Arthur, arriving almost on the heels of the courier, rode next morning into a city still buzzing like a stirred hive. His regent was sent for before the King had even taken off the dirt of the journey.
When Bedwyr was announced, Arthur was sitting behind the table in his business room, his man at his feet pulling off the scuffed and muddy riding boots. The servant, without a glance at either man, took the boots and withdrew. Ulfin had been Arthur's man throughout his whole reign. He had heard rather more gossip than the next man, and had said a good deal less about it than anyone. But even he, the silent and the trusted, went out with relief. Some things were better not said, or even known.
The same thought was in both men's minds. In Arthur's eyes might even be read the plea to his friend: Do not force me into asking questions. Let us in some way, in any way, get past this ambush and back into the open rides of trust. More than friendship, more than love, depends on this silence. My kingdom would even now seem to hang on it.
It would doubtless have surprised the Orkney princes, and some of their faction, if they could have heard his first words. But both King and regent knew that, if the first and greatest trouble could not be spoken of, the second would have to be dealt with soon: Gawain of Orkney.
The King shoved his feet into his furred slippers, swung round in the great chair, and said with furious exasperation: "By all the gods below, did you have to kill them?"
Bedwyr's gesture had the quality of despair.
"What was I to do? Colles I could not avoid killing. I was naked, and he was on me with his sword. I had to take it. I had neither time nor choice, if he was not to kill me. For Gareth I am sincerely sorry. I am to blame. I cannot think that he was there in treachery, but only because he was among the pack when the cry went up, and he may have been anxious for Linet. I confess I hardly saw him in the press. I did cross swords with Gaheris, but only for a moment. I think he took a cut—no more than a scratch—from me, but then he vanished. And after Agravain fell, all my thought was for the Queen. Gaheris had been loudest of all throughout, and he was still shouting insults at her. I remembered how he had dealt with his own mother." He hesitated. "That part was nightmare-like. The swords, the yelled insults, the pack near the Queen, and she, poor lady, struck dumb and shocked all in the few seconds it had taken from peace to bloody war. Have you seen her yet, Arthur? How does she do?"
"I am told she is well, but still shaken. She was with Linet when I sent to inquire. I shall go to her as soon as I've cleaned up. Now tell me the rest of it. What of Mordred? They tell me he was hurt, and that he has gone — fled — with Gaheris. This is something that I fail to understand. He was only with the Young Celts at my request — in fact, he came to me shortly before I left Camelot, to give me some word of warning about what they might be planning to do.… You could not have known that. It was my fault; perhaps I should have told you, but there were aspects of it…" He left it at that, and Bedwyr merely nodded: This was the debatable ground that each man could tread without a word spoken. Arthur frowned down, then raised troubled eyes to the other man's. "You cannot be blamed for turning your sword on him; how could you guess? But the Queen? He is devoted to her — we used to call it boy's love, and smile at it, and so did she — so why on earth should he have tried to harm the Queen?"
"It is not certain that he did. I'm not sure what happened there. When I crossed swords with Mordred, the affair was almost over. I had the Queen safe at my back, and by that time the guards were there. I would have disarmed him and then spoken with him, or else waited for your coming, but he is too good a fighter. I had to wound him, to get the sword from his hand."
"Well," said Arthur heavily, "he is gone. But why? And especially, why with Gaheris, unless indeed Mordred is still spying for me? You know where they will have gone, of course."
"To Gawain?"
"Exactly. And what," said Arthur, his voice warming into a kind of desperation, "are we going to do about Gawain?"
Bedwyr said, grim-mouthed: "Let me take what comes."
"And kill him? If you do not, he will kill you. You must know that. And I will not have it either way. Troublesome though he is, I need Gawain."
"I am in your hands. You'll send me away, I suppose. You can hardly send Gawain, I see that. So, when, and where?"
"As for when, not immediately." Arthur hesitated, then looked straight at the other man. "I must first of all give some public evidence of trust in you."
As if without thinking, his hand had strayed across the surface of the table. This was of veined green marble, edged with wrought gold. The King, on coming in, had flung his gloves down there, and Ulfin, in his haste to be gone, had left them. Now Arthur picked one of them up, and ran it through his fingers. It was a glove of softest calf-skin, worked as supple as velvet, its cuff embroidered with silken threads in rainbow colours, and with small river-pearls. The Queen herself had done the work, not letting her women set even one of the stitches. The pearls had come from the rivers of her native land.
Bedwyr met the King's eyes. His own, the dark poet's eyes, were profoundly unhappy. The King's were as somber, but held kindness.
"As for where, will your cousin make you welcome in your family's castle in Brittany? I should like you to be there. Go first, if you will, to King Hoel at Kerrec. I think he will be glad to know that you are so near. These are anxious times for him, and he is old, and ailing a little lately. But we'll talk about this before you go. Now I must see the Queen."
From Guinevere, to his great relief, Arthur learned the truth. Far from attacking her, Mordred had prevented Gaheris from getting to her with his sword. He had, indeed, struck Gaheris down, before himself being at tacked by Bedwyr. His subsequent flight, then, must have been through fear of being identified (as Bedwyr had apparently identified him) with the disloyal faction of Young Celts. This was puzzling enough, since Bors, as well as the Queen, could obviously swear to his loyalty, but the greater puzzle lay behind: why should he have fled with, of all men, Gaheris? To this Mordred's mistress, on being questioned, provided the first clue. Gaheris, himself bleeding and obviously distraught, had managed to convince her of her lover's danger; how easy, then, it had been for him to persuade the half-conscious and weakened prince that his only hope lay in flight. She had added her own pleas to Gaheris's urging, had helped them to the horses, and seen them go.
The gate guards finished the tale, and the truth was plain. Gaheris had taken the wounded man as his own shield and pass to freedom. Arthur, now seriously concerned for his son's health and safety, sent the royal couriers out immediately to find Mordred and bring him home. When it was reported that neither Mordred nor Gaheris had been to Gawain, the King ordered a country-wide search for his son. Gaheris they had orders to secure. He would be held until the King had spoken with Gawain, who was already on his way to Camelot.
Gareth, alone of the dead, lay in the royal chapel. After his burial Linet would take her grief back to her father's house. The affair was over, but about Camelot hung still a murmur of disaster, as if the bright gold of its towers, the vivid scarlet and green and blue of its flags, was smeared over with the grey of a coming sadness. The Queen wore mourning; it was for Gareth, and for the other deaths and spilled blood of what was noised abroad as a mistaken loyalty; but there were those who said that it was mourning for the departure of her lover into Brittany. But they whispered it more softly than before, and as often as not the rumour was hotly denied. There had been smoke, and fire, but now the fire was out, and the smoke was gone.