The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [112]
The King's brows drew together at my mother's silence, but his voice was still pleasant. "Tell me one thing, Lady Niniane. Did you ever tell your son the name of his father?"
"No." The tone of her voice, full and definite, contrasted oddly with the posture of bowed head and veiled face. It was the pose of a woman who is ashamed, and I wondered if she meant to look like this to excuse her silence. I could not see her face myself, but I saw the hand that held the fold of her long skirt. I was sharply reminded of the Niniane who had defied her father and refused Gorlan, King of Lanascol. Across that memory came another, the memory of my father's face, looking at me across the table in the lamplight. I banished it. He was so vividly in front of me that it seemed to me a wonder that the whole hall full of men could not see him. Then it came to me, sharply and with terror, that Vortigern had seen him. Vortigern knew. This was why we were here. He had heard some rumour of my coming, and was making sure. It remained to be seen whether I would be treated as a spy, or as a hostage.
I must have made some movement in spite of myself. My mother looked up, and I saw her eyes under the hood. She no longer looked like a princess; she looked like a woman who is afraid. I smiled at her, and something came back into her face, and I saw then that her fear was only for me.
I held myself still, and waited. Let him make the moves. Time enough to counter them when he had shown me the ground to fight from.
He twisted the big ring on his finger. "This is what your son told my messengers. And I have heard it said that no one else in the kingdom ever knew the name of his father. From what men tell me, Lady Niniane, and from what I know of you, your child would never be fathered by anyone base. Why not, then, tell him? It is a thing a man should know."
I said angrily, forgetting my caution: "What is it to you?"
My mother flashed me a look that silenced me. Then to Vortigern, "Why do you ask me these questions?"
"Lady," said the King, "I sent for you today, and for your son, to ask you one thing only. The name of his father."
"I repeat, why do you ask?"
He smiled. It was a mere baring of the teeth. I took a step. "Mother, he has no right to ask you this. He will not dare -- "
"Silence him," said Vortigern.
The man beside me slapped a hand across my mouth, and held me fast. There was the hiss of metal as the other drew his sword and pressed it against my side. I stood still.
My mother cried out: "Let him go! If you hurt him, Vortigern, king or no king, I will never tell you, even if you kill me. Do you think I held the truth from my own father and my brother and even from my son for all these years, just to tell you for the asking?"
"You will tell me for your son's sake," said Vortigern. At his nod the fellow took his hand from my mouth, and stood back. But his hand was still on my arm, and I could feel the other's sword sharp through my tunic.
My mother had thrown back her hood now, and was sitting upright in her chair, her hands gripping the arms. Pale and shaken as she was, and dressed in the humble brown robe, she made the Queen look like a servant. The silence in the hall now was deathly. Behind the King's chair the priests stood staring. I held tightly to my thoughts. If these men were priests and magicians, then no thought of Ambrosius, not even his name, must come into my mind. I felt the sweat start on my body, and my thoughts tried to reach my mother and hold her, without forming an image which these men could see. But the power had gone, and there was no help here from the god; I did not even know if I was man enough for what might happen after she told them. I dared not speak again; I was afraid that if they used force against me she would speak to save me. And once they knew, once they started to question me...
Something must have reached her, because she turned and looked at me again, moving her shoulders under the rough robe as if she felt a hand touch her. As her