He glared. 'I am a noble!'
'I take you at your word.' Indeed, we had only his word for any of it.
'Watch your tongue, serving boy! I am Arthur's man now, I could have you dismissed.'
He boasted to no avail, I did not fear him. 'You are the Pendragon's fosterling,' I corrected him coolly.
'Knowing this, you think to humble me – is that it?'
'I think only to obey my lord in completing the task he has given me.'
'You are instructed to taunt me and humiliate me.' He sneered suspiciously.
'I am instructed to find you a place to sleep,' I replied. 'If this humiliates you, then perhaps you have chosen the wrong house to honour with your presence.'
He was so conceited he did not even heed my scorn. 'I wantyour bed,' he said slyly.
'My bed, but – '
'There!' His laugh was short and sharp as a weasel's bark. 'I will have your bed and you will sleep in the stable.' His eyes glittered as if he had made a triumph.
'If that is what you wish – ' I began.
'It is.'
'Then so be it.' I walked away, leaving the young tyrant gloating and chortling to himself over his shrewdness.
Tyrant, yes. Breath-stealing, his audacity. I could not believe his impudence – nor how quickly he had insinuated himself into Arthur's intimacy. Of vanity he had no lack.
I did not see him again until after that night's feasting, when he came to me demanding to be shown to his chamber – he assumed I commanded such accommodation. The two Picti noblemen were with him. 'But this, my lord Medraut, is my chamber,' I told him, spreading my hands to the hall, now filled with smoke and the loud voices of those still making merry within. 'And there is my bed.' I pointed to one ash-dusted corner of the great hearth.
Two warriors were already wrapped in their cloaks and happily snoring in slumber. 'Look you,' I said, 'your companions are already abed. Best not to wake them when you tumble in.'
Medraut's face went rigid with fury. 'Liar!'
'It is the truth,' I replied flatly. 'My own bed was given over to another days ago. I have been sleeping in the hall since then.'
It was a fact. My sleeping-place had been occupied by a lord since the nobles began arriving for the Christ Mass. I had been sleeping in the hall on one of the benches, or wrapped in my cloak in a corner.
I do not know how much of this the two Pied with him understood, but one of them smiled and laughed and clapped Medraut on the back. 'Come, let us sleep in our cups!' he cried, and the Picti lost interest and wandered off.
'If you require nothing further, I am going to the stable.' I said when they had gone.
'You deceived me, slave!' He was livid.
'You invited the deception,' I snapped. 'If you thought me a slave, why assume I had better quarters than the stable?' He scowled but he could not answer.
I left him standing there and went out into the cold winter's night and made my way across the yard to the stable. The sky was clear, the moon well up and bright. Upon reaching the door I turned suddenly and thought I saw someone sliding along the palace wall across the yard. But it was late and my eyes were tired from the smoke and lack of sleep.
SIX
When spring came, the Emrys and I made another journey to Avallon in the western sea. This time we were accompanied by the queen and several of her women. The church and monastery being built there were close to Gwenhwyvar's heart, and she wanted to see the work for herself.
We sailed from the king's harbour one bright morning, with a fresh northwesterly wind filling the sails and sending us smartly over the white-crested waves. The queen and the Emrys spent the entire voyage head-to-head in earnest discussion. I do not know what they talked about, but at the end of it Gwenhwyvar embraced the Emrys and rested her head on his shoulder for a long moment, then kissed him on the cheek.
It appeared to me that something had been settled between them. Or perhaps they had become reconciled to one another in some way. Nothing was ever told me about this, so I cannot say. But I noticed that affairs between the Pendragon's queen and his Wise Counsellor were more warmhearted from that time on.
The rest of the journey passed with neither event nor incident, and we arrived at Avallon as the western sky faded from lapis blue to greenish gold. A party of monks came down to the water to greet us. They brought horses with them and sped us on our way. Still, it was well-nigh dark by the time we reached the Fisher King's abode.
We were expected and ardently hailed. The first boats to outer islands in spring carry with them the reminder that the world has not forgotten the island dwellers, and are greeted all the more zealously for that.
Once again I was awed by King Avallach's towering presence, and even more so by the beauty of his daughter Charis.
To behold Queen Gwenhwyvar and the Lady of the Lake together was to peer too long into the sun's brilliant dazzle, to feel the heart lurch in the breast for yearning, to have the words stolen from the tongue before the lips could speak them.
Chads and Gwenhwyvar embraced one another upon meeting and continued to cling together for some time after, as they spoke of other meetings and partings. Clearly, they were friends of the heart.
That night, harp-song echoed in the Fisher King's hall as the Exalted Emrys played and sang the songs of an elder time. These were songs I had never heard, whose melodies were older than anyone now alive, describing events that had taken place so long ago that men did not now remember them, save in song only. I listened and longed for some small portion of the gift that Myrddin Emrys possessed in such full measure.
Jesu love me, it seemed that time stood still in the Fisher King's hall when the Emrys sang. As in Bran the Blessed's court when Rhiannon's birds made song and eighty years became as a day, the ceaseless flow of time ebbed away to nothing and we all stood together in a single everlasting moment.
And hi that eternal instant, all grief, all care, all pain and falsehood was extinguished, doused like shadows in the sun. Then were we each shown to be fairer and more noble than ever we were, more keen and quick, more alive than life itself.
These moments are rare enough, but they do exist. Happy is the man who knows at least one such time in his life, for he has tasted of Heaven.
I slept with the haunting harp-sound still lingering in my ears, and woke to find myself alone in the palace and the morning far spent. I rose and walked across the yard to the embankment, mounted the steps and walked along the walltop to see what I could see.
A little distance away to the south the white stone walls of the monastery shone in the sun. It came to me that there could be no finer thing than to live within that holy precinct and devote the whole of my life to the pursuit of the Most Holy God and his Saviour Son. I decided to go there and see for myself what kind of life was to be found.
In this I was disappointed, for although the walls stood, little else of the monastery had been completed. Heaps of stone lay scattered in the broad yard alongside stacks of cut timber. The foundations of several buildings had been laid and construction had resumed with the season. Everywhere men were at work, cutting and shaping and digging. The brothers laboured zealously, so it seemed, but there was still much to be done.
I watched for a while, little noticed by anyone there, before turning back to make my way across the soft green grass to the palace, the sea wind flinging my cloak away from my shoulders. Midway between the unfinished monastery and the Fisher King's palace I halted, unable to go on.
Strange to say – stranger still to feel – it suddenly seemed to me that this island became my life, the palace and the monastery the twin poles of my soul. And I was caught between them. I must, I thought, choose one or the other, and the choice must be soon.