I stooped and lifted the Queen's messenger, and heaved his unconscious body across my waiting horse.
4
Ralf did not regain his senses during the journey up to the cave, and only after I had washed and bound his wounds and put him into bed did he open his eyes. He stared at me for a few moments, but without recognition.
“Don't you know me?” I said. “Merlinus Ambrosius. You brought your message safely enough. See.” I held up the wallet, still sealed. But his eyes, cloudy and unfocused, slid past it, and he turned his head against the pillow, wincing as he felt the pain from the bruising on the back of his neck. “Very well,” I told him, “sleep now. You're in safe hands.”
I waited beside him till he drifted back into sleep, then took the wallet and its contents out to my seat in the sunlight. The seal was, as I had expected, the Queen's, and the superscription was mine. I broke the seal and read the letter.
It was not from the Queen herself, but from Marcia, Ralf's grandmother and the Queen's closest confidante. The letter was brief enough, but held all I wanted to know. The Queen was indeed pregnant, and the child would be born in December. The Queen herself — said Marcia — seemed happy to be bearing the King's child, but, where she spoke of me at all, spoke with bitterness, throwing on me the responsibility for her husband Gorlois' death. “She says little, but it is my belief that she mourns in secret, and that even in her great love for the King there will always be the shadow of guilt. Pray God her feeling for the child may not be tainted with it. As for the King, it is seen that he is angry, though he is as ever kind and loving to my lady, and there is no man who doubts but that the child is his. Alas, I could find it in me to fear for the child at the King's hands, if it were not unthinkable that he should so grieve the Queen. Wherefore, Prince Merlin, I beg by this letter to commend to you as your servant my grandson Ralf. For him, too, I fear at the King's hands; and I believe that, if you will take him, service abroad with a true prince is better than here with a King who counts his service as betrayal. There is no safety for him in Cornwall. So pray you, lord, let Ralf serve you now, and after you, the child. For I think I understand what you were speaking of when you said to my lady, 'I have seen a bright fire burning, and in it a crown, and a sword standing in an altar like a cross.' ”
Ralf slept until dusk. I had lit the fire and made broth, and when I took it to the back of the cave where he lay I saw his eyes open, watching me. There was recognition in them now, and a wariness that I could not quite understand.
“How do you feel now?”
“Well enough, my lord. I — this is your cave? How did I come here? How did you find me?”
“I had gone up to the hill above here, and from there I saw you being attacked. The men were frightened off, and ran away, leaving you. I went down to get you, and carried you up here on my horse. So you recognize me now, do you?”
“You've let your beard grow, but I'd have known you, my lord. Did I speak to you before? I don't remember anything. I think they hit me on the head.”
“They did. How is it now?”
“A headache. But not bad. It's my side” — wincing — “that hurts most.”
“One of the horses struck you. But there's no real damage done; you'll be well enough in a few days. Do you know who they were?”
“No.” He knitted his brows, thinking, but I could see the effort hurt him, so I stopped him.
“Well, we can talk later. Eat now.”
“My lord, the message — ”
“I have it safely. Later.”
When I went back to him he had finished the broth and bread, and looked more like himself. He would not take more food, but I made him drink a little wine, and watched the colour come back into his face. Then I drew up a chair, and sat down beside the bed.
“Better?”
“Yes.” He spoke without looking at me. He looked down at his hands, nervously plucking at the covers in front of him. He swallowed. “I — I haven't thanked you yet, my lord.”
“For what? Picking you up and bringing you here? It was the only way to get your news.”
He glanced up at that, and for a startled second I realized that he thought it was no more than the truth. I saw then what there was in that look he had given me; he was afraid of me. I thought back to that night in Tintagel, the gay youth who had dealt so bravely for the King, and so truly with me. But for the moment I let it go. I said:
“You brought me the news I wanted. I've read your grandmother's letter. You know what she tells me in it about the Queen?”
“Yes.”
“And about yourself?”
“Yes.” He shut his mouth on the syllable, and looked away, sullen, like someone unfairly trapped and held for questioning, who is determined not to answer. It seemed that, whatever Marcia's motives for sending him to me, he himself was far from willing to offer me service. From which I guessed that she had told him nothing about her hopes for the future.
“All right, we'll leave that for the moment. But it seems that somebody wants to harm you, whoever it may be. If those men this morning weren't just roadside cutthroats, it would help to know who they were, and who paid them. Have you no idea who they might have been?”
“No,” still mumbling.
“It's of some interest to me,” I said mildly. “They might conceivably want to kill me, too.”
That startled him out of his resentment. “Why?”
“If you were attacked out of revenge for the part you played at Tintagel, then presumably they will attack me as well. If you were attacked for the message you carried to me, I want to know why. If they were plain thieves, which seems the most likely, then they may still be hereabouts, and I must get a message to the troopers down at the barracks.”
“Oh. Yes, I see.” He looked disconcerted and slightly ashamed. “But it's true, my lord; I don't know who they were. I — it was of interest to me, too. I've been trying to think, all this time, but I've no idea. There's no clue that I can remember. They didn't wear badges; at least I don't think so...” His brows drew together, painfully. “I'd have noticed badges, surely, if they'd had them?”
“How were they dressed?”
“I — I hardly noticed. Leather tunics, I think, and chain-mail caps. No shields, but swords and daggers.”
“And they were well mounted. I saw that. Did you hear their speech?”
“Not that I remember. They hardly spoke, a shout or two, that was all. British speech, but I couldn't tell where from. I'm not good at accents.”
“There was nothing you can think of that might have marked them for King's men?”
This was probing too near the wound. He went scarlet, but said levelly enough: “Nothing. But is it likely?”
“I wouldn't have thought so,” I said. “But kings are queer cattle, and queerest of all when they have bad consciences. Well, then, Cornishmen?”
The flush had ebbed, leaving him if possible more sickly pale than before. His eyes were sullen and unhappy. This was the wound itself; this was a thought he had lived with. “Duke's men, you mean?”
“They told me before I left Dimilioc that the King was to confirm young Cador as Duke of Cornwall. That's one man, Ralf, who will have no love for you. He won't stop to consider that you were the Duchess's man, and were serving her as you were bidden. He is full of hatred, and it might extend to vengeance. One could hardly blame him if it did.”