They recovered the princess's jewels from the tower, threw the bodies into it, and set fire to it. Then the troop rode back to catch up with their companions, and carry their heavy news to King Hoel.
3
ONE POSITIVE GOOD CAME out of the tragedy of the Princess Elen. It was certain that Hoel's Frankish neighbours had had nothing to do with the rape, and, when it was known that the "giant" and his ruffianly companions were dead, the villagers and the forest folk who had suffered from the robbers' depredations dared speak out at last, making it quickly apparent that the recent raids and harassments had all been the work of the same robber band.
Accordingly, as soon as the funeral was done with, but before the time of mourning was past, Hoel and Arthur were able to sit down and discuss the demand made by the consul Quintilianus Hiberus. They decided to send an embassy to him, ostensibly to discuss the Roman emperor's proposals, but in reality to see for themselves what his strength was. Hoel had already sent to King Childebert and his brothers to find out if they had encountered the same demands, and if so, what stand they were prepared to take.
"It will take a little time," said Hoel, stretching his feet nearer the fire, and rubbing a hand over an arthritic knee, "but you'll stay, I trust, cousin?"
"To deploy my troops with yours in full sight, while your embassy goes to nose out Hiberus' intentions? Willingly," said Arthur.
"I'd hoped that you might lend some weight to the embassy, too," said Hoel. "I'm sending Guerin. He's as wily an old fox as ever wasted a council's time. They'll never understand half he says, let alone what his proposals mean. He'll make time for us, and meanwhile we'll get an answer from the Franks. Well, cousin?"
"Of course. For me, then, Bors. He has no wiles at all, but his honesty is patent, and therefore disarming. We can instruct him to leave the politics to Guerin. I'd like Valerius to command the escort."
Hoel nodded approvingly. They were in his private apartments in the palace at Kerrec. The old king was now free of his bedchamber, but spent the days sitting, wrapped in furs, over a blazing fire. His muscular bulk had run, with age, to overweight, and this had brought with it the usual attendant ills; his bones, as he put it, creaked in the draughts of his old-fashioned and relatively comfortless stronghold.
Arthur, with Mordred, and two or three of Hoel's own lords, had supped with the king, and now sat over a bowl of mulled and spicy wine. Bedwyr was not with them. He had gone back at his own request to his lands in the north of Brittany. The reason he gave was his young bride's health. He had confided to Mordred, on the ride south with the body of the murdered princess, that his own Elen, being subject to the fears of her condition, had dreamed of death, and could not rest until her husband returned to her in safety. So, the funeral once over, Bedwyr had ridden north, leaving those of the Young Celts' faction who were present with Arthur's forces to whisper that he had gone sooner than come face to face with Gawain.
For Gawain was on his way to Brittany. Arthur had judged it wise to invite his nephew, now back in the ranks of the Companions, to follow him and share such action as might ensue. The expected fighting had proved to be merely a punitive skirmish with a robber gang, and for this Gawain had sailed too late. So now, discussing with Hoel the composition of the joint embassy, Arthur suggested that Gawain should be part of it. Since Hoel could not go, and Arthur judged it better that he himself should not, some representative of the royal house ought to be present to lend the right dignity to the occasion.
Hoel, humming and huffing in his beard, cast a look at Mordred, misinterpreted the frown he saw there, and cleared his throat to speak, but Arthur, catching the exchange of glances, said quickly: "Not Mordred, no. He is the obvious choice, but I need him elsewhere. If I am to stay here till this is settled then he must go back to Greater Britain in my place. The Queen and Council make a stopgap government, but that is all it is, and there are matters outstanding that must be dealt with, with more authority than I have left with them."
He turned to his son. "After all my talk, eh? Re-training, indeed! Rowing a boat on a lagoon, and killing a robber or two. I'm sorry, Mordred, but a dispatch I had today makes it necessary. Will you go?"
"Whatever you bid me, sir. Of course."
"Then we'll talk later," said the King, and turned back to the discussion.
Mordred, half disappointed and half elated, was nevertheless wholly puzzled. What could be the urgent business that was forcing the King to change his plans? Only yesterday he had spoken of sending Mordred with the embassy. Now it was to be Gawain. And Mordred doubted the wisdom of that choice. His half-brother would be sailing over with the hope of some sort of action; he would be disappointed, not to say angry, to find himself taking part in a peaceable deputation. But Arthur seemed sure. Speaking now in answer to some question of Hoel's, he was declaring that recently, over the affair of Queen Morgan, and during the past months in Orkney, and finally in the moderate tone he was now taking over Gareth's killer, Bedwyr, Gawain had shown himself to have acquired a certain steadiness, and would find the adventure on foreign soil, though it might prove merely to be a diplomatic mission, a rewarding experience.
In which Arthur, as seemed his fate whenever he had to deal with Morgause's blood and brood, was mistaken. Even as he spoke, Gawain and his young cronies, while their ship neared the Breton coast, were busily burnishing up their war weapons, and talking eagerly of the fighting to come.
Later Arthur, having bidden Hoel good night, bore Mordred off with him to his own apartments for the promised talk.
It was a long talk, lasting well into the night. The King spoke first of the message that had caused his change of plan. It was a letter from the Queen. She gave no details, but confessed herself far from happy in her increasingly precarious role. She reported that Duke Constantine, having removed to Caerleon with his train of knights, had announced his intention of proceeding to Camelot "as more fitting for one ruling the High Kingdom." The Queen had sent begging him to hold to what Arthur had bidden, but his reply had been "eager and intemperate."
"I fear what may happen," she had written. "Already I have had reports that in Caerleon, far from holding his force there at the disposal of the Council, he acts and speaks like one already ruling in his own right, or as sole and rightful deputy of the High King. My lord Arthur, I look daily for your return. And I live in fear of what may come if some ill should befall you or your son."
Reading the letter, Mordred was eager to go. He did not pause, did not want, to analyze his feelings towards Duke Constantine. Enough that the man still acted as if Arthur had no son of his body, let alone the blood-kin of his half-sister's son Gawain. And as Arthur had said, the stories of some of Constantine's doings augured ill for the kingdom. He was a stark ruler and a cruel man, and the note of fear in Guinevere's letter was easy to interpret.
Any regret Mordred might have felt at leaving the King's side vanished. This regency, brief though it might be, was the time he had wanted, a trial period when he would rule alone with full authority. He had no fear that Constantine, once he, Mordred, was back in Camelot and at the head of the royal bodyguard there, would persist in his arrogant pretensions. Mordred's return, with the King's authority and the King's seal, should be enough. "And you will find there," said the King, touching the pouch of letters that bore his seal, "my mandate to raise whatever force you may think needful, to keep the peace at home, and to make ready in case of trouble here."