At that moment, in a lull of the wind, came the sound of horses. The brothers stiffened, loosed one another, ran for their own beasts and mounted hastily. For a moment Mordred thought they might ride for cover into the wood where he stood watching, but already it was too late.
Four horsemen appeared, approaching at a gallop from the north. The leader was a big man, armed, on a splendid horse. Straining his eyes in the twilight, Mordred recognized the leader's device: It was Drustan himself, come riding with a couple of troopers to meet the expected guest.
And beside him, of all men in the world, rode Gareth, youngest of Lot's sons.
Drustan had seen the body. With a ringing shout, he whipped his sword out and rode down upon the killers.
The two brothers whirled to face him, dressing themselves to fight, but Drustan, appearing suddenly to recognize the two assassins, dragged his horse to a halt and put up his sword. Mordred stayed still in shadow, waiting. The matter was out of his hands. He had failed, and if he rode forward now, nothing he could say would persuade the newcomers that he had had no part in Lamorak's murder, nor any knowledge of it. Arthur would know the truth, but Arthur and his justice were a long way away.
It seemed, though, that Arthur's justice ran even here.
Drustan, spurring forward with his troopers at his back, was questioning the brothers. Gareth had jumped from his horse and was kneeling in the dust beside Lamorak's body. Then he ran back to the group of horse men, and grabbed Gaheris's rein, gesticulating wildly, trying to talk to him.
The brothers were shouting. Words and phrases could be heard above the intermittent rushing of the wind in the branches. Gaheris had shaken Gareth off, and he and Agravain were apparently challenging Drustan to fight. And Drustan was refusing. His voice rang out in snatches, clear and hard and high.
"I shall not fight you. You know the King's orders. Now I shall take this body to the castle yonder and give it burial.… Be assured that the next royal courier will take this news to Camelot.… As for you…"
"Coward! Afraid to fight us!" The yells of rage came back on the wind. "We are not afraid of the High King! He is our kinsman!"
"And shame it is that you come of such blood!" said Drustan, roundly. "Young though you are, you are already murderers, and destroyers of good men. This man that you have killed was a better knight than you could ever be. If I had been here—"
"Then you would have gone the same way!" shouted Gaheris. "Even with your men here to protect you—"
"Even without them, it would have taken more than you two younglings," said Drustan with contempt. He sheathed his sword and turned his back on the brothers. He signalled to the men-at-arms, who took up Lamorak's body, and started back with it the way they had come. Then, hanging on the rein, Drustan spoke to Gareth, who, mounted once more, was hesitating, looking from Drustan to his brothers and back again. Even at that distance it could be seen that his body was rigid with distress. Drustan, nodding to him, and without another glance at Gaheris and Agravain, swung round to follow his men-at-arms.
Mordred turned his horse softly back into the wood. It was over. Agravain, seemingly sober now, had caught at his brother's arm and was holding him, apparently reasoning with him. The shadows were lengthening across the roadway. The men-at-arms were out of sight. Gareth was on Gaheris's other side, talking across him to Agravain.
Then, suddenly, Gaheris flung off his brother's hand, and spurred his horse. He galloped up the road after Drustan's retreating back. His over-ready sword gleamed in his hand. Agravain, after a second's hesitation, spurred after him, his sword, too, whipping from its sheath.
Gareth snatched for Agravain's bridle, and missed. He yelled a warning, high and clear: "My lord, watch! My lord Drustan, your back!"
Before the words were done Drustan had wheeled his horse. He met the two of them together. Agravain struck first. The older knight smashed the blow to one side and cut him across the head. The sword's edge sliced deep into metal and leather, and bit into the neck between shoulder and throat. Agravain fell, blood spurting. Gaheris yelled and drove his horse in, his sword hacking down as Drustan stooped from the saddle to withdraw his blade. But Drustan's horse reared back. Its armed hoofs caught Gaheris's mount on the chest. It squealed and swerved, and the blow missed. Drustan drove his own horse in, striking straight at Gaheris's shield, and sent him, off-balance as he was, crashing to the ground, where he lay still.
Gareth was there at the gallop. Drustan, swinging to face him, saw that his sword was still in its sheath, and put his own weapon up.
Here the men-at-arms, having left their burden, came hastening back. At their master's orders, they roughly bound Agravain's wound, helped Gaheris, giddy but unharmed, to his feet, then caught the brothers' horses for them. Drustan, coldly formal, offered the hospitality of the castle "until your brother shall be healed of his hurt," but Gaheris, as ungracious as he had been treacherous, merely cursed and turned away. Drustan signed to the troopers, who closed in. Gaheris, shouting again about "my kinsman the High King," tried to resist, but was overpowered. The invitation had become an arrest. At length the troopers rode off at walking pace, with Gaheris between them, his brother's unconscious body propped against him.
Gareth watched them go, making no move to follow. He had not stirred a hand to help Gaheris.
"Gareth?" said Drustan. His sword was clean and sheathed. "Gareth, what choice have I?"
"None," said Gareth. He shook the reins and brought his horse round alongside Drustan's. They rode together towards Caer Mord.
The roadway was empty in the growing dusk. A thin moon rose over the sea. Mordred, emerging at last from the shadow, rode south.
That night he slept in the woods. It was chilly, but wrapped in his cloak he was warm enough, and for supper there was something left of the bread and meat the girl had given him. His horse, tethered on a long rein, grazed in the glade. Next day, early, he rode on, this time to the south-west. Arthur would be on his way to Caerleon, and he would meet him there. There was no haste. Drustan would already have sent a courier with the news of Lamorak's murder. Since Mordred had not appeared on the scene the King would no doubt assume the truth, that the brothers by some trick had managed to evade him. His assignment had not been Lamorak's safety; that was Lamorak's own concern, and he had paid for the risk he had taken; Mordred's task had been to find Gaheris and take him south. Now, once the twins' hurts were healed, Drustan would see to that. Mordred could still stay out of the affair, and this he was sure the King would approve. Even if the brothers did not survive the King's anger, the other troublemakers among the Young Celts, assuming Mordred to be ambitious for whatever power he could grasp for himself, might turn to him and invite him to join their counsels. This, he suspected, the King would soon ask him to do. And if you do, murmured that other, ice-cold voice in his brain, and the campaign goes on that is to unseat Bedwyr and destroy him, who better to take his place in the King's confidence, and the Queen's love, than you, the King's own son?
It was a golden October, with chill nights and bright, crisp days. The mornings glittered with a dusting of bright frost, and in the evenings the sky was full of the sound of rooks going home. He took his time, sparing his horse, and, where he could, lodging in small, simple places and avoiding the towns. The loneliness, the falling melancholy of autumn, suited his mood. He went by smooth hills and grassy valleys, through golden woods and by steep rocky passes where, on the heights, the trees were already bare. His good bay horse was all the company he needed. Though the nights were cold, and grew colder, he always found shelter of a sort—a sheep-cote, a cave, even a wooded bank—and there was no rain. He would tether the bay to graze, eat the rations he carried, and roll himself in his cloak for the night, to wake in the grey, frost-glittering morning, wash in an icy stream, and ride on again.