The Road to Avalon (9 page)

“Wait a minute.” Uther’s voice was breathless. “One question at a time.”

It was another hour before Arthur finally quitted the king’s chamber. He went to his bedroom, his brain teeming with information, and lay awake half of the night analyzing it. When finally he slept, his rest was deep and dreamless.

Uther was not alone for five minutes before Merlin was announced. “Well?” the older man asked as soon as he had crossed the threshold. “What did you think?”

Uther laughed. In the wasted sallowness of his face, his eyes were bright. “He will be a king,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had my brain scoured more ruthlessly.”

Merlin’s own face relaxed. “I was afraid when I left him with you,” he confessed. “Arthur is not always the most . . . approachable of boys.”

A little of the glow died out of the king’s eyes. “I think we understand each other,” he said. “We both have a job to do, and we will work together very well.”

“Arthur is a joy to work with,” Merlin said. “Impossibly demanding because he is so intelligent, but a joy.”

“When the time comes, he will be ready.” Uther looked suddenly exhausted.

Merlin was blunt. “Does he know that you are dying?”

Uther lifted a dark, ironic eyebrow. “Oh, yes. He wanted to know how much time he had.”

There was a pause. Then Merlin said slowly, “He finds it hard to forgive what we did to him.”

Uther shook his head. “Oddly enough, I don’t think that is it at all. I think he has just decided to accept me, not as a father but as a man whose job he must learn. He needed to know how much learning time he had, and so he asked.” The eyebrow was raised again. “I can scarcely expect him to love me, Merlin.”

“No.” Merlin looked away from Uther’s face. “No, one could scarcely expect that.” He looked back. “What shall we do next, then?” he asked, his voice brisk. “Return to Avalon?”

“Yes. Take him to Avalon until the council. I will send Claudius with you. He has been my second-in-command for years. He knows our dispositions and fortifications better than anyone else. Arthur will find him helpful.”

Merlin nodded. “Good idea.”

“Leave early,” Uther continued. “The fewer people who see him, the better. He wears his heritage too clearly on his face.”

“I told you he looked like you.”

“No,” Uther replied. “He looks like Igraine.”

The name fell into the room with the rasp of a high-pitched sound along raw nerves. “You said we should leave early,” Merlin said carefully. “Surely Igraine wishes to see him before we go.”

Lamplight flickered along the hollows of Uther’s face. “I don’t think so,” he said after a minute. Then: “She was not pleased to learn that I had been keeping a secret from her all these years.”

Merlin took two steps forward. “She must see him, Uther!” His voice was sharp. “What will Arthur think if she does not?”

“Does he know she is in Venta?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He asked me and I told him.” There was another pause and then Merlin said, “There is no reason, Uther, for her to refuse to see him. Certainly none that I can decently explain to Arthur. In my opinion, we have had to make far too many explanations to Arthur as it is.”

There was surprise on Uther’s face. “You love him,” he said, an odd note in his voice.

“Is that so strange?”

“You have always spoken of him so . . . dispassionately. I did not realize. That is all.”

Merlin was refusing to meet Uther’s eyes. “He’s a difficult, prickly, self-contained young devil, but yes, I love him.” He looked up at the king. “He fascinates me,” he admitted. “There is something about him that is so compelling . . . ”

“Like my father.”

“Even more so. And Arthur is only sixteen. What will he be like, I wonder, when he is thirty?”

Silence fell between them. From outside they heard the sound of the sentries’ voices as the guard was changed. Then Uther said, “I will ask Igraine to see him before you leave tomorrow morning.”

“I think he deserves that.”

“Yes.” Uther’s hooded gaze was troubled. “I hope he is not expecting a tender reunion scene.”

“Do not worry. He would be horrified should Igraine attempt such a thing. Arthur is as good as she is at keeping himself to himself.”

“Yes,” said Uther dryly. “I noticed.”

Chapter 8

I
T
was very early the following morning when the summons for Arthur came from the queen. Merlin, ushering his grandson toward Igraine’s apartments, felt a moment of panic. This meeting was his doing. Perhaps he should have left well enough alone.

A serving woman opened the door at his knock, then slipped out as they entered, closing the door behind her. The well-furnished chamber was empty save for the woman seated in a carved chair in front of the window, with the merciless morning light falling directly on her face. Whatever her faults, Merlin thought as he put a hand on Arthur’s elbow to guide him across the room, vanity wasn’t one of them.

“Good morning, Father.” Igraine’s voice was chill. She addressed Merlin, but her dark blue eyes were on Arthur.

“Good morning, Igraine,” Merlin replied. Then: “I have brought you your son.”

“Arthur.” Igraine’s eyes were as cold as her voice. They had reached her chair and Merlin put pressure on his grandson’s elbow.

The boy knelt. “My lady,” he said, and raised his face to his mother’s.

Merlin was watching Arthur, not Igraine, and was relieved to see that the boy’s face was not wearing the look he most dreaded. Instead he was gazing at Igraine steadily, his straight black brows drawn slightly together, his profile intent and concentrated. He seemed to be searching for something in his mother’s face.

“You may rise,” the queen said, and Arthur stood. His face was. composed now, his eyes quiet.

All the lines in Igraine’s skin were brutally visible in the light from the window. Lines or no, Merlin thought, she was still the most beautiful woman he knew. Each time he beheld her he wondered anew that she was a child of his. The queen looked from her son to her father. “You did not think to tell me that he was at Avalon for all these years?”

“Uther did not want you to know.”

They were talking about Arthur as if he were not present, but he stood easily and did not seem to mind. Igraine’s long fingers drummed nervously on the arms of her chair. Her golden gown spilled dramatically against the dark purple of its covering. “Uther has called a council to present him as the heir,” she said, and the look she gave her son was not friendly. She rose to her feet, brushed by Arthur as if he were a servant, and began to pace the floor. “It is not necessary,” she said over her shoulder to Merlin. “Not yet. It may well precipitate a civil war. Lot will never accept this boy as Uther’s heir. You know that, Father!”

Merlin was appalled. This was worse than he had ever imagined it could be. He glanced apprehensively at Arthur, fully expecting to find him wearing his most shuttered look. Instead he was looking at his mother with an expression of polite curiosity. Merlin said harshly, “There is no one who can deny Arthur’s birth, Igraine. By the blood of Christ, you have only to look at his face!”

Then Arthur spoke. “I fear, my lady, that you are saddled with me. In the absence of a better candidate.”

His voice was absolutely pleasant. Igraine stopped pacing and stared at him. He gave her a brief businesslike smile.

Merlin let out his breath. It suddenly occurred to him that, of the two of them, it was Igraine who was the more vulnerable. “You don’t understand anything about it,” she was saying to her son.

“On the contrary, I understand very well. The king needs me. Britain needs me. Not because I am Arthur, but because I am the son of Uther and Igraine.” She was standing almost the width of the room away, but he could pitch that flexible voice of his with effortless ease. “Uther has held Britain together for years. He was the only one who could do it, could consolidate the Celts and the Romans in a fight against the Saxons. He is called high king but he is really the war leader, the Comes Britanniarum that his father was. He needs a son because Britain’s only hope of unity lies in the continuation of the high kingship.”

“You tell me nothing I don’t already know.” She stared at him with passive antagonism, like a hawk in a cage. “My point is that in acknowledging you now, he will precipitate the very division he is trying so desperately to avoid.”

“Lot must be faced sooner or later. The king knows that.” The boy’s voice was patient and, Merlin realized with astonishment, kind. “He is tired, Igraine. He has carried this burden for many years. The time has come for him to share some of it.” And then he answered her real fear. “If Lot objects to me, I will deal with him.”

Igraine began to come toward him. “You?” she said. “You are just a boy.” But her voice had changed.

“I am a boy,” he agreed. “But I have nothing better to do.”

She had reached his side. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as her son. “Promise me, Arthur,” she said fiercely, “promise me that you will not let him ride to war against Lot.”

“I promise,” he replied, and Merlin saw that Igraine was satisfied.

The meeting had not followed any of the lines Merlin had imagined. He did not have a chance to speak to Arthur alone until they were once more on the road to Avalon. They were traveling with Claudius Virgilius, Uther’s first general, and Cai, but the two soldiers obligingly dropped back when Merlin indicated that he wished to speak to his grandson.

The road was dusty and their horses’ hooves raised little brown pools of haze as they rode forward at a brisk walk. When the others were out of earshot, Arthur asked, “What precisely is wrong with the king?”

“His heart.”

“I see.”

“Yes. So does everyone else. Except, it seems, Igraine.”

“She perceives me as an acknowledgment of his death.” Arthur’s eyes were narrowed slightly against the sun.

“I fear that is so.” Merlin spoke slowly, testing his words. “Now that you have met her, perhaps she will be easier for you to understand. It is true that Igraine had no care for you when you were a child. But she has never cared for anyone, my boy, except Uther. For him, she is a veritable flame of emotion.” Merlin sighed. “I fear for her when Uther dies. Nothing will comfort her.”

“Perhaps not. But keeping Lot and Morgause off the throne will at least keep her busy.” There was the faintest irony in the lift of Arthur’s brows.

Merlin stared at him and could find nothing to say in reply.

The breeze stirred Arthur’s black hair and his expression suddenly changed. He turned to Merlin with a rare boyish smile and asked lightly, “What do you think Morgan will say when she hears the news?”

Arthur’s voice changed when he said Morgan’s name. It always had. There was no reason, Merlin thought, for that sound to send a shiver of apprehension through his heart.

As they drew nearer to Avalon the country around them grew flatter, more gently rolling. Cai pushed his horse up to Arthur’s side and Merlin tactfully dropped back to give the boys a chance to talk.

Arthur looked his friend up and down. “You’ve grown even bigger than Ector,” he announced. “What do they feed you in the army, Cai?”

Cai laughed. “Nothing to boast about. I’m looking forward to the cooking at Avalon.”

Arthur became serious. “How did this last campaign in the north fare?” he asked, and listened intently as Cai talked.

When Arthur was finished asking questions, Cai turned to personal matters. “When are
you
going to join the army, Arthur? I thought I might see you in Venta sometime this summer.”

The corners of Arthur’s mouth quirked. “I suppose you might say I have joined the army. Claudius Virgilius is coming along to Avalon in order to instruct me.” Cai said nothing, just looked at him. Arthur stared straight ahead. “You see, Cai,” he explained almost apologetically, “I have turned out to be Uther’s son.”

“You look like him.” Cai did not sound surprised. “The first time I saw Uther I thought: By God, he looks like Arthur. And then I began to fit some pieces together. I always knew you were important. You had to be for Merlin to have taken the kind of trouble he did. Like everyone else, I always assumed you were his son. But when I saw the high king, I began to think otherwise.”

Arthur was staring at him. “You might have let me know,” he said in exasperation.

“It was just a suspicion. I had no proof of anything.”

“Well, it’s been one hell of a twenty-four hours,” Arthur said. It was good to have Cai there. “First Merlin tells me I’m the high king’s son, then he throws me into the loving arms of my father and mother. I feel as if I’ve been at the wrong end of a siege engine.”

Cai grinned. “One thing about the army Claudius won’t tell you,” he said. “We could use heavy cavalry.”

The gray eyes lit and Cai’s grin spread. He knew his Arthur. For the rest of the ride the two boys talked horses.

Avalon of the apple trees. Arthur felt as if he’d been away for years instead of overnight, so much had happened to him. He had ridden away a nameless bastard and returned the heir to Britain. His gray eyes were brilliant as they rode into the villa courtyard. Wait until Morgan heard!

Ector came out to greet them and Merlin brought them all into the great reception room that had never, in Arthur’s memory, been used before. Merlin sent for wine.

“Where is Morgan?” her father asked, sparing Arthur the necessity.

“I don’t know,” Ector replied, and Merlin frowned and sent a slave out to look for her.

The old soldier Claudius, whose father had come from Rome with Constantine, was looking around the room with frank admiration. It had always been one of the most classically Roman rooms in Britain: the floor was mosaic, with the tiles depicting a muscular Aeneas carrying his aged father safely away from a burning Troy; the marble in the columns came from Carrara in Italy, as did a large marble-topped table with beautifully carved legs. The company had chosen to sit in the high straight-backed chairs that circled the dais even though the gilded Roman-style couches that were against the wall looked to be more comfortable.