The Wicked Day

by Mary Stewart

  There was a gleam of appreciation in the old king's eyes. He did not say in so many words that Aelle's descendants had no such grasp of the situation, but again, the two men understood one another.

  He merely said, thoughtfully: "I am told — though of course my information is not always correct — that the harbour at Rutupiae is beginning to silt up, and no attempt is being made to keep it clear."

  Mordred, who, too, had heard this, expressed surprise, and the two men talked for a while longer to their mutual satisfaction, with at the end a very clear idea that, should Cerdic decide that the gateway to the Continent would be worth a foray by the West Saxons, Mordred with the British would at the very least refrain from pushing in through the back door, and at the most would throw his weight in beside the West Saxon king.

  "With eventual free access for British traders to the port, of course," he said.

  "Of course," said Cerdic.

  So, with a good deal of satisfaction on both sides, the conference ended. The old king set off southward with the elder thegns, while his younger warriors escorted Mordred and his troops part of the way north, with a joyous accompaniment of shouting and weapon-play. Mordred rode alone for most of the way, ahead of the troops. He was dimly conscious of the noise behind him, where Saxon and Briton alike seemed to be celebrating what was now an alliance, rather than a mere treaty of non-aggression. He knew, as Cerdic had known without saying it, that such an agreement could not so readily have been reached with the victor of Badon and its forerunning battles. A new start had been made. The day of the young men had begun. Change was in the air. Plans, long stifled, buzzed in his brain, and the blood he shared with Ambrosius and Arthur and Merlin the vanished statesman ran free at last with the power to do and to make.

  It is certain that if, on his return to Camelot, he had found awaiting him the royal courier with the news of Arthur's safety and imminent return, there would have been a perceptible weight of disappointment among the relief and joy.

  * * *

  No courier was there. For days now the wind had blown steadily eastward across the Narrow Sea, keeping the British ships sealed in the Breton harbours. But it carried a ship from Cornwall to Brittany with letters from Constantine the duke. They were identical, addressed the one to King Hoel, and the other to Bedwyr, and the latter was carried straight to Arthur, where he lay still at Autun.

  Mordred has shown himself in his true colours. He has given out through the kingdoms that King Arthur is slain, and he has assumed the kingship. The Queen has resigned her regency, and letters have come bidding me to resign my rights as Arthur's heir, and accept Mordred as High King. He treats now with Cerdic, who is to hold the ports of the Saxon Shore against all corners, and whose son is in Saxony raising his thousands, all of whom swear allegiance to Mordred.

  Meanwhile Mordred the King talks with the kings of Dyfed and Guent, and men from Mona and Powys, and is riding even now to meet the leaders from the north who have long spoken against Arthur the High King, wanting freedom for every man to rule as he wills, without reference to the Round Hall and the Council. Mordred, perjurer that he is, promises them self-rule and a change of the law. So he makes allies.

  Finally, with the High King gone, he plans to take Queen Guinevere to wife. He has lodged her at Caerleon, and consorts with her there.

  Though the interpretation of Mordred's actions was Constantine's, the main facts as set out in the letter were true.

  As soon as he returned from his meeting with Cerdic, Mordred had persuaded the Queen to go to Caerleon. Until the truth of Arthur's death was known, and the country — at present in the inevitable panic and turmoil following the sudden death of a powerful ruler — was more settled, and the new chain of command set up and working smoothly, he wanted, as he had promised, to ensure her safety. Camelot was as strong a city as Caerleon, but it was too far east; and any trouble that was coming, as Mordred judged, would come that way. The west was safe. (except, he reminded himself, from Duke Constantine, that silently resentful ex-heir of Arthur's, who had sent no answer to the courteous invitations of the Council to discuss the matter at the round table. But Caerleon, armed and defended, was as safe from him as from any other disaffected man.)

  It was too near for Guinevere's liking to her own homeland of Northgalis, where a cousin now ruled who had wanted once to marry her, and who said so rather too often to the wife he eventually had to take. But the alternatives were even less comfortable. Guinevere would have preferred to take refuge in a convent, but of the two best sanctuaries, the nearer — the Lake convent on Ynys Witrin — was in the Summer Country, and the Queen would on no account put herself under the protection of its king, Melwas. The other, at Amesbury, Arthur's own township, which would have welcomed her, had failed signally to protect the last queen it had housed. Morgause's murder still haunted the place.

  So Mordred, making necessity a pleasure, chose Caerleon, where he had already convened meetings with those kings from the west and north with whom he had not already had the chance to talk. He escorted the Queen there himself, embarking with her at Ynys Witrin, and setting sail for the Isca's mouth on the shore of the Severn Sea.

  The voyage was calm, the sea gentle, the breezes light and fresh. It was a golden interval in the turmoil of that violent summer. The Queen kept apart with her ladies, but in the morning and evening of the two days' voyage Mordred visited her and they talked. On one of these occasions she told him, briefly and without detail, why she had been so reluctant to take refuge with King Melwas. It appeared that many years ago, in the hot spring of youth, Melwas had abducted the Queen by force and stratagem, and carried her off to a remote island in the water-logged fens of the Summer Country. There, by his magic, Merlin had discovered her, and had led Bedwyr to a timely rescue. Later, Arthur and Melwas had fought, a notable combat, at the end of which the King, being the victor, had spared Melwas's life.

  "After that?" said Mordred, shocked for once into bluntness. "I would have dragged him to your feet and killed him there, slowly."

  "And had every man and woman in the kingdoms sure of his guilt and my shame?" She spoke calmly, but her cheeks had reddened, whether at the memory of that shame or at the young man's fervour it was impossible to guess.

  Mordred bit his lip. He recalled the story that Agravain had once told at a meeting of the Young Celts, and that he, Mordred, had not believed. So it was true; and now the cryptic references made by Bedwyr and Arthur at the site of the Princess Elen's rape became clear. He remembered further: the girl's violated body lying under its scrambled covering of pine needles.

  He said thickly: "Later, then. But policy or no policy, I would not have let him live."

  He took his leave then. After he had gone the Queen sat for a long while without moving, looking out across the deck-rail at the shining water, and the distant shore sliding by, with its trees like clouds, and the clouds above them like towers.

  Having installed Guinevere in comfort in the Queen's palace at Caerleon, Mordred plunged into the round of meetings with the leaders and petty kings assembled in the fortress to meet him. What he had not expected, and what Constantine, that western duke, knew well, was the dissatisfaction, even hostility, he found there for some of Arthur's policies. In the remoter highlands, the silver-age Romanization so dear to Ambrosius and Arthur had never been acceptable. It was not only the young men who wanted change; the older kings, too, were chafing against what they saw as the restrictive policies of a remote and lowland center of government. Arthur, in attempting to restore the territorial integrity of Roman Britain, had remodelled his federation of kingdoms in a way that to many of the rulers seemed outdated. To these men Mordred, outlander and Young Celt, was the leader they hoped for. That Arthur had just stood against actual Roman domination in defense of the Celtic lands would do much to bring him nearer their hearts again, but Arthur was presumed dead, and it became increasingly apparent that in the Celtic Highlands his return would not be altogether welcome.
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br />   Mordred trod carefully, talked sparingly, counted the allies sworn to his banner, and went every evening to see the Queen.

  It was perhaps a little sad to see how Guinevere lighted up at his visits, and how eagerly she plied him with questions. He answered her readily, keeping her more fully informed than Arthur had found time to do, of every move of state. She did not guess that he was simply taking every chance of seeing her, and every means of prolonging his meetings with her, letting her grow easier with him, become used to him in his role of ruler and protector. She thought merely that he was trying to bring her comfort and distraction, and was grateful accordingly, and her gratitude, in that time of uncertainty, grief and fear, brought her (as Mordred had hoped) within touching distance of tenderness, and sighting distance of love. At any rate, when he held her hand to kiss it, or, greatly daring, laid his own over it by way of comfort, she no longer hurried to withdraw from his touch.

  As for Mordred, with his new authority, the uncertainty, the brilliant starting of long-held plans, the closeness of the long-desired and lovely Guinevere, he was swept forward from day to day on a full tide of sovereignty and power, and it is doubtful if at this stage he could have gone back. In love, as in other things, there comes a time when the will resigns and franks the desire, and then not even Orpheus, turning back, could cause his love to vanish. He had had that one glimpse of her, the real Guinevere, a lonely woman afraid of life, a leaf to be blown into a safe corner by any strong wind. He would be — was — her safety. He was subtle enough to see that she recognized it, and used her gently. He could wait.

  So the days went by, and the wind still closed the Narrow Sea, and each of them, constantly, watched the road and the harbour for the messenger from Brittany. And each spent hours of the night watching the dark and thinking, thinking, and when they finally slept it was not of each other they dreamed, but of Arthur.

  Of Duke Constantine, brooding in his Cornish castle, they did not think at all.

  7

  CONSTANTINE'S LETTER WAS BROUGHT to Arthur at his camp near Autun. King Hoel, feeling his years and his ailments now that the battle was over, had withdrawn towards home. But for Gawain, who in these days was always at his elbow, Arthur was alone.

  He was also very tired. He had returned from the brief punitive foray into the mountains to find near-panic among the troops who, though still searching among the heaped dead for his body, believed themselves kingless. Even his return permitted little rejoicing, for Bedwyr, worse hurt than he had admitted, or that anyone had judged, was now seriously ill, and the surgeons shook their heads over the pallet where he lay unconscious in an annex of the royal pavilion.

  So Arthur was alone in more ways than one. Bedwyr was dying. Cei, the elder foster-brother with whom he had been brought up, was dead. Caius Valerius, too, the ageing warrior, veteran of Ambrosius' wars, and friend to Uther Pendragon and Merlin… The list seemed endless, the names a roll culled from the tale of Arthur's past glories, or even a simple tally of his friends. Of those close to him Gawain alone was unwounded, and he, flown with the joy of his first great fight and resounding victory, had proved himself a strong support. To him Arthur, feeling his age for the first time (though he was by many years King Hoel's junior), turned in gratitude and affection.

  He started to read the duke's letter. Through the skins of the tent wall he could hear the groaning and muttering where Bedwyr tossed on his sickbed. He would die before morning, they said, if the fever did not break.

  The letter again. Mordred… making himself High King, talking with Cerdic, gathering the kings of Wales and the north…

  "Well," said Arthur, frowning; his head ached and the torchlight made the words swim. "Well, all this is to be expected. If news of my supposed death was taken to Mordred, he would take exactly these steps. We spoke of it before he left Kerrec. He was to meet with Cerdic to ratify the treaty and talk over a possible new settlement in the future. Now, if my death was reported to him, he may well have thought it expedient to negotiate new terms, since the old treaty would then be invalid."

  "New terms! An alliance that sounds like folly at its best, and at its worst a deadly peril! This about Cynric, raising fresh Saxon levies over here. Did you know, uncle?"

  On the other side of the tent wall the sick man cried out, then was silent. Someone spoke hurriedly, there was muttering, quick footsteps, the swish of robes. The King was half on his feet, the parchment falling to the floor, forgotten, when the muttering began again. Not death yet, then; not quite yet. Arthur sank back in his chair.

  "Did you know about Cynric?" persisted Gawain.

  "Cynric? Oh, calling men to his standard in Saxony. No, but if it is true—"

  "I'm pretty sure it's true," said Gawain. "I've already heard rumours going about the camp. Men massing by the Neustrian shore. Longships lying in the harbours like arrows jammed in a quiver. And for what? Cynric sails, and Cerdic moves towards the south-east ports to meet him, then the South Saxons are caught between the two, and the whole southeast will be Cerdic's, with freedom to invite whomsoever he pleases to come over and swell his army. The South Saxons have been the other wall that contained him, and who is to contain him now?"

  His angry eyes glared into the King's, as if the latter's composure chafed him. If he heard the sounds from beyond the wall, he gave no sign of it. He had not attempted to lower his voice.

  "No doubt the next courier will bring me a report of Cynric's doings." Arthur sounded weary but relatively unworried. "But for the rest of this letter, Gawain, remember who writes. Duke Constantine did not take kindly to Mordred's nomination as regent: He will have taken even less kindly to his appointment as my sole heir. Everything he says there—" He gestured to the letter on the floor, and Gawain stooped to pick it up. "Everything he says that Mordred has done, Mordred and I agreed should be done. We only have Constantine's word, which is hardly the word of a friend, for the way it is being done."

  "But surely Mordred himself should have sent a report? If Constantine's man could get through—"

  "If he believed the report of my death," said Arthur, "to whom would he send it?"

  Gawain, with an impatient shrug, started to hand the letter back to his uncle. Then he checked. "There's more here. On the other side, see?"

  Arthur took it from him, saw the last sentences on the back, and began to read them aloud.

  " 'Finally, with the High King gone, he plans to take Queen Guinevere to wife. He has lodged her at Caerleon, and—' "

  He did not finish it, but Gawain did, on a rising note where genuine anger was shot with a kind of triumph.

  " 'And consorts with her there'!" He swung away, then back to the King. "Uncle, whether or not he believes you dead, this is the act of a traitor! He has no proof as yet, no shadow of reason for haling the Queen off to Caerleon, and paying his court to her! You say the rest of this letter could be true.… If it is, in whatever fashion, then this must be true also!"

  "Gawain!—" began the King, in a warning voice, but Gawain, burning, swept on: "No, you must hear me! I'm your kin. You'll hear truth from me. I can tell you this, uncle, Mordred wanted the kingdom always. I know how ambitious he was, even at home in the islands, even before he knew he was your son. Your son, yes! But still a fisher-brat, a peasant with a peasant's guile and greed, and a huckster's honour! He's taken the first chance to turn traitor and get what he wants. With the Saxons and the Welsh at his back, and the Queen at his side… "consorts" indeed! He wasted no time! I've seen the way he looked at her—"

  Something in Arthur's face stopped him there. It was hard to say what it was, for the King looked like a dead man carved in grey stone. Something about him suggested a man who sees at his feet a deadly pitfall lined with spears, and who with sheer stubborn faith holds to the one frail sapling that may stop him from falling. There was silence now from the next room.

  Arthur's voice was still steady, still reasonable, but without life or tone. "Gawain. The last thing I enjoined on my
son was, in the event of my death, to care for and protect the Queen. He stands to her also as a son. What has been said, we shall forget."

  Gawain bowed his head and muttered something that might have been an apology. Arthur handed him the letter.

  "Burn this letter. Now. That's it," as Gawain held the parchment up to a torch and watched it blacken and curl into crow's feathers. "Now I must go to Bedwyr. In the morning—"

  He did not finish. He began to get to his feet, moving slowly, putting weight on the arms of his chair like an old man, or a sick one. Gawain, who was fond of him, was seized with sudden compunction, and spoke more gently: "I'm sorry, uncle, believe me, I am. I know you don't want to believe this of Mordred, so let us hope there is news soon. Meanwhile, is there anything I can do for you?"

  "Yes. You can go and give the orders for our return home. Whatever the truth of the matter, I shall have to go back. Either I must deal with Mordred, or with Constantine. This is not the time to pursue our victory further, or even to call for talks with the emperor. Instead, I shall send him a message."

  "Yes?" queried Gawain, as the King paused.

  Arthur's look was cryptic. "A task that will please you. See that Lucius Quintilianus' body is disinterred and sent to the emperor, with this message: that this is the tribute that the British pay to Rome. Now leave me. I must go to Bedwyr."

  * * *

  Bedwyr did not die. The silence that had frightened the King was not death, or coma, but sleep, and the sick man woke from it with his fever gone and his wounds cool. Arthur, in spite of what might lie ahead of him, could set out for Britain with a free mind and a lighter heart.