What bizarre deformity might still be within him?
He gripped the arms of the chair until his nails broke and bled. Very well. They had done this to him, his mother and the too-pure Arthur. If he had been born outside the pale then there were no more cords binding him to it or its rules. He was free. Whatever weakness they had given him was not in his arms or his wit. He was stronger and more agile than any of his brothers but Gawain, and more attractive to women. He had the gift of seeming friendship, too, and the wisdom to keep his own counsel.
“Damn them all!” he roared. “I will be the greatest king since Constantine! You made me, Arthur, and you cannot stop me!”
Chapter Four
Spring had arrived at Caerleon. The courtyards were muddy, the practice fields were muddy, the paths down to the shops were muddy. Children soon discovered that it was easier to run barefoot than to scrape wet mud from boots over and over. The water in the baths was tinged with red and ochre earth despite the constant draining and refilling.
Guinevere and Risa, her maid, climbed the hill from the town, their arms full of packages and their toes squishing happily. Below them they could hear cheerful blasphemy as a carter and four helpers tried to dislodge the wheels of his cart from the mire. Above them, Caerleon was hung out for all to see as bedding and hangings were washed and aired before being folded up for the trip to Camelot.
Risa laughed at the sight of the multiform pennants.
“They flap about in the wind like wild birds. I can almost hear them squawking.”
“That’s probably Cei yelling at the children to get off the lookout towers. As soon as the sun comes out, they’re up on the roofs, spying for messengers and visitors. There is some sort of prize to the one who spots them first.”
“Really? I had no idea you kept in such good touch with all the children at Caerleon.”
“Galahad told me. He explained that it was a matter of honor that he take his turn with the others, even though he knows how it worries me. He promised to be extremely careful, however, and not hang over the edge.”
“Well, if it’s a matter of honor . . . Some days that boy sounds just like his father.” Risa laughed at the thought of a miniature Lancelot.
“They are much alike, only Galahad never worries about right and wrong. He just seems to know. I think he is the way Lancelot might have been if he hadn’t been raised so oddly.”
“It was not the usual sort of family life,” Risa agreed. "Very few people are kidnapped by immortal . . . whatever the Lady of the Lake is, and wet-nursed by an outcast afflicted with religious melancholy. No wonder he worries so much about sin. Of course lots of us were raised by religious fanatics. It’s just the combination that seems odd.”
“I don’t recall your family being especially religious.” Guinevere panted. The hill was growing steep near the end.
“My parents weren’t; wrong generation. But Grandfather was a Pelagian and ridiculously proud of his heresy. I never understood a word of it.”
“I hope it’s the mud that’s making this climb so hard, today. I would hate to think I was getting old.”
“You!” Risa laughed. “You look the same now as you did twenty years ago when you came to Cador for fostering. I don’t know how you do it. But I am certainly older, and these pots grow heavier with every step. I hope there’s someone at the gate to help us.”
As they aproached, they saw that Cheldric, one of Arthur’s guards, was there. He saluted them and then scooped all Risa’s parcels up in his one arm and motioned for someone to take Guinevere’s things.
“My Lady, I will have these taken to your rooms,” he said. “The King wants you to come to him at once. There has been a message for you.”
He spoke so stiffly that Guinevere was alarmed. Cheldric had known her as long as Risa had, and his arm had been lost protecting her. He knew he did not need to be formal when they were together.
“Where did the man come from?” she asked.
“The King will tell you,” he answered.
“Go on, Guinevere,” Risa urged. “I’ll see that everything is taken care of.”
Guinevere hitched up her skirts and raced across the slippery walks to the Great Hall where Arthur received guests and supplicants. She stopped at the door to catch her breath and smooth her hair. Her hands were cold and she tried to warm them in her skirts. Then she pushed the door.
The hall was dark and formless after the brilliance of spring outside. She hesitated and then made out the group around the high table: Arthur, Cei and his wife, Lydia, Gawain, Lancelot, and a man who seemed familiar. She couldn’t place him, but he was clearly the one who had brought the message. As she approached, they all turned to face her and she knew him. It was Aulan, one of her father’s men. She tried to smile.
“Aulan! What brings you here before the roads have dried? Do you have a letter for me from Mother?” She held out her hand.
He drew a leather pouch from a pocket of his cloak and handed her the scrap of vellum inside. Guinevere read it slowly, seeing her mother’s face as she sat at her table. Some words had smeared before they dried.
“Aulan, was my father still alive when you left?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. He is very weak, though. We should hurry.”
Arthur put his arms around her, for support. Her eyes closed and she leaned against him a few seconds. Then she took a deep breath and made herself stand alone, gently pushing him away.
“Lydia, call your brother here, please, and ask if he will come with me. He was fostered by my father. Cei, can you possibly spare Caet this journey? I know he has charge of the horses, but he was born in our house and he belongs with the rest of the family. Aulan, has anyone sent for my brother?”
The guard nodded. “Your mother said nothing to us about it, so Pincerna sent the best horsemen for him at the same time I left to come here.”
“That was right.” She looked around, suddenly bewildered. Lydia took her and led her from the room.
“Come, my dear. We’ll find Risa and get your things together. I’ll have her warm some wine for you, too. Then I want you to rest. This evening I’ll come back and let you know what is happening. Don’t worry about anything but your father. Let me take care of it all.”
Alone in her room, the cup of wine next to her couch, Guinevere tried to piece together what was happening. Her mother’s letter, laid upon her lap, was only a jumble of words. “Leodegrance not well. Please come to us.” She had not had the heart to write more. Writing it would make it come true. Guinevere tried to picture her father as he was now, as she had seen him last. He had never recovered fully from his last battle and had remained drawn and old even after he had been able to leave his bed. But she couldn’t see him so. Instead she saw him on horseback, pounding into their courtyard just behind her, letting her think she had won the race, or swinging her high on his shoulders when she was still too small to keep up with her brother’s games. On his strong back she was mistress of all the world, and she never felt so omnipotent or so safe as then. He was what kept the world glued together. In all the years she had spent away, she kept the certainty within her that she could always return home and it would not have changed. Whatever happened outside, her father and mother could hold away the darkness and the evil. What would rush in if Leodegrance were gone?
There was a soft tap on the door. Guinevere sat up and tucked the message under a cushion.
“Foster Mother, can I come in?”
“Of course, Galahad!” She held out her arms to him.
“My father told me you were sad. He wanted to make you feel better but didn’t know how. So I’ve come to ask.”
“You can help me. I need you now, just to hug me.”
She scooped him into her lap and asked him about the things he had done that day and what he wanted to see at Camelot and what he wanted to do when he grew up. Slowly the burning cord in her throat faded as her fear ebbed and all the world became less important than the golden boy encircled by her arms.
• • •
Arthur was wrapped in a blanket, as the morning was chill. He had not slept well. He did not know his father-in-law well, but Leodegrance was part of the legends Arthur had grown up on. Leodegrance had seen Ambrosius and had dined with Uther Pendragon. As boys, he and Merlin had hunted and raced together. His father had been one of those who received the last message from the Emperor, telling Britain no help was coming, that they must maintain Roman tradition alone. “Now,” Arthur thought, “I’m becoming the old one. And I don’t know the old ways anymore. I can only guess what things were like when Britain was a part of Rome. Damn it! I don’t want to do this by myself. I feel so groping.”
Guinevere didn’t care about the passing of an era. She wanted only to get home to her father and hold back mortality from his door. It wasn’t fair! No one had the right to die while she still needed him. She barely felt Arthur’s goodbye kiss or Lancelot’s arms as he lifted her onto the horse.
“How long will it take?” she asked Aulan.
“If you can keep the pace, we’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”
“Don’t hold for me,” she answered. “Why are we still here?”
In another moment, they weren’t.
Arthur and Lancelot stood at the gate until they were out of sight. Then Arthur gave a rueful smile.
“I needn’t have gotten up at all. She didn’t know we were here.”
Lancelot smiled back. “She didn’t, at that. But, you know, I feel somehow jealous of her, even though it aches to see her hurt. I just keep wishing I had known my father long enough for his death to matter to me like that.”
Arthur nodded.
“Old Uther was a bastard, they say, but I still would have liked to have known him, to see what of him is kept in me. Christ’s teeth! It’s bloody freezing out here. Let’s go see if anyone’s left a pot of ale by the kitchen fire.”
They found their ale and some warm bread and meat and took them to a corner out of the way of the busy cooks and kitchen servants. Arthur laughed as they clinked cups.
“We’d not be taken for a king and counsellor just now. More like two old soldiers trading lies about campaigns they never were on.”
“Don’t believe it, Arthur. You’d never be taken for anything but a leader, a great leader.”
“I wasn’t looking for flattery, old friend. It’s spring, and it’s chill as a witch’s heart in here, and dank and gloomy. And, if we don’t sneak out in a hurry, someone is going to find work for us.”
Lancelot grinned suddenly. “I happen to know where the boys keep their fishing gear. We could borrow some and follow a stream I know of just to see where it goes. Isn’t it part of our duty to explore the terrain? We might even catch something to help feed your people.”
Arthur stood up and stretched, feeling the years slide off his shoulders. He grinned back.
“As King, I think it is essential that we set out on this dangerous journey at once. I’ll meet you in the stables in five minutes.
• • •
Morgan le Fay stood in the center of her room at Tintagel. It had never seemed so empty before. Everything was as it had always been: bed, clothespress, chests, sofa, chairs, the elegant mirror her father had given her, thick hangings covering the harsh stones, thick glass covering the tiny windows, animal skins on the floor. It was hers, along with the towers and the halls and the rock below. She had always drawn her strength from Tintagel. Now, it seemed, it would give her no more. Empty. Modred had been her favorite, her truest son. All her dreams had crumpled when he turned on her.
She looked in the mirror. A face looked back, wrinkled and worn, with tear-swollen eyes. It was no one she knew.
For the first time in her life, Morgan felt that she had to get away from Tintagel.
“I shall go visiting,” she said to herself. “I shall go see all my friends.”
Calmly, she went to her jewelry box. She picked out the best pieces and wrapped them in a woolen shift. Then she selected a few good gowns and some slippers. These she bound up in a leather bag. Then she sent for her horsemaster and informed him that she would be needing his services.
“We will leave at once,” she told him. “I wish to be well on my way by nightfall.”
“To where, my Lady?” the man asked. He had been at Tintagel for fifteen years and never once had his mistress traveled more than an hour from the place.
“Tell them in the kitchens to get enough food ready for several days’ journey. Nothing difficult; bread, geese, dried fruit, and wine will be enough. I should have a party of four or five guards. Be sure they’re sober.”
“Yes, of course. At once.” Still bewildered, the man stumbled out to face the wrath of the cooks who wanted to know just how they were supposed to kill, drain, pluck, singe, and roast geese to be ready at once. He made some suggestions, none of which were practical, and then went to the guard rooms to spread the joyous news further.
Morgan called her maids to lay out her riding clothes and arrange her hair. They rubbed perfumed oils into her skin and dressed her. She hardly spoke to them. Before they left, she gave each one something from her jewelry box. Not the good bits, of course, but more than they had ever expected from her.
The horsemaster returned to say that all would be ready in an hour. He waited.
“That will do, then,” she said. “Have everyone in the courtyard to bid me good-bye.”
When he had gone, she went to the window and tried to peer through the thick green glass. From here she had first seen that horrid king, Uther Pendragon, come to steal away her mother. Her husband, Lot, had ridden from that direction, too, but not for a long time. She wondered if he were even still alive. From this window she had watched her sons come home to her, but the one she wanted most had said he would not come again.
“Good-bye, Tintagel,” she whispered.
She gave her directions to the guards but would not tell them the destination. Her strange manner had started all kinds of speculation. It was even rumored that she was leading them into the lair of Gwynn ap Nudd, hunter of death. The hands of the guards shook as they mounted their horses.