Sword of the Rightful King (4 page)

The ostler looked up at Gawaine, his plain face wreathed with smiles. He touched his hand to his forehead. “I will do so, young master, when he returns from deer stalking.” Then he had to sidestep quickly as Agravaine insinuated his horse between them.

“What did you give him? The horses are worth less than nothing. They are an insult. Small, badly conformed.” Agravaine's voice was pitched to carry.

“You are not used to riding long distances, Agravaine. Orkney is a tiny place compared to Britain. These ponies are perfect for getting us south quickly.” Gawaine pulled his horses head to the right. He neglected to mention the thieves.

Hearing the unmistakable sound of the whip slashing through the air, Gawaine turned back. He raised his arm to ward off the lash, knowing his sleeve was but little protection.

The whip came nowhere near him. Instead it flicked across the ostlers back, cutting open his wool tunic and laying the flesh bare. A thin red line of blood showed that the man had been scored, but not badly. Yet.

Gawaine leaped off his own horse, ran over to his brother, and hauled him to the ground. It was so sudden a rush, Agravaine was not ready for it, and besides he was weak from two days of seasickness, so he fell heavily.

“Go, man!” Gawaine shouted out to the ostler, who hastened away into the nearby inn, slamming the door behind him.

Agravaine rose heavily from the ground, but Gawaine was on his feet, sword drawn, and waiting.

“Get back on your horse,” he said, his voice a low grumble. “Do not try to attack me, brother. I am older and taller and bigger. I have not been throwing up the contents of my stomach for two days. And I have been practicing my sword strokes with the greatest master in Britain.”

Shrugging, Agravaine rose. “I was just upholding the family's honor, brother. The insult should be avenged. If you—the eldest of Lot's sons—will not do so, then it is left to me.”

“There was
no
insult,” Gawaine said. “Get on your horse and you will see.”

“My horse is useless.”

“Then take mine.” With little effort, Gawaine sprung up onto the saddle of Agravaines horse, turned its head to the right, and rode south toward Cadbury and Arthur's court, knowing that Agravaine had little choice but to follow.

5

T
HE MESSENGER
had sailed two full days before the Orkney princes. He had made a hard crossing and an equally hard landing, coming ashore in such an astonishing downpour that it had all but washed the paint off his small boat.

In a fortress not far from his landing place, he reported briefly what he had found out in the Orkneys to Lord Bedwyr. Then he had been immediately sent—with a pocket packed with hard journeycake and a leather bottle filled with the raw wine of the previous year—back to the road without either a bath or a change of clothes.

“Arthur must know what she is sending,” Bedwyr had told the man. “Let no one and nothing stop you. Not thieves, not those puny lords who hate Arthur and would stop any messages reaching him. Go. Go with Our Lords blessing.” He clapped the messenger on the back with a gusto that belied the fact that he was worried about the man getting through.

The messengers face was the color of Roman bronze from being outdoors most of his life. He had a hawk's nose with dark alert hawk eyes above it, glowering from under a leather cap covered with metal. His mustache was as taut and grey as bowstring, and his beard looked as if ash had been sprinkled in it. No one seeing that face or the ease with which he sat his saddle or pulled his long-bladed sword from its sheath would ever mistake him for easy prey.

Still, Bedwyr worried. His pudgy, homely countenance scrunched up with his dismay. He knew there were many brigands and many followers of the North Witch between his own well-guarded fortress and Arthur's Cadbury.

 

I
N FACT
, brigands did not worry the messenger on the long road. His enemies were wind and weather and the many days he had to spend in the saddle. Even a man with his natural strength wearied. A weary man is not a careful man. A careless man is a dead man. He worked extra hard to remain careful.

The messenger rode three separate horses down, the first two expiring within an hour of his unsaddling them in an ostlers stable, and the other having to be killed with a quick deep slice across the neck after it tripped and broke its right foreleg in the deep forest. That one had been an excellent horse and the messenger hated losing it, but death was the only honor he could pay it for its service. And his own carelessness.

After that he walked through the deep woods, a strong stride, but still days slower than any horses gait.

He slept cold and hungry, for even though it was late spring, there was not much in the way of a forest larder in the northern lands. But he made it at last to a farm at the edge of the woods, where he purchased a new horse that took him speedily on to the palace. Nowhere along the way did he say where he was riding—or why. Safety lay in anonymity. This the messenger knew from long experience.

Once in Cadbury, he produced his letter from Bedwyr, with the lord's crest foiled into the wax, and was shown at once to the king.

 

A
RTHUR WAS
shifting his weight uncomfortably on the high wooden throne, his white brachet hound asleep at his feet, when the messenger was brought into the Great Hall, a boat-shaped room that served many purposes.

Bowing to the young king, the hawk-faced messenger took off his helmet and glanced briefly but longingly at the peat fire burning in the central hearth. The smoke was making its way up through the louvre, the hole in the roof.

“Have you been traveling straight through?” Arthur asked, having known such days and nights himself. The hound stirred at his voice but did not waken, for she was getting old, and once asleep, nothing much woke her.

“Aye, my lord,” the man said.

“Were you assaulted anywhere along the way?”

“Nay, my lord.”

“Good. Then the peace holds.”

“For a careful man, sire.”

Arthur smiled. “Hows the back? The legs?”

“Fine, my king. Though I cannot say the same for all my horses. It took four.”

“Any of them living still?” asked Arthur, suddenly grim, for he loved the large-footed beasts and hated anyone's having to use them so hard, even when he understood the necessity.

“Only the last, my lord; as for the others, I am saddened and shamed.” It was plainly said and clearly from the heart. Arthur immediately took to the man.

“Give me your message quickly, then, and stand by the fire while I read it.” Arthur held out his hand for the letter the messenger held.

“The message is in my head, lord,” said the man. “Lord Bedwyr would not entrust it to a scribe. This letter is but my passage into your presence.”

Arthur stood and walked down the thrones two steps to the man. The movement made the brachet look up blearily. Then she settled down into sleep again.

“Let us stand at the fire together and there you shall tell me what it is that has sent you on such an unrelieved journey,” Arthur said. As he walked, one arm on the messengers elbow, he nodded to his stepbrother and seneschal, Kay, who knew that he was meant to bring them both a mug of hot cider without delay.

Kay was a thin, still boyish-looking young man, who tried to appear older by sporting a flowing mustache. The mustache was red, though the lanky hair on his head was blond. It created a pied effect that only made him look foolish, like a jester without wit or wisdom for the job.

He made a face when Arthur sent him out, hating to miss any part of the message. There was nothing he liked better than being in on secrets. But he knew he could not hesitate acting upon Arthur's commands, small or large. To hesitate was to lose the kings trust, and the kings trust was the thing Kay desired most of all.

As soon as Kay had cleared the doorway, Arthur spoke quietly to the tired man. “The sooner you have delivered what it is in your head, the sooner you can sleep. Your good horse will be cared for in my own stable.”

“The message is this, my lord—the North Witch is sending her four sons to your court, and they are not to be trusted. One is an assassin. So says my lord Bedwyr, who has sent many messengers riding the country on your behalf.”

“Four sons; not five?” Arthur let nothing show on his face.

“The young Medraut she keeps behind her skirts at home. He is too much in her thrall to be let go. And too young to be much good here. But watch the others, my lord Bedwyr says—”

“Which one is the assassin?”

“That, alas, Lord Bedwyr was unable to discover.”

“Ah.” Worry lines spread across Arthur's brow. “Then let us reason this out together.”

“Together?” Clearly the messenger was unused to great lords doing more than dismissing him once a message had been delivered.

Arthur smiled. “We know Gawaine well here in Cadbury. There is no meanness in him. He is a sound young man.” Suddenly Arthur broke into a barking laugh, and the messenger looked startled. “I call him ‘young,'” Arthur explained, “though he is but four years younger than I.”

“My lord...” The messenger hesitated. Then he plunged in. “Even Gawaine must be watched. They say where I live, ‘The de'ils bairns hae ay de'il's luck.'”

“And that means?”

“The devil's children have all the devil's luck, sire. He may seem sound, Prince Gawaine, and without guile, but he is still the North Witch's child, suckled at her breast on wizard's milk and gone back home at her every summoning.”

The smile disappeared from Arthur's face.

At that moment Kay returned with the cups and handed one to each of them.

“And they also say,” added the messenger, ‘“Wha sup wi' the de'il wants a lang-shaftit spune.'”

“I know that one,” said Kay, a bit too eagerly. “Who sups with the devil needs a long-shafted spoon.” He grinned in what he thought was a companionable way and stroked his mustache.

“Kay's last lady but one was a Scotti girl,” commented Arthur to the messenger. If he thought the comment would steady the man, he was wrong, for the messenger was now in full cry against the Orkneys, as only a Highlander could be, his original message all but forgotten. And as he wound himself up with his warning, he slipped easily back into his own dialect.

“Those islands are nae Scotland,” said the messenger. “And nae Britain, neither. They be Norse settled and Viking to the core. Odin be worshipped there, my lord, not the Christ. The de'il and all are alive across those waters.”

“So says Lord Bedwyr?” asked Arthur quietly.

“So says mysel',” the messenger said before gratefully taking a long swallow of the hot mulled drink.

 

W
HEN THE MAN
was gone to a bed far from the Great Hall, and all the servants were dismissed, Arthur explained the message to Kay. Arthur often kept his stepbrother out of state secrets. Kay had eager ears but not a closed mouth.

Kay's face turned red. He roared, “Does Bedwyr think we are stupid? Of course we know Morgause believes she has a better right to the throne than you.” His voice ended on a rising note.

The brachet looked up, startled out of dreams. Then, seeing the noise was only Kay, she put her head down again.

“Morgause
has
, you know,” Arthur said, “a straighter, truer line. I am nobody—fatherless, motherless, kinless—but for your father, who named me his foster child. I was put on the throne but did not inherit it.”

“That is not what Merlinnus believes,” Kay said. “Nor I. You are my brother in all but blood, Arthur. Besides, you were trained up to be the king.”

“
We
...” Arthur said slowly, “were trained up to it together.” He said this partly because he knew it was what Kay was really thinking, and by acknowledging that fact, he salved the pain of Kay's jealousy and held Kay even closer. And partly he said it because he truly believed the two of them were equal. “We were both taught to handle hawk and hound and horse. We both practiced daily at sword and spear, axe and sling. And we learned well what a hero has to know—if not a king.” Then he smiled a half smile, remembering. He had loved those lessons.

“You were the best,” Kay admitted. It was hard for him to say, but it had to be said. “Though I was better at letters. Still, you must be careful, Arthur. The North Witch has a long reach, a sharp knife, and four strong sons.”

“Five,” Arthur answered.

“The little one does not count,” Kay replied hotly. “Medraut. Not for ages and ages.”

“It is the ages I worry about most,” said Arthur in a calm voice. “My sword can take care of the rest.” He drank down the last of the cider, now cold but nonetheless delicious. Then he set the cup on the wooden mantel that stretched the length of the hearth. The peats were barely smoldering and what heat remained was as soft as summer.

“What should we do, then?” Kay asked. “Be extra careful?”

“I am careful with everyone,” Arthur said. “It is part of what High King is all about, being careful. I am careful because everyone—even you, my dear brother—would be king in my place.”

Kay had the grace to look embarrassed and once again blushed red. “Not I, Arthur,” he said, but they both knew it was a lie.

“
Everyone
wants the throne,” Arthur repeated and walked back up the steps to the high wooden seat. He sat down on it heavily. The brachet sat up, put her head in his lap, and he absentmindedly stroked her small head. “Everyone wants it but me.”

Kay did not hear the last comment as he picked up the cup and headed out of the room. Even if he had heard it, he would not have believed it. High King of all Britain was the most important position in the entire civilized world. He believed that with all his heart.