“You knew Morgause had left the court?”
“I heard so, yes. Nobody knows why.”
“Her sister Morgian is waiting in York for the wedding,” I said, “and anxious for her company.”
“Oh, yes, we heard that.” It was to be inferred from the woodenness of his expression that nobody had believed it.
“Did she come to see the King?” I asked.
“Three times.” Ulfin smiled. It was apparent that Morgause was no favourite of his. “And each time she was turned away because the prince was still with him.”
A favoured daughter for twenty years, and forgotten in as many hours for a true-born son. “You were a bastard, too” she had reminded me. Years ago, I remembered, I had wondered what would become of her. She had had position and authority of a sort here with Uther, and might well have been fond of him. She had (the King had hinted yesterday) refused marriage to stay near him. Perhaps I had been too harsh with her, driven by the horror of foreknowledge and my own single-minded love for the boy. I hesitated, then asked him: “Did she seem much distressed?”
“Distressed?” said Ulfin crisply. “No, she looked angry. She's bad to cross, is that lady. Always been so, from a child. One of her maids was crying, too; I think she'd been whipped.” He nodded towards one of the pages, a fair boy, very young, kicking his heels at a window. “He was the one sent to turn her away the last time, and she laid his cheek open with her nails.”
“Then tell him to take care it does not fester,” I said, and such was my tone that Ulfin looked sharply at me, cocking a brow. I nodded. “Yes, it was I who sent her away. Nor did she go willingly. You'll know why, one day. Meanwhile, I take it that you look in now and again upon the King? The interview isn't tiring him overmuch?”
“On the contrary, he's better than I've seen him for some time. You'd think the boy was a well to drink at; the King never takes his eyes from him, and gains strength by the hour. They'll take their midday meal together.”
“Ah. Then it will be tasted? That's what I came to ask.”
“Of course. You can be easy, my lord. The prince will be safe.”
“The King must take some rest before the feast.”
He nodded. “I've persuaded him to sleep this afternoon after he has eaten.”
“Then will you also — which will be more difficult — persuade the prince that he should do the same? Or, if not rest, then at least go straight to his rooms, and stay in them till the hour of feasting?”
Ulfin looked dubious. “Will he consent to that?”
“If you tell him that the order — but you'd better call it a request — came from me.”
“I'll do that, my lord.”
“I shall be in the hospital. You'll send for me, of course, if the King needs me. But in any case you must send to tell me the moment the prince leaves him.”
It was about the middle of the afternoon when the fair-haired page brought the message. The King was resting, he told me, and the prince had gone to his rooms. When Ulfin had given the prince my message the latter had scowled, impatient, and had said sharply (this part of the message came demurely, verbatim) that he was damned if he'd skulk indoors for the rest of the day. But when Ulfin had said the message came from Prince Merlin the prince had stopped short, shrugged, and then gone to his rooms without further word.
“Then I shall go, too,” I said. “But first, child, let me see that scratched cheek.” When I had put salve on it, and sent him scampering back to Ulfin, I made my way through corridors more thronged than ever to my rooms.
Arthur was by the window. He turned when he heard me.
“Bedwyr is here, did you know? I saw him, but could not get near. I sent a message that we'd ride out this afternoon. Now you say I may not.”
“I'm sorry. There will be other times to talk to Bedwyr, better than this.”
“Heaven and earth, they couldn't be worse! This place stifles me. What do they want with me, that pack in the corridors outside?”
“What most men want of their prince and future King. You will have to get used to it.”
“So it seems. There's even a guard here, outside the window.”
“I know. I put him there.” Then, answering his look: “You have enemies, Arthur. Have I not made it clear?”
“Shall I always have to be hemmed in like this, surrounded? One might as well be a prisoner.”
“Once you are undoubted King you can make your own dispositions. But until then, you must be guarded. Remember that here we are only in an emergency camp: once in the King's capital, or in one of his strong castles, you'll have your own household, chosen by yourself. You'll be able to see all you want of Bedwyr, or Cei, or anyone else you may appoint. It will be freedom of a sort, as much as you can ever have now. Neither you nor I can go back to the Wild Forest again, Emrys. That's over.”
“It was better there,” he said, then gave me a gentle look, and smiled. “Merlin.”
“What is it?”
He started to say something, changed his mind, shook his head instead and said abruptly: “At this feast tonight. You'll be near me?”
“Be sure of it.”
“The King has told me how he will present me to the nobles. Do you know what will happen then? These enemies you speak of — ”
“Will try to prevent the assembly from accepting you as Uther's heir.”
He considered for a moment, briefly. “May they carry arms in the hall?”
“No. They'll try some other way.”
“Do you know how?”
I said: “They can hardly deny your birth to the King's face, and with me there and Count Ector they can't quarrel with your identity. They can only try to discredit you; shake the faith of the waverers, and try to swing the army's vote. It's your enemies' misfortune that this has come on a battlefield where the army outnumbers the council of nobles three to one — and after yesterday the army will take some convincing that you are not fit to lead them. It's my guess that there will be something staged, something that will take men by surprise and shake their belief in you, even in Uther.”
“And in you, Merlin?”
I smiled. “It's the same thing. I'm sorry, I can't see further yet than that. I can see death and darkness, but not for you.”
“For the King?” he asked sharply.
I did not answer. He was silent for a moment, watching me, then, as if I had answered, he nodded, and asked:
“Who are these enemies?”
“They are led by the King of Lothian.”
“Ah,” he said, and I could see he had not let his senses be stifled through the brief hours of that crowded day. He had seen and heard, watched and listened. “And Urien who runs with him, and Tudwal of Dinpelydr, and — whose is the green badge with the wolverine?”
“Aguisel's. Did the King say anything to you about these men?”
He shook his head. “We talked mostly of the past. Of course he has heard all about me from you and Ector over these past years, and” — he laughed — “I doubt if any son ever knew more about his father and his father's father than I, with all you have told me; but telling is not the same. There was a lot of knowing to make up.”
He talked on for a little about the interview with the King, speaking of the missed years without regret, and with the cool common sense that I had come to see was part of his character. That much, I thought, was not from Uther; I had seen it in Ambrosius, and in myself, in what men called coldness. Arthur had been able to stand back from the events of his youth; he had thought the thing through, and with the clear sight that would make him a king he had set feeling aside and come to the truth. Even when he went on to speak of his mother it was evident that he saw the matter much as Ygraine had done, and with the same hard expediency of outlook. “If I had known that my mother was still alive, and had been so willingly parted from me, it might have come hard to me, as a child. But you and Ector spared me that by telling me she was dead, and now I see it as you say she saw it; that to be a prince one must be ruled always by necessity. She did not give me up for nothing.” He smiled, but his voice was still serious. “It was true as I told you. I was better in the Wild Forest thinking myself motherless, and your bastard, than waiting yearly in my father's castle for the Queen to bear another child to supplant me.”