The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [89]
"As soon as things are done here, and before winter sets in."
"Will you be there?"
"If I can. We'll speak of this again. I'll give you messages, and of course you will carry my gifts to Urbgen." He signed to Ulfin, who went to the door. The others came in then -- his knights and the men of the Council and certain of the petty kings who had come to Caerleon for the wedding. Cador was there, and Gwilim, and others from Powys and Dyfed and Dumnonia, but no one from Elmet, or the north. This was understandable. It was a relief not to see Lot. Among the younger men I saw Gereint. He greeted me with a smiling gesture, but there was no time for talk. The King spoke, and we sat over our counsels until sunset, when food was brought in, and after that the company took their leave, and I with them.
As I made my way back to my own quarters, Bedwyr fell in beside me, and with him Gereint. The two young men seemed to know one another tolerably well. Gereint greeted me warmly. "It was a good day for me," he said, smiling, "when that traveling doctor came to Olicana."
"And, I believe, for Arthur," I replied. "How is the work going in the Gap?"
He told me about it. There was, it seemed, no immediate danger from the east. Arthur had made a clean sweep in Linnuis, and meantime the King of Elmet held watch and ward for him. The road through the Gap had been rebuilt, right through from Olicana to Tribuit, and both the western forts had been brought to readiness. From talking about this he came to Caer Camel, and here Bedwyr joined him in plying me with questions. Presently we came to where our ways parted.
"I leave you here," said Gereint. He glanced back the way we had come, toward the King's apartments. "Behold," he said, "the half was not told me." He spoke as if quoting from something, but it was something I had not heard. "These are great days for us all."
"And will be greater."
Then we said good night, and Bedwyr and I walked on together. The boy with the torch was a few paces ahead. At first we talked, with lowered voices, about Ygraine. He was able to tell me more than he had said in front of Arthur. Her physician, not wishing to commit anything to writing, had entrusted Bedwyr with information for me, but nothing about it was new. The Queen was dying, waiting only -- this was from Bedwyr himself -- until the two young women, crowned and in due splendour, had taken their places, and thereafter it would be a strange thing (Melchior had said) if she lasted till Christmas. She had sent me a message of goodwill, and a token to be given to Arthur after her death. This latter was a brooch, finely made of gold and blue enamel, with an image of the mother-goddess of the Christians, and the name, MARIA, inscribed around the edge. She had already given jewels both to her daughter Morgan and to Guenever; these had come in the guise of wedding gifts, though Morgan already knew the truth. Guenever, it seemed, did not. The girl had been as dear, and lately almost dearer, to Ygraine than her own daughter, and the Queen had carefully instructed Bedwyr that nothing must spoil the marriage celebrations. Not that the Queen, said Bedwyr (who obviously held Ygraine in the greatest respect), had any illusions about Arthur's grief for her; she had sacrificed his love for that of Uther and the kingdom's future, and she herself was resigned to death, secure in her faith; but she was aware how much the girl had come to love her.
"And Guenever herself?" I asked at length. "You must have come to know her well on the journey. And you know Arthur, none better. How will they suit? What is she like?"
"Delightful. She's full of life -- in her own way as full as he is -- and she is clever. She plied me with questions about the wars, and they were not idle ones. She understands what he is