Peter, who had seen this happen before, and who liked Alexander, said quickly: “She’s well enough, sir; nothing for you to worry over! Since this morning there have been affairs to attend to, and she confers with her council tonight. It seems they may sit late, so she asked me to beg for your understanding.”
“I see. Of course. The news the count brought was so bad?” He was thinking, it could not have been the brother’s death; she showed no sign of grief at that; she did not even speak of it.
“I don’t know, sir. I mean, I don’t know what it would mean to the queen, though one could see she was mightily put out by it. But it was bad for my lady – my own lady, that is, Lady Luned. She knew the count and his brother well, from the old days. One of her maids told me she had been weeping.”
“I see,” said Alexander again, remembering Luned’s silence and reddened eyes. He wished he had known sooner, so that he might have spoken some sort of comfort to her. “Well, my thanks, Peter. Tell your lady that I am sorry for her friend’s death. I’ll speak with her myself in the morning, if she will receive me. Now leave me, will you please? I’ll see myself to bed. Good night.”
Afterwards he was never quite sure what combination of injured pride and jealousy and sheer frustrated curiosity drove him to do what he did that night.
After Peter left him he waited, seated in the window embrasure, watching the stars prick out into the night sky, and listening to the sounds in the castle till they dwindled and at last died into the peace of sleep. Then, not troubling to arm himself, and still in the clothes he had worn at dinner, he let himself softly out of the chamber.
Cressets, set in iron brackets on the walls, gave light enough to show his way. He hesitated at the door that opened on the courtyard. There was still movement out there. Guards – the King’s men and the castle’s own – were set at night, and other sounds coming from the direction of the stables suggested that some groom was wakeful with a sick horse, or maybe with a mare due for foaling. But there was a door which led through into the central part of the castle, avoiding the open court. If it was left unlocked at night …?
It was. He went that way, walking softly. Past the open door of the great hall, where some of the servants were sleeping; snores and the rustling of straw, but no one roused. Then quickly up the great stairway, and there ahead of him was the door that led to the queen’s private rooms – the royal rooms that he had come to regard as his own.
He halted there, disconcerted. There were guards; King’s men, with the Dragon blazon. He should have expected it, of course, though the guard must have been set each night after he and the queen had gone to bed. He hesitated, feeling suddenly foolish, but the guards showed neither surprise nor (what he had feared) amused complicity. The man nearest him drew back his spear as if expecting the prince to knock or enter, but Alexander, after another brief moment of hesitation, shook his head and turned quickly to the right, going swiftly, still soft-footed and now with quickened pulses, along the corridor towards the east tower.
He did not see the look – without surprise and certainly without amusement – that passed between the two guards, as one of them left his post to follow him.
The staircase up into the east tower was a spiral of stone, scantily lit by a single torch thrust into a bracket near the foot of the steps. Through the slit windows the night wind blew, soft with summer. An owl called. Alexander went silently up the steps. Somewhere ahead of him, muffled by door or wall, he could hear voices; a single voice, and then, from time to time, a chorus as men spoke together, or vied with one another to be heard. The sounds came from not far above him. He paused on a small triangular landing in a curve of the stairway, and listened. It was not possible to make out any words, and it seemed as if the speakers were being careful not to raise their voices. There was a pause of quiet, and through it could be heard a single voice that was, unmistakably, the queen’s. Then a man speaking angrily, and others joining in, a chorus that sounded impatient, even quarrelsome. He trod swiftly up the last curve of the stairway.
There was another landing, wide this time, with a rug laid over the stone floor, and a stool against the wall to one side of a door. It was a strong door, studded with iron, and fast shut, and beside it was another guard.
Not a King’s guard this time. A boy only, seated on the stool with his back against the wall. He looked half asleep, but as Alexander appeared round the curve of the stairs he jerked to wakefulness and jumped to his feet. The prince recognised him. It was the page Gregory, who had first told him about the “councils”, and that the queen’s servants “kept the door”, and refused entry to any but the privileged.
Well, that had been a long time ago, and now everyone in the castle, not least Morgan’s own page, must know him to be among the privileged. He gave the boy a smiling nod, and spoke in an undertone.
“Your mistress holds council here tonight, I think, Gregory? Will you open the door, or, if you prefer it, go in and announce me?”
The boy did not move, standing with his back to the door. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Alexander let his irritation show. “Can’t even go in and ask, you mean? Surely, after all this time –”
“Forgive me, sir, but we have our orders. No one to go in, no one except the council. I did tell you before, sir. I dare not.”
“Well, but that was ‘before’. You must surely know that I am in the queen’s confidence now!”
“But not of the council, sir. Not of her own people.”
“Her own people? What people?”
“That I can’t tell you, sir, but those who are always there. That came with her from Caer Eidyn and will go with her to Castell Aur when the time comes.”
“I will go with her to Castell Aur,” said Alexander, who, until the exasperation of the moment, had never even considered it. Had never in fact considered the future at all, nothing beyond the delights of the present. If questioned, he would no doubt have admitted knowing that the affair with the lovely queen could not last for ever, that some day he must take horse and ride away – certainly not to the alleged confinements of Castell Aur – but he might ride, as she had hinted, in her service, before ordinary life resumed and he went on with his interrupted journey to Camelot …
He said sharply: “She said only this morning that I could be of service to her. If that is not being in her councils –”
“I am sorry.” The boy was beginning to look frightened. He was backed right up against the door, with the tall young prince looming over him, but he still kept his voice almost to a whisper, and this fact helped to bring it home to Alexander that Morgan’s servants could not easily be pushed into disobeying her. “I am sorry.” The boy repeated it breathlessly. “I cannot, lord, indeed I cannot! She said nothing about you to me and the others, and she – my lord, I dare not disobey! Perhaps – perhaps when you see her tomorrow you will ask her yourself?”
Alexander stood back. “I will do that. Calm yourself, I’m not angry. You’re only doing your duty. The queen must have forgotten to give you instructions. I’ll talk with her tomorrow. Good night.”
And, saving what dignity he could, he smiled at the boy, and made his way back to his lonely room, not much the wiser for the expedition, but soothed in one respect: the tale of urgent talks was true enough, not just a pretext to banish him from their bed. And she was certainly not alone with Ferlas.
Just as certainly, he would see her on the morrow, and find out what she had meant when she hinted at some service he could render her, and at the same time he would ask – insist on – what was apparently more important to her even than her lover: to be admitted to her court and councils.
He threw his clothes off, drank down the cordial Peter had left for him and then did what Morgan had intended him to do some hours ago, sank into a dreamless sleep.
The King’s guard, back at the royal bedchamber door, was whispering to his fellow.
“No. Not one
of them. Young Gregory wouldn’t let him in. It’s my guess he has no idea.”
“As we thought. A damned shame, really.”
“He’ll get over it, and be the wiser for it.” A sly grin, that would have annoyed Alexander and amused Morgan. “And you can’t deny she’s a tasty dish.”
“As long as he doesn’t get in too deep.” This was the older man. “What is he? Sixteen? Seventeen? He’s my son’s age, maybe less.”
“He won’t do that. Oh, he can’t see past bedtime yet, but she knows better than try to use him for any party stuff. You mark my words.”
“I believe you. But we’ll watch, just the same.”
“Hush. I think she’s coming. Alone, too, would you believe it?”
“Well, he was played out. He could hardly stand when he got here, and they’ve been talking for three hours since dinner. We’ll see him here with her tomorrow, I’ve no doubt.”
This time they were not speaking of Alexander.
27
“The Queen of the Isles?” exclaimed Alexander.
“Well, she calls herself that.” In a less exalted personage than a queen, Morgan’s tone might have been called spiteful. “Some petty king she married, and lucky to get him, seeing that she’d been Merlin’s mistress for the gods know how many years, and he old enough to be her grandfather!”
They were sitting together in Queen Morgan’s chamber – the bower of bliss. Count Ferlas, having rested for two days at the castle, had gone back to his home, taking the sad news of his brother’s death to their mother, and since then the queen had been at some pains to soothe her young lover’s wounded feelings, and to show him that nothing was changed between them. It had crossed Alexander’s mind that, while Ferlas had remained in the castle, the interviews between the count and Queen Morgan were rather prolonged even for what they might have had to discuss. But (though he would not admit it even to himself) the respite from dancing attendance, and from ever more demanding love-making, had been rather welcome than otherwise.
For all that, when her summons came he answered it with alacrity, to find her alone in the royal apartments, sitting by the window that looked south over the river-valley. He was given her hand to kiss, no more, and rose from his knee to see a look of trouble shadowing the beautiful face.
No need to ask what irked her; she gestured him abruptly to a chair across from hers, and began to talk.
Count Ferlas and his brother, she told him, had been among the knights who had attended her even before she was banished to Caer Eidyn, and had stayed in her service through her confinement there and at Castell Aur. Though (this with a prettily rueful glance at Alexander) it could not truthfully be said that her imprisonment at her brother Arthur’s hands was unduly harsh, it was still imprisonment, and her loyal knights felt, had always felt, that it was unjust. So they had banded together to offer what help they could in persuading Arthur to release her. And they knew – everyone knew – that the biggest impediment in the way of this was the King’s adviser, Merlin’s successor, Nimuë, wife of King Pelleas of the Isles.
It was Nimuë of whom they spoke now. Alexander had of course heard of her, the young protégée and disciple of the great Merlin, who had been placed as a girl among the ladies of the Lake shrine at Avalon, but who had left them to live with Merlin and learn all his lore.
“As once,” said Queen Morgan, “he would have taught me, had he not been afraid that my power might outstrip his, so he persuaded my brother Arthur to pack me off north to marry King Urbgen of Rheged. It suited both kings to use me to tie their kingdoms to one another, so I was locked away in Urbgen’s castle at Luguvallium, with an old man whose two sons were older than I, and hated me.”
So the queen recounted her version of things past, where such well-known facts as must have come to Alexander’s ears were carefully twisted to adorn her story. The truth was that, on her way to a splendid marriage, escorted by Merlin as Arthur’s deputy, Morgan had tried to cajole the enchanter into teaching her some of his art. The cold set-down he gave her had made her his enemy, an enmity passed on to Nimuë his successor. Even the recent murder of her half-sister Morgause was somehow laid to Merlin’s door, though Merlin was no longer at court, and Morgause’s own son had been the murderer. But was it not known that Mordred, Arthur’s son by Morgause, had stood by, on who knew what instructions from the King’s adviser?
So Morgan, changing her tack to suit her lover’s tiresome loyalty to the High King. Carefully watching him under down-dropped lids, she proceeded to drive the point home. Knowing all this, who could tell what might come to another queen, herself, imprisoned like Morgause on some false charge of treachery, but, unlike Morgause, with no sons or kin to protect her, other than the royal brother who listened only to Nimuë’s jealous advice – advice meant to keep Morgan from her brother’s side, where she might have been able to bring to his service a power even greater than Nimuë’s?
Yes – at Alexander’s somewhat startled look she nodded – it might have been so. There was a way, one way only, for the helpless queen to assert herself against Nimuë’s magic and be reinstated at Arthur’s side. There was a talisman which, could she but lay hands on it, would give her this power. It was the quest for this talisman that Ferlas and his brother had undertaken for her. They had failed, as had another of her knights who had gone before them on the same quest.
So now how could she ask another man, however brave and gallant, to undertake so perilous a quest? Rather would she spend the rest of her days in this helpless isolation, to end, perhaps, even as Morgause had ended, by murder in the dark …
Whatever magic Queen Morgan undoubtedly possessed, there was one art that Merlin could not have taught her – and Alexander was not to know that most women could – the art that brought tears to the lovely eyes, a sob into the light pretty voice, and her lover back to her feet, his vague doubts forgotten, vowing by every god in the calendar that whatever she wished him to do for her, he would do, though it meant death. He was eager, burning, and very young. This was the adventure that, so long ago it seemed, he had set out from Craig Arian to seek. This was the stuff of poetry, of beauty and romance. A quest, on behalf of a queen, and so lovely and loving a queen.
Morgan, accepting his vows, his kisses, and a kerchief of fine linen to dry her tears, settled back in her chair to tell him about the quest so dear to her, a quest already attempted twice, and twice ending in failure and death.
It was the quest for the Grail.
Some of the story she began to tell him now he already knew. The secret love of King Uther and Ygraine, Duchess of Cornwall, that had resulted in Arthur’s birth, had already passed into legend, along with the tale of Arthur’s hidden childhood, and his sudden appearance at the dying Uther’s side in battle. The subsequent scene of mystery and wonder, when, led to it by Merlin the enchanter, the young king had raised the magical sword Caliburn from the stone, to be acclaimed rightful king of all Britain, was told in song and story by every fireside.
What was not generally known, being cast into shade by the dazzling events surrounding the young King’s accession, was how the sword had come originally into Merlin’s keeping. Morgan knew the story, having heard it from her sister Morgause, who in her turn had had it from spies set long ago to watch all the doings of the royal household.
The sword Caliburn had once belonged to the Emperor Maximus, whom the British had called Macsen during his brief reign in their country. It had been made for him by a British smith – legend said Weland himself – at a forge in the Welsh mountains, and was possessed of magic powers. It could belong only to the king, rightwise born, of Britain.
When Macsen died abroad, some of his faithful troops, determined that the sword should not fall into alien hands, carried it back to Britain, and buried it, along with other treasures, below the altar of the temple of Mithras at Segontium, Macsen’s last great stronghold on the coast of Wales. There, by his magic art, Merlin had found it, and, because he was Macsen’s
kin, had taken the sword as of right, to hide it and keep it for Arthur’s coming.
“You know about that?” asked Morgan. Alexander nodded, and she went on: “I was too young to be there. I was with my mother Queen Ygraine in Cornwall, preparing for my marriage, but Morgause my half-sister was in the north with our father King Uther, and –” She broke off. “But never mind that. What she did then, she paid for.”
She was silent for a moment, and for once her face was not beautiful at all. Alexander did not notice. For the first time apprehension mingled with the former excitement. He was recalling the other tale, told sometimes in whispers, about the true reason for Queen Morgan’s disgrace and imprisonment, which went some way beyond the betrayal of her marriage-bed. It was said that she had persuaded her lover Accolon to steal the King’s sword Caliburn, substituting a copy of it to allay Arthur’s suspicions. What the pair had planned then could only be guessed at, since Arthur had fought and killed Accolon, and thereafter joined with King Urbgen to see that Morgan could wreak no more mischief.
She had, of course, maintained her innocence: that she only wanted the sword of power to give to her husband Urbgen, and that Accolon had persuaded her into the business, but no one believed it, and Alexander, having himself experienced Morgan’s ways with a young lover, doubted if Accolon had had any power over her at all.
He said, trying to hide the hesitation in his voice: “You cannot still want the sword?”
Morgan, back in the present, saw in one swift glance that her toils of magic needed to be re-woven. She laughed, and rose to pour wine for them both, then seated herself on the cushions of the wide window-seat and gestured him to sit beside her.
“No, no. Did I not say it was the grail?”
“Yes. But I didn’t understand. Grail? That is a cup, I think? What grail?”
“Don’t you remember what I said, that when Merlin found Macsen’s sword of power, it was with other treasures in the Mithraeum at Segontium?”