The Winter King Part 21

Arthur stood again and spoke courteously to Meurig. "The cause of the war, Lord Prince, is your father's oath to preserve King Mordred's throne, and King Gorfyddyd's evident desire to take that throne from my King."

Meurig shrugged. "But correct me, please, I beg you but as I understand these things Gorfyddyd does not seek to dethrone King Mordred."

"You know that?" Culhwch shouted.

"There are indications," Meurig said irritably.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have been talking to the enemy," Culhwch whispered in my ear. "Ever had a knife in the back, Derfel? Arthur's getting one now."

Arthur stayed calm. "What indications?" he asked mildly.

King Tewdric had stayed silent as his son spoke, evidence that he had given his permission for Meurig to suggest, however delicately, that Gorfyddyd should be appeased rather than confronted, but now, looking old and tired, the King took control of the hall. "There are no indications, Lord, upon which I would want to depend my strategy. Nevertheless' and when Tewdric p.r.o.nounced that word so emphatically we all knew Arthur had lost the debate' nevertheless Lord, I am convinced that we need not provoke Powys unnecessarily. Let us see whether we cannot have peace." He paused, almost as if he feared the word would anger Arthur, but Arthur said nothing. Tewdric sighed. "Gorfyddyd fights," he said slowly and carefully, 'because of an insult done to his family." Again he paused, fearing that his bluntness might have offended Arthur, but Arthur was never a man to evade responsibility and he nodded his reluctant agreement with Tewdric's frankness. "While we," Tewdric continued, 'fight to keep the oath we gave to High King Uther. An oath by which we promised to preserve Mordred's throne. I, for one, will not break that oath."

"Nor I!" Arthur said loudly.

"But what, Lord Arthur, if King Gorfyddyd has no designs on that throne?" King Tewdric asked. "If he means to keep Mordred as King, then why do we fight?"

There was uproar in the hall. We Dumnonians smelled treachery, the men of Gwent smelled an escape from the war, and for a time we shouted at each other until at last Arthur regained order by slapping his hand on the table. "The last envoy I sent to Gorfyddyd," Arthur said, 'had his head sent back in a sack. Are you suggesting, Lord King, we send another?"

Tewdric shook his head. "Gorfyddyd is refusing to receive my envoys. They are turned back at the frontier. But if we wait here and let his army waste its efforts against our walls then I believe he will become discouraged and will then negotiate." His men murmured agreement. Arthur tried one more time to dissuade Tewdric. He conjured a picture of our army rooted behind walls while Gorfyddyd's horde ravaged the newly harvested farms, but the men of Gwent would not be moved by his oratory or his pa.s.sion. They only saw outflanked shield-walls and fields of dead men, and so they seized on their King's belief that peace would come if only they retreated into Magnis and let Gorfyddyd weary his men by battering its strong walls. They began to demand Arthur's agreement for their strategy and I saw the hurt on his face. He had lost. If he waited here then Gorfyddyd would demand his head. If he ran to Armorica he would live, but he would be abandoning Mordred and his own dream of a just, united Britain. The clamour in the hall grew louder, and it was then that Galahad stood and shouted for a chance to be heard.

Tewdric pointed at Galahad, who first introduced himself. "I am Galahad, Lord King," he said, 'a Prince of Benoic. If King Gorfyd-dyd will receive no envoys from Gwent or Dumnonia, then surely he will not refuse one from Armorica? Let me go, Lord King, to Caer Sws and enquire what Gorfyddyd intends to do with Mordred. And if I do go, Lord King, will you accept my word as to his verdict?" Tewdric was happy to accept. He was happy with anything that might avert war, but he was still anxious for Arthur's agreement. "Suppose Gorfyddyd decrees that Mordred is safe," he suggested to Arthur.

"What will you do then?"

Arthur stared at the table. He was losing his dream, but he could not tell a lie to save that dream and so he looked up with a rueful smile. "In that case, Lord King, I would leave Britain and I would entrust Mordred to your keeping."

Once again we Dumnonians shouted our protests, but this time Tewdric silenced us. "We do not know what answer Prince Galahad will bring," he said, 'but this I promise. If Mordred's throne is threatened then I, King Tewdric, will fight. If not? I see no reason to fight." And with that promise we had to be content. The war, it seemed, hung on Gorfyddyd's answer. To find it, next morning, Galahad rode north.

I rode with Galahad. He had not wanted me to come, saying that my life would be in danger, but I argued with him as I had never argued before. I also pleaded with Arthur, saying that at least one Dumnonian should hear Gorfyddyd declare his intentions about our King, and Arthur pleaded my case with Galahad who at last relented. We were friends, after all, though for my own safety Galahad insisted that I travel as his servant and that I carry his symbol on my shield. "You have no symbol," I told him.

"I do now," he said, and ordered that our shields be painted with crosses. "Why not?" he asked me, "I'm a Christian."

"It looks wrong," I said. I was accustomed to warriors' shields being blazoned with bulls, eagles, dragons and stags, not with some desiccated piece of religious geometry.

"I like it," he said, 'and besides, you are now my humble servant, Derfel, so your opinion is of no interest to me. None." He laughed and skipped away from a blow I aimed at his arm.

I was forced to ride to Caer Sws. In all my years with Arthur I never did accustom myself to sitting on a horse's back. To me it always seemed a natural thing to sit well back on a horse, but sitting thus it was impossible to grip the animal's flanks with your knees, for which you had to slide forward until you were perched just behind its neck with your feet dangling in the air behind its forelegs. In the end I used to tuck one foot into the saddle girth to give me an anchoring point, a shift that offended Galahad who was proud of his horsemanship. "Ride it properly!" he would say.

"But there's nowhere to put my feet!"

"The horse has got four. How many more do you want?"

We rode to Caer Lud, Gorfyddyd's major fortress in the border hills. The town stood on a hill in a river bend and we reckoned its sentries would be less wary than those who guarded the Roman road at Lugg Vale. Even so we did not state our real business in Powys, but simply declared ourselves as landless men from Ar-mo rica seeking entry into Gorfyddyd's country. The guards, discovering Galahad was a prince, insisted on escorting him to the town's commander and so led us through the town that was filled with armed men whose spears were stacked at every door and whose helmets were piled under all the tavern benches. The town commander was a hara.s.sed man who plainly hated the responsibilities of governing a garrison swollen by the imminence of war. "I knew you must be from Armorica when I saw your shields, Lord Prince," he told Galahad. "An outlandish symbol to our provincial eyes."

"An honoured one in mine," Galahad said gravely, not catching my eye.

"To be sure, to be sure," the commander said. His name was Halsyd. "And of course you are welcome, Lord Prince. Our High King is welcoming all..." He paused, embarra.s.sed. He had been about to say that Gorfyddyd was welcoming all landless warriors, but that phrase cut too close to insult when uttered to a dispossessed prince of an Armorican kingdom. "All brave men," the commander said instead. "You were not thinking of staying here, by any chance?" He was worried that we would prove two more hungry mouths in a town already hard pressed to feed its existing garrison.

"I would ride to Caer Sws," Galahad announced. "With my servant." He gestured towards me.

"May the G.o.ds speed your path, Lord Prince."

And thus we entered the enemy country. We rode through quiet valleys where newly stocked corn patterned the fields and orchards hung heavy with ripening apples. The next day we were among the hills, following an earth road that wound through great tracts of damp woodland until, at last, we climbed above the trees and crossed the pa.s.s that led down to Gorfyddyd's capital. I felt a shudder of nerves as I saw Caer Sws's raw earth walls. Gorfyddyd's army might be gathering in Branogenium, some forty miles away, but still the land around Caer Sws was thick with soldiers. The troops had thrown up crude shelters with walls of stone roofed with turf, and the shelters surrounded the fort that flew eight banners from its walls to show that the men of eight kingdoms served in Gorfyddyd's growing ranks. "Eight?" Galahad asked. "Powys, Siluria, Elmet, but who else?"

"Cornovia, Demetia, Gwynedd, Rheged and Demetia's Black-shields," I said, finishing off the grim list.

"No wonder Tewdric wants peace," Galahad said softly, marvelling at the host of men camped on either side of the river that ran beside the enemy's capital.

We rode down into that hive of iron. Children followed us, curious about our strange shields, while their mothers watched us suspiciously from the shadowed openings of their shelters. The men gave us brief glances, taking in our strange insignia and noting the quality of our weapons, but none challenged us until we reached the gates of Caer Sws where Gorfyddyd's royal guard barred our way with polished spearheads. "I am Galahad, Prince of Benoic," Galahad announced grandly, 'come to see my cousin the High King."

"Is he a cousin?" I whispered.

"It's how we royalty talk," he whispered back.

The scene inside the compound went some way to explaining why so many soldiers were gathered at Caer Sws. Three tall stakes had been driven into the earth and now waited for the formal ceremonies that preceded war. Powys was one of the least Christian kingdoms and the old rituals were done carefully here, and I suspected that many of the soldiers camped outside the walls had been fetched back from Branogenium specifically to witness the rites and so to inform their comrades that the G.o.ds had been placated. There was to be nothing hasty about Gorfyddyd's invasion, everything would be done methodically, and Arthur, I thought, was probably right in thinking that such a pedestrian endeavour could be tipped off balance by a surprise attack.

Our horses were taken by servants, then, after a counsellor had questioned Galahad and determined that he was, indeed, who he claimed to be, we were ushered into the great feasting hall. The doorkeeper took our swords, shields and spears and added them to the stacks of similar weapons belonging to the men already gathered in Gorfyddyd's hall.

Over a hundred men were a.s.sembled between the squat oak pillars that were hung with human skulls to show that the kingdom was at war. The men beneath those grinning bones were the kings, princes, lords, chiefs and champions of the a.s.sembled armies. The only furniture in the hall was the row of thrones placed on a dais at the far dark end where Gorfyddyd sat beneath his symbol of the eagle, while next to him, but on a lower throne, sat Gundleus. The very sight of the Silurian King made the scar on my left hand pulse. Tanaburs squatted beside Gundleus, while Gorfyddyd had lorweth, his own Druid, at his right side. Cuneglas, Powys's Edling, sat on a third throne and was flanked by kings I did not recognize. No women were present. This was doubtless a council of war, or at least a chance for men to gloat over the victory that was about to be theirs. The men were dressed in mail coats and leather armour. We paused at the back of the hall and I saw Galahad mouth a silent prayer to his G.o.d. A wolfhound with a chewed ear and scarred haunches sniffed our boots, then loped back to its master who stood with the other warriors on the rush-covered earth floor. In a far corner of the hall a hard softly chanted a war song, though his staccato recitation was ignored by the men who were listening to Gundleus describing the forces he expected to come from Demetia. One chief, evidently a man who had suffered from the Irish in the past, protested that Powys had no need of the Black-shields' help to defeat Arthur and Tewdric, but his protest was stilled by an abrupt gesture from Gorfyddyd. I half expected that we would be forced to linger while the council finished its other business, but we did not have to wait more than a minute before we were conducted down the hall's centre to the open s.p.a.ce in front of Gorfyddyd. I looked at both Gundleus and Tanaburs but neither recognized me.

We fell to our knees and waited.

"Rise," Gorfyddyd said. We obeyed and once again I looked into his bitter face. He had not changed much in the years since I had seen him last. His face was as pouchy and suspicious as when Arthur had come to claim Ceinwyn's hand, though his sickness in the last few years had turned his hair and beard white. The beard was skimpy and could not hide a goitre that now disfigured his throat. He looked at us warily. "Galahad," he said in a hoa.r.s.e voice, "Prince of Benoic. We have heard of your brother, Lancelot, but not of you. Are you, like your brother, one of Arthur's whelps?"

"I am oath-bound to no man, Lord King," Galahad said, 'except to my father whose bones were trampled by his enemies. I am landless."

Gorfyddyd shifted in his throne. His empty left sleeve hung beside the armrest, an ever-present reminder of his hated foe, Arthur. "So you come to me for land, Galahad of Benoic?" he asked. "Many others have come for the same purpose," he warned, gesturing about the crowded hall. "Though I daresay there is land enough for all in Dumnonia."

"I come to you, Lord King, with greetings, freely carried, from King Tewdric of Gwent." That caused a stir in the hall. Men at the back who had not heard Galahad's announcement asked for it to be repeated and the murmur of conversation went on for several seconds. Cuneglas, Gorfyddyd's son, looked up sharply. His round face with its long dark moustaches looked worried, and no wonder, I thought, for Cuneglas was like Arthur, a man who craved peace, but when Arthur spurned Ceinwyn he had also destroyed Cuneglas's hopes and now the Edling of Powys could only follow his father into a war that threatened to lay waste the southern kingdoms.

"Our enemies, it seems, are losing their hunger for battle," Gorfyddyd said. "Why else does Tewdric send greetings?"

"King Tewdric, High King, fears no man, but loves peace more," Galahad said, carefully using the t.i.tle Gorfyddyd had bestowed on himself in antic.i.p.ation of his victory.

Gorfyddyd's body heaved and for a second I thought he was about to vomit, then I realized he was laughing. "We Kings only love peace," Gorfyddyd said at last, 'when war becomes inconvenient to us. This gathering, Galahad of Benoic' he gestured at the throng of chiefs and princes 'will explain Tewdric's new love of peace."

He paused, gathering breath. "Till now, Galahad of Benoic, I have refused to receive Tewdric's messages. Why should I receive them? Does an eagle listen to a lamb bleating for mercy? In a few days I intend to listen to all Gwent's men bleating to me for peace, but for now, since you have come this far, you may amuse me. What does Tewdric offer?"

"Peace, Lord King, just peace."

Gorfyddyd spat. "You are landless, Galahad, and empty-handed. Does Tewdric think peace is for the asking? Does Tewdric think I have expended my kingdom's gold on an army for no cause? Does he think I am a fool?"

"He thinks, Lord King, that blood shed between Britons is wasted blood."

"You talk like a woman, Galahad of Benoic." Gorfyddyd spoke the insult in a deliberately loud voice so that the raftered hall echoed with jeers and laughter. "Still," he went on when the laughter had subsided, 'you must take some answer to Gwent's King, so let it be this." He paused to compose his thoughts. "Tell Tewdric that he is a lamb sucking at Dumnonia's dry teat. Tell him my quarrel is not with him, but with Arthur, so tell Tewdric that he may have his peace on these two conditions. First, that he lets my army pa.s.s through his land without hindrance and second that he gives me enough grain to feed a thousand men for ten days." The warriors in the hall gasped, for they were generous terms, but also clever. If Tewdric accepted then he would avoid the sack of his country and make Gorfyddyd's invasion of Dumnonia easier. "Are you empowered, Galahad of Benoic," Gorfyddyd asked, 'to accept these terms?"

"No, Lord King, only to enquire what terms you would offer and to ask what you intend to do with Mordred, King of Dumnonia, whom Tewdric is sworn to protect."

Gorfyddyd adopted a hurt look. "Do I look like a man who makes war on children?" he asked, then stood and advanced to the edge of the throne dais. "My quarrel is with Arthur," he said, not just to us, but to the whole hall, 'who preferred to marry a wh.o.r.e out of Henis Wyren rather than wed my daughter. Would any man leave such an insult unavenged?" The hall roared its answer. "Arthur is an upstart," Gorfyddyd shouted, 'whelped on a wh.o.r.e mother, and to a wh.o.r.e he has returned! So long as Gwent protects the wh.o.r.e-lover, so long is Gwent our enemy. So long as Dumnonia fights for the wh.o.r.e-lover, so long is Dumnonia our enemy. And pur enemy will be the generous provider of our gold, our slaves, our food, our land, our women and our glory! Arthur we will kill, and his wh.o.r.e we shall put to work in our barracks." He waited until the cheers had died away, then stared imperiously down on Galahad. "Tell that to Tewdric, Galahad of Benoic, and after that tell it to Arthur."

"Derfel can tell it to Arthur." A voice spoke from the hall and I turned to see Ligessac, sly Ligessac, once commander of Nor-wenna's guard and now a traitor in Gundleus's service. He pointed to me. "That man is Arthur's sworn man, High King. I swear it on my life."

The hall seethed with noise. I could hear men shouting that I was a spy and others demanding my death. Tanaburs was staring at me intently, trying to see past my long, fair beard and thick moustaches, then suddenly he recognized me and screamed, "Kill him! Kill him!" Gorfyddyd's guards, the only armed men in the hall, ran towards me. Gorfyddyd checked his spearmen with his raised hand that slowly silenced the noisy crowd. "Are you oath-bound to the wh.o.r.e-lover?" the King asked me in a dangerous voice.

"Derfel is in my service, High King," Galahad insisted.

Gorfyddyd pointed at me. "He will answer," he said. "Are you oath-bound to Arthur?" I could not lie about an oath. "Yes, Lord King," I admitted. Gorfyddyd stepped heavily off the platform and stretched his one arm towards a guard, though he still stared at me. "Do you know, you dog, what we did to Arthur's last messenger?"

"You killed him, Lord King," I said.

"I sent his maggot-ridden head to your wh.o.r.e-lover, that is what I did. Come on, hurry!" he snapped at the nearest guard who had not known what to put in his King's outstretched hand. "Your sword, fool!" Gorfyddyd said, and the guard hastily drew his sword and gave it hilt first to the King.

"Lord King." Galahad stepped forward, but Gorfyddyd whirled the blade so that it quivered just inches from Galahad's eyes.

"Be careful what you say in my hall, Galahad of Benoic," Gorfyddyd growled.

"I plead for Derfel's life," Galahad said. "He is not here as a spy, but as an emissary of peace."

"I don't want peace!" Gorfyddyd shouted at Galahad. "Peace is not my pleasure! I want to see Arthur weeping as my daughter once wept. Do you understand that? I want to see his tears! I want to see him pleading as she pleaded with me. I want to see him grovel, I want to see him dead and his wh.o.r.e pleasuring my men. No emissary from Arthur is welcome here and Arthur knows that! And you knew that!" He shouted the last four words at me as he turned the sword towards my face.

"Kill him! Kill him!" Tanaburs, in his raggedly embroidered robe, leaped up and down so that the bones in his hair rattled like dried beans in a pot.

"Touch him, Gorfyddyd," said a new voice in the hall, 'and your life is mine. I shall bury it in the dung heap of Caer Idion and call the dogs to p.i.s.s on it. I shall give your soul to the spirit children who lack playthings. I shall keep you in darkness till the last day is done and then I shall spit on you till the next era begins, and even then, Lord King, your torments will hardly have begun." I felt the tension sweep out of me like a rush of water. Only one man would dare speak to a High King thus. It was Merlin. Merlin! Merlin who now walked slow and tall up the hall's central aisle, Merlin who walked past me and with a gesture more royal than anything Gorfyddyd could manage, used his black staff to thrust the King's sword aside. Merlin, who now walked to Tanaburs and whispered in his ear so that the lesser Druid screamed and fled from the hall.

It was Merlin, who could change like no other man. He loved to pretend, to confuse and to deceive. He could be abrupt, mischievous, patient or lordly, but this day he had chosen to appear in stark, cold majesty. There was no smile on his dark face, no hint of joy in his deep eyes, just a look of such arrogant authority that the men closest to him instinctively sank to their knees and even King Gorfyddyd, who a moment before had been ready to thrust the sword into my neck, lowered the blade. "You speak for this man, Lord Merlin?" Gorfyddyd asked.

"Are you deaf, Gorfyddyd?" Merlin snapped. "Derfel Cadarn shall live. He shall be your honoured guest. He shall eat of your food and drink of your wine. He shall sleep in your beds and take your slave women if he desires. Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of Benoic are under my protection." He turned to stare at the whole hall, daring any man to oppose him. "Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of Benoic are under my protection!" he repeated, and this time he raised his black staff and you could feel the warriors quake beneath its threat. "Without Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of Benoic," Merlin said, 'there would be no Knowledge of Britain. I would be dead in Benoic and you would all be doomed to slavery under Saxon rule." He turned back to Gorfyddyd. "They need food. And stop staring at me, Derfel," he added without even looking at me.

I had been staring at him, as much with astonishment as with relief, but I was also wondering just what Merlin was doing in this citadel of the enemy. Druids, of course, were free to travel where they liked, even in enemy territory, but his presence at Caer Sws at such a time seemed strange and even dangerous, for though Gorfyd-dyd's men were cowed by the Druid's presence they were also resentful of his interference and some, safe at the hall's rear, growled that he should mind his own business. Merlin turned on them. "My business," he said in a low voice that nevertheless stopped the small protest dead, 'is the care of your souls and if I care to drown those souls in misery then you will wish your mothers had never given birth. Fools!" This last word was snapped loudly and accompanied by a gesture from the staff that made the armoured men struggle down to their knees. None of the kings dared to intervene as Merlin swept the staff to give one of the skulls hanging from a pillar a sharp crack. "You pray for victory!" Merlin said. "But over what? Over your kin and not your enemies! Your enemies are Saxons. For years we suffered under Roman rule, but at last the G.o.ds saw fit to take the Roman vermin away and what do we do? We fight among ourselves and let a new enemy take our land, rape our women and harvest our corn. So fight your war, fools, fight it and win, and still you shall not have victory."

"But my daughter will be avenged," Gorfyddyd said behind Merlin.

"Your daughter, Gorfyddyd," Merlin said, turning, 'will avenge her own hurt. You want to know her fate?" He asked the question mockingly, but answered it soberly and in a voice that had the lilt of a prophetic utterance. "She will never be high and she will never be low, but she will be happy. Her soul, Gorfyddyd, is blessed, and if you had the sense of a flea you would be content with that."

"I shall be content with Arthur's skull," Gorfyddyd said defiantly.

"Then go and fetch it," Merlin said scornfully, then plucked me by the elbow. "Come, Derfel, and enjoy your enemy's hospitality."

He led us out of the hall, walking unconcernedly through the iron and leather ranks of the enemy. The warriors watched us resentfully, but there was nothing they could do to stop us leaving nor to prevent us taking one of Gorfyddyd's guest chambers that Merlin had evidently been using himself. "So Tewdric wants peace, does he?" he asked us.

"Yes, Lord," I answered.

"Tewdric would. He's a Christian so he thinks he knows better than the G.o.ds."

"And you know the minds of the G.o.ds, Lord?" Galahad asked.

"I believe the G.o.ds hate to be bored, so I do my best to amuse them. That way they smile on me. Your G.o.d," Merlin said sourly, 'despises amus.e.m.e.nt, demanding grovelling worship instead. He must be a very sorry creature. He's probably rather like Gorfyddyd, endlessly suspicious and foully jealous of his reputation. Aren't you both lucky that I was here?" He grinned at us, suddenly and mischievously, and I saw how much he had enjoyed his public humiliation of Gorfyddyd. Part of Merlin's reputation was made by his performances; some Druids, like lorweth, worked quietly, others, like Tanaburs, relied on a sinister wiliness, but Merlin liked to dominate and dazzle, and humbling an ambitious king was as pleasurable to him as it was instinctive.

"Is Ceinwyn really blessed?" I asked him.

He looked astonished at the unexpected question. "Why should it matter to you? But she's a pretty girl, and I confess that pretty girls are a weakness of mine so I shall weave her a charm of bliss. I did the same for you once, Derfel, though not because you are pretty." He laughed, then glanced through the window to judge the length of the sun's shadows. "I must be on my way soon."

"What brought you here, Lord?" Galahad asked.

"I needed to talk to lorweth," Merlin said, looking around to make sure that he had collected all his belongings. "He might be a b.u.mbling idiot, but he does possess the odd sc.r.a.p of knowledge I might have momentarily forgotten. He proved knowledgeable about the Ring of Eluned. I have it somewhere." He patted the pockets sewn into the lining of his robe. "Well, I did have it," he said carelessly, though I suspected the indifference was merely a pretence.

"What is the Ring of Eluned?" Galahad asked.

Merlin scowled at my friend's ignorance, then decided to indulge it. "The Ring of Eluned," he announced grandly, 'is one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. We've always known about the Treasures, of course at least, those of us who recognize the true G.o.ds," he added pointedly, glancing at Galahad, 'but none of us were sure what their real power was."

"And the scroll told you?" I asked.

Merlin smiled wolfishly. His long white hair was neatly bound in black ribbon at the back of his neck while his beard was plaited in tight pigtails. "The scroll," he said, 'confirmed everything I either suspected or knew, and it even suggested one or two new sc.r.a.ps of knowledge. Ah, here it is." He had been searching his pockets for the Ring which he now produced. To me the treasure looked like any ordinary warrior's ring made of iron, but Merlin held it in his palm as though it was the greatest jewel of Britain.

"The Ring of Eluned," Merlin said, 'forged in the Otherworld at the beginning of time. Piece of metal really, nothing special." He tossed it to me and I made a hasty catch. "By itself," Merlin said, 'the Ring has no power. None of the Treasures has power by themselves. The Mantle of Invisibility won't make you invisible, any more than the Horn of Bran Galed sounds any better than any other hunting horn. By the way, Derfel, did you fetch Nimue?"

"Yes."

"Well done. I thought you would. Interesting place, the Isle of the Dead, don't you think? I go there when I need some stimulating company. Where was I? Oh, yes, the Treasures. Worthless rubbish, really. You wouldn't give the Coat of Padarn to a beggar, not if you were kind, yet it's still one of the Treasures."

"Then what use are they?" Galahad asked. He had taken the Ring from me, but now handed it back to the Druid.

"They command the G.o.ds, of course," Merlin snapped, as though the answer should have been obvious.

"By themselves they're tawdry nothings, but put them all together and you can have the G.o.ds hopping like frogs. It isn't enough just to gather the Treasures, of course," he added hastily, 'there are one or two other rituals that are needed. And who knows if it will all work? No one has ever tried, so far as I know. Is Nimue well?" he asked me earnestly.

"She is now."

"You sound resentful! You think I should have gone to fetch her? My dear Derfel, I am quite busy enough without running around Britain after Nimue! If the girl can't cope with the Isle of the Dead then what earthly use is she?"

"She could have died," I accused him, thinking of the ghouls and cannibals of the Isle.

"Of course she could! What's the point of an ordeal if there's no danger? You do have infantile ideas, Derfel." Merlin shook his head pityingly, then slipped the Ring on to one of his long bony fingers. He stared solemnly at us, and we each waited awestruck for some manifestation of supernatural power, but after a few ominous seconds Merlin just laughed at our expressions. "I told you!" he said, 'the Treasures are nothing special."

"How many of the Treasures do you have?" Galahad asked.

"Several," Merlin answered evasively, 'but even if I had twelve of the thirteen I would still be in trouble unless I could find the thirteenth. And that, Derfel, is the missing Treasure. The Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. Without the Cauldron we are lost."

"We're lost anyway," I said bitterly.

Merlin peered at me as though I was being particularly obtuse. "The war?" he said after a few seconds.

"Is that why you came here? To plead for peace! What fools the two of you are! Gorfyddyd doesn't want peace. The man's a brute. He has the brains of an ox and a not very clever ox at that. He wants to be High King, which means he has to rule Dumnonia."

"He says he'll leave Mordred on the throne," Galahad said.

"Of course he says that!" Merlin said scornfully. "What else would he say? But the minute he gets his hands on that wretched child's neck he'll wring it like a chicken, and a good thing too."