Queen of the Summer Stars (57 page)

“Why, Arthur? Why by all that’s holy didn’t you tell me?”

He watched me mutely, head turning as I made my rounds, hands hanging limp at his sides. I wanted him to move, to stomp across the room, to begin pacing—anything to leave behind this sad, empty husk of the man I had loved. Desperate for both of us, I tried to goad him into action with words.

“Did you think it would stay a secret forever? Did you think that woman would just let time pass and no one would ever find out? Or maybe it didn’t matter to you that one day I would walk into the truth and have no defenses at all against her? Didn’t you think? Didn’t you care?”

“It was because I cared so much,” he said softly, a spark of life finding voice somewhere deep in the hollow cavity of him. “I’ve dreaded this moment from the first time we spoke of Morgause, back before you became my wife. At first I hoped it would never come, that you’d never hear of it. Then later, when I started to believe you might understand, I cared too much to risk bringing it to light.”

As though the words gave him a kind of impetus, he began to move. Slowly, woodenly, he advanced across the room toward the window. I sank down on the bed now that he was at least in motion.

“I came close to telling you several times, but the words always stuck in my throat. It’s a hideous story, and I wouldn’t blame you if you chose to have done with me entirely. But the very thought of your leaving…Oh, Gwen, I couldn’t face losing you. It is the most terrifying thing in the world, the idea that you might go away, forever.”

His voice had gotten very quiet, and he stared out across the roofs of Camelot, a vast gulf of misery opening around him. Finally he turned and looked at me.

“You have both the right and reason to leave, but I love you, and need you…and beg you not to go.”

They were words that I had ached to hear for years, words I had despaired he would ever apply to me. Yet instead of delight, of hope and fulfillment and all the joy they might have brought, I felt only pain and sorrow. And an overwhelming sadness.

Without willing it I was on my feet, coming to stand before him, reaching up to take his face in my hands. I tried to smooth away the aching lines that furrowed his forehead while tears coursed down his cheeks and fell on my own. Wrapping my arms around him, I held him close as he bent his head and sobbed.

I too began to weep, silently, mournfully. I could not promise Arthur that I would stay, but neither could I tell him I was leaving. All my resolve to go to Lancelot was melting away in the presence of my husband’s anguish, and I was back once more in the limbo of heartbreak, despairing at the loss that either choice would mean. So we stood there entwined, sharing separate pains that neither one of us knew what to do about.

There are times when tears are more healing than either words or actions, and this was one of them. When the first flood had passed, I settled on the window seat and Arthur sat on the floor, his head against my knee as he told me about Mordred. It was the same tale Bedivere had told, and as long as he felt the need to put it into words, I hoped they would help dispel some of the horror of it.

I ran my hands through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead as he talked, noting it was not as thick as it used to be. Age was taking its toll on all of us.

By the time Arthur finished, the day had begun to blossom. Down in the village the dairyman whistled as he went out to milk his cows in the pasture, while out by the barn a rooster crowed raucously. My flock of pigeons rose fluttering from their cote, disturbed by a commotion in the stable, and a cluster of exclamations drifted up to us. When Bedivere banged urgently on the door, I had a chilling premonition that something else had happened.

“It’s Gawain,” the lieutenant blurted out the moment Arthur let him in. “He’s downstairs with Morgause’s head in a satchel.”

“What?” we chorused, as alike in our response as a pair of twins.

Bedivere glanced at me. “The riders we passed on the Road yesterday were the Orkney brothers, all in a race to go visit their mother. But it seems she wasn’t expecting them, and they arrived to find her in bed with Lamorak. Rutting bitch had to pick the very warrior whose father had killed her husband,” Bedivere muttered, sinking down on the chair. “Gawain let out a scream of recognition while Agravain drew his sword and, either by accident or design, cut off his mother’s head.”

Arthur groaned aloud, and I turned to stare unflinchingly out the window. It was a gruesome but fitting end for a woman who so often used others’ passions against themselves.

“In the pandemonium that followed, Lamorak got clean away, scrambling out of the tent without even stopping for his breeches. When Agravain realized what he had done, his mind snapped. Sitting on the floor, he cradled the head in his arms, crooning and talking and singing to it as if to a baby. I gather Gaheris is now taking him north, hoping that his sanity will return once he’s back in the Orkneys. Gawain spent the night digging a grave and burying his mother’s body, and now asks leave to take her head back to the one place where she was happy—to Edinburgh where she and Lot spent the early days of their marriage. You have no objection, do you?”

“No, I suppose not,” Arthur said wearily, regret and relief mingled in his voice.

A pall was spreading over us, filling the room with a thick, gray silence. Agravain would bear the mark of matricide for the rest of his life—cruel, vicious Agravain, whose frustrations had no doubt been honed on the stone of Morgause’s own bitterness. Now even in death the woman would dominate her son’s life.

I gasped suddenly. “Mordred! What’s happened to him? Is he all right?”

The two men looked at me blankly, as though the name had no meaning.

“I think he’s with Gawain,” Bedivere replied slowly. “I suppose he’ll go back to the Orkneys. Unless”—the lieutenant turned to Arthur—“he stays at Court with you.”

“Ye Gods, what would I do with him?” the Pendragon cried.

The question balanced on the air for a long minute. Glimpses of the future floated before me with Arthur and Queenhood on one side, Lance and love on the other. And in the center, Mordred became the fulcrum.

The price, Igraine had said: the price of a love that left the children motherless…Was it not that which started Gorlois’s daughters’ vendetta against us? Now it threatened to be repeated again, in the next generation.

Not this time, I vowed silently. Not this time.

“We’ll take him in.”

My words were simple and firm, but the two men stared at me as though I had just uttered some dire prediction of doom instead of the world’s most basic law—first you take care of the children.

“He’s old enough to become a page—that’s why she brought him here. So we’ll take him in, and give him the kind of family he never had in the Orkneys. I’d rather his background not be known to begin with—you can decide later whether to recognize him as your son or not.”

Arthur shook his head slowly. “Are you sure you’re willing to do this?” he asked.

The dreams of life with Lance glimmered before me, poignant as the reflection of the new moon on a lake, then dispersed when the ripple of my voice broke the silence.

“Of course I am. You know I’ve always wanted a son.” My words were light and cheerful, skittering across the aching void of my own pain like a water beetle running over a pond. “And now we have one. I may not have raised him from birth, but a child is a child no matter who its parents are. And the boy is in need of reassurance and acceptance, particularly after what’s happened to his mother.”

So the men agreed, soberly and hesitantly, and I set about trying to rescue some sort of future from the chaos.

***

Nimue was less than sanguine about the matter, however, and she intercepted me on my way to find the boy, trying to dissuade me from my decision.

“If he isn’t a viper now, he’ll become one, Gwen,” she warned, determined to keep me from going into the commitment blind.

“He’s only a child,” I retorted. “He needs a family, a place of his own. Maybe he’s the son the wicca promised Arthur and I would raise.”

The doire scowled, sure it would bring disaster to us all. But for good or ill, I would not see it that way, and I ran down the steps to look for my stepson with a growing sense of excitement.

I found him in the kitchen, half-hidden in the shadows between the cooling cupboard and the oven, his back to the wall, his eyes downcast.

The people in the busy room ignored him, a fact that surprised me until I remembered that they didn’t know he was Arthur’s son. Then, too, they had no doubt heard some hint of his mother’s death and were staying as far away from him as possible.

“Mordred?” I asked, coming to stand in front of him, but not too close. There was no way to tell how upset he was, and I didn’t want to crowd the youngster.

He looked up at me without a word, neither denying nor confirming his identity. The level gaze, so like his father’s, held me at a distance.

“Do you know who I am?” I queried, wondering how to bridge his silence.

“You are the lady who took us in out of the storm; the High King’s wife, Your Highness.” His reply was courteous enough, but his defenses were clearly up.

“You may call me M’lady, if you wish,” I offered, moving a step or two closer. He was at that in-between age where going down on my knees would put me below him, but standing left me speaking across the top of his head.

“Here,” I said, reaching for his hand. “Come sit on the bench with me while we get acquainted.”

The brown eyes regarded me solemnly as I led him to the table. “Are you hungry?” I asked.

He shook his head, never wavering in his observation of my face.

“When did you eat last?” I seated myself on the bench and patted the spot next to me.

The shrug was noncommittal, as though food had no meaning, but he sat down nonetheless.

In the early morning sunlight I had a chance to study the boy more closely. He was thin and pale, with a childish, undeveloped body offset by the quick, foxy look of Morgan. But his gaze marked him unmistakably as Arthur’s offspring. It surprised me that others didn’t see it as plainly as I did.

“Is there anything special you would like?” I persisted.

“To know what has happened to my mother.”

The words were measured, carefully rationed out in a tone that contained neither hope nor fear, and I stared at him with consternation, having no idea what to tell him.

“What do you think happened?” I hedged, trying to find out how much he already knew.

“I had terrible dreams last night…nightmares, with my brothers arguing and yelling over a pool of…of something black. And then, this morning, Gawain brought me here. But he refuses to talk to me, to explain why Mama isn’t with us, or where she is now.” Suddenly the dark eyes were full of life and concern as he scanned my face. “Do you know where she is?”

I swallowed nervously, not wanting to lie to him but unwilling to drop the whole weight of the tragedy onto his frail shoulders at once.

“Gawain is taking your mother back to Edinburgh.” I picked my words carefully. “He’s left you in my care. She was bringing you to meet the High King, wasn’t she…now that you’re old enough to join the Court?”

Mordred nodded cautiously, perhaps as loath to pursue the truth as I was to bring it forth.

“I understand you have a birthday coming soon,” I went on, hoping to move the conversation to less difficult ground. “That you’ll turn eleven…old enough to become a page.”

There was a further nod of the head, and for a moment his mouth relaxed into an almost smile. Lynette was lifting hot bannocks from the hearthstones, and I caught her eye and motioned toward our table.

“What would you like to do, now that you’re at the High King’s Court?” If I could reach some hidden dream, it might help fill the void of his mother’s absence.

“Why, become a warrior, of course.” The lad answered without hesitation, in a tone that reminded me vividly of the young Gawain. “The House of King Lot is famous for our Champions, and I want to be the best of all.”

It seemed that Mordred assumed Lot was his father. Certainly this was not the time to bring up the question of his paternity, so I accepted his statement with a smile.

“And here, for the future Champion of the Round Table, is a fresh-baked bannock,” Lynette announced, curtsying impishly as she set the plate down before us. Her gamin face was full of mischief, and she looked barely more than a child herself. “Perhaps, just for the young lord, I can find some butter.”

Mordred’s eyes widened at that, but whether it was because of her acceptance of his status or the fact that butter so late in winter is a rare treat, I couldn’t tell.

“In honor of your birthday,” I interjected, gratefully following Lynette’s lead. “Maybe we can also find you a horse as well. You do ride, don’t you?”

“A little.”

He paused, eyeing me thoughtfully as I broke off a piece of bannock and began to eat. I was trying not to push him; strange youngsters are like strange dogs—if you stare them down they cower away, but if you appear unconcerned and give them a chance to sniff all about you, eventually they will make up their own minds about being friends. So I looked around the room, nodding to the servants and smiling at the very pregnant Frieda when she waddled in from the kennels. Only now and then did I bring my gaze back to Mordred.