Guinevere: The Legend in Autumn (24 page)

“I’m sending Mordred out on his first assignment,” my husband noted as he packed for the southern trip. “He’s to check on the Bristol coast from Sea Mills down to the River Exe. The Irish haven’t shown any signs of resuming their raids, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

“Oh dear, he had so wanted to go to Northumbria with Uwain,” I mused, hoping my husband would reconsider his opposition to that plan. “Might do him good to get to know his cousin better.”

“Uwain?” Arthur spit the name out. “I don’t trust Morgan’s son any more than he trusts me—don’t want to give him a chance to turn Mordred against me.” His tone was so contentious, I couldn’t point out that it was he himself who was driving his son away. “The two of them plotting who-knows-what is the last thing I need,” he added.

There was a rasp in his voice that made me stop and take a good look at him. He was glaring at the map case with an unconcealed fury. This was no momentary flare-up of anger, but the overflowing of a long-simmering rage.

“I know you wish I’d do more for Mordred—that I’d treat him more like…kin. But Gwen, the very thought of him makes my skin crawl. I cannot stand the sight of the boy, can’t even
look
at him, without remembering…”

Arthur’s jaw clamped shut, and his muscles tensed, as though this most noble of kings was locked in physical combat with his own imperfect nature, and I understood for the first time the extent of his struggle. Since time began, a monarch must be without blemish, whole and strong and vital. But Arthur’s soul carried the blot of incest, rendering him tainted, a man to be cast out of decent society. For all that he was the finest leader in Europe, his moira left him shadowed and at war within himself.

Suddenly he relaxed and, dropping the leather case, came over to me. Taking me firmly by the shoulders, he searched my face imploringly.

“Lass, I’m trying to do the best I can. I’ve sent the lad out on his own this time—he’ll be in charge, without anyone else to oversee him. I
want
to be able to trust him. Maybe once he proves his loyalty, maybe then I can meet him man to man, without the other getting in the way.”

“Most likely,” I said. “He still wants so much to please you.”

“Ah well,” Arthur sighed, turning away again. “We all do the best we can. And I swear, if this assignment goes well, I’ll promote him to a more important post.”

I heard the promise and felt cheered by it. “That would be splendid, my dear—good for both of you, I think.”

Thus Arthur went south with Palomides, and Mordred headed to Sea Mills, going first to Wells, then along the Mendips, while I kept the household at Camelot. And no one suspected the chaos that little trip would bring.

Chapter XIX

The Witch of Wookey

As was my wont, I began each day working in the garden, weeding and pinching, mulching and clipping. It gave me a chance to touch the earth again, to draw in strength and calm for the day. In particular, it provided an hour or two of inner communion that was hard to find elsewhere in a busy Court, and restored the balance that was always missing when Lance was gone. At such times my thoughts often went to Joyous Gard, where, I hoped, the Breton was safe. I liked to think of him working in his garden just as I was in mine.

“M’lady!”

The sound cut across my reverie as sharply as it clove the air. I sat back on my heels and blinked at the figure that came careening down the path. He moved like a drunken scarecrow, clothes flapping about raggedly and a dreadful grimace contorting his features.

“Mordred? Mordred, what is it?” I cried as he lurched to a stop in front of me.

The young man was gasping for air so hard his whole body shook. Goaded by who knew what demons, his face had become sunken and ravaged, while his eyes burned wildly in the shadows of their sockets. Even his beard, which he had a youthful vanity about, was tangled and dirty, and both his hands and face were badly scratched.

“Is it true?” he rasped.

A cold premonition slid over me, and I reached toward him. “Is what true?”

“That King Arthur is my father?”

The air went still around us and the very earth ceased to breathe. Even my hand stayed in the effort to find his, and I gawked at my stepson, horror-stricken. Not this way, I prayed; don’t let it come out this way.

But my silence was confirmation enough, and he spun away, as though by not seeing me he could avoid the truth. Then, with a sudden swing of direction, he turned back, his manner veering from entreaty to accusation.

“You knew, didn’t you?” he hissed, bearing down on me. “Answer, M’lady! You knew!”

The young, powerful hand grabbed my wrist as I bit my lip and nodded a silent admission. For one terrible moment we stared at each other before he loosed his grip and flung my hand away.

“Then why? Why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t you tell me?” The words welled up out of him, as scalding as milk overflowing a seething pot. “You knew, and yet you let me go on trying, day after day, to make the man like me. Trying to live up to impossible standards. Trying to earn some respect from the King, who himself carries a loathsome secret. At the least you should have told me it was hopeless. Why, M’lady…why didn’t you?”

I shook my head in stunned disbelief. Why, indeed? It was the same cry I had made to his father all those years ago when I, too, had found out about Mordred’s origins. How could I have let this boy, this child I thought of as my own, walk into the same horrifying discovery without giving him the protection of being forewarned?

“I…” My mouth opened and closed, yet no sound came out. Tears were filling my eyes. “There never seemed to be a right time…I tried. No, that’s not true…not quite. I wanted you to know—I just had no way to tell you.”

Mordred heard the words, but his face showed no understanding of their meaning. The truth had heaved him into a blind pit, and he stared through me to his own inner horror, like a man enmeshed in nightmare. When he spoke, despair had leached his voice of color.

“I wouldn’t believe her, you know. Tried to kill her when she taunted me. Spent the whole night chasing through the woods—each of us hiding in the dark, listening, darting away, jumping after—through bramble and thicket and holly shaws. Just before dawn she made it back to the cavern and hid beyond my grasp.”

This time he let me take hold of his hands, which were growing cold as ice. “Who, Mordred? Who told you?”

“The Witch of Wookey Hole.” His teeth started to chatter, and a long shiver ran through him. “Named the truth for me, the reason that the King finds me so hateful. Just a voice at first, coming from the woods but following as I went along the Road…‘He has been where he should not, you are the spawn that he begot. Unnatural child of an unspeakable union, that’s what you are, and even the Gods despise you.’ Unnatural—that’s what she called me. Unnatural…” The word hung on the air, sick with self-loathing.

Cursing the crone silently, I chafed Mordred’s hands in an effort to warm them. The color was leaving his face, and he whimpered once as he slumped on the bench and I called frantically for help. After Enid and I got him wrapped in blankets, Griflet was summoned to carry him to my chamber.

When we’d put my son on the bed and bundled the comforter around him, the Kennel Master asked quietly, “Do you want me to stand guard?”

I shook my head, grateful that I could trust that neither he nor Enid would mention this to the household. “He’s had a bad shock, but will be better for a sound sleep and some hot broth.”

Mordred slept through much of the day, with me sitting beside him, seeing again the boy who loved to track the golden eagles in their flight, who cherished the stories of the Trojan War and had always dreaded the dark secrets of the woods. A bright child given into my care, born to run free into the promise of tomorrow, now tripped and forever caught in the dark snare of his father’s secret.

Over and over I wondered how I could have handled it better. What could have been done or said to make Arthur see him as a boy in need of a father rather than the eternal reminder of a shameful act? Perhaps men never face their own humanity in the way that women do—and there was nothing anyone could have done to deflect the moira of this father and son.

By nightfall Mordred had slept through the worst of his exhaustion, and the restless tossing of nightmares gave way to calmer waking. He lay there looking at me, sad-eyed and empty, no longer wracked by the feverish horror of the morning.

“You’ll be needing your chamber,” he said softly, glancing out the window at the new moon that lay cradled in sunset clouds.

“You needn’t go on my account.” I spoke up quickly, unwilling to send him from the safety of this nest. “I use the royal bedroom even when Arthur’s gone.”

He grimaced as he raised himself on one elbow, though whether at the sound of his father’s name or the bruises of his body, I couldn’t tell. “No, M’lady…not on your account but my own. There are things I must learn to live with, and that’s easiest done at a distance.” Pulling himself upright, he smiled bleakly and reached for my hands. “We’ll have no need to speak of this again…but before we leave the matter to the past, please know I don’t blame you.” His voice went gentle for a moment. “You gave me the best childhood one could ask for, have been the best mother one could want. Morgause…” he stumbled on the name, then gave a faint shrug. “The memory of her is far back and faded. Not even she saw fit to warn me.”

His mouth firmed into a hard, cold line, and he tightened his grip on my hands. “I have but one request—that you not tell the High King. There is no reason for me to put into words what he has left unsaid. I will not bring it up myself; why should I? But I ask your promise to keep my secret as well as you kept his.”

His dark eyes watched me intently. There was neither reproach nor anger in them, just a deep pleading. Out of sorrow and guilt, and without thought to the ramifications, I gave him my oath.

“Well now, ’tis done,” he said, throwing off the covers and looking about for his boots. “I must be off to find Cynric before he decides the goblins caught me on the Road.” There was a new brittleness to his voice that had not been there before.

I watched him stand and stretch, thinking how much he moved like his father. He turned at the door and gave me a sardonic smile. “After all, one must uphold the honor of King Arthur’s Court.”

O Mordred, would that we had bridged the chasm then, dragged the hidden anguish into the light and been done with silent wars. Neither you nor Arthur would have found it easy, but at least it would not have come to this.

But I lacked the courage to refuse this one special favor, and made a promise there was no way I could keep. By then I myself was complicit in your betrayal, whether by silence or by speaking…and the Witch of Wookey laughed in her cave.

***

Arthur returned from the south a fortnight later, coming in tired but happy. A week on the Road had left him gritty from head to foot.

“Bagdemagus’s friend Gwynlliw has matters in Devon well in hand,” he reported as I scrubbed him down in the niche of the garden I reserved for bathing. I used a fresh chunk of soap to work up a full lather, and he sputtered when I poured a bucket of rainwater over his head, then rose and shook himself like a dog.

“Those hill-forts are full of crusty old veterans and youngsters eager to take on the devil himself! Good to see their spirits high, in spite of Geraint’s death. If anything, that battle gave them a keener edge, made them more alert.”

My husband groped for a towel and, wrapping it around his loins, stepped dripping from the tin tub.

“How does that sit with the Federates?” I asked, thinking of those settlers who had been loyal to the British crown all along. “Don’t they resent being treated with suspicion? We don’t know that they would have sided with the invaders, after all.”

“True.” Arthur turned his attention to drying himself. “I need to establish better ties with them—show them we respect their ways and want to live in peace, not just as overlords.”

I watched him rubbing down his back—a fine, proud king in the prime of his life. Only graying at the temples, not yet badly weathered. He had no notion of what had transpired at Wookey Hole, and for all that I ached to blurt out Mordred’s story, I was loath to shatter my husband’s happiness. Besides, it would be breaking my promise. So I, the woman whose tongue was always running away with her, silenced the clamoring of my own common sense.

As it happened, Arthur didn’t ask to hear Mordred’s report for several days, by which time the lad had returned from his private journey. The High King scrutinized his scroll on the status of the settlements and forts along the Bristol coast, then began asking for further details. Mordred joined him at the map, and the two of them went over it together.

“The only real problem is the band of brigands that have holed up on Brent Knoll, that single hill to the south of Weston,” Mordred noted. “They’re nowhere near as destructive as the Irish raiders, but are causing the locals some concern. I’d suggest you send a group of four or five warriors to rout them out…it shouldn’t require much more than that.”

“You’ve done a more than competent job,” Arthur said, raising his head to look his son fully in the face. My heart lifted, seeing the effort he was making to overcome his aversion.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the young man replied courteously enough, but he refused to hold his father’s gaze.

“I’ve been thinking,” Arthur went on, rising to pace about the room. “You and the Saxon hostage, Cynric, have become pretty good friends, haven’t you?” He turned to catch Mordred’s reaction, and when there was an assenting nod, Arthur smiled. “I need a representative to the Saxon Federates. If you think Cynric can be trusted, you could use him as a kind of liaison when you meet the individual leaders. That is, if you want to be my envoy to these people.”

Mordred was staring at Arthur, summing him up for the first time with the knowledge of their kinship. Whatever thoughts or feelings lay behind those brown eyes remained hidden, unmoved and unmoving. At last he inclined his head. “I’m at your disposal, Your Highness, and willing to serve in any capacity you choose.”

My eyes flicked to Arthur, wondering if he heard the cautious hope in his son’s voice. But Britain’s High King was already thinking of other business. “Fine. It’s settled, then. We’ll make the trip to the Saxon Shore this summer—visit the settlers and introduce you at the same time.”

He was rummaging about, looking for a different report, the matter of Mordred having been dismissed. I saw the younger man’s face before he bowed to his father’s back and walked stiffly to the door. Whatever hope he had of recognition, of having earned the right to his father’s candor, died in him. He was retreating, hurt but not yet harmed. That’s when I realized that, promise or no, I must tell Arthur how things now stood.

“What!” The exclamation was so savage, my husband’s voice cracked. “Who told him, and why?”

“The old crone at Wookey…seems she had some grudge against me.”

His dear, familiar features were changing into those of a savage animal and a look of raw, primal hatred flashed across them. In the blink of an eye he’d gone from being the finest of kings to a beast confronted by the unendurable. I jumped to my feet as he whirled away from the long table, his fists doubled, shoulders shaking.

“How he found out isn’t what matters!” I declared, following my husband across the room. He was moving with a cold, determined air, and I searched desperately for words to reach a man who was on the edge of blind violence. “Now’s the chance, the time to make things right. Call him back, Arthur,
talk
to him…”

But I pleaded in vain. Instead of sending for his son, Arthur Pendragon lifted Excalibur down from its position on the wall, his jaw set like granite, his eyes hard as iron.

“What are you doing?” My voice rose with a wail of fear as he buckled the baldric in place and settled the sword within hand’s grasp. The gems in the hilt winked with a cold fire. “Arthur,” I begged, “where are you going?”