it. By the table, with her back to it and facing the door, stood a woman.
She neither spoke nor made any movement of greeting. What met him, forcibly as a cold blast, was her inimical and chilling gaze. He stopped dead in the doorway. A feeling of dread, formless and heavy, settled on him, as if the vultures of fate clung to his shoulders, their claws digging into his flesh.
Then it cleared. He straightened. The weight was gone. The tower room was full of light, and facing him was a tall, arrow-straight woman in a grey robe, with dark hair bound back with silver, and cool grey eyes.
"Prince Mordred."
He bowed. "Madam."
"Forgive me for receiving you here. I was working. The King comes often, and takes things as he finds them. Will you sit?"
He pulled a stool towards him and sat. He glanced at the littered table. She was not, as he half expected, brewing some concoction over the brazier. The "work" consisted, rather, of a litter of tablets and papers. An instrument which he did not recognize stood in the window embrasure, its end tilted towards the sky.
Nimue seated herself, turned to Mordred, and waited.
He said directly: "We have not met before, madam, but I have seen you."
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "The castle at Luguvallium? I knew you were nearby. You were hiding in the courtyard?"
"Yes." He added, wryly: "You cost me my liberty. I was trying to run away."
"Yes. You were afraid. But now you know that there was no reason for your fear."
He hesitated. Her tone was cold still, her look hostile. "Then why did you stop me? Did you hope then that the King would have me put to death?"
Her brows went up. "Why do you ask that?"
"Because of the prophecy."
"Who told you about it? Ah, yes, Morgause. No. I warned Urbgen to keep you close and see that you got to Camelot, because it is always better to keep a danger where one can see it, than let it vanish, and then wonder from what direction it will strike."
"So you agree that I am a danger. You believe in the prophecy."
"I must."
"Then you have seen it, too? In the crystal, or the pool, or--" He glanced towards the instrument by the window. "--The stars?"
For the first time there was something other than hostility in her look. She was watching him with curiosity, and a hint of puzzlement. She said slowly: "Merlin saw, and he made the prophecy, and I am Merlin."
"Then you can tell me why, if Merlin believed his own prophetic voices, he let the King keep me alive in the first place? I know why Morgause did; she saved me because she thought I would be his bane. She told me so, and then when I was grown she tried to enlist me as his enemy. But why did Merlin even let her bear me?"
She was silent for a few moments. The grey eyes searched him, as if they would draw the secrets from the back of his brain. Then she spoke.
"Because he would not see Arthur stained with the wrong of murder, whatever the cause. Because he was wise enough to see that we cannot turn the gods aside, but must follow as best we can the paths they lay out for us. Because he knew that out of seeming evil can come great good, and out of well doing may come bane and death. Because he saw also that in the moment of Arthur's death his glory would have reached and passed its fullness, but that by that death the glory would live on to be a light and a trumpet-call and a breath of life for men to come."
When she stopped speaking it seemed as if a faint echo of her voice, like a harp string thrumming, wound on and on in the air, to vibrate at last into silence.
At length Mordred spoke. "But you must know that I would not willingly bring evil to the King. I owe him much, and none of it evil. He knew this prophecy from the start, and, believing it, yet took me into his court and accepted me as his son. How, then, can you suppose that I would willingly harm him?"
She said, more gently: "It does not have to be by your will."
"Are you trying to tell me that I can do nothing to avert this fate that you speak of?"
"What will be, will be," she said.
"You cannot help me?"
"To avoid what is in the stars? No."
Mordred, with a movement of violent impatience, got to his feet. She did not move, even when he took a stride forward and towered over her, as if he would strike her.
"This is absurd! The stars! You talk as if men are sheep, and worse than sheep, to be driven by blind fate to do the will of some ill-wishing god! What of my will? Am I, despite anything I may wish or do, condemned to be the death or bane of a man I respect, a king I follow? Am I to be a sinner -- more, the worst of sinners, a parricide? What gods are these?"
She did not reply. She tilted her head back, still watching him steadily.
He said, angrily: "Very well. You have said, and Merlin has said, and Queen Morgause, who like you was a witch" -- her eyes nickered at that, perhaps with annoyance, and he felt a savage pleasure at getting through to her -- "that through me the King will meet his doom. You say I cannot avoid this. So? How if I took my dagger -- thus -- and killed myself here and now? Would that not avert the fate that you say hangs in the stars?"
She had not stirred at the dagger's flash, but now she moved. She rose from her stool and crossed to the window. She stood there with her back to him, looking out. Beyond the open frame was a pear tree, where a blackbird sang.
She spoke without turning.
"Prince Mordred, I did not say that Arthur would meet his doom by your hand or even by your action. Through your existence is all. So kill yourself now if you will it, but through your death his fate might come on him all the sooner."
"But then--" he began desperately.
She turned. "Listen to me. Had Arthur slain you in infancy, it might have happened that men would have risen against him for his cruelty, and that in the uprising he would have been killed. If you kill yourself now, it might be that your brothers, blaming him, would bring him to ruin. Or even that Arthur himself, spurring here to Applegarth at the news, would take a fall from his horse and die, or lie a cripple while his kingdom crumbled round him." She lifted her hands. "Now do you understand? Fate has more than one arrow. The gods wait behind cloud."
"Then they are cruel!"
"You know that already, do you not?"
He remembered the sickening smell of the burned cottage, the feel of the sea-washed bone in his hand, the lonely cry of the gulls over the beach.
He met the grey eyes, and saw compassion there. He said quietly: "So what can a man do?"
"All that we have," she said, "is to live what life brings. Die what death comes."
"That is black counsel."
"Is it?" she said. "You cannot know that."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you cannot know what life will bring. All I can tell you is this: that whatever years of life are left for you and for your father, they will see ambition realized, and will bring fulfilment and their need of glory, both for him and for you."
He stood silent at that. It was more than he had imagined or expected, that she would give him not only a qualified hope, but the promise of a life fulfilled.
He said: "So it won't serve for me to leave court, and stay away from him?"
"No." He smiled for the first time. "Because he wants me where he can see me? Because the arrow by daylight is better to face than the knife in the dark?" There was a glimmer of a smile in reply. "You are like him," was all she said, but he felt the interview begin to lighten. A somber lady, this one. She was beautiful, yes, but he would as soon, he thought, have touched a rousing falcon. "You can't tell me anymore? Anything?"
"I do not know more."
"Would Merlin know? And would he tell me?"
"What he knew, I know," she said again. "I told you, I am Merlin."
"You said this before. Is it some kind of riddling way of telling me that his power is gone, or just that I may not approach him?" He spoke with renewed impatience. "All my life I seem to have been listening to rumors of magical deaths and vanishings, and they are never true. Tell me straightly, if you will: if I go to Bryn Myrddin, will I find him?"
"If he wishes it, yes."
"Then he is still there?"
"He is where he always was, with all his fires and travelling glories round him." As they talked the sun had moved round, and the light from the window touched her face. He saw faint lines on the smooth brow, the shadow of fatigue under the eyes, a dew of transparency on her skin. He said abruptly: "I am sorry if I have wearied you." She did not deny it. She said merely: "I am glad you came," and followed him to the tower doorway. "Thank you for your patience," he said, and drew breath for a formal farewell, but a shout from the courtyard below startled him. He swung round and looked down. Nimue came swiftly to his elbow. "You'd better go down, and hurry! Your horse has slipped his tether, and I think he has eaten some of the new seedlings." Her face lit with mischief, young and alive, like that of a child who misbehaves in a shrine. "If Varro kills you with his spade, as seems likely, we shall see how the fates will deal with that!"
He kissed her hand and ran down to retrieve his horse. As he rode away she watched him with eyes that were once again sad, but no longer hostile.
Mordred was half afraid that the King would ask him what his business had been with Nimue, but he did not. He sent for his son next day and spoke of the proposed visit to the Saxon king, Cerdic.
"I would have left you in charge at home, which would have been useful experience for you, but it will be even more useful for you to meet Cerdic and attend the talks, so as ever I am leaving Bedwyr. I might almost say as regent, since officially I am leaving my own kingdom for a foreign one. Have you ever met a Saxon, Mordred?"
"Never. Are they really all giants, who drink the blood of babies?"
The King laughed. "You will see. They are certainly most of them big men, and their customs are outlandish. But I am told, by those who know them and can speak their tongue, that their poets and artists are to be respected. Their fighting men certainly are. You will find it interesting."
"How many men will you take?"
"Under truce, only a hundred. A regal train, no more."
"You can trust a Saxon to keep a truce?"
"Cerdic, yes, though with most Saxons it's a case of trust only from strength, and keep the memory of Badon still green. But don't repeat that," said Arthur.
Agravain was also in the chosen hundred, but neither Gawain nor Gareth. These two had gone north together soon after the council meeting. Gawain had spoken of travelling to Dunpeldyr and perhaps thence to Orkney, and, though suspecting that his nephew's real quest was far otherwise, Arthur could think of no good reason for preventing him. Hoping that Lamorak might have ridden westward to join his brother under Drustan's standard, he had to content himself with sending a courier into Dumnonia with a warning.
The King and his hundred set out on a fine and blowy day of June. Their way took them over the high downs. Small blue butterflies and dappled fritillaries fluttered in clouds over the flowery turf. Larks sang. Sunlight fell in great gold swaths over the ripening cropfields, and peasants, white with the blowing chalk dust, looked up from their work and saluted the party with smiles. The troop rode at ease, talking and laughing together, and the mood was light.
Except, apparently, for Agravain. He drew alongside Mordred where he was riding a little apart, some way behind the King, who was talking with Cei and Bors.
"Our first sally with the High King, and look at it. A carnival." He spoke with contempt. "All that talk of war, and kingdoms changing hands, and raising armies to defend our shores again, and this is all it comes to! He's getting old, that's what it is. We should drive these Saxons back into the sea first, and then it would be time enough to talk...But no! What do we do? Here we ride with the duke of battles, and on a peace mission. To Saxons. Ally with Saxons? Pah!" He spat. "He should have let me go with Gawain."
"Did you ask to?"
"Of course."
"That was a peace mission, too," said Mordred, woodenly, looking straight between his horse's ears. "There was no trouble forecast in Dunpeldyr, only a little diplomatic talking with Tydwal, and Gareth along to keep it muted."
"Don't play the innocent with me!" said Agravain angrily. "You know, why he's gone."
"I can guess. Anyone can guess. But if he does find Lamorak, or news of him, let us hope that Gareth can persuade him to show a little sense. Why else do you suppose Gareth asked to go?" Mordred turned and looked straight at Agravain. "And if he should come across Gaheris, you may hope the same thing yourself. I suppose you know where Gaheris is? Well, if Gawain catches up with either of them, you'd best know nothing about it. And I want to know nothing."
"You? You're so deep in the King's counsels that I'm surprised you haven't warned him."
"There was no need. He must know as well as you do what Gawain hopes to do. But he can't mew him up forever. What the King cannot prevent, he will not waste time over. All he can do is hope, probably in vain, that wise counsel will prevail."
"And if Gawain does run across Lamorak, which might happen, even by accident, what do you expect him to do then?"
"Lamorak must protect himself. He's quite capable of it." He added: "Live what life brings. Die what death comes."
Agravain stared. "What? What sort of talk is that?"
"Something I heard recently. So what about Gaheris? Are you content for Gawain to run across him, too?"
"He'll not find Gaheris," said Agravain confidently.
"Oh, so you do know where he is?"
"What do you think? He got word to me, of course. And the King doesn't know that, you may be sure! He's not as all-knowing as you think, brother." He slid a sideways look at Mordred, and his lowered voice was sly. "There's quite a lot that he doesn't see."
Mordred did not answer, but Agravain went on without prompting: "Else he'd hardly go off on an unnecessary jaunt like this and leave Bedwyr in Camelot."
"Someone has to stay."
"With the Queen?" Mordred turned to look at him again. The tone, the look, said what the bare words had not expressed. He spoke with contemptuous anger: "I'm no fool, nor am I deaf. I hear what the dirty tongues say. But you'd best keep yours clean, brother."
"Are you threatening me?"
"I don't need to. Let the King once hear--"
"If it's true they're lovers, he ought to hear."
"It cannot be true! Bedwyr is close to the King and Queen, yes, but--"
"And they do say the husband is always the last to guess." Mordred felt a wave of fury so strong that it startled him. He began to
speak, then, glancing towards the King's back and the riders to either side, said merely, in a low, suppressed voice: "Leave it. It's fool's talk anywhere, and here you might be overheard. And keep your tongue off it with me. I want no part of it."
"You were ready enough to listen when your own mother's virtue was questioned." Mordred said, exasperated: "Questioned! I was there, my God! I saw her lying with him!"
"And cared so little that you let the man escape!"
"Let it go, Agravain! If Gaheris had killed Lamorak there, while the King was still negotiating with Drustan to leave Dumnonia and join the Companions--"
"You thought of that? Then? With her -- them --that in front of your eyes?"
"Yes." Agravain stared with bolting eyes. The blood flushed his cheeks and ran into his forehead. Then, with a sound of contempt and helpless fury, he reined his horse back so sharply that blood sprang on the bit. Mordred, relieved of his presence, rode on alone, until Arthur, turning, saw him there and beckoned him forward.
"See! There is the border. And we are awaited. The man in the center, the fair man in the blue mantle, that's Cerdic himself."
Cerdic was a big man, with silvery hair and beard, and blue eyes. He wore a long robe of grey, with over it a caped blue mantle. He was unarmed save for his dagger, but a page behind him bore his sword, the heavy Saxon broadsword, sheathed in leather bound with worked gold. On his long, carefully combed hair was a tall crown also of gold, elaborately chased, and in his left hand he held a staff which, from its golden finial and carved shaft, appeared to be a staff of royal office. Beside him waited an interpreter, an elderly man who, it transpired, had been son and grandson of federates, and had spent all his life within the bounds of the Saxon Shore.
Behind Cerdic stood his thegns, or warrior lords, dressed like their king save that where he wore a crown, they had tall caps of brightly colored leather. Their horses, small beasts that showed almost like ponies beside Arthur's carefully bred cavalry mounts, were held in the background by their grooms.
Arthur and his party dismounted. The kings greeted one another, two tall men, richly dressed and glittering with jewels, dark and fair, eyeing one another over the unspoken truce like big dogs held back on leash. Then, as if some spark of liking had suddenly been kindled between them, they both smiled and, each at the same moment, held out a hand. They grasped one another's arms, and kissed.