by Jack Whyte
Uther remained with Murdo for the entire day, and at the end of it he went away unable to think about anything other than the amazing transformation he had witnessed. He returned the following day to pester the craftsman into showing him the process time after time and explaining the logical processes and techniques involved. And when he wanted to try it himself, Murdo allowed him to do so, knowing what the result would be. But then, in a natural act of kindness after Uther's stone had been smashed to dust by an over-enthusiastic hammer blow and the boy's chagrin knew no bounds, the veteran craftsman took Uther aside and showed him the lines of cleavage in a large piece of the soft coal they used in Camulod to feed the central heating furnaces. The coal was extremely soft and quick-burning, but because of its very softness, Murdo was able to split it with his hands along the natural lines of cleavage formed in its beginnings, millions of years earlier. He showed Uther how the black stone split into layers and how, with a modicum of care, anyone who knew what he was doing could split the fuel into impressive-looking flakes.
On his return to his grandfather's territories, Uther told Nemo what he intended to do and what he hoped to achieve. His primary objective, as always, was to impress his grandfather the King, this time by demonstrating how, with the edge of a sword blade, he could split a stone—represented by the large piece of coal he had chosen—by striking it once, cleanly and without great effort. Nemo listened closely to Uther's long and rambling explanation and understood almost nothing of what he was saying. Uther had been home from Camulod for more than ten days by that time and had been separated from Murdo for almost twice that long, so that his memories of what the old craftsman had told him and taught him were beginning to grow hazy around the edges. He knew beyond dispute, however, that Murdo called his jewels "stones," and since Murdo's stones all contained invisible lines of cleavage, it seemed to Uther that all stones must contain them. His stone for the demonstration would be a large piece of coal. He was familiar with the attributes and qualities of coal, and it would suit his purposes perfectly.
Nemo was determined that she would be present in the Great Hall to witness the proceedings when Uther demonstrated his feat to the King's Council. Though most of the dwellings in Tir Manha were round-houses with thick walls of mud mixed with willow laths and low roofs thatched with straw, there were other, larger structures too, most of them the rectangular buildings known as post houses because of the way they were constructed around and upon strong sunken pillars. The Great Hall was by far the largest and the most impressive of these, an enormous, rectangular structure with timber rafters mounted upon gigantic tree trunk pillars, its walls constructed of shaped and layered logs, sealed and weatherproofed with mud and Roman mortar. Nemo knew that women were forbidden by ancient custom to attend Council gatherings and that not even Uther would dare to flout that law. She had spent days, however, searching for the perfect hiding place, and because she had no fear of heights, she had finally located the ideal spot, high among the rafters that spanned the enormous interior, in a deeply shadowed corner beneath the roof.
The interior walls were lined with woven screens of reeds covered with dried, smoothly plastered mud, and they were impossible to climb, but not so the exterior walls. Nemo quickly identified an easy route, using the roofs of several outbuildings abutting the Great Hall that would take her up within reach of the high ventilation windows under the thatched eaves of the main building. The massive hall stood in the middle of Tir Manha, and because it had never been intended as a fortification, no attempt had been made to secure it from penetration from outside. She made her way unseen up to the window she had chosen as offering the easiest access, and slipped inside, delighted to discover there that she could make her way with ease into a corner that was fortified with angled beams and was far safer than the ample crotch of the great oak tree she frequented in the Place of the Bows. Satisfied then, she made her way out, content to wait in silence until it was time for her to climb up there again.
At dusk, on the night before the meeting of the King's Council, Nemo made her way up into the rafters, this time carrying a leather satchel that contained some food and water, a woollen blanket and a covered earthen pot to hold her own bodily wastes, should she become sore set. She slept well, high in the roof, and climbed out of the window again before the dawn broke to relieve herself in safety on the crest of a rooftop in the darkness. Then she climbed back into the building and made herself comfortable again, dozing intermittently until the Council began to assemble below her, the sound of their assembly and the swelling volume of their voices forcing her to lean forward and concentrate hard on one small group at a time, trying to overhear what they were saying. The noises of voices and movement blended together into a chaotic meld that rose directly upwards to where she watched and listened, and it was impossible to hear anything clearly, let alone understand what was being said.
By the time King Ullic entered the Hall and called the Council to order, Nemo had begun to regret having wasted so much time and effort in climbing up to her high perch, but then Uther entered the Great Hall a very short time later, and she suddenly found herself perfectly situated to observe what happened and able to hear every word perfectly.
Two of Uther's companions entered behind him. They were carrying a flat board between them on which lay a very large, obviously heavy piece of coal from which every trace of dust had been carefully removed; the entire surface had been burnished to the semblance of a gloss. They placed the coal in the middle of the floor and then withdrew. Painfully aware of all the eyes focused on him and the intense curiosity—some of it hostile—that was being directed his way, Uther stepped forward and asked his grandfather's permission to bring a borrowed sword into the room in order to make his demonstration. It was the law that no weapons were ever permitted in the Council chamber, and Uther's request was therefore received, after an initial concerted hiss of indrawn breath, in a scandalized silence. King Ullic nodded in acquiescence, however, humouring his grandson and saying nothing to dissuade him. Another of Uther's companions who had been waiting outside the doors brought in the sword and handed it to Uther, then left hurriedly.
Uther drew a deep breath and then looked about him at his grandfather's assembled Councillors. Among them he saw his lather, but he looked away quickly, refusing to meet Uric's eye and forcing himself to review instead what he was to do in the following few moments. Before coming here, he had thought about a number of things he might say to King Ullic to explain what he was doing and what he had discovered, but then he had dismissed all of them, convinced that actions would speak more clearly than any words. Now, trying not to acknowledge the fluttering hope that he had been right, since it would indicate that he might possibly be wrong instead, he made no attempt to speak before stepping forward to stand in front of the large lump of coal. He gripped the sword tightly in both hands and bent close to the coal, narrowing his eyes as he carefully laid the edge of his blade along one of the thin, almost invisible lines that marked the outer surface. Every eye in the gathering was on him, and he felt the scrutiny of each of them. No one spoke and no sound marred the perfect silence in the Hall.
Sucking in a deep, silent breath, Uther drew himself erect slowly and raised the sword carefully above his head, keeping his arms stiffly extended and his eyes fixed on the target lines he envisioned. Then his blade slashed swiftly, sibilantly downwards, a strong, clean, accurate blow that produced a dull, clanging sound. But instead of falling apart in neatly severed sections, the large piece of coal remained stonily intact, save for a number of flint-like splinters that broke off and whizzed away in all directions, clattering and sliding across the floor.
Uther gazed, stricken with horror at what had happened. The blade of the borrowed sword had twisted and bent with the impact of his deliberate blow, the dubious quality of its temper mercilessly exposed in this sudden, violent encounter with obdurate stone. And despite the numerous washings that the piece of coal had undergone, the impact had ge
nerated a small cloud of fine black dust that hung in the air, almost motionless, hovering as though to draw attention to the fact that Uther had just failed at something else, although no one could have guessed what that might have been.
Uther stood there, unable to move, his head lowered, his mind filled with dull, sluggish echoes of the sickening sound the sword had made against the coal. He would tell Nemo later that a hundred different thoughts swirled through his mind in the few moments after the sword landed, and most of them were questions: What happened? What went wrong? What had he been trying to demonstrate? What had he hoped to achieve? How could he have gone ahead with it without letting anyone know what was involved? How could he have been such a fool as to attempt this thing in public—not merely in public, but in full view of his grandfather's scowling Council of Elders, all of whom disapproved of him? Why didn't the coal split as it ought to have? Why hadn't he tested both it and the flawed sword earlier? Why, why, why, why?
As he stood there, frozen, Uther heard a swell of sound as his audience began to stir and to talk among themselves, quietly and with decorum because they were in Council. It would have been a grievous insult to the King had anyone permitted himself to laugh aloud or to voice his scorn of something that the King himself had authorized. And so they kept their voices low, their disapproval muted.
Uther's eyes moved to meet his grandfather's, and he saw the old man's hand come up, finger pointing, ordering him to leave the Council chamber. He nodded and began to turn away, but Ullic's voice stopped him.
"Take the weapon."
Uther stooped and retrieved the useless sword, seeing only now the rust that pocked it and the tawdry workmanship of the warped and twisted blade. Then, carrying the thing in both hands, he trudged from the Hall dejectedly, crushingly aware that his humiliation was not yet complete. He would have to face his grandfather later in the day, and probably his father, too, and attempt to explain what it was that he had been trying to do. Had he really tried to split stone with a sword? What practical purpose had he thought to achieve in doing such a thing? Uther writhed inside himself with shame and humiliation that he could ever have been so scatterbrained and so irresponsibly precipitate. He had failed again, utterly, to govern his compulsive enthusiasms, and he had failed to do an advance investigation of possibility and probability, when even a cursory investigation could have shown him that their hard, local Cambrian coal, dug from the exposed seam that surfaced close to their village, would not split as readily or cleanly as the softer coal used in Camulod. Uther knew he could blame no one but himself. He had walked—no, he had almost forced his way— into his grandfather's presence while the King was in Council, and he had used his status as a family member to gain his grandfather's attention. And then he had proceeded to humiliate himself, begging everyone there to witness his apparently mindless destruction of what must have seemed to them to be a perfectly good sword. It must have looked to everyone like a ceremonial sacrilege, some kind of inane, insane rite devised simply to outrage all of them.
His friends were waiting for him when Uther reached the doors and closed them behind him, but after one look at his face, none of them sought to join him as he strode past them and away. For his part, he did not even notice them. His mind was filled with the vision of his Grandfather Ullic's face and the stern disapproval that had filled it as he had glowered down from his dais.
As Uther was striding away, fleeing to hide his shame and humiliation. Nemo was witnessing an altogether different aspect of what his demonstration had evoked, one that would have confounded the boy had he known of it. She had been leaning forward, peering between two rafters in order to watch him as he walked away, carrying the sadly twisted weapon he had used in his "demonstration," and as the high doors closed behind him, she became aware of the deep silence that now held sway in the room below, one that no one seemed eager to break. She shifted her position, moving her head from one side to the other of the rafter she was straddling. Below her and to her right, the King still stood in front of his ceremonial seat, a thoughtful expression on his face as he gazed at the doors through which his grandson had made his exit. Every other eye in the room was fixed upon him, and Nemo had the feeling that everyone down there on the floor was holding his breath expectantly. The silence stretched and grew, and no one made a sound or moved to take a seat. Eventually, however, Ullic Pendragon turned his head back towards his expectant advisers and waggled his fingers in their direction.
"Sit," he said. "Sit down."
As they did so, the King moved slowly down from his dais to where Uther's lump of coal lay on the floor. He stood gazing at the coal for the space of several heartbeats, and then he slowly backed away from it until he was close to the main doors of the Hall. He turned and pulled them open, and as the doors swung wide, Nemo saw one of the guards outside twist in surprise. Then the King said something and held out his hand.
Ullic approached the coal again, this time carrying a sword he had taken from the guard. While everyone gazed silently, he stood for some time looking down at the black mass. Then he sank to one knee, shifting the sword to his left hand and reaching out with his right to touch the tip of his middle finger to the deep score that Uther's blade had made on the black surface. His gaze sharpened, and he leaned closer to the lump of coal, spreading the fingers of his hand wide over the surface for a moment and peering closely at something. Then gently, tentatively, he drew his thumbnail straight down along one of the fine lines he had detected.
Nemo heard him mutter something to himself at that point, but his voice was pitched too low for her to hear. It was obvious, however, that something had occurred to him. He straightened his back, still on one knee, and took the sword back into his right hand. He held it point down, like a dagger, and braced his fist against his shoulder as he used his left hand to position the point of the blade very carefully against the coal. When he was satisfied that it was properly in place and would not slip, he brought his left hand up and cupped it over his right fist, and then he thrust downward, hard, using the strength and weight of his arms, shoulders and torso to drive the sword point into the coal. A sharp crack, and the lump split cleanly into two flat-sided parts, almost throwing the King off balance with the suddenness of its division. Ullic threw out one hand to retain his balance, and then tested the smoothness of the split sides with his open hand. He nodded his head wordlessly, and then rose to his feet again with a loud sigh, brushing his left hand against his tunic to wipe the coal dust from his palm. He turned next towards the open doors where the guards stood gaping and held out the hand with the sword. Its owner immediately came forward to retrieve it.
"My thanks," the King told him. "Close the doors again when you go out." He watched the doors as they closed behind the departing guard, then made his way back up onto his dais, where he faced his Councillors again.
"If I have learned nothing else about my grandson Uther," he said to them, "I have learned this: the boy, young as he is, is no fool. What you saw him do today might have looked foolish to you, but that is only because none of you knows what he was attempting to do.
"No more do I. But I know that he had a purpose in coming here today, and I know that he would never set out to make himself look foolish before me or before any of you. Think hard upon that before you give voice to scorn when you leave here. You are the King's Council, and when you gather here to advise me, as you do from time to time, your dignity is guarded carefully, and the respect shown to you is unique. How many grown warriors do you know who would dare to walk into your gathering and demand your attention?
"The boy had something in mind with this . . . this thing that he attempted. Clearly, it had something to do with what I did a moment ago, splitting that coal with a blade. I want no sneering stories of what happened here to make their way beyond this Hall. Is that clear? I will not tolerate being crossed in this. We will not punish the boy, even by silence, for one error, no matter if it be of judgment or execution or of simple ne
rvousness. If our young people show self-reliance in any way, we must encourage them, not laugh at them or scorn them." Ullic broke off and looked around at the faces watching him. "I've no doubt, either, that there are some of you sitting here listening to me now and thinking me a fool for saying the like. Well, if you are thinking that, keep the thought to yourself. It would not please me to hear it said aloud or even whispered, and I doubt I would even like to see it showing in your eyes . . . Think me foolish if you will, but keep your thoughts inside you and your faces schooled. And know I believe that we would be the fools to punish any of our bright young lads for trying something new or differed "Now, we have important matters to discuss, so let's be about them."
Chapter FIVE
Uther paused in the empty vestibule that lay inside the massive outer doors of the Great Hall, wiping his sweaty palms as he fazed up at the tall interior doors to his grandfather's Council chamber for the second time in one day. He swallowed hard and drew a deep breath, willing himself not to shudder with dread. He was alone in the vestibule, the guards having been dismissed when the Council gathering ended more than an hour before. Desperate for an excuse, any excuse, to postpone opening those doors and entering the Hall to face his grandfather, he allowed himself to think for a moment about the Guards of the Great Hall, as they were called. They were proud and independent Pendragon warriors, not soldiers like the garrison guards in Camulod, who were allocated guard duties in strict rotation by their officers. Those who stood on guard for the King's Council in Tir Manha did so voluntarily, and the rotation by which they took their turns to serve was an informal one, an honour shared among equals in recognition of time-hallowed custom.