Mordred, Bastard Son

by Douglas Clegg

  Then, Viviane, sitting closest to the fire—for she was the eldest of all elders—told what the messenger himself would not reveal. “King Arthur of the Britons has set his sights on the Roman provinces to the east, and he will bring his wars to Broceliande soon enough. He accepted a betrothal to a princess of the province to the south of Gaul, along the Mediterranean Sea. Gold is her dowry, and armies, as well. She is the youngest daughter of that Roman family who once ruled all of Armorica and much of Cornwall before the wars of our fathers. Her name, as far as I can tell, is Guinevere. And in tribute, Arthur pays to her father…” Viviane could not continue, and she glanced down at her hands as if she could read some future there.

  My mother, fire in her eyes and venom in her throat, stood up at the meeting and finished telling the news as if she were a warrior calling us all to arms, “Arthur has given this Roman family the forest and all that are in it in exchange for this half-Roman whore princess! She is of the same bloodline that stole Cornwall and Lyonesse in our great-grandmothers’ lifetimes! She is the Roman wolf coming back to the den, and Arthur opens his hand to her that she may feed upon our people. We will not just have the Saxons howling at our caves, but the Romans will return as well, but this time, we do not fight them. No, we bend over for them!”

  “It is but a betrothal, Morgan,” Viviane said to calm her. “He has promised to wed before, but has not. Three girls of the provinces have tempted him, but each one has broken a promise of the dowry. This is all politics, and politics changes with every breath of the gods. He may break this before the girl is even seventeen. Though her father is Roman, her mother is Briton, and from the kingdom of North-Galis, from which many of us are descended. She is still a child, and many things may happen before a child grows to become a maiden. A few years will pass before this may happen. The world changes in a few years. Even the world of the Romans. We must trust in Our Lady, for she guides our fortune in all things. Even that dark goddess to whom you pray cannot know if this will come to pass, or pass away.”

  But my mother, whose anxiety and moods had taken her over, and whose vigils with those poisoner-witches had begun to frighten me when she came home at dawn, bedraggled and talking of blood and power, did not believe it.

  “He will marry the Roman whore and they will have sons who will bring Rome back to our lands. He is passing the kingdoms in one generation back to those who would see all of us dead, and our children tortured and sold into that vile slavery that they practice. Do you not remember the torques? The chains? Viviane? You still have the scars from childhood. Do not tell me that this is simply a betrothal. Arthur is our enemy!” She raised her fists up to the night sky and cried out, “You stars in the heavens! You gods! You are indifferent to us! You stole my kingdom and murdered my brothers! You watched while he raped me! And the sacred Lady laughed while he forced himself upon me! Why should we live in exile? Why?”

  I stood up, wanting to go to her, for the pain was upon her face. The others all remained silent, allowing her this outburst, but I could not stand to see her suffer like this. Nor did I like to hear of these things, for they made me think that she might have had a sweet life without me.

  “He has Excalibur,” my mother said. “The Lady did not stop him. Why are we so kind to that traitor-knight who brought him? Why are we so welcoming of that traitor-priest Merlin? Why do we not raise an army, as none the world has seen? My son! My son!” She pointed at me as if about to curse me with some terrible spell. But seeing me, her eyes became filled with tears. The pain of seeing her was too much for me, and I felt that breaking of my insides as if my heart would break. “My son, does he not deserve that kingdom? Can any of you sitting here, you wise women, you Druids, you men who once fought for Briton until you were turned out like dirt beneath his shoes? Do you not think my son—my only child—should not be king one day, or that I should never rule the kingdoms of my mother? Merlin sat by while Uther raped my mother and murdered my brothers and father. And he taught Arthur the Art that keeps us from him, yet he betrays the goddess with his new religion of Rome. Merlin stood by while the traitor took Arthur into the Lady’s treasure! And now he is going to marry a Roman whore who will pass our homeland back to the very monsters who we had chased out within the memory of many of you here? What have we done? What have I done? What terrible thing did I do that I should be torn from my home? Where was our goddess? Where was she?” She broke down into sobbing, and three of the elders went to her “Don’t touch me!” she shouted, brushing them away, her hair covering her face. “I should…” She began to calm, but swayed to the left and then the right as if slightly drunk. “I should…” She drew her hair back, and in the firelight, she looked like she had gone completely mad. Her face was shone with sweat and tears, and her eyes seemed red, her mouth open in a grimace.

  It was as if she were hypnotized by the great fire around which the council of elders sat. She took a step forward. Viviane called out to her to return to her self and take her seat. Danil, the charioteer, came over to my mother, stepping into the circle. He grabbed her around the waist to draw her away from the flames lest her robe catch fire. As he lifted her up, she fought against him and cursed us and cursed the stars and cursed the Lady of the Lake for all that had been done to her.

  Chapter Nine

  1

  With the coming of the rains of spring, Lukat left the Isle of Glass. Though we embraced at his parting, I could not weep, for I felt hollow within myself. Hollow as the caverns themselves, for the emptiness of the world had begun to crawl into me and found a home there. I had accepted sorrow and grief, and had taken on the bitter and weary aspect of my mother’s face. I spent the next year studying more seriously with Merlin, and I obeyed his law that I might not yet discover those pleasures of mating that my friends and others all had been enjoying. I decided this would be easy, for my love for my friend Lukat kept me from wanting to find love in other youths. I saw myself as celibate for his friendship’s sake, and I would someday take a vow to that, though I could not do it then.

  “The creative spirit in a boy is important, and to develop it further, so that the Art becomes funneled by the goddess herself, it is important to refrain from these desires, whelpling,” Merlin would say. “It won’t be forever, and once you have crossed that border into rutting, you will not be good for much other than mating, desiring to mate, trying to mate, or warring that you might mate again—until your old age. That is often the problem of men and I will not have it happen to you until you have learned more of the Art.”

  “But at night, when I am alone, I—” I began.

  He hushed me up with a slap to the back of my scalp. “Don’t be a Saxon helmet-rat! The virginity is of the flesh and spirit co-mingling with another. It breaks the ability to vessel in men, if the Art is not strong. What you do in the dark of your room or at the edge of your bath in private is your own matter. And I don’t need to hear about any winking going on, so don’t regale me with stories.”

  The truth of it was, I had taken to strolling, when free from work and studies, out into the forest in summer, bathing in the streams and dreaming of men and how I would love them, and how they would love me.

  It was on such an afternoon, that I came upon a rust-colored pool bedecked with lilies and water ferns, and I saw a man of such intense beauty, a stallion of a man, with long dark hair, bathing and speaking to the sky as if a god were there to reply to him. I could but watch him from a distance, and I gave allowed myself “free rein,” as Lukat had called it when the hand went to the trousers, but I trusted that I was unseen. I could not resist, for his body alone overwhelmed me with the strength of it, the sinewy muscles and long limbs and even that part that is called by some the worst part of a man, and by others, the best. When next I came to that pool, waiting for hours, he was not there again. Before dark, I slipped into that same pool, and closed my eyes, imagining him with me, his breath upon mine, his weight pressing down on me, and my imagination became so focused on this
that when I opened my eyes after, I was surprised to find myself alone.

  In another summer, I searched for this man. Finally, I saw him swimming down in the lake called Lugdun, and decided that I had to meet him and know who he was. I shed my clothing, and stepped into the chilly water, so different from my own lake. I swam out toward where he was, and when he saw me he moved to the shallows, away from me. As he stood, I saw him smile, and he raised his arm up in greeting. I felt my heart beat fast in my chest, and remembered Merlin’s words about my studies in the Art. And yet my body did not seem to recall the specific warning Merlin had given me. I splashed toward him, and as I did he turned his back on me and walked to the shore. I saw the tattoos along his shoulder and the smaller one just above the cheeks of his buttocks as he stepped onto the mossy rocks of the bank. He did not turn to wait for me, but instead moved toward the birch trees that were in clutches just beyond the lake clearing.

  I stood there in the water, furious for his leaving.

  Furious for my wanting to touch him.

  Furious for believing I could find a kindred soul in this forest at all.

  2

  I had no love for anyone, nor did I believe I had hope, though it is always the smallest of flames in dark times, yet does not ever go out.

  At Beltane, when my aunt Morgause came, brought from the coast by charioteers, I met her at the rock stairway and she crossed her arms over her chest when she looked at me. “I’ve been away too long, I see,” she said. “You have lost all that baby fat, Mordred, and soon you’ll be too handsome to have time for your aunt.”

  3

  I need to shine more of a light upon Morgause herself. She had come early that year for several reasons. First, she had grown to dislike her husband to such an extent that she did not even like living within what she called his “mean little country.” He had whores, she said, which made her happy, as she did not want him in her bed ever again. She was far too frank with me about her intimate life, but it was what I loved about her. “There is a truth in life, Mordred, which you will need to know since it seems you foolishly will love men rather than the most more wonderful female sex. The larger the broadsword that a man carries, the smaller the dagger sheathed in his trousers. The longer he talks of his love to you, the shorter the time he spends between your legs. I bore him three sons, but during those brief bouts of his rutting lust I prayed to the goddess for a tincture of pleasure or at least a good laugh. And if not a laugh, something of a prick that might tickle me in some fashion.” Her bawdiness never ceased to make me smile, and how I wished at times my mother would be more like her.

  Since my birth, she had lived between the three worlds of Orkney with its severe kingdom that was governed more by bishops, she said, than by her husband, the king; and in Camelot, where she went in the winter for her duty as Queen of Orkney; and finally, to the Isle of Glass, for which she could not be forbidden as she was a priestess of the Lady of the Lake, and even the bishops and clerics of Christendom did not yet have power among the kingdoms to stop the worship of the goddess and her consorts.

  Whenever she came to the lake, she brought the filthy jokes she’d heard at court, and told of the affairs of the noble ladies who one minute were at Mass praising themselves for their piety, and within the next minute mounting the hounds-keepers, or the ladies-in-waiting, or even the bishop himself. “These ladies of the court who stink of spiced oranges and thick perfumes from Rome at least have a time of it. I find none of the men of those castles in the least appealing. So few wash well enough to make me want to find out what is under their armor and tunic. So, instead, I try to imagine the charioteers here, with their oiled bodies in summer, and the muscles on their arms as round as the ones on their backsides. I hope I am not embarrassing you,” she said.

  I shook my head, grinning, as I sat with her over a Cauldron of mint tea.

  “Have you yet taken a man?” she asked. Before I could answer, she said, “Try not to let the lechers find you, Mordred. You have that masculine beauty that old men of my age desire, but they shouldn’t ever have it in their bed for they lost their chance in their own youths and now chase phantoms of their mortality when they chase young men like you. Are you in love?”

  “No. Not as you mean it,” I said. “Merlin forbade me from it.”

  “Oh,” she said, nodding. “The problem of your sex. The goddess brings the Art, but she prizes virginity in youths. In maidens, she prizes their minds and spirits. But to her, the only gift a boy may give her is his chastity in exchange for her secrets. It is strange how that happens.”

  “Very strange,” I said, sipping the hot tea.

  “But you have loved a boy?”

  “In the way that friends may love,” I said.

  “Good. Love is a wonderful part of life, Mordred. I myself have never had it, though I felt it briefly for each of my sons. But I too prized their virginities, and once they, one by one, went off with their whoring father, they became dull and stupid. Gawain talks only of Arthur, and if not talking, he is eating, and if not eating, he is whoring. I wish he’d been more like you,” she said, reaching over and stroking my hair, which had grown long in the past winter without tending. She had told me often enough that she could read the mind of someone simply by touching their hair, and she did this now. “You have a man, somewhere. You are hiding something from me, dear nephew.”

  “I have seen one man. One man I think of.”

  “Ah.” She grinned wickedly. “The kind you dream of?”

  I nodded. “I’ve watched him bathe.”

  “Naughty boy,” she said, laughing. “And was he well-worth the view?”

  I chuckled but was too embarrassed to say more, and afraid she had already read my thoughts about him. “I am so happy you’ve come,” I said. “You bring joy here.”

  “And you bring me great joy, as well. Morgan is blessed. She doesn’t know how blessed she is. Look at you. My sons wear armor and make enemies of any they see in order to call battle. My husband…well, I should not speak so much of him, for if I do I might end up liking him for his thousand flaws.” Then her voice calmed a bit, and she whispered, “Are there many like you here at the lake?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said knowingly. “I saw a charioteer washing the back of one of the Eponi herdsmen out along the Albi River. Years ago, we had many lovers who were men. Perhaps there still are some among the Eponi. I think if you open your eyes a little and don’t look so downcast, you might notice these things.”

  “I would like to meet someone.”

  “What would this someone be like?”

  “He would be…” I thought of the dark-haired man I had seen at the lake and at his pool bath. “Older. But not too much. Perhaps ten years. And experienced.”

  “A knowledgeable lover.” She smiled, nodding. “Yes. You are smart to wish for that. Nothing is worse than a clumsy man.”

  “With long hair, very dark, and eyes like the summer sky.”

  “You dream of this lover well, Mordred.”

  “I have seen him,” I said, and then regretted it.

  “Ah. The one whose name you will not tell me.”

  “I’ve watched him bathe.”

  “I give him my highest blessings, then,” Morgause said. “My husband hasn’t bathed since the wedding feast. If you find a man who bathes regularly, Mordred, do not let him go. Tell me about this man you’ve seen. Is he a shepherd or does he tend the horses? A hunter? A messenger? A guard?”

  “I’m not certain,” I said. “He lives apart from us. There is a little house I’ve seen. Very rude and dirty. Covered with sod and thatched on the roof. Viviane told me that he is a hermit who has taken vows to the gods.”

  “Oh.” The peaches and cream of her face seemed to turn ashen as a realization came to her. “Him.”

  “You know him?” I asked eagerly.

  “I knew him very little. Many years ago, it seems.”

  “
Is he that old?”

  “Not so terribly old. He was very young then. Terribly young,” she said, and I could tell by the look in her eyes that she had gone into a memory. I wished I could ravel her memory at that moment that I might peer into her past to see this man I had begun watching from afar, dreaming about. Then she looked at me again, bringing her face close to mine and rubbing her nose against my nose as she had when I’d been a little boy. When she drew back from me, she said, “I think you should find your love within the lake, Mordred. Leave that man alone, because he…well, he will not be good for you. I can see by your look that you want to know more about him, but accept my word that he has brought suffering to many people and he does not live among us because of a past wrong for which he must atone.”

  “Just as Maponus guards the labyrinth below?”

  She nodded. “Yes. A crime against the goddess herself. But do not ask more of me about this hermit, Mordred. Leave him to his burdens and his atonement.”

  “As you will it, so I shall,” I said, repeating the phrase I’d been taught to say to the elders of my family.

  “Promise me,” she said, leaning forward and taking my hands in hers. Her hands were warm, but her eyes seemed harsh and distant as she watched my face as if detecting any deception. “Promise me you will not think of him. Banish him from your thoughts as the goddess herself has banished him from her sight.”

  I nodded, but my mouth had gone dry, and I felt my heart thudding against my chest as if I were a deer facing a hunter whose arrow was aimed and nearly shot from its bow.

  She tightened her fingers around mine. “You will meet other men. I think you will have lovers before you meet the one you will love forever,” she whispered, brightening slightly as she let my fingers slip from her hand. “I am so glad we may speak freely, Mordred. My sister and I can’t seem to talk of these things between us.”