Guinevere (12 page)

Guenlian shuddered but bore all their boorishness with dignity and apparent unconcern. Such was the power of her name and station, not to mention her own regal appearance, that no one ever quite got out of hand.

Matthew and John were more than slightly embarrassed by their comrades’ manners. It was strange how different these men appeared in their home. There were many hunting trips, and during the breaks in these, the brothers tried to make it clear to the men that even with the drought, baths could be provided for those who wished to follow the old customs. There was a lot of ribaldry connected with this suggestion, but most of the soldiers took the hint. They mocked but they admitted, too, that they were powerfully awed by this glimpse of Roman life. It gave them new insight into what they might have if the invaders were ever completely ousted from Britain.

It had been planned that way by Merlin, of course. He and Arthur had discussed it after they came. A few weeks of civilized life would give them all something to imagine for themselves. Leodegrance had sighed when they explained it, but resigned himself to the inconvenience in the name of Rome.

So the hordes of soldiers came to the villa. During the day they hunted in the forest. It was mostly for sport and to keep themselves occupied, but there was no denying that the game they brought back was vital to keep them all fed. Not all the sheep and cattle on the place could have satisfied those carnivores. At night they feasted in the great dining room, or tables were set up in the atrium under the stars. To make more room, Guenlian said. To save spending the next day mopping, she thought.

Mark was the only one of the brothers who preferred to stay behind when the others rode off. At first he explained that it was to help oversee the land and free his father for pleasure, but later he confided to Arthur that he had simply had enough of seeing things die.

“I’m home now,” he sighed. “And I want to think of nothing but food and a clean bed and how nicely little Rhianna has grown since I was last here. It seems a pity. She’s almost sixteen now. Soon her parents will decide she’s ready for marriage and send for her. Then she’ll have to go back up into the mountains and live in a leaky stone house with her fine strong herdsman husband. And all her beauty and grace will be wasted unless a wandering monk should stop by or a merchant come to bid for their horses and wool. I have no doubt that she will be supremely happy.”

Arthur smiled at his friend. They sat alone on the ground, leaning against the old stable wall. The stone was still warm from the sun, although it was well past midnight. The roistering hunters had all long since staggered to their beds, or lay curled where they had passed out under the tables. But Arthur was restless and not as drunk as his men. He had gone wandering and found Mark in the stable. He was feeling talkative and Arthur was content to let him ramble on, hearing little of what he said. They were facing the court and the lamps were still lit in a few of the windows. Arthur gazed at the scene hungrily. The house alone was more than he had ever imagined. It was a piece of art unto itself; mosaics on all the floors and murals on the walls; statues carved into the lintels and columns—and windows! Real glass windows of a cool, rippling green that made the room inside seem mystical and soothing. And Mark called it home. He had never known any other.

Arthur remembered his fostering place. It was in the north, too near the sea. It was cold and damp all year ’round. It was only an old fort, adapted for family living. The rooms were tiny, originally intended for storage or as watchtowers. The walls were thick stone, with narrow slits in them, not to admit light but to fire through at attackers. When the wind was strong, they would be covered with oiled skins and then there would be no light at all. The walls were smeared with smoke and grease, and the entire household slept together for warmth. Cleanliness wasn’t a word in his vocabulary until he met Merlin.

He stared angrily at his hands. Big, rough, clumsy. He wondered if the Lady Guenlian had cringed inside when she had touched them in greeting. He felt terribly uncomfortable and out of place in this ordered, cultured world, but his whole heart longed to be a part of it, to live like a gentleman, a Roman citizen, although he was rather vague on just what those terms entailed. To live in a place like that and feel as though one belonged there; he laughed bitterly at himself. He knew what he was, for all Merlin’s teaching. He was a soldier, a man who could make other men follow him into battle. When the battle ended he was no one again: a man with no family, no station, no place in the cosmos, certainly no place in a society where everyone was related and every man knew his cousins to the seventh degree. He pressed his lips together tightly and tried to pay attention to what Mark was saying.

Actually, Arthur was being too hard on himself. He had made a very strong and favorable impression on Leodegrance and Guenlian. Even before he spoke they were pleased with his air of quiet control. But their prejudice showed in their failure to approve of him completely until they had heard his voice. Under Merlin’s careful training, his Latin was pure and clear. He knew the correct phrases and when to use them, although he still had a hard time recognizing words when they were written down. For all his rough, barbaric appearance, they decided that he was acceptable as a general for their sons. In their minds it was but a small transition from that to leading the country. Everything he said and did on his visit only confirmed this opinion.

And, although she didn’t admit it, there was a lonely, lost look about him that touched Guenlian’s heart and made her want to mother him as she did her own children.

“Who is he?” she asked Merlin one night as they sat alone on her private veranda. “You know who he is, you’ve said so.”

Merlin nodded. “He is a boy with a great gift for making other men believe in him and a certain talent for military strategy. He hasn’t done much else, yet. He’s not far over twenty, you know.”

“He looks younger,” she commented. “I suppose it’s because he’s so fair. That mop of red hair and all those freckles make him look like a boy. He can’t be shaving yet. His body still outraces itself, all arms and legs and nose. Mark still has that coltlike appearance, and he’s only seventeen. But I did not ask you his age or talents. I want to know where he comes from, who his family is. You have hinted mysteriously to many people that you know his parentage but won’t reveal it. Is there something shameful about it? Is Arthur likely to go mad in a full moon? I’ll not believe you if you say his father was a peasant or a slave. Crude as he is, there’s good blood there, I’m certain.”

Merlin frowned and answered bitterly. “You’re wrong, Guenlian. His father was a slave; the worst kind, a slave to himself, to his own base desires. He was full of uncontrolled temper and lust. They were his master and they overcame him in the end.”

He stopped suddenly. He had said too much. He cursed himself. Guenlian was not a simpleminded country wife. What might be obscure to most people would be clear as crystal to her, raised as she was in the eye of the storm, surrounded by politics and intrigue. Too late he remembered what good cause she had for knowing of a man who allowed his body to control his reason. He studied her carefully in the candlelight. Her face was closed. She remembered. In the cool night she could still smell the rancid wine on his breath and the hot, clumsy hands pawing at her robes. She shuddered.

“By whom?” she asked sharply.

Merlin saw there was no use prevaricating. Actually, he was relieved to be able to tell someone. He had feared he might die before it was time to reveal the secret, and that could not be permitted.

“His own legal wife,” he said.

“I can’t believe that. There was a six-month child, born soon after the marriage, but it died, of course. They never live when they come so early. She had no others. They said it was a judgment. She believed it, poor woman.”

“It was a full-term infant. I received him still wet from his mother, the birth bloodstains on his fingernails, and rode out with him at once. I found a wet nurse and kept him with me three months. When I was sure he would live, I sent him to Ector for fostering.”

“It was true then. There were rumors even at the time that Uther had gone to Tintagel the night that Gorlois died and forced himself upon Igraine. I never understood why she consented to marry him. I thought it was out of fear, but she was carrying his child even then.” Her voice intensified in anger. “He raped her with her husband’s murder on his soul, and you connived it for him!”

He shrank from her. “It had to be, Guenlian. It was an evil piece of business and it sickened me even then, though I was as young then as Arthur is now and didn’t realize what she must have suffered. But that is the way it was ordained and I could only guide the events. Even as I must do now.”

“Why did you never let anyone know the child lived?” She didn’t doubt his story. Though she understood nothing of the burden of prophecy, she never disbelieved anything he said.

“You know what it was like after Uther died. The man had as many enemies among his own followers as among the Saxons. The babe was born too early. There would always be doubt about his parentage. But even if his legitimacy were proven, there were twenty factions that would have been happy to see him dead. I thought it better to let him earn his kingdom. I’ve watched over him as much as I could, taught him, taken him with me when I was able. I’ve tested him, too. He has his mother’s character and sense of honor, though he has his father’s looks. He will make a good man and a just ruler. Still, we don’t know if there will be anything left for him to rule. And there are many yet who would refuse to follow him knowing whose son he is. You cringed, yourself. But remember Guenlian, dear cousin. The boy doesn’t know himself. He thinks he is Noman. And as that he can be both proud of what he has accomplished and humble in the splender of nobility such as yours. You are the only one alive now who knows. Even Igraine was told the child died. Can you forget it and treat him as you have before?”

She shook her head. “I can’t forget where he comes from, but I can try to forgive it in him. I have found no sign of Uther in the boy, apart from the hair. That would give him away if it were known any son existed. Igraine was a gentle woman. The best of her family. She was kind to me and risked much to help me escape from court with Leodegrance, that I might be spared the horror she lived with every day. For her sake and for her heart in him, I will be kind.”

“Thank you cousin,” Merlin smiled. “I may have made a mystery for you where none was needed. You know I could never take the straight path. Also I feared, as you might, that he would inherit Uther’s lustful nature. If that happened, I would have let Arthur remain a man at arms on the northern borders and given up our hopes for a dynasty and a united country. So, I did what I thought was best.”

He looked to her for approval, but her face was closed again. He felt uneasy as she smiled politely across the small table.

“Would you care for more wine?” she asked.

Automatically, he stretched his glass out for her to pour the wine. As he did so, he realized that there were people in the room behind them. Had they heard?

The movement suggested that they were just passing by. Merlin sipped his wine in silence, waiting for the voices to fade. But almost immediately, Mark entered the room, followed by Geraldus and, lastly, Arthur. Poor Arthur, Merlin sighed. He held his arms stiffly at his sides, like a soldier at inspection, but he appeared to be simply afraid of bumping into something priceless and destroying it. He stood behind the others, near the door, so obviously out of place and ill at ease that Guenlian’s heart melted. She smiled at him.

Mark spoke first. “We three have been thinking of going hunting for a few days by ourselves. We don’t want all that howling pack around us all the time. Can you think of a diplomatic way for us to get away without offending every minor princeling and warlord in Britain?”

“You value your own company rather highly, my son. Why should anyone question you and your friends going on a private hunt?”

Arthur shuffled his feet. He didn’t want anyone to think he had too high an opinion of himself.

“Mother,” Mark smiled. He knew when he was being teased. “You know exactly how much in demand we all are. Why, I can’t even go to comb my horse without someone coming after me to ask my advice on a point of protocol. Now, dearest mother, will you help?”

She shrugged away his caress gently. “Of course. There is no reason why your brothers and father cannot manage to entertain our guests for a few days. Perhaps they could be taken on a ride to the seashore. I doubt if many of our highland-bred lords have ever walked upon a sandy beach.”

“The very thing!” Mark turned to his friends. “Can’t you see the Lord Colum splashing in the waves and hunting for shells?”

“From what I know of him,” Merlin interjected, “I would guess he’ll spend his time examining fortifications and complaining that those appointed to keep watch for the Saxon invaders were not doing their job.”

“Now, cousin Merlin,” Mark chided. “You always see the dismal side of things. Colum may frolic like a naiad in the surf. I know your gloomy ways. From the way my mother was staring into her glass when we entered, I’d wager that you’ve been sitting here all evening foreseeing early and horrible deaths for us all. We need no more of that! Arthur, Geraldus, and I are going hunting! We have decided on it. What’s more, we will not bother with boars and stags and such prosaic quarry. We are hunting mythical beasts only. What say we find a dragon or two, a griffon, or perhaps a unicorn? We may even find a satyr lost in the woods. No more nonsense about meat for the table. Pack our bags with pigeon pie! We shall go on a quest!”

He struck a heroic pose and drew his sword. The candlelight struck it and turned the steel to shimmering silver. Guenlian smiled fondly. For all his foolishness, there was something grand about him. She wished he
could
find a satyr. Of all her children, Mark was the only one who knew how to dream.