Clearing his throat again, for he found himself feeling unexpectedly awkward and ill at ease, Ambrosius added, “I wish her safe delivered.” More unexpected, he truly meant it. A grandson. A grandson! He chuckled, invited his son to walk with him from the chamber. “This would have displeased Arthur. Something Winifred said once to me has proven to be so.”
“Really?” Cadwy was tempted to ask further of the matter, thought better than to pry over-close, but his father, opening the door for them both to pass through, volunteered the information himself.
“She implied a grandson could make up the ground lost between us.”
Slightly hesitant, “If you wish it to be so.”
“Of course, it may be a girl-child.”
“It may.” Cadwy met his father’s eye, defiant, bold, announcing either would be welcomed, as equally loved by the child’s parents.
They walked together, Ambrosius matching his pace to his son’s. Evening was settling, the swifts were busy, swirling and swooping, noisily darting after their supper, the sky a warm red, promising another day of sun on the morrow.
“If Ragnall bears a girl-child,” again that defiant tone had come into Cadwy’s speech, “she will be named after my mother.” He expected some reaction, an indrawn breath, a rebuke. Nothing. They walked on, along the narrow cobbled streets of Aquae Sulis, easing past an ox-pulled cart, a woman carrying a basket of soiled linen destined for the fuller’s place, some drunkards singing loudly and out of tune before a crowded tavern.
Abruptly Ambrosius announced, “Your mother was no beauty, she would often remark her features were plain, her eyes were too small, her mouth too large. Yet to me,” and his voice choked with the memory of the wife he had loved so dearly, “to me, she was more beautiful than ever a Venus could be.”
She had been murdered when Cadwy was a child in arms. Murdered by the brutality of Saex pirates who came raiding one autumn afternoon. Raped and murdered, their child daughter with her. The boy had been spared, for a slave had hidden him. A cruel jest, that, having been spared the boy had later fallen so ill, become so lame.
Hah! Ambrosius checked himself. He was in danger of becoming sentimental, and that he could not allow.
They had reached his apartments, a grand building, suited for the High Governor of All Britain. Ambrosius offered dinner but the younger man refused, declaring he had arranged to meet with friends.
“So what will you do now?” Cadwy asked.
Deliberate, Ambrosius misunderstood. “Dine alone, I imagine, with but the servants for company.” He produced a smile, was glad to receive a laugh in return.
“I will enter with you then, after all, I thank you.” Cadwy offered his hand in friendship, as pax. “My companions will not miss me, and your kitchen will, no doubt, have better fare than a back-street tavern.”
It was confidence and pride that had changed Cadwy, Ambrosius could see it now, confidence in himself. Arthur had held confidence. In what he was, what he was doing. Was that why Ambrosius had so despised him? Because he had nothing for himself save self-doubt and indecision?
Arthur’s father had been the shining star and, after him, Arthur had blazed as brightly – brighter. For Ambrosius there had always been the shadow. Always following, two paces behind. Now he was the one ahead, but still he stood in the half-light of their presence. He had to take up the torch, blaze his own trail. Had to!
“Are you to heed Council?” Cadwy questioned during the meal that was simple but well cooked. They had talked around this issue, exchanging light conversation, ambling on solid territory, mindful of putting a foot wrong, of damaging this new-found, emerging acquaintance.
The oysters were good. Ambrosius took another, levered open the shell with his eating knife. “My Councillors have fat arses and narrow brains.”
His son’s hand paused over the selecting of a leg of roasted chicken or a wing of duck. “You are not going to endorse application to Rome then?”
“Christ’s good name, no! Help us? A remote, poxed island? If Rome would not aid Gaul, what chance do we have?”
“But Council… ”
“Council is turd-scared of the need to spend our insubstantial treasury. To send for help, and sit and wait, would be more economical in the short term than funding an army, than fighting a war. Sit and wait, in the hope trouble may never materialise, will go away.”
“But such a choice,” Cadwy remarked with all seriousness, “would invite trouble, entice the Saex.”
Lifting his goblet in salute, Ambrosius drank to the observation. “Which is why I must raise myself an army as strong and as dedicated as Arthur once had. I have a fancy to lead an army into victory, to kick the arse of this impudent boy, Vitolinus.” He lifted his hand, sucked his cheek. “My only problem, I do not know how in hell to do it!”
“And what of Rome?” Cadwy could not resist asking the question, for too many times had he heard his father defending what had once been.
“Rome,” Ambrosius opined, “is not the power she once was.”
Cadwy’s eyebrows rose. Was this his father talking? Had he partaken of overmuch wine, perhaps? “You have changed your views somewhat,” he tried, tactfully.
Another oyster, another goblet of wine. “It galls for me to admit Arthur was right about Rome, that the old ways are gone, can never be again. But he is not here to belch derision. A man may be allowed to change?”
“Certainly.” With a wicked grin, “Happen you will be taking the title King, next?”
Ambrosius tossed a laugh. “Ah no, there is a limit! To totter delicately out from the shade is one thing, but to prance naked in the sun? I think not.”
For there they were of like mind, Arthur and Ambrosius. Stubborn, on matters of principle. A genetic trait of the Pendragons. To be as stubborn as bloody-minded mules.
September 470
X
The sea crossing had been appalling. The voyage up-river, although short, was tedious. And the welcome? As cold as the easterly wind. But then, Winifred had expected nothing else from her son.
Cerdic was taller by the height of almost two handspans, and his features were maturing, bearing the first stubbling of beard-growth along his chin and upper lip; very much the confident young man, far from the image of the dependent boy the mother remembered. Although his scowl had remained as aggressive, and his manner as offensive. Winifred found herself to be quite amused at his childish hostility towards her. He had yet to perfect the ability to impart scathing insult without rousing his own anger. A trick he would, no doubt, soon learn. His father had used it to perfection.
Winifred did not consider her uninvited, unannounced and unwanted arrival as discourteous or inconsiderate. She was Cerdic’s mother, and to her respect was due without comment or question. Her son thought otherwise, and made those thoughts perfectly clear. He had no love for her, did not want her on his land or in his settlement – much less, living as a guest beneath his own roof. Where he could, he ignored her or answered in monosyllabic grunts. By the third day of her coming, he was tempted to board one of the Saxon longships and disappear with the crew on a trading expedition. Except there were things that needed tending within his settlement, and he was damned if his wretched mother would drive him away from his own home. The occasional day of hunting would provide some legitimate respite from her uncompromising, critical tongue.
The settlement over which Cerdic’s Hall presided – Leofric’s Hall as it had once been – seethed out in a raggle-taggle bustle from behind the rummage of slave and cattle-pens, boat-sheds and warehouses erected along the riverbank, where the natural tidal current drifted into a sheltering bend. Boats and ships of all kinds were moored alongside the wharves, between slipways, or in dry dock for repair. The river itself was crammed with fishing vessels, barges, trading ships and the impressive, sixty-foot, single-masted, thirty-oared longships. Magnificent craft, built for speed and durability, craft that could cross the open sea, or slide, silent, upriver – the E
nglish warships. Pirate craft. Winifred had counted eight of these huge sea-beasts when her own barge had ponderously moored. She was impressed. Cerdic was obviously doing well for himself. How much better could he do, then, with the aid of her wise advice and judgement!
This was a riverside settlement where life revolved around the swing of the tides; where fishermen returned from the open sea with their catch, merchants and traders met to buy and sell or exchange cargoes of lead, iron, silver and gold. Where they came with expensive silks, brocades, wines, fruits and spices. The luxuries of ivories and exotic animals from the Africas, and for the everyday trading of grain, wool, leathers, pottery; hunting-dogs and slaves, the fair-haired or the dark-skinned, as black as ebony. Along the banks, stacks of timber, crates, amphorae. New ships being built. Old ones awaiting dismantling.
Despite her misgivings, her anger and hurt at the way he had so viciously and callously left her, Winifred had to admit privately she was proud of her son’s acquisition. That pride did not extend to his choice of wife; the reason for Winifred’s coming. Mathild, Winifred disliked. From the day she had heard – from a trader’s lips – of her son’s marriage, decision was made. Reasons, had she needed them, were plentiful. Cerdic was too young, Mathild was too old, being all of ten years his senior. Her past was suspect and she had been wife to another. Cerdic needed pure blood for a wife, for his future Queen of Britain, for the mother of his sons, Winifred’s grandchilder.
Meeting Mathild confirmed the contempt. Her faults, in Winifred’s eyes, included pride, lack of respect and she had the ability to lie with an ease that came too glibly. Lies accompanied by an offhand manner that suggested a quick wit and too many hidden secrets. Ah no, Winifred would not tolerate a daughter-by-law who breathed enough spirit to become a possible rival. It was rare for Winifred to meet her match and Mathild showed, from the first introduction, that she held no fear or awe of her husband’s sharp-tongued mother, a fact which delighted Cerdic and intensely annoyed Winifred. Only one other person had treated her with such disdain. Arthur.
Mathild reminded Winifred of that man, for both held a single-minded obstinacy and a wilfulness deliberately to misunderstand or misinterpret. The child too, the son Mathild had borne Cerdic, brought Arthur to mind. Something about the eyes, the shape of the nose? But then, the Pendragon was his grandsire, a strong resemblance was to be expected. Or so Winifred judged, those first few days, until her gold, placed in the right hands, and tattle gleaned from the right lips, began to sow other suspicions.
Mathild was feeding the boy herself, giving her own milk, employment frowned upon by her mother-by-law, a cause for more sparring. The day had been wet with drizzle, although it had not stopped the men from setting off through the marshes with their dogs and spears in search of game to hunt. The women had remained within-doors, Winifred reading, comfortably settled beside the hearth-place of Cerdic’s own private chamber, Mathild standing at her loom in the corner, or occasionally going into the main Hall to supervise some task necessitating her head-woman’s presence.
Late afternoon. The men would return soon with wet cloaks and tired hounds, muddied boots, cold hands, empty bellies. The child had awoken, cried for his own feeding, hushed into gurgles of contentment when offered his mother’s breast.
Winifred frowned, could not resist a barbed comment. “You will lose your figure by suckling a child. A woman your age ought be more mindful of these things.”
“My son is of more importance than the shape of my breasts.”
“Your husband will not agree with you.” Winifred’s immediate response was accompanied by a snort of derision. “His eye already roves to younger, firmer, girls.”
Mathild chuckled – she had quickly discovered how to defend against the more hurtful remarks. Winifred could not tolerate being mocked, or outmanoeuvred. “Cerdic may bed with as many fillies as he pleases. It is of no consequence.” She regarded Winifred candidly. “My son is of more importance to me than is yours.” Added, “Did Cerdic not mean more to you than your husband?”
Ruffled, Winifred snapped, “My husband was a bastard.”
The smile was there in the voice, though not on the face, as Mathild quipped, “Cerdic, then, is much like his father.”
She shifted the boy to her other breast, fondly watched his eager guzzling. He had brown hair with a slight curl, large eyes, a placid, contented temper. Features like his father, but spirit and character? No. Cynric would be different there.
Setting aside the scroll she was reading, Winifred stood, strode over to Mathild, her shadow slanting across the child’s face. She was a tall woman, Winifred, austere in her Christian, holy woman’s robing, her face pinched, without humour or sparkle of contentment. She achieved happiness by causing the pain of others.
“I have been asking questions about you, Madam.”
I wager you have! Mathild thought.
“You were taken as slave after your husband was killed.”
“I have made no secret of that.”
“A woman is used for only one thing by a slave-master.”
The babe, full-bellied, was drifting into sleep. Mathild laid him across her shoulder, adjusted her clothing. “Nor is that secret.” She looked up at the woman standing so ominously over her. “It seems you have been asking the wrong questions, or have received the wrong answers.”
“I think not.”
Unexpectedly, Winifred reached forward and took the child. Anxious, Mathild checked an impulse to retrieve him, but Winifred was holding him with care, cradling him, rocking him into deeper sleep, soft-crooning to him. “He will be a fine boy, Cynric, Arthur’s grandson.” A pause. Winifred spoke her next words slyly. “Or is he?”
Even Winifred, used to countering with implacable lies, was impressed by Mathild’s instant answer.
“I know not, Madam. Only you know the truth of Cerdic’s siring.”
“You fight without rules, Mathild,” Winifred answered with a sneer, “like a man would, like Arthur would.” She ambled to the cradle, laid the child tenderly in his bed, covered him. It had come as some surprise to herself, on first seeing the boy, that she held these maternal feelings. But then, why not? She was his grandmother. He was the child of her child – wasn’t he? She turned to Mathild, challenged her outright. “You were, for some time, with Arthur. I have suspicion that he sired the child, not Cerdic.”
The incredulous laugh was, at least, plausible. “And how do you decide on that?”
Winifred seated herself, casual, picked up her scroll, but did not unroll it.
Mathild stated blandly, “Arthur was killed in battle in July. Cynric’s birthing was in March, a full month before his time. The months do not tally.”
Winifred’s retort was as instant. “Early July, and Cynric was, so I understand, full-formed. Early-born childer often have no hair and no nails. They are puckered little things.” She tapped the scroll in her hand. “Oh, the months can be made to tally, my dear, with Fortune’s blessing, a little manipulation and the helping of many lies.”
Mathild said nothing.
“You do not deny being the Pendragon’s mistress, I note.”
Mathild chose fruit from the bowl, small, sweet apples. “It is not a thing I am shamed of. Arthur, to me, was a kind, good man.”
Winifred’s turn to laugh. “We are talking of the Pendragon, girl. Such description is not for him.”
“From you, no, but then, he loved you not.”
“Ho!” the other woman sniped. “Did he, then, love you?”
That one hurt, a lie could not come to Mathild’s lips. Had he loved her? She knew well he had not. Instead, she answered with the truth. It was, after all, good enough, for it was more than he had given to Winifred. “He was fond of me. Arthur had love for only one. For Gwenhwyfar, his wife.”
“My son obviously does not know his father bedded you.” Winifred sniped. “Indeed, he hates the man enough to slit such a woman open from belly to throat.”
T
ossing the apple core into the fire, Mathild issued her own challenge. “He does not. Nor is he likely to know. None would be fool enough to so inform him.”
Raising her eyebrows, Winifred chuckled. “Do you intend to intimidate by threatening me with some veiled, dark foreboding?” Her laugh increased. “You do not frighten me.”
For a moment Mathild stared into the flicker of hearth-fire flames, watched the flesh of the apple core shrivel, brown then blacken. When she looked up, her expression was serene, confident. “Nor do you intimidate me. I am not prepared to justify myself to you. I know when my son was conceived, and to whom. I will not deny he could, just, be Arthur’s, nor will I listen to suggestions that he is from any other than Cerdic’s seed. Cynric is his father’s child. With that you must be content.”
“I dislike you, Mathild, you are not suitable as wife to my son. I intend to have him be rid of you.”
“Equally, I may decide to rid myself of you and him.” Mathild was smiling again, a composed, self-assured smile that held nothing of amusement or humour. These lands along the Elbe were, by family right, hers, and she had a son now. “It would not be difficult,” she said, “to persuade the men it would be wiser to follow my son, not Cerdic. We are a tribe with deep loyalties. Cerdic is not of the blood. I am, as is Cynric.”
Eyes narrowed, nose pinched, Winifred came abruptly to her feet, swept in three short strides to stand before Mathild, her fingers clenching, wanting to go around this impudent girl’s white throat. Anger quickened her breath. “Do you dare threaten my son’s leadership?”
Calm, Mathild rose also, stood, her head tipped slight to one side. “That I would not. I would suggest, however, you ensure no mention of this day’s fanciful conversation reaches his ears.” She walked away, towards the door that led out into the Hall. It was a dangerous proclamation, but Mathild had sound motive for her determination; the loyalty of her men.
Winifred, of course, crowed derision. “An arranged death is no difficult undertaking.”
Shadow of the King Page 20