A small smile, that innocence would have thought innocent, hung on her pretty mouth. "If they only sipped it, Gabran, it was enough." She lifted the lovely eyes to his, saw nothing there but dazzled admiration, and added: "Did you think I would take chances? You should know better. So, it was easy?"
"Very easy. All that will appear is that they drank too deeply, and were careless, and that the lamp fell and the oil spilled on the bedding, and—" A gesture finished it for him.
She drew a breath of satisfaction, but something in his voice gave her pause. Though Morgause valued, and was even fond of, her handsome young lover, she would have got rid of him in a moment if it had suited her to do so; but as yet she had need of him, and must keep him faithful. She said gently: "Too easy, I think you mean, Gabran? I know, my dear. Men like you don't like an easy killing, and killing these folk is like slaughtering beasts — no work for a fighting man. But it was necessary. You know that."
"I suppose so."
"You told me that you thought the woman knew something."
"Or guessed. It was hard to tell. These folk all look like weathered kelp. I couldn't be certain. There was something in the way she spoke to him, and the way she looked when he said you had told him the whole story." He hesitated. "If so, then she — both of them — have kept silence all these years."
"So?" said the queen. She held a hand out to the fire's warmth. "That is not to say they would have gone on keeping it. With the boy gone, they might begin to feel they had a grievance, and folk with a grievance are dangerous."
"Would they have dared speak? And to whom?"
"Why, to the boy himself. You told me that Sula urged him to go back there, and naturally — at first — he would have been eager to go. One word, one hint, would have been enough. You know whose son he is; and you have seen him. Do you think it needs more than a breath to kindle a blaze of ambition that could destroy all my plans for the future? Take my word for it, it was necessary. Gabran, dear boy, you may be the best lover a woman ever took to her bed, but you could never rule any kingdom wider than that same bed."
"Why should I ever want to?"
She threw him a smile, part affection, part mockery. Emboldened, he took half a step towards her, but she stopped him. "Wait. Consider. This time I'll tell you why. And don't pretend you've never made a guess at my plans concerning this bastard." She turned her hand this way and that, apparently admiring the glitter of her rings. Then she looked up, confidingly. "You may be right in part. I may have flown my hawk too early and too fast, but the chance came to take the boy from his foster home and bring him here without too much questioning. Besides, he is ten years old, high time he should be trained in the skills and manners of a prince. And once I had taken that step, the other had to follow. Until the right moment comes, my brother Arthur must hear no hint of his whereabouts. Nor must that arch-mage Merlin, and in his heyday he could have heard the very rushes whispering on the Holy Isle. Old and foolish as he is, we can risk nothing. I have not kept my son and Arthur's secret all these years, to have him taken from me now. He is my pass to the mainland. When he is ready to go there, I shall go with him."
He was hers again, she noted. Pleased, nattered by her confidence, eager. "Back to Dunpeldyr, do you mean?"
"Not Dunpeldyr, no. To Camelot itself."
"To the High King."
"Why not? He has no legitimate son, and from all accounts is unlikely to get one. Mordred is my pass to Arthur's court.… And after that, we shall see."
"You sound very sure," he said.
"I am sure. I have seen it." At the look in his eyes she smiled again. "Yes, my dear, in the pool. It was clear as crystal — a witch's crystal. I and my sons, all of them, at Camelot, dressed as for a feast, and bearing gifts."
"Then surely — not that I'm questioning it, but — couldn't that mean you would have been safe, even without what was done tonight?"
"Possibly." Her voice was indifferent. "We cannot always read the signs aright, and it may be that the Goddess knew already what would be done tonight. Now I am sure that I am safe. All I have to do is wait for Merlin's death. Already, more than once, we have heard rumours of his disappearance, or death, and each time I have rejoiced, only to find that the rumour was false, and the old fool lived still. But the day must soon come when the report will be true. I have seen to that, Gabran. And when it is, when he is no longer at Arthur's side, then I may go in safety, and Mordred with me. I can deal with my brother.… If not as I dealt with him before, then as a sister deals who has some power, and a little beauty still."
"Madam — Morgause—"
She laughed gently, and stretched a hand to him. "Come, Gabran, no need for jealousy! And no need to fear me, either. All the witchcraft I ever use against you, you know well how to deal with. The rest of this night's work will be more to your taste than what is past. Come to bed now. All is safe, thanks to you. You have served me more than faithfully."
And so did they. But Gabran did not voice the thought aloud. And soon, stripped of his damp clothing, and lying in the great bed beside Morgause, he forgot it, and forgot, too, the two dead bodies he had left in the smoking shell of the cottage on the shore.
5
MORDRED WOKE EARLY, AT his usual time.
The other boys still slept, but this was the hour when his foster father had always roused him for work. For a few moments he lay, unsure of his surroundings, then he remembered. He was in the royal palace. He was a king's son, and the king's other sons were here, sleeping in the same room. The eldest of them, Prince Gawain, lay beside him, in the same bed. In the other bed slept the three younger princes, the twins, and the baby, Gareth.
He had had no speech with them yet. Last evening after Gabran had brought him to the palace, he had been taken in charge by an old woman who had been nurse to the royal boys; she was still, she told him, nurse to Gareth, and looked after the boys' clothes and to some extent their welfare. She led Mordred to a room full of chests and boxes, where she fitted him out with new clothing. No weapons yet; he would get those tomorrow, she told him sourly, soon enough, and then no doubt he would be about his killing and murdering like the rest of them. Men! Boys were bad enough, but at least they could be controlled, and let him mark her words, she might be an old woman, but she could still punish where punishment was due.… Mordred listened, and was silent, fingering the good new clothes, and trying not to yawn as the old woman fussed about him. From her chatter — and she was never silent — he learned that Queen Morgause was, to say the least, an erratic parent. One day she would take the boys riding, showing them mainland customs of hunting with hawk and hound; they would ride all day, and she would feast them late into the night, then the next day the boys would find themselves apparently forgotten, and be forbidden even to go to her rooms, only to be summoned again at night to hear a minstrel, or to entertain a bored and restless queen with talk of their own day. Nor were the boys treated alike. Possibly the only Roman principle held to by Morgause was the one of "divide and rule." Gawain, as the eldest and the heir, was given extra freedom and some privileges forbidden to the others; Gareth, the posthumous youngest, was the favourite. Which left the twins, and they, Mordred gathered from old Ailsa's pinched lips and headshakings, were difficult enough without the constant rubbings of jealousy and frustrated energies.
When at length, with his new clothes carefully folded over his arm, Mordred followed, her to the boys' bedchamber, he was thankful to find that all four were there before him, and already sound asleep. Ailsa lifted Gareth out of Gawain's bed, then pushed the twins over and tucked the younger boy in beside them. None of them so much as stirred. She pulled the coverlets up close round them, and pointed Mordred silently to the place beside Gawain. He stripped, and slipped into the warmth of the bed. The old woman tut-tutted round the room for a few more minutes, picking up discarded clothing and laying it on the chest between the beds, then went out, shutting the door gently behind her. Mordred was asleep before she even left the room.