by Joan Wolf
He was still holding her hand, unconsciously, as if he had forgotten it was there in his. Never before had he touched her like that. Never before had he let her inside the space he kept around himself. She was there now, and she went very carefully. “Morgan may not want you to tell him,” she said at last.
He pushed his hair off his forehead. “Morgan is the one who said to tell him. He knows she is his mother; I told him the truth of that. He knows I go to Avalon. He, of all people, should have understood why.”
“He is a curiously innocent boy.”
“I know.” Arthur smiled wryly. “Not at all like me.”
Something had struck her and she turned to him, frowning. “Arthur, how can Morgan know what happened here? You said the men Gawain sent to Avalon told you nothing”.
He dropped her hand and linked his own together on his knee. He was not looking at her. He seemed to be trying to decide whether or not to tell her something. She watched his profile. He looked tired, she thought. There were marks of fatigue under his eyes. Finally he looked up. He had made up his mind. “She knows because I told her” he said.
“But you haven’t been back to Avalon”.
“I know.”
His long-sleeved white tunic was open at the throat, and the light from the hanging lamp played upon the bones of his face. From deep in her subconscious a picture floated to the surface of her mind: Arthur, dying, and Morgan standing beside his bed. She breathed hard through suddenly constricted lungs. “Are you saying that you can talk together with your minds?”
“Yes.” He looked back at her, a little wary, not quite sure he should have told her this. She realized, abruptly, how astonishing this confidence was. Not only what he had told her, but the fact that he had told her at all. He was not even sure if she would believe him; she could see that in his face. Yet he had told her anyway.
“When you were so sick after Badon,” she said. “That was how she brought you back, wasn’t it?”
The wary look lifted. “Yes. The Saxons had been defeated, and I was so sick of being alone. I just decided it was time to go.” She remembered vividly how it had been, the long, weary vigil, the despair at watching him slip farther and farther away. “Then Morgan came and I knew I wouldn’t be alone anymore.” The simple words struck her like a blow.
She looked away from him. “Have you always been able to talk to each other like that?”
“We had never tried before. There was no necessity, you see. When we were children we were always together. Then, when we were separated, we both thought we would have to live the rest of our lives apart, so it was better not even to try.”
She saw. And, painful though the knowledge was, it was also a relief. She had not failed with Arthur, nor had Morgan stolen him from her. He had belonged to Morgan long before she came into his life.
How extraordinary, she thought. She had just been caught out in adultery with another man, and she and Arthur had never been closer than they were at this minute. For the first time in all their years together, he had let her in.
She was intensely curious about what he had just told her, but she sensed that he did not want to talk about it anymore. She changed the subject. “Mordred will take it hard. He idolizes you, Arthur. You must know that. He thinks you are a hero.”
“It’s time Mordred learned that there are no heroes outside the works of the epic poets,” his father replied. “There are only men trying their best to do the job they have to do.”
She sighed. “And women.”
He smiled at her, the smile that had always been able to turn her heart. “And women,” he agreed. “Now, have something to eat, wash your face, and put on your riding clothes. As soon as Bedwyr has left, you and I are going to visit every nook and cranny of Camelot. Together.”
She smiled back, “Yes,” she said, “my lord king.”
Chapter 40
ARTHUR went next to talk to Agravaine. The Lothian prince and the three princes from Elmet and Manau Guotodin who had accompanied him on his visit to the queen’s bedroom were waiting for him in one of the private reception rooms in the king’s apartment.
His followers were nervous, but Agravaine felt only triumph. He had caught her, like a bitch in heat. No more would she be able to flaunt herself all over Camelot at the side of the prince. Now Arthur would know. Bedwyr’s beloved friend would know. Really, Agravaine thought with pleasure, it could hardly have turned out better. And Mordred, poor besotted devil. He had found out the truth about her too.
The door opened suddenly, and the king was in the room. The four young men, who had been lounging in chairs, jumped instinctively to their feet. Even Agravaine came upright when Arthur walked in.
The king paused in front of the closed door and regarded them for a moment in silence. His face was utterly remote, his gray eyes cold. Mordred had his features, Agravaine found himself thinking reluctantly, but Mordred could never look as frightening as this.
“I have sent a servant to your quarters with instructions to pack your things,” the king said when the silence was beginning to make the air too thick to breathe. “You will all be leaving for Gaul on the next tide.”
“For Gaul?” It was a startled exclamation made by Baird of Elmet.
“Yes. I am sending the prince on ahead to purchase wagon horses for the army. You will accompany him.”
Jesus Christ, thought Baird in horror. He was going to put them on a boat with the prince? After what they had just done to him? He exchanged a look of terror with his brother and with Innis of Manau Guotodin.
Only Agravaine did not appear alarmed by the king’s words. He was staring at Arthur, and the pupils of his eyes were so dilated that the irises looked black, not blue.
He isn’t going to do anything, Agravaine thought with incredulous fury. He is still sending the prince to Gaul. He doesn’t care about Gwenhwyfar. He is going to cover it up.
“You will ride for Portus Adurni in half an hour,” the king was saying in that flat, cold voice. His eyes moved from one face to the next, like the flick of a whip. “I will not prevent your communicating with your fellows once we are in Gaul. But I should advise you to take care. I am not a good enemy to make.”
In the charged silence, Arthur looked at Agravaine. Alone of the princes, his face held no fear. Only fury; blind, sick fury. The two men stared at each other, and then the king said softly, “If you enter into a contest with me, Agravaine, I will smash you to pieces.”
The faintest glimmer showed in those fixed black eyes, and then Agravaine looked away.
“Don’t leave this room until you are sent for,” Arthur said, and shut the door behind himself, leaving the four young men alone together once more.
He had left Mordred to the last. This was the interview he was most dreading. The boy must be made to understand the consequences of what he had done.
It was not going to be pleasant.
Even though Mordred lived down at the school with the other princes, he still had his own bedroom in the palace and it was there that Arthur went next. The bedroom was in Arthur’s private suite, only a few doors down from the reception room that held Agravaine. Arthur put his hand on the door latch. How in Hades had the boy allowed himself to be so manipulated by Agravaine? he thought. And pressed down on the latch.
Mordred was standing by the window with his back to the room, a slender, almost fragile-looking figure. He appeared to be watching the sky. Morgan was right, Arthur thought: he had been better off in Lothian. He closed the door behind him and spoke Mordred’s name.
The boy by the window turned slowly to face him. Mordred’s face was pinched and sallow-looking, his eyes smudged with unhappiness and fatigue. “I’m sorry, Father,” he said miserably. “I didn’t believe him, you see. He was saying filthy things about the queen and Bedwyr, and I thought I would let him make a fool of himself and shut him up once and for all.” The thin, beautiful face looked utterly stricken. “I never for a minute thought that he was right.�
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Arthur ruthlessly stifled the pity he felt for his son. Mordred had to be made to understand what he had done. “I know you didn’t mean to cause such trouble, Mordred,” he said in a quiet, level voice, “but you have put me in a damnable position. You must realize that.”
“How could they?” Mordred cried passionately. “How could they do that to you? Betray you? Deceive you?”
The king walked slowly across the tiled floor. “They have not betrayed me,” he said. “You have.”
Mordred’s head jerked as if he had been struck in the face. “Nor have they deceived me,” Arthur went on remorselessly. “I have known about the queen and Bedwyr for years.”
Mordred’s face was chalk white. “I don’t understand.”
They were standing with but three feet between them. “How old are you?” his father asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen. When I was seventeen I was high king and had lost the only person in the world I loved. I have never told this to anyone, but I thought quite seriously about taking my life.” Mordred’s gray eyes were clinging to his face with horrified attention. “I did not because I had responsibilities that went beyond my own personal needs. It is not a privilege to be king, Mordred. It is a responsibility. No matter what may happen, you must always remember that you are a king. That always must take precedence over your private feelings. Do you understand what I am telling you?”
“I . . . Yes.”
“You let Agravaine use you for his own ends. You were thinking like a child, not like a king.”
Mordred pushed the hair back off his forehead. Some color had come back into his face and he stared at his father with a glimmer of defiance. “Well, if to be king means that I can no longer allow myself to feel, then you must find a new candidate for the job. I can’t do it.”
Arthur’s reply was measured. “I did not say you cannot allow yourself to feel. I said that you must not allow your feelings to influence your public acts.”
“Don’t you care about what they have done?” It was said wildly, passionately.
“I just told you that when I was your age I lost the only person I ever loved.” Arthur was watching him with an odd, alert look in his eyes. “After ten long years I got her back again. Why do you think I go to Avalon, Mordred?”
The blood was pounding in Mordred’s ears. “To . . . to see Morgan”
“To see Morgan. Your mother. I have not touched Gwenhwyfar in years. I certainly never begrudged her the happiness she found with Bedwyr.”
This is not happening, Mordred thought. My father is not saying these things to me.
“We were all managing quite well,” Arthur said, “until tonight. Do you realize how you humiliated her, Mordred? Do you understand the danger you have placed her in?” The voice was remorseless, giving him no room for escape. “Under Celtic law, adultery by the queen is punishable by death.”
“No!” It was a cry of shocked protest. “You wouldn’t!”
“Of course I wouldn’t. But if word of what happened here tonight gets out, there will be those who will call for punishment. I have enemies. No man can hold the power I do and not have enemies. There are those who would use her to get at me. And she has enemies too. She has no children, Mordred, so she is particularly vulnerable. There will be an outcry for me to put her aside and take another wife.”
“Would you do that?” The words were barely a whisper.
“No. But you have not made things easy for any of us, have you?”
I won’t cry, Mordred thought desperately. I won’t let him see me cry.
“I am sending Bedwyr, Agravaine, and the others to Gaul immediately.” Mordred was pinned down by that voice, the sound of sovereignty, empty of all emotion save authority. “When I leave with the army in two weeks, you will remain as co-regent with the queen. There will be talk; we cannot avoid that. You will not listen to it. You will behave toward Gwenhwyfar with the same devotion and respect that you have always shown her. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Mordred whispered.
“Look at me.”
Reluctantly Mordred raised his eyes. For the first time since he had known his father, he recognized the signs of fatigue in Arthur’s face. He supposed he did not look much better. He straightened his spine. Their eyes were now almost on a level. Mordred said, “I realize that such a statement cannot undo the damage, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
The face that was such a mirror image of his own suddenly warmed. “I know” said his father, and the warmth reached to his voice as well. Mordred felt a wild desire to throw himself into Arthur’s arms and beg for reassurance that all would be well. It would be, he thought desperately. His father would handle it; he always did.
“Mordred,” Arthur asked, “why would Agravaine want to do such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” Mordred answered in obvious bewilderment. “He worships the prince. I can’t understand why he would want to hurt him. But there was no talking to him, Father. And he has a vicious tongue. He just got me so angry that I didn’t think.”
“All right.” Arthur not only looked tired, his son thought, he looked as if he were in pain. “We’ll just carry on as if nothing has happened,” Arthur said.
“What shall I do now?” Mordred asked uncertainly.
“Go back to the school. I shall be coming down with the queen very shortly. I will be putting each of the princes into a cavalry regiment. The School for Princes is now officially over.”
He had to collect Gwenhwyfar and start on his rounds, but he needed to be alone first. He went to his bedroom, told Gereint to see he was undisturbed for fifteen minutes, and went to lie on his back on the bed.
His head was pounding and all his senses were raw. He felt as if the air were full of flying glass. God! The look on the boy’s face.
He closed his eyes and out of the quiet and the dark came a feather-soft shower of love.
Morgan?
Yes. It’s all right. I know. He will survive it, Arthur. We will all survive it.
Not words, actually, but feelings. She knew. She understood. He was not alone.
How had he lived for so many years without her?
Only part of him had lived through those years, he thought now, as the tension in his head slowly relaxed. The deepest part of him had been dead and dry, like a tidal pool that has been cut off from the sea.
He lay still, his eyes closed. The feeling of being stripped of his skin, of having all his nerve ends exposed to the searing air, had gone. He would be able to do what had to be done.
What devil had driven Agravaine to do this thing? There had been hatred in his cousin’s eyes this morning. Surely all this could not have come about because Arthur had beaten him in a practice swordfight? Not even Lot’s son could be as overweeningly proud as that.
The temptation to kill the four of them had been great. What had saved them was the fact that Agravaine was Morgause’s son as well as Lot’s. He owed too much to Morgause to allow himself to take that particular road, however tempting it had been.
They had none of them liked the idea of being cooped up on a boat with Bedwyr. They should know how close they had come to death when he had walked in the door and seen their faces. If there had been any hope of keeping the matter completely quiet, he would have killed them. But there was no way he could silence the servants’ tongues. Agravaine had seen to that.
He forced his mind to practicalities.
He would have to see to the horses they were taking to Gaul now that Bedwyr was no longer here to do it. He hoped to God they had a calm crossing and he could get the horses safely across the Narrow Sea. In a battle against the Saxons, the horses were almost more important than the men.
With both Cai and Bedwyr gone, the whole of the job of moving the army was going to fall on him.
He sighed and swung his legs to the floor. No point in lying here thinking about all there was to do. Better get started.
He ra
n his hand through his hair. Damn Agravaine. If Bedwyr drowned all four of them on the way to Gaul, Arthur wouldn’t say a word.
Chapter 41
FOR the following two weeks it seemed to Mordred as if his father never slept. Arthur was everywhere in Camelot, directing and encouraging, quiet, patient, quite formidably efficient. When he was not with the army he was in his office meeting with suppliers and coping with a mountain of paperwork.
Never again did Mordred see the marks of fatigue on his father’s face. His energy seemed inexhaustible.
Toward the end of the second week, Arthur spent one night at Avalon. Then he moved five thousand men and three hundred horses to Portus Adurni, loaded them on ships, and embarked for Gaul. The messenger Arthur sent back to Camelot arrived two weeks later with the good news that the army had crossed the Narrow Sea safely and sailed into the mouth of the Loire, where Arthur had been formally greeted by Syagrius. The plan was for the two armies to combine and advance up the Loire to fight the Saxons.
Autumn came to Camelot. Arthur had left but a skeleton garrison in the capital, and the falling leaves blew around empty barracks and deserted training fields. Many of the shops closed for lack of customers, and the bazaar outside the gates slowly drifted away. The heart of Camelot had gone with the king.
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.”