"But the Franks? King Childebert?" asked Mordred.
"Like his brothers, a mere shadow of their father. Hoel believes they must have had the same demand, so it looks as if Rome must have strength enough to enforce it. Mordred, I am afraid of this emperor. The Celtic lands have not weathered Rome's desertion, and the threat of barbarian domination, to accept once again the collar and chain of Rome, whatever "protection" she brings with her."
The situation, Mordred reflected, was not without its ironies. Arthur, blamed at home by the Young Celts for his adherence to Roman forms of law and centralized government, was nevertheless prepared to resist a possible attempt to bring Celtic territories back within Rome's fold.
"Under her yoke, rather!" said Arthur, in reply to his son's wry comment. "The times are long past when, in return for tribute, a king and his people were protected. Britain was taken by force, and thereafter forced to pay tribute to Rome. In return she enjoyed, after the settlement, a period of peace. Then Rome, self-seeking as always, lifted her shield, and left her weakened dependencies open to the barbarians. We in these islands, and our cousins in their near-isle of Brittany, alone kept our nationhood and remained stable. We have achieved our own peace. Rome cannot expect now to reimpose debts we do not owe. We have as much right to demand tribute from her for Roman territories which are now British again!"
Mordred said, startled: "Are you saying that this new emperor — Justinian? — has demanded tribute of us?"
"No. Not yet. But if he has asked it of Brittany, then sooner or later he will ask it of me."
"When do you go, sir?"
"Preparations are already well forward. We go as soon as we may. Yes, I said "we." I want you with me."
"But with Bedwyr away in Brittany — or will you leave Duke Constantine in charge here?"
Arthur shook his head. "No need. It should not be a long visit. The immediate business is this trouble in the Perilous Forest, and that should not take us long to clear up." He smiled. "If we do see action there, you can call it re-training after your holiday in the Orkney isles! If the other matter becomes serious, then I shall send you home as my regent. Meanwhile I shall leave the Council in charge, with the Queen, and send a sop to Duke Constantine in the form of a letter charging him with the guardianship of the west."
"A sop?"
"A comfort and a drug, maybe, for a violent and ambitious gentleman." Arthur nodded at Mordred's quick lift of the brows. "Yes. Too violent, I have long thought, for the country's need. His father Cador, to whom I promised the kingdoms in default of an heir of my body, was of different metal. This man is as good a fighter as his father, but I mislike some of the tales I have heard about him. So I give him a little favour, and when I return from Brittany, I will send for him here and come to an understanding."
They were interrupted then by an urgent message relayed from the harbour on Ynys Witrin where the Sea Dragon lay. She was equipped, provisioned, and ready to sail. So the King said no more, and he and Mordred parted to make ready for the journey into Brittany.
2
AS SO OFTEN HAPPENS, ONE trouble breeds another. While Arthur and his Companions were still on the Narrow Sea, tragedy, this time real and immediate, struck at Brittany's royal house.
King Hoel's niece Elen, sixteen years old and a beauty, set out one day from her father's home towards Hoel's castle at Kerrec. The party never arrived. Her guards and servants were attacked and killed, and the girl and one of her women, her old nurse, Clemency, were carried off. The other woman in the party, though unhurt, was too shocked to give a coherent account of what had happened. The attack had taken place at dusk, almost within sight of the place where the party had proposed to lodge for the night, and she had not noticed what badge the attackers wore, or indeed anything about them, except that their leader, he who had dragged Elen up before him on his horse and spurred off into the forest, had been "a giant of a man, with eyes like a wolf and a shock of hair like a bear's pelt, and an arm like an oak tree."
Hoel, not unnaturally discounting most of this, jumped to the conclusion that the outrage was the work of the ruffians who had been terrorizing the Forest. Whether they were Bretons or Franks, his hand was forced. The women must be rescued, and the attackers punished. Even King Childebert would not blame the Breton king for avenging such an outrage. Arthur and his party sailed into Kerrec's harbour to find the place in a turmoil, and themselves just in time to lead the hastily mounted punitive expedition into the Forest. Hoel's chief captain, a trusted veteran, with a troop of Breton cavalry, accompanied Arthur and his Companions.
The party rode fast, and more or less in silence. According to what information could be gathered from the princess's surviving waiting-woman, the attack had taken place on a lonely stretch of road just where the way left the Forest and bordered a brackish lake. This was one of the shore lagoons, not quite an inlet of the sea, but moved by the tides, and in spring and autumn washed through by the sea itself.
They reached the lake shore soon after dusk, and halted short of the site of the abduction, to wait for daylight, and for Bedwyr to join them. There had been no rain for several days, so Arthur was hopeful that there would still be traces of the struggle, and tracks to show which way the marauders had gone. Hoel's messenger had gone ahead already to Benoic, and now, just as orders were given for the night's halt, Bedwyr arrived out of the dark with a troop of men at his back.
Arthur greeted his friend with joy, and over supper they fell at once to talk and planning for the next move. No shadow of the past seemed to touch them; the only reference, and that oblique, to the events that had banished Bedwyr to Less Britain was when he greeted Mordred.
This was after supper, when the latter was on his way to the pickets to see that his horse had been properly cared for. Bedwyr fell in beside him, apparently bent on the same errand.
"They tell me that you, too, have been sojourning in the outer dark, Mordred. I am glad to see you back with the King. You are fully recovered now, I trust?"
"Small thanks to you, yes," said Mordred, but smiling. He added: "On second thoughts, all thanks to you. You could have killed me, and we both know it."
"Not quite so easy. The decisions were not all mine, and I think we both know that, too. You're a bonny fighter, Mordred. Some day perhaps we may meet again… and in rather less earnest?"
"Why not? Meantime I am told I am to wish you happy. I gather you are lately wedded? Who is she?"
"Her father is Pelles, a king in Neustria whose land borders mine. Her name is Elen, too."
The name jolted them back to the urgencies of the moment. As they inspected their horses Mordred said: "You must know the ground hereabouts?"
"I know it well. It's barely a day's ride from my family's castle of Benoic. We used to hunt here, and fish the lake. Many's the time my cousins and I—"
He broke off, straightening.
"Look yonder, Mordred! What's that?"
"That" was a point of light, red, nickering with shadows. Another wavered below it.
"It's a fire. On the shore, or near it. You can see the reflection."
"Not on the shore," said Bedwyr. "The shore is farther away. There's an island there, though. We used to land and make fire to cook the fish. It must be there."
"No one lives there?"
"No. There's nothing there. That side of the lake is wild land, and the island itself nothing but a pile of rock with ferns and heather, and on the summit a grove of pine trees. If someone is there now it's worth our while to find out who it is."
"An island?" said Mordred. "It might well be. A good choice, one would think, for a night or so of undisturbed rape."
"It has been known," said the other, very dryly. He turned with the words, and the two men went swiftly back to Arthur.
The King had already seen the fire. He was giving orders, and men were hurrying to saddle up again. He turned quickly to Bedwyr.
"You saw? Well, it could be. It's worth looking at, anyway. How do we
best get there? And without alarming them?"
"You can't surprise them with horses. It's an island." Bedwyr repeated what he had told Mordred. "There's a spit of land, rock and gravel, running out from the shore on the far side of the lake. That's about three miles from here. You can get half that distance by the shore road, then you must leave it and enter the forest. There's no path there along the shore; you would have to make a wide detour to skirt the thick trees. Bad going, and quite impossible in the dark. And the forest goes all the way to the sea."
"Then it hardly seems likely that their horses are round there. If that's our rapist still on the island, then he got there by boat, and his horse will still be on the shore road. Right. We'll take a look, then picket the road in case he tries to make a break. Meanwhile we need a boat ourselves. Bedwyr?"
"There should be one not far away. This is oyster water. The beds are only a short way from here, and there may be a boat there—unless, of course, that's the one he took."
But the oyster-fisher's boat was there, lying beached on the shingle near a pier of rough stones. The boat was a crude, shallow-draught affair with an almost flat bottom. Normally she would be poled out slowly over the oyster-beds, but there were paddles, too, tied together and stuck up in the ground like flagstaff's.
Willing hands seized her and shoved her down the shingle. The men moved quietly and quickly, without talking.
Arthur, looking out towards the distant glimmer, spoke softly. "I'll take the shore road. Bedwyr" — a smile sounded in his voice — "you're the expert on expeditions of this kind. The island's yours. Who do you want with you?"
"These craft won't hold more than two, and they're hard to handle if you're to go farther than pole depth. I'll take the other expert. The fisherman's son, if he'll come."
"Mordred?"
"Willingly." He added, dryly: "Re-training after my sojourn in the islands?" and heard Arthur laugh under his breath.
"Go, then, and God go with you. Let us pray the girl still lives."
The boat went smoothly down the bank, met the water, and rode rocking there. Bedwyr took his seat cautiously in the stern, with the pole overside to act as rudder, and Mordred, stepping lightly in after him, gripped the paddles, and settled down to row. With a last shove from the men on shore, they were afloat, and drifting into darkness. They could just hear, above the lapping of the lake, the muffled sounds as the troop moved off, their horses keeping to the soft edges of the roadway.
Mordred rowed steadily, pushing the clumsy craft through the water at a fair speed. Bedwyr, motionless in the stern, watched for the guiding glimmer from the island.
"The fire must be almost dead. I've lost the light.… Ah, it's all right, I can see the island shore now. By your left a little. That's it. Keep as you are."
Soon the island was quite clear to their night-sight. It was small, peaked, black against dark, floating dimly on the faint luminescence of the lagoon. A slight breeze ruffled the water, and concealed the sound of the paddles. Now that the fitful and somehow baleful light of the fire had vanished, the night seemed empty, and very peaceful. There were stars, and the breeze smelled of the sea.
They both heard it at the same moment. Over the water, in a lull of the breeze, came a sound, soft and dreadful, that dispelled the illusory peace of the night. A long, keening ululation of grief and fear. On the island. A woman crying.
Bedwyr cursed under his breath. Mordred drove the paddles in hard, and the clumsy boat jumped and lurched, swinging broadside onto the rock of the shore. He shipped the paddles and grabbed at the rock in one spare, expert movement. Bedwyr jumped past him, his sword ready in his hand.
He paused for a moment, winding his cloak round his left arm. "Beach her. Find his boat and sink it. If he dodges me, stay here and kill him."
Mordred was already out, and busy with the rope. From the black wooded bank above them the sounds came again, hopeless, terrified. The night was filled with weeping. Bedwyr, treading from shingle to pine needles, vanished in silence.
Mordred made the boat fast, drew his own weapon, and moved quietly along the shingle, looking for the other boat.
The island was tiny. In a very few minutes he was back at his starting-point. There was no boat. Whoever he was, whatever he had done, he was gone. Mordred, his sword at the ready, climbed fast after Bedwyr towards the noise of weeping.
The fire was not quite out. A pile of ashes still showed a residual glow. Beside it, in its faint red light, the woman sat, hunched and wailing. Her hair, straggling unbound over a torn robe of some dark colour, showed pale. The fire had been kindled on the island's summit, where a stand of pine trees, clinging to what seemed to be bare rock, had laid down a carpet of needles, and where a cairn, built long ago and fallen apart with time and weather, made some sort of crude shelter. The grove appeared to be empty but for the crouched and mourning figure of the woman.
Mordred, many years younger than the other man, was close behind him as he reached the grove. The two men paused there.
She heard them, and looked up. The starlight, and the faint glimmer from the fire, showed that this was no girl, but an old woman, grey-haired, her face a mask of fear and grief. The wailing stopped as if she had been struck in the throat. Her body stiffened. Her mouth gaped wider, as if for a scream.
Bedwyr put out a hand and spoke quickly: "Madam — Mother — don't be afraid. We are friends. Friends. We have come to help."
The scream was choked back on a strangled gasp. They heard her breathing, short and ragged, as she strained white-eyed to see them.
They moved forward slowly. "Be calm. Mother," said Bedwyr. "We are from the King—"
"From which king? Who are you?"
Her voice was breathless and shaking, but now with the exhaustion of grief, not fear. Bedwyr had spoken in the local tongue, and she answered in the same. Her accent was broader than Bedwyr's, but the language of Less Britain was close enough to that of the mother kingdom for Mordred to understand it easily.
"I am Bedwyr of Benoic, and this is Mordred, son of King Arthur. We are King's men, seeking for the lady Elen. She has been here? You were with her?"
Mordred, while Bedwyr was speaking, had stooped to pick up a handful of pine drift, and a broken spar of wood. He scattered the stuff on the ashes, and a flame spurted, caught and held. Light nickered up redly, and showed the woman more clearly.
She was well, though plainly, dressed, and was perhaps sixty years old. Her clothing was dirtied and torn, as if in some sort of struggle. Her face, grimed and distorted with weeping, showed a big discoloured patch of bruising over one cheek, and her lips were split and crusty with dried blood.
"You come too late," she said.
"Where has he gone? Where has he taken her?"
"I mean too late for the Princess Elen." She pointed towards the tumbled cairn of stones. They looked that way. Now in the strengthening light of the fire they could see that something — someone — had been scrabbling in the thickly heaped pine needles. Some of the smaller stones from the cairn had been pulled down, and pine cones and needles scattered over them.
"It was all I could do," said the woman. She held out her hands. They were shaking. The men looked at them, stirred by horror and pity. The hands were torn and bruised and bloody.
The two knights went across to the cairn where the body lay. It was imperfectly hidden. Beneath the scattered stones and pine needles the girl's face could be seen, streaked with dirt and agonized with death. Her eyes had been closed, but the mouth gaped still, and the neck, with the death marks on the throat, hung crookedly.
Bedwyr, still with the gentleness that Mordred would never have suspected in him, said, half to himself: "She has a lovely face. God give her rest." Then, turning: "Don't grieve. Mother. She shall go home to her own people, and lie in royal fashion, at peace with her gods. And this foul beast shall die, and go to his, for his just reward."
He took a flask from his belt and knelt beside her, holding it to her lips.
She drank, sighed, and in a while grew calmer. Soon she was able to tell them what had happened.
She did not know who the ravisher was. He was not, she affirmed to their relief, a foreigner. He had spoken but little, and that mostly curses, but he and his followers were unmistakably Bretons. The reports of a "giant" were not so very far wrong: He was a man huge in every way, stature, girth, strength, with a loud voice and a bellowing laugh. A bull of a man, who had burst out of cover with three companions — roughly clad fellows, like common thieves — and slain four of the princess's escort with his own hands before they had well had time to recover from their surprise. The remaining three fought valiantly but were all killed. Herself and the princess were dragged away, Elen's other woman ("a poor thing, who wailed and screamed so, if I had been one of those beasts I would have killed her on the spot," said the nurse trenchantly) had been left alone, but the attackers, riding off, took the party's horses with them, so had little fear of pursuit.
"They brought us to this place, at the water's edge. It was still dark, so it was hard to make out the way. One of them stayed with the horses on shore, and the others rowed us across to this rock. My lady was half fainting, and I tried to tend her. I had no other thoughts. We could not have escaped. The big man — the bull — carried her up the rocks to this place. The other fellows would have dragged me after, but I dodged them and ran, and when they saw that I had no intention of trying to leave my lady, they let me be."
She coughed, and licked her cut lips. Bedwyr held out the flask again, but she shook her head and presently continued: "The rest I cannot speak of, but you can guess at it. The two fellows held me while he — the bull — raped her. She was never strong. A pretty girl, but pale always, and often ill during the cold winters."
She stopped again, and bent her head. Her fingers twisted together.