The Wicked Day Page 5

  4

  SULA HAD BEEN SITTING OUTSIDE the cottage door in the last of the daylight, gutting and splitting a catch of fish ready for drying. When the horse appeared at the head of the cliff path she had just carried the bucket of offal down to throw it onto the shingle, where the hens wrangled with the seabirds for their share of the stinking pile. The noise was deafening as the big gulls swooped and fought and chased one another, and the smell rose sickeningly on the wind.

  Mordred slipped off the cob's rump as Gabran drew rein. "If you wait here, sir, I'll run down with this, and get my things. I'll be back in just a moment. It — it won't take long. I think my mother was expecting this, or something like it. I'll be as quick as I can. Maybe I can come back tomorrow, if they want me to? Just for a talk?"

  Gabran, without even troubling to reply, slid off the horse's back and looped the rein over his wrist. When Mordred, holding the box carefully, started down the slope, the man followed.

  Sula, turning back towards the cottage, saw them. She had been watching the cliff top for Mordred's return, and now, seeing how he was accompanied, she stood for a few moments very still, unconsciously clutching the slimy bucket close to her body. Then, coming to herself, she threw the bucket down by the doorway, and went quickly into the cottage. A dim yellow glow showed round the curtain's edge as she lighted the lamp.

  The boy pushed the curtain aside and went in eagerly, carrying the box.

  For once the room was free of smoke. On good summer days Sula cooked their food in the clay oven outside, over a fire built up of dried kelp and dung. But the stink of fish pervaded the whole cove, and inside the cottage the smell of the fish-oil in the lamp caught at the throat. Though he had been used to it all his life, Mordred — with the scents and colours of the queen's room bright in his memory — noticed it now, with a mixture of pity, shame and what he was too young to recognize as self-dislike; shame because Gabran so obviously intended to come in with him, and guilt because he was ashamed for him to do so.

  To his immediate relief, Sula was alone. She was wiping her hands on a rag. Blood from a grazed finger mingled on the rag with the slime and scales from the fish. The flint knife lying on the table showed a rim of blood, too.

  "Your hand. Mother, you've cut it!"

  "It's nothing. They kept you a long time."

  "I know. The queen herself wanted to talk to me. Wait till I tell you! The palace, it's a wonderful place, and I went right into the queen's own house… But look here first, Mother! She gave me presents."

  He set the box on the table, and opened it.

  "Mother, look! The silver is for you and Father, and the cloth, see, isn't it fine? Thick, too, good for winter. And a flask of good wine, with a capon from the palace kitchen. All this is for you.…"

  His voice trailed away uneasily. Sula had not even glanced at the treasures; she was still wiping her hands, over and over again, on the greasy rag.

  Suddenly, Mordred was impatient. He took the rag from her and threw it down, shoving the box nearer. "Aren't you even going to look at them? Don't you even want to know what the queen said to me?"

  "I can see she was generous. We all know she can be generous when it takes her. What was there for you?"

  "Promises." Gabran spoke from the doorway as he stooped to enter. When he straightened his head was only a finger's breadth from the stones of the roof. He was dressed in a knee-length robe of yellow, with a deep tagged border of green. Yellow stones winked at his belt, and he wore a collar of worked copper. He was a fair man, with a crisp mane as blond as barley straw falling to his shoulders, and the blue eyes of the north. His presence filled the room and made the cottage seem more poverty-stricken and dingy even than before.

  If Mordred was conscious of this, Sula was not. Unimpressed, she faced Gabran squarely, as she would have faced an enemy. "What sort of promises?"

  Gabran smiled. "Only what every man should have, and Mordred has proved himself a man now — or at least the queen thinks so. A cup and a platter for his meat, and tools for his work."

  She stared at him, her lips working. She did not ask what he meant. Nor did she make any of the gestures of hospitality that came naturally to the folk of the islands.

  She said harshly: "These he has."

  "But not such as he should have," said Gabran, gently. "You know as well as I, woman, that there should be silver on his cup, and that his tools are not mattocks and fish hooks, but a sword and a spear."

  To expect and dread a thing for a lifetime does not prepare one for the thing itself. It was as if he had set the very spear to her breast. She threw up her hands, hiding her face with her apron, and sank onto the stool beside the table.

  "Mother, don't!" cried Mordred. "The queen — she told me — you must know what she told me!" Then, to Gabran, distressed: "I thought she knew. I thought she would understand."

  "She does understand. Do you not, Sula?"

  A nod. She had begun to rock herself, as if in grief, but she made no sound.

  Mordred hesitated. Among the rough folk of the islands, affectionate gestures were rarely made. He went to her, but contented himself with a touch on the shoulder. "Mother, the queen told me the whole story. How you and my father took me from the sea-captain who had found me, and reared me for your own. She told me who I am… at least, who my real father is. So now she thinks I should go up to the palace with the other—King Lot's other sons, and the nobles, and train as a fighting man."

  Still she said nothing. Gabran, watching by the door, never moved.

  Mordred tried again. "Mother, you must have known I would be told some day. And now that I know… you mustn't be sorry. still can't be sorry, you must see that. It doesn't change anything here, this is still my home, and you and Father are still…" He swallowed. "You'll always be my folk, you will, believe me! Some day—"

  "Aye, some day," she interrupted him, harshly. The apron came down. In the wavering light of the lamp her face was sickly pale, smeared with dirt from the apron. She did not look at Gabran, elegant in the doorway. Mordred watched her appealingly; there was love in his face, and distress, but there was also something she recognized, a high look of excitement, ambition, the iron-hard will to go his way. She had never set eyes on Arthur, High King of Britain, but looking at Mordred, she recognized his son.

  She said, heavily: "Aye, some day. Some day you'll come back, grown and grand, and carrying gold to give the poor folk who nursed you. But now you try to tell me that nothing's changed. For all you say it makes no difference who you are—"

  "I didn't say that! Of course it makes a difference! Who wouldn't be glad to know he was a king's son? Who wouldn't be glad to have the chance to bear arms, and maybe some day to travel abroad and see the mainland kingdoms, where things are happening that matter to the world? When I said nothing would change, I mean the way I feel — the way I feel about you and my father. But I can't help wanting to go! Please try to understand. I can't pretend, not all the way, that I'm sorry."

  At the distress in his face and voice she softened suddenly. "Of course you can't, boy. You must forgive an old woman who's dreaded this moment for so long. Yes, you must go. But do you have to go now? Is yon fine gentleman waiting to take you back with him?"

  "Yes. They said I had just to get my things and go straight back."

  "Then get them. Your father won't be back till the dawn tide. You can come and see him as soon as they let you." A glimmer of something that was almost a smile. "Don't you worry, boy, I'll tell him what's happened."

  "He knows all about it, too, doesn't he?"

  "Of course he does. And he'll see that it had to come. He's made himself forget it, I think, though I've seen it coming this past year or so. Yes, in you, Mordred. Blood tells. Still, you've been a good son to us, for all there's been something in you fretting after a different way.… We took pay for you, you know that.… Where did you think we got the money for the good boat, and the foreign nets? I'd have nursed you for nothing, in place of
the one I lost, and then you were as good as our own, and better. Aye, we'll miss you sorely. It's a hard trade for a man as he gets older, and you've pulled your weight on the rope, that you have."

  Something was working in the boy's face. He burst out: "I won't go! I won't leave you. Mother! They can't make me!"

  She looked sadly at him. "You will, lad. Now you've had a sight of it, and a taste of it, you will. So get your things. Yon gentleman's on the fidget to be gone."

  Mordred glanced from her to Gabran. The latter nodded and said, not unkindly: "We should hurry. The gates will soon be shut."

  The boy went across to his bedplace. This was a stone shelf, with a bag stuffed full of dried bracken for a mattress, and a blue blanket spread across. From a recess in the wall below the shelf he took his possessions. A sling, some fish hooks, a knife, his old working tunic. He had no shoes. He laid the fish hooks back on the bed, and the working tunic with them. He hesitated over the sling. He felt the smooth wood that fitted so readily into his hand, and fingered the bag of pebbles, rounded and glossy, gathered so carefully from the beach. Then these, too, he laid aside. Sula watched him, saying nothing. Between them the words hung, unspoken: the tools for his work; a sword and a spear…

  He turned back. "I'm ready now." He was empty-handed, but for his knife.

  If any of the three noticed the symbolism of the moment, nothing was said. Gabran reached for the door curtain. Before he could touch it it was pushed aside, as the goat shouldered her way into the room. Sula got up from her stool, and reached for the bowl to hold the milk. "You'd best go, then. Come back when they let you, and tell us what it's like up there at the palace."

  Gabran held the curtain wide. Mordred went slowly towards the door. What was there to say? Thanks were not enough, and yet were more than enough. He said awkwardly: "Goodbye then, Mother," and went out. Gabran let the curtain fall behind them.

  Outside, the tide was on the turn, and the wind had freshened, dispersing the smell of fish. The sweet air met him. It was like plunging into a different stream.

  Gabran was untying the horse. In the growing darkness the knots were awkward, and he fumbled over them. Mordred hesitated, then ran back into the stink of the hut. Sula was milking the goat. She did not look up. He could see a track of moisture in the dirt on her cheek like the track of a snail. He stopped in the doorway, clutching the curtain, and said hoarsely and rapidly: "I'll come back whenever they let me, truly I will. I — I'll see you're all right, you and he. Some day… some day I promise I'll be somebody, and I'll look after you both."

  She made no sign.

  "Mother."

  She did not look up. Her hands never stopped.

  "I hope," said Mordred, "that I never do find out who my real mother is." He turned and ran out again into the dusk.

  * * *

  "Well?" asked Morgause.

  It was well past dawn. She and Gabran were alone together in her bedchamber.

  In the outer room her women slept, and in the chamber beyond that the five boys — Lot's four and her son by Arthur — had been asleep long since. But the queen and her lover were not abed. She sat beside a glowing bank of peat. She wore a long night robe of creamy white, and furred slippers made from the winter skin of the blue hare that runs on the High Island. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, glimmering in the peat fire's glow. In that soft light she looked little more than twenty years old, and very beautiful.

  Though, as ever, she stirred his senses, the young man knew that this was not the moment to show it. Still fully dressed, his damp cloak over his arm, he kept his distance and answered her, subject to monarch:

  "All is very well, madam. It's done, just as you wished it done."

  "No trace of violence?"

  "None. They were asleep — either that, or they had drunk too much of the wine you sent them."

  A small smile, that innocence would have thought innocent, hung on her pretty mouth. "If they only sipped it, Gabran, it was enough." She lifted the lovely eyes to his, saw nothing there but dazzled admiration, and added: "Did you think I would take chances? You should know better. So, it was easy?"

  "Very easy. All that will appear is that they drank too deeply, and were careless, and that the lamp fell and the oil spilled on the bedding, and—" A gesture finished it for him.

  She drew a breath of satisfaction, but something in his voice gave her pause. Though Morgause valued, and was even fond of, her handsome young lover, she would have got rid of him in a moment if it had suited her to do so; but as yet she had need of him, and must keep him faithful. She said gently: "Too easy, I think you mean, Gabran? I know, my dear. Men like you don't like an easy killing, and killing these folk is like slaughtering beasts — no work for a fighting man. But it was necessary. You know that."

  "I suppose so."

  "You told me that you thought the woman knew something."

  "Or guessed. It was hard to tell. These folk all look like weathered kelp. I couldn't be certain. There was something in the way she spoke to him, and the way she looked when he said you had told him the whole story." He hesitated. "If so, then she — both of them — have kept silence all these years."

  "So?" said the queen. She held a hand out to the fire's warmth. "That is not to say they would have gone on keeping it. With the boy gone, they might begin to feel they had a grievance, and folk with a grievance are dangerous."

  "Would they have dared speak? And to whom?"

  "Why, to the boy himself. You told me that Sula urged him to go back there, and naturally — at first — he would have been eager to go. One word, one hint, would have been enough. You know whose son he is; and you have seen him. Do you think it needs more than a breath to kindle a blaze of ambition that could destroy all my plans for the future? Take my word for it, it was necessary. Gabran, dear boy, you may be the best lover a woman ever took to her bed, but you could never rule any kingdom wider than that same bed."

  "Why should I ever want to?"

  She threw him a smile, part affection, part mockery. Emboldened, he took half a step towards her, but she stopped him. "Wait. Consider. This time I'll tell you why. And don't pretend you've never made a guess at my plans concerning this bastard." She turned her hand this way and that, apparently admiring the glitter of her rings. Then she looked up, confidingly. "You may be right in part. I may have flown my hawk too early and too fast, but the chance came to take the boy from his foster home and bring him here without too much questioning. Besides, he is ten years old, high time he should be trained in the skills and manners of a prince. And once I had taken that step, the other had to follow. Until the right moment comes, my brother Arthur must hear no hint of his whereabouts. Nor must that arch-mage Merlin, and in his heyday he could have heard the very rushes whispering on the Holy Isle. Old and foolish as he is, we can risk nothing. I have not kept my son and Arthur's secret all these years, to have him taken from me now. He is my pass to the mainland. When he is ready to go there, I shall go with him."

  He was hers again, she noted. Pleased, nattered by her confidence, eager. "Back to Dunpeldyr, do you mean?"

  "Not Dunpeldyr, no. To Camelot itself."

  "To the High King."

  "Why not? He has no legitimate son, and from all accounts is unlikely to get one. Mordred is my pass to Arthur's court.… And after that, we shall see."

  "You sound very sure," he said.

  "I am sure. I have seen it." At the look in his eyes she smiled again. "Yes, my dear, in the pool. It was clear as crystal — a witch's crystal. I and my sons, all of them, at Camelot, dressed as for a feast, and bearing gifts."

  "Then surely — not that I'm questioning it, but — couldn't that mean you would have been safe, even without what was done tonight?"

  "Possibly." Her voice was indifferent. "We cannot always read the signs aright, and it may be that the Goddess knew already what would be done tonight. Now I am sure that I am safe. All I have to do is wait for Merlin's death. Already, more than on
ce, we have heard rumours of his disappearance, or death, and each time I have rejoiced, only to find that the rumour was false, and the old fool lived still. But the day must soon come when the report will be true. I have seen to that, Gabran. And when it is, when he is no longer at Arthur's side, then I may go in safety, and Mordred with me. I can deal with my brother.… If not as I dealt with him before, then as a sister deals who has some power, and a little beauty still."

  "Madam — Morgause—"

  She laughed gently, and stretched a hand to him. "Come, Gabran, no need for jealousy! And no need to fear me, either. All the witchcraft I ever use against you, you know well how to deal with. The rest of this night's work will be more to your taste than what is past. Come to bed now. All is safe, thanks to you. You have served me more than faithfully."

  And so did they. But Gabran did not voice the thought aloud. And soon, stripped of his damp clothing, and lying in the great bed beside Morgause, he forgot it, and forgot, too, the two dead bodies he had left in the smoking shell of the cottage on the shore.

  5

  MORDRED WOKE EARLY, AT his usual time.

  The other boys still slept, but this was the hour when his foster father had always roused him for work. For a few moments he lay, unsure of his surroundings, then he remembered. He was in the royal palace. He was a king's son, and the king's other sons were here, sleeping in the same room. The eldest of them, Prince Gawain, lay beside him, in the same bed. In the other bed slept the three younger princes, the twins, and the baby, Gareth.

  He had had no speech with them yet. Last evening after Gabran had brought him to the palace, he had been taken in charge by an old woman who had been nurse to the royal boys; she was still, she told him, nurse to Gareth, and looked after the boys' clothes and to some extent their welfare. She led Mordred to a room full of chests and boxes, where she fitted him out with new clothing. No weapons yet; he would get those tomorrow, she told him sourly, soon enough, and then no doubt he would be about his killing and murdering like the rest of them. Men! Boys were bad enough, but at least they could be controlled, and let him mark her words, she might be an old woman, but she could still punish where punishment was due.… Mordred listened, and was silent, fingering the good new clothes, and trying not to yawn as the old woman fussed about him. From her chatter — and she was never silent — he learned that Queen Morgause was, to say the least, an erratic parent. One day she would take the boys riding, showing them mainland customs of hunting with hawk and hound; they would ride all day, and she would feast them late into the night, then the next day the boys would find themselves apparently forgotten, and be forbidden even to go to her rooms, only to be summoned again at night to hear a minstrel, or to entertain a bored and restless queen with talk of their own day. Nor were the boys treated alike. Possibly the only Roman principle held to by Morgause was the one of "divide and rule." Gawain, as the eldest and the heir, was given extra freedom and some privileges forbidden to the others; Gareth, the posthumous youngest, was the favourite. Which left the twins, and they, Mordred gathered from old Ailsa's pinched lips and headshakings, were difficult enough without the constant rubbings of jealousy and frustrated energies.