Wicked Day (41 page)

So, in mutual trust, they talked, while the night wore away, and the future seemed set as fair behind the clouded present as the dawn that slowly gilded the sea's edge beyond the windows. If Morgause's ghost had drifted across the chamber in the hazy light and whispered to them of the doom foretold so many years ago, they would have laughed, and watched for the phantasm to blow away on their laughter. But it was the last time that they would ever meet, except as enemies.

At length the King came back to the subject of the coming embassy. Hoel had high hopes of its success, but Arthur, though he had concealed it from his cousin, was less sanguine.

"It may come to a fight yet," he said. "Quintilianus is serving a new master, and is himself on trial, and though I know little enough about those surrounding him, I have a suspicion that he will be afraid to lose credit with that master by treating with us. He, too, needs to make a show of strength."

"A dangerous situation. Why do you not go yourself, sir?"

Arthur smiled. "You might say that that, too, is a question of credit. If I go as an ambassador I cannot take my troops, and if the embassy should fail, then I am seen to fail. I am here in Brittany as a deterrent, not as a weapon.… I dare not be seen to lose, Mordred."

"You cannot lose."

"That is the belief that will subdue Quintilianus and the hopefuls of the new Rome."

Mordred hesitated, then said frankly: "Forgive me, but there's something else. Let me speak now as your deputy, if not your son. Can you trust Gawain and the young men on a mission of this kind? If they go with Valerius and Bors, I think there may be fighting."

"You may be right. But we shall lose little by it. Sooner or later there must be fighting, and I would rather fight here, against an enemy not yet fully prepared, than on my own borders the other side of the Narrow Sea. If the Franks hold the line with us, then we may well succeed in deterring this emperor. If they do not, then for the present the worst that can happen is that we lose Brittany. In that case we take our people, those who are left, back to their homeland, and find ourselves once again embattled behind our blessed seas." He looked away, staring into the heart of the fire, and his eyes were grave. "But in the end it will all come again, Mordred. Not in my time, nor, please God, in yours, but before your sons are old men it will come. It will not be an easy task, whoever attempts it. First the Narrow Sea, and then the ramparts of the Saxon and English kingdoms, manned by men fighting for their own lands. Why do you think I have been determined to let the Saxons own their settled lands? Men fight for what is theirs. And by the time our shores are seriously threatened, I shall have Cerdic on my side."

"I see. I wondered why you did not seem more worried about the embassy."

"We need the time it may buy for us. If it fails we fight now. As simple as that. Now it grows late, so to finish our business." He reached a hand towards the table where a letter lay, sealed with the dragon seal.

"Invincible or not, I have given thought to the chance of my death. Here is a letter, which in that event you are to use. In it I have informed the Council that you are my heir. Duke Constantine knows well that my oath to his father was only valid in default of a son of my body. Like it or not, he must accept it. I have written to him, too, a letter that he cannot gainsay. With it comes a grant of land; his dukedom will include the lands that came to me with my first wife, Guenever of Cornwall. I hope he will be content. If he is not" — a glint in the King's eyes as he glanced up at his son — "then that will be your affair, not mine.

Watch him, Mordred. If I live, then I myself will call the Council as soon as I return to Camelot, and all this will be settled publicly once and for all."

It is never easy to receive a bequest from one still living. Mordred, for once at a loss for words, began to speak, haltingly, but the King waved him into silence, coming at last to the subject that, to Mordred, would have been first.

"The Queen," said Arthur, his gaze on the fire. "She will be under your protection. You will love and care for her as her own son, and you will see to it that for the rest of her days she lives safely, with the honour and comfort due to her. I do not ask you to swear this, Mordred, knowing that I need not,"

"I do swear it!" Mordred, on his knees by his father's chair, spoke for once with uncontrolled emotion. "I swear by all the gods there are, by the God of the kingdom's churches, and the Goddess of the isles, and the spirits that live in the air, that I will hold the kingdoms for the Queen, and love and care for her and secure her honour as you would do were you still High King."

Arthur reached to take the younger man's hands between his own, and raising him, kissed him. Then he smiled.

"So now we will stop talking about my death, which will not come yet awhile, I assure you! But when it does, I give my kingdoms and my Queen into your hands with a quiet spirit, and with my blessing and God's."

Next day Mordred sailed for home. A few days after he had gone, the embassy, gay with coloured pennants and tossing plumes, set out for Quintilianus Hiberus' encampment.

Gawain and his friends rode at ease. Though the talk was of the sort that Mordred would have recognized — the young men looking to Gawain for reckless leadership and excitement — they did contain themselves with decorum on the ride. But none of the younger faction made any attempt to conceal their hope that the peaceful overtures would fail, and that they would see action.

"They say Quintilianus is a hot man, and a clever soldier. Why should he listen to an old man giving another old man's message?" Such was Mador's description of King Hoel's embassy. Others chimed in:

"If we don't get fighting, at least they're sure to show us sport — games, hunting — and it will go hard if we cannot show these foreigners what we can do!" Or again: "They say the horses in Gaul are beauties.

We might get some trading done, if the worst comes to the worst."

But it seemed they were doomed to disappointment on all counts. Quintilianus' headquarters was a temporary camp built on a bleak stretch of moorland. The party arrived towards evening of a dull day with a chilly wind carrying rain. The dead springtime heather stretched black and wet on every hand, the only colour in the moorland being the livid green of the boggy stretches, or the metallic gleam of water.

The camp itself was laid out on the Roman pattern. It was well built with turf's and stout timber, and was impressive enough as a temporary stance, but the young Britons, ignorant of warfare and accustomed to the great Roman-based permanent structures of Caerleon and Segontium, looked about them with disappointment and contempt.

It was hard to say whether caution or care for his guests' comfort had impelled Quintilianus Hiberus to house the British outside the walls of the camp. Tents had been erected some hundred paces outside the surrounding ditch, with their own horse lines and a pavilion which would serve as a hall. There they were invited to dismount, while their own grooms took their horses to the lines. Then on foot they were led up the main way towards the camp's center, where the commander's headquarters stood.

There Quintilianus Hiberus and Marcellus, his second in command, received the embassy with chilly courtesy. Speeches, previously prepared and learned by rote, were exchanged. They were long, and so over-careful as to be almost incomprehensible. No mention was made either of the emperor's message or of Hoel's intentions. Rather, a rambling account of the old king's health was produced in answer to their host's indifferent query, with details, delicately touched on, of his cousin Arthur's anxiety, which had provoked that warrior to visit Brittany's king. That he had brought a sizeable force with him was not stated, but the Roman consul knew it, and they knew that he knew.…

Only when the polite sharpening of blades had been going on for some time did Guerin and Bors allow themselves to approach a statement — still far from direct — of Hoel's position and its backing by Arthur of Britain.

The young men, waiting formally behind their ambassadors, chafing after the decorous inaction of the ride, and thinking of food and recreation, had time to grow bored, to eye their surroundings curiously, and to exchange stares with the warriors of the opposite faction who waited in equal boredom behind their own leaders.

These leaders, after a lengthy and dragging parley, made more tedious than need be by the fact that Bors spoke little or no Latin, and Marcellus spoke nothing else, came at length to a stalemate pause. There would be, said Quintilianus, drawing his mantle about him and rising, further parley tomorrow. Meanwhile the visitors would no doubt care to rest and refresh themselves. They would be shown now to the tents prepared for them.

The ambassadors bowed gravely and withdrew. Their hosts came forward, and the party was escorted back through the camp. "No doubt," said the youth escorting Gawain, with rather threadbare politeness,

"you are weary after your journey? You will find the lodgings rough, I am afraid, but we ourselves have become accustomed to living in the field—"

He yawned as he spoke. This meant no more than that he was as weary of the talks as the other young men, but Gawain, bored, contemptuous, and beginning to see his hopes of glory fading, chose to take it otherwise.

"Why should you think we are not used to rough quarters? Because we have come with a peaceful embassy, it doesn't mean that we are not fighters, and as ready in the field as any rabble on this side of the Narrow Seal"

The youth, surprised, and then as quickly angry as the other, flushed scarlet to his fair hair. "And what field of battle have you ever been on. Sir Braggart? It's a long time since Agned and Badon! Even the fabled Arthur, that your fellows were boasting about in there, would be hard put to it to wage a war nowadays, with men who are only good for talking!"

Before Gawain could even draw breath, "And not even too good at that," put in someone else, with a cruel imitation of Bors's thick Latin.

There was laughter, and through it a quick attempt by cooler spirits to pass the exchange off with jesting, but Gawain's brow was dark, and hot words still flew. The fair youth, who seemed to be someone of consequence, bore through the talk with a ringing shout of anger: "So? Didn't you come all this way to beg us not to fight you? And now you boast and brag about what your leaders can do! What do you expect us to think of such empty braggarts?"

Here Gawain drew his sword and ran him through.

The stunned minutes that followed, of unbelief, then of horror and confusion, as the fallen man's companions ran to raise him and find if life remained in him, gave the British just enough time to escape.

Gawain, shouting, "Get to the horses!" was already half-way to the picket lines, followed closely by his friends who, from the moment the bitter words began to pass, had seen the violent end coming. The ambassadors, dismayed, hesitated only for a moment before following. If the assailant had been any other than Arthur's nephew, they might have given him over to the punishment due to one who broke a truce, but as it was, the leaders knew that the embassy, never hopeful, was now irretrievably shattered, and all their party, as truce-breakers, were in great danger. Valerius, an old soldier used to instant decisions, took swift command, and had his whole party mounted and out of the lines at the gallop before their hosts had well grasped what had occurred.

Gawain, wildly galloping with the rest, struggled to pull his horse out of the troop and wheel back.

"This is shameful! To run away, after what they said? Shame on you, shame! They called us cowards before, what will they call us now?"

"Dead men, you fool!" Valerius, furiously angry, was in no mood to mince words, prince or no prince.

His hand came hard down on Gawain's rein, and dragged the horse into the rapid gallop alongside his own. "It's shame on you, prince! You knew what the kings wanted from this embassy. If we come alive out of this, which is doubtful, then we shall see what Arthur will have to say to you!"

Gawain, still rebellious and unrepentant, would have replied, but at that moment the troop came to a river, and they spread out to force their horses through it. They could have forded it had there been time, but at that moment the pursuing party came in sight, and there was nothing for it but to fight. Valerius, furious and desperate, turned and gave orders for the attack.

The engagement, with tempers high on both sides, was short, ferocious and very bloody. The fight was a running one, and ended only when half the embassy, and rather more of the pursuing force, were dead.

Then the Romans, gathered for a few minutes' respite at the edge of a little wood, seemed to be taking counsel, and presently two of their number turned and made off towards the east.

Valerius, unwounded, but exhausted and liberally stained with other men's blood, watched them go.

Then he said, grimly: "Gone for reinforcements. Right. There's nothing we can do here. We leave. Now.

Bring the loose horses and pick up that man yonder. He's alive. The rest we'll have to leave."

This time there was no argument. The British turned and rode off. The Romans made no attempt to stop them, nor were any taunts exchanged. Gawain had had his way, and proved what had not needed to be proved. And both sides knew what must happen now.

4

MORDRED SAT AT THE WINDOW of the King's business room in Camelot. The scents from the garden below eddied on the warm breeze in sudden gusts of sweetness. The apple blossom was gone, but there were cherries still in bloom, standing deep among bluebells and the grey spears of iris. The air was full of the sound of bees, and birds singing, while down in the town bells rang for some Christian service.

The royal secretaries had gone, and he was alone. He sat, still thinking over some of the work that had been done that day, but gradually, in the scented warmth, his thoughts drifted into dreaming. So little time ago, it seemed, he had been in the islands, living as he had lived in boyhood, thinking in bitterness that he had lost everything in that one night when the Orkney brothers had risked all for themselves and their friends on that mad, vicious attempt to finish Bedwyr. Thinking, too, of the summer's tasks ahead of him: harvesting and drying fish, cutting peats, rebuilding walls and repairing thatch against the dreadful Orkney winter.