Sons of Camelot: The Complete Trilogy (13 page)

“You’ve done us all proud, Rhys. Your father may not say it but he is filled with great satisfaction of you.”

He took a long draw from his pipe and blew the smoke out luxuriously.

“You should get some rest now. Another long day awaits and you will only have a few days to enjoy your time at home.”

Rhys smiled broadly at the news and thanked his grandfather.

“You may accompany your father and I to Melusina’s Point in the morning to place my new fish in the pond there and then we will survey the lands and the new house at Red Ditch and oversee the beginning of the wheat harvest. Would you like that?”

“I would, Sir,” He replied quickly. “As early as the sun?”

Anlawdd laughed heartily. Rhys grinned at the sound of it.

“Yes, Rhys, as early as the sun.”

Erasmus stood up at this juncture and offered his hand to help the old man to his feet, bowing his head for his blessing. Anlawdd took Erasmus’ hand with his left and rose gracefully from the plush cushions of the wing chair. He placed his right hand palm down on the crown of the valet’s head saying, “Peace and Courage and Grace.” Erasmus smiled as he recognized the traditional Worwick motto. He responded, “Of Angels and Lions and God.” Anlawdd laughed heartily and went over to his wife, Irelli.

“Goodnight all. In morrow’s light, should God see fit,” she announced. She took his arm and they glided out of the room. It seemed that everyone stood up on cue and started putting away the accoutrements of their games and entertainment.

“Goodnight, my girls,” Rhys said playfully to his sisters who ran to give him one last hug goodnight. Rhys walked over to his mother and took her right hand; he raised it slowly to his lips kissing the large amethyst ring which she always wore.

“Have I ever told you the story of this ring, Rhys?” she asked quietly, her voice was just a whisper.

“No Ma’am, I do not recall you ever telling me that,” he replied, taking the seat beside her.

“It belonged to Adele Calista de Vasconie. She was my great grandmother by my father, Ranfild Aurelius, Duke of Gascogne. She was the Duchess of Gascogne when she received it as a gift from her husband, on the fifth celebration of their wedding.” She paused and sighed, admiring the ring on her finger. “She had no daughters so she passed it on to her son on his wedding day to be a gift to his bride on their fifth wedding celebration. And so the tradition of mother passing it to the firstborn son, the Duke de Gascogne, was born.” She sighed deeply again as she recalled the doomed history of her family and the dukedom of Gascogne to Rhys.

“As you know, my father died leaving me as his only child. He had no trueborn heir so the Dukedom fell to his brother but the ring remained with my mother, who gave it to me.”

“I see,” Rhys said dutifully.

“You are the true line of the Dukes of Gascogne, Rhys, grandson of the firstborn Duke, Ranfild. The title has been lost to our branch of the tree but the blood remains. One day soon you will take a bride and this ring will be yours and on the fifth celebration of your marriage you will give it to her and you must tell her this story as well. When the time comes, she will recite it to her son and the line will continue through her.”

Rhys smiled at his mother taking the hand that she wore the large amethyst on in his and caressing the ring on her finger.

“That day is far away still, Mother. But I am honored that you have shared this with me now, at a time when I am in such awe of my family and filled with true gratitude to be amongst you all.”

“Indeed, my son. I thought it the very best time to tell you as well.”

“I have missed you, Lady Mother, you can never know how much,” he whispered. “May I take my tea with you tomorrow afternoon in your presence chamber? Just the two of us?”

Mid-afternoon tea was a tradition from Boulogne that Irelli had kept up in the household. It was a comforting notion of home for Rhys, one that even Morgana had indulged him with when he was particularly homesick.

“Oh, my son, I have missed you dearly too and you have changed so much. We shall have tea together but not tomorrow, you will be with your father and grandfather at Red Ditch and I am sure you will not return before the following morning. But the next day surely, I look forward to it,” she replied.

Rhys rose and kissed her hand again before moving over to where his father sat. He knelt for Gwallawc’s blessing and wished him goodnight adding that he was anticipating the trip to Red Ditch in the morning. His father nodded his head and mumbled a goodnight. Exhausted, Rhys followed as Erasmus led the way upstairs to his bed chamber.

Rhys collapsed exhausted in a large chair and sat there in silence as Erasmus carefully washed his hands and then his feet. The water was warm and scented with lavender but Rhys noticed little more than that. He must have fallen asleep because Erasmus had to clear his throat quite loudly to bring his attention to the mug of herb tea his grandmother had sent up for him.

“It is
chamomaela
, it will relax you and soothe your muscles so you can rest deeper and wake tomorrow without any residual effect from tonight’s ale and wine,” Erasmus explained.

Rhys drank as much as he could before he began to doze off again. The tea was delicious and  smelled of a million apple blossoms which reminded him of Avalon. He put the mug down on the table and realized he had to stand to get undressed and get into his night shirt. He groaned at the thought of it. As soon as his head hit the pillow, Rhys was snoring. Erasmus smiled and quietly pulled the bed curtains closed around him.

He dreamt of a wide field covered in deep white snow. There was nothing to be seen but snow, not a bush or a tree in sight and the air was still, without a chirp or a howl. He was walking toward something that he could not make out clearly. As he drew closer to it, he could see it was a flower, a bunch of flowers, alone in the fluffy white field. Slowly, Rhys kept walking toward it. When he reached there, the bright purple thistles opened their petals and inside the largest blossom was his mother’s amethyst ring.

***

‘One day, four strangers came to the gates of Camelot. Standing on the parapets with Merlin, he looked down at them. There were three women and a boy of about fourteen.

“Who are they?” asked Arthur.

“The women are your half-sisters by your father, Uther Pendragon,” Merlin told him. “Two of them have come to make their peace with you. But the third, Morgause, is bitter. She seeks your downfall. I hoped never to see her in Camelot.”

Then Arthur looked at the boy. “Who is he?” he asked.

“You don't want to know,” Merlin warned.

But Arthur insisted.

“He is your son by that same woman. Your half-sister, Morgause. She was the woman who came to you that night. His conception was planned with evil magic. Whoever worked that magic will use him against you. He will betray you.”

Mordred paced back and forth in front of the great chair that had been placed on the dais in the hall at Castle Ayr. It was his defector’s chair; from it he had made all his treacherous plans and commands so far. He hated that it was nothing more than a traitor’s throne for the moment. But time would change everything. He had always thought of himself as an enterprising man; even from his youth. Back then, he was constantly chided for being a bastard born of his father’s incestuous coupling with a half-sister. The truth of the matter was that as the years went by, the story hurt Mordred less and less; he had chosen long ago to use the hatred of others to fuel his self-determination and his purpose in life. Incidentally, that purpose was to destroy his father, King Arthur.

Everyone knew the story of his life, what they didn’t know was who had been behind it all along. And even when the suspicious circumstances of his conception had been revealed to Arthur, the king had made no effort to seek out the truth. Instead, he feigned ignorance in order to hide from his own guilt.

Mordred remembered the day they had ridden to Camelot; when his Aunt Morgana had sought to plead with Arthur and Guinevere. But Mordred knew who had bewitched his mother and sent her in to lie with her half-brother Arthur so that he would have an heir. It had been the Lady of the Lake and she had done so at Merlin’s request.

“I will see them burn!” he suddenly shouted.

The sounds of his rants echoed throughout the room.

“Bring the cambion to me. I will speak with Anebos now. I know exactly what I need him to do so his time to get to work has arrived.”

“Your Grace,” Anebos said, as he swept into the room and stopped before the dais, bowing low to Mordred. “How may I be of service-ssss?”

Mordred cringed at the elongated sound of the creature’s hiss. It always unnerved him, making him feel as if he were speaking to an animal. It was a strange sentiment to have seeing as a cambion is really a being who is absolutely nothing. He is neither human, nor demon, nor alive, nor dead. Perhaps it was his essence of ambiguity that perplexed Mordred; whatever it was, he was uneasy around Anebos.

“Go to Leicester and wait for Rhys of Gascogne, Richard of Dumnonia and that interfering Avalonian, Erasmus. It will be up to you to ensure that I am kept informed of their progress so that they can be stopped before they get to Keswick. There’s no way that we can risk another fiasco like the one Erandur and his ‘dark oafs’ orchestrated in Worwick’s Shire a few nights ago. The more people who see my forces walking the Earth, the more chances there are of word getting to Merlin. I wouldn’t be surprised if the boy’s father or grandfather haven’t already sent word to Arthur and Merlin.”

“If they have, it will never arrive, Mas-sss-ter.”

“Good, good. Anebos, if the Sons get too close to doing anything even remotely heroic…dispose of them. Immediately!”

The cambion smiled.

‘Yes-sss, Mas-sss-ter.”

Chapter Two

The air was still very crisp when Anlawdd rode out of the stables with his son and grandson at his side. They wore heavy wolf fur riding coats over their warm long sleeves and hats pulled down low on their faces. Rhys’ stomach was still heavy with the hot sausages and poached eggs he had devoured at breakfast. He looked over to catch a glimpse of a broad smile across his father’s face. Rhys had become too accustomed to seeing the surly expression that always resided there, smiling was a rare occurrence for Gwallawc. He smiled to himself. It seemed that it was just as well that the family arms of all the Dumnonian nobles had a dragon on it since Rhys doubted that dragons could smile.

The men of his line were all fabled to be proud and strong but Rhys did not see these qualities in his father. He saw a man whose happiness was culminated in the woman he had married, who allocated sentiment sparingly as if he felt he didn’t have enough love to share with anyone else but her. He saw a man who had a disturbingly one-tracked mind but was somehow still incredibly successful at everything he did. Most of all, Rhys saw a man who had lived many fruitful years, was a nobleman of the land, had a large healthy family and many tenants and holdings but was somehow still uncomfortable in his own skin. Anlawdd had once told Rhys to be proud of his family despite their claim to their heritage because his great grandfather had not dishonored
Meleri ferch Llywelyn
, Rhys’ great grandmother, by naming her son a bastard. He had given Anlawdd a prince’s name and a wealth of valuable properties, the only thing he could not give was the throne and his crown. But it was clearly a lesson that Gwallawc had not learned and a truth he had not yet made peace with.

Being the son of a bastard was a hard life; Rhys knew this from the time he had spent up on the ramparts of Avalon with his chatty friend Ywain. Ywain’s mother had been a chambermaid at Avalon when she met Ywain’s father. The gentleman was young and full of affluence, he was highborn and handsome. The love affair was short but stirring and when the gentleman’s time at Avalon was over, Ywain’s mother and the babe quickening in her womb were unceremoniously left behind. The Three Sisters had kept her at Avalon and when Ywain was born she was allowed to keep and raise him there. The father was never asked to claim the child, so Ywain was named
ab Na Ddyn
, son of No Man, as tradition dictated. However, the Three Sisters had intervened and had called him Ywain
ab y Llew
, the Lion’s son, for the charge of Avalon’s coat of arms.

At least I have my name, Rhys thought, and I can name my ancestors on all four sides back by at least four generations, maybe farther with my grandparents’ help. He immediately decided that when he returned from gathering the sons at Keswick, he would start working on an illustration of their family tree. He remembered Anlawdd telling him that a person’s lineage was like the four corners of the earth deriving the quadrants on a compass. Without all four corners clearly marked, one would easily lose the way. Rhys silently hoped that his father would find his way back.

“Red Ditch, ho!’ Anlawdd shouted as they crested a high hill and looked over into the deep valley.

It was a beautiful sight. Red Ditch was just west of the edge of the Worwick highlands, seated in a sunny vale. Rhys had always wondered why his family had not built a house here before, a place where they could repose during the warm months and enjoy the sun instead of freezing well into every summer at Kenilwurt. The horses scaled the ridge’s narrow track carefully on the descent and as they got lower into the valley, their warm clothing steadily began to come off.