Wicked Day (37 page)

He had done the obvious thing, the one thing Mordred had not even thought of. Gawain, King of the Orkneys, had gone back to take up the rule of his islands.

1

WINTER PASSED, AND MARCHcame in with its roaring winds and spasmodic storms, then softened towards the sweetness of an early spring. Sea-pinks covered the cliffs with rose, white flowers danced along the arched bramble boughs, red campion and wild hyacinth shone in the grass. Nesting birds called over the lochs, and the moors echoed to the curlew's bubbling note. On every skerry, and every grassy bank near the water, swans had built their weedy castles, and on each one slept a great white bird, head under wing, while the watchful mate cruised nearby, head up and wings set like sails.

The water's surface echoed with the screaming of the oystercatchers and the gulls, and the upper sky quivered with lark-song.

A man and a boy were working on the stretch of moorland heather that covers the rolling center of Orkney's main island. At this time of year the heather was dark and dead-looking, but along the edges of the trodden roadway, and by every bank, crowded the pale, scented primroses. At the foot of the rolling moorland lay a thin strip of grazing, golden with dandelions. Beyond this a great loch stretched, and beyond that again, another, lying almost parallel, the two great waters separated at their southern extremities only by a narrow causeway and a strip of land well trodden by hoofs and feet, for this was a holy place in the islands. Here stood the great circles of stone, brooding, enigmatic, huge, and to be feared even by those who knew nothing of their purpose or their building. It was well known that no horse could be made to cross the causeway between dusk and dawning, and no deer had ever been seen to feed there. Only the goats, unchancy creatures always, would graze between the stones, keeping the grass smooth and short for the ceremonies still practiced there at the right seasons.

The two workers were busy on a level piece of moorland not far above these lochs with their guarded causeway. The man was tall, lean, hard, and though dressed as a peasant he did not move like one; his were the swift economical movements of a trained body. His face, young still, but en graved with bitter lines, was restless, in spite of the country tasks and the tranquil day. Beside him the boy, dark-eyed like his father, helped him peg together a board for one of the hives that would be carried to the moor when the heather bloomed, and set on the neat row of platforms that awaited them.

To them, with no warning but the soft pace of hoofs in the heather, and a shadow falling across the man's preoccupation, came Orkney's king, Gawain.

The man looked up. Gawain, starting a casual greeting, checked his horse sharply and stared.

"Mordred!"

Mordred let fall the mallet he had been using, and got slowly to his feet as a group of riders, a dozen or so with footmen and hounds, followed the king over the brow of the hill. The boy stopped his task and straightened to stare, open-mouthed.

Mordred laid a reassuring hand on his son's shoulder. "Why, Gawain! Greetings."

"You?" said Gawain. "Here? Since when? And who is this?" His look measured the boy. "No, I don't need to ask that! He's more like Arthur—" He checked himself.

Mordred said dryly: "Don't trouble. He speaks only the island tongue."

"By the gods," said Gawain, diverted in spite of himself, "if you got that one before you left here you must have been up earlier than any of us!"

The other riders had come up with them. Gawain, with a gesture, sent them back to wait out of earshot.

He slipped from the saddle, and a groom ran forward to lead his horse aside. Gawain seated himself on one of the wooden platforms. Mordred, after a moment's hesitation, sat down on another. The boy, at a gesture from his father, began to gather up the tools they had been using. He did it slowly, stealing glances all the while at the king and his followers.

"Now," said Gawain, "tell me. How and why, all of it. The tale went out that you were dead, or you'd have been discovered long since, but I never believed that, somehow. What happened?"

"Do you need to ask? Gaheris must have told you. I assumed he was riding to join you."

"You didn't know? But I'm a fool, how could you? Gaheris is dead."

"Dead? How? Did the King catch up with him? I'd hardly have thought, even so—"

"Nothing to do with the King. Gaheris was wounded that night, nothing much, but he neglected it, and it went bad. If he had come to me — but he didn't. He must have known how little welcome he would be.

He went north to his leman, and by the time they got to him there, there was no help for him. Another,"

said Gawain bitterly, "to Bedwyr's account."

Mordred was silent. He himself could mourn none of them but Gareth, but to Gawain, the only survivor now of that busy and close Orkney clan, the loss was heavy. He said as much, and for a while they spoke of the past, memories made more vivid by the familiar landscape stretching around them. Then Mordred, choosing his words, began to feel his way.

"You spoke of Bedwyr with bitterness. I understand this, believe me, but Bedwyr was hardly to blame for Gaheris's own folly. Or, in fact, for anything that happened that night. I don't plan to hold him accountable even for this." He touched his shoulder, briefly. "You must see that, Gawain, now that you have had time to come to terms with your grief. Agravain was the leader that night, and Gaheris with him.

They were determined to destroy Bedwyr, even if it meant destroying the Queen as well. Nothing anyone could say—"

"I know. I knew them. Agravain was a fool, and Gaheris a mad fool, and still carrying the blood-guilt for a worse crime than any done that night. But I was not thinking of them. I was thinking of Gareth. He deserved better of life than to be murdered by a man he trusted, a man whom he had served."

"For the gods' sake, that was no murder!" Mordred spoke explosively, and his son looked up quickly, alarmed. Mordred spoke quietly in the local tongue. "Take the tools back to the house. We'll do no more work here today. Tell your mother I'll come down before long. Don't worry, all is well."

The boy ran off. The two men watched, not speaking, while the slight figure dwindled downhill in the distance. There was a cottage set in a hollow near the loch-side, its thatch barely visible against the heather. The boy vanished through the low doorway.

Mordred turned back to Gawain. He spoke earnestly. "Gawain, don't think I have not grieved for Gareth as much as any man could. But believe me, his death was an accident, as far as a killing in hot blood in a crazy melee can be an accident. And Gareth was armed. Bedwyr was not when he was attacked. I doubt if for the first minutes he even knew who was at the edge of his blade."

"Ah, yes." The bitterness was still in Gawain's voice. "Everyone knows you were on his side."

Mordred's head went up. He spoke incredulously. "You know
what?"

"Well, even if you weren't for Bedwyr, at least it's known you were against the attack. Which was sense, I suppose. Even if they had been caught in bed together, twined naked, the King would have punished the attackers even before he dealt with Bedwyr and the Queen."

"I don't understand you. And this is beside the point. There never was any question of adultery."

Mordred spoke with stiff anger, a royal rebuke that came incongruously from the shabby workmanlike peasant to the splendidly dressed king. "The King had sent a letter to the Queen, which she wished to show Bedwyr. I suppose it was to tell them he was on his way home. I saw it there, in her chamber. And when we broke in they were both fully clad — warmly wrapped, even — and her women were awake in the anteroom. One of them was in the bedchamber with Bedwyr and the Queen. Not an easy setting for adultery."

"Yes, yes." Gawain spoke impatiently. I know all this. I spoke with my uncle the High King." Some echo in the words, in that place, brought memory back. His glance shifted. He said quickly: "The King told me what had happened. It seems you tried to stop the fool Agravain, and you did prevent Gaheris from harming the Queen. If he had even touched her—"

"Wait. This is what I don't understand. How do you know this? Bedwyr could not have seen what happened, or he would not have attacked me as he did. And I think Bors had already gone for the guard.

So how did the King hear the truth of the matter?"

"The Queen told him, of course."

Mordred was silent. The air round him was filled with the singing of the moorland birds, but what he heard was silence, the haunted silence of those long dreaming nights. She had seen. She knew. She had not hunted him away.

He said slowly: "I begin to see. Gaheris told me the guards were coming for me, and I must leave Camelot to save myself. He would take me away to safety, he said, in spite of the risk to himself. Even at the time, astray though I was in my wits, I thought it strange. I had struck him down myself, to save the Queen."

"Gaheris, my dear Mordred, was saving no one's skin but his own. Did it not occur to you to wonder why the guards let him out of the gates, when they must have known of the affray? Gaheris alone they would have stopped. But Prince Mordred, when Bedwyr himself had given orders that he was to be cared for…?"

"I barely remember anything about it. The ride is like a bad dream. Part of a bad dream."

"Then think of it now. That is what happened. Gaheris got out, and away, and as soon as he could he left you, to die or to recover, as God and the good brothers might contrive."

"You know of that, too?"

"Arthur found the monastery after a time, but you had gone. He had riders out searching for you, the length and breadth of the land. In the end they counted you lost, or dead." A smile without mirth in it. "A grim jest of the gods, brother. It was Gaheris who died, and you who were mourned. You would have been flattered. When the next Council was held—"

Mordred did not hear the rest. He got suddenly to his feet, and took a few paces away. The' sun was setting, and westward the water of the great loch shimmered and shone. Beyond it, between it and the blaze of the sunset, loomed the hills of the High Island. He drew a long breath. It was like a slow coming alive again. Once, long ago, a boy had stood like this, on the shore not far from here, with his heart reaching out across the hills and the water to the remote and coloured kingdoms. Now a man stood gazing the same way, seeing the same visions, with the hard bitterness breaking in his brain. He had not been hunted. He had not been traduced. His name was still bright silver. His father sought for him in peace. And the Queen…

Gawain said: "A courier will be here within the sennight. You'll let me send a message?"

"No need. I'll go myself."

Gawain, regarding his lighted face, nodded. "And those?" A gesture towards the distant cottage.

"Will stay here. The boy will soon be able to take my place and do the man's work."

"Your wife, is she?"

"So she calls herself. There was some local rite, cakes and a fire. It pleased her." He turned the subject.

"Tell me, Gawain, how long will you be here?"

"I don't know. The courier may bring news."

"Do you expect to be summoned back again? I hardly need to ask," said Mordred bluntly, "why you are here in the islands. If you do go back, what then of Bedwyr?"

Gawain's face hardened, setting in the familiar obstinate cast. "Bedwyr will tread warily. And so, I suppose, will I."

His gaze went past Mordred. A woman had come out of the distant cottage, and, with the boy beside her, stood gazing towards them. The breeze moulded her gown against her, and her long hair blew free in a flurry of gold.

"Yes, well, I see," said Gawain. "What is the boy's name?"

"Medraut."

"Grandson to the High King," said Gawain, musing. "Does he know?"

"No," said Mordred sharply. "Nor will he. He does not even know he is mine. She was wedded after I left the islands, and she bore three other children before her man was drowned. He was a fisherman. I knew him when we were boys. Her parents live still, and help her care for the children. They made me welcome, and were glad to get us handfasted after so long, but I could see they never expected me to stay for long, and she, certainly, has said she will never leave the islands. I have promised to see them all provided for. To the children—to all four of them—I am their stepfather. Some day Medraut may get to know that he is the bastard of "King Lot's bastard," but that is all, until perhaps one day I send for him.

And saving your presence, brother, there are a few of those around. What need to whet ambition further?"

"What indeed?" Gawain got to his feet. "Well, will you stay with them, or come with me now to await the ship? The palace will give you more comfort than your hiding-place."

"Give me a day or so to make my peace, and I'll come." Mordred laughed suddenly. "It will be interesting to see how its luxury strikes me this time, after these months back at my old tasks! I haven't lost the taste for fishing, but I confess I was not looking forward to digging the peats!"