The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [113]
She turned back to Vortigern. "You choose a strange place for your questions, King. Do you really expect me to speak of these things here, in your open hall, and in the hearing of all comers?"
He brooded for a moment, his brows down over his eyes. There was sweat on his face, and I saw his hands twitch on the arms of the chair. The man was humming like a harp-string. The tension ran right through the hall, almost visibly. I felt my skin prickle, and a cold wolfspaw of fear walked up my spine. Behind the King one of the priests leaned forward and whispered. Then the King nodded. "The people shall leave us. But the priests and the magicians must remain."
Reluctantly, and with a buzz of chatter, people began to leave the hall. The priests stayed, a dozen or so men in long robes standing behind the chairs of the King and Queen. One of them, the one who had spoken to the King, a tall man who stood stroking his grey beard with a dirty ringed hand, was smiling. From his dress he was the head of them. I searched his face for signs of power, but, though the men were dressed in priests' robes, I could see nothing there but death. It was in all their eyes. More than that I could not see. The wolfspaw of cold touched my bones again. I stood in the soldier's grip without resistance.
"Loose him," said Vortigern. "I have no wish to harm the Lady Niniane's son. But you, Merlin, if you move or speak again before I give you leave, you will be taken from the hall."
The sword withdrew from my side, but the man still held it ready. The guards stood back half a pace from me. I neither moved nor spoke. I had never since I was a child felt so helpless, so naked of either knowledge or power, so stripped of God. I knew, with bitter failure, that if I were in the crystal cave with fires blazing and my master's eyes on me, I should see nothing. I remembered, suddenly, that Galapas was dead. Perhaps, I thought, the power had only come from him, and perhaps it had gone with him.
The King had turned his sunken eyes back to my mother. He leaned forward, his look suddenly fierce and intent.
"And now, Madam, will you answer my question?"
"Willingly," she said. "Why not?"
8
She had spoken so calmly that I saw the King's look of surprise. She put up a hand to push the hood back from her face, and met his eyes levelly.
"Why not? I see no harm in it. I might have told you sooner, my lord, if you had asked me differently, and in a different place. There is no harm now in men knowing. I am no longer in the world, and do not have to meet the eyes of the world, or hear their tongues. And since I know now that my son, too, has retired from the world, then I know how little he will care what the world says about him. So I will tell you what you want to know. And when I tell you, you will see why I have never spoken of this before, not even to my own father or to my son himself."
There was no sign of fear now. She was even smiling. She had not looked at me again. I tried to keep from staring at her, to school my face into blankness. I had no idea what she planned to say, but I knew that here would be no betrayal. She was playing some game of her own, and was secure in her own mind that this would avert whatever danger threatened me. I knew, for certain, that she would say nothing of Ambrosius. But still, everywhere in the hall, was death. Outside it had begun to rain, and the afternoon was wearing on towards twilight. A servant came in at the door bearing torches, but Vortigern waved him back. To do him justice, I believe he was thinking of my mother's shame, but I thought to myself: There can be no help even there, no light, no fire...
"Speak, then," said Vortigern. "Who fathered your son?"
"I never saw him." She spoke quite simply. "It was no man that I ever knew." She paused, then said, without looking at me, her eyes still