by Mary Stewart
In a pine wood at the foot of the hills east of Autun, Arthur stirred and woke.
He lay wrapped in his war cloak, his sword to his hand. His shoulder and side were stiff with bruising from the blow that had felled him during the battle, and his head ached abominably, but he was otherwise unhurt. His tethered horse grazed near him. His companions, some forty men, were, like him, rousing to the first misty light of the new day. Three of the men were busy already relighting the blackened remains of the night fire. Others brought water, carefully cradled in their leather helmets, from the river that slid over its sparkling boulders some fifty paces away. They were cheerful, and laughed and jested, but under their breath, for fear of rousing the sleeping King.
Birds were singing in the alders by the river, and from the steep valley side beyond came the bleating of sheep, where some herdboy watched his flock. A harsher sound turned Arthur's eyes to a place beyond the ridge of woodland where big black birds swung and called in the misty morning. There lay the enemy they had pursued from the field. A few survivors, bound, lay nearby under the trees, but thirty or so men lay still unburied, their stiffened bodies exposed with the waxing day to the crows and kites.
It was well after noon before the burial party had done its work, and the King headed back with the troop towards Autun.
A mile or so short of the battlefield, he came across two bodies. The messenger he had sent back to Bedwyr and Hoel to tell them that he was safe, and would return with the daylight, had fallen in with two stragglers from Quintilianus' army. One he had killed; the other, though wounded and now near dead with exposure and loss of blood, had killed him.
Arthur killed the man himself, and spurred his horse into a gallop back to his headquarters.
6
"The treaty is void," said Cerdic.
He and Mordred sat face to face. They had met on a high shelf of the downs. It was a fine morning, and larks sang wildly in the blue. To southward the smoke of a Saxon village could be seen hanging in the still air. Here and there, in cleared spaces between the thickets of ash and thorn, the golden green of ripening barley showed among the white flints where some Saxon peasant had scratched a living from the bony land.
Mordred had come in kingly state. The Council, apprised of Arthur's wishes before he left for Brittany, had raised no slightest-objection to Mordred's assumption of leadership; on the contrary; those councillors who were left after the departure of Arthur and his Companions into Brittany were most of them greybeards, and in their grief and fear at the news from the battlefield they acclaimed Mordred with outspoken relief. Mordred, wise in the ways of councils, moved with care. He emphasized the doubtful nature of the news, spoke of his still-held hope of his father's life, disclaimed any title but that of regent, and renewed his vows of faith to the Council, and liege homage to his father's Queen. After him Guinevere, speaking briefly and with obviously fragile composure in her husband's name, affirmed her belief that Mordred must now be invested with power to act as he saw fit, and, herself resigning, proposed him as sole regent. The Council, moved to a man, accepted her withdrawal and decided then and there to send a message to Constantine of Cornwall asking him to affirm his loyalty to the High King's successor.
Finally Mordred spoke again of urgency, and made clear his intention of riding south next day to the interview with Cerdic. He would take with him a detachment of the newly raised troops; it was never wise to approach their good Saxon neighbours without some show of strength. This, too, the Council voted him. So, escorted like a king, he faced Cerdic on the downs.
The Saxons, too, kept state. Cerdic's thegns crowded behind his chair, and an awning of brightly coloured cloth woven with gold and silver thread made a regal background to the thrones set for him and the regent. Mordred regarded Cerdic with interest. It was barely a year since he had last met the Saxon king, but in that time the latter had aged perceptibly and appeared not to be in robust health. Beside his chair stood his grandson Ceawlin, a young copy of the old fighter, who was said to have already fathered a brood of sturdy boys.
"The treaty is void."
The old king said it like a challenge. He was watching Mordred closely.
"Why else am I here?" Nothing could be gathered from the regent's smooth tone. "If it is true that the High King is dead, then the treaty — the same, or one revised as we may agree — must be ratified between myself and you."
"Until we know for certain, there is little point in talking," said Cerdic bluntly.
"On the contrary. When I last spoke with my father he gave me a mandate to make a new agreement with you, though I agree that there is little point in discussing that until another matter is cleared up. I doubt if I need to tell you what that is?"
"It would be best to come to the point," said Cerdic.
"Very well. It has lately come to my ears that Cynric, your son, and others of your thegns are even now back in your old lands beyond the Narrow Sea, and that more men daily flock to their standards. The bays fill with their longships. Now with the treaty between our peoples made void by the High King's death — supposing this to be true — what am I to think of this?"
"Not that we prepare war again. Until proof comes of Arthur's death this would not only be ignoble, but folly." There was a gleam in the old king's eyes as he looked at the younger man. "I should perhaps make it clear that in no case are we contemplating war. Not with you, prince."
"Then what?"
"Only that with the advance of the Franks and the westward spread of people who are not our friends, we in our turn must move westward. Your King has halted this emperor's first sally, but there will be another, and after that another. My people want a safe frontier. They are gathering to embark for these shores, but in peace. We shall receive them."
"I see." Mordred was remembering what Arthur had said to him in their last discussion at Kerrec."First the Narrow Sea, and then the ramparts of the Saxon and English kingdoms.… Men fight for what is theirs." So might Vortigern have reasoned when he first called Hengist and Horsa to these shores.
Arthur was no Vortigern, and so far he had been right not to doubt Cerdic: Men fight for what is theirs, and the more men manning the ramparts of the Shore, the more safely could the Celtic kingdoms lie behind them.
The old king was watching him closely, as if guessing what thoughts raced behind the smooth brow and unexpressive eyes. Mordred met his look.
"You are a man of honour, king, and also a man of wisdom and experience. You know that neither Saxon nor Briton wants another Badon Hill."
Cerdic smiled. "Now you have flashed your weapon at me. Prince Mordred, and I mine at you. That is done. I said they would come in peace. But they will come, and many of them. So, let us talk." He sat back in his chair, shifting a fold of the blue robe over his arm. "For the present I believe we must assume the High King's death?"
"I think so. If we make plans for that assumption they can be revised if necessary."
"Then I say this. I am willing, and Cynric with me, who will reign here when I am too old to fight, to remake the treaty with you that I made with your uncle." A sharp, twinkling look from under the shaggy brows. "It was your uncle last time we met. Now your father, it seems?"
"Father, yes. And in return?"
"More land."
"That was easily guessed." Mordred smiled in his turn. "More men need more land. But you are already too close for some men's peace of mind. How can you move forward? Between your lands and ours there lies this stretch of high downland. You see it." He gestured to the thin patch of barley shoots. "No ploughs, not even yours. King Cerdic, can make these stony uplands into rich fields of grain. And I am told that your neighbours, the South Saxons, no longer grant you free movement there."
Cerdic made no immediate reply. He reached behind him, and a guard put a spear into his hand. Behind Mordred a rustle and a whisper of metal betrayed quick movement among his own fighting men. He gestured with a hand, palm down, and the movement stilled. Cerdic reverse
d the spear and, leaning forward in his chair, began to draw in the chalky dust.
"Here we are, the men of Wessex. Here, in the rich corner lands, the South Saxons. And here stand you and I, now. The lands I am thinking of would be no nearer to your capital than our present borders. Here. And here."
The spear moved gently northward, then, just as Mordred would have protested, veered to the east and across the downland towards the upper Thames valley. "This way. This part is thick forest, and here is marshland, thinly peopled and poor. Both can be made good."
"Surely much of that is already Saxon land? Where your spear is now, that is the southern region, as they call it, of the Middle Saxons?"
"The Suthrige. Yes. I told you that we would take nothing that need trouble you."
"Would these settlers accept your people?"
"It is agreed." The old king slanted a bright glance up at the other man. "They are not a strong people, and it is rumoured that the South Saxons are casting their eyes in that direction. They will welcome us. And we will make the land good for ourselves and for them."
He went on to talk about his plans, and Mordred questioned, and they talked for some time. Later Mordred said: "Tell me, king. My information is not always correct." (this was not true, and he knew that Cerdic knew it, but the gambit brought a subject under discussion that neither had liked to broach openly.) "Since Aelle died, has there been a leader of note among the South Saxons? The land there is the best in the south, and it has long seemed to me that the king who held Rutupiae and the lands behind it held a key in his hand. The key to the mainland of the Continent and its trade."
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.
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.