The Road to Avalon (Rediscovered Classics)

by Joan Wolf

  Mordred found that his main business as regent was to dispel the rumors that had spread like wildfire about Bedwyr and Gwenhwyfar. His most trying test came with the arrival of Cador, King of Dumnonia, who rode to Camelot to find out the truth for himself.

  “What is this story I hear about you and Agravaine catching the queen in bed with Bedwyr?” Cador asked Mordred bluntly as soon as he was alone with Arthur’s son.

  It was the first time Mordred had been directly confronted with such a question. He answered steadily, around the thumping of his heart, “Just that, my lord. A story.”

  Cador’s eyebrows, gray and bushy, drew together. “It is not true, then?”

  “It is not true.”

  “Then how in Hades did such a story get started?”

  Mordred had had time to think about that question. “The queen has enemies,” he replied. His gray eyes were as steady as his voice. “There are those who would like to see the king put her aside and take a new wife.” To his amazement, Cador looked uncomfortable. “I suppose someone tried to take advantage of her friendship with the prince,” Mordred concluded.

  “Someone. Who is this someone, Prince Mordred?” Cador met his eyes once more.

  “I don’t know. But it is unfortunate that people are willing to believe such an ugly and improbable story. Bedwyr is devoted to my father. He would cut off his right arm before he would do anything to hurt the king.”

  This last statement was so true, and so universally known to be true, that Cador seemed convinced. At any rate, he left the following day, to be succeeded by Bedwyr’s father come upon the same errand. Mordred dealt with him in much the way he had dealt with Cador.

  “If such a story were true,” he said to Ban, “the king would hardly have kept Bedwyr in his service. Nor would he have left the queen as co-regent with me.” Mordred raised his black brows and for a moment he looked uncannily like Arthur. “Someone must hate your son very much, my lord, to have started such an ugly rumor.”

  “My son, or the queen.” Ban’s face was heavy with thought. “A childless queen is never popular.”

  Mordred had agreed, and after a visit of several days, Ban and his retinue had left again for Wales, apparently satisfied.

  Gwenhwyfar wrote to her father and assured him that the rumors were not true and that she did not need him to come to Camelot. Maelgwyn apparently believed her, for he stayed home.

  “Dumnonia and Wales are all right,” Gwenhwyfar said to Mordred as they sat together at dinner the first night after Ban’s departure. “But there has been nothing from the north.”

  “I wrote to Gaheris and told him that Agravaine had tried to cause trouble by starting an ugly rumor but that it was not true. Gaheris has no love for Agravaine. He should be satisfied.”

  “It is Elmet and Rheged I’m worried about. And Manau Guotodin, to a lesser extent. They are the kingdoms that opposed Arthur on this expedition to Gaul. And they will have the direct word of their own princes to oppose ours.”

  Mordred sighed and looked down at his plate. “I know. But there is little else we can do, save continue to act as if nothing has happened.” He picked up a piece of meat, then put it down again, untouched. The servants were out of the room for the moment and the two were alone. “I have never told you how sorry I am for the trouble I have caused,” he said in a low voice. “If I could undo it, I would.”

  They were seated at the small round table in the family dining room and Gwenhwyfar looked for a long, aching moment at Mordred’s averted face. They were in their usual places and she had a good view of the hard line of his young cheek, shadowed by the down-looking black lashes. “Mordred,” she finally said sadly, “I am the one to be sorry.”

  “No. My father explained it all to me. It was my fault, anyway, for listening to Agravaine.”

  She tried for a lighter note. “Well, there is little point in our arguing over who is sorrier. We must simply go forward as best we can.”

  He looked up at that and the glimmer of a smile lightened his set mouth. For a moment he looked so like Arthur—not just the bones, but the expression—that her breath caught. “Yes,” he said. “We must.”

  She rinsed her fingers daintily in the water dish near her plate. “If. . . if you would like to invite Morgan to Camelot sometime, it is all right with me,” she offered diffidently.

  His face closed. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. Then the servants came in with the next course and he changed the subject.

  Gwenhwyfar did not raise Morgan’s name again, but she knew that since that fateful night of disclosure, Mordred had not spoken to his mother. Whatever Arthur had said to his son, it had been enough to exonerate Gwenhwyfar’s sins in the boy’s eyes and, evidently, shift the blame to Morgan. Gwenhwyfar was quite sure this had not been Arthur’s intention, but it was not a subject she was fool enough to open with Mordred. He would have to separate the sinned-against from the sinning in his own mind. God knows, she was not the person to help him with that particular problem.

  The storms of November closed in on the Narrow Sea and there was no word from Gaul. Mordred felt little worry. Arthur was invincible; everyone in Britain knew that. Alone with Gwenhwyfar at Camelot, Mordred was happier than he knew he had any right to be.

  Morgan knew what was happening in Gaul. It seemed that not even the Narrow Sea could separate them now, and she was able to see clearly in her mind what it was that Arthur wanted her to know. She knew the day that the combined British and Gaulish army smashed the Saxons near Angers. She knew that Arthur and Bedwyr and Cai were safe and that Arthur had sent a messenger to Camelot with news of the battle. She knew that Agravaine was apparently dead on the field. The army was moving north, toward Bourges, Arthur said. All was well.

  Mordred had made no attempt to contact her since Arthur’s departure and Morgan respected his silence. She had a very good idea of what he was feeling, a better idea than Arthur had, she thought. She had seen the expression in her son’s eyes whenever he looked at the queen. “How could you do this to my father?” he had said to Gwenhwyfar. He had meant, Morgan thought: How could you do this to me?

  If Mordred could find an excuse for Gwenhwyfar, he would. And Morgan had provided him with one. There had been no choice, unfortunately. Nor was Mordred wrong in what he was thinking. She and Arthur had driven Gwenhwyfar into Bedwyr’s arms. It was what her son thought, and it was true. So it was best for her to leave him alone.

  Consequently she did not try to communicate to him the news of Arthur’s victory. Let him learn by the more orthodox means of official messenger. Without Arthur’s weekly visits, and without the wagons rolling to Camelot with food for the army, Avalon was cut off from the world, a quiet little island of peace. Morgan spent the winter working on her book of herbal medicine.

  Agravaine had been back in Britain for more than a month before she heard of it. And the news he had brought with him was quite the opposite of what she knew to be true.

  Agravaine told a tale of total disaster, of the British army routed by a combination of Saxons and Visigoths, and of the death of the king and all his captains.

  “What!” Morgan said in horror to the traveling harper who had stopped at Avalon for hospitality and who was the first to give her the news.

  “Yes, my lady. Only Prince Agravaine and his own cavalry unit escaped the disaster. It was treachery, Lady Morgan. Arvandus, the imperial prefect in Gaul, betrayed the Roman emperor by bringing in Euric and the Visigoths. King Arthur was the victim of his treachery. Our men were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Prince Agravaine himself saw the king go down. And Prince Bedwyr too.”

  Morgan was icy cold. This was what she had feared. Treachery. But the treachery had not been in Gaul. Her lips were white as she asked, “What is Prince Mordred planning to do?”

  “There is to be a council, my lady. Prince Mordred will surely be named the next high king.”

  Morgan closed a channel in her mind. She must see Mordred first before she l
et any of this reach Arthur.

  Agravaine. Arthur had thought him dead. He must have left the battlefield unobserved. He and his cavalry unit, the harper had said. This was something he had planned carefully.

  She called Marcus and bade him see the harper was properly fed, but all the time her brain was occupied with what he had told her. What in God’s name could Agravaine hope to achieve by this ploy? It would come out soon enough that he was lying. Did he think Arthur was just going to hand the kingdom over to him?

  Time. Time was what Agravaine hoped to gain. The answer came almost as quickly as the question. It would give him time to organize the north against Arthur. He was, after all, Lot’s son.

  They must have intercepted Arthur’s own messenger.

  Dear God. Mordred had thought for the whole of this last month that his father was dead. And she, only twelve miles away, had known nothing! Why hadn’t he sent to tell her? She couldn’t believe he would be so cruel as not to tell her about Arthur’s death. He was angry with her, but he would never do that. Not the Mordred she knew.

  She sent a servant to saddle a pony. She had to see Mordred immediately. And Gwenhwyfar. Gwenhwyfar, of all people, should know what Agravaine was. How could the queen have believed him?

  It had been the ravaged look on Agravaine’s face when he spoke of Bedwyr that had convinced Gwenhwyfar. His eyes had been terrible. “There were just too many of them, even for the prince,” he had said. “He went down.” And his dark blue eyes had met hers in a strange, anguished intimacy. For a brief moment they were locked together in the shock of grief and lost love, and she had known then that Agravaine was speaking true.

  No one had dreamed that Arthur might not be victorious. She felt sometimes as if she were walking at the bottom of the sea: nothing was clear, everything was such an effort. The world without Arthur. It did not seem possible.

  They were all gone. Arthur. Bedwyr. Cai. And in their place now was Agravaine. Agravaine of the golden hair and midnight-blue eyes. Now that Bedwyr was dead, his hostility toward her seemed to have evaporated. There was even sometimes a kind of comprehension between them, dark and subterranean; frightening. She thought that when he looked at her, he saw Bedwyr.

  The barracks were slowly filling with men from the north. A large contingent had ridden in from Lothian, headed by a blond-haired young man Agravaine had addressed mockingly as “Father.” More and more, Mordred seemed to be slipping under Agravaine’s bright shadow. He had been so quiet since the news of Arthur’s death, so distant. As the grief and shock lifted slightly, Gwenhwyfar began to realize that she was afraid.

  She waited until she was certain that Agravaine was not in the palace and then she sent Olwen to bring Mordred to her. They had scarcely had a moment alone and now she was going to force the issue. Arthur had counted on her to give his son guidance, and it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he was in need of it. She waited for him in her pretty salon, rehearsing the things she would say. She had told Olwen to see that they were not disturbed.

  He came in quietly and shut the door behind him. His thick black hair, grown longer than he usually wore it, had fallen forward over his forehead. There were hollows under his cheekbones that had not been there before. He looked older, she thought. “Mordred,” she said, “I thought you and I should have a talk.”

  He nodded and advanced a little way into the room. His gray eyes were veiled by his lowered lashes and she could not read his mood. She tried to sound very calm. “It seems to me that Agravaine is taking rather too much upon himself.”

  The lashes lifted and then dropped again. “Agravaine is my brother. He is trying to help me.”

  “There have been other times when Agravaine’s help was less than useful,” she returned.

  His eyes were on her mouth. “Agravaine is arranging for the council, with my coronation to follow. Once I am really king, I will have more power than I do at present.”

  A king does not wait for power to be given to him; he takes it. But she did not say the words. She had to be tactful with him. “What does Agravaine want for himself?” she asked instead.

  “He wants to be my cavalry commander.”

  “Ah.” She bent her head slightly, thinking. So Agravaine wanted to play Bedwyr to Mordred’s Arthur. If he could not have Bedwyr, then he would be Bedwyr. She felt an unexpected flash of pity.

  “Gwenhwyfar.” Mordred crossed the small space that divided them and looked directly into her face. For the first time she could read his eyes, and her heart skipped a beat at what she saw there. “Gwenhwyfar,” he said again, “I want you to marry me.”

  Her beautiful green eyes dilated in shock. She stepped back. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mordred. Of course I cannot marry you.”

  “Why not? It is an old Celtic custom for the queen to marry the new king. And we are Celts, you and I. The day of the Romans is over. It was Rome that killed my father.”

  “That is Agravaine talking,” she said sharply, “not you.”

  “I may have listened to Agravaine, but I have thought things through for myself. Arthur tried to extend Britain beyond her own shores, to bring her once again into the orbit of the larger world, and he failed. That attempt lost us the greatest king we have ever had, perhaps the greatest king we ever will have. I do not aspire to be Arthur’s equal. I only want to keep Britain peaceful within her own borders.”

  “That is job enough,” she said shakily.

  “You could help me, Gwenhwyfar.” His dark face was so grave, so intent. “Arthur appointed you co-regent because he knew I would need your help. I still do. Marry me.”

  “I can help you without marrying you, Mordred.” She knew what the flame meant that was burning in those gray eyes, and her own blood began to race treacherously. “I cannot marry you,” she said angrily. “I am your father’s wife.”

  “My father is dead.”

  There was a silence as they both listened to the sound of those words. Gwenhwyfar twisted her hands together. The winter day was gray and she had lighted the hanging lamp to brighten the room. It cast its glow on her bright hair, on the beautiful, sweet curve of her cheek. When she spoke again her voice was hard. “You need a wife who can give you children. I am no wife for the High King of Britain.”

  He cupped her face in his hands and smoothed his thumbs along her cheekbones. Those thin, hard hands. She felt the calluses on the tips of the fingers and she shuddered. His dark head was close to hers. She could smell the youth of him, the fresh male youth. “I will give you children, Gwenhwyfar,” he said. “I am sure of it.”

  She could feel his words within her womb. I should not do this, her mind was telling her over and over. But he was so strangely compelling. And Arthur and Bedwyr were gone. “Is this Agravaine’s idea?” she asked.

  The dark head moved from side to side. “No. It is my idea. Gwenhwyfar . . . “Desire and longing and love, looking at her out of Arthur’s eyes. She made one more attempt to escape the net.

  “You could have anyone, Mordred. There are princesses far younger than I who would be honored to marry the high king.”

  “Why should I want anyone else when there is you? After you, there can be no one else who matters.”

  She tried to think logically. “What will the council say?”

  “The council will do as I tell it to.” For that brief moment, he might have been Arthur incarnate. She must have swayed a little, for his hands moved to grasp her shoulders. “Will you do as I tell you?” he asked. “Will you marry me, Gwenhwyfar?”

  “Yes,” she heard herself saying in a voice she did not recognize. “I will.”

  Chapter 42

  THE thin winter sun was still bright as Morgan passed through the gates of Camelot. She was surprised by the amount of activity she saw as she rode up the main road to the palace. There were far more men in the capital than she had expected to see. She detoured off the road to go by the large training field where the festival had been held. There were contingents of men marching on the d
ead February grass. Men dressed in the distinctive checkered cloth of the north. In the distance Morgan could see a yellow-haired man on horseback directing the action.

  At least Agravaine wasn’t at the palace.

  She waited in the great hall while a servant went to inform Mordred that the Lady of Avalon was asking to see him. He came himself to greet her, his face carefully expressionless. He would never be as impenetrable as Arthur, however, and she read his eyes quite clearly. She glanced around the huge public room and said, “I do not wish to talk to you here, Mordred. Let us go into Arthur’s office.”

  He hesitated, then nodded and led the way to a door that opened off the colonnaded gallery. She went in first and watched as he closed it slowly, reluctantly, behind them.

  “A harper came to Avalon today,” she said without preamble. “He told me that there has been a great battle in Gaul and that Arthur and most of the army are dead. Is this true?”

  “Yes. Surely you knew?”

  “I knew nothing. You did not think it was worth your while to inform me?”

  He was looking appalled. “Morgan, I am so sorry. I thought you knew. I would never have let . . . have left you to find out like this. I thought you knew.”

  She stared levelly at his distressed face. “How could I know, Mordred, if you did not send someone to tell me?”

  “Gwenhwyfar. Gwenhwyfar said it was not necessary to send news to you, that you would have known before we did.”

  “I see.” The large brown eyes of his mother registered comprehension. “Did she say why?”

  “No. Merely that you would know. She was very sure of it.”

  “I see,” Morgan said again. Her small face looked quite composed. Mordred shifted from one foot to the other. “And your source for this story was Agravaine?”