The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur

by Bernard Cornwell

  Gorfyddyd may have seemed reluctant to conclude the treaty, yet he must have been persuaded of its advantages for he was willing to pay the greatest price of all for its successful conclusion. He was willing for his daughter Ceinwyn, the star of Powys, to marry Arthur. Gorfyddyd was a dour man, suspicious and harsh, yet he loved his seventeen-year-old daughter and he poured on to her all the remnants of affection and kindness that were left in his soul, and the fact that he was willing for her to marry Arthur, who was no king and did not even possess the title of prince, was evidence of Gorfyddyd’s conviction that his warriors had to be turned away from fighting fellow Britons. The betrothal was also evidence that Gorfyddyd, like his son Cuneglas, recognized that Arthur was the real power in Dumnonia and so, at the great feast that followed the council, Ceinwyn and Arthur were formally betrothed.

  The betrothal ceremony was deemed sufficiently important for the whole assembly to decamp from Caer Sws to the more auspicious feasting hall on the summit of Caer Dolforwyn that was named after Dolforwyn, a meadow at the hill’s base which, appropriately enough, meant the Maiden’s Meadow. We arrived at sunset when the hilltop was smoky from the great fires on which deer and swine were being roasted. Far beneath us the silvery Severn twisted in its valley, while to the north the great hill ranges stretched dim towards darkening Gwynedd. It was said that on a clear day Cadair Idris could be seen from Caer Dolforwyn’s peak, but that evening the horizon was misted by a distant rain. The lower slopes of the hill were thick with great oaks out of which a pair of red kites climbed as the sun turned the western clouds scarlet and we all agreed that the sight of the two birds flying so late in the dying day was a wonderful omen for what was about to happen. Inside the hall the bards were singing the tale of Hafren, the human maid who had given Dolforwyn its name and who had turned into a Goddess when her stepmother tried to drown her in the river at the foot of the hill. They sang until the sun dropped.

  The betrothal was performed at night so that the Moon Goddess would bless the pair. Arthur prepared for it first, leaving the hall for a whole hour before returning in all his glory. Even hardened warriors gasped as he re-entered the hall, for he came in his full armour. The scale coat, with its gold and silver plates, glittered in the flamelight and the goose feathers on his high, silver-chased, death’s-head helmet brushed the hall rafters as he strode up the central passage. His silver-covered shield dazzled in the light while his white cloak swept the ground behind. Men did not carry weapons in a feasting hall, but that night Arthur chose to wear Excalibur and he stalked to the high table like a conqueror making peace and even Gorfyddyd of Powys gaped as his erstwhile enemy strode towards the dais. Till now Arthur had been a peacemaker, but that night he wanted to remind his future father-in-law of his power.

  Ceinwyn entered the hall a few moments later. Ever since our arrival at Caer Sws she had been hidden in the women’s quarters and that concealment had only heightened the expectations among those of us who had never seen Gorfyddyd’s daughter. I confess that most of us expected to be disappointed in this star of Powys, but in truth she outshone any star. She came into the hall with her attendant ladies and the sight of the Princess took men’s breath away. It took mine. She had the fair colouring more common in Saxons, but in Ceinwyn that fairness was turned into a pale, delicate loveliness. She looked very young, with a shy face and a demure manner. She was dressed in a robe of linen dyed yellow-gold with hive-gum, and the dress was embroidered with white stars about its neck and hem. Her hair was gold and so light that it seemed to shine as brightly as Arthur’s armour. She was so slender that Agravain, who was sitting next to me on the feasting floor, commented that she would be no good for breeding children. ‘Any decent baby will die trying to struggle through those hips,’ he said sourly, yet even so I pitied Ailleann who must surely have hoped that Arthur’s wife would prove to be nothing more than a dynastic convenience.

  The moon sailed high above Caer Dolforwyn’s summit as Ceinwyn paced slowly and shyly towards Arthur. In her hands she carried a halter, the gift she brought to her future husband as a symbol that she was passing from her father’s authority to his. Arthur fumbled and almost dropped the halter when Ceinwyn gave it to him, and that was surely a bad omen, but everyone, even Gorfyddyd, laughed the moment away, and then Iorweth, Powys’s Druid, formally betrothed the couple. The torches flickered as their hands were bound in a knotted chain of grass. Arthur’s face was hidden behind the silver-grey helmet, but Ceinwyn, sweet Ceinwyn, looked so full of joy. The Druid gave his blessing, enjoining Gwydion the God of Light and Aranrhod the Golden Goddess of the Dawn to be their special deities and to bless all Britain with their peace. A harpist played, men applauded and Ceinwyn, lovely silver Ceinwyn, wept and laughed for the joy in her soul. I lost my heart to Ceinwyn that night. Many men did. She looked so happy, and no wonder, for in Arthur she was escaping the nightmare of all princesses, which is to marry for their country rather than their heart. A princess will be bedded with any stinking, slack-bellied old goat if it will secure a frontier or make an alliance, but Ceinwyn had found Arthur and in his youth and kindness she doubtless saw an escape from her fears.

  Leodegan, the exiled King of Henis Wyren, arrived at the feasting hall at the climax of the ceremony. The exiled King had not been with us since our arrival, but had instead gone to his own home north of Caer Sws. Now, eager to share in the largesse that always followed a betrothal ceremony, he stood at the back of the hall and joined in the applause that greeted the distribution of Arthur’s gold and silver. Arthur had also gained the permission of Dumnonia’s council to bring back Gorfyddyd’s war gear that he had captured the previous year, but that treasure had been returned privately so that no man present need be reminded of the Powysian defeat.

  Once the gifts were given Arthur took off the helmet and sat beside Ceinwyn. He talked to her, bending close as he always did so that she doubtless felt she was the most important person in all his firmament as, indeed, she had a right to feel. Many of us in the hall were jealous of a love that looked so perfect, and even Gorfyddyd, who must have been bitter at losing his daughter to a man who had beaten and maimed him in battle, seemed happy in Ceinwyn’s joy.

  But it was on that happy night, when peace had come at last, that Arthur broke Britain.

  None of us knew it then. The distribution of the betrothal gifts was followed by drinking and singing. We watched jugglers, we listened to Gorfyddyd’s royal bard and we roared our own songs. One of our men forgot Arthur’s warning and fell into a fight with a Powysian warrior and the two drunken men were dragged outside and drenched with water, and half an hour later they were clasped in each other’s arms swearing undying friendship. And some time in that period, when the fires roared high and the drink flowed fast, I saw Arthur staring fixedly towards the back of the hall and, being curious, I turned to see what had trapped his gaze.

  I turned and saw a young woman who stood head and shoulders above the crowd and who carried a bold defiant look on her face. If you can master me, that look seemed to say, then you can master whatever else this wicked world might bring. I can see her now, standing amidst her deerhounds that had the same thin, lean bodies, and the same long nose and the same huntress eyes as their mistress. Green eyes, she had, with a kind of cruelty deep inside them. It was not a soft face, any more than her body was soft. She was a woman of strong lines and high bones, and that made for a good face and a handsome one, but hard, so hard. What made her beautiful was her hair and her carriage, for she stood as straight as a spear and her hair fell around her shoulders like a cascade of tumbling red tangles. That red hair softened her looks, while her laughter snared men like salmon caught in basket traps. There have been many more beautiful women, and thousands who were better, but since the world was weaned I doubt there have been many so unforgettable as Guinevere, eldest daughter of Leodegan, the exiled King of Henis Wyren.

  And it would have been better, Merlin always said, had she been drowned at birth.


  The royal party hunted deer next day. Guinevere’s hounds brought down a pricket, a young male without antlers, though to hear Arthur praise the dogs you would have thought they had chased down the Wild Stag of Dyfed itself.

  The bards sing of love and men and women yearn for it, but none knows what love is until, like a spear thrown from the dark, it strikes. Arthur could not take his eyes from Guinevere, though the Gods know he tried. In the days after the betrothal feast, when we were back at Caer Sws, he walked and talked with Ceinwyn, but he could not wait to see Guinevere and she, knowing just what game she played, tantalized him. Her betrothed, Valerin, was at the court and she would walk with her arm in Valerin’s arm, laughing, then cast a sudden, modest sidelong glance at Arthur for whom the world would suddenly stop in its turning. He burned for Guinevere.

  Would it have made a difference if Bedwin had been there? I think not. Not even Merlin could have stopped what happened. A man might as well call on the rain to go back to the clouds or command a river to curl back to its source.

  On the second night after the feast Guinevere came to Arthur’s hall in the dark and I, who was standing guard, heard the ring of their laughter and the murmur of their talk. All night they talked and maybe they did more than talk, I wouldn’t know, but talk they did, and that I do know for I was posted outside the room and could hardly help but listen. Sometimes the talk was too low to hear, but at other times I heard Arthur explaining and cajoling, pleading and urging. They must have spoken of love, but that I did not hear, instead I heard Arthur talk of Britain and of the dream that had brought him over the sea from Armorica. He spoke of the Saxons and how they were a plague that must be cured if the land was ever to be happy. He spoke of war, and of the terrible joy it was to ride an armoured horse into battle. He spoke as he had spoken to me on the ice-cold ramparts of Caer Cadarn, describing a land at peace in which the common folk did not fear the coming of spearmen in the dawn. He talked passionately, urgently, and Guinevere listened so willingly and assured him his dream was inspired. Arthur spun a future from his dream and Guinevere was deep inside the thread. Poor Ceinwyn, she had only her beauty and her youth, while Guinevere saw the loneliness in Arthur’s soul and promised to heal it. She left before the dawn, a dark figure gliding across Caer Sws with a sickle moon trapped in her tangling hair.

  Next day, full of remorse, Arthur walked with Ceinwyn and her brother. Guinevere wore a new torque of heavy gold that day and some of us felt a sorrow for Ceinwyn, but Ceinwyn was a child, Guinevere was a woman and Arthur was helpless.

  It was a madness that love. Mad as Pellinore. Mad enough to doom Arthur to the Isle of the Dead. Everything vanished for Arthur: Britain; the Saxons; the new alliance; all the great, careful, balanced structure of peace for which he had worked ever since he had sailed from Armorica, was set whirling into destruction for the possession of that penniless, landless, red-haired Princess. He knew what he was doing, but he could no more stop himself than he could stop the sun from rising. He was possessed, he thought about her, talked about her, dreamed of her, could not live without her, yet somehow, agonizingly, he kept up the pretence of his betrothal to Ceinwyn. The marriage arrangements were being made. As a mark of Tewdric’s contribution to the peace treaty the marriage was to be at Glevum and Arthur would travel there first and make his preparations. The wedding could not take place until the moon was waxing. It was now on the wane and no marriage could be risked in a time of such ill-omen, but in two weeks the auguries would be right and Ceinwyn would come south with flowers in her hair.

  But Arthur wore Guinevere’s hair about his neck. It was a narrow red braid that he hid beneath his collar, but which I saw when I brought him water one morning. He was bare-chested, sharpening his shaving knife on a stone, and he shrugged when he saw me notice the woven braid. ‘You think red hair is unlucky, Derfel?’ he asked when he saw my expression.

  ‘Everyone says so, Lord.’

  ‘But is everyone right?’ he asked the bronze mirror. ‘To make a sword blade hard, Derfel, you don’t quench it in water, but in urine passed by a red-headed boy. That must be lucky, must it not? And what if red hair is unlucky?’ He paused, spat on the stone and worked the knife blade to and fro. ‘Our task, Derfel, is to change things, not let them stand. Why not make red hair lucky?’

  ‘You can do anything, Lord,’ I said with unhappy loyalty.

  He sighed. ‘I hope that’s true, Derfel. I do hope that’s true.’ He peered into the bronze mirror, then flinched as he laid the knife against his cheek. ‘Peace is more than a marriage, Derfel. It has to be! You don’t make war over a bride. If peace is so desirable, and it is, then you don’t abandon it because a marriage doesn’t happen, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lord,’ I said. I only knew that my Lord was rehearsing arguments in his head, repeating them over and over until he believed them. He was mad with love, so mad that north was south and heat was cold. This, to me, was an Arthur I had not seen before; a man of passion and, dare I say it, selfishness. Arthur had risen so fast. It is true he had been born with a king’s blood in his veins, but he had not been given his patrimony and so he considered that all his achievements were his alone. He was proud of that and convinced by those achievements that he knew better than any other man save perhaps Merlin, and because that knowledge was so often what other men incoherently wished, his selfish ambitions were usually seen as noble and far-seeing, but at Caer Sws the ambitions clashed with what other men wanted.

  I left him shaving and went outside into the new sunshine where Agravain was sharpening a boar spear. ‘Well?’ he asked me.

  ‘He’s not going to marry Ceinwyn,’ I said. We were out of earshot of the hall, but even if we had been closer Arthur would not have heard us. He was singing.

  Agravain spat. ‘He’ll marry who he’s told to marry,’ he said, then rammed the spear-butt into the turf and stalked across to Tewdric’s quarters.

  Whether Gorfyddyd and Cuneglas knew what was happening I could not tell, for they were not in constant touch with Arthur as we were. Gorfyddyd, if he suspected, probably thought it did not matter. He doubtless believed, if he believed anything, that Arthur would take Guinevere as a lover and Ceinwyn as a wife. It was bad manners, of course, to come to such an arrangement in the week of the betrothal, but bad manners had never worried Gorfyddyd of Powys. He had no manners himself and knew, as all kings know, that wives are for making dynasties and lovers for making pleasure. His own wife was long dead, but a succession of slave girls kept his bed warm and, to him, impoverished Guinevere would never rank much above a slave and was thus no threat to his beloved daughter. Cuneglas was more perspicacious, and I am sure he must have scented trouble, but he had invested all his energies into this new peace and he must have hoped that Arthur’s obsession with Guinevere would blow away like a summer squall. Or maybe neither Gorfyddyd nor Cuneglas suspected anything, for certainly they did not send Guinevere away from Caer Sws, though whether that would have achieved anything, the Gods alone know. Agravain thought the madness might pass. He told me that Arthur had been obsessed like this once before. ‘It was a girl in Ynys Trebes,’ Agravain told me, ‘can’t think of her name. Mella? Messa? Something like that. Pretty little thing. Arthur was besotted, trailing after her like a dog behind a corpse cart. But mind you, he was young then, so young that her father reckoned he’d never amount to anything so he packed his Mella-Messa off to Broceliande and married her to a magistrate fifty years older than her. She died giving birth, but Arthur was over her by then. And these things do pass, Derfel. Tewdric will hammer some brains back into Arthur, you watch.’

  Tewdric spent the whole morning closeted with Arthur, and I thought perhaps he had succeeded in hammering some brains back into my Lord for Arthur seemed chastened for the rest of the day. He did not look at Guinevere once, but forced himself to be solicitous of Ceinwyn, and that night, perhaps to please Tewdric, he and Ceinwyn listened to Sansum preach in the little makeshift church. I thought Arthur must
have been pleased with the Mouse Lord’s sermon for he invited Sansum back to his hall afterwards and was closeted alone with the priest for a long time.

  Next morning Arthur appeared with a set, stern face and announced that we would all leave that very same morning. That very same hour, indeed. We were not due to depart for another two days and Gorfyddyd, Cuneglas and Ceinwyn must have been surprised, but Arthur persuaded them he needed more time to prepare for his wedding and Gorfyddyd accepted the excuse placidly enough. Cuneglas may have believed Arthur was going early to remove himself from Guinevere’s temptation and so he made no protest, but instead ordered bread, cheese, honey and mead packed for our journey. Ceinwyn, pretty Ceinwyn, said her farewells, starting with us, the guard. We were all in love with her, and that made us resent Arthur’s madness, though there had been little any of us could do about our resentment. Ceinwyn gave us each a small gift of gold, and each of us tried to refuse her gift, but she insisted. She gave me a brooch of interlocking patterns and I tried to thrust it back into her hands, but she just smiled and folded my fingers over the gold. ‘Look after your Lord,’ she said earnestly.

  ‘And after you, Lady,’ I answered fervently.

  She smiled and moved on to Arthur, presenting him with a spray of may blossom that would give him a swift and safe journey. Arthur fixed the blossom in his sword belt and kissed his betrothed’s hand before clambering on to Llamrei’s broad back. Cuneglas wanted to send guards to escort us, but Arthur declined the honour. ‘Let us leave, Lord Prince,’ he said, ‘the sooner to arrange our happiness.’