by Jack Whyte
She shuddered and smiled, closing her eyes.
"Being a warrior means fighting at any time . . . But being a champion means winning all the time. It means defeating every enemy who challenges your championship, and doing it so thoroughly and so completely that he will never think to challenge you again . . . Being a warrior means fighting on command and lighting to survive. Being a champion means killing constantly in response to challenge and being challenged constantly."
Mairidh had no idea how much time had passed since Uther had last spoken. She had had other things to occupy her since then.
Listening to the sound of his voice now, however, and feeling the sweat cooling between her breasts, she became aware that he was repeating something learned by rote, not expressing his own opinion. She twisted her body in order to squint at him where he lay so close beside her.
"Being challenged constantly by whom?"
"What?" He sounded now as though he had been on the verge of sleep when she spoke.
"You said something about killing in response to challenge and being challenged constantly. Who are these challengers?"
He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. "Anyone who wishes to challenge you," he muttered sleepily. "When you are champion, everyone wants to best you."
"So every man is your enemy, is that what you are saying?" She waited, but he did not respond. "Uther!"
"What?"
"Don't go to sleep now. I'm talking to you. Are you saying that all men are your enemies?"
He grunted again, then sat up, stretching his arms above his head and then bending over her to brush his fingertips through her pubic hair, setting her skin tingling.
"No," he said quietly, his eyes intent upon her body. "Not enemies, but rivals . . . challengers. You're all shivery . . . A champion has no enemies . . . not living ones, at least."
She reached down and caught his hand in hers, holding it gently but firmly to rid herself of the distractions it was causing. "Who taught you that?"
He glanced up at her and smiled, tugging gently to free his hand. She held it fast.
"Garreth."
"And who is Garreth?"
"Garreth Whistler. He's my . . . teacher. Cay . . . Merlyn . . . calls him my mentor, but he's really my personal guard, appointed by my father and grandfather for my protection when I was a child. I grew up, but Garreth remained with me. Now he teaches me to fight the Pendragon way."
"Why do you call him Garreth Whistler?"
"Because he whistles all the time, and better than anyone else."
"Of course, why else such a name?" She was smiling gently now. "But if he is your personal guard, where is he now? Should he not be with you, protecting you at all times? Or is he merely lazy, guarding you only when he feels like it?"
The boy was outraged. "Garreth is not lazy! He is not here in Cambria, that's all. My father sent him away on the King's business three weeks ago, and he is not expected back until next month."
"Ah, I see. Forgive me, for I had no way of knowing that, and so I must ask you to convey my apologies to Garreth Whistler for the slight. Tell me about this Merlyn . . . or is his name really Merlyn? Did you not call him Cay a moment ago? Where does he live?"
Seeing her smile, his own smile grew wider, the pull of his hand increasing slightly. She closed her other hand about his wrist. He pressed downward, one wiggling fingertip brushing her belly.
"Aye," he said. "Both names are right. He is Caius Merlyn Britannicus. The family and his close friends all call him Cay. He's in Camulod."
"Camulod? I've heard of Camulod, but I've never been there." Mairidh paused, thinking. "Nor have I ever met anyone who has, now that I come to think of it. It's somewhere to the east of here, is it not, inland?"
The boy nodded. "Aye, southeast."
"And is it far from here to there?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Far enough, depending upon how quickly you want to travel."
"Is it a Roman town with walls?"
"No, it is not a town at all . . ." His hand went limp, and he fell back to lie beside her. She did not release his hand, in case his surrender might be no more than a ruse, but he was looking up again now to where the sun was disappearing behind a cloud. "It's going to rain," he said, then looked at her again.
"Camulod is a place built by my grandfather and my great-uncle, about four days' travel from here. I've lived there half my life, half of all my time. The other half of the time I'm here with my father's people. Cay and I are usually together all the time."
"You like him, this Caius Merlyn, don't you?"
"Of course. He is my cousin and my closest friend. We were born on the same day, four hours and four days' travel apart. Him in Camulod, me here in Cambria. But Cay loves to read and write and learn things out of books. I don't. I prefer to learn things otherwise, by training and example, as Cay says. He thinks I'm mad not to love books."
Now it was Mairidh who smiled. "And you disagree?"
"Well, I think he's mad to waste so much time reading. I prefer to spend my time with Garreth. That's why I'm here this summer while Cay stays in Camulod. Garreth is training me to use the longbow properly and to fight with an axe and shield. The truth of the champion was the first thing he ever taught me, and I've never forgotten it. He taught me about fear."
"Tell me," she said.
His arm tightened very gently around her shoulders.
"You have to understand about Garreth if you're to understand what I'm going to tell you next. And you're a woman, so you might not be able to understand it. Garreth was my father's greatest warrior, the King's Champion. He would fight any and every man who sought or thought to undermine the King's authority. He was, and he still is, unconquered and unbeatable. But that day, he told me that he had always been afraid of going into battle—of fighting and of being hurt or killed."
His voice died away, and for a long time Mairidh wondered if he had forgotten that she was listening and would say no more. Finally she stirred against him, prompting him to continue.
"The only time you need be ashamed of fear, he told me, the only time, is when you allow your fear to rule you, for then it changes and becomes cowardice. So what you have to do is recognize your fear and then ride over it. It sounds easy enough, but it's really very difficult at first, because most men don't know what's involved. They know only that they're afraid and that they don't want to be hurt. No one has ever told them that they can face fear and overcome it simply by not allowing it to beat them. I've overcome it many times now, and it grows easier every time . . . not because your fear grows smaller, but only because you become more aware of the need to do it and get it over with. And if you do it well enough, knowing that everyone else is just as fearful as you are, then you can reach a state of mind where you can out-think your enemies and beat them by doing what they least expect. You seize the moment and make it yours. You hit first with all the strength you have and with the biggest, heaviest, sharpest weapon you possess, when he is least expecting it."
It was a long speech, the longest she had heard him make, and when he reached the end of it, she sat silent, waiting, unsure how to respond, doubting that there was anything to say that would not sound foolish or patronizing. But then he spoke again, almost inaudibly, as if he were speaking to his own inner ear.
"The rules for being a champion are simple. Conquer your own fear first."
"Really? Is it that easy?"
He turned his face towards her, half smiling, half frowning. "There's not much more than that, whether your name is Hercules, Julius Caesar or Uther Pendragon. You have to identify your enemy, face him as soon as you can and cut him down before he can tell you. No half measures, no compromises. You hit him as hard as you can, as soon as you can, and while he's reeling, you hit him again until he goes down and doesn't get back up. Do that once, and men begin to respect you; do it often enough, and they begin to fear you; do it ruthlessly enough, and eventually no others will challenge you."
"No, it's not. I killed those men this morning because there was nothing else I could do, other than run away and leave you with them. That's part of overcoming your fear, you see . . . knowing what you have to do and then doing it before the fear of it can undo you."
"I see. But those were the first men you have ever killed . . . am I correct in that?"
"Aye, although I tried as hard as I could to kill another boy when I was twelve."
Mairidh had no adequate response to that, and so she subsided into silence and squirmed closer to his lean, hard body. She lay still for a time, cradled in the crook of his arm. feeling the warmth of his breath and the rise and fall of his chest until something—perhaps the depth and regularity of his breathing—told her he was asleep. She moved one hand along his forearm, feeling the solid bulk of muscle there, and she smiled to herself, enjoying the thought of how the man in him was so often usurped by the earnest, innocent boy. For now, the boy was hers to enjoy, and she was grateful. She was not tempted to consider that the man in him might someday be hers too; Mairidh was too wise for that. She smiled again and turned her face to smell the scent of him, and some time later she, too, drifted off to sleep.
When they woke up again, the first hints of dawn were beginning to lighten the sky, and they busied themselves in cleaning up, bathing in the hot pool and ransacking the Pig's sack for useful items. They found some cloths that they could use to dry themselves, but nothing else really useful, and so Uther ended up dressing himself in a loincloth made from Mairidh's sadly damaged shift and insisting that Mairidh cover her nakedness with his quilted tunic, over which she wore her own long, loose robe, effectively concealing herself from neck to knees. Then, their toilet completed to the best of their resources, they struck out for Tir Manha again.
Chapter NINE
Their homecoming occasioned a celebration even greater than they could have anticipated, for no one had connected their absences prior to the moment they reappeared together. Uther's friends had simply returned home without him on the day of his disappearance, and even when he failed to follow them by nightfall, no one was alarmed, for he was within a month of undergoing the manhood rituals, after which he would be a warrior, beholden to no man for permission to do whatever he might wish to do. Uther had been in intensive training for two years now, living in accordance with a strict regimen under the close and critical scrutiny of his tutors, studying the rituals and their forms, and preparing himself for the rigorous initiation rites and ceremonies that would mark his graduation from boy to warrior. As a natural part of that training discipline, he had long since established a pattern of spending days and weeks alone in the forest in all kinds of weather, surviving by his wits only, sometimes armed with nothing more than a knife or a sling, killing his own food and finding his own shelter. Some minor concerns began to be voiced, however, when one night became two. There were procedures and responsibilities involved in preparing for absences of two days or more—especially for the King's son—and had the young man not returned by noon the following day, his continuing absence might have caused greater excitement even than Mairidh's.
The case of the woman Mairidh was sufficiently different, however, to cause something of an uproar. This was a married woman, the wife of one of the King's honoured guests, and her disappearance was a matter that could not be taken lightly. A search had been launched by sunset on the first day of her disappearance when she had failed to return for the evening meal, and everyone who might have guessed at her whereabouts had been closely questioned. But neither search nor questioning had yielded any positive result. Even Brenna, the young woman who had accompanied Mairidh on the day of her first visit to Uther's swimming hole, had shaken her head in wide-eyed innocence when asked if she knew where the Lady Mairidh might have gone.
When the two missing persons appeared together, then, late in the morning of the third day following their "separate" disappearances, the effect on the entire populace of Tir Manha was joyous. They were seen from the walls the moment they emerged from the forest to approach the settlement surrounding the main gates of the stronghold, and by the time they had crossed the cleared fighting space, two hundred paces wide, to reach the first huts, the entire community, including Uther's parents, Uric and Veronica, had come pouring out to see and welcome them. And they were worth beholding. Both of them looked severely abused, barefoot and covered from head to foot with dried mud and dirt, bruises, cuts and abrasions. But it was Uther who drew the most attention at first, because he walked almost naked, holding himself rigidly upright, his loins covered by a length of material that very few there could have been expected to recognize: the last tattered remnants of the clothing Mairidh had worn beneath her long, loose robe on leaving the King's encampment.
Veronica Varrus stood still, slightly behind her husband and one of his advisers, frowning slightly as she looked closely at the pair. She assessed the appearance of each of them separately, noting and setting aside her observations on the small, unobtrusive ways in which they reflected an awareness of each other. When she was satisfied that she could learn no more from looking, her face cleared, and she stepped forward, smiling, to embrace her son and to welcome back her errant guest.
As Veronica embraced her son, Mairidh's husband, Balin, moved forward from the crowd surrounding the King, holding out his hands, and Mairidh moved quickly to him, bowing her head slightly as though in submission. He grasped her lightly by the upper arms and then laid one hand on the crown of her head before drawing her gently into his arms and hugging her to his chest. At length her husband pushed her back from his embrace, still holding her gently by the arms and gazing at her questioningly, his glance flicking from time to time towards Uther, who stood with his mother's arm about his shoulders, watching them, his chin held high.
Uther kept his gaze fastened on Balin and watched as he examined his wife, taking her chin softly in his right hand and tilting her face up until her eyes met his. Uther could see no trace of anger or resentment or concern in the man's face, other than that of a fond parent regarding a beloved child.
"Are you well, Mairidh? Have you been hurt?"
The woman nodded her head in a tiny gesture of acknowledgment. "Both, Husband, yes and yes. I have been hurt, but I am well. I was abducted close by here while I was walking alone by the river. The men who captured me were strangers, speaking an alien tongue. They must have landed on the coast some way from here in a boat from only the gods know where. But I was rescued by this young man here, whom I have found to be the son of King Uric, and who risked his life in saving mine."
Mairidh turned her head and smiled at Veronica before addressing the King. "Your son does you and your lady wife great credit. King Uric. If he should follow you in years to come, he will be a mighty king. He is already a great warrior. Unaided, he slew the men who took me captive, even after I thought they had killed him." She stopped and swayed slightly, speaking now to Balin. "Husband, I am sore, and I am soiled, and I am hungry beyond belief. Will you welcome me back and wait until later to hear my tale?"
Hours later, washed and bathed and dressed again in rich, soft clothing, having eaten and drunk her till, Mairidh regaled her husband and Uther's parents, together with the King's entire retinue, with the tale of Uther's heroism. Uther himself was not present, since his father had expressly banned him from the gathering.
confining the young man to his own quarters until Uric himself was satisfied that no harm had been done to his regal reputation and that his son had, in fact, behaved appropriately throughout this strange episode. So, while Mairidh told her tale of his exploits, Uther waited in suspense elsewhere, fretting over what she might let slip to his father.
He worried needlessly, for Mairidh's tale was as she had promised it would be: no more than the truth, save for a minor alteration of the opening details
of the events and the omission of the personal intimacies that occurred between them afterward.
She had been taken unawares, she told them all, surprised completely while resting on a high cliff, a moss-covered promontory in the woods above the riverside, where she had chosen to rest for a time, daydreaming, with never a thought of danger in such a lovely spot so close to the King's stronghold. Her attackers had leaped out at her from nowhere, it seemed to her, giving her no opportunity to resist or to defend herself as they bundled her up in her own robe and dragged her away. One single scream was all she had time to voice, and that was cut short by a clenched fist that knocked her half senseless.
That single cry had been heard, however, by young Uther Pendragon, who came quickly to her rescue. Unfortunately, he had been swimming in the river below when he heard her cry, and so he came running and scrambling precipitately and unprepared, climbing the cliff naked and weaponless.
Uther was then swiftly and brutally dealt with by the larger of her two assailants. The fellow had waited for the boy to reach the top and then pounced on him and beat him savagely, after which he hoisted the senseless youth into the air, holding him by one ankle and the hair of his head, spun him around several times and threw the boy high into the air from the cliff down into death on the river stones beneath.
From that point onward, aware of her wide-eyed audience and satisfied that she had convinced every one of them that what she had said at the outset was the literal truth, Mairidh kept herself strictly to accuracy in her tale, merely omitting any mention of how she and Uther had kept themselves warm during the long, chilly nights and cool during the long, warm days. And when she had finished, no one, including the boy's mother, thought to doubt a word of what she had said.
Uther knew things had gone well with Mairidh's reporting when the door to his chambers swung open later that afternoon and his father, King Uric, entered smiling. Drawing himself up to his full height, Uther masked his relief and fought to keep his nervousness from showing, for he had been more than mildly apprehensive of being discovered as the Lady Mairidh's lover. The glaring fact of her status as the spouse of one of his father's most exalted guests meant that in coupling with her, irrespective of her willingness and eager participation or even of her initiation of the process, Uther had broken one of the King's most sacred rules of hospitality. It mattered not that it was a personal and unique rule, designed and implemented by the monogamous king in deference to his Christian wife, Veronica. Nor did it matter that the rule caused outrage and sniggering among Uric's own chiefs and chieftains, who considered their King to be too soft by half in such matters. What was important was that the rule was enforced with a grim lack of magnanimity that was unusual coming from his otherwise tolerant father.
