Mordred, perhaps, more eagerly than any. He had not expected to be received easily and at once into the brotherhood of the princes, and indeed, there were difficulties. The twins were always together, and Gawain kept young Gareth close by him, protecting him against the rough fists and feet of the twins, and at the same time trying to stiffen him against the over-indulgence of his mother.
It was through this that, in the end, Mordred broke into the charmed square of Morgause's legitimate children. One night Gawain woke to hear Gareth sobbing on the floor. The twins had thrown him out of bed onto a the cold stone, and then laughingly fought off the child's attempts to climb back into the warmth. Gawain, too sleepy to take drastic action, simply pulled Gareth into his own bed, which meant that Mordred had to move out and bed down with the twins. They, wide awake and spoiling for trouble, did not move to make way for him, but, each to his edge of the wide bed, set themselves to defend it.
Mordred stood in the cold for a few minutes, watching them, while Gawain, unaware of what was going on, comforted the youngest boy, paying no heed to the stifled giggles of the twins. Then, without attempting to get into bed, Mordred reached suddenly forward, and, with a swift tug, dragged the thick furred coverlet away from the boys' naked bodies, and prepared to bed down with it himself, on the floor.
Their yells of fury roused Gawain, but he merely laughed, his arm round Gareth, and watched. Agravain and Gaheris, goosefleshed with cold, hurled themselves, all fists and teeth, at Mordred. But he was quicker, heavier, and completely ruthless. He flung Agravain back across the bed with a blow in the belly that left him retching for breath, then Gaheris's teeth met in his arm. He whipped up his leather belt from the chest where it lay, and lashed the other boy over back and buttocks till he let go and, howling, ran to protect himself behind the bed.
Mordred did not follow them. He threw the coverlet back on the bed, dropped the belt on the chest, then climbed into bed, covering himself against the brisk draught from the window.
"All right. Now that's settled. Come in. I won't touch you again, unless you make me."
Agravain, sulky and swallowing, waited only a minute or two before obeying. Gaheris, hands to his buttocks, spat furiously: "Bastard! Fisher-brat!"
"Both," said Mordred equably. "The bastard makes me older than you, and the fisher-brat stronger. So get in and shut up."
Gaheris looked at Gawain, got no help there, and, shivering, obeyed. The twins turned their backs to Mordred, and apparently went straight to sleep.
From the other side of the chamber Gawain, smiling, held up a hand in the gesture that meant "victory." Gareth, the tears drying on his face, was grinning hugely.
Mordred answered the gesture, then pulled the coverlet closer and lay down. Soon, but not before he was certain that the twins were genuinely asleep, he allowed himself to relax into the warmth of the furs, and drifted off himself into a slumber where, as ever, the dreams of desire and the nightmares were about equally mingled.
After that there was no real trouble. Agravain, in fact, conceived some kind of reluctant admiration for Mordred, and Gaheris, though in this he would not follow his twin, accorded him a sullen neutrality. Gareth was never a problem. His sunny nature, and the drastically swift revenge that Mordred had taken on his tormentors, ensured that he was Mordred's friend. But the latter took good care not to come between the little boy and the object of his first worship. Gawain was the one who mattered most, and Gawain, having in his nature something of the Pendragon that superseded the dark blood of Lothian and the perverse powers of his mother, would be quick to resent any usurper. As far as Gawain was concerned, Mordred himself stayed neutral, and waited. Gawain must make the pace.
So autumn went by, and winter, and by the time summer came round again, Seals' Bay was only a memory. Mordred, in bearing, dress, and knowledge of the arts necessary to a prince of Orkney, could not be distinguished from his half-brothers. The eldest by almost a year, he was necessarily matched with Gawain rather than with the younger ones, and though at first Gawain had the advantage of training, in time there was little to choose between them. Mordred had subtlety, call it cunning, and a cool head; Gawain had the flashing brilliance that on his worse days became rashness and sometimes savagery. On the whole they met equal to equal with their weapons, and respected one another with liking, though not with love. Gawain's love was still and always for Gareth, and, in a strained and often unhappy way, for his mother. The twins lived for each other. Mordred, though accepted and seemingly at home in his new surroundings, stood always outside the family, self-contained, and apparently content to be so. He saw little of the queen, and was unaware of how closely she watched him.
One day, after autumn had come again, he went down to Seals' Bay. He came to the head of the cliff path and stood as he had so often stood, looking down into the green dip of the bay. It was October, and the wind blew strongly. The heather was black and dead-looking, and here and there in the damp places the sphagnum moss grew golden green and deep. Most of the seabirds had gone south, but still out over the gray water the white gannets hovered and splashed like sea-spirits. Down in the bay the weather had so worked on the ruined cottage that the walls, washed clear of the mud that had bound their stones together, looked more like piles of rock thrown there by the tide than like part of a human dwelling. The burned and blackened debris had been long since dispersed by wind and sea.
Mordred walked down the slope and trod deliberately over the rain-washed grass to the door of his foster home. Standing on the sill, he looked about him. It had rained hard during the past week, and pools of fresh water stood here and there. In one of them, something white showed. He stooped to it, and his hand met bone.
For a shrinking second he paused, then with a sudden movement grasped the thing, and lifted it. A fragment of bone, but whether animal or human he could not tell. He stood with it in his hand, trying deliberately to let it conjure up emotion or memory. But time and weather had done their work; it was cleansed, sterile, indifferent as the stones on the storm beach. Whatever those people, that life, had been, it was over. He dropped the bone back in the flooded crevice, and turned away.