The Winter King Part 6

"Is this a court of law?" Owain objected.

"Let the witness come in," Arthur insisted.

"This is a feast!" Owain protested.

"Let the witness come, let him come." Bishop Bedwin wanted the whole distasteful business over, and agreeing with Arthur seemed the quickest way to settle it. Men at the hall's edges shuffled closer to hear the drama, but laughed when Tristan's witness appeared, for she was just a small child, perhaps nine years old, who walked calmly and stiff-backed to stand beside her Prince who put an arm about her shoulder. "Sarlinna ferch Edain." He gave the child's name, then squeezed her shoulder rea.s.suringly.

"Speak."

Sarlinna licked her lips. She chose to speak direct to Arthur, perhaps because he had the kindest face of the men sitting at the high table. "My father was killed, my mother was killed, my brothers and sisters were killed..." She spoke as though she had been rehea.r.s.ed in her words, though no man present doubted the truth of them. "My baby sister was killed," she went on, 'and my kitten was killed' - a first tear showed 'and I saw it done."

Arthur shook his head in sympathy. Agricola of Gwent ran a hand across his close-cropped grey hair, then stared up into the soot-blackened rafters. Owain leaned back in his chair and drank from a horn beaker while Bishop Bedwin looked troubled. "Did you really see the killers?" the Bishop asked the child.

"Yes, Lord." Sarlinna, now that she was no longer saying words she had prepared and practised, was more nervous.

"But it was night, child," Bedwin objected. "Wasn't the raid at night, Lord Prince?" he demanded of Tristan. The Lords of Dumnonia had all heard about the raid on the moor, but they had believed Owain's a.s.sertion that the ma.s.sacre was the work of Oengus's Blackshield Irish. "How could the child see at night?" Bedwin asked.

Tristan encouraged the child by patting her shoulder. "Tell the Lord Bishop what happened," he instructed her.

"The men threw fire into our hut, Lord," Sarlinna said in a small voice.

"Not enough fire," a man growled from the shadows and the hall laughed.

"How did you live, Sarlinna?" Arthur asked her gently when the laughter had faded.

"I hid, Lord, under a pelt."

Arthur smiled. "You did well. But did you see the man who killed your mother and father?" He paused.

"And your kitten?"

She nodded. Her eyes were bright with tears in the dim hall. "I saw him, Lord," she said quietly.

"So tell us about him," Arthur said.

Sarlinna was wearing a small grey shift under a black woollen cloak and now she lifted her thin arms and pushed the shift's sleeves back to bare her pale skin. "The man's arms had pictures, Lord, of a dragon. And of a boar. Here." She showed where the tattoos might be on her own small arms, then looked at Owain. "And there were rings in his beard," the girl added, and then she went silent, but she had no need to say more. Only one man wore warrior rings in his beard, and every man present had watched Owain's arms drive the spear into Wlenca's midriff that morning, and everyone knew those arms were tattooed with Dumnonia's dragon and with his own symbol of a long-tusked boar. There was silence. A log crackled in the fire, sending a puff of smoke into the rafters. A gust of wind pattered sleet on the thick thatch and fluttered the rush-light flames that were scattered about the hall. Agricola was examining the silver-chased holder of his drinking horn as though he had never seen such an object before. Somewhere in the hall a man belched, and the noise seemed to prompt Owain to turn his great s.h.a.ggy head to stare at the child. "She lies," he said harshly, 'and children who lie should be beaten b.l.o.o.d.y,"

Sarlinna began to cry, then buried her face in the wet folds of Tristan's cloak. Bishop Bedwin frowned.

"It is true, Owain, is it not, that you visited Prince Cadwy late in the summer?"

"So?" Owain bristled. "So?" He roared the word again, this time as a challenge to the whole a.s.sembly.

"Here are my warriors!" He gestured at us, sitting together on the right-hand side of the hall. "Ask them!

Ask them! The child lies! On my oath, she lies!"

The hall was in sudden uproar as men spat their defiance at Tristan. Sarlinna was weeping so much that the Prince stooped, picked her up and held her in his arms and continued to hold her while Bedwin tried to regain control over the hall. "If Owain swears on his oath," the Bishop shouted, 'then the child does lie." The warriors growled agreement.

Arthur, I saw, was watching me. I looked down at my wooden bowl of venison. Bishop Bedwin was wishing he had not invited the child into the hall. He dragged his fingers through his beard, then shook his head wearily. "A child's word carries no weight in law," he said plaintively. "A child is not among the Tongued-ones." The Tongued-ones were the nine witnesses whose word carried the weight of truth in law: a Lord, a Druid, a priest, a father speaking of his children, a magistrate, a gift-giver speaking of his gift, a maiden speaking of her virginity, a herdsman speaking of his animals and a condemned man speaking his final words. Nowhere in the list was there any mention of a child speaking of her family's ma.s.sacre. "Lord Owain," Bishop Bed win pointed out to Tristan, 'is a Tongued-one." Tristan was pale, but he would not back down. "I believe the child," he said, 'and tomorrow, after sunrise, I shall come for Dumnonia's answer, and if that answer denies Kernow justice then my father will take justice for himself."

"What's the matter with your father?" Owain jeered. "Lost interest in his latest wife, has he? So he wants to take a beating in battle instead?"

Tristan walked out amidst laughter, a laughter that grew as men tried to imagine little Kernow declaring war on mighty Dumnonia. I did not join in the laughter, but finished my stew instead, telling myself I needed the food if I was to keep warm during my spell of guard duty that would start at the feast's end. Nor did I drink any mead, so I was still sober when I fetched my cloak, spear, sword and helmet and went to the north wall. The sleet had stopped and the clouds were pa.s.sing to reveal a bright half-moon sailing amidst a shimmer of stars, though more clouds were heaping in the west above the Severn Sea. I shivered as I paced the rampart.

Where Arthur found me.

I had known he was coming. I had wanted him to come and yet I felt a fear of him as I watched him cross the compound and climb the short flight of wooden steps that led to the low wall of earth and stone. At first he said nothing, but just leaned on the wood palings and stared towards the distant speck of flame light that lit Ynys Wydryn. He was dressed in his white cloak, which he had gathered up so that its hem would not drag in the mud. He had tied the cloak's corners about his waist just above his cross-hatched scabbard. "I'm not going to ask you," he spoke at last, his breath misting in the night air, 'what happened on the moor, because I don't want to invite any man, least of all a man I like, to break a death-oath."

"Yes, Lord," I said, and wondered how he had known it was a death-oath that had bound us on that dark night.

"So instead, let us walk." He smiled at me, and gestured along the rampart. "A walking sentry stays warm," he said. "I hear you're a good soldier?"

"I try, Lord."

"And I hear you succeed, so well done." He fell silent as we pa.s.sed one of my comrades who was huddled against the palings. The man looked up at me as I pa.s.sed and his face showed alarm that I might betray Owain's troop. Arthur pushed the cloak's hood back off his face. He had a long, firm stride and I had to hurry to keep pace with him. "What do you think a soldier's job is, Derfel?" he asked me in that intimate manner that made you feel he was more interested in you than anyone else in the world.

"To fight battles, Lord," I said.

He shook his head. "To fight battles, Derfel," he corrected me, 'on behalf of people who can't fight for themselves. I learned that in Brittany. This miserable world is full of weak people, powerless people, hungry people, sad people, sick people, poor people, and it's the easiest thing in the world to despise the weak, especially if you're a soldier. If you're a warrior and you want a man's daughter, you just take her; you want his land, you just kill him; after all, you're a soldier and you have a spear and a sword, and he's just a poor weak man with a broken plough and a sick ox and what's to stop you?" He did not expect an answer to the question, but just paced on in silence. We had come to the western gateway and the split-log steps that climbed to the platform over the gate were whitening with a new frost. We climbed them side by side. "But the truth is, Derfel," Arthur said when we reached the high platform, 'that we are only soldiers because that weak man makes us soldiers. He grows the grain that feeds us, he tans the leather that protects us and he polls the ash trees that make our spear-shafts. We owe him our service."

"Yes, Lord," I said and stared with him across the wide, flat land. It was not so cold as the night on which Mordred had been born, but it was still bitter, and the wind made it more so.

"There is a purpose to all things," Arthur said, 'even being a soldier." He smiled at me, as though apologizing for being so earnest, yet he had no need to be apologetic for I was drinking in his words. I had dreamed of becoming a soldier because of a warrior's high status and because it had always seemed to me that it was better to carry a spear than a rake, but I had never thought beyond those selfish ambitions. Arthur had thought far beyond and he brought to Dumnonia a clear vision of where his sword and spear must take him.

"We have a chance' Arthur leaned on the high rampart as he spoke 'to make a Dumnonia in which we can serve our people. We can't give them happiness, and I don't know how to guarantee a good harvest that will make them rich, but I do know that we can make them safe, and a safe man, a man who knows that his children will grow without being taken for slaves and his daughter's bride price won't be ruined by a soldier's rape, is a man more likely to be happy than a man living under the threat of war. Is that fair?"

"Yes, Lord," I said.

He rubbed his gloved hands against the cold. My hands were wrapped in rags that made holding my spear difficult, especially as I was also trying to keep them warm beneath my cloak. Behind us, in the feasting hall, a great roar of men's laughter gusted. The food had been as bad as any at a winter feast, but there had been plenty of mead and wine, though Arthur was as sober as I was myself. I looked at his profile as he gazed west towards the building clouds. The moon shadowed his lantern jaw and made his face seem bonier than ever. "I hate war," Arthur said suddenly.

"You do?" I sounded surprised, but then I was young enough to enjoy war.

"Of course!" He smiled at me. "I happen to be good at it, maybe you are too, and that just means we have to use it wisely. Do you know what happened in Gwent last autumn?"

"You wounded Gorfyddyd," I said eagerly. "You took his arm."

"So I did," he said, almost in a tone of surprise. "My horses aren't much use in hilly country, and no use at all in wooded land, so I took them north into Powys's flat farmlands. Gorfyddyd was trying to knock down Tewdric's walls so I started burning Gorfyddyd's haystacks and grain-stores. We burned, we killed. We did it well, not because we wanted to, but because it needed to be done. And it worked. It brought Gorfyddyd back from Tewdric's walls to the flat farmland where my horses could break him. And they did. We attacked him at dawn, and he fought well, but he lost the battle along with his left arm, and that, Derfel, was the end of the killing. It had served its purpose, do you understand? The purpose of the killing was to persuade Powys that it would be better for them to be at peace with Dumnonia than at war. And now there will be peace."

"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 embarra.s.sed 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 G.o.d cares enough to enforce them. Let us just a.s.sume, 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ds..." 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds, 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 approach 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 gra.s.s 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 fl.u.s.tered 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 ident.i.ty," 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 G.o.ds 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 b.i.t.c.h'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 a.s.sumed 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 ma.s.sive 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."