by Jack Whyte
When they returned from Camulod, Nemo knew, they would not be marching as they were now. By then the Guard would all be mounted on horses as fine as those their commanders rode, and people would automatically accord them the respect and admiration they had earned and deserved, awed and impressed by their equipment and their magnificence, their training and their discipline. By then, too, she knew with certainty, everyone seeing them would recognize and know the squadron leader, Nemo Hard-Nose, riding at their head. "Everyone," however, was unimportant to her. The only one who mattered in her eyes, the only man in all her world, was her Commander, Uther Pendragon. She knew, beyond any vestige of doubt, that her reason for existence was to protect him against any and all threats to his destiny, whatsoever those threats might be and whomsoever they might involve.
BOOK THREE
Mother:
I trust that this will find you and all the other members of my beloved family safe, well and in good health. God grant that this be, and remain so.
I am writing to you in some haste on this occasion, primarily because I have the opportunity, presented suddenly and quite without warning, but also because I feel the need to share my thoughts with another woman, and there is none closer to my heart than you. I have friends among the women here, of course, several of them very dear to me, but there is no one of them with whom I could find any satisfaction in sharing what is on my mind at this moment.
All my life I have known and respected you as a loving, dutiful and obedient wife to Publius Varrus, my father. But I have also always known and understood that your obedience was born of my father's natural honesty, honour and good nature. Had he been a different kind of man, you would, I know, have withheld your willing obedience.
I know and understand that there are many times when every woman will nod judiciously and agree with a man until he has passed from her sight, after which she will proceed to do what she intended to do before he came along, but in matters that are truly important, matters that have real significance or may have lasting effects upon our lives and the lives of our families and children, we, as mere women are utterly dominated by and subservient to the men among whom we live. In Cambria, however, that situation is more real and more noticeable than elsewhere. All the women here, it seems to me, from the highest born to the meanest serving maid, are completely dominated by the men and the men's way of thinking and behaving. Since I arrived to live here in what was then King Ullic's domain sixteen years ago, I have seen no single instance of a Pendragon woman actually standing up to and defying a male or a male viewpoint on something she considered to be worth fighting for. The women of Pendragon appear to have no strong opinions on anything that is important. Their daily lives are trivial and immutable, and they do as they are told in meek obedience. They must think what they are told to think and behave at all times as their men expect them to behave. And they appear to be content to have things thus.
I made some futile attempts to speak of it with a few of my closer friends here, but invariably they would laugh, always awkwardly, and change the subject quickly. When I pressed them further, they became visibly uncomfortable and ill-at-ease, and on several occasions it became abundantly clear to me that they simply did not, and do not, know how to deal with the thoughts I was trying to introduce to them. When I became aware some time ago that two of my friends now refuse to speak with me or be alone in my company, I knew I could no longer keep speaking of such things, lest I appear to be actively undermining my husband and his authority. And so you, dear Mother, are become the sole source to which I may turn for recourse.
We have had a visiting dignitary from Cornwall living with us here in Cambria for the better part of a year now, a high-born man called Balin, who travels with his wife, much younger than he, whose name is Mairidh. Balin is a gentle and learned man, highly placed in the Council of Duke Emrys, but he has also been for many years a close friend of Uric's family, beginning when Uncullic was a youth himself.
They have been welcome and worthwhile guests, despite the length of their stay, and I for one will be sad to see them depart. Mairidh has been perhaps the one woman with whom I might have been able to discuss the things I have been describing to you but for her status as an Outlander.
As Uther will already have told you, a special messenger arrived here some days ago, having travelled at breakneck speed, apparently, all the way from Cornwall, and Balin and Mairidh have been summoned back immediately by Emrys, for what purpose we know not, although none can doubt its urgency.
We have been increasingly troubled with seaborne raiders in recent months, and the roads, as I am sure you know, are becoming increasingly unsafe for any but the strongest armed parties. With that in mind, and being at pains to make his Cornish guests' departure smoother and more efficient, Uric and his advisers have decided that Uther's Camulod-bound party will escort the pair and their own escort, which is no longer deemed large enough to protect them, until they reach the safety of the sea coast, where one of the Duke's galleys awaits them. Having seen Balin and Mairidh safely aboard, Uther's party will then strike back inland and make their way directly to Camulod, where, as I am sure you know by now, they will begin a new and different regime of training, teaching Uther's Cambrian volunteers to ride and fight as cavalry. The idea was Uric's, and I know he has been exchanging messages with Daddy on the subject for months past.
Uric thinks that, as usual, I am being too protective of the boy, for in his eyes his son can do no wrong, and at that point our recent spousal discussions have entered the territory of which I spoke earlier. I have now begun to approach the daunting point at which I find myself preparing to dig in my heels and defy my husband, although God knows I have no desire to do so. In the cause of justice, however, and in defence of Uric's point of view, I know that I do tend to be protective, and perhaps too much so from time to time. But then, on the other hand, I frequently feel that Uric inclines too far in the opposing direction and allows the boy too much freedom from supervision and accountability. And that is what has now been sticking in my craw for several months.
Uther is wild sometimes. He has a dark side to him, and as his mother, I find it upsetting. It concerns me greatly, and I am even more concerned that I seem to be the only person in Uther's entire world who feels any concern at all. It is expected of a Cambrian warrior that he be savage, fearless in war and in peace and forever prepared to confront and kill his people's foes. That is what all warriors do.
Even so, Uther can never be a simple warrior. He is destined, I fear, always to be perceived as much more than a "simple " anything. He is the grandson of King Ullic, the son of King Uric and a potential future King in his own right. It is therefore deemed right and fitting that Uther Pendragon should be a fell and fearsome warrior.
Uther has already killed several men, and everyone is proud of him for that. Everyone, that is, but me. It appalls me that at the age of fifteen years he has already killed five men. I wake up in the night sometimes from seeing him in dreams, his innocent young face running red with blood that coats his skin and fills his mouth, staining his teeth. That terrifies me.
I find myself growing jealous of poor Enid, who has been dead since Uther was born. How proud she would have been of her son, Caius Merlyn. In him, golden-haired and fair of skin, I see everything that I would wish to see in my own son. Cay is to Uther as day is to night, not just in colouring but also in moods and temperament. They love each other dearly, the two of them, and I have never known any two boys who were not brothers to be closer. When they are together, they are inseparable, riding like centaurs, side by side, vying with each other constantly for friendly dominance. And yet they are so different, each from the other. Cay is sunny, open and generous, affectionate and amiable, always smiling and ever trustworthy and reliable. Uther is more sombre, concealing his feelings more closely, masking his thoughts much of the time. He is no less amiable than Cay and no less affectionate, and he is perhaps even more generous than his cousin, and wer
e I not his mother I would swear he is more handsome than his cousin when he smiles. And yet he is more distant somehow. His inner workings, if one can speak in such a way of a mere boy, are less clearly discernible. Uther is my son, and when all is said and done, he is wonderful, constant and utterly trustworthy, but there is something dark in him that chafes at me, and I know not how to speak of it. I find myself wondering if there ever could be a word for what I am trying to describe. How would any other mother react to the knowledge that her only son, her beloved firstborn, not only possesses but has exercised the capacity to kill others prior to undergoing the Manhood Rites? Five men left dead by my sweet son, all discovered while engaged in brutality and ravishment of women. Most boys his age would see such things occurring, and they would be afraid for their own lives and run for help, hut not Uther. He has this well of reckless violence inside him that enables him to pit himself against grown men and kill them.
His father seems to think that this is admirable, and so, in fact, do all the other men around us here. They praise the boy's courage, his ferocity, his single-mindedness. I find myself unable to see beyond their wrongness. How can they even think such nonsense, let alone voice the thoughts ? They are applauding the emergence of murderous traits in a mere boy—my boy!—and I am finding it more and more difficult within my own heart to forgive Uric for what I now see as his callousness towards his son.
Although what I am about to say might seem strange to you, and you might perhaps even think me disloyal to my husband in thinking such a thing, let alone setting it down in writing, I have no intent here to voice either plaint or grievance. I have no wish to complain at all about anything, Mother, but I find myself under a compulsion to say this to someone, to anyone who will listen without condemnation. I have learned to appreciate that I really came into a different world when I left your home to live with my husband's people. I never knew how sheltered our lives were in our Colony or how hard you and Daddy worked to keep us safe and protected as children from the realities of the life most other people know. Growing up. we, or I at least, had no awareness of how privileged and fortunate we were to be living as we lived. Even so, I can remember that we had many instances of violence in our Colony, incidents caused by raiding parties of various kinds from Outlanders to bandits and even domestic battles and upheavals. I knew that people died in such incidents, and I also knew that many others were savagely wounded, but that awareness was far less than real. And, in truth, nothing that I had ever seen or experienced could have prepared me for the extremes of violence I have found here in Cambria.
In this land, even here in Tir Manha, life itself is considered to be of little value, and most particularly so if the life being squandered or lost or taken belongs to a stranger or someone who does not belong to one's own family or one's own village.
In our beloved Camulod, men consider themselves to be either farmers, artisans or soldiers. All three ranks and standings are equal, and no man feels any shame in being what he is. In Cambria, on the other hand, every man is a warrior first, and then perhaps something else afterwards. And if that something else involves manual labour of any kind, there is always the taint of shamefulness about it.
Until I came here I did not know that there is a difference between the terms "warrior" and "soldier." Now I fully realize just how great that difference is. Soldiers are disciplined, and warriors need not be. Even more important, however, is the fact that soldiers, operating to a plan as a single organized force, are accountable for their actions, and warriors are not. When a soldier behaves badly, breaking a law or otherwise behaving in a criminal manner, he can be brought to answer for it by the system that governs or employs him. Not so with warriors. There is no system for warriors. The only source of rebuke and discipline for a warrior is another, stronger warrior, and the rebuke takes the form of violent death.
My Uric is King over seven clans of warriors, all of whom are every bit as savage and unpredictable as those Saxons whose very name fills people elsewhere in Britain with fright and fear. That savagery permeates our entire life here. And now I fear very greatly that it has affected my son and that I failed to see it happening. So much so, in fact, that I now find myself resenting things, circumstances and traditions and customs that have caused me no concern at all these past fifteen years.
The last lime young Cay was here, I found myself looking at him. not simply once but frequently, and comparing him to Uther, may God forgive me, searching for the finer elements in him that were not present in my own son. Cay is a gentle and wonderful young man, and all of us, Uther perhaps most of all, love him dearly. So there is, in his pleasant, sunny nature, much that any mother would enjoy seeing in her own son. He calls me Auntie Vron, his own personal name for me, and it makes me feel warm and content each time he does so. I know he calls you Aunt Luceiia, but I wonder if you are aware that he refers to you very lovingly as Auntie Looch whenever he talks of you to others. Cay is more circumspect than Uther in dealing with the feelings and sensitivities of others. He will seek to pacify and to soothe ruffled feathers and hurt feelings, and will strive to find a peaceful way to settle altercations and differences of opinions. Not so my darling Uther. He abhors nothing more than dishonesty, admires nothing more than forthright truth proclaimed in all its shameless purity. And he believes, and always has believed, that anyone who cannot stand to hear the truth laid out openly should stay away from those who stand behind it. It is a hard, uncompromising attitude he takes for one so young and one that sometimes fails to make friends for him, but his father the King admires him for it and so do his Councillors. So, too, do I, I suppose, although I sometimes wish he were not quite so forceful in his beliefs.
Please watch him closely, Mother, when he is with you in Camulod this time. I know you always do, since he is your firstborn grandson, but this time I would ask you to look upon him with a more discerning eye now that you have read some of my concerns and reservations. I know you will speak of them, too, with Daddy, so please tell him that his Magpie might be losing her sight, or at least her insight, since she is having difficulty nowadays seeing the sparkle in what has always been her dearest possession.
Ask Daddy, too, if you would, to find some reason to speak with one of Uther's companions, the one they call Nemo Hard-Nose, and warn him that, even though he might have trouble discerning it at first, Nemo Hard-Nose is a woman. She is aptly named. Hard, unyielding, more male and more warrior than the toughest of her companions in training, she betrays nothing female in her behaviour or comportment, and judging by the way Uther and the others speak of her, none of them has any awareness of her as a woman. I find her strange and unsettling to be around, although I have been in dose proximity to her on only two occasions. I have asked Uther about her, but all he would tell me is that he has known her since she was a child and that she has earned her place among his troopers. When I pressed him further, he grew uncomfortable and told me that he could not discuss any of "his men" with Outsiders. He is their Commander, and he has a duty to them to respect their privacy as long as they do what they are supposed to do. I asked no more after that, not wishing him to think of me as being over-inquisitive. But the girl does not like me. I felt hostility emanating from her as I passed by her. She never looked at me or spoke to me, but I could sense her dislike so strongly that I felt cold, and I knew she was jealous of me. Of what could she be jealous? Of my being my son's mother? That makes no sense. Tell Daddy his opinion on this matter, on this man-woman, is important to me.
I know you will write back to me eventually, and until you do, I will be waiting and wondering what your response will be. Give my dearest love, please, to Daddy, but keep half of it for yourself.
Veronica
Chapter ELEVEN
Because Uther led his raw recruits into Camulod beneath the ancient banner of his clan—a red dragon outlined in white on a field of green—the Camulodian troopers coined an instantaneous jibe about the rabble who were sent with the fifteen-year-old Uth
er: they called them the "dragon guards." Uther, acutely aware of how closely he was being watched by the governors of Camulod—his Grandfather Varrus, his Uncle Picus and all of the Council of the Colony—bit down on his anger and decided, against all his urgings and with the able assistance of Garreth Whistler, to do and say nothing in response to the goading. Garreth, at twenty-seven, was by far the eldest of the contingent Uther had brought with him, and if anything, he had more to contend with than any of his companions, for his Cambrian status as King's Champion earned him nothing in the way of respect from the Camulodians, who had heroes and traditions of their own and regarded anyone and everyone from Cambria as upstart savages. In their eyes, Garreth Whistler was simply another bumpkin recruit from the mountains, and an elderly one at that, compared to the youthful know-nothings with whom he rode.
Later, looking back on that time, Uther would be both proud of and grateful for the restraint he had exercised during their first few weeks in Camulod, but he would also acknowledge, forever afterwards, the support and assistance provided to him by the example set by his stoic friend and mentor. Without Garreth Whistler's patience, fortitude and good sense, Uther knew, he would never have been able to control the rage that flared in him daily in the face of the disdain and derision he and his people had to suffer in the condescending sneers of the Camulodian troopers. It had been Garreth who reminded Uther constantly of the objectives he had set himself and who kept him pointed in the right direction.