Wicked Day (43 page)

"I knew you would call it folly!" With an obvious attempt at lightness, she turned the subject.

"But believe me, it is something that every wife does. What of your own, Mordred?"

"My—?"

She looked confused. "Am I mistaken? I thought you were married. I am sure someone spoke of a son of yours at Gwarthegydd's court of Dumbarton."

"I am not married." Mordred's reply was rather too quick, and rather too emphatic. She looked surprised, and he threw a hand out, adding: "But you heard correctly, madam. I have two sons." A smile and a shrug. "Who am I, after all, to insist on wedlock? The two boys are by different mothers. Melehan is the younger, who is with Gwarthegydd. The other is still in the islands."

"And their mothers?"

"Melehan's mother is dead." The lie came smoothly. Since the Queen apparently had known nothing about his illicit household in Camelot, he would not confess it to her now. "The other is satisfied with the bond between herself and me. She is an Orkney woman, and they have different customs in the islands."

"Then married or not," said Guinevere, still with that forced lightness, "she is still a woman, and she, like me, must live through the same dreams of the wicked day when a messenger comes with worse news than this you have brought to me."

Mordred smiled. If he thought that his woman had too much to occupy her than to sit and dream about his death and burial, he did not say so. Women's folly, indeed. But as he held his hand for the letter, and she put the roll into it, he saw again how her hand shook. It changed his thoughts about her. To him she had been the Queen, the lovely consort of his King, the elusive vision, too, of his desires, a creature of gaiety and wealth and power and happiness. It was a shock to see her now, suddenly, as a lonely woman who lived with fear. "We have nothing to do but wait and watch and hope," she had said.

It was something he had never thought about. He was not an imaginative man, and in his dealings with women — Morgause apart — he followed in the main his peasant upbringing. He would not wittingly have hurt a woman, but it would not have occurred to him to go out of his way to help or serve one. On the contrary, they were there to help and serve him.

With an effort of imagination that was foreign to him he cast his mind forward, trying to think as a woman might, to fear fate as it would affect the Queen. When Arthur did meet death, what could she expect of the future? A year ago the answer would have been simple: Bedwyr would have taken the widow to Benoic, or to his lands in Northumbria. But now Bedwyr was married, and his wife was with child. More than that: Bedwyr, in sober fact, was not likely to survive any action in which Arthur was killed. Even now, as Mordred and the Queen talked together in this scented garden, the battle might already be joined that would bring to reality her dream of the wicked day. He recalled her letter to Arthur, with its unmistakable note of fear. Fear not only of Arthur's danger, but of his own. "You or your son," she had written. Now, with a sudden flash of truth as painful as a cut, he knew why. Duke Constantine. Duke Constantine, still officially next in line for the throne and already casting his eyes towards Camelot, whose title would be greatly strengthened if, first, he could claim the Queen-regent.…

He became conscious of her strained and questioning gaze. He answered it, forcefully.

"Madam, for your dreams and fears, let me only say this. I am certain that the King's own skill, and your prayers, will keep him safe for many years to come, but if it should happen, then have no fear for yourself. I know that Constantine of Cornwall may try to dispute the King's latest disposition—"

"Mordred—"

"With your leave, madam. Let us speak directly. He has ambitions for the High Kingdom, and you fear him. Let me say this. You know my father's wish, and you know that it will be carried out. When I succeed him as High King, then you need fear nothing. While I live you will be safe, and honoured."

The red flew up into her cheeks, and her look thanked him, but all she said was, trying still to smile: "No cast-off queen?"

"Never that," said Mordred, and took his leave.

In the shadow of the garden gateway, out of sight of the arbour, he stopped. His pulse was racing, his flesh burned. He stood there motionless while the heat and hammering slowly subsided. Coldly he crushed back the lighted picture in his mind: the roses, the grey-blue eyes, the smile, the touch of the tremulous hands. This was folly. Moreover, it was useless folly. Arthur, Bedwyr… whatever Mordred was or might be, until both Arthur and Bedwyr were dead, with that lovely lady he could come only a poor and halting third.

He had been too long without a woman. To tell the truth, he had been too busy to think about them. Till now. He would find time tonight, and quench these hot imaginings.

But all the same, he knew that today his ambition had taken a different turn. There were precedents, undisputed. He had no wife. She was barren, but he had two sons. If Constantine could think about it, then so could he. And by all the gods in heaven and hell, Constantine should not have her.

With the King's letter crumpled fiercely in his hand, he strode back to the royal chamber, shouting for the secretaries.

5

IT WAS SOME TIME BEFORE Mordred saw the Queen again. He was plunged immediately into the whirlwind business of equipping and embarking the troops Arthur had asked for. In a commendably short time the expeditionary force sailed, under the command of Cei, the King's foster brother, with a reasonable hope of coming up with Arthur's army before the clash came. The courier who returned from this voyage brought news that was, on the whole, cheering: Arthur, with Bedwyr and Gawain, had already set out on the march eastward, and King Hoel, finding himself miraculously recovered at the prospect of action, had gone with them. The Frankish kings, with a considerable army, were also reported to be converging on Autun, where Arthur would set up his camp.

After this, news came only spasmodically. None of it was bad, but, coming as it did long after the events reported, it could not be satisfactory. Cei and the British kings had joined Arthur; that much was known; and so had the Franks. The weather was good, the men were in high heart, and no trouble had been met with on the march.

So far, that was all. What the Queen was feeling Mordred did not know, nor did he have time to care.

He was setting about the second of Arthur's commissions, raising and training men to bring the standing army up to strength after the departure of the expeditionary force. He sent letters to all the petty kings and leaders in the north and west, and himself followed where persuasion was needed. The response was good: Mordred had laid openly on the table the reasons for his demand, and the response from the Celtic kingdoms was immediate and generous. The one leader who made no reply at all was Duke Constantine.

Mordred, keeping the promised eye on the Cornish dukedom, said nothing, set spies, and doubled the garrison at Caerleon. Then, once the tally of kings and the arrangements for receiving and training the new army were complete, he sent at last to Cerdic the Saxon king, to propose the meeting Arthur had suggested.

It was late July when Cerdic's answer came, and that same day, on an afternoon of misty rain, a courier arrived from the Burgundian battlefront, bearing with him a single brief dispatch, with other tokens which, when the man spilled them on the table in front of Mordred, told a dreadful tale.

As was usual, most of his news would be given verbally, learned by rote. He began to recite it, now to the still-faced regent.

"My lord, the battle is over, and the day was ours. The Romans and the Burgundians were put to flight, and the emperor himself recalled what force was left. The Franks fought nobly alongside us, and on all sides some marvellous deeds were done. But—"

The man hesitated, wetting his lips. It was apparent that he had given the good news first, in the hope of cushioning what was to follow. Mordred neither moved nor spoke. He was conscious of a fast-beating heart, a constricted throat, and the necessity for keeping steady the hand that lay beside the spilled tokens on the table. They lay in a jumbled and glittering pile, proof that a tragic story was still to come.

Seals, rings, badges of office, campaign medals, all the mementoes that, stripped from the dead, would be sent home to the widows. Cei's badge was there, the royal seneschal's gilded brooch. And a medal from Kaerconan, rubbed thin and bright; that could only be Valerius". No royal ring; no great ruby carved with the Dragon, but—

But the man, the veteran of a hundred reports, both good and evil, was hesitating. Then, meeting Mordred's eye, he swallowed and cleared his throat. It was a long time since the bearers of bad news had had, as in some barbarous lands, to fear ill-treatment and even death at the hands of their masters; nevertheless his voice was hoarse with something like fear as he spoke again. This time he was direct to the point of brutality.

"My lord, the King is dead."

Silence. Mordred could not trust himself with word or movement. The scene took on the shifting and misted edges of unreality. Thought was suspended, as random and weightless as a drop of the fine rain that drifted past the windows.

"It happened near the end of the day's fighting. Many had fallen, Cei among them, and Gugein, Valerius, Mador and many others. Prince Gawain fought nobly; he is safe, but Prince Bedwyr fell wounded on the left. It is feared that he, too, will die.…"

His voice went on, naming the dead and wounded, but it was doubtful if Mordred heard a word of it. He moved at last, interrupting the recital. His hand went out to the parchment lying on the table.

"It is all here?"

"The news, my lord, but not the details. The dispatch was sent by Prince Bedwyr himself. While he could still speak he had them write it. The list of casualties will follow as soon as they are known and checked, but this, my lord, could not be delayed."

"Yes. Wait, then."

He took the letter across to a window, and with his back to the man, spread the page out on the sill. The careful script danced under his eyes. The drifting curtain of the rain seemed to have come between him and the letter. He dashed the back of his hand impatiently across his face and bent nearer.

In the end, and after three careful readings, the sense of it went right into his brain and lodged there, thrumming like the arrow that lodges deep in the flesh, spreading, not pain, but a numbing poison.

Arthur was dead. The news that followed, of complete and annihilating victory over the Romans and Burgundians, came as an irrelevance. Arthur was dead. The dispatch, dictated hastily in a field dressing station, gave few details. The High King's body had not yet been recovered from the field. Parties were still searching among the piled and pillaged dead. But if the King were still living, said Bedwyr tersely, he would by this time have made himself known. The regent must assume his death, and act accordingly.

The parchment slipped from Mordred's hand and floated to the floor. He did not notice. Through the window beside him, washed and sweet on the damp air, floated the scents of the Queen's garden. He looked out at the rain-heavy roses, the glittering leaves that quivered under the drifting drops, the misted grass. No one was there today. Wherever she was, she would know of the courier's coming, and she would be waiting for him. He would have to go to her and tell her. Arthur. And Bedwyr. Arthur and Bedwyr both. That was enough for her, and too much. But he must hear the rest first. He turned back to the courier. "Go on."

The man talked eagerly now, his fear forgotten. The regent was alive again, not composed exactly, but in command, his questions quick and direct.

"Yes, my lord, I was there myself. I left the field at full dark, as soon as the news was sure. The King was seen fighting still towards sunset, though by that time the main resistance was over, and Quintilianus himself had fallen. Everywhere was chaos, and already men were robbing the bodies of the dead and killing the dying for their weapons and their clothes. Our men were not merciful, but the Franks… My lord, these are barbarians. They fight like mad wolves, and they can no more be controlled than wolves.

The enemy broke and fled in several directions, and were pursued. Some of them threw down their arms and held their hands out for chains, begging their lives. It was—was…

"The King. What of the King?"

"He was seen to fall. His standard had been cut down, and in the growing dark it could not be observed just where he was fighting, or what had happened. Bedwyr, wounded as he was, struggled to that part of the field and searched for him, and others with him, calling. But the King was not found. Many of the bodies were stripped already, and if the King had been among them—"

"You are telling me that his body had still not been recovered?"

"Yes, my lord. At least, not when I left the field. I was sent as soon as it became too dark to search further. It may well be that by this time another dispatch is on its way. But it was thought that the news should be brought to you before other rumours reached the country."

"So this is why no token, neither sword nor ring, has been brought back to me?"

"Yes, my lord."

Mordred was silent for a while. Then he spoke with difficulty. "Is there still thought to be hope for the High King?"

"My lord, if you had seen the field… But yes, there is hope. Even in naked death, the High King's body would surely have been known—"

Under Mordred's gaze, he stopped. "My lord."

After a few more questions Mordred sent him away, and sat alone, thinking.

There was still a chance that Arthur was not dead. But his duty was plain. Before the news reached these shores—and with the coming of the courier's ship the rumours must already be spreading like heath fires—he must take control of the country. His immediate moves were easily mapped: an emergency meeting of the Council; a public reading of Arthur's declaration of succession, with its ratification of his, Mordred's authority; a copy of this to be made and sent to each of the kings; a speech made to the army leaders.