by Andre Norton
17.
* * *
The breeze at the top of the windswept wall did not carry away the words of the man who stood below. Arthur, his face drawn and set in lines of haggard strain, stood firm-footed gazing down at that bard. Behind him was ranged a ragged showing of his once-proud court. Cei’s voice was a thick growl, monotonously cursing the bard, who by the ancient custom of the tribes must be free from any retaliation in physical form.
Merlin studied the man. This was so ingenious a move that he did not believe the idea had been Modred’s at all. He could see Nimue in this—or was he too ready to see Nimue in all which moved against Arthur or him? The plan could even have been partly Guenevere’s, for the bard below was from her father’s court, well noted there for the sharpness of his tongue and the evil twists of his mind which profaned bardic uses to his own purposes.
This was a threat which had brought proud lords and kings to dire disaster in the past: for the bard was engaged in singing aloud the tale of Arthur who lay with his own sister to beget a son whom now he hunted from him, of Arthur who was demon-possessed and no true king at all.
Since his recovery the King had refused to listen to Cei and the others who had pressed him for the instant pursuit of Modred and Guenevere. He had patiently pointed out over and over again that to pursure with a sword was to break apart the Fellowship of Britain. And that, if the Fellowship failed, Britain would also break asunder while the sea wolves would be quick to pick her bones.
Merlin had thought Modred more farseeing than to move thus openly with the old scandal. He could not expect the lords to rally to him after revealing his mother’s shame to pull Arthur down. Even though he was of the Pendragon blood, no lord hearing this would raise his voice for Modred to wear the crown. By tainting Arthur he tainted himself. So why?
Guenevere, too, had much to lose. If she had chosen Modred as the coming ruler, thinking Arthur on his death bed, then why would she wish to dash his chances? Too many questions and they all led, he was sure, to Nimue.
If she had discovered his attack on her stronghold then her fury might have erupted, pushing her to act without the careful intrigue he associated with her, to throw aside all cover and make such a deadly attack. Nimue—he was positive of that!
On and on rang that chant, derisive, penetrating, tearing at the innermost feelings of a man who had no way of taking counteraction. Maybe Arthur could not, but ... Merlin moved. There was an answer, abrupt, perhaps dangerous in a way. Yet he could not allow this reviling to continue. In the past, mighty men of good life had been led to commit kin-murder by just such goading.
Merlin raised his wand, pointing it at the head of the bard. This was no real weapon; he was not putting an end to the law of bardic freedom of speech by physical means.
No, it was thought command which he hurled, knowing full well that the man below would never have ventured to the very walls of Camelot with his obscene attack were he not defended by shields no man could see. Merlin concentrated. The words sing-songed on.
Then suddenly the bard was silent. His head shook from side to side. He raised frenzied hands to claw at his own mouth.
Merlin’s own voice rang out: “The one who has spat forth poison now must chew on it! Speak, man of little power, speak now the truth!”
It took all the power of his will to hold the bard. He bad been very right in his belief that the fellow had come well armed. He had strong defenses of the old lore to counteract, yet he did so.
The bard had fallen to his knees. He looked straight up at Merlin now, his face working hideously as if he indeed held some fell poison in his mouth and could not spew it forth, so that it ate into his tongue and jaws. Again Merlin pointed with the wand.
“Speak out, with the truth. Give us no more lies of your foul imagining. Who sent you to so bemire the High King?”
As if against his will the bard’s lips parted.
“She—” he said. That single word might have been wrenched from him by a torturer’s instrument.
“Give this woman a name,” ordered Merlin. “Or as you have spouted forth lies, so shall it be that the truth will be ever closed to you. Henceforth all men will know you to be a liar, and none will listen to you again. For there comes a time of judging when one answers to his own Power. And if you were true bard you would also know—”
There was red hate burning in the man’s eyes as he stared back up at Merlin. But accompanying that hate was fear, and the fear was growing stronger.
“It is the Lady Morgause who has told this thing,” he said thickly, “and how better would anyone know the truth than she?”
Morgause—the girl Merlin had seen imprisoned in Nimue’s keep? Was this the reason Nimue had kept her on hand and ready for all these years? Merlin could hear a shocked murmur of those behind him on the wall.
“You saw the Lady Morgause.” Merlin forced his calm to hold. “And you say how better could anyone know than she. How—”
Arthur’s voice cut across his own. “Let it be, Merlin. The High King does not fight with women.”
Now the grimace of the bard below turned into a snarling grin. “Speak fair, Lord King. Cling to that shadow of honor you have never wholly had since even before the day of your crowning. Let this demon’s son strike me speechless. There have been ears enough for the hearing. Men remember evil quicker than good; it is the way of the world. Even if you could by some miracle prove yourself innocent of this act, more will listen to the accusation than to any words which absolve you. Listen well! Lord Modred sets dishonor upon you. He marches now to bring justice into this land. If you would meet him, then let the Power itself decide what is right and what is wrong.”
“Good enough!” Merlin heard Cei’s instant answer to that. “Lord King, each lord who listens seriously to this foul lie is a traitor. And with traitors there is only one way of dealing. Let them speedily face the sword edges of honest men!”
A small cheer followed his speech, but Arthur’s frown came swiftly. However it was to the bard he spoke, not Cei.
“Bard, you have delivered your message. Now go.”
“And what return do you make to Lord Modred, High King?” The man accented the title tautingly.
“That I do not propose to wrench Britain apart to suit his will,” Arthur replied somberly.
“You have no choice,” the bard returned, “unless you creep away in full dishonor before the faces of all men. Remember that!”
Then he rose from his knees, favored Merlin with a last glare and strode away, his back turned without courtesy upon the King. Cei grunted.
“A spear between that one’s shoulders now,” he said wistfully, “that should be his full payment. But he is right, foster brother. You fight or else you leave full power open to Modred. And how do you think he will use that right to rule? He is a nithling. The great lords will break apart, for he will find few to do him homage. Lord will quarrel with lord, each reaching a hand for the crown. What comes of that? A riven land will open as easy meat for the Saxons. So it was at the death of Uther. Lord King, you have no choice. You ram these foul lies back down the throat of that nithling, using your sword hilt to do so, or else you stand without honor before all who have followed you through these years.”
Arthur’s set expression did not change, but his eyes turned from the retreating bard to Cei and then to Merlin. “Attend me,” he curtly bade them both, and strode along the rampart, men falling back to give him passage.
But too many faces in that company were sober, too many eyes rested on the High King questioningly. Cei’s summing up of the situation was very apt. Arthur would be damned before all men if he did not fight, and a war between lord and lord in Britain would come either way. Everything he had wrought would break apart like a fruit rotted at the core.
And Merlin, as he obeyed the King’s summons, thought of the beacon. How long, how far? To those questions he had no answers. Perhaps what he had set in motion would draw their off-world kin into utter
chaos. Yet he could not see what he might have done differently at the time.
With Cei he entered the King’s chamber close on Arfour’s heels. The King strode back and forth across the room, his hands clasped behind his back, his chin sunk upon his chest. There was pain in his face, such pain as no physical wound would have raised.
“Brothers,” he said, “you alone know the truth which lies behind my heritage. Aye,” he spoke now to Merlin, “I have shared the truth with Cei for he is also of the Old Blood in part But there is this: will any man, either those out there who heard that down-chant, or those who have apparently flocked to Modred, believe it?”
Cei spoke first. “If they did, brother, they would find it an evil truth and look upon you with even greater hatred. Few men will accept that there may be a race somewhere, either on this earth or off it, who are greater in gifts and talents than themselves. The priests teach that there was a Christus who was so, but he is dead. And so, being dead, men can now accept him. Yet in his time men hated and reviled him for that difference, and conspired to send him to the most shameful punishment they knew, one reserved for slaves and traitors. Men bow to gods, but if those gods appeared they would fear and hate them.
“It is the nature of man to wish to drag down to his own level all who have climbed above. You are the greatest king Britain has seen, even greater than Maximus, for you have not deserted your duty in pursuit of ambition. Had you not been given the crown, still you would have struggled to serve. Men know this and it does not make them revere you the more. Do you think that Lot, who was in position to claim the throne, loves you now? Nor may the Duke of Cornwall, nor any of those others who might aspire to your crown.
“Aye, they shall use this old scandal against you. But this was an act of a lusty youth and it can be made plain that the Lady Morgause was unknown to you as being close kin. Besides, she was one who had warmed other beds and it can be hinted that Modred was none of your true get—”
“No!” Arthur interrupted. “We do not befoul a woman’s name to answer this threat. She perhaps was—is—all that you say. But I will not hold her up meanly before all and cry ‘The woman deceived and tempted me!’ Such action is not for any king.”
Cei nodded. “So would you decide, brother. But such fairness will not work for you either. Men will accept forbearance as an open admission of guilt. However, to tell the truth is even worse. We shall have ‘demon-born’ hurled in our ears until that cry will deafen and turn from us even the most strong-hearted of those who would otherwise support you.”
“He is right,” Merlin said quietly. “This is a time when either choice will make strong enemies. The web has been well woven; the snare is around us.”
“You are sure this is of Nimue’s doing?”
Merlin answered the King forthrightly: “As sure as if I had heard her order Morgause to teach the bard his lines. She is taking her revenge now. But there is this, Arthur, I am also certain that she can no longer speak with her guiding voice, therefore what she may do is of her own thinking. And the beacon cannot now be overset—”
“This beacon—” Cei rounded on him. “You promise it will bring the Sky Lords. In what numbers will they come, and when? Will they raise weapons to aid our King, or stand aside and let man struggle against man, perhaps then making some treaty with the victor?”
“I have answers to none of those questions,” Merlin returned. “Time to the Sky Lords does not pass as our days or years. They live much longer than we do. It may be that years will pass before their ships drop from our sky.”
Cei shook his head. “Then it is best to forget them in any plans we make. But Modred must be handled, and speedily. As yet his force will be small, but men will ride to him. And do not forget, he also has the Queen. Her very presence in his camp will argue that she believes this shameful tale and so has withdrawn from you, Arthur.”
“That I know,” the King returned. His voice sounded tired, as worn and ravaged as his face. “Men will also say that I ride out against my own son.”
“You ride against a traitor!” returned Cei forcefully. “You,” he said, turning his attention to Merlin, “this was of your doing! If your knowledge was so great and all-powerful why—”
But Arthur replied with more strengh in Merlin’s behalf than he had for himself. “Waste no time, brother, on the counting of many ‘ifs’ which lie in all our pasts. Merlin did only what was given him to do. And it is on him that all our success will lie in the end.”
Merlin, startled, regarded the King narrowly. There had been a note in Arthur’s voice when he said that, as if suddenly the talent of farseeing had been given to him.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“When the hour comes,” the King continued in that same assured voice, “then it shall be known to you, kinsman. We each have a part to play, ill-fated though such may be. It is, as you have pointed out, Cei, well that we move to the playing of them now.”
They rode out of Camelot, not ablaze with colors waving and high confidence in their might, but soberly, yet not in any degree showing that they believed their mission any the less rightful than when they marched against the invaders.
News was brought to Arthur. The forces had indeed split, and it was true that many of the great lords, perhaps through jealousy as Cei had foreseen, were either holding aloof from taking sides or had openly joined Modred. He had dared to raise the Dragon standard and proclaim himself High King, Arthur being no fit ruler.
Cei laughed harshly when that was reported at their second night’s camp.
“He is a fool,” he said bluntly. “Does he believe that Lot, who waits now to see how fortune favors us, would allow him more days on that unsteady throne than it would take him to offer Modred open challenge?”
If Lot was one who waited, Constans of Cornwall was not. With his Boar banner waving proudly, he brought his train of fighters into Arthur’s camp. There before all gathered he reaffirmed his sworn allegiance to the King. So an old ill was forgotten and Arthur gained heart thereby, for Constans was the son of Goloris’ son, and the only other true-born lord of Arthur’s kin.
On the fourth day, when their army had been augmented again by two troops of the Black Horse fresh from duty along the Marches, Arthur called council, meeting with those lords and commanders who had remained true to their allegiance.
“We march now,” the King said with a harsh note in his voice, “against those who have been sword brothers and shield comrades. A hundred times or more have we faced a common foe and braved the threat of death together. It is not meet that we now turn steel against one another in anger. I will not put aside my crown, not because I choose to be king against the will of all men, but because I will not step aside from my duty to this land. Yet it is a very grievous thing to slay old friends.”
He paused but no man of that company spoke up. Merlin thought that Arthur had not really expected any answer. Then he continued slowly:
“Let no man be able to say in days to come that I do not wish well those who have been seduced from me by lies. Therefore, I would send a messenger to Modred and say to him that we should meet in open company, all weapons sheathed, and speak together, that he break not a peace so hardly built.”
Constans, who was the greatest of the lords now in that company, though almost the youngest also, then answered him.
“Lord King, this is the act of one who has indeed thought of others first. Few men who have had a bard sing against them would hold out a hand in peace to those who sent that bard. If you go meet this traitor, then I shall stand at your side!”
“And I—I—I—” They had caught fire, Merlin saw. No one there, having looked on Arthur’s face as he spoke of that offer, would ever say that it was one made out of fear; rather it came from his love for Britain, which he had served nearly all his life long.
So one of the oldest of the lords, a certain Owien, who had in his youth ridden in Ambrosius’ own bodyguard, offered himself as messenger. And
Arthur, knowing the high respect in which all men held Owien, was well pleased. Having the King’s words given to him, Owien went forth from the camp. And they rested, waiting through a day and a night. On the second day Owien returned.
He came directly to Arthur, “Lord King, I have spoken your words to Modred. There was some talk among his people, urging this and that, but at last he agreed that it shall be as you wish. He has said to meet with him at the Lesser Stones of Langwellyn, bringing with you ten of your lords, as he shall come with ten of his. The priest Gildas spoke up saying that Merlin must not be one of the ten, for he would lend the Devil’s own strength to you. But Modred laughed at that and said he had something which would defeat any Devil’s work. Lord King, with their forces rides the Lady Morgause, yet she is not aged, but is even as she left the court at Uther’s sending. And with her is the Lady of the Lake. Men look sidewise at them, even in Modred’s company, for it is not natural that age has not touched the Lady Morgause.”
“If she be the Lady Morgause at all!” snapped Cei. “Uther had bastards in plenty and this one may even be a daughter of one of them, if she looks so young. It is but another trick for the undoing of our lord!”
Arthur gestured as if brushing aside this addition to Owien’s report.
“All that matters now is that Modred has agreed to this meeting. Let us take heart in that.”
But later, when night had closed in, he came to Merlin. “You have powers,” he began. “Can you use them over Modred, making him repeat before his lords words which will commit him to peace? I do not believe that one man should command another so against his will, but this is a man who would plunge our world into blood. If there is anything I can do to stay his hand without a killing, that I shall attempt.”
“It depends,” Merlin answered as frankly, “on how well Nimue has armed him. Mark his reply to Gildas made before Owien. I have done what I can to weaken her power. But I shall not know how well I have succeeded until we have a trial of strength. Be sure, however, that all I can raise in the way of force is at your disposal, kinsman.