Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [23]
“Why, Gorlois, are you back so swiftly from Cornwall? I had little hope of seeing you here before the Council, or again in this world,” he said. His voice was thin, breathy, but he held out his arms to Gorlois, who embraced the old man carefully, then blurted out, “You are ill, my lord, you should have kept your bed!”
Ambrosius said, with a little smile, “I will keep it soon enough, and long enough, I fear. The bishop said as much, and would have brought me the holy things in my bed if I wished, but I wanted to show myself among you again. Come and breakfast with me, Gorlois, and tell me how all goes in your quiet countryside.”
The two men walked on, Igraine walking behind her husband. On the King’s other side was the slight, dark man, scarlet-clad: Lot of Orkney, she remembered. When they came into the King’s house and Ambrosius had been placed in a comfortable chair, the High King beckoned Igraine forward.
“Welcome to my court, lady Igraine. Your husband tells me you are a daughter of the Holy Isle.”
“It is so, sir,” Igraine said shyly.
“Some of your people are advisers at my court; my priests do not like it that your Druids should be placed on equal footing with them, but I tell them you both serve the Great Ones above us, by whatever name. And wisdom is wisdom, however come by. I sometimes think your Gods demand wiser men for their servants than our God for his,” Ambrosius said, smiling at her. “Come, Gorlois, sit here beside me at table.”
It seemed to Igraine, as she took her seat on the cushioned bench, that Lot of Orkney hovered near like a dog who has been kicked but who wants to slink back to his master. If Ambrosius had men about him who loved him, that was well. But did Lot love his king, or only wish to be near to the throne that its power might reflect on him? She noticed that Ambrosius, though he courteously urged his guests to eat the fine wheaten bread and honey and fresh fish set for his table, ate only sops of bread moistened in milk. She noticed, too, the faint yellow staining the whites of his eyes. Gorlois had said, Ambrosius is dying. She had seen enough dying men in her lifetime to know he spoke no more than simple truth, and Ambrosius, from his words, knew it too.
“Intelligence has reached me that the Saxons have made some sort of treaty, killed a horse and sworn on its blood or some such rubbish, with the Northmen,” Ambrosius said, “and the fighting may move into Cornwall this time. Uriens, you may have to guide our armies in the West land; you and Uther, who knows the Welsh hills as he knows the hilt of his own sword. The war may even come into your peaceful countryside, Gorlois.”
“But you are guarded, as we are in the North, by the coasts and the crags lying below your lands,” said Lot of Orkney in his smooth voice. “I do not think a horde of wild folk could come at Tintagel unless they knew the rocks and the harbors. And even from the land side, Tintagel could be defended, with that long causeway.”
“True,” Gorlois said, “but there are harbors, and shores where a boat can be beached, and even if they cannot reach the castle, there are farmsteads and rich lands and crops. I can defend the castle, but what of the countryside? I am their duke because I can defend my people.”
“It seems to me that a duke, or a king, should be something more than this,” Ambrosius said, “but I do not know what. I have never had peace to find out. Perhaps our sons will do so. It may come in your time, Lot, you are the youngest of us.”
There was a sudden stir in the outer room, and then the tall, fair-haired Uther came into the room. He had a pair of dogs on leash in his hand, and the leashes tangled as the dogs yapped and snarled. He stood at the door patiently untangling them, then