Camelot's Blood (39 page)

He was still thin, his beard scanty. A youth become king in battle, but now with a king's work to do, and not yet grown to that work. “What do I do?” he whispered
.

Merlin turned his face away. “I don't know, my king.”

“You must know.”

“He is near Durnovaria, but more than that I cannot see. He is being hidden from me.”

Arthur faced the horizon, looking out over the vast plain, where the ravages of war were being buried by the plough. That was his victory, and there was a kind of greed in him as he watched it. Dreadful decision took him
.

“Take the boys there, send them hostage to Joyeux Gard in Normandy. When it becomes clear which is … which is the one you spoke of, we will know better what to do.”

Merlin held out his hand, a gesture halfway between pleading and warning. “You cannot cheat destiny this way.”

The habit of command had came swift to Arthur. He would not abandon his victory, his great peace so dearly bought. “I cannot leave it. Do as I have said!”

Merlin bowed his head, before his king could see the tears in his eyes. “It shall be done.”

“He did not want any to know which was his son, to protect him from being the kernel around which an uprising might grow, or to protect himself should the child come to learn his nature, I do not know, but he had a hundred boys, babes, that were about the right age, brought together. There were plenty of willing hands, but it was his order, and they were put to sea in a ship, to be sent to Brittany and Languedoc, for fosterage he insisted. To be murdered, others said.

“In the end, it mattered not, because a storm came up and the boat went down, and all those children sent to sea at Arthur's word died.”

Morgause threw her head back once more, and it seemed to Laurel she was pleading for tears, for release. “It was Morgaine who raised the storm,” she whispered. “She called on the
morverch
and she made bargain with them. They could take every life on that ship if they spared but one. Her son, Mordred.” The blind eyes searched, restless, frightened, and found her again. “It was her doing that took the innocents that might have lived.”

And that was it. That was the deed, the way and the door to Morgaine, and she held it in her hands now. She had thought at such a moment she would feel triumph, but she knew only a sick horror at the deaths, so much death, that could be assuaged and bought off only by yet more death.

For the death of the innocent there was always a price. It was a fell bargain, and it would exact its cost.

This was why she wanted to keep me from the sea. So that I would not learn this, because this is the deed for which she must answer, and for which there is no answer
.

“God have mercy,” she whispered. “Oh, grandmother, God have mercy on us all.”

“No,” Morgause shook herself. “There is no mercy for such as we. Ah, Lot! Lot! Forgive me! Forgive me my sons!” She hung again, limp, helpless, a butterfly in the web, forgotten by even the spider.

“Why didn't she kill you?” whispered Laurel.

Morgause lifted her head, looking right at Laurel with her blind eyes. “How could she? She gave me half her power, when we were still girls.”

“You don't understand, Morgause. What we are. What we can be.” Her twin gripped her hands. “Come back to me, sister. Let me show you.”

It was like light. It poured into her, stronger than wine, stronger than love. It filled her with terror and with beauty. It was the wild rush of freedom Laurel had felt when she
stood up to her knees in the sea and let it suffuse her. It was a thousand wondrous things, but most of all it was the gift from one twin to another, one half of a soul to the other. From Morgaine to Morgause
.

“Now we are together again,” said Morgaine. “No one will ever separate us again. Now you understand everything.”

But Morgaine was wrong. Morgause did not understand everything. She understood power, but not hatred.

Morgause also understood the one thing Morgaine did not. Morgause understood that love could heal as well as wound.

She never died. Not really. Of course not. Morgaine needed her alive. Here was half her power, half her spirit. The blessing and the curse of those born twinned. That bond made closer by Morgaine herself, thinking she could win her sister over by bestowing some of the power she gained upon Morgause.

But when the time came, she found that the link she had forged could not be broken. Morgause had learned that lesson earlier. That was why Morgaine had never died. Guinevere and Merlin between them were ready to undo Morgaine, but not to kill Morgause in the doing. So, she was imprisoned only.

For that they had paid, and Morgause herself had come to this place to make the end she could not make before. But she had failed then, and this was the price. The price for failing to see the sacrifice required of her before. The price for the simple, all-too-human wish to live instead of die.

“How can I free you?” asked Laurel. “Let me take you back to your son.”

But Morgause only shook her heavy head. “I cannot be free until death comes, and death will not come to me here.”

Laurel swallowed and nodded. She had feared as much. She stood, drawing away from the imprisoned queen. Her legs weak and shaking, she made her way back to the to the black horse that waited so unnaturally still and patient. “Kelpie,” she murmured. “May it be that you and I can bring release here?”

The kelpie whickered and rolled one blank, black eye towards the sky. The wind blew hard, and Laurel nodded. With her hand on the kelpie's cool neck, she faced into the wind. It brushed past her ears, blowing her hair out, tugging at locks and hems. It knew where the clouds waited. It could fetch them here, fetch them all with their heavy load of water. Water enough to wash away all the sins of the world. The clouds closed over Laurel's head, blotting out the stars and moon. Pregnant with their water, they collided grumbling together, crowding, merging, lowering.

Rain showered down upon Laurel's head. Hard, fat hard drops struck her head, shoulders, arms. Drops turned quickly into threads of water, then whole streams falling from the sky. The rain ran into the dry stone beneath her feet. It trickled into the cracks, drizzling down to seek the water hidden far beneath this rocky crust that had been still and stagnant for years. The rain filled up the cracks opened by the roots of the tree, forcing the stone apart like a wedge. Rivers of rainwater tumbled down the hill. The wind blew hard. The tree swayed and creaked, the queen whimpered and wailed. Laurel, drenched by her own storm, did not permit herself to move.

The cracks widened and the water rose to the tree's dried roots that could drink no more. They could only weaken and waver. The split trunk that held the nails and the coins trapped could not absorb so much so suddenly. It could only give way.

Slowly, slowly the thorn tree bent and screamed and snapped in a long, splintering tear. It toppled into the new river of water that flowed down the stony hillside to be swept up in the freshening current.

For a moment, Laurel saw not the broken tree, but Morgause, arrayed in the raiment of a queen, eyes closed in the last sleep.

Morgause, queen of Gododdin lay at peace and was carried away by her river.

Laurel's knees gave way and she fell to the ground, gasping and shivering under the weight of the water that poured down.

• • •

Mordred stood in his mother's pavilion, holding back the door, and looking out at the darkness. The summer nights in Gododdin waned so short that it seemed a man could barely lie down on his cot in twilight before the morning slipped over him, but for Mordred this night had been a season long. It was not worry that made the hours pass so slowly. His company was in good spirits. Each of the peoples sang in their separate languages, telling one another great stories and great lies. Old heroes were brought out and made to live again in the brief darkness.

They made their camp amid the empty huts and animal pens of Gododdin's village. They had crept through the lowering mists at evening, only to find the houses had already been abandoned, for a day, perhaps two. Anything of any value had been packed off with the inhabitants.

While his men cursed, and kicked at cold ashes in extinguished hearths, Mordred had smiled. So. Agravain had indeed seen this much coming. So could a blind man. It was of little consequence. Less if the air stayed as still as it was and the mists held until past dawn.

Now the eagerness for battle, so long held at bay, made him champ at the harness. At last, at last, this was his war. His beginning. With the dawn he truly became a man and able to stand among men. Tomorrow he earned the title of lord and of knight that had been laid over him.

Tomorrow he would begin to avenge his family: grandfather, grandmother, mother, self. With the dawn, as soon as his horse could see to put one foot in front of the other, it all began.

“You'll wear yourself out.”

Mordred turned to look at his mother, sitting calm and clear-eyed beside her brazier. No night journeys for her now. She was fully present, saving her omens and her skills to support the battle once dawn came.

“I thank you for your concern, lady mother.” Then he winced. He had not meant the words to sound so much like a complaint.

She smiled at him with a mother's fond indulgence and Mordred felt his hackles rise. A heartbeat later, he saw the glint of humor in her eyes.

“Forgive me, Mordred, if I take the mother's part one last time. My hours to do so are short. With the dawn you will be leader of our people, and I will be …” she hesitated. “Priestess, old woman, unneeded.”

“You will always be needed, Mother. It is you who brought this into being.”

“So I did. And tomorrow, we begin to harvest what was sowed so many years ago.” The glint in her black eyes grew sharper, the humor melting into steel. “Your hands shall seal it, my son. I am proud of how you have grown.”

He bowed, the compliment warming him. “I will show I am worthy.”

“You already have.” She touched his cheek briefly, and he felt how dry and rough her palm was from so many years of spinning and weaving and all her other works. “Now,” she stood back. “If I may give one last order. It is not good that you spend these final hours in the company of your mother. You …” She paused, and Mordred felt his smile fade. “You … what … who are you?” She took a step toward him, confusion in her face.

“What is it?” A vision was coming over her. She did not speak to him, but to it. Cold threaded through Mordred's blood.

“No,” whispered Morgaine. “You cannot. You cannot. She is beyond you. You cannot touch her!”

Her voice rose to a nearly hysterical pitch. She stumbled blindly forward. Mordred heard worried calls outside.

Mordred grabbed his mother's arms. “Morgaine!” A name had power to reach deep, she had taught him. “Morgaine, it is Mordred. What do you see?”

“How! How does she reach her!” It was as if the strength went out of her, and she slumped in his arms, her eyes wide with agony. “Stop! Stop her!”

“Morgaine! Mother! I can do nothing unless you tell me what is happening!”

But she began to tremble, then shudder, then shake, her whole body contorting with its spasms. She screamed, wordless with pain and the horror of whatever her staring eyes saw. It was all Mordred could do to hang onto her as her seizure bore them both to the ground. Sweat poured down her as if she were drenched in sea water and she bit her own lips frantically, mindlessly, until the foam and blood came.

“Morgaine!” he cried as if to a sick child. “Morgaine, mother, what do I do? What do I do!”

Then, she screamed. It was the deafening sound of pure agony ripped unwilling from her ravaged throat. It bent her body like a bow in his arms, and then she dropped back, senseless, still, her eyes wide open and staring.

She did not move. She did not breathe. Outside men were calling his name. Asking questions he could not hear properly. Mordred, shaking, laid her down, backing away as if he saw a ghost.

His throat closed. His hands shook. She did not move. She did not breathe.

Dead? Dead? It cannot be. It CANNOT be!

“My lord? Lord Mordred?” Durial. Just outside the door. “My lord is … are you well? We heard …”

But if he finished his question, Mordred did not hear it. In front of him, his mother moaned, twisting weakly. In an instant, Mordred was on his knees beside her, clutching her hand, which had gone as cold as the grave.

“Mother? Mother?”

Morgaine's eyelids fluttered, and opened. He looked into her black eyes, and saw nothing there but seething hatred.

Slowly, Morgaine sat up, and Mordred fell back onto his heels. This was not his mother, this was some demon of hate made flesh.

Morgaine rose, a figure of white and black in the brazier's light.

“She thinks she has beaten me. She thinks she can kill me.” Morgaine smiled, cracking the patina of blood and foam on her lips. “She thinks she can undo me with such a little thing. Oh, no. No. No, my son. She will pay.”

She raised her arms and threw back her head, shouting out three words that Mordred could not understand. They sank through his skin, clawing at blood and seizing bone to twist and change.

In front of Mordred's bewildered gaze, his mother flew into a thousand pieces of darkness, a flood and flurry of wings and raucous laughter making a hurricane to fill the pavilion. Mordred hid his head in his arms. Beating wings and unforgiving claws grazed his back and skull, until the birds found the pavilion opening and burst free.

A storm of ravens rising up to blot out the stars.

Mordred had no idea how long he sat there, head cradled in his arms, unable to do anything more than breathe and shake. Then, slowly, he heard someone calling his name.