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‘But if I were dead ...’

‘Oh shut up!’ She came quickly to her feet,
covered the few
yards between them, her hands
coming out, pushed his
shoulders, sending him reeling into the water.
Only he had
moved as fast. His own hand
caught her flailing arm, his fingers
clamping around her wrist, and she
fell with him, screaming laughter, the wave of water swooshing up the grass
bank as he
rolled her over in the shallows
and made up for the few days that
they had been apart.

Llacheu was worse by the
coming of night. The ache in his head
had become more intense; he became hot and restless,
thrashing about on his pallet, calling out in his sleep.
He curled
with the boys at the far end of the King’s
Hall, companionable
with the grooms and the
shield bearers of the Artoriani.
Arthur’s young servant Gweir was near
Llacheu and heard him
moaning. When he put
out a hand to shake the lad from what
he
supposed to be a bad dream and felt the heat standing out like fire from his
body, he ran as if the hounds of the gods were after
him to wake
Gwenhwyfar.

§ XVI

For three days Llacheu’s fever raged, and
then a harsh, racking
cough developed.
Gwenhwyfar gave him what herbal
medicines
she could to lower his body heat and ease the pain in
his chest, but
nothing seemed to work, not even the infusions made from the wild garlic. The
boy’s hair was plastered wet to
his
forehead, the linen on the bed beneath him damp.
Sometimes he slept, his
breathing rattling in his throat, or he
tossed,
arms flinging wide, his tired voice moaning with the
pain of the coughing and his aching limbs and
tight, constricted
chest. By the morning of the fourth day, Arthur could
take no more of watching his last surviving son fight for life.

The daily routine in and around the complex
of buildings at Caer Cadan was muted, the men and women grim-faced, their
laughter absent. Eyes would turn to the chamber at the rear of the King’s Hall.
Father Cethrwm lodged himself on his knees within the square-crossed
stone-built chapel; some of the non-Christian men sacrificed a lamb one night,
down below the
ramparts where their ceremony
could be private, away from any
possible disapproval by Christian
officers.

Enid
put the idea into Arthur’s head. She was coming from the dim-lit chamber,
carrying a bundle of bed-linen, soiled and damp, as he was approaching from
outside. Arthur took a step back to allow her to pass through the door. She
shook her head
slowly, her face blotched by
weeping. "Tis only the Mother
who can help him now. God bless ‘im.’
And she shifted the bundle beneath one arm to make the sign of the holy cross.

Arthur entered the room as Llacheu eased from
a bout of coughing, stood a long while within the doorway, watching
Gwenhwyfar bathing the boy’s face and body, her
own
appearance taut and bedraggled. Only
the Mother ...
Enid had meant the Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary, Mother of God. But
there was another, older Mother and she had a
servant who had
a reputation — aye,
even among the Christian kind — as having
the gift of healing.

‘
Cymraes,
I am going to Yns Witrin.’
Gwenhwyfar looked across the room at Arthur, saw his
haggard expression through the haze of her own
red-tired eyes.
She nodded once, said merely, ‘Take care.’ She doubted
the healing woman who lived there now, the
Lady,
would know of any different medicines, but accepted that
her husband had to try for something. And mayhap
the
Goddess would listen, and smile her blessing on their son.

Arthur swung away from
the chamber, strode down the slope
towards the stabling
at the far side of the Caer. He would take
Onager,
for the stallion was faster than his mare. Eleven miles,
as the black
raven could fly. Further, on horseback. For there were dykes and ditches,
rivers. Marsh ground that even in the
height
of the hottest summer was boggy underfoot, with
hollows and pits that
could trap a man and a horse and claim them for a watery grave. Arthur had made
forced marches on
many occasions, swinging
into the steady jogtrot stride of
cavalry on the move, but this ride was
nothing like any march that he had ever experienced. Onager had a long stride,
and for
all his faults of temper, a stamina
and willingness that surpassed
any horse Arthur had known. Where the
hill of Caer Cadan levelled onto the Summer Land, he gave the animal his head
and the stallion responded, ears back, tail carried banner-like,
typical of his descendency from the desert-bred
horses of
Arabia. His legs stretched
into a gallop that took him faster
than the wind — and he would have
gone on until he dropped
had Arthur let him,
but no horse could sustain such a pace over a distance. Jogtrot, drop to a
walk, jogtrot again. The stride was
long,
comfortable, the horse balanced, head lowered, not
fighting the bit. A
horse corn-fed and as fit as Onager could
travel
for several days, thirty, forty miles a day, at such a pace.
Eleven or
so miles, and Arthur covered the distance in little more than an hour.

The last time he had come, he had felt the
superstitious fear of this place, the quivering, skin-prickling uncertainty of
the unknown. This time he simply needed to do something for his son, exactly
what, he did not know. He just had to be doing
something, anything. He set Onager at where Morgaine had
told him to look for the path through the waters;
the places
where the reeds grew taller, where a stone showed here and
there, one marker, a slender tree stump. As he followed it the birds took
flight. She had told him of that mystery too, of how they warned of someone’s
approach.
The magic’,
she had said,
‘comes
in making
the
natural
things appear
as magic.’
Would
she be there on the far shore, waiting for him? Arthur
called, no sign of her. He dismounted, let Onager
graze,
searched her hut, empty, called again.

There was an emptiness about this place that
crept into the bones, surrounding the soul like invisible threads round and
round, pulling tighter. An emptiness as deep and
as towering as
the lake and the Tor
reflected in it. Arthur could feel it,
stretching
into a past where the Goddess had ruled, when Rome
had been nothing more
than a sheep-herd’s hut.

He began to climb the Tor, the steep side
that went up from behind Morgaine’s hut. It was a breathless climb that had the
backs of his legs aching and chest heaving,
but he did not stop,
went straight
up, digging his boots into the grass, using his
hands occasionally to
pull himself higher.

Suddenly he was at the top. There had been no
wind as he had crossed the lake and climbed, not even a breeze on this warm,
sun-bright day, but as he stepped from the shelter of the high Tor, the wind
hit him with the force of a shield blow, slamming into him, taking the last of
panting breath. His cloak whipped around him like some magical garment taken
sudden life, his hair billowed about his face, the strength of the wind
stinging his eyes, slamming up his nostrils to
batter at his brain.
And she was
there, standing with her back to him, standing,
one hand laid on the granite Stone that topped the highest
point
of the Tor, her hair unbound, flying in the wind. She was naked, her skin bare
to the raw bite of the world, looking out
across
the levels at the hills where Caer Cadan would be — had
she seen him
coming? She must have seen Onager, a chestnut
horse
coming fast, jumping streams and ditches. She must have
seen the birds
rise too, but she had not turned. Happen she did
not expect others to come up here, to the Goddess’s sacred
place.

He said her name, the wind tore his voice and
ran off with it
across the levels, but he
had a feeling that she knew he was there. She turned, said without surprise, ‘I
knew you would
come to me again. It
is fitting that you make it this day, for it is
the Solstice, the day of
life and giving.’
She was very slender, her
woman-curved body sun-browned beneath the writhe of serpents and creatures
tattooed across her
thighs and belly,
and around her breasts. The ritual-made
marks of a priestess. She came
up to Arthur, stood very close,
and kissed
him, light upon the lips. He wanted her, for no other
reason than that
she was a woman and he a man, but not now,
not
here — he could not, not while his son lay so close to death.
He dared
not touch her, for the feel of her skin might fan the flame of want; instead,
he took a step back, noticed how his
shadow
in the late-afternoon sun stretched before him, lay atop
hers, as close
as a lover would lie.

He explained quickly in
a few short words, why he had come.
Morgaine listened, her
head cocked slightly to one side, like a small bird hearing for worms, then she
took his hand, led him
with her, following
a foot-worn path that dipped abruptly down
from this great height to the
narrower length of the hill. They
were
suddenly out of the wind and into a localised silence more
total than Arthur had ever experienced. He could
see the
rippling of water on the lake, the two swans gliding across its
surface, geese foraging among the shallows and
Onager grazing,
fancied he could hear him chewing, the jingle of his
bit, the
creak of leather. Hear the swish of
stirred leaves among the trees
that trundled in their full summer glory
below, and the birds,
busy about their
young. Could hear the wind rushing by above,
behind, up there on the height, but here, where he walked a
pace
behind Morgaine, nothing. Not even the grass whispered.

She stopped, turned to him, her face
troubled, one hand gesturing in helplessness. ‘I must do as my mother commands,
for she will bring a terrible revenge on us if I do not.’ Misunderstanding,
thinking she was talking of the Goddess,
Arthur
urgently took her hand. ‘I will do anything if it will help
my son.’
Morgaine sought his eye. There were tears in hers
as she said,
‘Would you lie with me? It is that she demands.’ He still had
her hand. He turned it over, studied her palm,
there was a faint scar of a burn running across the flesh, age-old.
Slowly he lifted the hand, placed his lips on the
pale mark. Was
that not the Old Way?’ Shy, the tears still there,
Morgaine answered, ‘A maiden of
the Goddess
and a king would join to ensure life and fertility for
the land. Before
the Romans came and took away those kings, and replaced our Goddess with gods
of their own doing.’

‘
Will
it help my son?’
She
had realised his misunderstanding, used it, seizing on it
to do what she had to do. ‘In one way, it might.’
Her answer had
a different meaning from the question he had asked, but
for all her deliberate twisting, she believed she spoke the truth.

He thought the answer ambiguous, but accepted
it. ‘Then is her command so terrible? Am I so terrible?’
The sun dipped
into a blaze of evening sunset as they lay cradled
together, skin
against skin, under the warmth of Arthur’s cloak.
He dozed; Morgaine, her head on his
chest, lay with her eyes open, awake. She had tricked him, and felt miserable
for that, but the loving he had given her was so wonderful that, by the
triple guise of the Goddess, she would willingly
trick him again!
It had been her mother, Morgause, she had talked of,
not the
Goddess. Morgause, who had sent word only two days
past from
where she was kept prisoner that if Morgaine did not engineer
some
way of meeting with Arthur, then she would unleash an
army from the north to come against the Pendragon. For I
will be free
of
him, daughter, one way or another. Morgaine believed her,
for
Morgause was a woman of power, who thrust fear into the bellies of all who were
beneath her command. And Morgaine
would not
have Arthur dead, not for want of doing as her
mother ordered.

At least she had not
lied to him. Morgause would be content
now,
now that this thing was done, and Arthur would be safe from her wickedness, for
a while – and the son too, should he survive this fever, for Morgause would
certainly have had the boy killed had she carried out her threat of an army.