The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [128]
Bedwyr said, and it came strangled: "Madam? Lady! Are you safe?"
"Prince Bedwyr." Her voice was breathless, but low, and apparently composed. "I thank God for you. When I heard you coming I was afraid...But then, when I knew it was you...How did you come here? How did you find me?"
"Merlin guided me."
I heard the swift intake of her breath clear from where I stood holding the horses. The taper lit the pale shape of her face as she turned her head sharply, and saw me beyond the water. "Merlin?" Then her voice was once more soft and steady. "Then I thank God again for his art. I thought no one would ever come this way."
That, I thought, I can well believe. I said aloud: "Can you make ready, madam? We have come to take you back to the King."
She did not answer me, but turned to go in, then paused, and said something to Bedwyr, too low for me to catch. He answered, and she pushed the door wide, and gestured him in after her. He went, leaving the door standing open. Inside the room I saw the pulsing ebb and flow of light that meant a fire. The room was softly lit by a lamp, and I caught glimpses through doorway and window of a room more richly furnished than any long-neglected hunting lodge could have shown, with gilded stools and scarlet cushions, and, through another half-open doorway, the corner of a bed or couch, with a coverlet thrown across a tumble of bed-linen. Melwas had prepared the nest well for her, then. My vision of firelight and supper table and the friendly game of chess had been accurate enough. The words that would tell Arthur moved and raced and re-formed in my brain. The mist smoked up round the house like white ghosts, white shadows...
Bedwyr emerged from the house. His sword was back in its sheath, and in one hand he carried a lamp; the other held a pole such as marsh-men use to push their flat-bottomed craft through the reeds. He approached the water's edge, moving cautiously. "Merlin?"
"Yes? Do you want me to swim the horses over?"
"No!" sharply. "There are knives set below the water. I had forgotten that old trick, and drove a knee straight into them."
"I thought you were limping. Are you badly hurt?"
"No. Flesh wounds only. My lady has dressed them for me."
"All the more reason why you can't swim back, then. How do you propose to get her over here? There must be some place where I can land the horses safely. Ask her."
"I have. She doesn't know. And there's no boat."
"So?" I said. "Has Melwas any gear that will float?"
"That's what I was thinking. There's sure to be something we can use; and the costlier the better." A shadow of amusement lightened the grim voice. But neither of us cared to comment on the situation across twenty feet of echoing water with Guinevere herself within earshot.
"She's dressing herself," he said shortly, as if in answer to my thought. He set the lamp down at the water's edge. We waited.
"Prince Bedwyr?"
The door opened again. She was in riding dress, and had braided her hair. Her cloak was over her arm.
Bedwyr limped up the bank. He held the cloak for her, and she drew it close and pulled the hood to cover the bright hair. He said something, then vanished indoors to reappear in a short while, carrying a table.
I suppose the next few minutes, if anyone had been in the mood to appreciate it, would have been rich in comedy, but as it was, Queen Guinevere on one side of the water, and myself on the other, stood in silence and watched Bedwyr improvising his absurd raft, then, as an afterthought, pitching a couple of cushions into it, and inviting the Queen to board it.
This she did, and they came across, an undignified progress, with the Queen crouched low, holding on to one carved and gilded table leg, while the Prince of Benoic poled the contraption erratically across the channel.
The thing came to the bank, and I caught a leg and held it. Bedwyr scrambled ashore, and turned to help the Queen. She came gracefully enough, with a little gasp of thanks, and stood shaking out her stained and crumpled cloak. Like her riding dress,