So he was accepted, and in time regarded as one of the party's leaders, even by Agravain and Gaheris.
Mordred had his own rooms within the royal palace at Camelot, but he had also, for the last year or so, owned a pleasant little house in the town. A girl of the town kept house for him, and made him welcome whenever he could spare the time for her. Here, from time to time, came the Young Celts, ostensibly to supper, or for a day's fowling in the marshes, but in reality to talk, and for Mordred to listen.
The purchase of the house had in fact been the King's suggestion. If Mordred was to share the party's activities, this was not likely to happen in his rooms within the royal palace. In the easier atmosphere of his leman's house Mordred could more readily keep in touch with the currents of thought that moved the younger men.
To his house one evening came Agravain, with Colles, and Mador, and others of the Young Celts. After supper, when the woman had placed the wine near them and then withdrawn, Agravain brought the talk abruptly round to the subject that, of late, had obsessed him.
"Bedwyr! No man in the kingdom can get anywhere, become anybody, without that man's approval! The King's besotted. Boyhood friends, indeed! Boyhood lovers, more like! And still he has to listen whenever my lord high and mighty Bedwyr chooses to speak! What d'ye say, Colles? We know, eh? Eh?"
Agravain, as was usual these days, was three parts drunken, early as it was in the night. This was plain speaking, even for him. Colles, usually a hopeful sycophant, tried an uneasy withdrawal. "Well, but everyone knows they fought together since years back. Brothers-in-arms, and all that. It's only natural—"
"Too natural by half." Agravain gave a hiccup of laughter. "Brothers-in-arms, how right you are! In the Queen's arms, too… , Haven't you heard the latest? Last time the King was from court, there was my lord Bedwyr, snugged down right and tight in the Queen's bed before Arthur's horse was well out of the King's Gate."
"Where did you get that?" This, sharply, from Mador.
And from Colles, beginning to look scared: "You told me. But it's only talk, and it can't be true. For one thing the King's not that kind of a fool, and if he trusts Bedwyr—and trusts her, come to that—"
"Not a fool? It's a fool's part to trust. Mordred would agree. Wouldn't you, brother?"
Mordred, with his back to the company, pouring wine, was heard to assent, shortly.
"If it were true," began someone, longingly, but Mador cut across him.
"You're a fool yourself to talk like that without proof. It can't be true. Even if they wanted to, how would they dare? The Queen's ladies are always there with her, and even at night—"
Agravain gave a shout of laughter, and Gaheris, lounging back beside him, said, grinning: "My poor innocent. You're beginning to sound like my saintly brother Gareth. Don't you ever listen to the dirt? Agravain's been laying one of Guinevere's maids for nigh on a month now. If anyone hears the gossip, he should."
"And you mean that she says he's been in there at night? Bedwyr?"
Agravain nodded into his wine, and Gaheris gave a crow of triumph. "Then we've got him!"
But Colles insisted: "She saw him? Herself?"
"No." Agravain looked round defiantly. "But we all know the talk that's been going round for long enough, and we also know that there's no fire without smoke. Let us look past the smoke, and put out the fire. If I do get proof, will you all act with me?"
"Act? How?"
"Do the King a service, and get rid of Bedwyr, from the King's bed and the King's counsels!"
Calum said doubtfully: "You mean just tell the King?"
"How else? He'll be furious, who wouldn't, but afterwards he's got to be grateful. Any man would want to know—"
"But the Queen?" This was a young man called Cian, who came from the Queen's own country of North Wales. "He'll kill her. Any man, finding out…" He flushed, and fell silent. It was to be noticed that he avoided looking at Gaheris.
Agravain was confident and scornful. "He would never hurt the Queen. Have you never heard what happened when Melwas of the Summer Country took her and held her for a day and a night in his lodge on one of the Lake islands? You can't tell me that that lecher never had his way with her, but the King took her back without a word, and gave her his promise that, for that or even for her barrenness, he would never put her aside. No, he'd never harm her. Mordred, you know him better than most, and you're with the Queen half your time as well. What do you say?"
"About the King's tenderness towards her, I agree." Mordred set the wine jug down again, and leaned back against the table's edge, surveying them. "But all this is moonshine, surely? There is talk, I've heard it, but it seems to me that it comes mostly from here, and without proof. Without any kind of proof. Until proof is found, the talk must remain only talk, concocted from wishes and ambitions, not from facts."
"He's right, you know," said one Melion, who was Cian's brother. "It is only talk, the sort that always happens when a lady is as lovely as the Queen, and her man's away from her bed as often and for as long as the King has to be."
"It's bedroom door gossip," Cian put in. "Do you ask us to kneel down in the dirt and peer through chamber keyholes?"
Since this was in fact exactly what Agravain had been doing, he denied it with great indignation. He was not too drunk to ignore the hardening of the meeting against any idea of harming the Queen. He said virtuously: "You've got me wrong, gentlemen. Nothing would persuade me to injure that lovely lady. But if we could contrive a way to bring Bedwyr down without hurt to her—"
"You mean swear that he forced his way in? Raped her?"
"Why not? It might be possible. My wench would say anything we paid her for, and—"
"What about Gareth's?" asked someone. It was known that Gareth was courting Linet, one of the Queen's ladies, a gentle girl and as incorruptible as Gareth himself.
"All right, all right!" Agravain, a dark flush in his face, swung round to Mordred. "There's plenty to be thought about, but by the dark Goddess herself, we've made a start, and we know who's with us and who isn't! Mordred, what about it? If we can think of some way that doesn't implicate the Queen, then you're with us? You, of all men, can hardly stand Bedwyr's friend."
"I?" Mordred gave that cool little smile that was all that remained in him of Morgause. "Friend to Bedwyr, chief marshal, best of the knights, the King's right hand in battle and the council chamber? Regent in Arthur's absence, with all Arthur's power?" He paused. "Bring Bedwyr down? What should I say, gentlemen? That I reject the notion utterly?" There was laughter and the drumming of cups on the table, and shouts of "Mordred for regent!" "Well, why not? Who else?" "Valerius? No, too old." "Well, Drustan then? Or Gawain?" And then in a kind of ragged unanimity: "Mordred for regent! Who else? One of us! Mordred!"
Then the woman came in, and the shouting died, and the talk veered away to the harmless subject of tomorrow's hunt.
When they had gone, and the girl was clearing away the debris of scattered food and spilled wine, Mordred went out into the air.
In spite of himself, the talk and the final accolade had shaken him. Bedwyr gone? Himself the undisputed right hand of the King, and, in the King's absence, unquestioned regent? Once he were there, and once proved as fighter and administrator, what was more likely than that Arthur would also make him his heir? He was still not that: The King's heir was still Constantine of Cornwall, son of that Duke Cador whom Arthur, in default of a legitimate prince, had declared heir to the kingdoms. But that was before he knew that a son of his body would be—was already—begotten. Legitimate? What did that matter, when Arthur himself had been begotten in adultery?