The Wicked Day Read online

  When at length, with his new clothes carefully folded over his arm, Mordred followed, her to the boys' bedchamber, he was thankful to find that all four were there before him, and already sound asleep. Ailsa lifted Gareth out of Gawain's bed, then pushed the twins over and tucked the younger boy in beside them. None of them so much as stirred. She pulled the coverlets up close round them, and pointed Mordred silently to the place beside Gawain. He stripped, and slipped into the warmth of the bed. The old woman tut-tutted round the room for a few more minutes, picking up discarded clothing and laying it on the chest between the beds, then went out, shutting the door gently behind her. Mordred was asleep before she even left the room.

  And now it was daylight, a new day, and he was wide awake. He stretched luxuriously, with excitement running through his body. He could feel it in his very bones. The bed was soft and warm, and smelled only slightly of the dressed furs that covered it. The room was big, and to his eyes very well furnished, with the two wide beds and the clothes-chest and a thick woven rug hanging over the door to keep out the worst of the draughts. Floor and walls alike were made with the flat, local stone slabs. At this early hour, even in summer, the room was very cold, but it was cleaner than Sula's hut could ever be, and something in the boy recognized and welcomed this as desirable. Between the beds, above the clothes-chest, was a narrow window through which the early morning air poured, cool and clean and smelling of the salt wind.

  He could lie still no longer. Gawain, beside him, still slept, curled like a puppy in the welter of furs. In the other bed little could be seen of the twins save the tops of their heads; Gareth had been pushed to the bed's edge, and lay sprawling half out of it, but still deeply asleep.

  Mordred slid out of bed. He padded to the clothes-chest, and, kneeling upon it, looked out of the window. This faced away from the sea; from it, by craning, he could see the courtyard and the main outer gateway of the palace. The sound of the sea came muted, a murmur under the incessant calling and mewing of the gulls. He looked the other way, beyond the palace walls, where a track ran green through the heather towards the summit of a gentle hill. Beyond that curved horizon lay his foster home. His father would be breaking his fast now, and soon would be gone about his work. If Mordred wanted to see him (to get it over with, said a small voice, quickly stifled in the dark and barely heeded rearward of his mind) he must go now.

  On the chest lay the good tunic that he had been given last night, with a cloak, a brooch, and a leather belt with a buckle of copper. But in the very moment of reaching for the prized new clothing he changed his mind, and with something like a shrug picked up his old garment from the corner where he had thrown it, and slipped it on. Then, ducking past the door curtain, he let himself out of the room, and padded barefooted along the chill stone corridors to the hall.

  The hall was still full of sleepers, but guards were changing duty for the morning shift, and servants were already moving. No one stopped him or spoke to him as he picked his way across the cluttered floor and out into the courtyard. The outer gate was open, and a cart of turfs was being dragged in by a couple of peasants. The two guards stood watching, at ease, eating their breakfast bannocks and taking turn and turn about to drink from a horn of ale.

  As Mordred approached the gate one of the men saw him, nudged the other, and said something inaudible. The boy hesitated, half expecting to be stopped, or at any rate questioned, but neither of the men made a move to do so. Instead, the nearest one lifted a hand up in a half-salute, and then stood back to let the boy go by.

  Perhaps no other moment of royal ceremony in Prince Mordred's life was ever to equal that one. His heart gave a great bound, right into his throat, and he felt the colour rush into his cheeks. But he managed a calm enough "Good morning," then ran out through the palace gate and up the green track into the moor.

  * * *

  He ran along the track, his heart still beating high. The sun came up, and long shadows streamed away ahead of him. The night's dew shivered and steamed on the fine grasses, on the rushes smoothed by the light wind, till the whole landscape thrilled and shimmered with light, a softer repetition of the endless, achingly bright shimmer of the sea. Overhead, the clouds wisped back, and the air filled with singing as the larks launched themselves from their nests in the heather. The air rippled with song as the land with light. Soon he reached the summit of the moor, and before him stretched the long, gentle slope towards the cliffs, and beyond them again the endless, shining sea.

  From this point he could see, clear across the sea in the early light, the hills of the High Island. Beyond them lay the mainland — the real mainland, the great and wonderful land that the islanders called, half in jest, half in ignorance, "the next island." Many times, from his father's boat, he had seen its northern cliffs, and had tried to imagine the rest; its vastness, its forests, its roads and ports and cities. Today, though hidden from view, it had ceased to be a dream. It was the High Kingdom, to which he would one day travel, and where he would one day matter. If his new status was to mean anything, it would mean that. He would see to it.

  He laughed aloud with joy, and ran on.

  He came to the turf cutting. He paused, deliberately lingering by the ditch he had dug only yesterday. How long ago, already, it seemed. Brude would have to finish it now — alone, too, though lately he had been complaining about pains in his back. Perhaps, thought the boy, since they were apparently going to leave him free to come and go from the palace, he could come down early each day for an hour before the other boys were up, and finish the digging. And if he were given real princely status, with servants, he could maybe set them to the task, or to the collecting of the lichens for his mother's dyestuffs. The basket was still standing there by the diggings, where he had left it yesterday, forgotten. He snatched it up, and ran on down the track.

  The gulls were up, and screaming. The sound met him, raw on the wind from the sea. Something else was on that wind, a strange smell, and in the gulls' screaming a high shiver of panic that touched him like the edge of a knife. Smoke? There was usually smoke from the cottage, but this was a different smoke, a sour, chilled and sullen emanation, carrying with it a smell that mocked the good scent of roasting meat on the rare days when Sula had meat in the pot. This was not a good smell; it was sickening, an ugly mockery, making the morning foul.

  Mordred's breeding, perverse though it was, had made him the child of one fighting king, and the grandson, twice over, of another. This combined with his hard peasant upbringing to make fear, for him, something to be faced immediately, and found out. He flung the basket of lichens down and ran full tilt along the cliff path, to where he could see down into the bay that had been his home.

  Had been. The familiar cottage, with its clay oven, its lines of pegged fish, the hanging festoons of drying nets — all had vanished. Only the four walls of his home still stood, blackened and smoking with the sluggish, stinking smoke that befouled the sea-wind. Most of the outer roof slabs still lay in place, held as they were by stone supports built into the walls, but those in the center were thinner, and here and there had been pegged into place by driftwood. The thatch of the roof, dry with summer, had burned fiercely, and, with the pegs destroyed, the slabs had sagged, tilted, and then cracked, sliding down with their blazing load of thatch into the room below, making a pyre of what had been his home.

  It must be, in very truth, a pyre. For now, retchingly, he recognized the smell that had reminded him of Sula's cooking pots. Sula herself, with Brude, must be inside — underneath that pile of burned rubble. The roof had fallen directly over their bedplace. To Mordred, groping, dazed, for the cause of disaster, there was only one explanation. His parents must have been asleep when some stray spark from the unwatched embers, blown by the draught, had lodged in the wind-dried turfs of the roof, and smouldered to a blaze. It was to be hoped that they had never woken, had perhaps been rendered unconscious by the smoke, to be killed by the falling roof before the fire even touched them. />
  He stood there so long, staring, unbelieving, sick, that only the sharp wind, piercing the shabby tunic to the skin, made him shiver suddenly and move. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if in some silly hope that when he opened them the place would be whole again, the horror only a nightmare dream. But the horror remained. His eyes, wide again, showed wild like a nervous pony's. He started slowly down the path, then suddenly, as if some invisible rider had applied whip and spur, he began to run.

  * * *

  Some two hours later Gawain, sent from the palace, found him there.

  Mordred was sitting on a boulder at some distance from the cottage, staring out to sea. Nearby lay Brude's upturned boat, unharmed. Gawain, pale and shocked, called his name, but when Mordred gave no sign of having heard him, he reluctantly approached to touch the unheeding boy on the arm.

  "Mordred. They sent me to find you. What on earth's happened?"

  No reply.

  "Are they — your folk — are they — in there?"

  "Yes."

  "What happened?"

  "How do I know? It was like that when I came down."

  "Ought we to — is there anything—?"

  Mordred moved at that. "Don't go near. You are not to go. Let them."

  He spoke sharply, authoritatively. It was the tone of an elder brother. Gawain, held by horrified curiosity, obeyed without thinking. The men who had come with him were already at the cottage, peering about them with subdued exclamations, whether of horror or simple disgust it was hard to tell.

  The two boys watched, Gawain half sickened, half fascinated, Mordred pale, and stiff in every muscle.

  "Did you go in?" asked Gawain.

  "Of course. I had to, hadn't I?"

  Gawain swallowed. "Well, I think you should come back now, with me. The queen must be told." Then, when Mordred made no move: "I'm sorry, Mordred. It's a dreadful thing to happen. I'm sorry. But there's nothing you can do now, you must see that. Leave it to them. Let's go now, shall we? You look ill."

  "I'm all right. I was sick, that's all." He slid down off the boulder, stooped to a rock pool, and dashed a handful of the salt water into his face. He straightened, rubbing his eyes as if coming out of sleep. "I'll come now. Where have the men gone?" Then, angrily: "Have they gone inside? What's it to them?"

  "They have to," said Gawain quickly. "Don't you see, the queen will have to know.… It isn't as if they — your folk — as if they had just been ordinary folk, is it?" Then, as Mordred turned to stare at him, half blindly: "Don't forget who you are now, and they were the king's servants, themselves, in a way. She has to know what happened, Mordred."

  "It was an accident. What else?"

  "I know. But she has to have a report. And they'll do whatever's decent. Come on, we don't have to stay. There's nothing we can do, nothing at all."

  "Yes, there is." Mordred pointed to the cottage door, where the milch goat, bleating, pattered to and fro, to and fro, frightened by the unaccustomed movement, the smells, the chaos, but driven by the pain of her swollen udders. "We can milk the goat. Have you ever milked a goat, Gawain?"

  "No, I haven't. Is it easy? Are you going to milk it now? Here?"

  Mordred laughed, the brittle, light laugh of tensions released. "No. We'll take her with us. And the hens, too. If you get that net that's drying on the boat's keel, I'll see if I can catch them."

  He dived for the nearest, secured it in an expert grip, then swooped on another as it wrestled with some titbit in the seaweed. The simple anticlimax to tragedy did its work as grief and shock exploded thankfully into action. Gawain, prince and king-designate of Orkney, stood irresolutely for a few moments, then did as he was bidden, and ran to strip the net off the upturned boat.

  When the men at length emerged from the cottage and stood, in a close-talking huddle, near the doorway, they saw the two boys toiling up the path. Gawain led the goat, and Mordred carried, slung over his shoulder, an improvised bag of netting filled with protesting hens.

  Neither boy looked back.

  * * *

  They were met at the palace gate by Gabran, who listened in silence to the story Gawain poured out, and thereafter, having spoken gently to Mordred, called up servants to rid the boys of their livestock ("And she is to be milked straight away!" insisted Mordred) and then hurried them straight into the palace.

  "The queen must be told. I shall go to her now. Mordred, go in and change and make yourself decent. She will want to see you. Gawain, go with him."

  He hurried off. Gawain, looking after him with narrowed eyes, as if seeing something far away and bright, said under his breath: "And one day, my fine Gabran, you will not command princes as if they were your dogs. We know whose dog you are! Who are you to take news to my mother in my place?" He flashed a sudden grin at Mordred. "All the same, I'd sooner he did today! Come on, we'd better get clean."

  The twins were in the boys' room, ostensibly busy, but obviously waiting with some impatience for their first sight of their new half-brother. Agravain was sitting on the bed sharpening his dagger on a whetstone, while Gaheris, on the floor, rubbed a leather belt with grease to flex it. Gareth was not there.

  The twins were stocky, well-built boys, with the ruddy hair and high colour that marked Morgause's sons by Lot, and, at the moment, sullen expressions that were something less than welcoming. But it had apparently been made clear to them that Mordred must be welcomed, for they gave him a civil enough greeting, and thereafter sat staring at him, much as cattle do at something strange and perhaps dangerous that has strayed into their pasture.

  A servant hurried in with a bowl of water and a napkin, which he set on the floor. Gawain ran to the clothes-chest and threw Mordred's things off onto his bed. He burrowed inside the chest for his own things, while Mordred began to strip.

  "What are you changing for?" asked Agravain.

  "Our mother wants us," said Gawain, muffled.

  "Why?" asked Gaheris.

  Gawain shot a look at Mordred that meant, plainly, Not a word. Not yet. Aloud, he said: "That's our business. You'll hear later."

  "Him, too?" Agravain pointed at Mordred.

  "Yes."

  Agravain was silent, watching as Mordred slipped into one of the new tunics, and reached for the worked leather belt with its sheath for a dagger, and the hanger for a drinking horn. He fastened the buckle, and looked about him for the silver-mounted horn Ailsa had given him.

  "It's there, on the window sill," said Gaheris.

  "Did she really give you that one? You're lucky. It's a beauty. It's the one I asked for," said Agravain. The words were not angry or sullen, in fact they contained no expression at all, but Mordred's eyes flicked to him and then away again, as he clipped the horn to his belt.

  "There was only one." Gawain spoke over his shoulder. "And you and Gaheris always have to have the same."

  "Gareth's to get the golden one," said Gaheris. He spoke in the same flat, unboylike tone. Again Mordred glanced, and again the lids dropped over his eyes. Something had registered in that cool brain, and was stored away for the future.

  Gawain wiped his face and dried it, then threw the napkin to Mordred, who caught it. "Be quick, then we've got to do our feet. She's fussy about the rugs." He glanced round. "Where's Gareth, anyway?"

  "With her, of course," said Gaheris.

  "Did you expect a full council of welcome, then, brother?" asked Agravain.

  Conversing with the twins, thought Mordred, drying his feet, was like talking with a boy and his reflection. Gawain said sharply: "It'll keep. I'll see you later. Come on, Mordred, we'd better go."

  Mordred stood up, smoothing down the soft folds of the new tunic, and followed Gawain to the doorway. The servant, coming in at that moment for the bowl, held the door wide. Gawain paused without thinking, the natural gesture of a host letting the guest precede him through the doorway. Then, as if remembering something, he went quickly through himself, leaving Mordred to follow.

  The queen's door was gua
rded as before. The spears came down as the boys approached. "Not you, Prince Gawain," said one of the men. "Orders. Just the other one."

  Gawain stopped short, then stood to one side, his face stony. When Mordred glanced at him, with a word of half-anxious apology ready, he turned quickly away without speaking, and strode off down the corridor. His voice rang out, calling for a servant, peremptory, self-consciously royal.

  All three of them, thought Mordred to himself. Well, Gawain's still generous because of the cliffside rescue, but the other two are angry. I'll have to go carefully. The quick brain behind the smooth brow added it all together, and found a total that did not displease him. So they saw him as a threat, did they? Why? Because he was, in fact. King Lot's eldest son? Somewhere deep inside him that tiny spark of emulation, of longing, of desire for high doing, kindled and glowed as something new: ambition. Disjointed but clear, his thoughts spun. Bastard or not, I am the king's eldest son, and they don't like it. Does this mean that I really am a threat? I must find out. Perhaps he married her, my mother, whoever she was…? Or perhaps a bastard can inherit… his Arthur himself was begotten out of wedlock, and so was Merlin, that found the King's sword of Britain.… Bastardy, what need it matter after all? What a man is, is all that counts.…