The Winter King twc-1

by Bernard Cornwell

  I left him shaving and went outside into the new sunshine where Agravain was sharpening a boar spear.

  “Well?” he asked me.

  “He's not going to marry Ceinwyn,” I said. We were out of earshot of the hall, but even if we had been closer Arthur would not have heard us. He was singing.

  Agravain spat. “He'll marry who he's told to marry,” he said, then rammed the spear-butt into the turf and stalked across to Tewdric's quarters.

  Whether Gorfyddyd and Cuneglas knew what was happening I could not tell, for they were not in constant touch with Arthur as we were. Gorfyddyd, if he suspected, probably thought it did not matter. He doubtless believed, if he believed anything, that Arthur would take Guinevere as a lover and Ceinwyn as a wife. It was bad manners, of course, to come to such an arrangement in the week of the betrothal, but bad manners had never worried Gorfyddyd of Powys. He had no manners himself and knew, as all kings know, that wives are for making dynasties and lovers for making pleasure. His own wife was long dead, but a succession of slave girls kept his bed warm and, to him, impoverished Guinevere would never rank much above a slave and was thus no threat to his beloved daughter. Cuneglas was more perspicacious, and I am sure he must have scented trouble, but he had invested all his energies into this new peace and he must have hoped that Arthur's obsession with Guinevere would blow away like a summer squall. Or maybe neither Gorfyddyd nor Cuneglas suspected anything, for certainly they did not send Guinevere away from Caer Sws, though whether that would have achieved anything, the Gods alone know. Agravain thought the madness might pass. He told me that Arthur had been obsessed like this once before. “It was a girl in Ynys Trebes,”

  Agravain told me, 'can't think of her name. Mella? Messa? Something like that. Pretty little thing. Arthur was besotted, trailing after her like a dog behind a corpse cart. But mind you, he was young then, so young that her father reckoned he'd never amount to anything so he packed his Mella-Messa off to Broceliande and married her to a magistrate fifty years older than her. She died giving birth, but Arthur was over her by then. And these things do pass, Derfel. Tewdric will hammer some brains back into Arthur, you watch."

  Tewdric spent the whole morning closeted with Arthur, and I thought perhaps he had succeeded in hammering some brains back into my Lord for Arthur seemed chastened for the rest of the day. He did not look at Guinevere once, but forced himself to be solicitous of Ceinwyn, and that night, perhaps to please Tewdric, he and Ceinwyn listened to Sansum preach in the little makeshift church. I thought Arthur must have been pleased with the Mouse Lord's sermon for he invited Sansum back to his hall afterwards and was closeted alone with the priest for a long time.

  Next morning Arthur appeared with a set, stern face and announced that we would all leave that very same morning. That very same hour, indeed. We were not due to depart for another two days and Gorfyddyd, Cuneglas and Ceinwyn must have been surprised, but Arthur persuaded them he needed more time to prepare for his wedding and Gorfyddyd accepted the excuse placidly enough. Cuneglas may have believed Arthur was going early to remove himself from Guinevere's temptation and so he made no protest, but instead ordered bread, cheese, honey and mead packed for our journey. Ceinwyn, pretty Ceinwyn, said her farewells, starting with us, the guard. We were all in love with her, and that made us resent Arthur's madness, though there had been little any of us could do about our resentment. Ceinwyn gave us each a small gift of gold, and each of us tried to refuse her gift, but she insisted. She gave me a brooch of interlocking patterns and I tried to thrust it back into her hands, but she just smiled and folded my fingers over the gold. “Look after your Lord,” she said earnestly.

  “And after you, Lady,” I answered fervently.

  She smiled and moved on to Arthur, presenting him with a spray of may blossom that would give him a swift and safe journey. Arthur fixed the blossom in his sword belt and kissed his betrothed's hand before clambering on to Llamrei's broad back. Cuneglas wanted to send guards to escort us, but Arthur declined the honour. “Let us leave, Lord Prince,” he said, 'the sooner to arrange our happiness." Ceinwyn was pleased by Arthur's words and Cuneglas, ever gracious, ordered the gates opened and Arthur, like a man released from an ordeal, galloped Llamrei madly out of Caer Sws and through the Severn's deep ford. We guards followed on foot to find a spray of may lying on the river's far bank. Agravain plucked the may from the ground so that Ceinwyn should not find it. Sansum came with us. His presence was not explained, though Agravain surmised that Tewdric had ordered the priest to counsel Arthur against his madness, a madness we all prayed was passing, but we were wrong. The madness had been hopeless from the very first moment Arthur had looked down Gorfyddyd's hall and seen Guinevere's red hair. Sagramor used to tell us an ancient tale of a battle in the old world; a battle over a great city of towers and palaces and temples, and the whole sorry thing was all started because of a woman, and for that woman ten thousand bronze-clad warriors died in the dust. The story was not so ancient after all.

  For just two hours after we had left Caer Sws, in a stretch of lonely woodland where no farms stood, but only steep-sided hills and fast streams and thick, heavy trees, we found Leodegan of Henis Wyren waiting beside the track. He led us without a word down a path that twisted between the roots of great oaks to a clearing beside a pool made by a beaver-dammed stream. The woods were thick with dog mercury and lilies while the last bluebells made a dancing shimmer in the shadows. Sunlight fell on the grass where primroses, cuckoo pints and dog violets grew and where, shining brighter than any flower, Guinevere waited in a robe of cream linen. She had cowslips woven into her red hair. She wore Arthur's golden torque, bracelets of silver and a cape of lilac-coloured wool. The sight of her was enough to catch a man's throat. Agravain cursed quietly.

  Arthur threw himself off his horse and ran to Guinevere. He caught her in his arms and we heard her laugh as he whirled her about. “My flowers!” she cried, putting a hand to her head, and Arthur let her gently down, then knelt to kiss the hem of her robe.

  Then he stood and turned. “Sansum!”

  “Lord?”

  “You can marry us now.”

  Sansum refused. He folded his arms over his dirty black robe and tilted up his stubborn mouse face.

  “You are betrothed, Lord,” he insisted nervously.

  I thought Sansum was being noble, but in truth it had all been arranged. Sansum had not come with us at Tewdric's bidding, but at Arthur's, and now Arthur's face turned angry at the priest's stubborn change of heart. “We agreed!” Arthur said, and when Sansum just shook his tonsured head, Arthur touched the hilt of Excalibur. “I could take the skull off your shoulders, priest.”

  “Martyrs are ever made by tyrants, Lord,” Sansum said, dropping to his knees in the flowery grass where he bent his head to bare the grubby nape of his neck. “I'm coming to you, O Lord,” he bawled towards the grass, “Thy servant! Coming to Thy glory, oh praise Thee! I see the gates of heaven open! I see the angels waiting for me! Receive me, Lord Jesus, into Thy blessed bosom! I'm coming! I'm coming!”

  “Be quiet and get up,” Arthur said tiredly.

  Sansum squinted slyly up at Arthur. “You won't give me the bliss of heaven, Lord?”

  “Last night,” Arthur said, 'you agreed to marry us. Why do you refuse now?“ Sansum shrugged. ”I have wrestled with my conscience, Lord.“ Arthur understood and sighed. ”So what is your price, priest?"

  “A bishopric,” Sansum said hurriedly, struggling to his feet.

  “I thought you had a Pope who grants bishoprics,” Arthur said. “Simplicius? Isn't that his name?”

  “The most blessed and holy Simplicius, may he still live in health,” Sansum agreed, 'but give me a church, Lord, and a throne in the church, and men will call me bishop."

  “A church and a chair?” Arthur asked. “Nothing more?”

  “And the appointment to be King Mordred's chaplain. I must have that! His sole and personal chaplain, you understand? With an allowance fr
om the treasury sufficient for me to keep my own steward, doorkeeper, cook and candle man He brushed grass off his black gown. ”And a laundress," he added hastily.

  “Is that all?” Arthur asked sarcastically.

  “A place on Dumnonia's council,” Sansum said as though it were trivial. “That's all.”

  “Granted,” Arthur said carelessly. “So what do we do to get married?” While these negotiations were being consummated I was watching Guinevere. There was a look of triumph on her face, and no wonder for she was marrying far above her poor father's hopes. Her father, slack mouth trembling, was watching in abject terror in case Sansum should refuse to perform the ceremony, while behind Leodegan stood a dumpy wee girl who seemed to be in charge of Guinevere's quartet of leashed deer hounds and what little baggage the exiled royal family possessed. The dumpy girl, it turned out, was Gwenhwyvach, Guinevere's younger sister. There was a brother, too, though he had long since retired to a monastery on the wild coast of Strath Clota where strange Christian hermits competed to grow their hair, starve on berries and preach salvation to the seals. There was little enough ceremony to the marriage. Arthur and Guinevere stood beneath his banner while Sansum spread his arms to say some prayers in the Greek tongue, then Leodegan drew his sword and touched his daughter's back with the blade before handing the weapon to Arthur as a sign that Guinevere had passed from her father's authority to her husband's. Sansum then scooped some water from the stream and sprinkled it over Arthur and Guinevere, saying that thereby he was cleansing them of sin and receiving them into the family of the Holy Church that hereby recognized their union as one and indissoluble, sacred before God and dedicated to the procreation of children. Then he stared at each of us guards in turn and demanded that we declare that we had witnessed the solemn ceremony. We all made the declaration and Arthur was so happy that he did not hear the reluctance in our voices, though Guinevere did. Nothing escaped Guinevere. “There,” Sansum said when the paltry ritual was done,

  'you're married, Lord."

  Guinevere laughed. Arthur kissed her. She was as tall as he was, maybe a finger's breadth taller, and I confess as I watched them that they looked a splendid pair. More than splendid, for Guinevere was truly striking. Ceinwyn was beautiful, but Guinevere dulled the sun with her presence. We guards were in shock. There was nothing we could have done to stop this consummation of our Lord's madness, but the haste of it seemed as indecent as it was deceitful. Arthur, we knew, was a man of impulse and enthusiasm, but he had taken our breath away by the speed of this decision. Leodegan, though, was jubilant, babbling to his younger daughter how the family finances would now recover and how, sooner than anyone knew, Arthur's warriors would sweep the Irish usurper Diwrnach out of Henis Wyren. Arthur heard the boast and turned quickly. “I doubt that's possible, Father,” he said.

  “Possible! Of course it's possible!” Guinevere intervened. “You shall make it my wedding gift, Lord, the return of my dear father's kingdom.”

  Agravain spat his disapproval. Guinevere chose to ignore the gesture, and instead walked along the row of guards and gave us each a cowslip from the diadem she had worn in her hair. Then, like criminals fleeing a lord's justice, we hurried south to leave the kingdom of Powys before Gorfyddyd's retribution followed.

  Fate, Merlin always said, is inexorable. So much followed from that hurried ceremony in the flower-speckled clearing beside the stream. So many died. There was so much heartache, so much blood and so many tears that they would have made a great river; yet, in time, the eddies smoothed, new rivers joined, and the tears went down to the great wide sea and some people forgot how it ever began. The time of glory did come, yet what might have been never did, and of all those who were hurt by that moment in the sun, Arthur was hurt the most.

  But on that day he was happy. We hurried home.

  The news of the marriage rang in Britain like a God's spear clanging against a shield. At first the sound stunned, and in that calm period, while men tried to understand the consequences, an embassy came from Powys. One of that embassy was Valerin, the chief who had been betrothed to Guinevere. He challenged Arthur to a fight, but Arthur refused, and when Valerin tried to draw his sword we guards had to drive him out of Lindinis. Valerin was a tall, vigorous man with black hair and a black beard, deep-set eyes and a broken nose. His pain was terrible, his anger worse and his attempt at revenge thwarted. lorweth the Druid was chief of Powys's delegation, which had been sent by Cuneglas rather than Gorfyddyd. Gorfyddyd was drunk with mead and rage, while his son still hoped there was a chance to retrieve peace from the disaster. The Druid lorweth was a grave and sensible man and he talked long with Arthur. The marriage, the Druid said, was not valid for it had been conducted by a Christian priest and the Gods of Britain did not recognize the new religion. Take Guinevere for your lover, lorweth urged Arthur, and Ceinwyn for your wife.

  “Guinevere is my wife.” We all heard Arthur shout that statement. Bishop Bedwin added his support to lorweth, but Bedwin could not change Arthur's mind. Not even the prospect of war would change Arthur's mind. lorweth raised that possibility, saying that Dumnonia had insulted Powys and the insult would needs be washed clean with blood if Arthur did not change his mind. Tewdric of Gwent had sent Bishop Conrad to plead for peace, begging Arthur to renounce Guinevere and marry Ceinwyn, and Conrad even threatened that Tewdric might make a separate peace with Powys. “My Lord King will not fight against Dumnonia,” I heard Conrad reassure Bedwin as the two bishops paced up and down on the terrace in front of Lindinis's villa, 'but nor will he fight for that whore of Henis Wyren."

  “Whore?” Bedwin asked, alarmed and shocked by the word.

  “Maybe not,” Conrad allowed. “But I tell you one thing, my brother, Guinevere's never had a whip taken to her. Never!”

  Bedwin shook his head at such laxity on Leodegan's part, then the two men walked out of my earshot. Next day both Bishop Conrad and the Powysian embassy left for their homes and took no good news with them.

  But Arthur believed the time of his happiness had come. There would be no war, he insisted, for Gorfyddyd had already lost one arm and would not risk the other. Cuneglas's good sense, Arthur claimed, would ensure peace. For a time, he said, there would be grudges and mistrust, but it would all pass. He thought his happiness must embrace the world.

  Labourers were hired to extend and repair Lindinis's villa to make it into a palace fit for a princess. Arthur sent a messenger to Ban of Benoic, beseeching his former lord to send him masons and plasterers who knew how to restore Roman buildings. He wanted an orchard, a garden, a pool of fish; he wanted a bath with heated water; he wanted a courtyard where harpists would play. Arthur wanted a heaven on earth for his bride, but other men wanted revenge and that summer we heard that Tewdric of Gwent had met with Cuneglas and made a treaty of peace, and part of that treaty was an agreement that Powys's armies could march freely across the Roman roads that crossed Gwent. Those roads led only to Dumnonia.

  Yet, as that summer passed, no attack came. Sagramor held

  Aelle's Saxons at bay while Arthur spent a summer in love. I was a member of his guard, so I was with him day in and day out. I should have carried a sword, shield and spear, but as often as not I was burdened with flasks of wine and hampers of food for Guinevere liked to take her meals in hidden glades and by secret streams and we spearmen were required to carry silver plate, horn cups, food and wine to the designated spot. She gathered a company of ladies to be her court and, so help me, my Lunete was one of them. Lunete had grumbled bitterly at having to abandon her brick house in Corinium, but it took her only a few days to decide that a better future lay with Guinevere. Lunete was beautiful and Guinevere declared that she would only be surrounded by people and objects that were pretty, and so she and her ladies dressed in the finest linens decorated with gold, silver, jet and amber, and she paid harpists, singers, dancers and poets to amuse her court. They played games in the woods where they chased each other, hid and paid forfeits if they broke
one of the elaborate rules that Guinevere devised. The money for these games, like the money being spent on Lindinis's villa, was provided by Leodegan who had been appointed the treasurer of Arthur's household. Leodegan swore the money all came from back rents and maybe Arthur believed his father-in-law, though the rest of us heard dark tales of Mordred's treasury being lightened of gold and filled with Leodegan's worthless promises of repayment. Arthur seemed not to care. That summer was his foretaste of Britain at peace, but for the rest of us it was a fool's heaven. Amhar and Loholt were brought to Lindinis, though their mother Ailleann was not summoned. The twins were presented to Guinevere, and Arthur, I think, hoped they would live in the pillared palace that was rising around the heart of the old villa. Guinevere kept the twins company for one day, then said their presence upset her. They were not amusing. They were not pretty, she said, just as her sister Gwenhwyvach was not pretty, and if they were not pretty, nor amusing, they had no place in Guinevere's life. Besides, she said, the twins belonged to Arthur's old life, and that was dead. She did not want them, nor did she care that she made that announcement publicly. She touched Arthur's cheek. “If we want children, my Prince, we shall make our own.”

  Guinevere always called Arthur a prince. At first Arthur claimed he was no prince, but Guinevere insisted he was Uther's son and therefore royal. Arthur, to humour her, allowed her to call him by the title, but soon the rest of us were ordered to use it too. Guinevere ordered it and we obeyed. No one had ever challenged Arthur about Amhar and Loholt and won the argument, but Guinevere did and so the twins were sent back to their mother in Corinium. The harvest was poor that year for the crops were blighted by late rain that left them blackened and wilting. Rumour claimed that the Saxon harvest had been better, for the rains had spared their lands and so Arthur led a war-band east beyond Durocobrivis to find and capture their stores of grain. He was happy, I think, to escape the songs and dances of Caer Cadarn, and we were happy that he was at our head again and that we were carrying spears instead of feasting cloths. It was a successful raid, filling Dumnonia with captured grain, plundered gold and Saxon slaves. Leodegan, now a member of Dumnonia's council, was given the task of distributing the free grain to every part of the kingdom, but there were horrid rumours that much of it was being sold instead and that the resultant gold found its way to the new house Leodegan was building across the stream from Guinevere's damp-plastered palace.