The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [179]
"I'm sorry. There will be other times to talk to Bedwyr, better than this."
"Heaven and earth, they couldn't be worse! This place stifles me. What do they want with me, that pack in the corridors outside?"
"What most men want of their prince and future King. You will have to get used to it."
"So it seems. There's even a guard here, outside the window."
"I know. I put him there." Then, answering his look: "You have enemies, Arthur. Have I not made it clear?"
"Shall I always have to be hemmed in like this, surrounded? One might as well be a prisoner."
"Once you are undoubted King you can make your own dispositions. But until then, you must be guarded. Remember that here we are only in an emergency camp: once in the King's capital, or in one of his strong castles, you'll have your own household, chosen by yourself. You'll be able to see all you want of Bedwyr, or Cei, or anyone else you may appoint. It will be freedom of a sort, as much as you can ever have now. Neither you nor I can go back to the Wild Forest again, Emrys. That's over."
"It was better there," he said, then gave me a gentle look, and smiled. "Merlin."
"What is it?"
He started to say something, changed his mind, shook his head instead and said abruptly: "At this feast tonight. You'll be near me?"
"Be sure of it."
"The King has told me how he will present me to the nobles. Do you know what will happen then? These enemies you speak of -- "
"Will try to prevent the assembly from accepting you as Uther's heir."
He considered for a moment, briefly. "May they carry arms in the hall?"
"No. They'll try some other way."
"Do you know how?"
I said: "They can hardly deny your birth to the King's face, and with me there and Count Ector they can't quarrel with your identity. They can only try to discredit you; shake the faith of the waverers, and try to swing the army's vote. It's your enemies' misfortune that this has come on a battlefield where the army outnumbers the council of nobles three to one -- and after yesterday the army will take some convincing that you are not fit to lead them. It's my guess that there will be something staged, something that will take men by surprise and shake their belief in you, even in Uther."
"And in you, Merlin?"
I smiled. "It's the same thing. I'm sorry, I can't see further yet than that. I can see death and darkness, but not for you."
"For the King?" he asked sharply.
I did not answer. He was silent for a moment, watching me, then, as if I had answered, he nodded, and asked:
"Who are these enemies?"
"They are led by the King of Lothian."
"Ah," he said, and I could see he had not let his senses be stifled through the brief hours of that crowded day. He had seen and heard, watched and listened. "And Urien who runs with him, and Tudwal of Dinpelydr, and -- whose is the green badge with the wolverine?"
"Aguisel's. Did the King say anything to you about these men?"
He shook his head. "We talked mostly of the past. Of course he has heard all about me from you and Ector over these past years, and" -- he laughed -- "I doubt if any son ever knew more about his father and his father's father than I, with all you have told me; but telling is not the same. There was a lot of knowing to make up."
He talked on for a little about the interview with the King, speaking of the missed years without regret, and with the cool common sense that I had come to see was part of his character. That much, I thought, was not from Uther; I had seen it in Ambrosius, and in myself, in what men called coldness. Arthur had been able to stand back from the events of his youth; he had thought the thing through, and with the clear sight that would make him a king he had set feeling aside and come to the truth. Even when he went on to speak of his mother it was evident that he saw the matter much as Ygraine had done, and with the same hard expediency of outlook. "If I had known that my mother was still alive, and had been so willingly parted from me, it might have come hard to me, as a child. But you and Ector spared me that by telling me