Mordred was thinking back. "I think I saw him send the message. There was a trading ship tied up at the wharf; it had been unloading wood. I saw him go on board, and someone gave him money. I thought he must be doing work on his own, that the goldsmith didn't know about. That would be it?"
"Very possibly."
The memory brought back others: Morgause and her private smiling when he spoke of his "mother." Her test to see if she had passed on the Sight to her son. And Sula; Sula must have known that one day he would be taken from her. She had been afraid. Had she suspected, then, what might one day happen?
He asked abruptly: "Did she really have Gabran kill them?"
"If he said so, knowing he was dying, you may be sure of it," said the King. "She would think no more of it than of flying her hawk at a hare. She had your first nurse, Macha, murdered in Dunpeldyr, and herself goaded Lot into killing Macha's child, who had taken your place in the royal cradle. And, though Lot gave the order, it was Morgause who instigated the massacre of the children. This we know for truth. There was a witness. There have been many killings, Mordred, and none of them clean."
"So many killings, and all for me. But why?" The one clue he had been given, all those years ago, he had, like Arthur, forgotten in the excitement and heady promise of this meeting. "Why did she keep me alive? Why trouble to have me kept in secret all those years?"
"To use as a tool, a pawn, what you will." If the King remembered the prophecy now, he did not burden the boy with it. "Maybe as a hostage in case I found out she had murdered Merlin. It was after she reckoned herself safe that she took you out of hiding, and even then the disguise she chose for you — Lot's bastard son — was sufficient to conceal you. But I can't guess further than that about her motives. I have not got her kind of subtlety." He added, in answer to some kind of appeal in the boy's intense gaze: "It does not come from the blood we share with her, Mordred. I have killed many men in my time, but not in such ways, or for such motives. Morgause's mother was a Breton girl, a wise-woman, so I have heard. These things go from mother to daughter. You must not fear these dark powers in yourself."
"I don't fear them," said Mordred quickly. "I have nothing of the Sight, no magic, she told me so. She did once try to find out about it. I think now that she was afraid I might 'see' what had happened to my foster parents. So she took me down with her to the underground chamber where there is a magic pool, and told me to look there for visions."
"And what visions did you see?"
"Nothing. I saw an eel in the pool. But the queen said there were visions. She saw them."
Arthur smiled. "I told you that you were of my blood rather than hers. To me, water is only water, though I have seen the mage-fire that Merlin can call from the air, and other marvels, but they were all marvels of the light. Did Morgause show you any magic of her own?"
"No, sir. She took me to the chamber where she made her spells and mixed her magic potions—"
"Go on. What's the matter?"
"Nothing. It was nothing, really. Just something that happened there." He looked away, towards the fire, reliving the moments in the stillroom, the clasp, the kiss, the queen's words. He added, slowly, to himself, making the discovery: "And all the time she knew I was her own son."
Arthur, watching him, made a guess that was a certainty. The rush of anger that he felt shook him. Over it he said, very gently: "You, too, Mordred?"
"It was nothing," said the boy again, rapidly, as if to brush it aside. "Nothing, really. But now I know why I felt the way I did." A quick glance across the table. "Oh, it happens, everyone knows it does. But not like that. Brother and sister, that's one thing… but mother and son? Not that, ever. At least, I never heard of it. And she knew, didn't she? She knew. I wonder why she would want—?"
He let it die and was silent, looking down at the hands held fast now between his knees. He was not asking for a reply. He and the King already knew the answer. There was no emotion in his voice but puzzled distaste, such as one might accord some perverted appetite. The flush had died from his cheeks, and he looked pale and strained.
The King was thinking, with growing relief and thankfulness, that here there would be no tie to break. Violent emotions create their own ties, but what remained between Morgause and Mordred could surely be broken here and now.
He spoke at length in a carefully low key, equal to equal, prince to prince.
"I shall not put her to death. Merlin is alive, and her other killings are not my concern to punish here and now. Moreover, you will see that I cannot keep you near me — here in my court where so many people know the story, and suspect that you are my son — and forthwith put your mother to death. So Morgause lives. But she will not be released."
He paused, leaning back in the great chair, and regarding the boy kindly. "Well, Mordred, we are here, at the start of a new road. We cannot see where it will lead us. I promised to do right by you, and I meant it. You will stay here in my court, with the other Orkney princes, and you, like them, will have royal status as my nephew. Where men guess at your parentage, you will find that you have more respect, not less. But you must see that, because of what happened at Luguvallium, and because of the presence of Queen Guinevere, I cannot openly call you son."
Mordred looked down at his hands. "And when you have others by the Queen?"
"I shall not. She is barren. Mordred, leave this now. The future will come. Take what life offers you here in my household. All the princes of Orkney will have the honour due to royal orphans, and you — I believe you will in the end have more." He saw something leap again behind the boy's eyes. "I do not speak of kingdoms, Mordred. But perhaps that, too, if you are sufficiently my son."
All at once the boy's composure shattered. He began to shake. His hands went up to cover his face. He said, muffled: "It's nothing. I thought I would be punished for Gabran. Killed, even. And now all this. What will happen? What will happen, sir?"
"About Gabran, nothing," said the King. "He was to be pitied, but his death, in its way, was just. And about you, for the moment, very little, except that tonight you will not go to your bedchamber with the other boys. You will need time alone; to come to terms with all you have just learned. No one will wonder at this; they will think merely that you are being held apart because of Gabran's death."
"Gawain, the others? Are they to know?"
"I shall talk to Gawain. The others need know nothing more yet than that you are Morgause's son, and eldest of the High King's nephews. That will be sufficient to explain your standing here. But I shall tell Gawain the truth. He needs to know that you are not a rival for Lothian or the Orkneys." He turned his head. "Listen, there is the guard changing outside. Tomorrow is the feast of Mithras, and the Christmas of the Christians, and for you, I expect, some winter festival of your outland Orkney gods. For us all, a new beginning. So be welcome here, Mordred. Go now, and try to sleep."
BOOK II
THE WITCH'S SONS
1
SNOW FELL THICKLY SOON after Christmas, and the ways were blocked. It was almost a month before the regular service of royal couriers could be resumed. Not that it mattered; there was little of any moment to report. In the depths of winter men — even the most dedicated warriors — stayed at home hugging the fire and looking to their houses and the needs of their families. Saxons and Celts alike kept close to their hearthstones, and if they sat whetting their weapons by the light of the winter fires, all knew that there would be no need of them until the coming of spring.