The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [109]
"Nobody mentioned treason. I'm just doing my duty. The King wants to see him, and he's to come with me."
The old steward said, looking troubled now: "You can't harm him. He's who he says he is, Niniane's son. You can ask her yourself."
That brought Blackbeard round to face him quickly. "She's still alive?"
"Oh, yes, she's that all right. She's barely a stone's throw off, at the nunnery of St. Peter's, beyond the old oak at the crossways."
"Leave her alone," I said, really frightened now. I wondered what she might tell them. "Don't forget who she is. Even Vortigern won't dare to touch her. Besides, you've no authority. Either over me or her."
"You think not?"
"Well, what authority have you?"
"This." The short sword flashed in his hand. It was sharpened to a dazzle.
I said: "Vortigern's law, is it? Well, it's not a bad argument. I'll go with you, but it won't do you much good with my mother. Leave her alone, I tell you. She won't tell you any more than I."
"But at least we don't have to believe her when she says she doesn't know."
"But it's true." It was the steward, still chattering. "I tell you, I served in the palace all my life, and I remember it all. It used to be said she'd borne a child to the devil, to the prince of darkness."
Hands fluttered as people made the sign. The old man said, peering up at me: "Go with them, son, they'll not hurt Niniane's child, or her either. There'll come a time when the King will need the people of the West, as who should know better than he?"
"It seems I'll have to go with them, with the King's warrant so sharp at my throat," I said. "It's all right, Dinias, it wasn't your fault. Tell my servant where I am. Very well, you, take me to Vortigern, but keep your hands off me."
I went between them to the door, the drinkers making way for us. I saw Dinias stumble to his feet and come after. As we reached the street Blackbeard turned. "I was forgetting. Here, it's yours."
The purse of money jingled as it hit the ground at my cousin's feet.
I didn't turn. But as I went I saw, even without looking, the expression on my cousin's face as, with a quick glance to right and left, he stooped for the purse and tucked it into his waistband.
7
Vortigern had changed. My impression that he had grown smaller, less impressive, was not only because I myself, instead of being a child, was now a tall youth. He had grown, as it were, into himself. It did not need the makeshift hall, the court which was less a court than a gathering of fighting chiefs and such women as they kept by them, to indicate that this was a man on the run. Or rather, a man in a corner. But a cornered wolf is more dangerous than a free one, and Vortigern was still a wolf.
And he had certainly chosen his corner well. King's Fort was as I remembered it, a crag commanding the river valley, its crest only approachable along a narrow saddleback like a bridge. This promontory jutted out from a circle of rocky hills which provided in their shelter a natural corrie where horses could graze and where beasts could be driven in and guarded. All round the valley itself the mountains towered, grey with scree and still not green with spring. All the April rain had done was to bring a long cascade spilling a thousand feet from the summit to the valley's foot. A wild, dark, impressive place. If once the wolf dug himself in at the top of that crag, even Ambrosius would be hard put to it to get him out.
The journey took six days. We started at first light, by the road which leads due north out of Maridunum, a worse road than the eastbound way but quicker, even slowed down as we were by bad weather and the pace set by the women's litters. The bridge was broken at Pennal and more or less washed away, and nearly half a day was spent fording the Afon Dyfi, before the party could struggle on to Tomen-y-mur, where the road was good. On the afternoon of the sixth day we turned up the riverside