That rule had brought some changes. Mordred demanded to be given his grandfather’s Winter Palace, and that surprised no one, but I was surprised when Sansum demanded Lindinis’s palace for himself. He made the demand in Council, saying he needed the palace’s space for his school and for Morgan’s community of holy women, and because he wanted to be close to the church he was building on Caer Cadarn’s summit. Mordred waved his assent, and so Ceinwyn and I were summarily evicted, but Ermid’s Hall was empty and we moved to its mist-haunted compound beside the mere. Arthur argued against letting Sansum into Lindinis, just as he opposed Sansum’s demand that the royal treasury pay for the repair of the damage done to the palace by, Sansum claimed, too many ill-disciplined children, but Mordred overruled Arthur. Those were Mordred’s only decisions, for he was usually content to let Arthur manage the kingdom’s affairs. Arthur, though he was no longer Mordred’s protector, was now the senior councillor and the King rarely came to Council, preferring to hunt. It was not always deer or wolves that he hunted and Arthur and I became accustomed to taking gold to some peasant’s hut to recompense the man for his daughter’s virginity or his wife’s shame. It was not a pleasant duty, but it was a rare and lucky kingdom where it was not necessary.
Dian, our youngest daughter, fell ill that summer. It was a fever that would not go away, or rather it came and went, but with such ferocity that three times we thought she was dead, and three times Merlin’s concoctions revived her, though nothing the old man did seemed able to shake the affliction clean away. Dian promised to be the liveliest of our three daughters. Morwenna, the oldest, was a sensible child who loved to mother her younger sisters and was fascinated by the workings of the household; ever curious about the kitchens, or the retting ponds or the linen vats. Seren, the star, was our beauty, a child who had inherited all her mother’s delicate looks, but had added to them a wistful and enchanting nature. She spent hours with the bards learning their songs and playing their harps, but Dian, Ceinwyn always said, was my daughter. Dian had no fear. She could shoot with a bow and arrow, loved to ride horses, and even at six years old could handle a coracle as well as any of the mere’s fishermen. She was in her sixth year when the fever gripped her, and if it had not been for that fever we would probably all have travelled to Powys together, for it was a month short of the first anniversary of Mordred’s acclamation when the King suddenly demanded that Arthur and I travel to Cuneglas’s realm.
Mordred made the demand at one of his rare appearances at the royal Council. The suddenness of the demand surprised us, as did the need for the errand he proposed, but the King was determined. There was, of course, an ulterior motive, though neither Arthur nor I saw it at the time and nor did anyone else on the Council except Sansum who had proposed the idea, and it took us all a long time to smoke out the mouse-lord’s reasons for the suggestion. Nor was there any obvious reason why we should be suspicious of the King’s proposal for it seemed reasonable enough, though neither Arthur nor I understood why we should both be dispatched to Powys.
The matter sprang from an old, old story. Norwenna, Mordred’s mother, had been murdered by Gundleus, the King of Siluria, and though Gundleus had received his punishment, the man who had betrayed Norwenna still lived. His name was Ligessac, and he had been the chief of Mordred’s guard when the King was just a baby. But Ligessac had taken Gundleus’s bribes and opened the gates of Merlin’s Tor to the Silurian King’s murderous intent. Mordred had been snatched to safety by Morgan, but his mother had died. Ligessac, whose treachery had caused Norwenna’s death, had survived the war that followed the murder, just as he had survived the battle at Lugg Vale.
Mordred had heard the tale, of course, and it was only natural that he should take an interest in Ligessac’s fate, but it was Bishop Sansum who fanned that interest into an obsession. Sansum somehow discovered that Ligessac had taken refuge with a band of Christian hermits in a remote and mountainous area of northern Siluria that was now under Cuneglas’s rule. ‘It hurts me to betray a fellow Christian,’ the mouse-lord announced sanctimoniously in the Council meeting, ‘but it hurts just as much that a Christian should have been guilty of so foul a treachery. Ligessac still lives, Lord King,’ he said to Mordred, ‘and should be brought to your justice.’
Arthur suggested that Cuneglas be asked to arrest the fugitive and send him back to Dumnonia, but Sansum shook his head at that proposal and said it was surely discourteous to ask another King to initiate a vengeance that touched so closely on Mordred’s honour. ‘This is Dumnonian business,’ Sansum insisted, ‘and Dumnonians, Lord King, should be the agents of its success.’
Mordred nodded agreement and then insisted that both Arthur and I go to capture the traitor. Arthur, surprised as always when Mordred asserted himself at Council, demurred. Why, he wanted to know, should two lords go on an errand that could be safely left to a dozen spearmen? Mordred smirked at that question. ‘You think, Lord Arthur, that Dumnonia will fall if you and Derfel are absent?’
‘No, Lord King,’ Arthur said, ‘but Ligessac must be an old man now and it won’t need two war-bands to capture him.’
The King thumped the table with his fist. ‘After my mother’s murder,’ he accused Arthur, ‘you let Ligessac escape. At Lugg Vale, Lord Arthur, you again let Ligessac escape. You owe me Ligessac’s life.’
Arthur stiffened momentarily at this accusation, but then inclined his head to acknowledge the obligation. ‘But Derfel,’ he pointed out, ‘was not responsible.’
Mordred glanced at me. He still disliked me for all the beatings he had taken as a child, but I hoped that the blows he had given me at his acclamation and his petty triumph in evicting us from Lindinis had slaked his thirst for revenge. ‘Lord Derfel,’ he said, as ever making the title sound mocking, ‘knows the traitor. Who else would recognize him? I insist you both go. And you don’t need to take two whole war-bands either,’ he reverted to Arthur’s earlier objection. ‘Just a few men will do.’ He must have been embarrassed at giving Arthur such military advice for his voice tailed weakly away and he looked shiftily at the other councillors before recovering what little poise he did possess. ‘I want Ligessac here before Samain,’ he insisted, ‘and I want him here alive.’
When a King insists, men obey, so Arthur and I both rode north with thirty men apiece. Neither of us believed we would need so many, but it was an opportunity to give some underemployed men the exercise of a long march. My remaining thirty spearmen stayed behind to guard Ceinwyn, while Arthur’s other men either stayed in Durnovaria or else went to reinforce Sagramor who still guarded the northern Saxon frontier. The usual Saxon war-bands were active on that frontier, not trying to invade us, but rather attempting to snatch cattle and slaves as they had through all the years of peace. We made similar raids, but both sides were careful not to let the raids turn into full-scale war. The makeshift peace we had forged at London had lasted remarkably well, though there had been little peace between Aelle and Cerdic. Those two had fought each other to a standstill and their squabbles had largely left us unmolested. We had, indeed, grown accustomed to peace.
My men walked north while Arthur’s rode, or at least led their horses, on the good Roman roads that took us first to Meurig’s kingdom of Gwent. The King gave us a grudging feast at which our men were outnumbered by priests, and after that we made a detour to the Wye Valley to see old Tewdric, whom we found living in a humble thatched hut that was half the size of the building where he kept his collection of Christian parchments. His wife, Queen Enid, grumbled at the fate that had driven her from Gwent’s palaces to this mice-ridden life in the woods, but the old King was happy. He had taken Christian orders and blithely ignored Enid’s scoldings. He gave us a meal of beans, bread and water and rejoiced at the news of Christianity’s spread in Dumnonia. We asked him about the prophecies which foretold the return of Christ in four years’ time and Tewdric said he prayed they were true, but suspected it was much more likely that Christ would wait a full thousand years bef
ore returning in glory. ‘But who knows?’ he asked. ‘It’s possible He will come in four years’ time. What a glorious thought!’
‘I just wish your fellow Christians would be content to wait in peace,’ Arthur said.
‘They have a duty to prepare the earth for His coming,’ Tewdric said sternly. ‘They must make converts, Lord Arthur, and cleanse the land of sin.’
‘They’ll make a war between themselves and the rest of us if they aren’t careful,’ Arthur grumbled. He told Tewdric how there had been riots in every Dumnonian town as Christians tried to pull down or defile pagan temples. The things we had seen in Isca had just been the beginnings of those troubles and the unrest was spreading fast, and one of the symptoms of that burgeoning trouble was the sign of the fish, a simple scrawl of two curving lines, that the Christians painted on pagan walls or carved into the trees of Druidic groves. Culhwch had been right: the fish was a Christian symbol.
‘It’s because the Greek word for fish is ichthus,’ Tewdric told us, ‘and the Greek letters spell Christ’s name. Iesous Christos, Theou Uios, Soter. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. Very neat, very neat indeed.’ He chuckled with pleasure at his explanation, and it was easy to see from where Meurig had inherited his annoying pedantry. ‘Of course,’ Tewdric went on, ‘if I were still a ruler then I’d be concerned by all this turmoil, but as a Christian I must welcome it. The holy fathers tell us there will be many signs and portents of the last days, Lord Arthur, and civil disturbances are merely one of those signs. So maybe the end is near?’
Arthur crumbled a piece of bread into his dish. ‘You truly welcome these riots?’ he asked. ‘You approve of attacks on pagans? Of shrines burned and defaced?’
Tewdric stared out of the open door at the green woods that pressed hard about his small monastery. ‘I suppose they must be hard for others to understand,’ he said, evading a direct answer to Arthur’s question. ‘You must see the riots as symptoms of excitement, Lord Arthur, not signs of our Lord’s grace.’ He made the sign of the cross and smiled at us. ‘Our faith,’ he said earnestly, ‘is a faith of love. The Son of God humbled Himself to save us from our sins, and we are enjoined to imitate Him in all we do or think. We are encouraged to love our enemies and to do good to those who hate us, but those are hard commandments, too hard for most folk. And you must remember what it is that we pray for most fervently, and that is for the return to this earth of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ He made the sign of the cross again. ‘Folk pray and long for His second coming, and they fear that if the world is still ruled by pagans then He might not come and so they feel impelled to destroy heathenism.’
‘Destroying paganism,’ Arthur observed tartly, ‘hardly seems proper to a religion that preaches love.’
‘Destroying paganism is an act full of love,’ Tewdric insisted. ‘If you pagans refuse to accept Christ then you will surely go to hell. It will not matter that you have lived a virtuous life, for you will still burn for all eternity. We Christians have a duty to save you from that fate, and is that duty not an act of love?’
‘Not if I don’t want to be saved,’ Arthur said.
‘Then you must endure the enmity of those that love you,’ Tewdric said, ‘or at least you must endure it until the excitement dies down. And it will. These enthusiasms never last long, and if our Lord Jesus Christ does not return in four years then the excitement will surely wane until the millennium comes.’ He stared again at the deep woods. ‘How glorious it would be,’ he said in a voice full of wonder, ‘if I could live to see my Saviour’s face in Britain.’ He turned back to Arthur. ‘And the portents of His return will be disturbing, I fear. Doubtless the Saxons will be a nuisance. Are they much trouble these days?’
‘No,’ Arthur said, ‘but their numbers grow every year. I fear they won’t be quiet for much longer.’
‘I shall pray that Christ returns before they do,’ Tewdric said. ‘I don’t think I could bear to lose land to the Saxons. Not that it’s my business any longer, of course,’ he added hastily, ‘I leave all those things to Meurig now.’ He stood as a horn sounded from the nearby chapel. ‘Time for prayers!’ he said happily. ‘You’ll join me, perhaps?’
We excused ourselves, and next morning climbed the hills away from the old King’s monastery and crossed into Powys. Two nights later we were in Caer Sws where we were reunited with Culhwch who was prospering in his new kingdom. That night we all drank too much mead and next morning, when Cuneglas and I rode to Cwm Isaf, my head was sore. I found the King had kept our little house intact. ‘I never know when you might need it again, Derfel,’ he told me.
‘Maybe soon,’ I admitted glumly.
‘Soon? I do hope so.’
I shrugged. ‘We are not truly welcome in Dumnonia. Mordred resents me.’
‘Then ask to be released from your oath.’
‘I did ask,’ I said, ‘and he refused me.’ I had asked him after the acclamation, when the shame of the two blows was still keen in me, and then I had asked him again six months later and still he had refused me. I think he was clever enough to know that the best way to punish me was to force me to serve him.
‘Is it your spearmen he wants?’ Cuneglas asked, sitting on the bench under the apple tree by the house door.
‘Just my grovelling loyalty,’ I said bitterly. ‘He doesn’t seem to want to fight any wars.’
‘So he’s not a complete fool,’ Cuneglas said drily. Then we spoke of Ceinwyn and the girls and Cuneglas offered to send Malaine, his new chief Druid, to Dian’s side. ‘Malaine has a remarkable skill with herbs,’ he said. ‘Better than old Iorweth. Did you know he died?’
‘I heard. And if you can spare Malaine, Lord King, I would be glad.’
‘He’ll leave tomorrow. I can’t have my nieces sick. Doesn’t your Nimue help?’
‘No more and no less than Merlin,’ I said, touching the tip of an old sickle blade that was embedded in the apple tree’s bark. The touch of iron was to ward off the evil that threatened Dian. ‘The old Gods,’ I said bitterly, ‘have abandoned Dumnonia.’
Cuneglas smiled. ‘It never does, Derfel, to underestimate the Gods. They’ll have their day in Dumnonia again.’ He paused. ‘The Christians like to call themselves sheep, don’t they? Well, just you listen to them bleat when the wolves come.’
‘What wolves?’
‘The Saxons,’ he said unhappily. ‘They’ve given us ten years of peace, but their boats still land on the eastern shores and I can feel their power growing. If they start fighting us again then your Christians will be glad enough of pagan swords.’ He stood and laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘The Saxons are unfinished business, Derfel, unfinished business.’
That night he gave us a feast and next morning, with a guide given us by Cuneglas, we travelled south into the bleak hills that lay across the old frontier of Siluria.
We were going to a remote Christian community. Christians were still few in Powys, for Cuneglas ruthlessly ejected Sansum’s missionaries from his kingdom whenever he discovered their presence, but some Christians lived in the kingdom and there were many in the old lands of Siluria. This one group in particular was famous among Britain’s Christians for their sanctity, and they displayed that sanctity by living in extreme poverty in a wild, hard place. Ligessac had found his refuge among these Christian fanatics who, as Tewdric had told us, mortified their flesh, by which he meant that they competed with each other to see which could lead the most miserable lives. Some lived in caves, some refused shelter altogether, others ate only green things, some eschewed all clothes, others dressed in hair shirts with brambles woven into the fabric, some wore crowns made of thorns and others beat themselves bloody day after day like the flagellants we had seen in Isca. To me it seemed that the best punishment for Ligessac was to leave him in such a community, but we were ordered to fetch him out and take him home which meant we would have to defy the community’s leader, a fierce bishop named Cadoc whose belligerence was famous.
That reputation pe
rsuaded us to don our armour as we approached Cadoc’s squalid fastness in the high hills. We did not wear our best armour, at least those of us who had a choice did not, for that finery would have been wasted on a half-crazed pack of holy fanatics, but we were all helmeted and wore mail or leather and carried shields. If nothing else, we thought, the war gear might overawe Cadoc’s disciples who, our guide assured us, did not number more than twenty souls. ‘And all of them are mad,’ our guide told us. ‘One of them stood dead still for a whole year! Didn’t move a muscle, they say. Just stood like a beanpole while they shovelled food into one end of him and dung away from the other. Funny sort of God who asks that of a man.’
The road to Cadoc’s refuge had been beaten into the earth by pilgrims’ feet, and it twisted up the flanks of wide, bare hills where the only living things we saw were sheep and goats. We saw no shepherds, but they undoubtedly saw us. ‘If Ligessac has any sense,’ Arthur said, ‘he’ll be long gone. They must have seen us by now.’
‘And what will we tell Mordred?’
‘The truth, of course,’ Arthur said bleakly. His armour was a spearman’s plain helmet and a leather breastcoat, yet even such humble things looked neat and clean on him. His vanity was never flamboyant like Lancelot’s, but he did pride himself on cleanliness, and somehow this whole expedition into the raw uplands offended his sense of what was clean and proper. The weather did not help, for it was a bleak, raw summer’s day, with rain whipping out of the west on a chill wind.
Arthur’s spirits might have been low, but our spearmen were cheerful. They made jokes about assaulting the stronghold of mighty King Cadoc and boasted of the gold, warrior rings and slaves they would capture in the assault, and the joke’s extravagant claims made them laugh when at last we breasted the final saddle in the hills and could look down into the valley where Ligessac had found his refuge. It was indeed a squalid place; a sea of mud in which a dozen round stone huts surrounded a small square stone church. There were some ragged vegetable gardens, a small dark lake, some stone pens for the community’s goats, but no palisade.
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