The Storyteller and Other Tales Read online

  I understand Amhar’s meaning now — the Queen thought she was winning Mordred from me as well as from Arthur. Perhaps she was. Perhaps for her, the possibility of a double triumph was too much to resist.

  Mordred looked sometimes like a man trapped in a tormenting dream. I shut my eyes to it, telling myself there was nothing I could do, if Mordred chose to go so far in placating her. I prayed to the King’s God and to those of my father that no-one else should suspect. At least there were no more quarrels in the hall over keeping men home.

  It was as well, for that summer the Picts came. We rode north with the speed that had won Arthur his early victories, arriving unexpected, and thrust them back. That was Amhar’s first battle, and mine, though my work was with the wounded afterward.

  We returned to find a Saxon raiding party had ventured up the Thames, sacking an abbey and escaping unhindered.

  Mordred raised levies to watch the coast, and for a time all was quiet. He resumed his custom of sitting in my house in the evenings, which seemed to irritate the ever-present Amhar as much as his absence had done. He looked older, weary, as if some vital spirit had drained from him. Guenevere, I think, had tired of her conquest, and he was left with the guilt; Guenevere was not the sort to carry her own guilt.

  She had tired of rule as well, and we were left to make decisions for Britain’s continued defence without her interference. There was a handsome young harper at the King’s fort, come from Hibernia, from Munster. He made songs to the Queen’s glory before he went his wandering way again, richer for a gold arm-ring the Queen herself had worn.

  Another season of campaigning passed, and another, and another. The heathen raids grew more frequent. Our summers went by in rapid riding and battle, and the unceasing watch for the longships. Our land had been without its king for years, by that time, and still Arthur did not return from Hoel’s kingdom. Men began to doubt he ever would.

  Then word came that in what was almost the last battle of the war against the Visigothic heretics in Brittany, Bedwyr had been slain. His death shattered the King; I think it brought home to Arthur his own mortality as nothing else could have done, and the years of warring seemed suddenly bereft of meaning. He decided to make a pilgrimage, to go to Rome. Guenevere read his letter to Mordred and me. Amhar was there too, uninvited, and the newly-returned harper of Munster, sitting at the Queen’s feet.

  “Rome!” I said, when she had finished. “What need has he of penance and pilgrimage? Arthur’s wars were just wars. He fought for Christian Britain.”

  Mordred looked at me with a flash of his old boyish smile, so like his uncle’s. We did not discuss before Guenevere what faith the Ladies held, or to whom my father had prayed.

  “He fought for Britain’s safety, not his own glory,” I amended. “It’s not Rome condemns him, but his own sorrow for Bedwyr’s death. He must come home.”

  “There comes a time when every man must examine his own soul,” said Guenevere. “It’s not for us to stand between him and his Creator.”

  I thought her sanctimonious and smug, and looked away from Mordred, to catch the venomous look the Munsterman darted at him.

  He knew. She had told the infatuated singer something of Mordred and herself. And the man had been several years away singing his songs; they would spread, as songs did, and grow.

  Arthur must laugh at such songs, if ever they reached the pilgrim’s road to Rome.

  I wrote a letter to the King, and Mordred wrote. We told him of the Pictish invasion and Saxon raids, reminded him he carried Britain’s strongest arms away with him.

  We received no answer, and the tale was carried on the wind over the kingdoms, that Arthur the High King of Britain had laid aside his sword, that Arthur of Britain went afoot to Rome in a monk’s robe, that the heroes of his warband, those who survived, went with him carrying holy relics.

  This much is true, that Arthur set out for Rome, lingering at every shrine and every lord’s hall, and the men who had followed him to Brittany followed him south.

  So the Saxons massed, not mere raiders but armies, with a king, Childriche, to lead them. They saw the fat pastures of Britain undefended, open again for settlement. And they came.

  Maybe we could have taken some other way. Maybe we should have fought to the bitter end, lost all, and died heroes, if any remained to remember us and sing our songs. Maybe we were not the best to be defending Britain, in that time.

  Maybe. Fate and Fortune stood against us. The weight of history was too great, the press of shifting peoples too urgent; even the mighty legions had felt it as they fell back on Rome, leaving such as we behind. We did not have the swords to stand against the hosts of our enemies. Our strength was with Arthur on the road to Rome.

  Mordred was king in all but name; he held the kings and dukes together, and Guenevere, more a queen than I think she had ever been, stood at his side to remind them by whose authority the Prince of Lothian commanded. Amhar, too, Arthur’s son though not his heir, gave weight to Mordred’s command, as did I.

  Three great battles we fought against Childriche that summer; one we lost and in two we had the victory, and we held the Saxons back from the west.

  But that was all. We could do no more, and the eastern shore was lost to us again. We made a peace; we allowed Childriche the lands he held. It was that or lose the whole; they could send wave after wave against us, and we were few.

  Some cried that Mordred betrayed Arthur, ceding lands his uncle’s men had paid for in blood, not even a generation ago. I say that Arthur, however innocently, betrayed Mordred, charging him with the realm’s defence and taking from him the men who should have defended it.

  We heard no word from Rome.

  I dreamt of churned and bloody fields, burning villages, and heard a song of Mordred’s lust for his uncle’s queen. I dreamed myself Mordred’s wife, and Amhar’s, and could not choose between them. Guenevere made no secret of her love for the Harper of Munster, but out of bed she was a queen, and the lines that creased her face about the eyes and mouth became her better than her rose-petal beauty ever had.

  Mordred and Amhar patrolled the coast and the line we had set for the Saxons; the Queen and I ruled the fort and held the kings and dukes together in Mordred’s absence.

  Early one morning, as I stood idly watching my servant stirring our porridge, I saw in the flames three ships drawn up on shore, and the tide ebbing. They had come in on the flood, sent scouts stealthily ashore. Now horses plunged over the side, men rode over the shingle, swords glinting in the dawn. They crested the dunes, gathering speed, shouting. The ships were not longships; the Saxons did not fight on horseback. Their cry was Arthur, and Traitor to the King.

  I cried Mordred’s name to the flames. My servant spilled the porridge-pot and ran for the Queen, seeing death in my eyes.

  The shore patrol was mounted to meet the charge before any recognized its leader, and by then it was too late. Gawain was in no mind to talk. He cut down the first men to ride against him and made straight for Mordred his brother, battle-mad. The rage that had served Arthur so well betrayed his champion at the end; Gawain did not pause and would not listen. In preserving his own life Mordred left Gawain for dead, then broke his surviving men away. They rode for our stronghold while the attackers retreated to a nearby abbey, carrying their dying leader.

  I rode out to meet Mordred on the day they reached the fort. Amhar, pale and grim, nodded to me and led the men on by, leaving us alone.

  Mordred reached and touched my face, as if he did not quite believe in my presence.

  “Nimiane,” he said. “Nimiane. I heard you call, but there was no time. He wouldn’t wait to talk. Nimiane, I’ve killed my brother.”

  I held him while he wept.

  A council took place, loud and angry.

  “We’ll all be branded traitor for this treaty with
Childriche,” the young Duke of Cornwall shouted. “I said Mordred had no authority to make such a peace.”

  “You said no such thing in my hearing,” Amhar roared, and he sounded so like Arthur in a temper that the hall fell silent.

  “Gawain wasn’t here,” said Guenevere. “Arthur wasn’t here. You were, Constantine. You know what we faced.”

  “If we hadn’t made that peace, Childriche could have reached even to Cornwall,” I said. “Hold your temper, Constantine. This may yet be resolved.”

  “Resolved? With Gawain dead?”

  “Gawain isn’t dead,” I said.

  Guenevere’s look lightened. Mordred shook his head. We both knew his brother could not live, though he might linger even a week.

  “Even if he does die, there was no treason but in his perception. The King knows Gawain to be rash and reckless,” Guenevere said. “This is misunderstanding, nothing more. I’ll send a message to Arthur and set all straight.”

  “I don’t think he’ll take your word,” I said, with a look at the Harper of Munster hovering behind her, faithful hound. I did not bother to apologize for the accusation. Guenevere only bowed her head. Her hand found mine, so that we sat like sisters, with the world breaking around us. The treaty with Childriche was no treason, only grim necessity, given our circumstances. The other thing ....

  “Perhaps it is I who should go to Rome,” said Mordred. “Nimiane?”

  “I’ve always wanted to travel,” said Amhar, to no-one in particular, and for a moment I wanted both to laugh and cry, as Mordred gave him a bleak look that spoke nonetheless of returning life.

  “I’ll send messages to meet the King,” Mordred said. “Gawain’s return must mean Arthur’s.”

  It was far too late. Arthur should have come to us when he was needed — or not at all. We could at least have lived in the peace we had made, preserved against the creeping Saxon tide.

  I wrote a letter to the King. I said nothing of Guenevere’s infidelities — that was between the two of them, and I could no more betray Mordred than cut out my own heart. Besides, Guenevere deserved better of me. She had, perhaps, deserved better of Arthur. In the past few years she had finally come to carry her authority well. A pity she had never been allowed it in the early wars, when added maturity in his wife might have held the King’s heart, as beauty alone could not.

  I told Arthur of the raids, of the Saxon armies, of Childriche’s forces rolling over the east, a heathen wave. I reminded him of the numbers he had taken to Less Britain and thence to Rome, and of how we had had no word since Bedwyr’s death and the beginning of his pilgrimage. We could not know his will, and we sought to preserve something of what his sword had won. I made clear that it was by my advice the Queen and Mordred had acted, and that they had done so with the full support of the kings and dukes of Britain. If we had done wrong I begged his mercy.

  Mordred, I think, tried to assume all responsibility for the peace with Childriche, and swore he would set out for Rome himself, once the kingdom was returned to Arthur’s keeping.

  Guenevere wrote, but I do not know what she said.

  Our messenger found the King at Gawain’s deathbed. Arthur threw the parchments on the fire with the seals unbroken. Once Gawain was buried he came on.

  I rode to meet the King’s army myself, alone.

  “Lady Nimiane,” he greeted me. Not “cousin”.

  “My lord,” I said, and bowed, as I do not think I ever had before. “It’s good to see you back at last from Rome.”

  “I never reached Rome,” he said. “I turned for Britain when I heard my nephew had assumed the crown.”

  “That, my lord, was a lie.”

  “Was it? In Brittany we heard he had dishonoured the Queen my wife, and we laughed. In Massilia it was said he had taken heathen allies, and no-one believed it. Below Florentia a messenger found me, sent on by Hoel. He said Mordred had granted lands in Britain to the Saxon Childriche.”

  “My lord, you must know how little choice we had.”

  “Gawain is dead.”

  “Gawain attacked Mordred as he patrolled the shore against Saxon landings. We have a treaty with Childriche; we do not trust him.”

  “Gawain died at Mordred’s hand.”

  “No-one grieves for Gawain more than his brother. But my lord, you know Gawain. He attacked without warning and was beyond reach of all reason. And Mordred wishes for nothing other than that you return to govern your land again.”

  “What’s left of it.”

  “Had we not dealt with Childriche there would have been nothing for you to return to. Nothing! Did you expect us to hold a kingdom against a people so populous with your name alone? My lord, we have done nothing that was not done in faith with you. Meet with Mordred. Talk to him. You’ll see he doesn’t desire your crown, and has never desired it. Trust me as you trusted my father.”

  “Your father wouldn’t have betrayed me for love of an usurper.”

  “I betrayed no-one!” My hand shook on the reins, but my voice was steady. “My charge, as my father’s, was ever Britain, not the King’s person. Remember that before you call me traitor, who have been seven years gone from this land.”

  That shocked him almost as much as it shocked me. No-one had spoken so to Arthur since Merlin went.

  “My lord, only meet with Mordred. Please.” I bowed again and turned my horse for the fort.

  “We will meet with the traitor,” Cai called from Arthur’s side. “But we will not come unarmed, remembering what happened in Vortigern’s day.”

  Arthur said nothing at all, and I rode to the fort with the shadow on my heart growing darker, as though Fortune turned her face from us all alike, from Britain, as she had turned it from Rome.

  We sat by my fire all that night, Mordred and Amhar and I. Guenevere left us, for her harper or her prayers. Constantine of Cornwall left us, too, and took his household men with him.

  “Let them go,” Mordred said, when a man came from the gate with that news. “We do not go to war in the morning.”

  The fire was dark, shadowed with the shapes of men and ravens.

  “We should leave,” I said. “We three, and the Queen. We should slip away like foxes in the night, and leave Arthur to reclaim what he can.”

  “I’ve done no wrong,” Mordred said. “To Britain, I’ve done no wrong. But you and Amhar should go, put yourselves beyond reach of the King’s anger. Take Guenevere to some safety.”

  “I’m not the one he mistakes for his enemy,” the King’s son said. “Take Nimiane away, Mordred. You and she can see the Queen to some refuge.”

  “If you both stay, I stay,” I said. “Arthur is angry, not mad as Gawain was. In the morning we’ll talk. Perhaps we three will go into exile together.”

  It seemed to me reasonable that it should be so, if the King could not forgive what we had done. Arthur was never unreasonable, never unjust, once his brief tempers passed. But the night held the cries of dying men; I could not understand it, and was afraid, with no means to turn the gathering tide. A little before dawn I rose and left the men. I went to the King’s hall and woke Guenevere’s harper. We found the Queen in the chapel lying before the altar, with the tears dried on her face.

  “Take her away,” I told the Munsterman. “Now, before the daybreak.”

  Guenevere got slowly to her feet, and in the dim light of the altar lamps she seemed faded, old.

  “What of you, Nimiane?” was all she asked.

  “I stay until the end,” I said. “Whatever it may be.”

  “You don’t know.”

  I shook my head. “I cannot see. But I do not think it will end well.”

  “I’ll pray for us all,” she said, and kissed me, before walking ahead of the harper from the chapel. It was the last time I saw her, save once,
when I travelled to her abbey and found we had nothing left to say.

  Then I went back to my own house, where the fire, untended, had died. Mordred, Amhar, and I sat shoulder to shoulder on the bench by the door, watching the eastern horizon for the dawn. We held hands like children against the dark, taking what comfort and strength we could from the contact, skin on warm skin.

  The morning came, and we went to meet with Arthur.

  The songs still tell of it, one way and another. We met afoot. The King’s men watched, and ours. Arthur addressed us as one grieved by our errors, but he was willing to speak with us as he had not been the day before, willing to listen. He did not speak of treason and I had hope, though young Constantine was at his side, never meeting my eyes.

  Cai glowered. “We will be another generation undoing all this coward’s peace.”

  “We are the last of Britain,” I said then. “All you have left to hope for, Cai, are songs.”

  Arthur frowned us all to silence.

  “Where is my queen?” he asked.

  “Knowing the falsehoods that have blackened her name, I sent her to a place of safety,” I said. That was the only time I ever lied to my King. “I feared for her, since in foreign lands some have learnt to trust the idle gossip of singers over the tried fidelity of friends.”

  “Saxons till fields in the east; I don’t call that idle gossip. A Saxon calls himself king on British soil.”

  “What would you have had me do?” Mordred demanded. “Fight till the last of us were dead and the heathen poured inland? Would you rather have come home to find Childriche feasting in your hall and Guenevere serving in his bed? Look how few you left me with, to hold your land for seven years.” And he waved a mailed fist around at the household warriors and the kings who still stood by us, massed behind on the hill.

  Constantine shouted and drew his sword. I still do not know if it was deliberate provocation on his part, or honest error. Perhaps it was fear, the guilt of his own betrayal showing him treachery everywhere.