The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [43]
"And take him where?"
"To Brittany. No, wait. Not to Hoel, nor by the ship which everyone will be watching. Leave that part of it to me. I shall take him to someone I know in Brittany, on the edge of Hoel's kingdom. He will be safe, and well cared for. You have my word for it, Uther."
He brushed that aside as if there had been no need for me to say it. He was already looking lighter, glad to be relieved of a care that must, among the weighty cares of the kingdom, seem trivial, and -- with the child still only a weight in a woman's womb -- unreal. "I'll have to know where you take him."
"To my own nurse, who reared me and the other royal children, bastard and true alike, in the nurseries at Maridunum. Her name is Moravik, and she's a Breton. After the sack by Vortigern she went home to her people. She has married since. While the child is sucking, I can think of no better place. He won't be looked for in such a humble home. He will be guarded, but better than that, he will be hidden and unknown."
"And Hoel?"
"He will know. He must. Leave Hoel to me."
Outside a trumpet sounded. The sun was growing stronger, and the tent was warm. He stirred, and flexed his shoulders, as a man does when he lays off his armour. "And when men find that the child is not on the royal ship, but has vanished? What do we tell them?"
"That for fear of the Saxons in the Narrow Sea the prince was sent, not by the royal ship, but privily, with Merlin, to Brittany."
"And when it is found he is not at Hoel's court?"
"Gandar and Marcia will swear to it that I took the child safely. What will be said I can't tell you, but there's no one who will doubt me, or that the child is safe as long as he's under my protection. And what my protection means you know. I imagine that men will talk of enchantments and vanishings, and wait for the child to reappear when my spells are lifted."
He said prosaically: "They're more like to say the ship foundered and the child is dead."
"I shall be there to deny it."
"You mean you won't stay with the boy?"
"I must not, not yet. I'm known."
"Then who will be with him? You said he would be guarded."
For the first time I hesitated fractionally. Then I met his eyes. "Ralf."
He looked startled, then angry, then I saw him thinking back past his anger. He said slowly: "Yes. I was wrong there, too. He will be true."
"There is no one truer."
"Very well, I am content. Make what arrangements you please. It's in your hands. You of all men in Britain will know how to protect him." His hands came down hard on the arms of his chair. "So, that is settled. Before we march today I shall send a message to the Queen telling her what I have decided."
I thought it wise to ask: "Will she accept it? It's no easy thing for a woman to bear, even a queen."
"She knows my decision, and she will do as I say. There's one thing, though, where she'll have her way; she wants the child baptized a Christian."
I glanced at the Mithras altar against the tent wall. "And you?"
He lifted his shoulders. "What does it matter? He will never be King. And if he were, then he would pay service where he had to, in the sight of the people." A hard, straight look. "As my brother did."
If it was a challenge I declined it, saying merely: "And the name?"
"Arthur."
The name was strange to me, but it came like an echo of something I had heard long before. Perhaps there had been Roman blood in Ygraine's family...The Artorii; that would be it. But that was not where I had heard the name...
"I'll see to it," I said. "And now, with your permission, I'll send the Queen a letter, too. She'll lie the easier for being assured of my loyalty."
He nodded, then stood up and reached for his helmet. He was smiling, a cold ghost