The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [61]
"Was anything said about King Lot's coming home?"
Beltane, that single-minded artist, did not even see the implications of the questions. They were expecting him, he told me cheerfully, at any time. The queen had seemed as excited as a young girl. Indeed, she could talk of nothing else. Would her lord like the necklet? Did the earrings make her eyes look brighter? Why, added Beltane, he owed half the sale to the king's coming.
"She did not seem afraid at all?"
"Afraid?" He looked blank. "No. Why should she? She was happy and excited. 'Just wait,' she was saying to the ladies, just like any young mother with her lord away at the wars, 'just wait till my lord sees the fine son I bore him, and as like his father as one wolf to another.' And she laughed and laughed; It was a jest, you understand, Master Emrys. They call Lot the Wolf in these parts, and take pride in him, which is only natural among savage folks like these of the north. Only a jest. Why should she be afraid?"
"I was thinking of the rumours you spoke of once before. You told me of things you heard in York, and then, you said, there were looks and whispers here among the common folk in the market-place."
"Oh, those, yes...well, but that was only talk. I know what you're getting at, Master Emrys, the wicked stories that have been going about. You know that always happens when a birth comes before its time, and there's bound to be more talk in a king's house, because, you might say, more hangs on it..."
"So it was before its time?"
"Yes, so they say. It took them all by surprise. It was born before even the king's own doctors could get here, that were sent north from the army to tend to the queen. It was the women delivered her, but safely, by God's mercy. You remember we were told it was a sickly child? And indeed, I could tell as much from the way he cried. But now he thrives and puts on weight. The maid Lind told me so, when I spoke to her on the way back to the gate. 'And is it true he's the image of King Lot?' I said to her. She gives me a look, as much as to say, That will silence the gossip, but all she says aloud is, 'Yes, as like as can be.' "
He leaned across the table, nodding with cheerful emphasis. "So you see it was all lies, Master Emrys. And indeed, one only has to talk to her. That pretty creature deceive her lord? Why, she was like a bride again at the thought of him coming home. And she would laugh that pretty laugh, like the silver bell on the cradle. Oh, yes, you can be sure the stories were all lies. Put around in York, they would be, by those that had cause to be jealous...You know who I mean, eh? And the child the image of him. They were all saying the same. 'King Lot will see himself in a mirror, just as sure as you see yourself, madam. Look at him, the image, the little lamb...' You know how women talk, Master Emrys. 'The very image of his royal father.' "
So he talked on, while Casso, busying himself with polishing some cheap buckles, listened and smiled, and I, only a little less silent, let the talk go by me while I thought my own thoughts.
Like his father? Dark hair, dark eyes, the description could fit both Lot and Arthur. Was there some faintest chance that fate was on Arthur's side? That she had conceived by Lot, and then seduced Arthur in an attempt to shackle him to her?
Reluctantly, I put the hope aside. When, at Luguvallium, I had felt doom impending, it had been in a time of power. And it did not need even that to tell me to mistrust Morgause. I had come north to watch her, and now the new fragment of information I just heard from Beltane might well have told me what to watch for.
Ulfin came in then, shaking a fine rain from his cloak. He looked across, saw us, and gave a barely perceptible sign to me. I got to my feet, and, with a word to Beltane, went over to him.
He spoke softly. "There's news. The queen's messenger rode in just now. I saw him.