M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon Read online

  ‘Arthur? Where are you, boy? One of these branches might break if I climb any higher. Your mother will need a new husband then, and you’ll go begging for a father.’ Bedwyr’s voice was jocular and good natured, but he heard a small, strangled sob from above him.

  ‘If you’ll forgive my small show of cowardice, lad, I don’t think I’ll climb any higher. Take pity on your old father and come down a little so I can see you.’

  ‘You’re not my father.’ Bedwyr could hear the misery in the boy’s voice, which was quavering as Arthur resisted the urge to cry.

  ‘Is that how it stands with you?’ he asked calmly.

  ‘No . . . no! I just don’t want to be a bastard. I want you to be my father.’ Arthur was sobbing now as the words came flooding out, until Bedwyr was afraid that he could lose his grip on the oak and tumble down from his perch to the unforgiving ground below them.

  ‘Come down just a little so I can see you. I want you to look into my eyes and judge the truth of what I say for yourself. I won’t lie to you, or try to soften what your mother has told you. I only want to explain things to you, and to tell you of some changes that will soon happen in your life.’

  A rustle of leaves answered him and Bedwyr saw a pair of very dirty feet about ten feet above him. Arthur slithered down the trunk and settled into a fork with his back against the main trunk of the venerable oak, his feet stretched on each of the narrowing branches that formed his seat. Mournfully, Arthur looked down at his foster-father, who was almost close enough to touch the hardened soles of his feet had Bedwyr been so imprudent as to stretch one arm upward.

  ‘Thank you, Arthur. I can talk to you properly now.’

  Arthur’s face was woebegone and the grime of his frenzied rush through the forest was streaked with runnels where tears had cut tracks through the dirt. Childishly, he brushed away the signs of his hurt with his forearm and looked down at Bedwyr with wounded, shadowy eyes.

  ‘You can’t say anything to change what is,’ he whispered. Bedwyr had said much the same thing to his king on a bare hilltop in the teeth of a wind from the north. And now it was his turn to sigh for the past, as he leaned back against the sturdy trunk of Arthur’s tree.

  ‘I admit that I was angry when you were born. And I was hurt for a long time, because I had loved my king. In fact, I loved my king more than I loved your mother. Can you understand that type of love, Arthur?’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ Arthur murmured, his eyes wide. This was man’s talk, and the boy had no experience of the dark passions of adulthood.

  ‘I loved your birth father because he was the finest and strongest man I ever knew – and the saddest. He had no heir to claim as his own – not even you, because to do so would be to shame your mother and place you in great danger. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Sort of. But he was the king, after all. I thought kings were powerful men who could do as they willed.’

  ‘They are . . . well, there are some things they can’t do. Kings have to look after everyone, not just their own family. By the time you were born, King Artor was old and very tired. He can’t have wanted to go to war, but he was forced to do it, wasn’t he? He had to protect the ordinary people, like your nurse Caitlin, from a traitor who wanted to steal the land and make slaves of the peasants. He died for those people, although I know he’d far rather have been with you.’

  ‘But he hurt you, and he hurt Mother – she said so.’ Arthur’s face was set in such a way that the planes of his adult features seemed superimposed over his boyish freckles and his tears. ‘I hate him!’

  ‘No, Arthur. If I don’t hate Artor, and your mother doesn’t hate Artor, then how do you have the right to hate someone you never knew? I can tell you, boy, that when I look at you I still see my dear master. I have to look away sometimes because I’m so frightened for you.’

  ‘Then you do care about me a bit,’ the boy exclaimed, leaping on the one part of Bedwyr’s speech that he genuinely understood.

  ‘Of course I do. I nursed you when you were a baby, so how could I not have loved you? King Artor might have quickened the seed that became you, but I’m still your father. Think of this tree, which was old when I was a boy. Now look just beyond its branches to that younger tree over there.’ Bedwyr pointed to a small oak only twice the height of a man. ‘Many years ago, I planted some of the acorns from this tree, and prayed that those seeds would shoot and grow. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ the boy answered cautiously, but his face was much happier than before.

  ‘This large oak sired the smaller oak. A couple of years later, I came down here in the spring and found that a little sapling had broken through the earth and a baby tree had come to life. I cleared the weeds from around its roots and brushed them away from its trunk. Later, I brought water to it when the summers were very hot and its roots weren’t deep enough to find underground moisture. I kept it alive. Who was the small tree’s father? This old oak whose seed gave it life? Or I, who kept it alive?’

  ‘You were, Father. I understand now.’ Arthur’s brows knitted together as his agile brain made the next move. ‘You are raising me until I can stand alone, like the young oak over there.’

  ‘Yes, Arthur, exactly so! Do you realise how many close kinfolk you have? King Gawayne, King Bran, Prince Ector – they are all tied to you by blood as well as by affection. Of course, we can never tell anyone outside our immediate family who your father was, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t talk to your new kinfolk about your sire, and discuss his true history with them. You should be aware that some wicked men will try to tell you falsehoods from time to time, but mostly you can rely on your kin to tell you the whole, blunt truth, warts and all.’

  The boy slid down from his perch and balanced himself carefully next to Bedwyr, so the older man felt the touch of the boy’s fingers, as light as a kiss, in his hair. The forest master closed his brown eyes with their flecks of gold and thought of the long journey through agony, enslavement, madness and suffering that had brought him to this safe, beloved harbour and the love of a child who wasn’t his own. That love was the purest thing he had ever known.

  ‘We must be careful, Arthur, or my old bones will slip and you’ll have no father to help you learn your woodcraft. Let’s go down to the ground so I can begin to tell you all the exciting new things you’re going to learn about King Artor and your blood kin. I must admit I have waited for this day.’

  So quickly and so lithely that he might have been the old god, Pan, the boy gave a whoop and began his descent at headlong speed. Bedwyr followed more slowly, his feet searching for the footholds that the boy had used, amazed that he had possessed the temerity to climb so high at his advanced age. ‘A man must be mad!’ he exclaimed to the oak trunk as he found the lower branches and finally saw the tangled roots with their shroud of deep leaf mould. Arthur was looking up at him and his small face was creased with concern, as if he feared that Bedwyr would fall.

  Bravado made Bedwyr drop onto all fours from a branch nearly eight feet above the ground. Only chance prevented him from striking an uneven root and snapping his ankle like a twig.

  ‘Are you hurt, Father?’ Arthur asked, his eyes narrowed fearfully. ‘That branch was too high.’

  ‘Now you tell me, sprog. No, I’m unhurt!’ Then Bedwyr surprised himself by throwing his arms about the boy, lifting him bodily off his feet and embracing him. Hesitantly at first, and then in a rush of strong emotion, Arthur clasped his own arms around Bedwyr’s neck until the Arden Knife felt the boy’s wet eyelashes on his cheek.

  ‘Enough of weeping now,’ Bedwyr mumbled, embarrassed by the flood of love and protectiveness that coursed through him. ‘I’ve been far too reticent with you, lad, but that’s going to change. From now on, I’d like you to bring any problems you have to me. So, you young scamp, sit yourself down so I can rest my bones, and I’ll fill your head with snippets about some of your new family.’

  ‘King Gawayne?’ Arthur br
eathed, his eyes shining.

  ‘Yes, Gawayne is your cousin, or I think he is. And Queen Anna is your sister. Gods, but your family’s a fair tangle.’

  Arthur’s eyes almost started out of his head as he considered this astonishing relationship and he covered his mouth with both hands to stifle an oath that Bedwyr hadn’t known he’d even heard. Then he remembered Gawayne’s pungent language and realised that all his boys had probably learned some new forms of profanity since the old king’s arrival.

  I’ll need to warn the little ones about Gawayne’s more colourful turns of phrase . . . but later. First things first.

  ‘But she’s so old,’ Arthur exclaimed, shocked despite his attempt at worldliness.

  ‘I happen to know that Queen Anna has already agreed to tell you her story, including the tale of how King Artor married her mother when he was still a boy. At the time he was only a few years older than you are now.’

  ‘So King Bran . . . and Ector . . . are . . .’ Arthur’s voice faded away and he used his fingers as he tried to work out the connection.

  ‘Yes, young Arthur, despite being only seven years old, you are actually King Bran’s uncle. And Prince Ector’s great-uncle.’

  Arthur started to laugh, and his glee was so infectious that Bedwyr also began to guffaw. Soon, man and boy were rolling in the leaf mould, paralysed by paroxysms of uncontrollable mirth, and Bedwyr realised that the crisis in his family was past. Each of them had stepped over a vast gulf, and potential disaster had been averted.

  ‘Now, let me tell you what we’ve decided you have to learn. Let’s see if you find that quite so humorous, young oak tree.’ Bedwyr grinned and clapped the boy on the shoulder as father and son began to trudge back to the palisades where the people who loved them were waiting on tenterhooks. ‘First, you must kiss your mother and remind her that you love her. She’s been worried that you would be angry with her for betraying me with the king. When you’re older and can understand a little better, she’ll tell you how it all came about. But for the moment, she believes that you don’t love her, and it’s making her very unhappy.’

  ‘But that’s just silly,’ Arthur protested, his eyes wide with surprise. ‘How could I not love my mother?’

  ‘So I told her, but that’s how women think, my boy. Perhaps you’d best go to her quickly.’

  ‘I will.’ Arthur ran ahead, his eyes shining as if he had been given a gift beyond price.

  ‘May the gods protect us all,’ Bedwyr prayed ironically. Then he looked skyward. ‘Where are you now, Artor, when I really need you? I’ve a feeling you’d be even more terrified than I am, if you had to deal with such a son.’ Then Bedwyr paused, looked at his forest and smiled at his reservations.

  ‘What a boy you’ve given me, Artor. What a boy you and Elayne have made between you! Well, I’ll do my best, old man, because I’ve discovered I love him. He’d have spotted any lie in me, because he’s so like you. Life will be interesting over the next few years – may the gods protect us all indeed!’

  But his heart felt light and his spirits exhilarated as if he’d drunk too much fresh cider, and his steps were boyish and carefree as he hurried to his hall.

  As he had promised, Arthur sought out his mother immediately. She was resting on the big, rough-hewn bed in Bedwyr’s quarters and the boy could tell from her red eyes and her blotched complexion that she had been crying. Her eyes were closed and her hands were folded out of sight beneath the pillow that protected her aching neck and back. Lying down, she seemed small and delicate, perhaps because the swell of her belly made the rest of her frame seem too tiny to bear the weight of her unborn child.

  Arthur tentatively reached out his right hand and wiped away the marks of tears on Elayne’s pale face. Startled, she surged out of sleep with her hands raised to protect herself, and saw her son bending over her, his face glowing from within with the love that was clearly written in his pale eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry to wake you, Mother, and I’m sorry for everything I said this morning. Father and I had a long talk and he explained everything to me. I love you, Mother, more than anything. More than Arden, or my brothers and sister, or anything! I’m really sorry, and I’m ashamed that I made you cry.’

  Elayne tried to struggle into an upright position on the pillows, but needed Arthur’s young strength to settle her weary, child-heavy body comfortably. She sighed with relief as her son tucked a blanket round her shoulders.

  ‘Sit on the bed next to me, sweetling,’ she murmured drowsily, still disoriented from a confusing, half-remembered dream of some appalling future.

  ‘My hands and feet are filthy, Mother. I’ll soil your bed,’ Arthur protested, and she could see that he wasn’t exaggerating.

  ‘Never mind my bed, darling. I want my sweet boy to sit beside me.’

  Without any further protest, Arthur sat on the edge of the bed with his feet dangling awkwardly over the edge. He’s growing so big, Elayne thought with regret, and he’ll soon be a man. She looked up at her son and sighed wistfully. ‘I’ve been so worried, Arthur. I was afraid that you would think I was a whore for having carried Artor’s child, and you would cease to love me.’

  ‘I don’t know what a whore is, but I’m sure I wouldn’t think any such thing,’ Arthur insisted, affronted. He raised his head so he could stare into her smiling face.

  ‘Any woman who betrays herself and her kinfolk by lying with other men is called a whore,’ Elayne explained carefully, determined that no secrets be permitted to fester between them, even such a simple matter as the meaning of an insulting word.

  ‘Then you can’t be a whore, Mother, because you didn’t betray anybody. You told me you were half frozen, as was the High King, and you thought you were dying. I could never think of you as a whore, and I’ll kill anyone who says such a terrible thing in my hearing.’

  His face was so serious and so adult that she would have laughed had she not also detected the determination and potential violence of a man who possessed the capacity for unthinking rage. With Lady Anna’s warning in mind, she was in no doubt that Arthur would indeed kill to protect the reputations of those he loved.

  ‘I was so very angry when you told me that Bedwyr wasn’t my sire that I wanted to kill something. There was a burning hot knot right here.’ Arthur pointed to the centre of his chest. ‘But now I feel very lucky. Now I have two fathers, don’t I? One sired me and the other cares for my needs.’

  Elayne smiled and hugged him, but then her face contorted in sudden agony. She tightened every muscle involuntarily and Arthur sat up, his face vulnerable with concern.

  ‘What is it, Mother? What’s wrong? Should I fetch Father?’

  ‘Yes, sweetling,’ she hissed through clenched teeth as a violent contraction rippled through her body like a sudden unexpected wave. Her forehead beaded with sweat from the shock of the pain, she set the plans for her labour into action. ‘Fetch Bedwyr and Anna, my love. I think your brother comes early . . . and with considerable impatience.’

  Frightened by the extreme pallor of her face, Arthur rose carefully from the bed so as not to disturb her further and then ran pell-mell through the wooden hall, bellowing for Bedwyr in a voice made higher than usual by his panic.

  ‘What’s amiss, lad?’ By a lucky chance, Gawayne had returned early from the ride, and now stopped Arthur with one age-spotted hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  ‘Mother is in pain. She told me to find Lady Anna and my father. I must go, my lord.’

  With a general’s speedy assessment of an emergency, Gawayne swung into action. ‘Lady Anna is in the bower, so go to her now and tell her that your mother is having labour pains. I’ll find your father and fetch him to your mother’s room. Don’t fear, Arthur, for women are far braver than we men. If we had to bear the children, I fear that human beings would cease to inhabit the earth.’

  Despite Gawayne’s jocular attempt at comfort, fear loaned wings to young Arthur’s heels, and his entry into the bower caused consid
erable concern because of his obvious urgency and his terrified eyes.

  ‘Please come, Lady Anna,’ he begged, gripping his sister’s hand and tugging her towards the doorway. ‘Mother says the baby is coming early, and she wants you there straight away. Lord Gawayne is searching for my father.’ Then, because he was really only a little boy frightened for his mother’s safety, Arthur’s face contorted. ‘It’s my fault. I upset her,’ he wailed.

  Anna swung into action with the calm confidence of a woman who had brought many infants into the world. Leaving Arthur in Gwyllan’s care, she bustled out of the bower with several of Elayne’s women to collect bowls of hot water, swaddling cloth and all the other accoutrements of childbirth that Elayne had prepared in advance. Meanwhile, Gawayne had hunted out Bedwyr, who was scrubbing his dirty hands and face in a basin of cold water in the stables.

  ‘You’re about to become a father again, Bedwyr. My felicitations!’

  ‘But the babe isn’t due to be born for a month!’ Then Bedwyr was gone, his long legs propelling him swiftly across the forecourt and into the house, concern written so strongly on his usually impassive face that the servants scattered out of his path as he ran.

  Elayne sat in their huge bed with pillows piled high behind her back in an attempt to alleviate the force of the powerful contractions that had struck so suddenly. As Bedwyr surged into the already crowded room, she wiped her pale white face with a cloth while attempting to maintain a bright, confident smile for her husband’s benefit.

  ‘The pains came quickly, Bedwyr, much faster than with the other babes. I’m afraid that I might have affected the child by becoming upset, and he is retaliating by coming early into the world.’

  Bedwyr’s eyes flared with panic then, so she grinned to soften the alarming suddenness of her labour.

  ‘Don’t worry, husband. This is women’s work, and with four living children I’ve proved I have a talent for it. The child will be born, and by the strength of his demands I’d swear he’s a big strong boy.’