Pendragon 02 Pendragon Banner (69 page)

The Pendragon remained
squatting, shook his head, a single,
negative
movement. His voice was dry, choking grief, as he
said,
his eyes following the leap and flicker of hearth-flame, ‘I
did not know what to do, where to go. I found
myself here.’ And
then he looked up at her, looked beyond the bulge that
was her own advanced pregnancy to the pale, sunken face and large,
dark eyes that had swamped with the sharing of
his great sorrow.
‘I could not just
kill him, take a blade and slit his throat. Not my
son. Not another son.’
His voice broke and he turned away to hide his tears.

Morgaine touched his shoulder, resting her
fingers against the taut muscles of his neck, feeling his hair where it curled
against his tunic collar. She said nothing, gave only the one reassuring,
understanding touch, and was gone, back out into
the night, up this steepest side of the Tor that rose and rose into
the
darkness. When she returned, and for all her bulk of childbearing, she was not
gone long, she carried nothing. The boy
was
for the Goddess, in her wisdom, to take down into the
Other World. It
was not for mortal man to have the ending of something so new begun.

She served the stew into bowls, but, for all
its goodness, neither ate of it. An owl called from away up on the Tor, and
somewhere a wolf announced its presence with a
drawn,
mournful cry. Once, Morgaine fancied she heard the distant,
pitiful wail of a child, but the wind had its own tales to tell this
night, and its voice was rising as if in welcome
to the pale spill of
moonlight that rose serenely from behind the
black-shadowed Tor.

Arthur wanted to get
himself drunk, wanted to curse and
shout,
cry. She had poured him wine, but it was sweet stuff, not
as
palatable as the soldiers’ fermentations that he was used to. Her brew would
only bring a churning stomach and retching sickness.

She wanted to say so many things, to hold
him, touch him.
Love with him. Oh, for how
many nights had she lain awake on
her bed, dreaming and hoping of his
coming again! In her imagination, had she felt his arms around her, his lips
against hers, their bodies close in shared love. And now he was here, she could
only sit and feel his misery. Her own heart-leap of
happiness at having him here, seated aside her fire, drinking her
wine,
was somehow obscene, unclean.

Arthur sipped his drink, she knew he did not
like it, though he was attempting to conceal the frown, the slight twist to his
mouth. She had nothing else. Strong wine made
her head
dance, her eyes blur and
her stomach heave. Only once had she
become drunk, gulping mouthfuls of
the heady stuff she had
found in the other
hut, drinking to drown the fear and
enormous loneliness. That was when
the last of the other
women had died, the last of the old Ladies who had
brought her
up, taught her everything of the Goddess. She had held no love
for those women,
who had been as austere and hard as her
mother had been – though not as cruel, no one could ever
be as
c
ruel as Morgause. Their deaths had been as
nothing more than
the passing of a goat or flower, a thing that happened
except, when the last died, Morgaine had the facing of solitude. And
even the crusty snarlings of an old woman were
preferable to the
nothingness of being alone. For three days she had
lain ill after that wine. When the sickness finally ceased and the world
stopped its crazy whirling, Morgaine had lain the last Lady in her hut, with
all the amphorae and jugs and skins of wine and sent the lot to the goddess in
a blaze of flame and billow of smoke. Nothing had passed her lips since, save
the sweet taste of water or the lightly potent wine of her own making.

The geese were
restless, their squabbling harsh voices drifting
up
from the night-dark lake. She offered Arthur more food, he refused.

There was a long silence, then he said, as
casually as if he
were enquiring the cost of
wine, ‘Is the child mine?’ He
surprised
himself, as much as her, at that asking. Her babe could
be any man’s.

She met his eyes, nodded. ‘It is yours. With
you, it was my
first time. There has been
no one else.’ Nor will
there be.
She did
not add that, for she did not want to explain how someone else’s
touch
would taint the memory of him, would defile her loving of him. How would a man
understand that? A man such as she knew Arthur to be?
For his part, Arthur believed her. There seemed no reason
not to.
He was about to make an answer, but Morgaine raised her hand, silencing him,
her head up, alert. There! Again! A sound from outside; Arthur heard it too. He
was on his feet, drawing his sword, which left the sheep-skin-lined scabbard
with the gentle breath of a whisper, the naked blade shimmering in the danced
flicker of fire-light. The latch was lifting,
slowly,
the door coming open, a rattle of entering wind
slithering through the
gap, harrying the flames into a higher, more frenzied dance. Arthur was behind
the door, breath held,
sword ready, and as
the person out in the night stepped into the
room, he moved with the precise ease of a soldier, one arm
going
around the waist, the other holding the bright sharpened
sword-edge at her throat. With a sneer and a
snort of contempt,
Arthur thrust the
woman forward, away from him, slamming
the
door shut with the heel of his boot. The woman stumbled to
her knees,
his sword pricked in the small of her back.

‘
Well,
well, what interesting visitors you have, Morgaine.’
He lowered the
sword, squatted before the fire.

The woman, forcing a
smile, dusted down her skirts,
clambered to her feet.
‘Hello, Arthur, what do you here?’ Her eyes flickered to Morgaine, sitting
quite still on the far side of the hearth, took in her pregnancy, and said with
contempt, ‘I
would assume you to be
whoring, except it seems that that is an
old tale.’

‘Ah.’ Arthur’s half-smile, through his
expression of one
eyebrow raised, the other
eye half shut, was sardonic. ‘But then, you know all there is to know about
whoring, don’t you, Brigid?’
Brigid
swung her cloak from her shoulders, hung it from a nail
on the wall, pulled a stool from beneath the only
small table and
sat before the fire,
holding her hands to the warmth. She
seemed at ease in this place, at
home, knowing where things
were kept, the
layout of the hut. ‘We were wondering,’ she said,
helping herself to a
bowl of stew, ‘what had become of you,
Morgaine.’
Her eyes bore into the other, younger woman. ‘Your
mother is most
concerned for your welfare.’ With his weight on his heels, the sword resting
across his knees in the time-old way of a soldier seemingly at ease but ready
for the slightest movement, Arthur regarded Brigid, the whore of Amlawdd’s
settlement, his paid spy. And, seemingly, someone else’s.

He had not noticed
before, the crow-foot wrinkles at her
eyes,
the taut line to her mouth. Or the hardness behind those eyes. He glanced
casually at Morgaine, needed no intense
studying
to see she was afraid; realised, as he had not seen
before, that she was not long from childhood.
Realised
something else simultaneously, two things that thumped into him
as if an axe had split into his head, sending his senses reeling, heart racing
and muscles tightening. The hair on his neck, he could feel, was rising, sweat
trickled down his back beneath his linen under-tunic. Careful! Do not let the
thoughts touch the face! Impassive, he shifted weight slightly, cradling
the sheen of his sword into his arms. Took a wild
guess. ‘So you
spy for Morgause then, my pretty whore.’ Thinking he
meant herself, Morgaine dipped her head, her
teeth
biting into her lip, her hands, clasped in her lap,
clenching tighter. What was she if not a whore and
an evil
utensil of Morgause’s? He
would never believe her if she were to
protest, were to say she had not
told her mother of ... of what? Of how she had used her body to tempt him? How
she had
encouraged him to lie with her? Get
her with child, as her
mother had instructed her to do? Brigid, tossing
her head higher, brandishing her arrogance,
knew
the Pendragon was talking to her, not that snivelling
wretch seated
opposite. Light of the Moon, the Lady should have exposed the useless brat at
birth! ‘I serve myself.’

‘
You serve
me. I pay you.’ Arthur looked with slit eyes, spoke
neutrally, almost
flippant. Dangerously.

Contempt seethed from
Brigid as she regarded him back.
‘You receive your
worth!’
His answer was soft spoken,
menacing. ‘Na, my pretty one, a
whore is never valued for worth, only
results.’
A slight rise of doubt wavered
Brigid’s poise. She had come to
Yns Witrin to find what foolishness
Morgaine was playing at. No messages of importance had passed through her these
last
few months, nothing beyond what
naturally sailed on the wind. That she was hiding something had become obvious
as autumn
faded into winter. Morgause had sent instructions, through a
much-risked route, to find out what and why. The pregnancy
was an explanation, perhaps half expected, but not
Arthur, here, taking his leisure at the fool child’s hearth. And how
much
leisure had he taken? Nine months of it? ‘Morgause will not be pleased that you
have been tumbling her daughter.’ She
meant
it to hurt, to be mocking, spiteful, but Arthur only
laughed, hiding
well the turmoil he felt at her words.

‘
You do not share your mistress’s serving of the Goddess
then?It seems I know more of her laws than you do.’ It was those laws
that had made him believe Morgaine
when she said the child
was his. The chosen
Lady must give herself, for her first time, to
a king. The Goddess made
mortal, to bear a child for the replenishment of the earth. Morgaine was too
timid, too much the innocent, to go against the rules. Only the child of a king
would bring the blessing of the Goddess. The child was his, as much as Morgaine
was Morgause’s daughter. Inside, he was
seething
with anger at these damned women, and at himself for
walking blind-eyed into Morgause’s snare. Why had
he not seen the obvious? The eyes, the face, even the voice were Morgause!
Brigid controlled her
annoyance. It had shaken her to find Arthur here, to know that everything was
ruined, ended. Her thoughts had been racing as to how she could warn Morgause
that the networked chain of messengers and spies
was severed at
the most important
end. But then, did it matter? Outside this
one thing, they were not
needed, not now. ‘Your wife,’ she
sniped, ‘will
no doubt be interested to hear that for the King,
the Old Ways are not finished with.’

‘
My wife,’
Arthur answered, ‘will not know of it.’ A third
guess, unrealised until this moment, found the reason behind
the
trap that he had so obligingly walked into. How Morgause
would crow that he, Arthur, had sired a child by
her daughter, a
priestess of the Goddess. Mithras’ blood, and until now
he had thought the Church’s view of him unreasonable? Ambrosius himself would
string him up by the balls were this ever to get out!
Brigid laughed. ‘Our proud King! How they will mock you in
the
North, when they hear how you so honour the Lady you
keep prisoner! When they hear how you placed your seed in her
chosen
vessel! How you give them a son to become their War-
Lord and King, the grandson of the Goddess on Earth!’ She was
jangling laughter, rocking back and forth on her
stool,
appreciating the jest, the
irony. The laughter ceased abruptly as
she felt the cold bite of a
dagger on her throat.

Morgaine stood before her, her lip snarling, both hands
clasped about the
weapon, anger shaking the rigid hold.
‘You
make it sound as though my child was created for
something sordid and evil! That
is not the way of the Goddess.
She is of understanding and love, of life and beauty. A
harsh mistress at times, for where life is given it must also be taken.
But she would not inflict pain for the amusement
of it.
Morgause is not of the Goddess, or if she is, then no longer am
I.’ Her eyes were wide with a madness that had suddenly come upon her, a
shrieking, releasing surge of at last seeing the path
that would take her away from these long years of despair. ‘My
bitch
mother will riot hear of my borne child. No one, aside myself and its father,
will know.’ And she drove the dagger
home,
pushing her weight behind the blade, thrusting it in up
to the hilt, the sharpened metal spurting through
sinew and
blood, choking off Brigid’s scream as it cut through the vocal
cords, through the spine and out through her neck.