by Mary Stewart
At the end he stirred. "That fellow, the grave-robber — we must find him. It shouldn't be hard, if he's cadging drinks from that story all over Maridunum... I wonder who it was who heard you the first time? And the miller, Stilicho; I've no doubt you'll want me to leave that to you?"
"Yes. But if you could ride over that way some time, perhaps when you're next in Caerleon? Mai will die of terror and ecstasy, but Stilicho will take it as no more than his due, who served the great enchanter... and then boast about it for the rest of his days."
"Of course," he said. "I was thinking, while I was on the road; we'll go straight on from here to Caerleon now. I imagine you're not yet ready to go back to court —"
"Not now, or ever. Or to Applegarth. I have left that for good." I did not add "to Nimuë"; her name had not been mentioned by either of us. So carefully had we avoided it that it seemed to ring through every sentence that was spoken. I went on: "I've no doubt you'll fight me to the death over this, but I want to go back to Bryn Myrddin. I'll be more than glad to stay with you in Caerleon until it can be made ready again."
Of course he objected, and we argued for a while, but in the end he let me have my way, on the (very reasonable) condition that I did not live there alone, but was cared for by servants. "And if you must have your precious solitude, then you shall have it. I shall build a place for the servants, out of your sight and below the cliff; but they must be there."
" 'And that is an order?' " I quoted, smiling.
"Certainly... There'll be time enough to see about it; I'll spend Christmas at Caerleon, and you with me. I take it you won't insist on going back there till the winter is past?"
"No."
"Good. Now, there's something in your story that doesn't agree with the facts... that business you described in Segontium." He glanced up, smiling. "So that was where you found Caliburn? In the soldiers' shrine of the Light? Well, it tallies. I remember that you told me, years ago, just before we left the forest, that there were other treasures there still. You spoke of a grail. I still remember what you said. But the gift Morgause brought to me was no treasure of Macsen's. It was silver goods — cups and brooches and torques, the sort of thing they fashion in the far north. Very handsome, but not as you described the treasure to me."
"No. I did catch a glimpse of it, there in the vision. It was not Macsen's treasure. But the shepherd boy was certain that it was taken, and I believe him."
"You don't know?"
"No. How could I, without power?"
"But you had this vision. You watched Morgause and the boys accost me at Camelot. You saw the silver treasure she gave me. You knew the courier had come, and that I was on my way to you."
I shook my head. "That was not power, not as you and I have known it. That is Sight only, and that, I think, I shall have until I die. Every village sibyl has it, in some degree or another. Power is more than that: it is doing and speaking with knowledge; it is bidding without thought, and knowing that one will be obeyed. That has gone. I don't repine now." I hesitated. "Nor, hope, do you? I have heard tales of Nimuë, how she is the new Lady of the Lake, the mistress of the Island's shrine. I am told that men call her the King's enchantress, and that she has done you service?"
"Indeed, yes." He looked away from me, leaning forward to adjust a log on the burning pile. "It was she who dealt with the theft of Caliburn."
I waited, but he left it there. I said at length: "I understood she was still in the north. She is well?"
"Very well." The log was burning to his satisfaction. He set his chin on a fist, and stared at the fire. "So. If Morgause had the treasure with her when she embarked, it will be somewhere on the Island. My people saw to it that she did not go ashore between Segontium and her landing there. She lodged with Melwas, so it should not be beyond me to have it traced. Morgause is being held under guard until I get back. If she refuses to speak, the children will hardly be proof against questioning. The younger ones are too innocent to see any harm in telling the truth. Children see everything; they will know where she left the treasure."
"I understand that you're going to keep them?"
"You saw that? Yes. You would also see that your courier came just in time to save Morgause."
I thought of my own effort to reach him with my dreaming will, when I thought she would use the stolen grail against him. "You were going to kill her?"
"Certainly, for killing you."
"Without proof?"
"I don't need proof to have a witch put to death."
I raised a brow at him, and quoted what had been said at the opening of the Round Hall: " 'No man nor woman shall be harmed unjustly, or punished without trial or manifest proof of their trespass.' "
He smiled. "Well, all right. I did have proof. I had your own word that she tried to kill you."
"So you said. I thought you said it to frighten her. I told you nothing."
"I know. And why not? Why did you keep it secret from me that it was her poison that sent you to your death in the Wild Forest, and then left you with the sickness that was almost your death again?"
"You've answered that yourself. You would have killed her, after the Wild Forest. But she was the mother of that young son, and heavy with another, and I knew that one day they would come to you, and become, in time, your faithful servants. So I did not tell you. Who did?"
"Nimuë."
"I see. And she knew — how? By divination?"
"No. From you. Something you said in your delirium."
Everything, she had taken from me; every last secret. I said merely: "Ah, yes... And do I take it that she also found Mordred for you? Or did Morgause bring him into the open, once Lot and I were dead?"
"No. He was still hidden. I understand that he was lodged somewhere in the Orkney Islands. Nimuë had nothing to do with that. It was by the purest chance that I heard of him. I got a letter. A goldsmith from York, who had done work for Morgause before, travelled that way with some jewels he hoped to sell her. These fellows, as you know, get into every corner of the kingdom, and see everything."
"Not Beltane."
His head came up, surprised. "You know him?"
"Yes, He's as good as blind. He has to travel with a servant —"
"Casso," said the King. Then, as I stared: "I told you I got a letter."
"From Casso?"
"Yes. It seems he was in Dunpeldyr when — ah, I see, that was when you met them? Then you will know they were there on the night of the massacre. Casso, it appears, saw and heard a good deal of what went on; people talk in front of a slave, and he must have understood more than he was meant to. His master could never be brought to believe that Morgause had anything to do with events so dreadful, so went up to Orkney to try his luck again. Casso, being less credulous, watched and listened, and managed at length to locate the child who went missing on the night of the massacre. He sent a message straight to me. As it happened, I had just heard from Nimuë that it was Morgause who caused your death. I sent for her, and saw to it that she brought Mordred with her. Why are you looking so dumbfounded?"
"On two counts. What should make a slave — Casso was a quarryman's labourer when I first found him — write 'straight to' the High King?"
"I forgot I had not told you: he served me once before. Do you remember when I went north into Lothian to attack Aguisel? And how hard it was to find some way of destroying that dirty jackal without bringing Tydwal and Urien down on my head, swearing vengeance? Some word of this must have got around, because I got a message from this same slave, evidence — with facts that could be proved — of something he had seen when he was in Aguisel's service. Aguisel had misused a page, one of Tydwal's young sons, and then murdered him. Casso told us where to find the body. We found it; and others besides. The child had been killed just as Casso had told us."
"And afterwards," I said dryly, "Aguisel cut out the tongues of the slaves who had witnessed it."
"You mean the man is dumb? Well, that might account for the free
way men seem to talk in front of him. Aguisel paid dearly for failing to make sure he could not read or write."
"Neither he could. When I knew him in Dunpeldyr he was both dumb and helpless. It was I who, for a service he had done me — or rather, for no reason that I remember, except perhaps the prompting of the god — arranged to have him taught."
Arthur, smiling, raised his cup to me. "Did I call it 'pure chance'? I should have remembered who I was talking to. I rewarded Casso after the Aguisel affair, of course, and told him where to send any other information. I believe he has been useful once or twice. Then, over this last thing, he sent straight to me."
We spoke of it for a while longer, then I came back to present matters. "What will you do with Morgause now?"
"I shall have to settle that, with your help, when I get back. Meanwhile I shall send orders that she is to be kept under guard, at the nunnery at Amesbury. The boys will stay with me, and I'll have them brought down to Caerleon for Christmas. Lot's sons will be no problem; they're young enough to find life at court exciting, and old enough now to do without Morgause. As for Mordred, he shall have his chance. I will do the same for him."
I said nothing. In the pause, the cat purred, suddenly loud, and then stopped short on a sighing breath, and slept.
"Well," said Arthur, "what would you have me do? He is in my protection now, so — even if I could ever have harmed him — I cannot kill him. I haven't had time to think this thing through, and there'll be time enough later to discuss it with you. But it has always seemed to me that once the boy had survived Lot's murderous purge, I would sooner have him near me, and under my eye, than hidden somewhere in the kingdom, with the threat that that might entail. Say you agree with me."
"I do. Yes."
"So, if I keep him by me, and grant him the birthright that he must have thought he would never see —"
"I doubt if that has crossed his mind," I said. "I don't think she has told him who he is."
"So? Then I shall tell him myself. Better still. He'll know that I needn't have accepted him. Merlin, it might be well. You and I both remember what it was like to live our youth out as unfathered bastards, and then to be told we were of Ambrosius' blood. And who am I to take on me yet again the wish for my son's death? Once was too much. God knows I paid for it." He looked away again into the flames. There was a bitter line to his mouth. After a while he lifted a shoulder. "You asked about Caliburn. It seems that my sister Morgan took herself a lover; he was one of my knights, a man called Accolon, a good fighter and a fine man — but one who could never say no to a woman. When King Urbgen was here with Morgan, she cast her eyes on Accolon, and soon had him at her girdle, like a greyhound fawning. Before she came south she had got some northern smith to make a copy of Caliburn, and while she was here in Camelot she managed to get Accolon to exchange this for the sword itself. She must have reckoned, in a time of peace, on getting herself free of the court and back to the north before the loss was discovered. I don't know what favours she granted Accolon, but certainly when she went north again with King Urbgen, Accolon took leave and went with them."
"But why did she do this?"
His quick, surprised look made me realize how rarely I had had to ask such a question. "Oh, the usual reason: ambition. She had some idea of putting her husband on the high throne of Britain with herself as his queen. As for Accolon, I'm not sure what she promised him, but whatever it was, it cost him his life. It should have cost hers, too, but there was no proof, and she is Urbgen's wife. Her being my sister should not have helped her, but he knew nothing of the plot, and I cannot afford to have him as my enemy."
"How did she hope to get away with it?"
"You had gone," he said simply. "She must have had word from Morgause that you were ailing, and she was making ready for her time of greatness. She reckoned that any man who held the sword could command a following, and if the King of Rheged were to raise it... Before that, of course, I was to have been killed. Accolon tried. He picked a quarrel and fought me. It was the substitute sword, of course; the metal was brittle as glass. As soon as I tested it for use, I knew there was something wrong, but it was too late. At the first clash it broke off short below the hilt."
"And?"
"Bedwyr and the rest were shouting 'treachery,' but they hardly needed to. I could see from Accolon's face that treachery was there. For all that his sword was still whole, and mine was broken, I think he was afraid. I drove the hilt into his face, and killed him with my dagger. I don't think he made any resistance. Perhaps he was a true man, after all. I like to think so."
"And the true sword? How did you know where it was?"
"Nimuë," he said. "It was she who told me what had happened. Do you remember that day, at Applegarth, when she told me to beware Morgan and the sword?"
"Yes. I thought she must mean Morgause."
"So did I. But she was right. All the time Morgan was at court, Nimuë hardly left her side. I wondered why, because it was obvious there was no love lost between them." He gave a rueful little laugh. "I'm afraid I took it as a women's quarrel... she's not overly fond of Guinevere, either... but she was right about Morgan. The witch corrupted her when she was no more than a girl. How Nimuë got the sword back I don't know. She sent it down from Rheged with an armed escort. I haven't seen her since she went north."
I started to ask something more, but he suddenly raised his head, listening.
"And here comes Bedwyr, if I'm not mistaken. We've had little enough time together, Merlin, but there will be other times. As God is good, there will be other times." He got to his feet, put his hands down, and raised me. "Now we have talked enough. You look exhausted. Will you go to your rest now, and leave me to face Bedwyr and the others, and give them the news? I warn you, it won't be a quiet party. They're likely to clean our good host out of anything drinkable he has in his cellars, and take the night to drink it..."
But I stayed with him to receive the knights, and afterwards to drink with them. Nobody, all through the long, noisy celebration, mentioned Nimuë to me, and I did not ask again.
9
WE SPENT ANOTHER FULL DAY resting at The Bush of Holly. A party went back to the ford to bury the dead men, and from there on to Camelot with messages from the King. Another party was sent to Caerleon to give warning of the King's approach. Then, while I rested, the young men went hunting. Their day's sport provided an excellent dinner, and their servants and pages, who came up with us that day, helped the innkeeper and his wife cook and serve it. Where everyone slept that night, I have no idea; I suspect that the horses were turned out, and that the stable was even fuller than the inn. On the following day, to our hosts' evident regret, the royal party moved off for Caerleon.
Even after the building of Camelot, Caerleon had kept its status as Arthur's western stronghold. We rode in on a bright, windy day, with the Dragon standards snapping and rippling from the roofs, and the streets leading up to the fortress gates crowded with people. At my own insistence, I rode cloaked and hooded, and to the rear of the party, rather than beside the King. Arthur had finally been brought to accept my decision not to take my place near him again; one cannot go back on an abdication, and mine had been complete. He still had not mentioned Nimuë's part in that, though he must have been wondering (along with others, who also avoided mentioning her name to me) just how much of my power she had managed to assume. Of all people, she should have "seen" that I was above ground again, and with the King; should have known, in fact, that I had been put still living into my tomb...
But no one asked questions, and I was not prepared to supply what I believed to be the answers.
In Caerleon they had allotted royal chambers to me, next to Arthur's own. Two young pages, eyeing me with the liveliest curiosity, conducted me to the rooms through corridors crowded with bustling servants. Many of them knew me, and all had obviously heard some version of the strange story; some merely hurried past, making the sign against strong enchantment, but others ca
me forward with greetings and offers of service. At last we reached my rooms, sumptuous apartments where a chamberlain awaited me, and showed me a splendid array of clothing sent by the King for me to choose from, with jewels from the royal coffers. A little to his disappointment I set aside the cloth of gold and silver, the peacock and the scarlet and the azure, and chose a warm robe of dark-red wool, with a girdle of gilded leather, and sandals of the same. Then, saying: "I will send light, my lord, and water for your washing," he withdrew. A little to my surprise he signed to the two boys to leave the chamber with him, and left me there unattended.
It was already past the time of lamp-lighting. I went over to the window, where the sky was deepening slowly from red to purple, and sat down to wait for the pages to come back.
I did not look round when the door opened. The flickering light of a cresset stole into the chamber, sending the evening sky receding, darkening beyond its weak young stars. The page moved softly round the room, touching lamp after lamp with flame, until the chamber glowed.
I felt tired after the ride, and heavy with reaction. It was time I roused myself, and let myself be made ready for the feasting tonight. The boy had gone out to set the cresset back in its iron bracket on the corridor wall. The chamber door was ajar.
I got to my feet. "Thank you," I began. "Now, if of your goodness —"
I stopped. It was no page. It was Nimuë who came swiftly in, then stood backed against the door, watching me. She was clad in a long gown of grey, stitched with silver, and there was silver in her hair, which was loose, and flowing down over her shoulders. Her face was white, and her eyes wide and dark, and while I stood gazing, they suddenly brimmed over with tears.
Then she was across the room and had me fast in her arms, and was laughing and crying and kissing me, with words tumbling out that made no sense at all except the one, that I was alive, and that all the time she had been grieving for me as dead.