His pleased sense of importance, even glee, sounded in his voice. "It's messengers from Queen Morgause, Mother. They've come to bid me to the court. They're waiting for me out there. I have to go straight away. The queen wants to see me herself."
The effect of his announcement startled even him. His mother, on her way to the bedplace, stopped as if struck, then turned slowly, one hand out to the table's top, as if she would have fallen without its support. The pestle fell from her fingers and rolled to the floor, where the hens ran to it, clucking. She seemed not to notice. In the smoky light of the room her face had gone sallow. "Queen Morgause? Sent for you? Already?"
Mordred stared. " 'Already'?" What do you mean, Mother? Did somebody tell you what happened yesterday?"
Sula, her voice shaking, tried to recover herself. "No, no, I meant nothing. What did happen yesterday?"
"It was nothing much. I was out at the peats and I heard a cry from the cliff over yonder, and it was the young prince, Gawain. You know, the oldest of the queen's sons. He was half down the cliff after young falcons. He'd hurt his leg, and I had to take the rope down from the sled, and help him climb back. That's all. I didn't know who he was till afterwards. He told me his mother would reward me, but I didn't think it would happen like this, not so quickly, anyway. I didn't tell you yesterday, because I wanted it to be a surprise. I thought you'd be pleased."
"Pleased, of course I'm pleased!" She took a great breath, steadying herself by the table. Her fists, clenched on the wood, were trembling. She saw the boy staring, and tried to smile. "It's great news, son. Your father will be glad. She — she'll give you silver, I shouldn't wonder. She's a lovely lady, Queen Morgause, and generous where it pleases her."
"You don't look pleased. You look frightened." He came slowly back into the room. "You look ill, Mother. Look, you've dropped your stick. Here it is. Sit down now. Don't worry, I'll find the tunic. The necklet's in the cupboard with it, isn't it? I'll get it. Come, sit down."
He took hold of her gently, and set her back on the stool. Standing in front of her, he was taller than she. She seemed to come to herself sharply. Her back straightened. She gripped his arms above the elbows in her two hands and held him tightly. Her eyes, red-rimmed with working near the smoke of the peat fire, stared up at him with an intensity that made him want to fidget and move away. She spoke in a low, urgent whisper:
"Look, my son. This is a great day for you, a great chance. Who knows what may come of it? A queen's favour is a fine thing to come by.… But it can be a hard thing, forby. You're young yet, what would you know of great folk and their ways? I don't know much myself, but I know something about life, and there's one thing I can tell you, Mordred. Always keep your own counsel. Never repeat what you hear." In spite of herself, her hands tightened. "And never, never tell anyone anything that's said here, in your home."
"Well, of course not! When do I ever see anyone to talk to, anyway? And why should the queen or anyone at the palace be interested in what goes on here?" He shifted uncomfortably, and her grip loosened. "Don't worry, Mother. There's nothing to be afraid of. I've done the queen a favour, and if she's such a lovely lady, then I don't see what else can come of this except good, do you? Look, I must go now. Tell Father I'll finish the peats tomorrow. And keep some supper for me, won't you? I'll be back as soon as I can."
To those who knew Camelot, the High King's court, and even to people who remembered the state Queen Morgause had kept in her castle of Dunpeldyour, the "palace" of Orkney must have seemed a primitive place indeed. But to the boy from the fisherman's hut it appeared splendid beyond imagination.
The palace stood behind and above the cluster of small houses that made up the principal township of the islands. Below the town lay the harbour, its twin piers protecting a good deep anchorage where the biggest of ships could tie up in safety. Piers, houses, palace, all were built of the same flat weathered slabs of sandstone. The roofs, too, were of great flagstones hauled somehow into place and then hidden by a thick thatching of turf or heather-stems, with deep eaves that helped to throw the winter's rains away from walls and doors. Between the houses ran narrow streets, steep guts also paved with the flagstones so lavishly supplied by the local cliffs.
The main building of the palace was the great central hall. This was the "public" hall, where the court gathered, where feasts were held, petitions were heard, and where many of the courtiers — nobles, officers, royal functionaries — slept at night. It comprised a big oblong room, with other, smaller chambers opening from it.
Outside was a walled courtyard where the queen's soldiers and servants lived, sleeping in the outbuildings, and eating round their cooking fires in the yard itself. The only entrance was the main gateway, a massive affair flanked to either side by a guardhouse.
At a short distance from the main palace buildings, and connected with them by a long covered passage, stood the comparatively new building that was known as "the queen's house." This had been built by Morgause's orders when she first came to settle in Orkney. It was a smaller yet no less grandly built complex of buildings set very near the edge of the cliff that here rimmed the shore. Its walls looked almost like an extension of the layered cliffs below. Not many of the court — only the queen's own women, her advisers, and her favourites — had seen the interior of the house, but its modem splendours were spoken of with awe, and the townspeople gazed up in wonder at the big windows — an unheard-of innovation — which had been built even into the seaward walls.
Inland from palace and township stretched an open piece of land, turf grazed close by sheep, and used by the soldiers and young men for practice with horses and arms. Some of the stabling, with the kennels, and the byres for cattle and goats, was outside the palace walls, for in those islands there was little need of more defense than that provided by the sea, and to the south by the iron walls of Arthur's peace. But some way along the coast, beyond the exercise ground, stood the remains of a primitive round tower, built before men's memory by the Old People, and splendidly adaptable as both watchtower and embattled refuge. This Morgause, with the memory of Saxon incursions on the mainland kingdom, had had repaired after a fashion, and there a watch and ward was kept. This, with the guard kept constantly on the palace gate, was part of the royal state that fitted the queen's idea of her own dignity. If it did nothing else, said Morgause, it would keep the men alert, and provide some sort of military duty for the soldiers, as a change from exercises that all too readily became sport, or from idling round the palace courtyard.
When Mordred with his escort arrived at the gate the courtyard was crowded. A chamberlain was waiting to escort him to the queen.
Feeling awkward and strange in his seldom-worn best tunic, stiff as it had come from the cupboard, and smelling faintly musty, Mordred followed his guide. He was taut with nerves, and looked at nobody, keeping his head high and his eyes fixed on the chamberlain's shoulder-blades, but he felt the stares, and heard mutterings. He took them to be natural curiosity, probably mingled with contempt; he cannot have known that the figure he cut was curiously courtier-like, his stiffness very like the dignified formality of the great hall.
"A fisherman's brat?" the whispers went. "Oh, aye? We've heard that one before. Just look at him.… So who's his mother? Sula? I remember her. Pretty. She used to work at the palace here. In King Lot's time, that was. How long ago now since he visited the islands? Twelve years? Eleven? How the time does go by, to be sure.… And he must be just about that age, wouldn't you say?"