The Last Enchantment

by Mary Stewart

  Witch's wiles indeed. Even for a rape it would have been precipitate: for a seduction it was a record. Call me innocent, or stupid, or what you will, but at first I could only think, held there in the clouds of dreaming, that some spell had been at work. I believe I thought hazily of dragged wine, Circe's cup, and men turned into rutting swine. It was not until some time later, when the man reached a hand from the bed-covers and turned up the wick of the lamp, and the woman, dazed with sex and sleep, sat up smiling against the crimson pillows and drew the furs up to cover herself, that I began to suspect the truth. He padded across the floor, through the fallen wreck of his own clothes, poured another cupful of wine, drained it, then refilled it and took it back to Morgause. Then he heaved himself back into the bed beside her, sat back himself against the bed-head, and began to talk. She, half sitting, half lying against him, nodded and answered, seriously and at length. As they talked, his hand slid down to fondle her breasts; he did it half absently, as was natural enough in a man like Lot, who was used to women. But Morgause, the maiden with the unbound hair and demure little voice? Morgause noticed the gesture no more than the man. Only then, with a jar like an arrow thudding deep into a shield, did I see the truth. They had been here before. They were familiar. Even before she had lain with Arthur, Lot had had her, and many times. They were so used to one another that they could lie twined naked on a bed and, busily and earnestly, talk... About what?

  Treachery. That was, naturally, my first thought. Treachery against the High King, whom both, for differing reasons, had cause to hate. Morgause, long jealous of the half-sister who must always take precedence of her, had laid siege to Lot and taken him to her bed. There had, it was to be supposed, been other lovers, too. Then came Lot's bid for power at Luguvallium. It failed, and Morgause, not guessing at the strength and clemency that would make Arthur accept him back among his allies, turned to Arthur himself in her own desperate play for power.

  And now? She had magic of a kind. It was possible that she knew, as I knew, that in that night's incest with Arthur she had conceived. A husband she must have, and who better than Lot? If he could be persuaded that the child was his, she might cheat the hated young sister of marriage and kingdom, and build a nest where the cuckoo could hatch out in safety.

  It looked as if she would succeed. When next I saw through the dream-smoke they were laughing together, and she had freed her body of the covers and was seated high on the furs against the crimson curtains of the bedhead, with the rose-gold hair streaming down behind her shoulders like a mantle of silk. The front of her body was bare, and on her head was Lot's royal circlet of white gold, glimmering with citrines and the milk-blue pearls of the northern rivers. Her eyes shone bright and narrow as a purring cat's, and the man was laughing with her as he lifted the cup and drank what looked like a toast to her. As he lifted it the cup rocked, and wine slopped over the brim to spill down her breasts like blood. She smiled, not stirring, and the king leaned forward, laughing, and sucked it off.

  The smoke thickened. I could smell it, as if I was there in the room, close by the brazier. Then mercifully I was awake in the cool and tranquil night, but with the nightmare still crawling like sweat on the skin.

  To anyone but me, knowing them as I knew them, the scene would have offered no offense. The girl was lovely, and the man fine enough, and if they were lovers, why, then, she had the right to look toward his crown. There should have been nothing to flinch at in the scene, any more than in a dozen such that one sees on any summer evening along the hedgerows, or in the midnight hall. But about a crown, even such a one as Lot's, there is something sacred: it is a symbol of that mystery, the link between god and king, king and people. So to see the crown on that wanton head, with the king's own head, bared of its royalty, bent below it like a beast's pasturing, was profanity, like spittle on an altar.

  So I rose, and plunged my head in water, and washed the sight away.

  5

  WHEN WE REACHED CAERLEON AT NOON next day, a bright October sun was drying the ground, and frost lay indigo-blue in the lee of walls and buildings. The alders along the river bank, their black boughs hung with yellow coins of leaves, looked bright and still, like stitchery against the background of pale sky. Dead leaves, still rimmed with frost, crunched and rustled under our horses' hoofs. The smells of new bread and roasting meat wound through the air from the camp kitchens, and brought sharply to mind my visit here with Tremorinus, the master engineer who had rebuilt the camp for Ambrosius, and included in his plans the finest kitchens in the country.

  I said as much to my companion — it was Caius Valerius, my friend of old — and he grunted appreciatively.

  "Let us hope the King takes due time for a meal before he starts his inspection."

  "I think we can trust him for that."

  "Oh, aye, he's a growing boy." It was said with a sort of indulgent pride, with no faintest hint of patronage. From Valerius it came well; he was a veteran who had fought with Ambrosius at Kaerconan and since then with Uther; he was also one of the captains who had been with Arthur at the battle on the River Glein. If men of this stamp could accept the youthful King with respect, and trust him for leadership, then my task was indeed done. The thought came unmixed with any sense of loss or declining, but with a calm relief that was new to me. I thought: I am growing old.

  I became conscious that Valerius had asked me something. "I'm sorry. I was thinking. You said?"

  "I asked if you were going to stay here till the crowning?"

  "I think not. He may need me here for a while, if he's set on rebuilding. I'm hoping I shall have leave to go after Christmas, but I'll come back for the crowning."

  "If the Saxons give us leave to hold it."

  "As you say. To leave it till Pentecost would seem to be a little risky, but it's the bishops' choice, and the King would be wiser not to gainsay them."

  Valerius grunted. "Maybe if they put their minds to it and do some serious praying, God will hold the spring offensive back for them. Pentecost, eh? Do you suppose they're hoping for fire from heaven again... theirs, this time, perhaps?" He eyed me sideways. "What do you say?"

  As it happened, I knew the legend to which he referred. Since the coming of the white fire into the Perilous Chapel, the Christians had been wont to refer to their own story, that once, at Pentecost, fire had fallen from heaven onto their god's chosen servants. I saw no reason to quarrel with such an interpretation of what had happened at the Chapel: it was necessary that the Christians, with their growing power, should accept Arthur as their God-appointed leader. Besides, for all I knew, they were right.

  Valerius was still waiting for me to answer. I smiled. "Only that if they know from whose hand the fire falls, they know more than I do."

  "Oh, aye, that's likely." His tone was faintly derisive. Valerius had been on garrison duty in Luguvallium on the night when Arthur lifted the sword from the fire in the Perilous Chapel, but, like everyone else, he had heard the tale. And, like everyone else, he shied away from what had happened there. "So you're leaving us after Christmas? Are we to know where for?"

  "I'm going home to Maridunum. It's five — no, six years since I was there. Too long. I'd like to see that all is well."

  "Then see that you do get back for the crowning. There will be great doings here at Pentecost. It would be a pity to miss them."

  By then, I thought, she would be near her time. I said aloud: "Oh, yes. With or without the Saxons, we shall have great doings at Pentecost."

  Then we spoke of other things until our quarters were reached, and we were bidden to join the King and his officers for meat.

  * * *

  Caerleon, the old Roman City of the Legions, had been rebuilt by Ambrosius, and since then kept garrisoned and in good repair. Arthur now set himself to enlarge it almost to its original capacity, and make it, besides, a king's stronghold and dwelling-place as well as a fortress. The old royal city of Winchester was reckoned now to be too near the borders of the Saxon
federated territory, and too vulnerable, besides, to new invasion, situated as it is on the Itchen River, where longboats had landed before now. London was still safely held by the British, nor had any Saxons attempted to thrust up into the Thames valley, but in Uther's time the longboats had penetrated as far as Vagniacae, and Rutupiae and the Isle of Thanet had long been securely in Saxon hands. The threat was felt to be there, and growing yearly, and since Uther's accession London had begun — imperceptibly at first, and then with increasing speed — to show decay. Now it was a city fallen on evil days; many of its buildings had collapsed through age and neglect; poverty showed itself everywhere, as markets moved away, and those who could afford to do so left for safer places. It would never, men said, be a capital city again.

  So until his new stronghold should be ready to counter any serious invasion from the Saxon Shore, Arthur planned to make Caerleon his headquarters. It was the obvious choice. Within eight miles of it was Ynyr's capital of Guent, and the fortress itself, lying in a loop of the river but beyond the danger of flood, had mountains at its back, and was additionally protected on the east by marshes at the watersmeet of the Isca and the little Afon Lwyd. Of course Caerleon's very strength restricted it; it could defend only a small portion of the territory under Arthur's shield. But for the present it could provide the headquarters for his policy of mobile defense.

  I was with him all through that first winter. He did ask me once, with a smiling lift of the brows, if I was not going to leave him for my cave in the hills, but I said merely: "Later," and let it be.

  I told him nothing about the dream I had had that night at Nodens' shrine. He had enough to think about, and I was only too thankful that he seemed to have forgotten the possible consequences of that night with Morgause. Time enough to talk to him when the news came from York about the wedding.

  Which it did, in good time to stop the court's preparation to go north for the celebrations at Christmas. A long letter came first, from Queen Ygraine to the King; one came for me with the same courier, and was brought to me where I walked by the river. All morning I had been watching the laying of a conduit, but for the moment work had ceased, as the men went for their midday bread and wine. The troops drilling on the parade ground near the old amphitheatre had dispersed, and the winter day was still and bright, with a pearled mist.

  I thanked the man, waiting, letter in hand, until he had gone. Then I broke the seal.

  The dream had been a true one. Lot and Morgause were married. Before even Queen Ygraine and her party reached York, the news had gone before them, that the lovers were handfast. Morgause — I was reading between the lines here — had ridden into the city with Lot, flushed with triumph and decked with his jewels, and the city, preparing for a royal wedding, with a sight of the High King himself, made the best of its disappointment, and, with northern thrift, held the wedding feast just the same. The King of Lothian, said Ygraine, had borne himself meekly to her, and had made gifts to the chief men of the city, so his welcome had been warm enough. And Morgan — I could read the relief in the plain words — Morgan had showed neither anger nor humiliation; she had laughed aloud, and then wept with what appeared to be sheer relief. She had gone to the feasting in a gay red gown, and no girl had been merrier, even though (finished Ygraine with the touch of acid that I remembered) Morgause had worn her new crown from rising to bedtime...

  As for the Queen's own reaction, I thought that this, too, was one of relief. Morgause, understandably, had never been dear to her, whereas Morgan was the only child she had had by her to rear. It was clear that, while prepared to obey King Uther, both she and Morgan had disliked the marriage with the black northern wolf. I did, indeed, wonder if Morgan knew more about him than she had told her mother. It was even possible that Morgause, being what she was, had boasted that she and Lot had already lain together.

  Ygraine herself showed no suspicion of this, nor of the bride's pregnancy as a possible reason for the hasty marriage. It was to be hoped that there was no hint, either, in the letter she had sent to Arthur. He had too much on his mind now; there would be time yet for the anger and the distress. He must be crowned first, and then be free to go about his formidable task of war without being shackled by what was women's business — and would, all too soon, be mine.

  * * *

  Arthur flung the letter down, was angry, that was plain, but holding it on the rein.

  "Well? I take it you know?"

  "Yes."

  "How long have you known?"

  "The Queen your mother wrote to me. I have just read the letter. I imagine it carries the same news as yours."

  "That is not what I asked you."

  I said mildly: "If you are asking me, did I know this was going to happen, the answer is yes."

  The angry dark gaze kindled. "You did? Why did you not tell me?"

  "For two reasons. Because you were occupied with things that matter more, and because I was not quite sure."

  "You? Not sure? Come, Merlin! This from you?"

  "Arthur, all that I knew or suspected of this came to me in a dream, one night some weeks ago. It came not like a dream of power, or divination, but like a nightmare brought on by too much wine, or by too much thinking about that hellcat and her works and ways. King Lot had been in my mind, and so had she. I dreamed I saw them together, and she was trying on his crown. Was that enough, do you think, for me to make you a report that would have set the court by the ears, and you, maybe, racing up to York to quarrel with him?"

  "It would have been enough, once." His mouth showed a stubborn and still angry line. I saw that the anger sprang from anxiety, striking at the wrong time about Lot's intentions.

  "That," I said, "was when I was the King's prophet. No," at his quick movement, "I belong to no man else. I am yours, as always. But I am a prophet no longer, Arthur. I thought you understood."

  "How could I? What do you mean?"

  "I mean that the night at Luguvallium, when you drew the sword I had hidden for you in the fire, was the last time that the power visited me. You did not see the place afterwards, when the fire was gone and the chapel empty. It had broken the stone where the sword lay, and destroyed the sacred relics. Me, it did not destroy, but I think the power was burned out of me, perhaps for ever. Fires fade to ash, Arthur. I thought you must surely have guessed."

  "How could I?" he said again, but his tone had changed. It was no longer angry and abrupt, but slow and thinking. As I, after Luguvallium, had felt myself ageing, then Arthur had, for good and all, left his boyhood. "You've seemed the same as always. Clear-headed, and so sure of yourself that it's like asking advice of an oracle."

  I laughed. "They were not always so clear, by all accounts! Old women, or witless girls mumbling in the smoke. If I've been sure of myself during these past weeks, it's because the advice I have been asked for concerns my professional skills, no more."

  " 'No more?' Enough, one would think, for any king to call on, if that were all he had known from you... But yes, I think I see. It's the same for you as for me; the dreams and visions have gone, and now we have a life to live by the rules of men. I should have understood. You did, when I went myself after Colgrim." He walked over to the table where Ygraine's letter lay, and rested a fist on the marble. He leaned on it, frowning downward, but seeing nothing. Then he looked up. "And what of the years that are to come? The fighting will be bitter, and it will not be over this year, or the next. Are you telling me that I shall have nothing from you now? I'm not talking about your engines of war, or your knowledge of medicine; I'm asking you if I am not to have the 'magic' that the soldiers tell me about, the help that you gave to Ambrosius and to my father?"

  I smiled. "That, surely." He was thinking, I knew, of the effect my prophecies, and sometimes my presence, had had on the fighting troops. "What the armies think of me now, they will go on thinking. And where is the need for further prophecies concerning the wars you are embarked on? Neither you nor your troops will need reminding at eve
ry turn. They know what I have said. Out there in the field, the length and width of Britain, there is glory for you, and for them. You will have success, and success again, and in the end — I do not know how far ahead — you will have victory. That is what I said to you, and it is still true. It is the work you were trained for: go and do it, and leave me to find a way to do mine."

  "Which is, now that you've flown your eagle chick, and yourself stay earthborne? To wait for victory, then help me build again?"

  "In time." I indicated the crumpled letter. "But more immediately, to deal with such things as this. After Pentecost, with your leave, I shall go north to Lothian."

  A moment of stillness, while I saw the flush of relief colour his face. He did not ask what I meant to do there, but said merely: "I shall be glad. You know that. I doubt if we need to discuss why this happened?"