The Winter King Part 7

"Make sure you live to keep that promise, Lord," I said, taking Hywelbane from her scabbard and handing it to him hilt first. He gripped the sword, then asked me to run to the hall and fetch a handful of gritty ash that, when I returned, he rubbed into the oiled leather of the hilt. He turned to Owain. "If, Lord Owain," he said courteously, 'you would rather fight when you are rested, then I can wait."

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

"It rusts in the rain," Arthur answered very calmly.

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

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

"Do you submit judgment to the court of swords?" Bedwin asked the two men, and both nodded their a.s.sent.

"Then G.o.d bless you, and G.o.d give the truth victory," Bedwin said. He made the sign of the cross and then, his old face heavy, he walked out of the circle.

Owain, as we had expected, rushed at Arthur, but halfway across the circle, right by the King's royal stone, his foot slipped in the mud, and suddenly Arthur was charging. I had expected Arthur to fight calmly, using the skills Hywel had taught him, but that morning, as the rains poured from the winter skies, I saw how Arthur changed in battle. He became a fiend. His energy was poured into just one thing, death, and he laid at Owain with ma.s.sive, fast strokes that drove the big man back and back. The swords rang harsh. Arthur was spitting at Owain, cursing him, taunting him, and cutting again and again with the edge of the sword and never giving Owain a chance to recover from a parry. Owain fought well. No other man could have sustained that opening, slaughterous a.s.sault. His boots slipped in the mud, and more than once he had to beat off Arthur's attacks from his knees, but he always managed to recover his footing even if he was still driven backwards. When Owain slipped a fourth time I understood part of Arthur's confidence. He had wanted rain to make the footing treacherous and I think he knew that Owain would be bloated and tired from a night's feasting. Yet he could not break through that dogged guard, even though he did drive the champion clean back to the place where Wlenca's blood was still just visible as a darker patch of soaking mud.

And there, by the Saxon's blood, Owain's luck changed. Arthur slipped, and though he recovered the falter was all the opening Owain needed. He lunged whip-fast. Arthur parried, but Owain's sword slit through the leather jerkin to draw the fight's first blood from Arthur's waist. Arthur parried again, then again, this time stepping back before the hard, quick lunges that would have gored an ox to its heart. Owain's men roared their support as the champion, scenting victory, tried to throw his whole body on to Arthur to drive his lighter opponent down into the mud, but Arthur had been ready for the manoeuvre and he sidestepped on to the royal stone and gave a back-cut of his sword that slashed open the back of Owain's skull. The wound, like all scalp wounds, bled copiously so that the blood matted in Owain's hair and trickled down his broad back to be diluted by the rain. His men went silent. Arthur leaped from the stone, attacking again, and once again Owain was on the defensive. Both men were panting, both were mud-spattered and b.l.o.o.d.y, and both too tired to spit any more insults at the other. The rain made their hair hang in long, soaking hanks as Arthur cut left and right in the same fast rhythm with which he had opened the fight. It was so fast that Owain had no chance to do anything but counter the strokes. I remembered Owain's scornful description of Arthur's fighting style, slashing like a haymaker, Owain had said, hurrying to beat bad weather. Once, and only once, did Arthur whip his blade past Owain's guard, but the blow was half parried, robbing it of force, and the sword was checked by the iron warrior rings in Owain's beard. Owain threw the blade off, then tried again to drive Arthur down on to the ground with the weight of his body. Both fell and for a second it looked as though Owain would trap Arthur, but somehow Arthur scrambled away and climbed to his feet. Arthur waited for Owain to rise. Both men were breathing hard and for a few seconds they watched each other, judging their chances, and then Arthur moved forward into the attack again. He swung again and again, just as he had before, and again and again Owain parried the wild blows, then Arthur slipped for a second time. He called in fear as he fell, and his cry was answered by a shout of triumph as Owain drew back his arm for the killing blow. Then Owain saw that Arthur had not slipped at all, but had merely pretended it to make Owain open his guard and now it was Arthur who lunged. It was his first lunge of the battle, and his last. Owain had his back to me and I was half hiding my eyes so that I would not have to see Arthur's death, but instead, right before me, I saw the shining tip of Hywelbane come clean out through Owain's wet and blood-streaked back. Arthur's lunge had gone straight through the champion's body. Owain seemed to freeze, his sword arm suddenly powerless. Then, from nerveless fingers, his sword dropped into the mud.

For a second, for a heartbeat, Arthur left Hywelbane in Owain's belly, then, with a huge effort that took every muscle in his body, he twisted the blade and ripped it free. He shouted as he tore that steel out of Owain, shouted as the blade broke the flesh's suction and ripped through bowel and muscle and skin and flesh, and still shouted as he dragged the sword out into the day's grey light. The force needed to drag the steel from Owain's heavy body meant that the sword kept going in a wild backswing that sprayed blood far across the mud-churned circle.

While Owain, disbelief on his face and with his guts spilling into the mud, fell. Then Hywelbane thrust down once into the champion's neck.

And there was silence in Caer Cadarn.

Arthur stepped back from the corpse. Then he turned sunwise to look into the faces of every man around the circle. Arthur's own face was hard as stone. There was not a sc.r.a.p of kindness there, only the face of a fighter come to triumph. It was a terrible face, his big jaw set in a rictus of hate so that those of us who only knew Arthur as a painstakingly thoughtful man were shocked by the change in him. "Does any man here," he called in a loud voice, 'dispute the judgment?" None did. Rain dripped from cloaks and diluted Owain's blood as Arthur walked to face the fallen champion's spearmen. "Now's your chance," he spat at them, 'to avenge your Lord, otherwise you are mine." None could meet his eye, so he turned away from them, stepped over the fallen warlord and faced Tristan. "Does Kernow accept the judgment, Lord Prince?"

Tristan, pale-faced, nodded. "It does, Lord."

"SarhaedJ Arthur decreed, 'will be paid from Owain's estate." He turned again to look at the warriors.

"Who commands Owain's men now?"

Griffid ap Annan stepped nervously forward. "I do, Lord."

"You will come to me for orders in one hour. And if any man of you touches Derfel, my comrade, then all of you will burn in a fire-pit." They lowered their gaze rather than meet his eyes. Arthur used a handful of mud to clean the sword of its blood, then handed it to me. "Dry it well, Derfel."

"Yes, Lord."

"And thank you. A good sword." He closed his eyes suddenly. "G.o.d help me," he said, 'but I enjoyed that. Now' his eyes opened "I've done my part, what about yours?"

"Mine?" I gaped at him.

"A kitten," he said patiently, 'for Sarlinna."

"I have one, Lord," I said.

"Then fetch it," he said, 'and come to the hall for breakfast. Do you have a woman?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Tell her we leave tomorrow when the council has finished its business." I stared at him, hardly believing my luck. "You mean' I began.

"I mean," he interrupted me impatiently, 'that you will serve me now."

"Yes, Lord!" I said. "Yes, Lord!"

He picked up his sword, cloak and boots, took Sarlinna's hand and walked away from the rival he had killed.

And I had found my Lord.

Lunete did not want to travel north to Corinium where Arthur was wintering with his men. She did not want to leave her friends and besides, she added almost as an afterthought, she was pregnant. I greeted the announcement with disbelieving silence.

"You heard me," she snapped, 'pregnant. I can't go. And why should we go? We were happy here. Owain was a good lord, then you had to spoil it. So why don't you go by yourself?" She was squatting by our hut's fire, trying to take what warmth she could from its feeble flames. "I hate you," she said and she vainly tried to pull our lovers' ring from her finger.

"Pregnant?" I asked in a shocked voice.

"But maybe not by you!" Lunete screamed, then gave up trying to tug the ring off her swollen finger and hurled a billet of firewood at me instead. Our slave howled in misery at the back of the hut and Lunete threw a log at her for good measure.

"But I have to go," I said, "I have to go with Arthur."

"And abandon me?" she shrieked. "You want me to be a wh.o.r.e? Is that it?" She hurled another piece of wood and I abandoned the fight. It was the day after Arthur's contest with Owain and we were all back in Lindinis where the council of Dumnonia was meeting in Arthur's villa, which was consequently surrounded by pet.i.tioners with their relatives and friends. Those eager people waited at the villa's front gates. At the back a huddle of armouries and storehouses stood where the villa's garden had once grown. Owain's old war-band was waiting for me there. They had chosen the site of their ambush well, at a place where holly trees hid us from the buildings. Lunete was still screaming at me as I walked up the path, calling me a traitor and a coward. "She's got you right, Saxon," Griffid ap Annan said, then spat towards me.

His men blocked my path. There were a dozen spearmen there, all old comrades, but all now with implacably hostile faces. Arthur might have placed my life under his protection, but here, hidden from the villa windows, no one would know how I had ended up dead in the mud.

"You broke your oath," Griffid accused me.

"I did not," I claimed.

Minac, an old warrior whose neck and wrists were heavy with the gold given him by Owain, levelled his spear. "Don't worry about your girl," he said nastily, 'there's plenty of us who know how to look after young widows."

I drew Hywelbane. Behind me the women had come from their huts to see their men avenge the death of their Lord. Lunete was among them and jeering at me like the rest.

"We've taken a new oath," Minac said, 'and unlike you, we keep our oaths." He advanced down the path with Griffid beside him. The other spearmen crowded in behind their leaders, while at my back the women pressed closer and some of them put aside their ever-present distaffs and spindles to begin throwing stones to drive me forward on to Griffid's spear. I hefted Hywelbane, its edge still dented from Arthur's fight with Owain, and I said a prayer that the G.o.ds would give me a good death.

"Saxon," Griffid said, using the worst insult he could find. He was advancing very cautiously for he knew my skill with a sword. "Saxon traitor," he said, then recoiled as a heavy stone splashed into the mud on the path between us. He looked past me and I saw the fear come on to his face and the blade of his spear drop.

"Your names," Nimue's voice hissed from behind me, 'are on the stone. Griffid ap Annan, Mapon ap Ellchyd, Minac ap Caddan..." She recited the spearmen's names and ancestry one by one, and each time she p.r.o.nounced a name she spat towards the curse stone that she had lobbed into their path. The spears dropped.

I stood aside to let Nimue pa.s.s. She was dressed in a black hooded cloak that cast her face into a shadow out of which her golden eye glittered malevolently. She stopped beside me, then suddenly turned and pointed a staff dressed with a sprig of mistletoe towards the women who had been throwing stones.

"You want your children turned into rats?" Nimue called to the onlookers. "You want your milk to dry and your urine to burn like fire? Go!" The women seized their children and ran to hide themselves in the huts.

Griffid knew Nimue was Merlin's beloved and possessed of the Druid's power and he was shaking with fear of her curse. "Please," he said as Nimue turned back to face him.

She walked past his lowered spear-point and struck him hard on the cheek with her staff. "Down," she said. "All of you! Down! Flat! On your faces! Flat!" She struck Minac. "Get down!" They lay on their bellies in the mud and, one by one, she stepped on their backs. Her tread was light, but her curse heavy. "Your deaths are in my hand," she told them, 'your lives are all mine. I will use your souls as gaming-pieces. Each dawn that you wake alive you will thank me for my mercy, and each dusk you will pray that I do not see your filthy faces in my dreams. Griffid ap Annan: swear allegiance to Derfel. Kiss his sword. On your knees, dog! On your knees!"

I protested that these men owed me no allegiance, but Nimue turned on me in anger and ordered me to hold out the sword. Then, one by one, with mud and terror on their faces, my old companions shuffled on their knees to kiss the tip of Hywelbane. The oath gave me no rights of lordship over these men, but it did make it impossible for any of them to attack me without endangering their souls, for Nimue told them that if they broke this oath their souls were doomed to stay for evermore in the dark Otherworld, never to find new bodies on this green, sunlit earth again. One of the spearmen, a Christian, defied Nimue by saying the oath meant nothing, but his courage failed when she prised the golden eye from its socket and held it towards him, hissing a curse, and in abject terror he dropped to his knees and kissed my sword like the others. Nimue, once their oaths were sworn, ordered them to lie flat again. She worked the golden ball back into her eye socket and then we left them in the mud. Nimue laughed as we climbed out of their sight. "I enjoyed that!" she said, and there was a flash of the old, childish mischief in her voice. "I did enjoy that! I do so hate men, Derfel."

"All men?"

"Men in leather, carrying spears." She shuddered. "Not you. But the rest I hate." She turned and spat back down the path. "How the G.o.ds must laugh at little strutting men." She pushed back her hood to look at me. "Do you want Lunete to go to Corinium with you?"

"I swore to protect her," I said unhappily, 'and she tells me she's pregnant."

"Does that mean you do want her company?"

"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 pet.i.tioners 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 a.s.sertion with a grimace and then, without another word, she turned and walked back down the path towards the warriors' huts.

I pushed through the pet.i.tioners 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pet.i.tioners were seen one by one and justice was p.r.o.nounced. 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 a.s.sembled 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 pleasure 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 b.u.t.tress 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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s. 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 n.o.bility. 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 G.o.ds 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 h.e.l.ledd 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."

He fell silent as he brooded on that great injustice. We had travelled far enough north now for the land and the people to be unfamiliar. In Dumnonia we were surrounded by Gwent, Siluria, Kernow and the Saxons, but here men spoke of Gwynedd and Elmet, of Lleyn and Ynys Mon. Lleyn had once been Henis Wyren, Leodegan's kingdom, of which Ynys Mon, the island of Mona, had been a part. Both were now ruled by Diwrnach, one of the Irish Lords Across the Sea who were carving out kingdoms for themselves in Britain. Leodegan, I reflected, must have been easy meat for a grim man like Diwrnach whose cruelty was famous. Even in Dumnonia we had heard how he painted the shields of his war-band with the blood of the men they killed in battle. It was better to fight the Saxons, men said, than take on Diwrnach.