“To what purpose? He will spare no thought for you today.”
“I am always by him. He will need his drugs.”
“I am here now, and Gandar. He will not need you.”
“He'll see me if I say I've come to say farewell! I tell you, I will go to him!”
“Then go,” I said. “I'll not stop you. If you were thinking of telling him the truth, think again. If the shock kills him, Arthur will be High King all the sooner.”
“He would not be accepted! They wouldn't accept him! Do you think Lot will stand by and listen to you? What if I tell them what Arthur did last night?”
“Then Lot would become High King,” I said equably. “And how long would he let you live, bearing Arthur's child? Yes, you'd better think about it, hadn't you? Either way, there is nothing you can do, except go while you can. Once your sister is married at Christmas, get Lot to find you a husband. That way, you may be safe.”
Suddenly, at this, she was angry, the anger of a spitting cat in a corner. “You condemn me, you! You were a bastard, too...All my life I have watched Morgian get everything. Morgian! That child to be a Queen, while I...Why, she even learns magic, but she has no more idea how to use it for her own ends than a kitten has! She'd do better in a nunnery than on a Queen's throne, and I — I...” She stopped on a little gasp, and caught her underlip in her teeth. I thought she changed what she had been about to say. “...I, who have something of the power which has made you great, Merlin my cousin, do you think I will be content to be nothing?” Her voice went flat, the voice of a wise-woman speaking a curse which will stick. “And that is what you will be, who are no man's friend, and no woman's lover. You are nothing, Merlin, you are nothing, and in the end you will only be a shadow and a name.”
I smiled at her. “Do you think you can frighten me? I see further than you, I believe. I am nothing, yes; I am air and darkness, a word, a promise. I watch in the crystal and I wait in the hollow hills. But out there in the light I have a young king and a bright sword to do my work for me, and build what will stand when my name is only a word for forgotten songs and outworn wisdom, and when your name, Morgause, is only a hissing in the dark.” I turned my head then, and called the servant. “Now enough of this, there is no more to say between us. Go and make yourself ready, and get you from court.”
The man had come in, and was waiting inside the door glancing, I thought apprehensively, from one to the other of us. From his look, he was a black Celt from the mountains of the west; it is a race that still worships the old gods, so it is possible he could feel, if only partly, some of the stinging presences still haunting the room.
But for me, now, the girl was only a girl, tilting a pretty, troubled face to mine, so that the rose-gold hair streamed from her pale forehead down the cherry gown. To the servant waiting beside the door, it should have seemed an ordinary leave-taking, but for those stinging shadows. She never glanced his way, or guessed what he might see.
When she spoke her voice was composed, calm and low. “I shall go to my sister. She lies at York till the wedding.”
“I shall see to it that an escort is ready. No doubt the wedding will still be at Christmas, according to plan. King Lot should join you soon, and give you a place at your sister's court.”
There was a brief flash at that, discreetly veiled. I might have tried a guess at what she planned there — that she hoped, even at this late date, to take her sister's place at Lot's side — but I was weary of her. I said: “I'll bid you farewell, then, and a safe journey.”
She made a reverence, saying, very low: “We shall meet again, cousin.”
I said formally, “I shall look forward to it.” She went then, slight, erect, hands folded close again, and the servant shut the door behind her.
I stood by the window, collecting my thoughts. I felt weary, and my eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, but my mind was clear and light, already free of the girl's presence. The fresh air of morning blew in to disperse the evil lingering in the room, till, with the last fading scent of honeysuckle, it was gone. When the servant came back I rinsed face and hands in cold water, then, bidding him follow me, went back to the hospital dormitory. The air was cleaner there, and the eyes of dying men easier to bear than the presence of the woman who was with child of Mordred, Arthur's nephew and bastard son.
7
King Lot, brooding on the edge of affairs, had not been idle. Certain busy gentlemen, friends of his, were seen to be hurrying here and there, protesting to anyone who would listen that it would be more appropriate for Uther to declare his heir from one of his great palaces in London or Winchester. This haste, they said, was unseemly: the thing should be done by custom, with due notice and ceremony, and backed by the blessing of the Church. But they whispered in vain. The ordinary people of Luguvallium, and the soldiers who at present outnumbered them, thought otherwise. It was obvious now that Uther was near his end, and it seemed not only necessary, but right, that he should declare his successor straight away, near the field where Arthur had in a fashion declared himself. And if there was no bishop present, what of it? This was a victory feast and was held, so to speak, still in the field.
The house where the King held court in Luguvallium was packed to the doors, and well beyond them. Outside, in the town and around it, where the troops held their own celebration, the air was blue with the smoke of fires, and thick with the smell of roasting meat. Officers on their way to the King's feast had to work quite hard to turn a blind eye to the drunkenness in camp and street, and a deaf ear to the squeals and giggles coming from quarters where women were not commonly allowed to be.
I hardly saw Arthur all day. He was closeted with the King until afternoon, and in the end only left to allow his father to rest before the feast. I spent most of the day in the hospital. It was peaceful there, compared with the crush near the royal apartments. All day, it seemed, the corridors outside my rooms and Arthur's were besieged; by men who wanted favours from the new prince, or just his notice; by men who wanted to talk with me, or to court my favour by gifts; or simply by the curious. I let it be known that Arthur was with the King, and would speak with no one before the time of the feast. To the guards I gave private orders that if Lot should seek me out, I was to be called. But he made no approach. Nor, according to the servants I questioned, was he to be seen in the town.
But I took no chances, and early that morning sent to Caius Valerius, a King's officer and an old acquaintance of mine, for extra guards for my rooms and Arthur's, to reinforce the duty sentries outside the main door, in the antechamber, and even at the windows. And before I went to the hospital I made my way to the King's rooms, to have a word with Ulfin.
It may perhaps seem strange that a prophet who had seen Arthur's crowning so plain and clear and ringed with light should take such pains to guard him from his enemies. But those who have had to do with the gods know that when those gods make promises they hide them in light, and a smile on a god's lips is not always a sign that you may take his favour for granted. Men have a duty to make sure. The gods like the taste of salt; the sweat of human effort is the savour of their sacrifices.
The guards on duty at the King's door lifted their spears without a challenge and let me straight through into the outer chamber. Here pages and servants waited, while in the second chamber sat the women who helped to nurse the King. Ulfin was, as ever, beside the door of the King's room. He rose when he saw me, and we talked for a little while, of the King's health, of Arthur, of the events of yesterday and the prospects for tonight; then — we were talking softly, apart from the women — I asked him: