The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online

as I could."
    "You made better speed than we could have hoped for. I trust you prospered? And that the danger from Colgrim's force is over?"
    "For the moment. We have time, at least, to breathe...and to do what is to be done here in Amesbury. I am sorry for your grief and loss, madam. I — " He hesitated, then spoke with a simplicity that, I could see, comforted her and steadied him. "I can't pretend to you that I grieve as perhaps I should. I hardly knew him as a father, but all my life I have known him as a king, and a strong one. His people will mourn him, and I, too, mourn him as one of them."
    "You have it in your hands to guard them as he tried to guard them." A pause, while they measured one another again. She was a fraction the taller of the two. Perhaps the same thought touched her; she motioned him toward the chair where I had been sitting, and herself sank back against the embroidered cushions. A page came running with wine, and there was a general breathing and rustle of movement. The Queen began to speak of tomorrow's ceremony; answering her, he relaxed, and soon they were talking more freely. But still behind the courtly exchanges could be felt all the turmoil of what lay between them unspoken, the air so charged, their minds so locked on one another, that they had forgotten my presence as completely as if I had been one of the servants waiting by the laden table. I glanced that way, then at the women and girls beside the Queen; all eyes were on Arthur, devouring him, the men with curiosity and some awe (the stories had reached them soon enough), the women with something added to the curiosity, and the two girls in a dazzled trance of excitement.
    The chamberlain was hovering in a doorway. He caught my eye and looked a question. I nodded. He crossed to the Queen's side and murmured something. She assented with a kind of relief, and rose to her feet, the King with her. I noticed that the table was now laid for three, but when the chamberlain came to my elbow I shook my head. After supper their talk would be easier, and they could dismiss the servants.

    They would be better alone. So I took my leave, ignoring Arthur's glance almost of entreaty, and made my way back to the tavern to see if my fellow-guests there had left any of the supper for me.
    Next day was bright and sunlit, with the clouds packed away low on the horizon, and a lark singing somewhere as if it were spring. Often a bright day at the end of September brings frost with it, and a searching wind — and nowhere can the winds search more keenly than on the stretches of the Great Plain. But the day of Uther's burial was a day borrowed from spring; a warm wind and a bright sky, and the sun golden on the Dance of the Hanging Stones.
    The ceremonial by the grave was long, and the colossal shadows of the Dance moved round with the sun until the light blazed down full in the center, and it was easier to look at the ground, at the grave itself, at the shadows of clouds massing and moving like armies across the distances, than at the Dance's center where the priests stood in their robes, and the nobles in mourning white, with jewels flashing against the eyes. A pavilion had been erected for the Queen. She stood in its shade, composed and pale among her ladies, showing no sign of fatigue or illness. Arthur, with me beside him, stood at the foot of the grave.
    At last it was done. The priests moved off, and after them the King and the royal party. As we crossed the grass toward the horses and litters, already behind us could be heard the soft thudding of earth on wood. Then from above came another sound to mask it. I looked up. High in the September sky could be seen a stream of birds, swift and black and small, gossiping and calling as they went southward. The last flock of swallows, taking the summer with them.
    "Let us hope," said Arthur softly, at my elbow, "that the Saxons are taking the hint. I could do with the winter's length, both for the men and for