by Mary Stewart
I skimmed through the rest, then rolled up the letter. "I must go straight home," I told Ahdjan.
"So soon? I was afraid of it." He signed to a servant, who lifted a silver flagon from a bowl of snow, and poured the wine into glass goblets. Where the snow had come from I did not know; they have it carried by night from the hilltops, and stored underground in straw. "I'm sorry to lose you, but when I saw the letter, I was afraid it might be bad news."
"Not bad yet, but there will be bad to come." I told him what I could of the situation, and he listened gravely. They understand these things in Constantinopolis. Since Alaric the Goth took Rome, men's ears are tuned to listen for the thunder in the north. I went on: "Uther is a strong king and a good general, but even he cannot be everywhere, and this division of power makes men uncertain and afraid. It's time the succession was made sure." I tapped the letter. "Ector tells me the Queen is with child again."
"So I had heard. If this is a boy he'll be declared the heir, won't he? Hardly a time for a baby to inherit a kingdom, unless he had a Stilicho to look after his interests." He was referring to the general who had protected the empire of the young Emperor Honorius. "Has Uther anyone among his generals who could be left as regent if he were killed?"
"For all I know they'd be as likely to kill as to protect."
"Well, Uther had better live, then, or allow the son he's already got to be his legitimate heir. He must be what? Seven? Eight? Why cannot Uther do the sensible thing and declare him again, with you to become regent if the King should be killed during the boy's minority?" He looked at me sideways over his glass. "Come, Merlin, don't raise your brows at me like that. The whole world knows you took the child from Tintagel and have him hidden somewhere."
"Does the world say where?"
"Oh, yes. The world spawns solutions the way that pool yonder spawns frogs. The general opinion is that the child is safe in the island of HyBrasil, nursed by the white paps of nine queens, no less. It's no wonder he flourishes. Or else that he is with you, but invisible. Disguised perhaps as a packmule?"
I laughed. "How would I dare? What would that make Uther?"
"You'd dare anything, I think. I was hoping you'd dare tell me where the boy is, and all about him...No?"
I shook my head, smiling. "Forgive me, but not yet."
He moved a hand gracefully. They understand secrets, too, in Constantinopolis. "Well, at least you can tell me if he's safe and well?"
"I assure you of it."
"And will succeed, with you as regent?"
I laughed, shook my head, and drained my wine. He signaled to the slave, who was standing out of hearing, and the man hurried to refill my glass. Ahdjan waved him away. "I've had a letter, too, from Hoel. He tells me that King Uther has sent men in search of you, and that he doesn't speak of you with kindness, though everyone knows how much he owes you. There are rumors, too, that even the King himself does not know where his son is hidden, and has spies out searching. Some say the boy is dead. There are also those who say that you keep the young prince close for your own ambitious ends."
"Yes," I agreed equably, "there would be some who say that."
"You see?" He threw out a hand. "I try to goad you into speaking, and you are not even angry. Where another man would protest, would even fear to go back, you say nothing, and — I'm afraid — decide to take ship straight for home."
"I know the future, Abidjan, that's the difference."
"Well, I don't know the future, and it's obvious you won't tell me, but I can make my own guess at the truth. What men are saying is just that truth twisted: you keep the boy close because you know he must one day be King. You can tell me this, though. What will you do when you get back? Bring him out of hiding?"
"By the time I get back the Queen's child should be born," I said. "What I do must depend on that. I shall see Uther, of course, and talk to him. But the main thing, as I see it, is to let the people of Britain know — friend and enemy alike — that Prince Arthur is alive and thriving, and will be ready to show himself beside his father when the time comes."
"And that's not yet?"
"I think not. When I reach home I hope I shall see more clearly. With your leave, Ahdjan, I'll take the first ship."
"As you will, of course. I shall be sorry to lose your company."
"I regret it, too. It's been a happy chance that brought me after all to Constantinopolis. I might have missed seeing you, but I was delayed by bad weather and lost the ship I should have got at Chalcedon."
He said something civil, then looked startled as he saw the implications. "Delayed? You mean you were on your way home already? Before you saw the letter? You knew?"
"No details. Only that it was time I was home."
"By the Three!" For a moment I had seen the Celt looking out of his eyes, though it was the Christian god that he swore by; they only have one other oath in Constantinopolis, and that is "By the One," and they fight to the death over them. Then he laughed. "By the Three! I wish I'd had you beside me last week in the Hippodrome! I lost a cool thousand on the Greens — a sure thing, you'd have sworn, and they ran like three-legged cows. Well, it seems that whatever prince has you to guide him, he's lucky. If he had had you, I might have had an empire today, instead of a respectable government post — and lucky to get that without being a eunuch besides."
He nodded as he spoke at the great mosaic on the main wall of the room behind us. I had noticed it already, and wondered vaguely at the Byzantine strain of melancholy which decorates a room with such scenes instead of the livelier designs one sees in Greece and Italy. I had already observed, in the entrance hall, a crucifix done lifesize with mourning figures and Christian devices all round it. This, too, was an execution, but a noble one, on the battlefield. The sky was dark, done with chips of slate and lapis hammered into clouds like iron, with among them the staring heads of gods. The horizon showed a line of towers and temples with a crimson sun setting behind. It seemed meant to be Rome. The wide plain in front of the walls was the scene of the battle's end: to the left the defeated host, men and horses dead or dying on a field scattered with broken weapons; to the right the victors, clustered behind the crowned leader, and bathed in a shaft of light descending from a Christ poised in blessing above the other gods. At the victor's feet the other leader knelt, his neck bared to the executioner's blade. He was lifting both arms towards his conqueror, not for mercy, but in formal surrender of the sword which lay across his hands. Below him, in the corner of the picture, was written Max. On the right, below the victor, were stamped the words Theod. Imp.
"By the One!" I said, and saw Ahdjan smile; but he could not have known what had brought me so quickly to my feet. He rose gracefully and followed me to the wall, obviously pleased at my interest.
"Yes, Maximus' defeat by the Emperor. Good, isn't it?" He smoothed a hand over the silken tesserae. "The man who did it can't have known much of the ironies of war. In spite of all this, you might say it came out even enough in the end. That hangdog fellow on the left behind Maximus is Hoel's ancestor, the one who took the remnants of the British contingent home. This holy-looking gentleman shedding blood all over the Emperor's feet is my great-great-grandfather, to whose conscience and good business sense I owe both my fortune and the saving of my soul."
I hardly listened. I was staring at the sword in Maximus' hand. I had seen it before. Glowing on the wall behind Ygraine. Flashing home to its scabbard in Brittany. Now here, the third time, imaged in Maximus' hand outside the walls of Rome. Ahdjan was watching me curiously. "What is it?"
"The sword. So it was his sword."
"What was? Have you seen it, then?"
"No. Only in a dream. Twice, I've seen it in dreams. Now here for the third time, in a picture..." I spoke half to myself, musing. Sunlight, striking up off the pool on the terrace, sent light rippling across the wall, so that the sword shimmered in Macsen's hands, and the jewels in its hilt showed green and yellow and vivid blue. I said, softly: "So that i
s why I missed the ship at Chalcedon."
"What do you mean?"
"Forgive me, I hardly know. I was thinking of a dream. Tell me, Ahdjan, this picture...Are those the walls of Rome? Maximus wasn't murdered at Rome, surely?"
"Murdered?" Ahdjan, speaking primly, looked amused. "The word on our side of the family is 'executed.' No, it wasn't at Rome. I think the artist was being symbolic. It happened at Aquileia. You may not know it; it's a small place near the mouth of the Turrus River, at the northern end of the Adriatic."
"Do ships call there?"
His eyes widened. "You mean to go?"
"I would like to see the place where Macsen died. I would like to know what became of his sword."
"You won't find that at Aquileia," he said. "Kynan took it."
"Who?"
He nodded at the picture. "The man on the left. Hoel's ancestor, who took the British back home to Brittany. Hoel could have told you." He laughed at my expression. "Did you come all this way for that piece of information?"
"It seems so," I said. "Though until this moment I didn't know it. Are you telling me that Hoel has that sword? It's in Brittany?"
"No. It was lost long since. Some of the men who went home to Greater Britain took his things with them; I suppose they would have taken his sword to give his son."
"And?"
"That's all I know. It's a long time ago and all it is now is a family tale, and the half of it's probably not true. Does it matter so much?"
"Matter?" I said. "I hardly know. But I've learned to look close at most things that come my way."
He was watching me with a puzzled look, and I thought he would question me further, but after a short hesitation he said merely: "I suppose so. Will you walk out now into the garden? It's cooler. You looked as if your head hurt you."
"That? It was nothing. Someone playing a lyre on the terrace down there. It isn't in tune."
"My daughter. Shall we go down and stop her?"
On the way down he told me of a ship due to leave the Horn in two days' time. He knew the master, and could bespeak me a passage. It was a fast ship, and would dock at Ostia, whence I would certainly find a vessel plying westwards.
"What about your servants?"
"Gaius is a good man. You could do worse than employ him yourself. I freed Stilicho. He's yours if he'll stay, and he's a wizard with horses. It would be cruelty for me to take him to Britain; his blood's as thin as an Arabian gazelle's."
But when the morning came Stilicho was there at the quayside, stubborn as the mules he had handled with such skill, his belongings in a stitched sack, and a cloak of sheepskin sweltering round him in the Byzantine sun. I argued with him, traducing even the British climate, and my simple way of living which he might find tolerable in a country where the sun shines, but would be hardship itself in that land of icy winds and wet. But, seeing finally that he would have his way even if he paid his own passage with the money I had given him as a parting gift, I gave way.
To tell the truth I was touched, and glad to have his company on the long voyage home. Though he had had none of Gaius' training as a body-servant, he was quick and intelligent, and had already shown skill in helping me with plants and medicines. He would be useful, and besides, after all these years away life at Bryn Myrddin looked a little lonelier than it had used to, and I knew well that Ralf would never come back to me.
3
It was late summer when I reached Britain. Fresh news met me on the quay, in the person of one of the King's chamberlains, who greeted me with passionate relief, and such a total absence of surprise that I told him: "You should be in my business."
He laughed. He was Lucan, whom I had known well when my father was King, and he and I were on terms. "Soothsaying? Hardly. This is the fifth ship I've met. I own I expected you, but I never thought to see you so soon. We heard you went east a long while back, and we sent messengers, hoping to reach you. Did they find you?"
"No. But I was already on my way."
He nodded, as if I had confirmed his thoughts. He had been too close to my father, Ambrosius, to question the power that guided me. "You knew the King was sick, then?"
"Not that, no. Only that the times were dangerous, and I should get home. Uther ill? That's grave news. What's the sickness?"
"A wound gone bad. You knew he's been seeing to the rebuilding of the Saxon Shore defenses, and training the troops there himself? Well, an alarm was raised about longships up the Thames — they'd been seen level with Vagniacae — too near London for comfort. A small foray, nothing serious, but he was first into it as usual, and got a cut, and the wound didn't heal. This was two months since, and he's still in pain, and losing flesh."
"Two months? Hasn't his own physician been attending him?"
"Indeed yes. Gandar's been there from the beginning."
"And he could do nothing?"
"Well," said Lucan, "according to him the King was mend ing, and he says — along with the other doctors who've been consulted — that there's nothing to fear. But I've watched them conferring in corners, and Gandar looks worried." He glanced at me sideways. "There's a kind of uneasiness — you might even call it apprehension — infecting the whole court, and it's going to be hard to keep it contained there. I don't have to tell you, it's a bad time for the country to doubt if their leader's going to be fit to lead them. In fact, rumors have started already. You know the King can't have the bellyache without a scare of poison; and now they whisper about spells and hauntings. And not without reason; the King looks, sometimes, like a man who walks with ghosts. It was time you came home."
We were already moving along the road from the port. The horses had been there ready saddled at the quayside, and an escort waiting; this more for ceremony than for safety; the road to London is well-traveled and guarded. It occurred to me that perhaps the armed men who rode with us were there, not to see that I came to the King unharmed, but that I came there at all.
I said as much dryly, to Lucan. "It seems the King wants to make sure of me."
He looked amused, but only said with his courtier's smoothness: "Perhaps he was afraid that you might not care to attend him. Shall we say that a physician who fails to cure a king does not always add to his reputation."
"Does not always survive, you mean. I trust poor Gandar's still alive?"
"So far." He paused, then said neutrally: "Not that I'm much of a judge, but I'd have said it's not the King's body that lacks a cure, but his mind."
"So it's my magic that's wanted?" He was silent. I added: "Or his son?"
His eyelids drooped. "There are rumors about him, too."
"I'm sure there are." My voice was as bland as his. "One piece of news I did hear on my travels, that the Queen was pregnant again. I reckon she should have been brought to bed a month ago. What is the child?"
"It was a son, stillborn. They say that it was this sent the King out of his mind, and fevered his wound again. And now there are rumors that the eldest son is dead, too. In fact some say he died in infancy, that there is no son." He paused. His gaze fixed on his horse's ears, but there was the faintest of queries in his voice.
"Not true, Lucan," I said. "He's alive, a fine boy, and growing fast. Don't be afraid, he'll be there when he's needed."
"Ah." It was a long exhalation of relief. "Then it's true he's with you! This is the news that will heal the kingdom, if not the King. You'll bring the boy to London now?"
"First I must see the King. After that, who knows?"
A courtier knows when a subject has been turned, and Lucan asked no more questions, but began to talk of more general news. He told me in more detail what I had already learned from Ector's letters; Ector had certainly not exaggerated the situation. I took care not to ask too many questions about the possible danger in the north, but Lucan spoke of it himself, of the manning of strongpoints north of Rheged along the old line of Hadrian's Wall, and then of Lot's contribution to the defense of the north-east. "He's making hard going of it. Not b
ecause the raids are bad — the place has been quiet lately — but perhaps because of that very fact. The small kings don't trust Lot; they say he's a hard man and niggardly with spoils, and cares little for any interests except his own. When they see there's no fighting to be done yet, and nothing to win, they desert him wholesale and take their men home to till the fields." He made a sound of contempt, as near to a snort as a courtier ever gets. "Fools, not to see that whether they like their commander or not, they'll have no fields to till, nor families to till them for, unless they fight."
"But Lot's whole interest lies in his alliances, especially to the southward. I suppose that that with Rheged is safe enough? Why do his allies distrust him? Do they suspect him of lining his own nest at their expense? Or perhaps of something worse?"
"That I can't tell you." His voice was wooden.
"Is there no one else Uther can appoint as commander in the north?"
"Not unless he goes himself. He can't demote Lot. His daughter is promised to him."
I said, startled: "His daughter? Do you mean that Lot accepted Morgause after all?"
"Not Morgause, no," said Lucan. "I doubt that marriage wasn't tempting enough for Lothian, for all the girl's turned out such a beauty. Lot's an ambitious man, he'd not dangle after a bastard when there was a trueborn princess to be had. I meant the Queen's daughter; Morgian."
"Morgian? But she can hardly be five years old!"
"Nevertheless, she's promised, and you know that's binding between kings."
"If I don't, who should?" I said dryly, and Lucan knew what I was thinking of: my own mother who had borne me to Ambrosius with no bond but a promise made in secret; and my father who had let the promise bind him as securely as a ceremonial oath.
We came in sight of London Wall then, and the traffic of the morning market thronged about us. Lucan had given me plenty to think about, and I was glad when the escort closed up, and he was silent, and left me to my thoughts.
I had expected to find Uther attended, and about some at least of his affairs, but he was still keeping his own chamber, and alone.