All this Mordred noticed, watching. For him, the nearness to Guinevere was at once a joy and a torment. If there had been a look, a touch, a gesture of understanding between her and Bedwyr, Mordred was sure he would have seen or even sensed it. But there was none, only Bedwyr's silence and the sense of strain that hung about him, and perhaps an extra gaiety in the Queen's chatter and laughter when she and her ladies graced some function of the court. In either case this could be attributed to the cares of office, and the strain imposed by Arthur's absence. In the end Mordred, mindful of the King's last interview with him, put the recollection of the Young Celts' gossip out of his mind.
Then one evening, long after supper, when the King's seal was used for the last time and the secretary returned it to its box, bade the two men good night, and took himself away, there was a tap at the door and the servant came in to announce a caller.
This was Bors, one of the older knights, a Companion who had fought with Arthur and Bedwyr through the great campaign, and had been with them at Badon Hill. He was a simple man, devoted to the King, but was known to be fretting almost as fiercely as the Young Celts for action. No courtier, he was impatient of ceremony, and longed for the simplicities and movement of the field.
He gave Bedwyr the salute of the camp, and said with his usual abruptness: "You are to go to the Queen. There's a letter she wants to show you."
There was a short, blank silence. Then Bedwyr got to his feet. "It's very late. Surely she has retired? It must be urgent."
"She said so. Or she'd not have sent me."
Mordred had risen when Bedwyr did. "A letter? It came with the courier?"
"I suppose so. Well, you know how late he was. You got the rest yourself not long ago."
This was true. The man, who had been due at sundown, had been delayed on the road by a flash flood, and had ridden in not long before. Hence the late working-hours they had been keeping.
"He mentioned no letter for the Queen," said Mordred.
Bedwyr said sharply: "Why should he? If it is the Queen's it is not our concern, except as she chooses to talk about it with me. Very well, Bors. I'll go now."
"I'll tell her you will come?"
"No need. I'll send Ulfin. You get to bed, and Mordred, too. Good night."
As he spoke he began to buckle on the belt he had cast aside when the men settled down to the evening's work. The servant brought his cloak. From the side of his eye he saw Mordred hesitating, and repeated, with some abruptness: "Good night."
There was nothing for it. Mordred followed Bors out of the room.
Bors went off down the corridor with his long outdoor stride. Mordred, hurrying to catch him up, did not hear Bedwyr's quick words to the servant:
"Go and tell the Queen I'll be with her shortly. Tell her… No doubt her ladies retired when she did. You will see to it that she is attended when I come. No matter if her waiting-women are asleep. Wake them. Do you understand?"
Ulfin had been the King's chief chamberlain for many years. He said briefly, "Yes, my lord," and went.
Mordred and Bors, walking together across the outer garden court, saw him hurrying towards the Queen's rooms.
Bors said abruptly: "I don't like it."
"But there was a letter?"
"I didn't see one. And I saw the man ride in. If it's true he carried a letter for the Queen, why does she need to talk with him now? It's near midnight. Surely it could wait till morning? I tell you, I don't like it."
Mordred shot him a glance. Was it possible that the whispers had come even to the ears of this faithful veteran? Then Bors added: "If anything has happened to the King, then surely the tidings should have gone straight to Bedwyr as well. What can they have to discuss that needs privacy and midnight?"
"What indeed?" said Mordred. Bors gave him a sharp glance, but all he said was, gruffly:
"Well, well, we'd best get to bed, and mind our business."
When they reached the hall where most of the young bachelors slept, they found some of them still awake. Gaheris was sober, but only just, Agravain was drunk as usual, and talkative. Gareth sat at tables with Colles, and a couple of others lounged over dice by the dying fire.
Bors said good night, and turned away, and Mordred, who in the King's absence lived and slept within the palace, started through the hall towards the stairway that led to his rooms. Before he reached it one of the young knights, the man from Wales called Cian, came swiftly in from the outer court, pushing past Bors in the doorway. He stood there for a moment, blinking, while his dark-puzzled eyes adjusted themselves to the light. Gaheris, guessing where he had been, called out some pleasantry, and Colles, with a coarse laugh, pointed out that his clothes were still unbraced.
He took no notice. He came with his swift stride into the middle of the hall and said, urgently:
"Bedwyr's gone to the Queen. I saw him. Straight in through the private doorway, and there's a lamp lit in her chamber window."
Agravain was on his feet. "Has he, by God!"
Gaheris, lurching, got himself upright. His hand was on his sword. "So, it was true. We all knew it! Now let us see what the King will say when he hears that his wife lies with a lover!"
"Why wait for that?" This was Mador. "Let us make sure of them both now!"
Mordred, from the foot of the stairs, raised his voice urgently above the hubbub: "She sent for him. A letter came by the courier. It could be from the King. There was something in it she had to discuss with Bedwyr. Bors brought the message. Tell them, Bors!"
"It's true," said the old man, but worry still sounded in his voice, and Mador said shrewdly: "You don't like it either, do you? You've heard the stories, too? Well, if they are having a council over the King's letter, let us join it! What objection can there be to that?"
Mordred shouted: "Stop, you fools! I tell you, I was there! This is true! Are you all mad? Think of the King! Whatever we find—"
"Aye, whatever we find," said Agravain thickly. "If it is a council, then we join it as loyal King's men—"
"And if it's a tryst for lusty lovers," put in Gaheris, "then we can serve the King in other ways."
"You'd not dare touch her!" Mordred, sharp with fear, pushed his way through the crowd and gripped Gaheris's arm.
"Her? Not this time." Gaheris, drunk, but perfectly steady, laughed through ghost-haunted eyes. "But Bedwyr, ah, if Bedwyr's where I think he is, what will the King do but thank us for this night's work?"
Bors was shouting, and being shouted down. Mordred, still holding Gaheris's arm, was talking swiftly, reasonably, trying to contain the mood of the crowd. But they had drunk too much, they were ripe for action, and they hated Bedwyr. There was no stopping them now. Still clutching Gaheris's sleeve, Mordred found himself being swept along with them — there were a dozen of them now, Bors hustled along with them, and even Gareth, white-faced, bringing up the rear — through the shadowed arcades that edged the garden court, and in through the doorway that gave on the Queen's private stair. The servant there, sleepy but alert enough, came upright from the wall with his lips parting for a challenge. Then he saw Mordred, and in the moment of hesitation that this gave him, he was silenced with a blow from the butt of Colles's dagger.
The act of violence was like the twang that looses the taut bowstring. With shouts the young men surged through the door and up the stairway to the Queen's private chambers. Colles, leading, hammered on the wood with his sword hilt, shouting:
"Open! Open! In the King's name!"
Locked in the press on the stairway, struggling to get through, Mordred heard from within the room a woman's cry of alarm. Then other voices, shrill and urgent, drowned by the renewed shouting from the stairway.
"Open this door! There's treachery! Treachery to the King!"
Then suddenly, so quickly that it was obvious it had not been locked, the door opened wide.
A girl was holding it. The room was lighted only by the night-lamps. Three or four women were there, their voluminous wraps
indicating that they had been in their night robes and had been roused hastily from their beds. One of them, an elderly lady with grey hair loose about her face as if she had recently been startled from sleep, ran to the door of the inner room where the Queen slept, and turned to bar the way.
"What is this? What has happened? Colles, this unseemly — And you, Prince Agravain? If it's the lord Bedwyr that you want to see—"
"Stand aside, Mother," said someone breathlessly, and the woman was thrust to one side as Colles and Agravain, shouting, "Treachery, treachery to the King!" hurled themselves, with swords out and ready, at the Queen's door.
Through the tumult, the hammering, the women's now frightened screaming, Mordred heard Gareth's breathless voice: "Linet? Don't be afraid. Bors has gone for the guard. Stand over there, and keep back. Nothing will happen—"
Then, between one hammer-blow and the next, the Queen's door opened suddenly, and Bedwyr was standing there.
The Queen's bedchamber was well lighted, by a swinging silver lamp shaped like a dragon. To the attackers, taken by surprise, everything in the room was visible in one swift impression.
The great bed stood against the far wall. The covers were tumbled, but then the Queen had already been abed when the letter — if there had been a letter — had come. She, like her women, was wrapped from throat to feet in a warm loose robe of white wool, girdled with blue. Her slippers were of white ermine fur. The golden hair was braided with blue, and hung forward over her shoulders. She looked like a girl. She also looked very frightened. She had half risen from the cross-stool where she had been sitting, and was holding the hands of the scared waiting-woman who crouched on a tuffet at her feet.
Bedwyr, holding the door, was dressed as Mordred had seen him a short time ago, but with neither sword nor dagger. Fully dressed as he was, facing the swords at the chamber door, he was, in the parlance of the fighting man, naked. And, with the lightning action of a fighting man, he moved. As Colles, still in the van, lunged towards him with his sword, Bedwyr, sweeping the blade aside with a swirl of his heavy cloak, struck his attacker in the throat. As the man staggered back, Bedwyr wrenched the sword out of his grip, and ran him through.
"Lecher! Murderer!" yelled Agravain. His voice was still thick with drink, or passion, but his sword was steady. Mordred, shouting something, caught at him, but Agravain struck the hand aside and jumped, murderous blade shortened, straight for Bedwyr. Colles's body blocked half the doorway, and for a moment Agravain was alone, facing Bedwyr's sword. In that moment, Bedwyr, veteran of a thousand combats, struck Agravain's flashing blade almost idly aside and ran his attacker through the heart.
Even this killing did not give the attacking mob pause. Mador, hard on Agravain's heels, got half in under Bedwyr's guard before he could withdraw his blade. Gareth, his young voice cracking with distress, was shouting: "He was drunk! For God's sake—" And then, shrilly, in agonized panic: "Gaheris, no!"
For Gaheris, murderer of women, had leaped straight over Agravain's fallen body, past the whirling swords where Bedwyr fought, and was advancing, sword levelled, on the Queen.
She had not moved. The whole melee had lasted only seconds. She stood frozen, her terrified woman crouched at her knees, her eyes on the deadly flash of metal round Bedwyr. If she was aware of Gaheris and his threat she gave no sign. She did not even raise a hand to ward off the blade.
"Whore!" shouted Gaheris. and thrust at her.
His blade was struck up. Mordred was hard behind him. Gaheris turned, cursing. Mordred's sword ran up Gaheris's blade and the hilts locked. Body to body the two men swayed, fighting. Gaheris, pressed back, lurched against the Queen's stool, and sent it flying. The waiting-woman screamed, and the Queen, with a cry, moved at last, backing away towards the wall. Gaheris, swearing, lashed out with his dagger. Mordred snatched out his with his left hand and brought the hilt down as hard as he could on his half-brother's temple. Gaheris dropped like a stone. Mordred turned, gasping, to the Queen, and found himself facing Bedwyr's blade, and Bedwyr's murderous eyes.
Bedwyr, hotly engaged, had seen, through the haze of blood dripping from a shallow cut on his forehead, the sudden thrust towards the Queen, and the struggle near her chair. He started to cut his way towards her with a fury and desperation that gave him barely time for thought. Gareth, exposed by Agravain's fall, and still reiterating wildly, "He was drunk!" was cut down and died in his blood almost at the Queen's feet. Then the deadly sword, red to the hilt, engaged Mordred's, and Mordred, with no time for words or for retreat, was fighting for his life.
Dimly he was aware of fresh hubbub. One of the women, regardless of danger, had run into the room, and was on her knees by Gareth's body, wailing his name over and over again. A screaming was audible along the corridor where others had run for help. Bedwyr, as he cut and thrust, shouted out some sort of command, and Mordred knew then that the guard had been called, and was there. Gaheris heaved on the floor, trying to rise. His hand slipped in Gareth's blood. Mador had been seized by the guard and dragged away, shouting. The others, some still resisting, were one by one overpowered, and hustled away. The Queen was calling something, but through the uproar she could not be heard.
Mordred was conscious mainly of two things, Bedwyr's eyes of cold fury, and the knowledge that, even through that fury, the King's marshal was deliberately refraining from killing or maiming the King's son. A chance came, was ignored; another came and was turned; Bedwyr's sword ran in over Mordred's blade, and he took the younger man neatly through the upper part of his sword arm. As Mordred staggered back, Bedwyr, following him, struck him with his dagger's hilt, a heavy blow on the temple.
Mordred fell. He fell across Gareth's outstretched arm, and the girl's tears, as she wept for her lover, fell on his face.
There was no pain yet, only dimness, and the sense of the turmoil coming and going like the waves of the sea. The fighting was over. His head was within a foot of Guinevere's hem. He was dimly conscious of Bedwyr stepping over his body to take the Queen's hands. He heard him speak, low and urgently: "They did not come to you? Is all well?" And her shaken reply, in that soft voice filled with distress and fear: "You're hurt? Oh, my dear—" And his swift: "No. A cut only. It's over. I must leave you with your ladies. Calm yourself, madam, it is over."
Gaheris, back on his feet, but bleeding from a deep cut on the arm, was being dragged away, dazed and unresisting, by the guards. Bors was there, with a face of tragedy, speaking urgently, but the words came and went, like the surge of the sea waves, with the beat of Mordred's pulse. The pain was beginning now. One of the guards said, "Lady—" and tried to lift Linet from Gareth's body. Then the Queen was there, near, kneeling beside Mordred. He could smell her scent, feel the soft wool of the white robe. His blood smeared the wool, but she took no notice. He tried to say, "Lady," but no sound came.
In any case she was not concerned with him. Her arms were round Linet, her voice speaking comfort shot with grief. At length the girl let herself be raised and led aside, and the guards took up Gareth's body to carry it away. Just before he lost consciousness Mordred saw, beside him on the floor, a crumpled paper that had fallen from the Queen's robe as she knelt beside him.
He saw the writing, elegant and regular, the hand of an expert scribe. And at the foot of the message, a seal. He knew that seal. It was Arthur's.
The story of the letter had, after all, been the truth.
12
MORDRED, WAKING FROM THE first deep swoon, swam up into consciousness to find himself in his own house, with his mistress beside the bed, and Gaheris bending over him.
His head ached fiercely, and he was very weak. His wound had been hurriedly cleaned and bandaged, but blood still oozed, and the whole arm and side seemed to be one throb of pain. He could remember nothing of how he had come here. He did not know that, as he was carried from the Queen's bedchamber, Bedwyr had shouted to the guards to see him safe and to tend his hurts. Bedwyr, indeed, was thinking only of keeping the King's
son safely until the King himself should arrive, but the guards, who had not seen the fight, assumed in the haste and chaos that Mordred had been there to help the regent, so bore him straight to his own house and the care of his mistress. Here Gaheris (having contrived, by feigning to be worse hurt than he was, to elude the guards) had fled under cover of that same chaos, with only one thought in his mind, to get out of Camelot before Arthur's arrival, and to use Mordred to that end.
For Arthur was on his way home, far sooner than he had been looked for. The fateful letter, hurriedly dispatched by a king already on the road, was to warn Guinevere of his imminent arrival, and to ask her to tell Bedwyr immediately. Word had gone round already among the guards; Gaheris had heard them talking. The courier's delay would mean that the King must be only a few short hours behind him.
So Gaheris leaned urgently over the man in the bed.
"Come, brother, before they remember you! The guards brought you here in error. They will soon know that you were with us, and then they will come back. Quickly now! We've got to go. Come with me, and I'll see you safe."
Mordred blinked up at him, vaguely. His face was drained of blood, and his eyes looked unfocused. Gaheris seized a flask of cordial and splashed some of it into a cup. "Drink this. Hurry, man. My servant's here with me. We'll manage you between us."
The cordial stung Mordred's lips. Some of the painful fog lifted, and memory came back.…
It was good of Gaheris, he thought hazily. Good of Gaheris. He had hit Gaheris, and Gaheris had fallen. Then Bedwyr had tried to kill him, Mordred, and the Queen had said no word. Not then, and apparently not since, if the guards were coming back to take him as one of the traitors.… The Queen. She wanted him to die, even though he had saved her life. And he knew why. The reason came to him, through the swimming clouds, like clear and cold logic. She knew of Merlin's prophecy, and so she wanted him to die. Bedwyr, too. So they would lie, and no one would know that he had tried to stop the traitors, had in fact saved her from Gaheris, murderer of women. When the King came, he, Mordred, Arthur's son, would be branded traitor in the sight of all men.…