The tinder two men of conscience joined to free a woman diey loved. The flint: Agrivaine—vengeful, vindictive, canny and courageous. The daring plot bore his stamp: one fast squadron, enough for the task, few enough to avoid suspicion, traveling peacefully south with their prince toward Camelot.

The spark: any one of a hundred in Camelot personally loyal to Guenevere, poor enough to have that loyalty spurred with gold. “Just the day, that’s all we need to know. Here’s for your pains, and God reward your faith in the best of ladies.”

The fire. On a cold, clear day, Guenevere set out for Caerleon with Bedivere and ten combrogi who expected no trouble.

.;’. “I’m shamed, Artos! I should have been brought back dead lather than live to tell you this.”

Bedivere’s exasperation and disgust were classic. He stumped up and down the chamber, favoring a lacerated thigh. , “Bedwyr, light somewhere and give me the facts.”

He dumped his long body onto a bench, clawing the dull copper hair out of his eyes. “A full squadron of Orkney. We ”weren’t two hours out when they hit us.”

“Agrivaine?”

“And Peredur, and thank God for him. Agrivaine would have slaughtered the lot of us. Peredur made them take Guenevere and run.”

Their mission completed, the raiders ran against time in hostile country. They didn’t expect pursuit by stubborn Bedivere. A few of their wounded turned to make a stand while the others escaped with Guenevere. A brief, whirling skirmish and all the rear guard lay dead except Peredur, long sick and in no condition [.far a venture like this. The Parisi had swooped across the board to trade a knight-prince for a queen, but the outcome would

the same.

“Civil war.” Bedivere fiddled with his hands, troubled. “We’ve

322

Firelord

spent our chances like the prodigal son, you and I. We should be playing with grandchildren, not running to one war on the heels of another.”

Barely listening, my mind raced over the ramifications of the raid; tomorrow’s move, next week’s. Guenevere’s mind and those she now commanded. Lancelot would follow her without question, but Agrivaine would goad for war.

“Where’s Peredur?” I asked.

“In the house where you kept the queen,” Bedivere told me. “He never wanted any of this. Shouldn’t have come, he’s weak as a kitten. But he loves his sister, he honors Lancelot and he’s Cador’s son.”

Civil war. We could keep Peredur from it but not Guenevere. Unless, just possibly …

“Gwen’s got sense,” I said. “She doesn’t want a battle any more than we do.”

Bedivere grimaced. The pain in his leg eroded his smai! hoard of tact. “Well, if there is, you asked for it. By God, you begged for it.”

The blunt honesty stung. “Not now, Bedwyr.”

“Bloody hell, not now. Artos, I’m your man, I’m with you. When the flags go up, I’m there to Say the king is right. But after forty years, who knows better when the man is wrong? I mean bringing Morgana. I can understand it, a man’s mistake, not a king’s. But a mistake.”

He was right and that smarted most. “That is the studied opinion of my lord Bedivere?”

He wagged his head in disgust. “Don’t lord me, Artos. I put the irons on Guenevere myself and turned the key on her. Ride against her now, I’ll be there with the dragon. But I say you should know a mistake and learn from it.”

“This is one country with one code of laws!”

“That again?”

“You think I don’t know by now it was insane? The last thing I need is you for a conscience.”

Bedivere rose awkwardly, still favoring the bad leg. “As my king says.”

“None of that, either. When you turn respectful, I know where to get off. Get out of here. And send someone to poke up this fire.”

Bedivere studied me with sharp concern. “Artos, Artos, you’re tight as a nun’s—have you been sleeping well?”

“Not much, no.”

Modred and a Grail

323

He knew me far too well. “And alone.”

“Mostly.”

“With all these women about?”

“I’ve—tried that. You have to talk to them sometimes.” And what does one say to a vacuous twit with nothing to recommend her but youth and virtue? Who is, ultimately, not Gwen?

“You could marry again. That’d take the horse out from under her.”

“Gwen would still fight. Harder than ever.”

“With less support,” Bedivere noted. “There’s a difference between a wronged queen and a rebel.”

“Bedivere, I think you’re actually becoming a statesman.”

“Defend me from that.” He turned at the door. “We’ll be north then?”

I relished it as little as he. “Yes.”

“I’d dearly love to see Myfanwy and the girl first. I’m thinking perhaps I should let Rhonda marry that scamp of hers. Give me a grandchild to play with.”

“You have leave. Take them my love.”

“And if I was loo sharp, let my king forgive me.”

“Ah, let be.” I snatched up my cloak and joined him at the door. He was an unmitigated pain in the arse sometimes, but every king should have a Bedivere. “Come, I’ll see you out.”

Peredur was thinner than ever, fish-white with a blood-spitting cough, hair and beard sparse and neglected, the habitual pilgrim’s robe stained with dark spittle. The image of the monk was belied, however, by urbane poise and hands that caressed books with the intimacy of Lucullus stroking a lover. I found him by the fire surrounded by a pile of parchment rolls. The eager hand he gave me had no warmth in it.

“Good of you to visit, Arthur. Forgive my not rising, I feel a bit fragile. And one hopes I’m more guest than prisoner.”

Peredur put aside the book he was enjoying. “Gwen left her library. Marvelous style, Luke. And look, here’s Augustine. Narrow man, but what a hunger for God! How are you, Arthur?”

“At war with your sister, damn you both. Comfortable?”

“Quite.” His pallid hands waved away any notion of inconvenience. “The guards are courteous, but they needn’t look in all that much. I couldn’t make it to the gate.”

That was true. It hurt to look at him. “Idiot, why’d you try this?”

324

Firelord

“A large gamble,” said the Prince of the Parisi, “a large profit.”

“I’ll send my doctors. They’re bored with my own infallible health. You’ll be a novelty.”

Peredur shrugged. “They’ll tell me to eat more meat and onions and avoid chills. They won’t say what I know already. No matter. Gwen is father born again. She’ll rule better than I.”

“No, she won’t. I’m going after her. You’ve made me.”

Peredur’s head snapped around. “I had to, Arthur!”

“You’re not going to be a separate crown, whatever excuse you give.”

“You had my loyalty, Arthur. If you hadn’t brought your filthy Picts. My God, what were you thinking?”

I sighed; twice in one day. “Obviously, 1 wasn’t.”

“Nicely put. The modest admission of the philosopher king. But what you did here, we pay for at home.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t have heard yet,” said Peredur ironically. “Your firstborn in whom you were well pleased. He raided Cilumum last week. Corstopitum the week before. Doesn’t take children anymore. Just pieces of them.”

I sat down, not able to look at him. “Modred.”

I knew it would happen. Modred, who saw so clearly his own doom, who courted it perversely in the name of twisted love, taking the world down with him.

“They caU him the firelord,” Peredur said. “And he’ll sit back and laugh while we kill each other.”

His dry laugh tore into a fit of painful coughing. I held him as his thin body convulsed. When it passed, I poured him some of the herb tea kept hot on the hob and helped him to his couch.

“Absurd,” he panted. “You and I and Guenevere. We’d rather be racked than fight each other. And I’ll sit it out here. What a magnificent failure: not quite a prince, not quite a priest. I couldn’t even find Lancelot’s Grail.”

“You did try.”

“I was so sure we could find it.” A hint of life returned now as he spoke of his quest; how they ferreted the monastery at Wyrral Tor top to bottom, pored over its fragmentary records, questioned the monks, set men digging in the cellars. Peredur wanted nothing from his remaining days but to find the Grail. Not to own it, not for any glory. Let it blaze up in light and vanish once more—if it ever did—that didn’t matter. He wanted to see the completion of something, an assurance.

Modred and a Grail

325

*‘A sense of continuity, Arthur. Christ to Joseph to us. Some-tiling that won’t change, that says we are His children no matter how we muck up the world. That’s all I want. All Eleyne wants, really.”

“She could never put it so clearly.”

Peredur coughed into his linen. “Eleyne never put anything clearly. I’ve listened and listened to that Grail story, and it still makes no sense. They say listening’s an art. With Eleyne it’s an ordeal. She talks in circles, I listen. Always the same.”

Only fair to tell him he had not suffered alone, as it were, under Pilate; that Ygerna had often been subjected to Caradoc’s version of the venerable tale.

“There was once at Vortigem’s table when Caradoc dragged out the old story. When he got to the pilgrim girl, Ygerna vowed if she went undressed in daylight, she’d expect to be noticed too.”

Peredur gasped. “Ach-y-fi, she didn’t! She actually said that?”

“My dear mother.”

“To Caradoc of holy Dyfneint? Oh dear. Well.” Peredur broke off; giggling over the image. “Well, actually, she’s right. I suppose. If a woman did go un—”

As I watched, Peredur’s expression changed from twinkling good humor to revelation.

“God love us, she’s right! That’s it.”

Peredur swung off the couch, swaying on thin legs. “That’s it, that’s what’s wrong. Arthur, look.”

He burrowed into a leather bag by his couch, retrieving a tattered parchment roll. “I’ve carried this for years. Each person that’s told the story, I’ve set it down close as possible to their words.”

The parchment rattled through his fingers, a river of Latin script.

“Yes, here. Quote Eleyne: “It was hot summer. Her robe was loose.’ ” Riffle, rattle, the script-river flowed. “Quote Galahalt: ‘It was the high summer and her raiment was loosened.’ Quote the Abbot of Wyrral Tor ‘As she came close, he perceived her robe was loosened.’ The rest much the same.”