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by Helen Hollick

  “Aye, Lady, I come from the west coast, near Alclud. Those two,” she nodded at the men, “often passed through our village with their horses.” She looked wistfully after them, and Gwenhwyfar could see there was more in her mind than two departing riders.

  “You think of the north?” she said, “your home?” Gwenhwyfar knew what it was to long for the place of your birth, your family and friends. “There was a while when I was in exile. They were kind to me in Less Britain, but it was not my home.” She touched the girl’s arm. “Would you be riding with those two were you free to go with them?”

  Nessa shrugged her shoulders, turned away so that her back was to the riders. “But I am not free. I was taken three years past by Scotti sea-raiders, and sold into slavery. When I became ill I was sold again to work as a slut in a stinking hovel of a tavern. The men used me and I hated it, hated their touch and their bawdy leering. And then I was bought by a king. For what reason, I know not.”

  He had spoken the truth then, for Nessa’s honesty was too plain spoken. She had expected to be Arthur’s whore, was puzzled that she had not been so used. They were almost across the river now, those two men, the first horse struggling, dripping and blowing, up the far bank. Gwenhwyfar asked, “If I were to grant your freedom, Nessa – I could ask Lord Winta to witness it – would you wish to go home?”

  Tempted, Nessa smiled, shook her head. “Return to what? Even there I was no more than a slave. You treat me with more respect than my own mother did.” She smiled, shrugged, decision made. “I would stay.”

  The horse trader had halted on the far side, was shaking his fist in a tormented rage. Absently, to the wind and the rise of birds that were shifting before the flooding tide, Gwenhwyfar stated, “I would like to know what happened to the original horses that Arthur bought. Where were they exchanged for this mange-bitten bunch I wonder?”

  “Oh I know that,” Nessa said, flapping her hand as if it were common knowledge. “Nechtan told me. Showing off! He was always one for that. They were sold to Morgause, the woman who thinks herself Queen of the North.”

  XII

  With swollen pride, Lot kissed his wife goodbye. She was the most beautiful woman alive and he, Lot, had her as his own! He patted her belly, the bulge that was the baby. “Take care of my son. He will be here by the time I return.” He said it wistfully, for he did not want to go west across the hills to meet with Arthur at Alclud. He was afraid of the Pendragon, but someone had to respond to his demanding summons, and Morgause could not go, not so near her time. Nor could he seem so weak as to prefer to see the birth of his son over meeting with the man who styled himself Supreme King.

  “Our daughter,” Morgause chided, pinning his cloak tighter around his shoulders. “I have told you, I carry a girl-child.”

  Patiently, Lot agreed with her. They had held this disagreement throughout the pregnancy; he supposed women knew about these things more than men, but he so wanted a son. Daily he prayed to whatever god was listening that his wife would be wrong, that she would bear him a boy. He kissed her again, prepared to mount. It was not easy having an acclaimed priestess to the Great Mother as your woman; so many other demands seemed to take precedence over the natural everyday things of being husband and wife.

  This obsession of hers of irritating Arthur for one. If she had not acted quite so angrily when those messengers had come early this spring… ah, but the thing had been done, and now Arthur himself had come up above the Wall, and had sent four whole turmae to fetch Lot to explain why Morgause had murdered two of his Artoriani. Over one hundred of those fine-mounted, disciplined cavalry. There was no way to refuse, he had to go.

  “What do I do? What do I say?” Lot had panicked when he realised he would have to face Arthur alone. Morgause was so much better at these things, she always knew what words to use and how to use them to best effect.

  “Humble yourself before him, beg of him – anything. Tell him his men disrespected my honour. There should be no punishment for a man who was justifiably protecting his wife from rape.” It was a lie of course, and Lot was not so good at lying. She could not have let those messengers of Arthur’s live, not let them go back tattling that Ebba, son of Drust of the Picti, was welcome at her hearth – and in her bed, but even Lot had not the knowing of that! Happen she ought have had them quietly dealt with? Curse that whoreson Pendragon, she had lost her temper, had ordered them slain and sent back without thinking twice of the consequences.

  She returned Lot’s goodbye kiss, a fond farewell before the gathered people of the settlement. With the Mother’s blessing, Arthur would be angry enough at Lot to hack off his stupid head and save her the eventual doing of it!

  Her plans were going well, were taking shape after all these years of convincing talk, bribes in the right places and granting favours where they would be most effective. But they were not yet ready, she and Ebba, not full ready to unite the northern British men with the Picti nation and rise against this upstart king from the south, not yet. Soon. When she had this daughter, a child of the Mother Goddess to present to the Picti; when Ebba persuaded them it was right to unite the new way of a son following a father, with the old of following down through the female line. When his mother, the woman who controlled the Picti, finally gave in to old age and joined her husband who had died last year. When Ebba married with Morgause’s soon to be born daughter… when all that happened, the north would see this Pendragon boy beaten to his knees!

  As he rode, reluctantly, out through the gates of Dun Pelidr, Morgause waved to her husband, her loving smile so believably genuine. The Picti held the Queen to be highest in their esteem, it was for her to choose the man who was to be her husband and their King. Drust had been a powerful man, he had almost outmanoeuvred the old hag into becoming supreme over her, almost, but not quite. Unfortunate that between them they had produced only the one living son, Ebba. The Picti would need a new woman as their queen. And Morgause so wanted to be the most powerful of all queens. Soon, ah, soon!

  When the Picti accepted this new babe as the child of the Mother Goddess, when they took her to be their next queen and agreed for Ebba to be her consort, Morgause would, naturally, travel north with the baby – and take her daughter’s place with the chosen king until the bride became of an age to be a wife.

  Morgause laid her hand on the bulge, that false, loving smile becoming a gloat of her scheming nearing fruition. The baby would never reach maturity. Morgause would see to that.

  With the pain so unbearable, Morgause remembered why she so rarely allowed her womb to conceive, names of the gods, was this suffering worth it? She screamed as another labour pain tore through her body, cursed with vivid embellishment all she would do to the next man who touched her – and the babe was born. The two women attending lifted the mewling child, put it to Morgause’s breast, twittering and cooing their inane pleasure.

  Morgause wrinkled her nose, the thing was bloodied and wet, looked like a puckered, withered old apple core. She turned it over, screeched her revulsion and threw it from her, the baby tumbled, yelling its fury and pain, to the floor; one of the women darted to help it, froze as Morgause spat orders to leave it be.

  “But, my Lady, your son…”

  “I needed to birth a girl-child, not a disgusting brat. Dispose of it. And you,” she flicked her fingers, long, slender fingers with fine-kept nails, at the other woman. “There is a purse of gold in that chest. Get you out into the settlement and buy me a girl-born child. Not too old, I want no one to suspect.” Both women scuttled from the room, the one clutching the child, the other the gold. Both would do as they were bid, for none dared disobey Morgause.

  Sweating, her body aching, Morgause hauled herself from the birthing stool. Her head swam, her eyes blurred. She staggered to the bed, lay down, her breath coming in gasps. A boy! By all the mockery of the gods, she had birthed a damned, whoring boy!

  October 460

  XIII

  The trees were wearing their autumn
finery, bright red and orange, gold and bronze. Winter was beyond the horizon, waiting to come in. The year had passed at Winta’s settlement among the gaiety of joy and the occasional sorrow; a year of telling tales around the night-fires, of sharing dreams and hopes, all intertwined with the free-given exchange of knowledge and friendship. A year that had travelled too swiftly for Gwenhwyfar. The weeks and months had scuttled by like clouds running before a fresh-paced wind. Arthur had come and gone about his business, controlling the kingdom through a mixture of diplomacy and force, spending time with her and the boys. But, as the nights grew longer and a touch of white was beginning to rim the grass at dawn, Arthur returned to say they had to leave. Llacheu sobbed, and Gwenhwyfar found it hard not to weep with him. To leave new friends was hard enough, but to return to Lindum? Ah, the prospect was dismal. They needed to find their own place, a stronghold, a King’s Hall, but where was the time, the opportunity, to find and build such a place?

  Seated on the rise of high ground, like a brooding eagle perched on its eerie, Lindum Colonia dominated the sparse sweep of marshland. From a distance, and in the dim light of a grey, overcast day, the cracked walls and broken gateways were indistinguishable, a pall of hearth-fire and cooking smoke balanced above the walls. Gwenhwyfar felt a niggle of doubt about returning into this decaying Roman town. Rome? The province of Britain had been abandoned to fend for herself, for the great power that had for four hundred years dominated an Empire was dying; but in Britain a few influential men clung obstinately to the security of Rome’s tattered skirts, refusing to believe their established way of life was over, finished, and a new about to begin.

  Walking their horses towards the nearing walls, Gwenhwyfar was reminded of a trader’s ship she had seen as a girl. Coming over-fast towards the shore it had been swept aside by the run of the current and a rising storm wind. With a rending crash it had hit the rocks, and sunk below an angry sea that cared not a handful of white-tossed foam for the splintering of wood and the cries of drowning men. Rome was like that ship, proud and gold-laden one moment, struggling and gasping against the darkness of death the next. Rome’s rule over Britain was in the past. The English, men like Winta and Icel and Hengest, were part of the new, the growing and the living. Was that why they were so hated by the British, these English? The British were a people who could only clutch in despair at torn spars and empty air, cry for help that would not come. The dying, envious of the new-born, the alive?

  Gwenhwyfar, feeling a small surge of hope, smiled and leant across the narrow gap between the horses to take Arthur’s hand in her own, glad to be one of those alive and looking to a bright future—not mouldering behind crumbling walls wishing for a life that was gone.

  At the dark arch of the northern gateway, she looked behind. A year ago she had hated the emptiness that was broken only by scattered, wind-twisted stumped trees, whistling reeds and singing marsh-grass. The dizzying void of sky had filled her with dread. Gwenhwyfar was mountain bred; her father had been Lord of the high reaches of Gwynedd, Lord over sky-touching mountains that swept fierce down to the sea. For Gwenhwyfar, flat land was hostile. But Hild had changed her, had shown the patterns of the sky, its moods, tempers and unending beauty; shown Gwenhwyfar how to appreciate the vault of blue or grey or moonlit silver. As a girl, the mountains had sung to her, glorying in the change of season and weather. Now Gwenhwyfar knew the sky, too, could sing. She took one last look at that sky before her mare trotted beneath the arch.

  Was it this confine of Lindum that troubled her? The cracks in the aqueduct were longer than she remembered, the rubble accumulating at the base of the walls higher, and the discarded refuse littering the stinking, narrow streets deeper. The children had a lean look about their faces, and the hollows in the cheeks of men and women were more pronounced. Lindum, like the Empire of Rome, was dying, but Winta’s Humbrenses people brought new prospects for these townsfolk: mutual trade was picking up, a better life was on the horizon. For that, the people were grateful – how different from a year ago when the mob had shouted and chanted through the streets. As Arthur entered beneath the gates and rode with his wife, sons, and a handful of men, the cheering and shouted blessings rang clear with enthusiasm and pride.

  The official welcome was less jubilant. The Governor of Lindum awaited them on the bird-dropping plastered steps of his shabby basilica. His wife, with her perpetual scowling expression, stood dignified at his side. Several members of Council were grouped behind them, their frowns as prominent as the cracks along the basilica walls. Ordinary people forgot the anger and doubts with the onset of peace, but not these men of politics. Men of power were not so fickle-minded. Resentment cemented distrust.

  Jostling forward, the people lining the streets strained to touch Arthur’s legs and arms, their hands stretching out to clasp his, to take some of his luck, his wonder. Arthur had brought them peace, and peace brought trade and prosperity. There was still far to go, but at least the path was there, opened, and set before them. Young women tossed fading rose petals over him and his lady, autumn-coloured leaves were strewn before the horses’ hooves. Someone took Hasta’s reins to lead the stallion in triumph up towards the basilica steps. The ordinary people had no care for this squabble of politics or the shuffle for supremacy; saw only the now and the here. Trade and peace was their demand and the Pendragon had fulfilled their asking. They forgot that a year past they were baying for his blood. It would stay forgotten, unless it suited them to remember.

  Before he dismounted, Arthur surveyed the swathe of faces crowding the forum. He lifted his hand, spoke with words strong enough to reach those further back.

  “To the north and east and south, the Saex-kind bow their heads to me, the Pendragon. You are their overlords. To you they must look to trade for their metals and grain and pottery. To you, they look for the sharing of a comfortable life, and you guide the reins of that life!”

  Cheering, whistling, much laughter. For now, Arthur fared well among these ordinary people of Lindum.

  Coming down the steps, the Governor welcomed the King with traditional words, putting scant feeling behind them. His customary embrace after Arthur dismounted was stiff, wooden. When Gwenhwyfar also dismounted he turned away, a deliberate insult. She busied herself with passing Llacheu into Enid’s care. So, that was how the wind blew! Had she expected ought else?

  Arthur and his Queen advanced up the steps. The Pendragon’s personal bodyguard had made formation, their spears crashing across their shields in salute; silver and bronze buckles of their leather and chain-linked parade armour glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

  Waiting on the top step, slightly to one side, stood Emrys, youngest brother to Arthur’s dead father, Uthr. As different from that proud warlord as cheese is from chalk, he stood sullen-faced, his arms folded within the long sleeves of his Christian monk-like robe. His stern eyes glared disapprovingly down the length of his nose. Gwenhwyfar had once remarked to Arthur that on the day when God had created smiles, Emrys had been elsewhere.

  “Council is in a sour mood,” Emrys announced as he coolly greeted his nephew.

  Arthur shrugged one shoulder, indifferent. “When are they not?”

  The returned frown on Emrys’s face deepened. “Can you never regard anything as serious, boy? The Council has convened to discuss your decision of…”

  Arthur cut the older man short. “I hold supreme authority. Whether Council agrees with my decisions or not is of no consequence.” He turned to thread Gwenhwyfar’s arm through his own before entering the public building. “I oft-times wonder,” he whispered to her, “whose side my uncle is on.”

  Feigning astonishment, she answered, “Emrys? On the side of truth and justice.”

  Arthur grinned, squeezed her hand as they passed through the doorway into the dull gloom of the basilica’s interior. “Ah. Not on mine then.”

  Tossing her braided hair, Gwenhwyfar laughed with him, the sound trickling behind, out into the bright autumn sunshine.r />
  Inside, they were met by a half-hearted hail of reluctant greeting. The vaulted entrance hall was filled with men, most doggedly wearing the formal white toga, the status symbol of a free Roman citizen. A stark reminder of where the majority still laid their loyalty.

  Arthur surveyed the expressions on the nearest faces, his bright smile cleverly masking his true annoyance. He had not wanted to come, but even a king must occasionally bear witness before a summoning of the Council of All Britain. Unfortunately.

  He raised his hand, broadened his placid smile. “Peace be upon you, my most learned and wise men.”

  A few muttered polite responses. Someone stepped forward – Patricius, the recently appointed Archbishop of Southern Britain. “We expected you yester-eve,” he said curtly – accusingly.

  “Did you?” Arthur’s hand moved casually to his sword, his fingers toying with its familiar feel. “It is most pleasing that you grieve at missing my company for twenty and four hours!”

  A ripple of deep laughter came from the left as two men pushed their way through the crowd. Gwenhwyfar squealed and darting past Arthur ran to meet them, her arms outstretched. She was hugging each of the men in turn, her joy at seeing them immense. “My brothers! Ceredig and Enniaun!” She took a step backwards, her hands resting lightly on Ceredig’s arm, her gaze roaming, pleased, over the two of them. “How well you both look!”

  Arthur, smiling broad welcome, embraced the two men with strong affection. Clasping Enniaun’s large hand in his own, he said, “For reasons best not recalled, it has been a long while since Gwynedd last joined with the Council of Britain. It is good that you have come.” He slapped his hand on the man’s shoulder, “Most good. Welcome, my Lord Enniaun, welcome!”