The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [7]
I thought for a moment. "Gorlois had a son by his first wife. Cador, he was called. He must be about fifteen. Have you heard what is to become of him?"
"He's here. He was in the fight, beside his father. No one knows what has passed between him and the King, but the King gave an amnesty to all the troops that fought against him in the action at Dimilioc, and he has said, besides, that Cador will be confirmed Duke of Cornwall."
"Yes," I said. "And Ygraine's son and Uther's will be King."
"With Cornwall his bitter enemy?"
"If he is," I said wearily, "who is to blame him? The payment may well be too long and too heavy, even for treachery."
"Well," said Gandar, suddenly brisk, gathering his robe about him, "that's with time. And now, young man, you'd better get some more rest. Would you like a draught?"
"Thank you, no."
"How does the hand feel?"
"Better. There's no poison there; I know the feel of it. I'll give you no more trouble, Gandar, so stop treating me like a sick man. I'm well enough, now that I've slept. Get yourself to bed, and forget about me. Good night."
When he had gone I lay listening to the sounds of the sea, and trying to gather, from the god-filled dark, the courage I would need for my visit to the dead.
***
Courage or no, another day passed before I found the strength to leave my chamber. Then I went at dusk to the great hall where they had put the old Duke's body. Tomorrow he would be taken to Tintagel for burial among his fathers. Now he lay alone, save for the guards, in the echoing hall where he had feasted his peers and given orders for his last battle.
The place was cold, silent but for the sounds of wind and sea. The wind had changed and now blew from the northwest, bringing with it the chill and promise of rain. There was neither glazing nor horn in the windows, and the draught stirred the torches in their iron brackets, sending them sideways, dim and smoking, to blacken the walls. It was a stark, comfortless place, bare of paint, or tiling, or carved wood; one remembered that Dimilioc was simply the fortress of a fighting man; it was doubtful if Ygraine had ever been here. The ashes in the hearth were days old, the half-burned logs dewed with damp.
The Duke's body lay on a high bier in the center of the hall, covered with his war cloak. The scarlet with the double border of silver and the white badge of the Boar was as I had seen it at my father's side in battle. I had seen it, too, on Uther as I led him disguised into Gorlois' castle and his bed. Now the heavy folds hung to the ground, and beneath them the body had shrunk and flattened, no more than a husk of the tall old man I remembered. They had left his face uncovered. The flesh had sunk, grey as twice-used tallow, till the face was a moulded skull, showing only the ghost of a likeness to the Gorlois I had known. The coins on his eyes had already sunk into the flesh. His hair was hidden by his war helm, but the familiar grey beard jutted over the badge of the Boar on his chest.
I wondered, as I went forward soft-footed over the stone floor, by which god Gorlois had lived, and to which god he had gone in dying. There was nothing here to show. Christians, like other men, put coins on the eyes. I remembered other death-beds, and the press of spirits waiting round them; there was nothing here. But he had been dead three days, and perhaps his spirit had already gone through that bare and windy gap in the wall. Perhaps it had already gone too far for me to reach it and make my peace.
I stood at the foot of his bier, the man I had betrayed, the friend of my father Ambrosius the High King. I remembered the night he had come to ask me for my help for his young wife, and how he had said to me: "There are not many men I'd trust just now, but I trust you. You're your father's son." And how I had said nothing, but watched the firelight stain his face red like blood, and waited my chance to lead the King to his wife's bed.
It is one thing to have the gift of