5. Questing

Terence

On the evening of his first day of traveling, Terence found the first signs of the White Horsemen, a forest hermitage in ruins. The house had been burned to the ground, the well filled with dirt, a goat enclosure torn down, and everything trampled to dust by hundreds of shod hooves. There was no sign of the hermit, so Terence hoped he had escaped. Abandoning the journey into Cornwall, Terence followed the destroyers' trail to the east.

The next morning he came upon a ravaged farm. Like the hermitage, every building and structure had been torn down and burned. Terence dismounted and climbed over the rubble, sifting through the ashes and pushing aside charred timbers. After a minute, a stirring of breeze brought to his senses a familiar, oppressive smell from the edge of the woods. Terence followed the scent, praying that he would find only the carcass of an animal, but just within the forest he found the bodies of a man, a woman, and three children. Judging from the state of decay and the marks of scavengers, they had been dead at least a week. Terence covered his face with a kerchief and breathed only through his mouth, but although he could muffle the smell, nothing could ease the weight that bowed his head and shoulders. It wasn't death itself that burdened him; it was the senselessness of these deaths. Death ought to mean something more than the ill chance of being in the path of the wrong army. Terence didn't try to move the bodies. Instead, he shoveled a mound of earth and ashes onto them. Then, with the largest of the remaining timbers, he built a rude shelter over the mound, a rustic forest crypt. He said no words of dedication before he started east again. He knew no prayers that day.

Three hours later, he found another ravaged farm and made three more graves. Then, that same evening, the smoking ruins of a village with at least thirty bodies lying exposed. Nothing that might be used or resold was left in the hamlet. Terence found the bodies of two women whose left ring fingers were severed, apparently to get at their wedding bands. Terence realized he couldn't stop to bury every body that the White Horsemen left behind, and so, reluctantly, he turned his back on the ruins and continued on the army's trail.

Over the next few days, Terence saw more devastation and signs of greater cruelty than he had seen in all his life. Old women, babies, youths, men, women, children: all were killed with the same ruthlessness. What he did not find was anyone left alive. Occasionally he found a burned farm or wayside inn with no bodies, but not once did he find a survivor. He began to feel as if he were the lone living soul in a dead land. He didn't even hear birds or small animals, as if some instinct that wild creatures have and humans don't had warned them to leave and not return. But he was getting closer to the horsemen. By the ninth day after leaving Camelot, the ruins that Terence found were still warm from the destroying fires. He could not be more than two days behind them.

On the tenth day, he found his first survivor, a young man who knelt by a grave and stared blankly at the charred ruins of a tiny farmhouse. Terence dismounted and stood by the young man, saying nothing. At last the youth looked up. "Have you come to finish the job? Kill me?"

Terence shook his head.

"I wish you would."

"Did you see who did this?" Terence asked.

The youth nodded and slowly rose to his feet. "It was King Arthur's men."

Terence felt a chill. "No," he said.

"Ay, it was. They rode in at sunset, killed the cow and the dog, then set the house on fire. I was cutting wood out back and saw the smoke, so I ran up in time to see my Elise in the yard, begging the knights to spare us. They laughed and killed her where she stood."

Terence bowed his head. He had thought his heart could grow no heavier, but the young farmer's story was like molten lead poured into his chest. After a long moment, he asked, "How did you live?"

"I ran at the knights with my axe," the young man said, "but they knocked me down and took it away. Then they raised their swords to kill me, but another knight stopped them. It was a young man with fair hair and golden armor. He rode up and shouted for them to stop. They did."

"The knight with golden armor saved you?"

The man nodded. "He sent the others on and dismounted to see if I was hurt. Then he helped me dig a grave for Elise."

"He helped ... but why?" Terence couldn't imagine what Mordred was doing.

"He's trying to save everyone he can, he said. The king's gone mad, you know."

"King Arthur?"

"Ay. He's sent out all his armies to kill whatever they find. But the golden knight—Mordred, he said his name was—can no longer follow a mad, murderous king. He told me to stay hidden, that he would be raising an army of true knights to put an end to Arthur's killing, that one day England would be free again."

The breadth of Mordred's plan shook Terence. Mordred meant to ravage England, leaving alive only a few, all believing that Arthur was to blame. "Mordred was lying," Terence said.

"Is this a lie?" the man said, gesturing at his ruined farm. "Is my Elise's grave a lie?"

"Arthur didn't command it, nor is he mad. Mordred's trying to turn the land against the king."

"I saw the knights. They wore Arthur's colors."

"Anyone can wear colors."

The young man shook his head. "So you say. But who should I believe but the man who stood by me and helped me dig Elise's grave? Arthur may once have been a good king, but he's changed. From this day on I swear to kill every knight of Arthur's court I find."

Terence reached behind him to his saddle and drew his sword from the scabbard. Taking it to the young man, he handed it to him hilt first, then dropped to one knee before him.

"Eh? What's this?"

"I'm Sir Terence of Arthur's Round Table," Terence said. "I tell you that Arthur's not mad, and that he didn't order these murders. But if you won't believe me, do as you will."

The man stared at him, the cloud of grief clearing from his eyes for a moment. He lowered the point to the ground. "You're mad, too," he said.

Terence let out his breath slowly and climbed to his feet. "I may be," he agreed, "but the king is well."

"So you say that Mordred did all this to make me hate the king?"

"Why do you think the knights obeyed him when he stopped them? He's their leader. Mordred is King Arthur's son, and he means to steal the throne from his father."

Wordlessly, the young man handed the sword back to Terence.

"What is your name?" asked Terence.

"Bede, Sir Terence."

"Will you help me, Bede?" The youth nodded slowly. "I need you to take my horse and ride back to Camelot. Tell Arthur all that has happened. Tell him that Mordred has left Cornwall and is marching northeast."

Bede nodded slowly. "Will he believe me?"

"You'll have my horse and my sword. Arthur will know them both."

"You're giving me your sword?"

Terence nodded. "From here, I go through the woods. A sword will only be in my way. You keep them both. And now, Bede, kneel." Bede stared at Terence, confused, but he did as told, and Terence laid the flat of the sword on Bede's shoulders. "Today I make you a knight. Rise, Sir Bede: be ever true to your God, protect always your neighbor, honor always your king."

Bede rose, blinking with astonishment, and dazedly took the sword that Terence handed him. "Can you do that?" he asked. "I thought only a king—"

Terence half smiled. "I don't know. There are probably some rules against it somewhere. But this is no time for rules. Besides, if I missed something, Arthur can fix it when you get there. Now, hurry."

Sir Bede climbed into Terence's saddle, then looked back. "Sir Terence?"

"Yes?"

"Would you really have let me kill you?"

The half smile curled Terence's lips again. "I was mostly hoping you wouldn't try," he said. "But failing that, I was planning to duck really, really fast."

In all his days of traveling before he found Bede, Terence had seen not one living human. The next day, though, on foot, he saw more people than he could count, most of them gathered in ragged groups and clustered under makeshift shelters. Having given Bede his horse, Terence left the main roads to travel through dense forests that would be impenetrable to knights on horseback, and he soon realized that others had done the same. Several times he stopped to speak with people, hearing from them variations of the story that Bede had told. Some had hidden when they heard the riders approach, but at least half of those he spoke to told about being rescued by the golden knight Sir Mordred. After three or four attempts, Terence gave up arguing with them. No one believed him. In a twisted way, Terence realized, this was King Arthur's fault: he had been so successful at driving recreant knights out of England that many of the country people had never seen a knight who wasn't from Camelot. To these, all knights, good and bad, were from Arthur.

The encampments grew more numerous as Terence pressed deeper into the forest, and eventually he came to a large clearing in the center of a wood. Four solid cabins bordered the clearing, and within that square, people huddled everywhere. A stone cross rising above the crowd proclaimed this to be a hermitage, and among the milling throng Terence saw a few men in brown monk's robes. By the cross rose smoke and the aroma of food. Terence slipped through the crowd in that direction and in time came to a large cauldron on a fire, where a hugely bearded man in a cowl was spooning out soup to people in a line.

"Back of the line!" the bearded man said absently to him as he neared.

"I'm not looking for food," Terence said.

"That makes you the first," the man grunted. "Do you have food to share, then?"

Terence shook his head. He had left all his dry food in his saddlebags for Bede. "Sorry."

"You a huntsman?" asked the bearded man, glancing at Terence's bow and quiver of arrows.

"You might say that."

"Then go hunting, man, and bring us some game. You think it's easy to feed this many people?"

Terence shook his head. "There is no game," he said simply.

The man sighed. "That's what Bleoberis says. He's trying anyway."

Terence looked up at the name. Bleoberis was the name of a knight of the Round Table who a few years earlier had left the fellowship to join a hermitage. "Bleoberis? Who was once a knight?"

The man nodded and served a beer mug full of soup to a woman with pale cheeks and tired eyes.

"Then you're the hermit Godwulf?" Gawain's cousin Ywain had stayed with this hermit some years before and spoke highly of him.

"Brother Abbot they call me now," Godwulf rumbled, chuckling. "Since Bleoberis, we've had near a dozen men join us here. Good thing, too. Need every one of them these days."

A youth in a robe like Godwulf's approached. "I've brought the rest of the mugs, Brother Abbot. Might as well use them for soup now."

Godwulf looked stricken. "You mean...?"

"Ay, Brother Abbot," the young man said mournfully. "Beer's gone."

Godwulf took a long breath, then sighed. "The Lord will provide according to our need," he said at last.

"Do you still speak of God?" snapped a middle-aged man in the soup line. "I want no more of your God. I watched Arthur's knights kill my family. The Lord will provide? Provide what?"

Godwulf spooned another mug of soup and gave it to the man without a word. The man scowled back at him. "God lets the knights kill us, and all you do is give me a cup of thin soup in His name?"

"Ay," said Godwulf.

"I'd rather have a God who was strong enough to save my family, thank ye," the man snapped.

"Strong's easy," Godwulf said quietly. "Any bastard can be strong. Come here, man. What's your name?"

"Adelbert," the man said defiantly.

"Well, step up here, Adelbert," Godwulf said abruptly. The man did, and Godwulf placed the soup ladle in his hands. "Could ye serve the people for a bit, friend? I'll go see what we have to start another pot."

Dumbly the man took the ladle and began scooping broth into cups. Godwulf headed for the largest cabin, and Terence fell into step beside him. "The knights doing this aren't really from Arthur, you know," he said.

"Don't care," Godwulf rumbled. "Whoever it was, the people are just as hungry."

Terence nodded. "Can you tell me where the knights were headed? They were moving northeast last I knew."

"Not moving anywhere now," Godwulf said. "Bleoberis says they're camped west of Abingdon and haven't moved in a couple of days. Due north."

"Thank you," Terence said. Godwulf opened a hatch and headed into a root cellar. Terence struck out north.

The nearer Terence got to the camp of the White Horsemen, the more unnaturally quiet the woods became, as if Mordred was wrapped in a deepening cloak of silence. No birds sang and no squirrels chattered. Even the insects were silent, and spiders' webs hung tattered and empty from the trees. The part of Terence that had always felt most at home among the trees felt edgy and urged him to turn and run, but unlike the forest creatures, Terence had purposes beyond self-preservation. Instinct, more than any physical evidence, told Terence that he was near his goal, but it hardly seemed possible in this dense forest. An army needed a clearing or a plain in which to camp, and a reliable source of water, and Terence had seen neither for over an hour, and the underbrush seemed to grow more impenetrable at each step.

A light glinted directly ahead, and Terence froze. For several long minutes, Terence watched the spot without moving. It flickered again, warm and amber, not cold and metallic like a reflection on armor. Terence saw no other movement and crept closer. He had to move inch by inch, for the forest grew thicker the closer he came. Brambles caught at his arms and legs, and vines twined around his feet, as if trying to slow him down. Terence could see the light now; it was a campfire, and behind it stood a single military tent. A branch on a tree seemed to shift position, as if to block Terence's way, and suddenly he knew he had been a fool. He turned to run, but before he could move, a lazy voice said, "You will die if you try it."

In a second, the forest vanished, and Terence found himself on a grassy plain surrounded by knights with drawn swords and yeomen with arrows pointed at him. Terence lowered his arms, then turned back to look into the pale eyes of Mordred, empty but for a stir of cruel amusement. "You should have seen yourself," he remarked, "creeping across an open field in the light of day, acting as if you were in—oh, I don't know—a thick forest or something."

Beside Mordred stood a withered old woman in a gray cloak, tittering with glee. Terence had seen hags before, wizened practitioners of dark magic, and realized that he had been lured into the open by a simple illusion.

Mordred continued, "Hag Karnis here has a knack with an enchanted wood, wouldn't you say, Sir Terence?"

Hearing his name, the hag looked sharply up at Mordred's face and started to speak, but Terence spoke first. "Among other skills," he said affably, "she must have sensed my approach from quite a distance to lay such a trap."

"Ah, but that wasn't the hag," Mordred replied. "That was my doing. I don't have many magical skills, considering who my mother is, but I do know when I'm being followed. I wish you would throw that knife over here at my feet, Sir Terence. Gently. My archers are prepared to shoot at the least unexpected movement."

Terence tossed his knife in the grass between Mordred and himself. Then, without waiting to be asked, he unslung his bow and arrows and threw them down beside the knife. Mordred picked up Terence's knife, a black dagger with a wicked-looking blade and a hilt curiously carved in the semblance of two writhing snakes.

"Dear me," Mordred mused. "Now what, I wonder, is the noble Sir Terence of King Arthur's court doing with one of Adamantha's blades?" He showed it to the hag. "Wouldn't you say it's Adamantha's work, Hag Karnis?"

"Yes, Your Highness," the creature wheezed. "But my liege, if this is—"

"Whence came you by this knife?" Mordred asked Terence.

Terence saw no reason not to answer. "Gawain gave it to me shortly after I became his squire."

Mordred drew his own knife from its sheath at his side, dropped it to the ground, and replaced it with Terence's. "It's a pity I didn't have this knife last month when I tried to stab you in the back," Mordred said. "I quite blunted my old one on your chain mail, but this one would have cut through it like butter, and we would have been spared all this. How many people have you killed with this blade, Sir Terence?"

"None."

Mordred shook his head mournfully. "It deserves a better master. Adamantha's blades were made for murder."

"Who is Adamantha?"

Mordred chuckled. "The sorceress who trained my own mother, of course. Haven't you heard of her? Tsk."

"Your Highness!" the hag said hoarsely, tugging at Mordred's arm. "If this is Terence, then he is the other one of the two! Your mother said—"

"I know perfectly well what Mother said," Mordred replied calmly. "That there are two who must be killed at once, on sight."

"Then let him be killed. When My Lady says for something to be done, then—"

"Hag Karnis," Mordred interrupted in a silky voice. "I ask you to remember who is to be king in England. Is it to be me or my mother?"

The hag dropped to her knees and groveled at his feet. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, but My Lady—"

"Yes?"

"Nothing, Your Majesty."

Mordred looked at the knights around Terence. "Tie him," he said. "Hands, feet, legs, but leave his mouth free." Terence stood immobile while Mordred's men made him fast. His legs were bound from the hips to the ankles, and his hands crossed and tied behind his back. When they were done, Mordred stepped up to him and gave him a gentle push. Terence fell backwards like a cut tree, landing on his back with a force that drove the air from his lungs. Mordred chuckled with a humor that never touched his eyes, then said over his shoulder, "Oh, and Hag Karnis?"

"Yes, Your Highness," gasped the ancient sorceress.

"You may, of course, go off now and send a message to my mother that I have disobeyed her instructions by not killing Sir Terence at once, but before you do that I would ask you to consider how such an action would be viewed by your future king, and if it will really conform with your hopes for the future to do so."

"Yes, Your Highness," the hag mumbled. "It's just that—"

"I am not a fool," Mordred said. "But I need to speak with him first. Don't worry; I'll kill him when he's no longer useful. Did I not do so to Dame Lyonesse?" He paused briefly, then added slowly, "It is what I do to anyone who ceases to be useful." He smiled at the hag, then nodded to two guards. "Put him on the floor in my tent."

Five minutes later, prone on the floor of Mordred's tent, Terence was joined by Mordred, who turned him over gently, testing each rope and knot individually. Only when that was done did Mordred stand, light a lantern, and look into Terence's eyes. "Who are you?" he asked.

"You know who I am," Terence replied.

Mordred shook his head. "No. You are more than that. You are one of the only two people in the world whom my mother has ever feared, she who fears nothing. Why?"

"Who's the other one?" Terence asked.

"You are not in a position to ask questions."

Terence tried to shrug but, trussed as he was, found it impossible. "I'm not in much of a position to do anything. If it comes to that, why should I answer questions either? You've already made it clear that you plan to kill me when you're done."

Mordred was silent for a moment, then he continued as if Terence had said nothing. "Every plan I've made, you were the one who brought it to naught. From the moment I arrived at Camelot last year, you distrusted me. Why? My disguise was perfect. All believed in me, especially Arthur. Only you knew that I was pretending. What did you see?"

Terence said nothing.

After a moment, Mordred continued. "How did you know that I killed Bedivere? No one else suspected me."

"And that you poisoned the emperor Alexander?" Terence added, speaking of a foreign ruler who had visited Arthur when Mordred first came to court.

"You know that, too?" Mordred asked, his face briefly registering surprise.

Terence nodded.

"Do you have someone who tells you these things? But that's impossible. Mother said she halted all commerce between worlds."

"She was wrong. Perhaps she isn't as powerful as you think."

Casually, without any evident malice or anger but with great force, Mordred leaned down and cuffed Terence across the cheek with a gauntleted hand. Terence's head slammed hard against the floor and lights flashed behind his eyes. Mordred sat down on a campstool and watched for a moment.

"She will win," he said mildly. "Arthur was never a threat to her, and once she had learned how to bind the faeries and keep them from this world, there was no one left to stand in her way. But then you did."

"Actually," Terence said stiffly through a swollen lip, "I've done it several times. I forget how many. She does keep coming up with her little plots, doesn't she? I've often had to take time off from my busy schedule to send her packing."

This time Mordred struck him on the other cheek. Once again Terence felt his lips growing puffy and tasted blood.

"You should not speak slightingly of a lady," Mordred said. He waited a moment, then began again. "You were the one who knew that she was my mother. How did you know that? No one in this world knew that."

Terence said nothing. Mordred waited for a few minutes, and for a second Terence thought he saw a flash of genuine amusement in Mordred's eyes. "Do you have any idea," he said, "how unusual it is to find a man who feels no need to talk about himself?"

Silence.

"I wonder," Mordred said suddenly, "if, as you followed me, you came upon any of the signs of my army's passage?"

"Do you mean children and farmers and villagers butchered and left to rot?"

"Yes," Mordred replied affably. "That's exactly what I mean. Would you believe me if I told you that I hated doing all that?"

"No."

"But it's true. I get no joy from killing."

"You feel no remorse at it, either."

"No, of course not. But it's a terrible way to win a war, killing the weak. It just leaves the land that much less profitable. I may have been raised with no other purpose than to murder, but believe me, I would never have set about such a slaughter if I had had any other choice."

Terence could only stare at Mordred, who almost sounded as if he believed what he said.

"So you could say that all those deaths were really your fault," Mordred concluded.

"My fault?"

"My first plans were much more humane. If you had left well enough alone, only Arthur would have died, and I would have been crowned peaceably and legitimately."

"Except for the bit about murdering your father, you mean?"

"Well, I wouldn't have done it so that anyone would ever suspect me. I'm not a fool." Terence said nothing, and Mordred went on. "But you had to reveal that I was the son of Morgause the Enchantress, and so I had no choice but to make open war. All these deaths are really your doing."

"Or you could have chosen not to become king," Terence pointed out. "Arthur was willing to claim you as his son and make you his heir. You would have become king legally—and without one murder—as soon as Arthur died. You simply had to wait."

Mordred stared at him, his eyes uncomprehending. "I don't like to wait," he said simply.

"You mean your mother doesn't like to wait," Terence corrected.

"Same thing. We think alike."

"Do you? I just heard you disobey your mother's orders. Weren't you supposed to kill me on sight?"

Mordred raised one eyebrow. "Are you complaining?"

"I'm just pointing out that you don't seem to be in such unity with your mother as you pretend. Do you really think that when all this is over, if you defeat Arthur, she will let you rule as king? Do you really think she's done all this for your sake?"

Mordred eyed him speculatively, but this time he was the one who said nothing.

"Arthur's kingdom may fall," Terence said quietly. "No kingdom lasts forever. But whatever happens, I'm glad to have served a king who thought first of others, a king I could turn my back on without fear."

"Sounds tedious," Mordred said lightly, but there was the suggestion of a crease on his brow. A faint motion from Mordred's side caught Terence's eye, and looking more closely, he noticed, to his amazement, that the carved ebony snakes on the haft of his own knife appeared to be moving. Quickly he averted his eyes so as not to draw attention to them. Mordred scowled at his inert form and said, "Look here, you aren't going to tell me what I want to know, are you?"

"Not on purpose," Terence replied. "Are you going to tell me what I want to know?"

"What you want to know?" Mordred repeated, blinking. "What is that?"

"What is your plan? Why are you waiting here instead of pressing your attack? Are you waiting for more troops?"

Mordred stared for a second, then barked with a humorless laugh. "Aren't you precious. Still trying to complete your mission, even though in a few minutes you'll be dead."

"Tell me what I want, and I'll tell you what you want." The snakes on Terence's knife were definitely coming to life. Terence had carried that blade since he was barely more than a child, and he had never had any reason to think it was enchanted.

Mordred hesitated, then nodded. "You go first. How do you know so much? How did you know who I was? Was there some flaw in my act?"

"No. Your pretense was perfect. If I were not the Duke of Avalon, son of the enchanter Ganscotter, I would have sensed nothing."

"Avalon," Mordred repeated breathlessly. "Yes, I see why Mother hates you. And how did you know my mother?"

Terence shook his head. "Your turn," he said. The snakes had reached out, found some purchase on the campstool where Mordred sat, and were slowly writhing their way out, lifting the long blade from its sheath behind them. "Are you waiting for reinforcements? Or for something else?"

"I'm waiting for something to happen. Very soon, Arthur's armies will be split in half."

"How?" Terence asked.

"No. Your turn. How did you know who my mother was?"

"From a blind seer in another world."

"You lie," Mordred said. "I told you, my mother stopped all movement between worlds. It was her greatest enchantment ever. Even Avalon was held at bay."

"I didn't say it was Avalon. Did you think that her spell bound every world?"

Mordred shook his head. "No, you're lying. I think our game is over. You've told me enough. Mother was right. All I need to do is kill you, and I no longer have to fear anyone."

"I thought you said there was one other whom your mother feared," Terence said, stalling for time. The knife was almost clear of the sheath.

"Not anymore. Mother sent an army to the north to see to it. We've already received word that the other is dead. So you're the last threat." He rose to his feet and reached to his side for the knife, but it was gone, already slithering down the leg of the stool. His hand felt the empty sheath; he frowned, glanced out the door of the tent as if looking for something, then stepped outside.

Terence dared not speak. He fixed his gaze on the wide yellow eyes of the two-headed knife. It slithered near, and Terence rolled over on his side to make the bonds on his wrists accessible. A second later his hands were free. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, then reached out to the coiling haft of the knife, which slithered into his palm. For a second, he felt the cool, dry softness of snake scales, and then the haft was wooden again. He cut the rest of his bonds, the cords melting under the blade as if they were burnt flax, and then crept to the back of the tent, cut a slit in it, and slipped out.

It was an hour before Terence felt safe enough to stop running. He leaned against an oak tree in a dark forest—a real forest this time—and, still gasping for air after his frantic run, drew his knife from its sheath to examine it. Black wood and dark metal. Nothing more.

"You may have been made for murder," Terence whispered, "but not everything becomes what it's meant to be. Thank you."

Then, as his breath slowly grew more regular, he turned his mind to something that had been puzzling him since his capture. Terence had not been made a knight until after Mordred's banishment from Camelot, and yet Mordred had called him Sir Terence. Who at Camelot, Terence wondered, was in communication with the White Horsemen?