by Mary Stewart
"So the child was there?"
"Indeed. Asleep in a high cradle near the fire. I could see it, oh, clearly, outlined against the flames; and the girl rocking it and singing. The cradle was canopied with silk and gauze, with a little bell that chimed as she rocked it, and glinted in the firelight. A royal cradle. Such a pretty sight! I could have wished my old eyes different, for that alone."
"And did you see the child itself?"
It appeared that he had not. The baby had woken once, and cried a little, and the nurse had hushed him without lifting him from the blankets. The queen had been trying a necklet at the time, and without looking round had taken the mirror from the girl's hand, and bidden her sing to the baby.
"A pretty voice," said Beltane, "but such a sad little song. And indeed, I would hardly have recognized the maiden herself, if she had not come to speak to me yesterday. So thin and creeping, like a mouse, and her voice gone thin, too, like something pining. Lind, her name is, did I tell you? A strange name for a maiden, surely? Does it not mean a snake?"
"I believe so. Did you hear the child's name?"
"They called him Mordred."
Beltane showed a tendency here to go back to his description of the cradle, and of the pretty picture the girl had made, rocking it and singing, but I brought him back to the point.
"Was anything said about King Lot's coming home?"
Beltane, that single-minded artist, did not even see the implications of the questions. They were expecting him, he told me cheerfully, at any time. The queen had seemed as excited as a young girl. Indeed, she could talk of nothing else. Would her lord like the necklet? Did the earrings make her eyes look brighter? Why, added Beltane, he owed half the sale to the king's coming.
"She did not seem afraid at all?"
"Afraid?" He looked blank. "No. Why should she? She was happy and excited.’Just wait,' she was saying to the ladies, just like any young mother with her lord away at the wars,’just wait till my lord sees the fine son I bore him, and as like his father as one wolf to another.' And she laughed and laughed; It was a jest, you understand, Master Emrys. They call Lot the Wolf in these parts, and take pride in him, which is only natural among savage folks like these of the north. Only a jest. Why should she be afraid?"
"I was thinking of the rumours you spoke of once before. You told me of things you heard in York, and then, you said, there were looks and whispers here among the common folk in the market-place."
"Oh, those, yes...well, but that was only talk. I know what you're getting at, Master Emrys, the wicked stories that have been going about. You know that always happens when a birth comes before its time, and there's bound to be more talk in a king's house, because, you might say, more hangs on it..."
"So it was before its time?"
"Yes, so they say. It took them all by surprise. It was born before even the king's own doctors could get here, that were sent north from the army to tend to the queen. It was the women delivered her, but safely, by God's mercy. You remember we were told it was a sickly child? And indeed, I could tell as much from the way he cried. But now he thrives and puts on weight. The maid Lind told me so, when I spoke to her on the way back to the gate.’And is it true he's the image of King Lot?' I said to her. She gives me a look, as much as to say, That will silence the gossip, but all she says aloud is,’Yes, as like as can be.'"
He leaned across the table, nodding with cheerful emphasis. "So you see it was all lies, Master Emrys. And indeed, one only has to talk to her. That pretty creature deceive her lord? Why, she was like a bride again at the thought of him coming home. And she would laugh that pretty laugh, like the silver bell on the cradle. Oh, yes, you can be sure the stories were all lies. Put around in York, they would be, by those that had cause to be jealous...You know who I mean, eh? And the child the image of him. They were all saying the same.’King Lot will see himself in a mirror, just as sure as you see yourself, madam. Look at him, the image, the little lamb...' You know how women talk, Master Emrys.’The very image of his royal father.'"
So he talked on, while Casso, busying himself with polishing some cheap buckles, listened and smiled, and I, only a little less silent, let the talk go by me while I thought my own thoughts.
Like his father? Dark hair, dark eyes, the description could fit both Lot and Arthur. Was there some faintest chance that fate was on Arthur's side? That she had conceived by Lot, and then seduced Arthur in an attempt to shackle him to her?
Reluctantly, I put the hope aside. When, at Luguvallium, I had felt doom impending, it had been in a time of power. And it did not need even that to tell me to mistrust Morgause. I had come north to watch her, and now the new fragment of information I just heard from Beltane might well have told me what to watch for.
Ulfin came in then, shaking a fine rain from his cloak. He looked across, saw us, and gave a barely perceptible sign to me. I got to my feet, and, with a word to Beltane, went over to him.
He spoke softly. "There's news. The queen's messenger rode in just now. I saw him. The horse was hard ridden, almost foundered. I told you I was on terms with one of the gatehouse guards? He says King Lot's on his way home. He's traveling fast. They're expecting him tonight or tomorrow."
"Thank you," I said. "Now, you've been out all day. Get yourself into some dry clothes, and get something to eat. I've just heard something from Beltane that persuades me that a watch on the postern gate might be profitable. I'll tell you about it later. When you've eaten, come down and join me. I'll find somewhere dry to wait, where we won't be seen." We rejoined the others, and I asked: "Beltane, can you spare Casso to me for half an hour?"
"Of course, of course. But I shall need him later on. I was bidden back there tomorrow, with this buckle mended for the chamberlain, and I need Casso's help for that."
"I shan't keep him. Casso?"
The slave was already on his feet. Ulfin said, with a shade of apprehension: "So you know what to do now?"
"I am guessing," I said. "I have no power in this, as I told you." I spoke softly, and above the tavern's roar Beltane could not hear me, but Casso did, and looked quickly from me to Ulfin and back again. I smiled at him. "Don't let it concern you. Ulfin and I have affairs here which will not touch you or your master. Come with me now."
"I could come myself," said Ulfin quickly.
"No. Do as I told you, and eat first. It could be a long watch. Casso..."
We went through the maze of dirty streets. The rain, steady now, made muddy puddles, and splashed the dung into stinking pools. Where lights showed at all in the houses, they were feeble, smoking glints of flame, curtained from the wet night by hides or sacking. Nothing interfered with our night-sight, and presently we could pick our way cleanly across the gleaming runnels. After a while the tree-banked slope of the castle rock loomed above us.
A lantern hung high in the blackness, marking the postern gate.
Casso, who had been following me, touched my arm and pointed where a narrow alley, little more than a funnel for rain-water, led steeply downward. It was not a way I had been before.
At the bottom I could hear, loud above the steady hissing of the rain, the noise of the river.
"A short cut to the footbridge?" I asked.
He nodded vigorously.
We picked our way down over the filthy cobbles. The roar of the river grew louder. I could see the white water of the lasher, and against it the great wheel of a mill. Beyond this, outlined by the reflected glimmer of the foam, was the footbridge.
No one was about. The mill was not running; the miller probably lived above it, but he had locked his doors and no light showed. A narrow path, deep in mud, led past the shuttered mill and along the soaked grasses of the riverside toward the bridge.
I wondered, half irritably, why Casso had chosen this way. He must have grasped some need for secrecy, though the main street was surely, in this weather and at this time, deserted. But then voices and the swinging light of a lantern brought me up short in the
shelter of the miller's doorway.
Three men were coming down the street. They were hurrying, talking together in undertones. I saw a bottle passed from hand to hand. Castle servants, no doubt, on their way back from the tavern. They stopped at the end of the bridge and looked back. Now something furtive could be seen in their movements. One of them said something, and there was a laugh, quickly stifled. They moved on, but not before I had seen them, clearly enough, in the lantern's glow: they were armed, and they were sober.
Casso was close beside me, pressed back in the dark doorway. The men had not glanced our way. They went quickly across the bridge, their footsteps sounding hollow on the wet planks.
Something else the passing light had showed me. Just beyond the mill, at the corner of the alley, another doorway stood open. From the pile of timber stocks and sawn felloes outside in the weedy strip of yard, I took it to be a wheelwright's shop. It was deserted for the night, but inside the main shed the remains of a fire still glowed. From that sheltering darkness I should be able to hear and see all who approached the bridge.
Casso ran ahead of me into the warm cave of the shop, and lifted a couple of faggots. Taking them to the fire, he made the motion of throwing them on the ashes.
"Only one," I said softly. "Good man. Now, if you will go back and get Ulfin, and bring him here to me, you can get yourself dried and warm, and then forget all about us."
A nod, then, smiling, a pantomime to show me that my secret, whatever it was, would be safe with him. God knew what he thought I was doing: an assignation, perhaps, or spy's work. Even at that, he knew about as much as I knew myself.
"Casso. Would you like to learn to read and write?"
Stillness. The smile vanished. In the growing flicker of the fire I saw him rigid, all eyes, unbelieving, like the lost traveler who has the clue, against all hope, thrust into his hand. He nodded once, jerkily.
"I shall see that you are taught. Go now, and thanks. Good night."
He went, running, as if the stinking alley were as light as day. Halfway up it I saw him jump and spring, like a young animal suddenly let out of its pen on a fine morning. I went quietly back into the shop, picking my way past the wheel-pit and the heavy sledge left leaning by the pile of spokes. Near the fireplace was the stool where the boy sat who kept the bellows going. I sat down to wait, spreading my wet cloak to the warmth of the fire.
Outside, drowning the soft sounds of the rain, the lasher roared. A loose paddle of the great wheel, hammered by the water, clacked and thudded. A pair of starving dogs raced by, wrangling over something unspeakable from a midden. The wheelwright's shop smelled of fresh wood, and sap drying, and the knots of burning elm. The faint tick of the fire was clearly audible in the warm darkness against the water noises outside. Time went by.
Once before I had sat like this, by a fire, alone, with my mind on a birth-chamber, and a child's fate revealed to me by the god. That had been a night of stars, with a wind blowing over the clean sea, and the great king-star shining. I had been young then, sure of myself, and of the god who drove me. Now I was sure of nothing, save that I had as much hope of diverting whatever evil Morgause was planning as a dry bough had of damming the force of the lasher.
But what power there was in knowledge, I would have. Human guesswork had brought me here, and we should see if I had read the witch aright. And though my god had deserted me, I still had more power than is granted to common men: I had a king at my call.
And now here was Ulfin, to share this vigil with me as he had shared it in Tintagel. I heard nothing, only saw when his body blocked the dim sky in the doorway.
"Here," I said, and he came in, groping his way over to the glow.
"Nothing yet, my lord?"
"Nothing."
"What are you expecting?"
"I'm not quite sure, but I think someone will come this way tonight, from the queen."
I felt him turn to peer at me in the darkness. "Because Lot is due home?"
"Yes. Is there any more news of that?"
"Only what I told you before. They expect him to press hard for home. He could be here very soon."
"I think so, too. In any case, Morgause will have to make sure."
"Sure of what, my lord?"
"Sure of the High King's son."
A pause. "You mean you think they will smuggle him out, in case Lot believes the rumours and kills the child? But in that case —"
"Yes? In that case?"
"Nothing, my lord. I wondered, that's all...You think they will bring him this way?"
"No. I think they have already brought him."
"They have? Did you see which way?"
"Not since I have been here. I am certain that the baby in the castle is not Arthur's child. They have exchanged it."
A long breath beside me in the darkness. "For fear of Lot?"
"Of course. Think about it, Ulfin. Whatever Morgause may tell Lot, he must have heard what everyone is saying, ever since it became known that she was with child. She has tried to persuade him that the child is his, but premature; and he may believe her. But do you think he will take the risk that she is lying, and that some other man's son, let alone Arthur's, lies there in that cradle, and will grow up heir to Lothian?
Whatever he believes, there's a possibility that he may kill the boy. And Morgause knows it."
"You think he has heard the rumours that it may be the High King's?"
"He could hardly help it. Arthur made no secret of his visit to Morgause that night, and nor did she. She wanted it so. Afterwards, when I forced her to change her plans, she might persuade or terrify her women into secrecy, but the guards saw him, and by morning every man in Luguvallium would know of it. So what can Lot do? He would not tolerate a bastard of any man's; but Arthur's could be dangerous."
He was silent for a while. "It puts me in mind of Tintagel. Not the night we took King Uther in, but the other time, when Queen Ygraine gave Arthur to you, to hide him out of King Uther's way."
"Yes."
"My lord, are you planning to take this child as well, to save him from Lot?"
His voice, softly pitched as it was, sounded thin with some kind of strain. I hardly attended; far out somewhere in the night, beyond the noise of the weir, I had heard a beat of hoofs; not a sound so much as a vibration under our feet as the earth carried it. Then the faint pulse was gone, and the water's roar came back.
"What did you say?"
"I wondered, my lord, how sure you were about the child up at the castle."
"Sure of what the facts say, no more. Look at them. She lied about the date of birth, so that it could be put about that the birth was premature. Very well; that could be a face-saver, no more; it's done all the time. But look how it was done. She contrived that no doctor was present, and then alleged that the birth was unexpected, and so quick that no witnesses could be called into the chamber, as is the custom with a royal birthing. Only her two women, who are her creatures."
"Well, why, my lord? What more was there to gain?"
"Only this, a child to show Lot that he could kill if he would, while Arthur's son and hers goes scatheless."
A gasp of silence. "You mean —?"
"It fits, doesn't it? She could already have arranged an exchange with some other woman due to bear at the same time, some poor woman, who would take the money and hold her tongue, and be glad of the chance to suckle the royal baby. We can only guess what Morgause told her; the woman can have no inkling that her own child might be at risk. So the changeling lies there in the castle, while Arthur's son, Morgause's tool of power, is hidden nearby. At my guess, not too far away. They will want news of him from time to time."
"And if what you say is true, then when Lot gets here —"
"Some move will be made. If he does harm the changeling, Morgause will have to see that the mother hears nothing of it. She may even have to find another home for Mordred."
"But —"
"Ulfin, there is nothing we can do t
o save the changeling. Only Morgause could save it, if she would. It's not even certain that it will be in danger; Lot is not quite a savage, after all. But you and I would only run on death ourselves, and the child with us."
"I know. But what about all the talk up there in the castle? Beltane would tell you about it. He was talking while I got my supper. I mean, the baby being so like King Lot, the living image, they were all saying. Could this of yours just be a guess, sir? And the child be Lot's own, after all? The date could even have been right. They said it was a sickly child, and small."
"It could be. I told you I was guessing. But we do know that Queen Morgause has no truth in her — and that she is Arthur's enemy. Her actions, and Lot's, bear watching. Arthur himself will have to know, beyond doubt, what the truth is."
"Of course. I see that. One thing we could do is find out who bore a male child at about the same time as the queen. I could ask around the place tomorrow. I've made a useful wine-friend or two already."
"In a town this size it could be one of a score. And we have no time. Listen!"
Up through the ground, clear now, the beat of hoofs. A troop, riding hard. Then the sound of them, close and coming closer, clear above the river noises, and soon the town noises as people crowded out to see. Men shouting; the crash of wood on stonework as the gates were flung open; the jingle of bits and the clash of armour; the snorting of hard-ridden horses. More shouting, and an echo from the castle rock high above us, then the sound of a trumpet.
The main bridge thundered. The heavy gates creaked and slammed. The sounds dwindled toward the inner courtyard, and were lost in the other, nearer noises.
I stood up and walked to the doorway of the wheelwright's shop, and looked up to where, beyond the mill roof, the castle towered against the clouded night. The rain had stopped. Lights were moving. Windows flared and darkened as the king's servants lighted him through the castle. To the west side were two windows bright with soft light. The moving lights went there, and stayed.