The Winter King

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘There will?’ I asked dubiously. Most of us believed the spring thaw could bring only a fresh attack from Powys’s embittered King Gorfyddyd.

  ‘Gorfyddyd’s son is a sensible man,’ Arthur said. ‘His name is Cuneglas and he wants peace, and we must give Prince Cuneglas time to persuade his father that he’ll lose more than one arm if he goes to war with us again. And once Gorfyddyd is persuaded that peace is better than war he’ll call a council and we’ll all go and make a lot of noise and at the end of it, Derfel, I shall marry Gorfyddyd’s daughter, Ceinwyn.’ He gave me a swift and somehow embarrassed look. ‘Seren, they call her, the star! The star of Powys. They say she’s very beautiful.’ He was pleased by that prospect and his pleasure somehow surprised me, but back then I had still not recognized the vanity in Arthur. ‘Let’s hope she is as beautiful as a star,’ he went on, ‘but beautiful or not, I’ll marry her and we’ll pacify Siluria, and then the Saxons will face a united Britain. Powys, Gwent, Dumnonia and Siluria, all embracing each other, all fighting the same enemy, and all at peace with one another.’

  I laughed, not at him, but with him, for his ambitious prophecy had been so matter of fact. ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘Because Cuneglas has offered the peace terms, of course, and you’re not to tell that to anyone, Derfel, otherwise it might not happen. Even his father doesn’t know yet so this is a secret between you and me.’

  ‘Yes, Lord,’ I said, and I felt hugely privileged to be told such an important secret, but of course that was just how Arthur wanted me to feel. He always knew how to manipulate men, and he especially knew how to manipulate young, idealistic men.

  ‘But what use is peace,’ Arthur asked me, ‘if we’re fighting amongst ourselves? Our task is to give Mordred a rich, peaceful kingdom, and to do that we have to make it a good and just kingdom.’ He was looking at me now, and speaking very earnestly in his deep, soft voice. ‘We cannot have peace if we break our treaties, and the treaty that let the men of Kernow mine our tin was a good one. I’ve no doubt they were cheating us, all men cheat when it comes to giving their money to kings, but was that reason to kill them and their children and their children’s kittens? So next spring, Derfel, unless we finish this nonsense now, we shall have war instead of peace. King Mark will attack. He won’t win, but his pride will ensure that his men kill a lot of our farmers and we shall have to send a war-band into Kernow and that’s a bad country to fight in, very bad, but we’ll win in the end. Pride will be settled, but at what price? Three hundred dead farmers? How many dead cattle? And if Gorfyddyd sees that we’re fighting a war on our western frontier he’ll be tempted to take advantage of our weakness by attacking in the north. We can make peace, Derfel, but only if we’re strong enough to make war. If we look weak then our enemies will swoop like hawks. And how many Saxons will we face next year? Can we really spare men to cross the Tamar to kill a few farmers in Kernow?’

  ‘Lord,’ I began, and was about to confess the truth, but Arthur hushed me. The warriors in the hall were chanting the War Song of Beli Mawr, beating the earth floor with their feet as they proclaimed the great slaughter and doubtless anticipated more slaughter in Kernow.

  ‘You mustn’t say a word about what happened on the moor,’ Arthur warned me. ‘Oaths are sacred, even to those of us who wonder if any God cares enough to enforce them. Let us just assume, Derfel, that Tristan’s little girl was telling the truth. What does that mean?’

  I gazed into the frosted night. ‘War with Kernow,’ I said bleakly.

  ‘No,’ Arthur said. ‘It means that tomorrow morning, when Tristan returns, someone has to challenge for the truth. The Gods, people tell me, always favour the honest in such encounters.’

  I knew what he was saying and I shook my head. ‘Tristan won’t challenge Owain,’ I said.

  ‘Not if he has as much sense as he seems to have,’ Arthur agreed. ‘Even the Gods would find it hard to make Tristan beat down Owain’s sword. So if we want peace, and if we want all those good things that follow peace, someone else must be Tristan’s champion. Isn’t that right?’

  I looked at him, horrified at what I thought he was saying. ‘You?’ I finally asked.

  He shrugged under his white cloak. ‘I’m not sure who else will do it,’ he said gently. ‘But there is one thing you can do for me.’

  ‘Anything, Lord,’ I said, ‘anything.’ And at that moment I think I would even have agreed to fight Owain for him.

  ‘A man going into battle, Derfel,’ Arthur said carefully, ‘should know that his cause is right. Perhaps the Blackshield Irish did carry their shields across the land unseen by anyone. Or maybe their Druids did make them fly? Or maybe, tomorrow, the Gods, if they take an interest, will think I fight for a good cause. What do you think?’

  He asked the question as innocently as if he was merely enquiring about the weather. I stared at him, overwhelmed by him and desperately wanting him to avoid this challenge against the best swordsman in Dumnonia.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted me.

  ‘The Gods …’ I began, but then had difficulty speaking for Owain had been good to me. The champion was not an honest man, but I could count on my fingers how many honest men I had met, yet despite his roguery, I liked him. Yet I liked this honest man much more. I also paused to determine whether or not my words broke any oath, then decided they did not. ‘The Gods will support you, Lord,’ I said at last.

  He smiled sadly. ‘Thank you, Derfel.’

  ‘But why?’ I blurted out.

  He sighed and looked back to the moon-glossed land. ‘When Uther died,’ he said after a long time, ‘the land fell into chaos. That happens to a land without a king, and we are without a king now. We have Mordred, but he is a child, so someone has to hold the power until he is of age. One man must hold the power, Derfel, not three or four or ten, just one. I wish it were not so. With all my heart, believe me, I would rather leave things as they are. I would rather grow old with Owain as my dear friend, but it cannot be. The power must be held for Mordred, and it must be held properly and justly and given to him intact, and that means we cannot afford perpetual squabbles between men who want the king’s power for themselves. One man has to be a king who is no king, and that one man must relinquish the powers of the kingdom when Mordred is of age. And that’s what soldiers do, remember? They fight the battles for people who are too weak to fight for themselves. They also,’ he smiled, ‘take what they want, and tomorrow I want something of Owain; I want his honour, so I shall take it.’ He shrugged. ‘Tomorrow I fight for Mordred and for that child. And you, Derfel’ – he poked me hard in the chest – ‘will find her a kitten.’ He stamped his feet against the cold, then peered westward. ‘You think those clouds will bring rain or snow in the morning?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Lord.’

  ‘Let us hope so. Now, I hear you had a conversation with that poor Saxon they killed to learn the future. So tell me all he told you. The more we know of our enemies, the better.’

  He walked me back to my post, listened to what I had to say about Cerdic, the new Saxon leader on the south coast, then went to his bed. He seemed untroubled by what must happen in the morning, but I was terrified for him. I remembered Owain beating back the combined attack of both Tewdric’s champions and I tried to say a prayer to the stars which are the homes of the Gods, but I could not see them because my eyes were watering.

  The night was long and bitterly cold. But I wished the dawn would never come.

  Arthur’s wish was granted for at dawn it began to rain. It soon became a hard pelting storm of winter rain that swept in grey veils across the long, wide valley between Caer Cadarn and Ynys Wydryn. The ditches overflowed; water poured off the ramparts and puddled under the great hall’s eaves. Smoke leaked from the holes in damp thatched roofs and sentries hunched their shoulders beneath their soaking cloaks.

  Tristan, who had spent the night in the small village just east of Caer Cadarn, struggled up the fort’s muddy approa
ch path. His six guards and the orphaned child accompanied him, all of them slipping in the steep mud whenever they could not find a foothold on the tufts of grass growing at the path’s sides. The gate was open and no sentry moved to stop the Prince of Kernow as he splashed through the compound’s mud to the door of the great hall.

  Where no one waited to receive him. The hall’s interior was a damp chaos of men sleeping off a night’s drunkenness, of discarded food, scavenging dogs, soggy grey embers and vomit congealing in the floor rushes. Tristan kicked one of the sleeping men awake and sent him to find Bishop Bedwin or some other person in authority. ‘If anyone,’ he called after the man, ‘has any authority in this country.’

  Bedwin, heavily cloaked against the seething rain, slipped and staggered his way through the treacherous mud. ‘My Lord Prince,’ he gasped as he dashed out of the weather into the hall’s dubious shelter, ‘my apologies. I had not expected you so early. Inclement weather, is it not?’ He wrung water from the skirts of his cloak. ‘Still, rather rain than snow, I think, don’t you?’

  Tristan said nothing.

  Bedwin was flustered by his guest’s silence. ‘Some bread, perhaps? And warm wine? There will be a porridge cooking, I’m sure.’ He looked about for someone to despatch to the kitchens, but the sleeping men lay snoring and immovable. ‘Little girl?’ Bedwin winced because of an aching head as he leaned towards Sarlinna, ‘you must be hungry, yes?’

  ‘We came for justice, not food,’ Tristan said harshly.

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course. Of course.’ Bedwin pushed the hood away from his white tonsured hair and scratched in his beard for a troublesome louse. ‘Justice,’ he said vaguely, then nodded vigorously. ‘I have thought on the matter, Lord Prince, indeed I have, and I have decided that war is not a desirable thing. Won’t you agree?’ He waited, but Tristan’s face showed no response. ‘Such a waste,’ Bedwin said, ‘and while I cannot find my Lord Owain to be at fault I do confess we failed in our duty to protect your countrymen on the moor. We did indeed. We failed sadly, and so, Lord Prince, if it pleases your father, we shall, of course, make payment of sarhaed, though not,’ and here Bedwin chuckled, ‘for the kitten.’

  Tristan grimaced. ‘What of the man who did the killing?’

  Bedwin shrugged. ‘What man? I know of no such man.’

  ‘Owain,’ Tristan said. ‘Who almost certainly took gold from Cadwy.’

  Bedwin shook his head. ‘No. No. No. It cannot be. No. On my oath, Lord Prince, I have no knowledge of any man’s guilt.’ He gave Tristan a pleading look. ‘My Lord Prince, it would hurt me deeply to see our countries at war. I have offered what I can offer, and I shall have prayers said for your dead, but I cannot countermand a man’s oath of innocence.’

  ‘I can,’ Arthur said. He had been waiting behind the kitchen screen at the hall’s far end. I was with him as he stepped into the hall where his white cloak looked bright in the damp gloom.

  Bedwin blinked at him. ‘Lord Arthur?’

  Arthur stepped between the stirring, groaning bodies. ‘If the man who killed Kernow’s miners is not punished, Bedwin, then he may murder again. Do you not agree?’

  Bedwin shrugged, spread his hands, then shrugged again. Tristan was frowning, not sure where Arthur’s words were leading.

  Arthur stopped by one of the hall’s central pillars. ‘And why should the kingdom pay sarhaed when the kingdom did not do the killing?’ he demanded. ‘Why should my Lord Mordred’s treasury be depleted for another man’s offence?’

  Bedwin gestured Arthur to silence. ‘We do not know the murderer!’ he insisted.

  ‘Then we must prove his identity,’ Arthur said simply.

  ‘We can’t!’ Bedwin protested irritably. ‘The child is not a Tongued-one! And Lord Owain, if he is the man you speak of, has sworn on oath that he is innocent. He is a Tongued-one, so why go through the farce of a trial? His word is enough.’

  ‘In a court of words, yes,’ Arthur said, ‘but there is also the court of swords, and by my sword, Bedwin,’ here he paused and drew Excalibur’s glittering length into the half-light, ‘I maintain that Owain, Champion of Dumnonia, has caused our cousins of Kernow harm and that he, and no other, must pay the price.’ He thrust Excalibur’s tip through the filthy rushes into the earth and left it there, quivering. For a second I wondered if the Gods of the Otherworld would suddenly appear to aid Arthur, but there was only the sound of wind and rain and newly woken men gasping.

  Bedwin gasped too. For a few seconds he was speechless. ‘You …’ he finally managed to say, but then could say no more.

  Tristan, his handsome face pale in the wan light, shook his head. ‘If anyone should contend in the court of swords,’ he said to Arthur, ‘let it be me.’

  Arthur smiled. ‘I asked first, Tristan,’ he said lightly.

  ‘No!’ Bedwin found his tongue. ‘It cannot be!’

  Arthur gestured at the sword. ‘You wish to pluck it, Bedwin?’

  ‘No!’ Bedwin was in distress, foreseeing the death of the kingdom’s best hope, but before he could say another word Owain himself burst through the hall door. His long hair and thick beard were wet and his bare chest gleamed with rain.

  He looked from Bedwin to Tristan to Arthur, then down to the sword in the earth. He seemed puzzled. ‘Are you mad?’ he asked Arthur.

  ‘My sword,’ Arthur said mildly, ‘maintains your guilt in the matter between Kernow and Dumnonia.’

  ‘He is mad,’ Owain said to his warriors who were crowding in behind him. The champion was red-eyed and tired. He had drunk for much of the night, then slept badly, but the challenge seemed to give him a new energy. He spat towards Arthur. ‘I’m going back to that Silurian bitch’s bed,’ he said, ‘and when I wake up I want this to prove a dream.’

  ‘You are a coward, a murderer and a liar,’ Arthur said calmly as Owain turned away and the words made the men in the hall gasp once more.

  Owain turned back into the hall. ‘Whelp,’ he said to Arthur. He strode up to Excalibur and knocked the blade over, the formal acceptance of the challenge. ‘So your death, whelp, will be part of my dream. Outside.’ He jerked his head towards the rain. The fight could not be held indoors, not unless the feasting hall was to be cursed with abominable luck, so the men had to fight in the winter rain.

  The whole fort was stirring now. Many of the folk who lived at Lindinis had slept in Caer Cadarn that night and the compound seethed as people were woken to witness the fight. Lunete was there, and Nimue and Morgan; indeed all Caer Cadarn hurried to watch the battle that took place, as tradition demanded, within the royal stone circle. Agricola, a red cloak over his gorgeous Roman armour, stood between Bedwin and Prince Gereint while King Melwas, a hunk of bread in his hand, watched wide-eyed among his guards. Tristan stood on the circle’s far side where I, too, took my place. Owain saw me there and assumed I had betrayed him. He roared that my life would follow Arthur’s to the Otherworld, but Arthur proclaimed my life was under his surety.

  ‘He broke his oath!’ Owain shouted, pointing at me.

  ‘On my oath,’ Arthur said, ‘he broke none.’ He took off his white cloak and folded it carefully on to one of the stones. He was dressed in trews, boots and a thin leather jerkin over a woollen vest. Owain was bare chested. His trews were crisscrossed with leather and he had massive nailed boots. Arthur sat on the stone and pulled his own boots off, preferring to fight barefoot.

  ‘This is not necessary,’ Tristan said to him.

  ‘It is, sadly,’ Arthur said, then stood and pulled Excalibur from its scabbard.

  ‘Using your magic sword, Arthur?’ Owain jeered. ‘Afraid to fight with a mortal weapon, are you?’

  Arthur sheathed Excalibur again and laid the sword on top of his cloak. ‘Derfel,’ he turned to me, ‘is that Hywel’s sword?’

  ‘Yes, Lord.’

  ‘Would you lend it me?’ he asked. ‘I promise to return it.’

  ‘Make sure you live to keep that promise, Lord,’ I said, taking Hy
welbane from her scabbard and handing it to him hilt first. He gripped the sword, then asked me to run to the hall and fetch a handful of gritty ash that, when I returned, he rubbed into the oiled leather of the hilt.

  He turned to Owain. ‘If, Lord Owain,’ he said courteously, ‘you would rather fight when you are rested, then I can wait.’

  ‘Whelp!’ Owain spat. ‘Sure you don’t want to put on your fish armour?’

  ‘It rusts in the rain,’ Arthur answered very calmly.

  ‘A fair-weather soldier,’ Owain sneered, then gave his long-sword two practice cuts that whistled in the air. In the shield-line he preferred to fight with a short sword, but with any length of blade Owain was a man to fear. ‘I’m ready, whelp,’ he called.

  I stood with Tristan and his guards as Bedwin made one last futile effort to stop the fight. No one doubted the outcome. Arthur was a tall man, but slender compared with Owain’s muscled bulk, and no one had ever seen Owain bested in a fight. Yet Arthur seemed remarkably composed as he took his place at the circle’s western edge and faced Owain who stood, uphill of him, at the east.

  ‘Do you submit judgment to the court of swords?’ Bedwin asked the two men, and both nodded their assent.

  ‘Then God bless you, and God give the truth victory,’ Bedwin said. He made the sign of the cross and then, his old face heavy, he walked out of the circle.

  Owain, as we had expected, rushed at Arthur, but halfway across the circle, right by the King’s royal stone, his foot slipped in the mud, and suddenly Arthur was charging. I had expected Arthur to fight calmly, using the skills Hywel had taught him, but that morning, as the rains poured from the winter skies, I saw how Arthur changed in battle. He became a fiend. His energy was poured into just one thing, death, and he laid at Owain with massive, fast strokes that drove the big man back and back. The swords rang harsh. Arthur was spitting at Owain, cursing him, taunting him, and cutting again and again with the edge of the sword and never giving Owain a chance to recover from a parry.