The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [103]
"None at all. They were good fellows, and I owe them my life."
"They told me that you drank wine that night, from your own flask. They did not share it. They say, too, that you were drunk at the marriage feast. You? I have never seen you the worse for wine. And you sat beside Morgause. Have you any reason to believe that she drugged your wine?"
I opened my mouth to answer him, and to this day I swear that the word on my lips was "Yes." This, as far as I knew it, was the truth. But some god must have forestalled me. Instead of the Yes that my mind had framed, my lips said, "No."
I must have spoken strangely, because I saw him staring, arrested with narrowed eyes. It was a discomforting look, and I found myself elaborating. "How can I tell? But I don't think so. I have told you that I have no power now, but the witch would not know that. She is still afraid of me. She had tried before, not once but twice, to snare me with her woman's spells. Both times she failed, and I think she would not have dared try again."
He was silent for a while. Then he said, shortly: "When my Queen died, there was talk of poison. I wondered."
At this I could protest truthfully. "There always is, but I beg you will not regard it! From what you have told me, I am certain there was no such thing. Besides, how?" I added, as convincingly as I could: "Believe me, Arthur. If she were guilty, can you see any reason why I should want to protect Morgause from you?"
He still looked doubtful, but did not pursue it further. "Well," was all he said, "she'll find her wings clipped now for a while. She is back in Orkney, and Lot is dead."
I took this in silently. It was another shock. In these few months, how much had changed. "How?" I asked him. "And when?"
"In the forest battle. I can't say that I mourn him, except that he had that rat Aguisel under his fist, and I believe that I shall have trouble there soon."
I said slowly: "I have remembered something else. During the fighting in the forest I heard them calling to one another that the king was dead. It struck me with helpless grief. For me, there is only one King...But they must have been speaking of Lot. Well, yes, at least Lot was a known evil. Now, I suppose, Urien will have it all his own way in the northeast, and Aguisel with him...But there's time enough for that. Meanwhile, what of Morgause? She was carrying a child at Luguvallium, and should have been delivered by now. A boy?"
"Two. Twin sons, born at Dunpeldyr. She joined Lot there after Morgan's wedding. Witch or no witch," he said, with a trace of bitterness, "she is a good breeder of sons. By the time Lot joined us here in Rheged, he was bragging that he had left yet another in her before he quitted Dunpeldyr." He looked down at his hands. "You must have had speech with her at the wedding. Did you find anything out about the other boy?"
There was no need to ask which boy he meant. It seemed that he could not bring himself to say "my son."
"Only that he is alive."
His eyes came up quickly to mine. There was a flash in them, suppressed instantly. But I was sure that it was one of joy. So short a time ago, and he had looked for the child only to kill it.
I said, schooling my voice to hide the pity I felt: "She tells me that she does not know where he is to be found. She may be lying, I'm not sure of that. It must be true that she kept him hidden away from Lot. But she may bring him into the open now. What has she to fear, now that Lot has gone? Except, perhaps, from you?"
He was looking at his hands again. "She need not fear me now on that score," he said woodenly.