She said harshly: "These he has."
"But not such as he should have," said Gabran, gently. "You know as well as I, woman, that there should be silver on his cup, and that his tools are not mattocks and fish hooks, but a sword and a spear."
To expect and dread a thing for a lifetime does not prepare one for the thing itself. It was as if he had set the very spear to her breast. She threw up her hands, hiding her face with her apron, and sank onto the stool beside the table.
"Mother, don't!" cried Mordred. "The queen — she told me — you must know what she told me!" Then, to Gabran, distressed: "I thought she knew. I thought she would understand."
"She does understand. Do you not, Sula?"
A nod. She had begun to rock herself, as if in grief, but she made no sound.
Mordred hesitated. Among the rough folk of the islands, affectionate gestures were rarely made. He went to her, but contented himself with a touch on the shoulder. "Mother, the queen told me the whole story. How you and my father took me from the sea-captain who had found me, and reared me for your own. She told me who I am… at least, who my real father is. So now she thinks I should go up to the palace with the other—King Lot's other sons, and the nobles, and train as a fighting man."
Still she said nothing. Gabran, watching by the door, never moved.
Mordred tried again. "Mother, you must have known I would be told some day. And now that I know… you mustn't be sorry. still can't be sorry, you must see that. It doesn't change anything here, this is still my home, and you and Father are still…" He swallowed. "You'll always be my folk, you will, believe me! Some day—"
"Aye, some day," she interrupted him, harshly. The apron came down. In the wavering light of the lamp her face was sickly pale, smeared with dirt from the apron. She did not look at Gabran, elegant in the doorway. Mordred watched her appealingly; there was love in his face, and distress, but there was also something she recognized, a high look of excitement, ambition, the iron-hard will to go his way. She had never set eyes on Arthur, High King of Britain, but looking at Mordred, she recognized his son.
She said, heavily: "Aye, some day. Some day you'll come back, grown and grand, and carrying gold to give the poor folk who nursed you. But now you try to tell me that nothing's changed. For all you say it makes no difference who you are—"
"I didn't say that! Of course it makes a difference! Who wouldn't be glad to know he was a king's son? Who wouldn't be glad to have the chance to bear arms, and maybe some day to travel abroad and see the mainland kingdoms, where things are happening that matter to the world? When I said nothing would change, I mean the way I feel — the way I feel about you and my father. But I can't help wanting to go! Please try to understand. I can't pretend, not all the way, that I'm sorry."
At the distress in his face and voice she softened suddenly. "Of course you can't, boy. You must forgive an old woman who's dreaded this moment for so long. Yes, you must go. But do you have to go now? Is yon fine gentleman waiting to take you back with him?"
"Yes. They said I had just to get my things and go straight back."
"Then get them. Your father won't be back till the dawn tide. You can come and see him as soon as they let you." A glimmer of something that was almost a smile. "Don't you worry, boy, I'll tell him what's happened."
"He knows all about it, too, doesn't he?"
"Of course he does. And he'll see that it had to come. He's made himself forget it, I think, though I've seen it coming this past year or so. Yes, in you, Mordred. Blood tells. Still, you've been a good son to us, for all there's been something in you fretting after a different way.… We took pay for you, you know that.… Where did you think we got the money for the good boat, and the foreign nets? I'd have nursed you for nothing, in place of the one I lost, and then you were as good as our own, and better. Aye, we'll miss you sorely. It's a hard trade for a man as he gets older, and you've pulled your weight on the rope, that you have."
Something was working in the boy's face. He burst out: "I won't go! I won't leave you. Mother! They can't make me!"
She looked sadly at him. "You will, lad. Now you've had a sight of it, and a taste of it, you will. So get your things. Yon gentleman's on the fidget to be gone."
Mordred glanced from her to Gabran. The latter nodded and said, not unkindly: "We should hurry. The gates will soon be shut."
The boy went across to his bedplace. This was a stone shelf, with a bag stuffed full of dried bracken for a mattress, and a blue blanket spread across. From a recess in the wall below the shelf he took his possessions. A sling, some fish hooks, a knife, his old working tunic. He had no shoes. He laid the fish hooks back on the bed, and the working tunic with them. He hesitated over the sling. He felt the smooth wood that fitted so readily into his hand, and fingered the bag of pebbles, rounded and glossy, gathered so carefully from the beach. Then these, too, he laid aside. Sula watched him, saying nothing. Between them the words hung, unspoken: the tools for his work; a sword and a spear…
He turned back. "I'm ready now." He was empty-handed, but for his knife.
If any of the three noticed the symbolism of the moment, nothing was said. Gabran reached for the door curtain. Before he could touch it it was pushed aside, as the goat shouldered her way into the room. Sula got up from her stool, and reached for the bowl to hold the milk. "You'd best go, then. Come back when they let you, and tell us what it's like up there at the palace."
Gabran held the curtain wide. Mordred went slowly towards the door. What was there to say? Thanks were not enough, and yet were more than enough. He said awkwardly: "Goodbye then, Mother," and went out. Gabran let the curtain fall behind them.
Outside, the tide was on the turn, and the wind had freshened, dispersing the smell of fish. The sweet air met him. It was like plunging into a different stream.
Gabran was untying the horse. In the growing darkness the knots were awkward, and he fumbled over them. Mordred hesitated, then ran back into the stink of the hut. Sula was milking the goat. She did not look up. He could see a track of moisture in the dirt on her cheek like the track of a snail. He stopped in the doorway, clutching the curtain, and said hoarsely and rapidly: "I'll come back whenever they let me, truly I will. I — I'll see you're all right, you and he. Some day… some day I promise I'll be somebody, and I'll look after you both."
She made no sign.
"Mother."
She did not look up. Her hands never stopped.
"I hope," said Mordred, "that I never do find out who my real mother is." He turned and ran out again into the dusk.
"Well?" asked Morgause.
It was well past dawn. She and Gabran were alone together in her bedchamber.
In the outer room her women slept, and in the chamber beyond that the five boys — Lot's four and her son by Arthur — had been asleep long since. But the queen and her lover were not abed. She sat beside a glowing bank of peat. She wore a long night robe of creamy white, and furred slippers made from the winter skin of the blue hare that runs on the High Island. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, glimmering in the peat fire's glow. In that soft light she looked little more than twenty years old, and very beautiful.
Though, as ever, she stirred his senses, the young man knew that this was not the moment to show it. Still fully dressed, his damp cloak over his arm, he kept his distance and answered her, subject to monarch:
"All is very well, madam. It's done, just as you wished it done."
"No trace of violence?"
"None. They were asleep — either that, or they had drunk too much of the wine you sent them."