“Yes,” I said, meaning no.
“I think you're a fool,” Nimue said, 'but Lunete will do as I tell her. But I tell you, Derfel, that if you don't leave her now, she'll leave you in her own good time.“ She put her hand on my arm to check me. We had come close to the villa's porch where the crowd of petitioners was waiting to see Arthur. ”Did you know,“ Nimue asked me in a low voice, 'that Arthur is thinking of releasing Gundleus?”
“No.” I was shocked by the news.
“He is. He thinks Gundleus will keep the peace now, and he thinks Gundleus is the best man to rule Siluria. Arthur won't release him without Tewdric's agreement, so it won't happen yet, but when it does, Derfel, I'll kill Gundleus.” She spoke with the terrible simplicity of truth and I thought how ferocity gave her a beauty that nature had denied her. She was staring across the wet, cold land towards the distant mound of Caer Cadarn. “Arthur,” she said, 'dreams of peace, but there never will be peace. Never!
Britain is a cauldron, Derfel, and Arthur will stir it to horror."
“You're wrong,” I said loyally.
Nimue mocked that assertion with a grimace and then, without another word, she turned and walked back down the path towards the warriors' huts.
I pushed through the petitioners into the villa. Arthur glanced up as I came in, waved a casual welcome, then returned his attention to a man who was complaining that his neighbour had moved their boundary stones. Bed win and Gereint sat at the table with Arthur, while to one side Agricola and Prince Tristan stood like guards. A number of the kingdom's counsellors and magistrates sat on the floor, which was curiously warm thanks to the Roman way of making a space beneath that could be filled with warm smoky air from a furnace. A crack in the tiles was allowing wisps of the smoke to drift across the big chamber.
The petitioners were seen one by one and justice was pronounced. Almost all of the cases could have been dealt with in Lindinis's magistrates' court that stood just a hundred paces from the villa, but many folk, especially the pagan country dwellers, reckoned that a decision given in Royal Council was more binding than a judgment made in a court established by the Romans, and so they stored their grudges and feuds until the council was conveniently close by.
Arthur, representing the baby Mordred, dealt with them patiently, but he was relieved when the real business of the day could commence. That business was to dispose of the tangled ends left by the previous day's fight. Owain's warriors were given to Prince Gereint with Arthur's recommendation that they be split between various troops. One of Gereint's captains, a man called Llywarch, was appointed in Owain's place as the new commander of the King's guard, then a magistrate was given the task of tallying Owain's wealth and sending to Kernow the portion that was owed in sarhaed. I noted how brusquely Arthur conducted the business, though never without giving each man present a chance to speak his mind. Such consultation could lead to interminable argument, but Arthur had the happy talent of understanding complicated matters swiftly and proposing compromises that pleased everyone. I noticed, too, how Gereint and Bedwin were content to let Arthur take the first place. Bedwin had placed all his hopes for Dumnonia's future on Arthur's sword and Bedwin was thus Arthur's strongest supporter, while Gereint, who was Uther's nephew, could have been a opponent, but the Prince had none of his uncle's ambition and was happy that Arthur was willing to take the responsibility of government. Dumnonia had a new King's champion, Arthur ab Uther, and the relief in the room was palpable. Prince Cadwy of Isca was ordered to contribute to the sarhaed owed to Kernow. He protested against the decision, but quailed before Arthur's anger and meekly agreed to pay one quarter of Kernow's price. Arthur, I suspect, would have preferred to inflict a sterner punishment, but I was oath-bound not to reveal Cadwy's part in the attack on the moor and there was no other evidence of his complicity, so Cadwy escaped a heavier judgement. Prince Tristan acknowledged Arthur's decisions with a nod of his head.
The next business of the day was arranging the future of our King. Mordred had been living in Owain's household and now he needed a new home. Bedwin proposed a man named Nabur who was the chief magistrate in Durnovaria. Another counsellor immediately protested, condemning Nabur for being a Christian.
Arthur rapped on the table to end a bitter argument before it began. “Is Nabur here?” he demanded. A tall man stood at the back of the room. “I'm Nabur.” He was clean shaven and dressed in a Roman toga. “Nabur ap Lwyd,” he introduced himself formally. He was a young man with a narrow, grave face and receding hair that gave him the appearance of a bishop or a Druid.
“You have children, Nabur?” Arthur asked.
“Three living, Lord. Two boys and a girl. The girl is our Lord Mordred's age.”
“And is there a Druid or Bard in Durnovaria?”
Nabur nodded. “Derella the Bard, Lord.”
Arthur spoke privately with Bedwin, who nodded, then Arthur smiled at Nabur. “Would you take the King into your care?”
“Gladly, Lord.”
“You may teach him your religion, Nabur ap Lwyd, but only when Derella is present, and Derella must become the boy's tutor when he is five years of age. You will receive half a king's allowance from the treasury and will be required to keep twenty guards about our Lord Mordred at all times. The price of his life is your soul and the souls of your whole family. Do you agree?” Nabur blanched when he was told that his wife and children would die if he let Mordred be killed, but he still nodded acceptance. And no wonder. To be the King's guardian gave Nabur a place very close to the centre of Dumnonia's power. “I agree, Lord,” he said. The last business of the council was the fate of Ladwys, Gundleus's wife and lover, and slave to Owain. She was brought into the room where she stood defiantly in front of Arthur. “This day,” Arthur told her, “I ride north to Corinium where your husband is our captive. Do you wish to come?”
“So you can humiliate me further?” Ladwys asked. Owain, for all his brutality, had never managed to break her spirit.
Arthur frowned at her hostile tone. “So you can be with him, Lady,” he said gently. “Your husband's imprisonment is not harsh, he has a house like this, though admittedly it is guarded. But you may live with him in privacy and peace, if that is what you want.”
Tears showed at Ladwys's eyes. “He may not want me. I've been soiled.” Arthur shrugged. “I can't speak for Gundleus, I just want your decision. If you choose to stay here then you may. Owain's death means you are free.”
She seemed bemused by Arthur's generosity, but managed to nod. “I will come, Lord.”
“Good!” Arthur stood and carried his chair to the side of the room where he courteously invited Ladwys to sit. Then he faced the assembled counsellors, spearmen and chiefs. “I have one thing to say, just one, but you must all understand this one thing and you must repeat it to your men, your families, your tribes and your septs. Our King is Mordred, no one but Mordred, and it is to Mordred we owe our allegiance and our swords. But in the next years the kingdom will face enemies, as all kingdoms do, and there will be a need, as there always is, for strong decisions, and when those decisions are taken there will be men among you who will whisper that I am usurping the King's power. You will even be tempted to think I want the King's power. So in front of you now, and in front of our friends from Gwent and Kernow' here Arthur gestured courteously towards Agricola and Tristan 'let me swear upon whatever oath you hold most dear that I shall use the power you give me for one end only, and that one end is to see Mordred take his kingdom from me when he is of age. That I swear.” He stopped abruptly. There was a stir in the room. Until that moment no one had fully understood how swiftly Arthur had taken power in Dumnonia. The fact that he sat at the table with Bedwin and Prince Gereint suggested that the three men were equals in power, but Arthur's speech proclaimed that there was only one man in charge, and Bedwin and Gereint, by their silence, gave support to Arthur's claim. Neither Bedwin nor Gereint were stripped of their power, but rather they now exercised it at Arthur's plea
sure and his pleasure decreed that Bedwin would stay to be the arbiter of disputes within the kingdom, Gereint would guard the Saxon frontier while Arthur went north to face the forces of Powys. I knew, and maybe Bedwin knew, that Arthur had high hopes of peace with Gorfyddyd's kingdom, but until that peace was agreed he would continue a posture of war.
A large party went north that afternoon. Arthur, with his two warriors and his servant Hygwydd, rode ahead with Agricola and his men. Morgan, Ladwys and Lunete rode in a cart while I walked with Nimue. Lunete was subdued, overwhelmed by Nimue's anger. We spent the night at the Tor where I saw the good work Gwlyddyn was doing. The new stockade was in place and a new tower rising on the foundations of the old. Ralla was pregnant. Pellinore did not know me, but just walked about his new cage as though he was on guard and barked orders at unseen spearmen. Druidan ogled Ladwys. Gudovan, the clerk, showed me Hywel's grave north of the Tor, then took Arthur to the shrine of the Holy Thorn where Saint Norwenna was buried close beside the miraculous tree. Next morning I said farewell to Morgan and to Nimue. The sky was blue again, the wind was cold, and I went north with Arthur.
In the spring my son was born. He died three days later. For days afterwards I would see that small wrinkled red face and tears would come to my eyes at the memory. He had seemed healthy, but one morning, hung in his swaddling clothes on the wall of the kitchen so he would be out of the way of the dogs and piglets, he simply died. Lunete, like me, wept, but she also blamed me for her baby's death, saying the air at Corinium was pestilential, though she was, in fact, happy enough in the town. She liked the clean Roman buildings and her small brick house that faced on to a stone-paved street, and she had struck up an unlikely friendship with Ailleann, Arthur's lover, and with Ailleann's twin sons, Amhar and Loholt. I liked Ailleann well enough, but the two boys were fiends. Arthur indulged them, perhaps because he felt guilty that they, like him, were not proper sons born to inherit, but bastards who would need to make their own way in a hard world. They received no discipline that I ever saw, except once when I found them prying at a puppy's eyes with a knife and I struck them both hard. The puppy was blinded and I did the merciful thing of killing it quickly. Arthur sympathized with me, but said it was not my place to strike his boys. His warriors applauded me, and Ailleann, I think, approved. She was a sad woman. She knew her days as Arthur's companion were numbered for her man had become the effective ruler of Britain's strongest kingdom and he would need to marry a bride who could buttress his power. I knew that bride was Ceinwyn, star and Princess of Powys, and I suspect Ailleann knew it too. She wanted to return to Benoic, but Arthur would not allow his precious sons to leave the country. Ailleann knew that Arthur would never let her starve, but nor would he disgrace his royal wife by keeping his lover close. As the spring put leaves on trees and spread blossom across the land her sadness deepened.
The Saxons attacked in the spring, but Arthur did not go to war. King Melwas defended the southern border from his capital at
Venta while Prince Gereint's war-bands sallied out of Durocobrivis to oppose the Saxon levies of the dreaded King Aelle. Gereint had the harder time of it and Arthur reinforced him by sending him Sagramor with thirty horsemen, and Sagramor's intervention tipped the balance in our favour. Aelle's Saxons, we were told, believed Sagramor's black face made him a monster sent from the Kingdom of the Night and they had neither the sorcerers nor the swords that could oppose him. The Numidian drove Aelle's men so far back that he made a new frontier a full day's march beyond the old and he marked his new boundary with a row of severed Saxon heads. He pillaged deep into Lloegyr, once even leading his horsemen as far as London, a city that had been the greatest in Roman Britain, but which was now decaying behind fallen walls. The surviving Britons there, Sagramor told us, were timid and begged him not to disturb the fragile peace they had made with their Saxon overlords. There was no news of Merlin.
In Gwent they waited for Gorfyddyd of Powys to attack, but no attack came. Instead a messenger rode south from Gorfyddyd's capital at Caer Sws and two weeks later Arthur rode north to meet the enemy King. I went with him, one of twelve warriors who marched with swords, but no shields or war spears. We went on a mission of peace, and Arthur was excited at the prospect. We took Gundleus of Siluria with us, and first marched east to Tewdric's capital of Burrium that was a walled Roman town filled with armouries and the reeking smoke of blacksmiths' forges, and from there we went north accompanied by Tewdric and his attendants. Agricola was defending Gwent's Saxon frontier and Tewdric, like Arthur, took only a handful of guards, though he was accompanied by three priests, among them Sansum, the angry little black-tonsured priest whom Nimue had nicknamed Lughtigern, the Mouse Lord. We made a colourful party. King Tewdric's men were cloaked in red above their Roman uniforms while Arthur had outfitted each of his warriors with new green cloaks. We travelled beneath four banners: Mordred's dragon for Dumnonia, Arthur's bear, Gundleus's fox and Tewdric's bull. With Gundleus rode Ladwys, the only woman in our party. She was happy again and Gundleus seemed content to have her back at his side. He was still a prisoner, but he wore a sword again and he rode in the place of honour alongside Arthur and Tewdric. Tewdric was still suspicious of Gundleus, but Arthur treated him like an old friend. Gundleus, after all, was a part of his plan to bring peace among the Britons, a peace that would allow Arthur to turn his swords and spears against the Saxons. At the border of Powys we were met by a guard come to do us honour. Rushes were laid on the road and a hard sang a song telling of Arthur's victory over the Saxons in the Valley of the White Horse. King Gorfyddyd had not come to greet us, but instead sent Leodegan, the King of Henis Wyren whose lands had been taken by the Irish and who was now an exile in Gorfyddyd's court. Leodegan had been chosen because his rank did us honour, though he himself was a notorious fool. He was an extraordinarily tall man, very thin and with a long neck, wispy dark hair and a slack wet mouth. He could never keep still, but darted and jerked and blinked and scratched and fussed all the time. “The King would be here,” he told us, 'yes indeed, but cannot be here. You understand? But all the same, greetings from Gorfyddyd!“ He watched enviously as Tewdric rewarded the hard with gold. Leodegan, we were to learn, was a much impoverished man and spent most of his days trying to recoup the vast losses that had been inflicted on him when Diwrnach, the Irish conqueror, had taken his lands. ”Shall we move on? There are lodgings at.. “ Leodegan paused. ”Bless me, I've forgotten, but the guard commander knows. Where is he? There. What's his name? Never mind, we'll get there."
The eagle flag of Powys and Leodegan's own stag banner joined our standards. We followed a Roman road that lay spear-straight across good country, the same country that Arthur had laid waste the previous autumn, though only Leodegan was tactless enough to mention the campaign. “You've been here before, of course,” he called up to Arthur. Leodegan had no horse and so was forced to walk alongside the royal party.
Arthur frowned. “I'm not sure I know this land,” he said diplomatically.
“Indeed you do, yes indeed. See? The burned farm? Your work!” Leodegan beamed up at Arthur. “They underestimated you, didn't they? I told Gorfyddyd so, told him straight to his face. Young Arthur's good, I said, but Gorfyddyd has never been a man to hear sense. A fighter, yes, a thinker, no. The son is better, I think. Cuneglas is definitely better. I rather hoped young Cuneglas might marry one of my daughters, but Gorfyddyd won't hear of it. Never mind.” He tripped on a tussock of grass. The road, just like the Fosse Way near Ynys Wydryn, was embanked so that the surface would drain into the edging ditches, but the years had filled in the ditches and drifted soil on to the road's stones that were now thick with weed and grass. Leodegan persisted in pointing out other places that Arthur had laid waste, but after a while he gave up trying to provoke any response and so fell back to where we guards walked behind Tewdric's three priests. Leodegan attempted to talk to Agravain, the commander of Arthur's guard, but Agravain was in a sullen mood and Leodegan finally decided that I was
the most sympathetic of Arthur's entourage and so questioned me eagerly about Dumnonia's nobility. He was trying to discover who was and who was not married. “Prince Gereint, now? Is he? Is he?”
“Yes, Lord,” I said.
“And she's in health?”
“So far as I know, Lord.”
“King Melwas, then? He has a queen?”
“She died, Lord.”
“Ah!” He brightened immediately. “I have daughters, you see?” he explained very earnestly. “Two daughters, and daughters must be wed, must they not? Unwed daughters are no use to man or beast. Mind you, to be fair, one of my two darlings is to be married. Guinevere is spoken for. She's to marry Valerin. You know of Valerin?”
“No, Lord.”
“A fine man, a fine man, a fine man, but no…” He paused, seeking the right word. “No wealth! No real land, you see. Some scrubby stuff west, I think, but no money worth counting. He has no rents, no gold, and a man can't go far without rents or gold. And Guinevere's a princess! Then there's Gwenhwyvach, her sister, and she has no prospects of marriage at all, none! She lives off my purse only, and the Gods know that's thin enough. But Melwas keeps an empty bed, does he? That's a thought! Though it's a pity about Cuneglas.”
“Why, Lord?”
“He doesn't seem to want to marry either girl!” Leodegan said indignantly. “I suggested it to his father. Solid alliance, I said, adjoining kingdoms, an ideal arrangement! But no. Cuneglas has his eye set on Helledd of Elmet and Arthur, we hear, is to marry Ceinwyn.”
“I wouldn't know, Lord,” I said innocently.
"Ceinwyn's a pretty girl! Oh yes! But so's my Guinevere, only she's to marry Valerin. Dear me. What a waste! No rents, no gold, no money, nothing but some drowned pasture and a handful of sickly cows. She won't like it! She likes her comfort, Guinevere does, but Valerin doesn't know what comfort means!
Lives in a pig hut, so far as I can make out. Still, he is a chief. Mind you, the deeper you go into Powys the more men call themselves chiefs.“ He sighed. ”But she's a princess! I thought one of Cadwallon's boys in Gwynedd might marry her, but Cadwallon's a strange fellow. Never liked me much. Didn't help me when the Irish came."
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