The Wicked Day Read online

  They were near the gate now. They dropped to a walk. Gareth turned to his half-brother.

  "Mordred, when we go to Camelot, you'll be the only one left here. What will you do?"

  The only one left here.… The firstborn of the King of Orkney, left, alone of the princes, in Orkney? Mordred saw the same thought strike Gawain at the same moment. He said, shortly: "I haven't thought about it. Come on, let's get in and find out what the man has to say."

  He ran in through the gate. Gawain hung on his heel for a moment, then followed, and the rest with him.

  The palace was buzzing, but no one knew anything except the larger rumours that the boys had already heard. The envoy was still closeted with the queen. People crowded in the corridors and in the hall, but made way for the princes when in a short time, clean and changed, they pushed their way through to the doors that led to the queen's private chambers.

  Time went by. The light began to fade, and servants went about kindling the torches. It was time to eat. Cooking smells crept through the rooms, making the boys remember their hunger. In their excitement they had not eaten the barley cakes they had had in the boat. But still the queen's door did not open. Once they heard her voice, raised sharply, but whether in anger or excitement it was impossible to tell. The boys shifted uneasily, looking at one another.

  "It must be true that we are to go," said Agravain. "What other message would our uncle the High King send with one of the royal ships?"

  "Even if it isn't," said Gawain, "we can surely send a message back by the ship to our uncle the High King, at least to remind him that we exist."

  (And if any of them says "our uncle the High King" again, thought Mordred, with savage irritation, I shall start shouting about "my father the King of Lothian and Orkney," and see what they say to that!)

  "Hush!" he said aloud. "He's coming out. Now we shall know."

  But they were to learn nothing yet. The queen's door opened, and the envoy came out between the guards, his face set and uninformative, as such men are trained to be. He walked forward without a look to right or left, and the people made way for him. No one spoke to him, the princes themselves moving aside without asking any of the eager questions that burned on their lips. Even here, in the islands at the back of the north wind, they knew that one did not question a King's envoy any more than one questioned the King. He brushed past them as if they did not exist — as if a mere messenger of the High King were of more account than all the princes of the islands.

  A chamberlain came forward to take him in charge, and he was escorted to the quarters set aside for him in the palace. The queen's door stayed all the while firmly closed.

  "I want my supper," said Gareth earnestly.

  "It looks as if we'll get it," said Agravain, "long before she's decided to tell us what's going on."

  This proved to be the case. It was late that night, verging indeed on the hour when normally the boys were sent to bed, when the queen sent for them at last.

  "All five?" repeated Gawain, when the message came.

  "All five," said Gabran. He could not help looking curiously at Mordred, and the other four pairs of eyes followed his. Mordred, tensing himself against the sudden upsurge of excitement, hope and apprehension, looked, as was his habit, detached and expressionless.

  "And hurry," said Gabran, holding the door.

  They hurried.

  * * *

  They filed into Morgause's chamber, silent, expectant, and nervously awed by what they saw there. The queen had used the long interval since the messenger's dismissal to sup, talk with her counsellors, and have a stormy but satisfactory little interlude with Gabran. then she had had her women bathe and dress her in a robe of state, and arrange, for the interview with her sons, a royal setting.

  Her tall gilded chair had been carried in from the hall, and she sat there beside a glowing fire of peats with her feet on a crimson footstool. On a table at her elbow stood a golden goblet, still holding wine, and beside this lay the scroll that the King's messenger had given her, the royal seal of the Dragon splashed across it like a bloodstain.

  Gabran, leading the boys into the room, crossed the floor to stand behind the queen's chair. No one else was there; the women had long since been dismissed. Beyond the window the midnight moon, at the full, had cooled from marigold to silver, and a sharp-edged blade of light cut across Morgause's chair, sparking on gold and drowning in the folds of her gown. She had had herself dressed in one of her finest robes, a sweeping shimmer of bronze-coloured velvet. Her girdle was set with gold and emeralds, her hair was braided with gold, and on it she had set one of her royal coronets, a thin circlet of red Celtic gold that had been King Lot's, and that the boys had seen before only when they had been allowed to sit in on the formal royal councils.

  The torches had been put out, and no lamps were lit. She sat between firelight and moonlight, looking queenly and very beautiful. Mordred, possibly alone of the five, noticed how pale she was beneath the unwonted flush in her cheeks. She had been weeping, he thought, then, more accurately, and with that touch of ice that was all Arthur's: She has been drinking. Gawain is right. They are going away. Then what of me? Why send for me? Because they are afraid to leave me here alone, King Lot's firstborn? Here alone, and royal, what of me? His face gave no sign of his racing thoughts; he held himself still, beside Gawain, and half a head taller, and waited, to all appearances the least concerned person in the room. Then he saw that, of them all, the queen was looking only at him, Mordred, and his heart gave a jump, then settled to a fast, hard beat.

  Morgause looked away from him at last, and surveyed them all for a while in silence. Then she spoke.

  "You all know that the ship which lies in the harbour comes from my brother the High King Arthur, and that it has brought his ambassador with messages for me."

  No reply. She expected none. She looked along the row of boys, at the lifted faces, the eyes that were beginning to sparkle with joyful expectation. "I see that you have been making guesses, and I imagine they are the right ones. Yes, it has come at last, the summons that I know you have longed for. I, too, though it has come in a way I cannot welcome.…You are to go to Camelot, to the court of the High King your uncle."

  She paused. Gawain, the privileged, said quickly: "Madam, Mother, if this distresses you I am truly sorry. But we've always known this would happen, haven't we? Just as we know that training and fortune, for those of our blood, must be found one day on the mainland, and in the press of affairs, rather than here in these islands?"

  "Certainly." One hand was tapping on the table where the King's letter lay half unrolled. What, Mordred wondered, could the terms of that letter have been, to send Morgause to the wine flask, and to string her up until every nerve was, visibly, vibrating like an overtuned lute string?

  Gawain, encouraged by her brief answer, asked impulsively: "Then why don't you welcome the summons? It isn't as if you would be losing—"

  "Not the summons itself. The way it has come. We all knew it would happen one day, when — when my chief enemy was gone from the King's side. I have foretold it, and I had my own plans. I would have had you, Gawain, stay here; you are to be king, and your place is here, in my presence or without it. But he has asked for you, so you must go. And this man he has sent, this "ambassador," as he styles himself" — her voice was full of scorn — "is to stay here in your stead as "regent." And who knows where that will lead? I will tell you frankly what I fear. I fear that once you and your brothers are out of the Orkneys, Arthur will cause this creature of his to take from you the only land that still remains yours, as he took Lothian, and leave this man here in your stead."

  Gawain, flushed with excitement, was disposed to argue. "But, Mother — madam — surely not? Whatever he did in Dunpeldyr out of enmity to our father King Lot, you are his sister, and we his close kin, all he has. Why should he want to shame and dispossess us?" He added, ingenuously: "He would not do it! Everyone I've talked to — sailors and travellers
and the traders who come here from all over the world — they all say that Arthur is a great king, and deals only in justice. You will see, madam Mother, that there's nothing to fear!"

  "You talk like a green boy," said Morgause sharply. "But this much is certain, there is nothing to be done here, nothing to be gained by disobeying the King's summons. All we can do is trust in the safe conduct he has sent, but once in Arthur's presence we can take our voices to his council — to the Round Hall if we have to — and see then if, in the face of me, his sister, and you, his nephews, he can refuse us our rights in Dunpeldyr."

  Us? We? No one spoke the words, but the thought went from boy to boy with the sourness of disappointment. None of them had admitted to himself that this longed-for enlargement of their world held also the promise of a release from a capricious maternal rule. But each, now, felt a cast-down sense of loss.

  Morgause, mother and witch, read it perfectly. Her lip curled. "Yes, I said 'we.' The orders are clear. I am to present myself at the court of Camelot as soon as the High King returns from Brittany. No reason is given. But I am to take with me—" Her hand touched Arthur's letter again. She seemed to be quoting. " '—All five of the princes.' "

  "He said 'all five'?" This time the question burst from the twins, speaking as one. Gawain said nothing, but turned to stare at Mordred.

  Mordred himself could not have spoken. A confused sense gripped him of elation, of disappointment, of plans made and abandoned, of pride and the anticipation of humiliation. And with these, fear. He was to go to Camelot, by order of the High King himself. He, the bastard of that king's erstwhile enemy. Could it be that all five of Lot's sons were summoned to some doom only held from them till now by the old enchanter's presence? He rejected that immediately. No, the legitimate princes were also the sons of the High King's sister; but what claim had he, Mordred, on any favour from Arthur? None: a memory, only, of enmity, and a tale of a past attempt to murder him by drowning. Perhaps Arthur's memory was as long as this, and now he would finish the work botched in that midnight massacre of long ago.…

  This was folly. With the hard control that he had trained in himself, Mordred put speculation aside and concentrated on what was certain. He was going; that at least. And if the King had tried to murder him once, that had been when Merlin was alive, so presumably with Merlin's advice. Now, with Merlin dead, Mordred was at least as safe as his brothers. So he would take what the world of the mainland offered; and at the very least, once out of this island fastness, he could find out, by stealth if need be, or by mere precedent from the King's own advisers, what was due to the eldest born of a king, even when others were born later to supersede him.…

  He dragged his attention back to what the queen was saying. They would take their own ship, it seemed, the Orc, which through Morgause's magical prevision was ready, new-rigged and painted and furnished with the luxury she craved.… And the gifts that they would take with them were all but ready.… Clothes for the boys, robes and jewels for their mother… Gabran to go with them, and men of the royal guard… A Council of four to be left in charge of affairs under the High King's ambassador… And since the High King himself would not be back in Camelot before October's end, their journey could be leisurely, and would give them time to visit Queen Morgan in Rheged.…

  "Mordred!"

  He jumped. "Madam?"

  "Stay. The others go. Ailsa!"

  The old woman appeared at the bedchamber door.

  "Attend the princes to their chamber, and wait on them there. See that they do not linger to talk, but get straight to their beds. Gabran, leave me! No, this way. Wait for me."

  Gabran turned on his heel and went into the bedchamber. Gawain, scowling after him, met his mother's eye, wiped the scowl from his face and led his brothers forward to kiss her hand. Ailsa swept them out, beginning to fuss and cluck before the door was well shut.

  Mordred, alone with the queen, felt his skin tighten as he braced himself to hear what was to come.

  9

  AS THE DOOR SHUT BEHIND the other boys, Morgause rose abruptly from her chair, and went to the window.

  The move took her out of the firelight and into the waxing silver of the moon. The cold light, behind her shoulder, threw her face and form into darkness, but lit the edges of hair and robe so that she seemed a creature of shadow rimmed with light, half visible and wholly unreal. Mordred felt again that pricking of the skin, as a beast's flesh furs up at the approach of danger. She was a witch, and like everyone else in those islands he feared her powers, which to him were as real and as natural as the dark that follows daylight.

  He was too inexperienced, and too much in awe of the queen, to realize that she was at a loss, and was also, in spite of herself, deeply uneasy. The High King's envoy had been cool and curt; the letter he bore had been no more than a brief royal command, officially couched, demanding her presence and that of the five boys; no reason given, no excuse allowed, and an escort of soldiers on the ship to enforce it. Morgause's questions had got nothing more from the ambassador, whose cold demeanour was in itself a kind of threat.

  It was not certain, but seemed probable, from the terms of the order, that Arthur had discovered where Mordred was; he obviously suspected, if he did not know, that the fifth boy at the Orkney court was his son. How he knew, she could not imagine. It had been common gossip all those years ago, that she had lain with her half-brother Arthur just before her marriage to Lot, and had been in due time brought to bed of a son, but it was also generally believed that the son, among the other babies of Dunpeldyr, had been murdered. She was sure that no one here in Orkney knew or suspected who Mordred was; the whispers at court were all of "Lot's bastard," the likely boy that the queen favoured. There were, of course, other, lewder whispers, but these only amused the queen.

  But somehow Arthur knew. And this letter left no doubt. The soldiers would escort her to Camelot, and all her sons with her.

  Morgause, facing the son who was to be her passport to Arthur's favour, to a renewal of power and position in the center of affairs, was trying to decide whether to tell him here and now whose son he was.

  Through the years he had been in the palace, living and being taught with his half-brothers, she had never really considered telling him the truth. The time would come, she had told herself, the chance to reveal him and then to use him; either time, or her magic, would show her the moment.

  The truth was that Morgause, like many women who work chiefly through their influence on men, was subtle rather than clever, and she was also by temperament lazy. So the years had gone by, and Mordred remained in ignorance, his secret known only to his mother and to Gabran.

  But now, somehow, to Arthur, who, hard on Merlin's death, was sending for his son. And though Morgause had for years vilified Merlin through hatred and fear, she knew that it was he who had originally protected both Mordred and herself from Arthur's impetuous fury. So what did Arthur want now? To kill Mordred? To make sure at last? She could not guess. What would happen to Mordred did not concern her except as it would affect herself, but for herself she was apprehensive. Since the night she had lain with her half-brother to engender the boy, she had never seen Arthur; the tales of the powerful and fiercely brilliant king could not altogether be squared with her own memory of the eager boy whom she had entrapped deliberately to her bed.

  She stood with her back to the bright moon. Her face was hidden from her son, and when she spoke, her voice sounded coolly normal.

  "Have you, like Gawain, been talking to the sailors and the traders who come ashore here?"

  "Why, yes, madam. We usually go down to the wharf, along with the folk, to hear the news."

  "Have any of them… I want you to think back carefully… have any of them during the past weeks or months singled you out to talk to, and have they questioned you?"

  "I don't think — about what, please, madam?"

  "About yourself. Who you are, what you are doing here with the princes in the palace." She
made it sound reasonable. "Most people here know by this time that you are a bastard of King Lot's, who was farmed out to foster, and who came here on your foster parents' death. What they do not know is that you were saved from the Dunpeldyr massacre, and came here by sea. Have you spoken of this to anyone?"

  "No, madam. You told me not to."

  Searching that schooled face, those dark eyes, she was convinced. She was used to the guileless stare of the liar—the twins lied frequently for the sheer pleasure of doing it — and was sure this was the truth. Was sure, too, that Mordred was still too much in awe of her to disobey.

  She made certain. "That is as well for you." She saw the flicker in the boy's eyes, and was satisfied. "But has anyone questioned you? Anyone at all? Think carefully. Has anyone seemed to know, or to guess about it?"

  He shook his head. "I can't remember anything like that. People do say things like "You're from the palace, aren't you? Five sons, then, the queen has? A fortunate lady!" And I tell them that I am the king's son, but not the queen's. But usually," he added, "they ask someone else about me. Not me."

  The words were ingenuous, the tone was not. It meant: "They would not dare question me, me, but they are curious, so they ask. I am not interested in what is said."

  He caught, against the moonlight, the shadow of a smile. Her eyes were blank and dark, gaps of nothingness. Even her jewels were quenched. She seemed to grow taller. Her shadow, thrown by the moon, grew monstrous, engulfing him. The air felt cold. In spite of himself, he began to shiver.

  She watched him, still smiling, as she put out the first dark feelers of her magic. She had made her decision. She would tell him nothing; the long journey south should not be clouded and made difficult by her own sons' reaction to the news of Mordred's real status as son of the High King. Or by the knowledge that must go with it, of their mother's incest with her half-brother. It might be common talk on the mainland, but no one in the islands would have dared repeat it. Her four sons had heard nothing. Even to herself Morgause would not admit how the fact might be received.