by Jack Whyte
"Aye, almost, or I was at his. I was in a foul frame of mind that night, spoiling for a fight."
Garreth said nothing, made no move that might interrupt the mood as Uther continued, speaking as though to himself.
"That was the night Cassandra was attacked—raped and beaten so badly that she almost died, and for days everyone thought she would. You were in Tir Manha when that happened, not in Camulod. I can remember how glad I was to see you when I rode home. I was still angry, still bitter, still seeking to find blame in others for what I myself had done."
"That sounds ominous. What had you done?"
"Everything that I ought not to have done. I vented my anger on a little girl, for one thing. That was my first wrong step."
"I don't follow you."
"Cassandra, the girl. I abused her, treated her abominably, tried to thrash her. That's when Merlyn and I first locked horns. He knocked me down and pinned me there until the girl could run away to safety."
Garreth made no response to that, other than to raise his eyebrows in a silent, cynical query.
"On my life, Garreth, it is no jest."
"Hmm. Then I think you had better tell me about it. What did you do to the girl?"
"Ahh . . . well, it was . . . You know the kind of thing. Merlyn and I were in the games room with a few willing girls, and everything was . . . as usual. But then I noticed . . . I noticed Cassandra's mouth. She was there in the room with us. Watching us, watching everything." His voice tailed away into a long silence. "I noticed her mouth, and once I had noticed it I could not rid myself of the thought of how it would feel. . ."
"Sucking you."
"Yes."
"And how did it feel?"
"I don't know. She wouldn't do it. Set her teeth and refused to open them and I began to get angry and to force it. . . and she bit me."
"Ayee! Hard?"
"Hard enough. I was in a foul frame of mind and that bite set me off on a rampage. You know what my temper can be like. This was me at my worst."
"So you hit her, and Merlyn knocked you down, and she ran."
"Yes."
"And that was it? That was all that happened? Did you and Merlyn continue fighting after the girl had run?"
Uther shrugged. "No. Merlyn let me up, and I left. I walked out of there and went directly to the stables, picking up a few of my own Dragons on the way—no one in particular, just troopers unfortunate enough to cross my path while I was in that mood. I dragged all of them with me and rode back to Tir Manha, as I told you."
"And because of that, that wrestling bout, you would like me to believe that you and Merlyn didn't speak to each other for a whole year?" He waited, but Uther made no attempt to respond.
"That makes no sense, Uther. I mean, it's not as if Merlyn had never seen you lose your temper before, and all the gods know you two have knocked lumps and pieces off each other since you were both old enough to swing your arms and call each other names. And I will not believe it arose out of jealousy because Merlyn resented your approaching a wench in whom he had an interest—you two have been sharing your women since you learned what to do with them. So there's something you are not telling me. What is it?"
Uther pushed himself up to his feet and stepped away from the tree trunk, turning back to face Garreth Whistler. "Well, there are a few details that I failed to mention to you. I told you the fight was all that happened, and that was the truth. What I did not tell you was what was said."
"Said ? Said by whom? You have lost me, Uther."
"Said by me, Garreth, said by me. I swore I would kill her." His face twisted into an expression of self-loathing. "A man should never utter meaningless threats. That was one of the first lessons Grandfather Varrus ever taught Merlyn and me. Never utter meaningless threats, because they will confound and defeat you."
Garreth shrugged his shoulders. "So you were angry and you overreacted. She had just tried to bite off your cock, hadn't she?"
Uther gazed into Garreth's eyes for the space of five heartbeats and then nodded an affirmative. "I threatened to kill her, Garreth, and then I stormed out of there and rode out of Camulod without a word to anyone. And that same night, sometime after I left that room, someone did try to kill Cassandra, and almost succeeded. Now, had you been Merlyn Britannicus, what might you have thought about that?"
"Ahh . . ." The sound that escaped Garreth's mouth was more breath than anything else. He was completely bereft of words, and his eyes reflected consternation as the import of what Uther had said continued to sink home to him.
"Bear in mind, Garreth, that the girl was deaf and mute. She could not talk about who had attacked her. She could tell no one. All she could hope to do—all anyone could hope she would do—was point a finger when and if she ever recognized her assailant. But that meant that her life was in danger every moment, since the unknown attacker would have to kill her in order to protect himself. And so Cousin Merlyn arranged somehow—and I have no idea how he achieved it—to have Cassandra vanish from a heavily guarded building. He's a clever lad, our Merlyn."
"But—wait a moment, Uther, wait a moment . . . If Merlyn believed you were the one who had done this, why would he go to such lengths to protect the girl? He knew you were gone far from Camulod, so how then could she have been in danger? Why didn't he simply denounce you?"
Now Uther smiled for the first time, a narrow, bitter smile. "Because, aside from being a clever lad, our Merlyn is also a just one. He was not completely convinced of my guilt. He was very close to being convinced, but he did acknowledge that there could be some doubt, and so he took the steps he did."
"He never accused you of anything?"
"No, he did not, not publicly. Merlyn would never make a public spectacle of his suspicions without proof to back them up. He confronted me about it later. He had smuggled Cassandra away to protect her, he told me, for fear the killer might be someone else, but as soon as she was well enough to withstand the shock of confrontation, he intended to bring her face to face with me again."
"And that would have vindicated you, would it not?"
"Yes, it would, Garreth, but that had never cost me a moment's thought. I knew I had done nothing to harm the girl beyond that first explosion of bad temper. What hurt me more than I would ever have believed anything could hurt was that my Cousin Merlyn could suspect me of such a thing, such depravity. Even as angry as I was, did he think I could do something so deeply, foully evil?" Uther's guts churned then, remembering that those who knew his rage had always feared a darkness in him.
"Shit!" The expletive reflected the depth of Garreth Whistler's frustration and was the last word spoken by either man for some time, but then Whistler shook his head and rubbed his nose with the palm of his hand. "There's still something missing . . . some part of this I am failing to understand. You said you had been in a foul mood. Well, then, what was it that made you angry enough and unhappy enough to dig yourself into the hole you created that day?"
Uther looked at Garreth again and grinned, shaking his head. "Something I don't want to talk about, old friend."
"Now that's very sad, Uther, because you are my King, and had I but a pinch of pity in my breast I would bleed for you. So speak to me, share the burden. Get this pus-filled sickness out of your mind and let your conscience breathe again. What is it, this enormous secret of yours, this thing that has caused you so much ill feeling?"
"This place."
"This place?" Garreth looked around him, frowning.
"No, not here. Cambria, and Tir Manha. It's not my kingdom, Garreth, although I am its King. It is not my home—not my true home, the home of my heart."
"That's Camulod."
"Yes, it is."
Uther reached behind his back with one hand and closed his thumb and fingertips on either side of the blade of the long cavalry sword that hung there, thrusting it upwards hard, so that it almost slid out of the ring between his shoulders, and as it fell forward he grasped it by the hilt, twirled it a
round and jammed its point into the ground, where it stood swaying gently. Garreth looked at it and said nothing.
"That was the start of it, right there."
"What was, a sword?"
"A cavalry sword, a long sword. Cavalry has always been my first thought of Camulod, Garreth. Every time I hear the name, I think of cavalry—tall men riding tall horses, all of them in armour. There could be no Camulod without cavalry, and without cavalry there would be no long swords like this.
"What I am trying to say, Garreth, is that Camulod and Cambria are like light and darkness to me. My memories of Camulod—all my memories of Camulod—are filled with light and laughter and enjoyment. The people there enjoy their lives! Here, on the other hand, we seem to live most of our days in darkness. Smiles are few and far between in Tir Manha, or anywhere else in Cambria. It is as though our people have no natural feeling for enjoyment. We seem to see it as a sign of weakness. We have no laughter in our souls, or if we have, we save it all inside us until we can laugh at someone else's misfortune, jeering at their pain. Our elders are stern, humourless and unforgiving; our women are dark-faced and lowering. Not always, not always . . . I'll grant that. But more often than otherwise.
"That year my mother had been sick, of some kind of fever, and had been confined to bed for weeks. My Grandmother Varrus was concerned for her. She had received word from my father that he, too, was worried. Anyway, my grandmother had suggested that I might want to return home to be with my mother, at least until she grew well enough to be up and about again, at which time she might like to return to Camulod with me for the remainder of the summer. Well, I resented being told what to do, especially by an old woman, even if she was my grandmother, and even more than that, I resented the implication that I did not know where my duty lay. I had decided that it would be impossible for me to return home; I was far too necessary to the welfare of the Colony simply to take a leave of absence and disappear for some indeterminate period of time. Anything might happen while I was away, and I was determined that no one would be able to say I had neglected either my duty or my military responsibilities.
"Of course, the truth was that I simply did not want to come home again to Tir Manha. My father's elders were outspoken in their disapproval of my lengthy absences—they saw it as misconduct. For my part, I dreaded the thought of being stuck here for any length of time . . .
"On the last night of our patrol, the night before the incident with Cassandra, I had a dream in which I saw my mother lying dead in her bed in Tir Manha while I was enjoying myself in Camulod. It was a terrible dream. I sprang awake bathed in cold sweat, not knowing where I was, forgetting I was on patrol and that we were miles from anywhere, surrounded by forest. I found it impossible to go back to sleep again, and finally, I gave up and rolled out of my blankets well before dawn, then went to inspect the perimeter guards. They must have thought I was insane, but all I was worried about was that they might have heard me crying out in my sleep.
"That dream, the memory of it, stayed in my mind all that day and was still there late that night while I was lying in the games room with those women, making a pig of myself. I was coupling with one of them, and a vision of my mother, lying sick and perhaps dying, sprang into my mind. I couldn't think about that and continue with the woman, so I started looking around for something to take my mind off what was troubling me. And that's when I saw Cassandra and noticed her mouth. That, effectively, is how the entire incident began.
"And now it has ended with her brutalization and death at the hands of persons unknown . . . again. Poor woman, it would seem she was fated to die by violence. And what do you think is the most ironic part of all of it?"
"I don't know, Uther, tell me."
Uther looked Garreth Whistler in the eye and smiled. "I was there again, Garreth. If what Daffyd the Druid suspects is true, then Cassandra—Deirdre, as they call her now—died on the first day of her visit to this secret place she shared with Merlyn, and I was there in Camulod the day she left. She had gone by the time I arrived, less than an hour before, as it transpired. But I was there in Camulod when Deirdre met her death. I wonder what my Cousin Merlyn will make of that?"
Garreth sat blinking at Uther for a long time, saying nothing, and then he looked down at his right hand, which still held the clean-picked bone of the fowl. He blinked his eyes, as though awakening from a dream, and then Hipped the bone into the river, wiping his hand on his tunic as he stood up.
"What should he make of it?" he asked. "There's nothing to be made. You weren't alone in Camulod, were you? The only person in the fortress?"
"No, of course not."
"Well, then, there will be people there who saw you and who can attest to your presence all that day and for how many more?"
"Three more."
"Aye, and what did you do during those three days?"
"Discussed strategy and tactics with the military staff."
"Good, so you could not have been doing that and riding off into the countryside to some unknown place to slaughter a young woman at the same time, could you? So now that we have settled that, may you and I return to Tir Manha and discuss strategy and tactics with our own military staff? We have a campaign to plan, and if I may remind you, you are supposed to be leaving to return to Camulod again within the week. By that time, all our arrangements must be firmly in place here, with Huw Strongarm, Dergyll, Owain and everyone else, including me, fully aware of who holds what duties and who is answerable to whom. Do we have time for that?"
Uther smiled. "Yes. We have time for that."
Garreth rewrapped the uneaten fowl and they remounted. He put his horse to the slope and Uther's followed, so that the conversation continued in a series of shouts.
"I am not the one you have to talk to, Uther . . . Merlyn, I think . . . needs to hear all that you have said to me today . . . most particularly . . . now that he has lost his wife." They gained the level surface again and were able to lower their voices and ride side by side.
"And you need to tell it to him, looking him in the eye as you do so. He'll need his friend back, and he will feel great guilt over what he suspected about you, I think, so it will be up to you to see that he forgives himself. Can you do that, think you?"
"Aye, I believe I can . . . What happens after that is entirely in the hands of the gods." He glanced up at the sky. "It's going to rain. Let's ride!"
Men make plans, but the gods decree the outcome, and Uther was never to enjoy the chance of commiserating with his cousin over the death of Deirdre. A month after his discussion with Garreth, Uther saw Merlyn again most unexpectedly. Uther had been working for days to bring about a confrontation with a large party of Lot's forces, harrying them constantly and eventually chasing them up into the Mendip Hills, where he had painstakingly set up an ambush for them. He never dreamed that Merlyn and his party returning home from Verulamium might ride into the middle of it and spring the trap. Spring it they did, however, and in the opening moments of the fighting that followed. Merlyn's party absorbed heavy casualties before Uther could come riding to their rescue. Thereafter, the cousins fought side by side in the grim conflict until, in the fury of the fighting, Uther saw Merlyn unhorsed and struck down by a killing blow from his own flail, swung by an enemy who had not known with whom he was engaged. The battle, little more than a skirmish, savage though it was, was won shortly after Merlyn's fall, and Uther then carried the unconscious, almost lifeless body of Merlyn Britannicus home to Camulod. There he lay for months, tied to his bed, his head immobilized while the surgeon Lucanus drilled a hole into his skull and saved his life. His life, but not his mind. From that day forward, Merlyn Britannicus won slowly back to life, but even when he had apparently recovered fully, in that he could talk and move and function normally in every way, his mind was destroyed, his memory erased as though no knowledge had ever existed in its depths.
BOOK FIVE
Cornwall
Greetings, dear Mother, I hope this finds you we
ll.
I know it has been less than a month since I last wrote to you, so I hope you will not be alarmed to receive this, another missive from me, in so short a time. I am very well, but I have tidings that might affect Uther, and since I have no way of knowing whether or not he remains in Camulod, I decided to send them through you.
You might remember my telling you several years ago of a woman called Mairidh who lived with us here in Tir Manha for some months. Her husband, Balin, was in the service of Duke Emrys of Cornwall at that time, although he and our dear Ullic were friendly for many years. Mairidh and I, too, became good friends, and she has written to me on several occasions since she and Balin were summoned home. I have recently received another letter from her, and the tenor of her message has prompted me to write this to you.
Mairidh and Balin have been living quietly in retirement since the death of Duke Emrys, but it seems that Gulrhys Lot recalled Balin more than a month ago and charged him with the kind of task he performed so well and for so long on behalf of the old Duke. Lot, benighted creature that he appears to be, initially attempted to coerce Balin to his will by proposing to keep Mairidh in his custody as a hostage against Balin's good behaviour in the performance of his task, which was to be a special envoy to Eire. He misjudged the temper of his man, however, for Balin, knowing how important his participation in this venture would be, defied Lot openly, citing his own advanced age and the necessity of having his dear wife accompany him to tend to his health and well-being. Lot relented, seeing that he had no other choice, and permitted Mairidh to accompany her husband.
Lot's foolishness has perhaps worked to our advantage, since it prompted Mairidh to sit down and write to me, telling me about Balin's new task and her disgust with the creature Lot and his inept attempt to control her husband. Briefly, Lot formed an alliance some time ago with the King of the Hibernian Scots in Eire. The result of that alliance was the Erse invasion of Camulod in which Merlyn captured and held hostage the Erse prince, Donuil. Since then, the Scots of Eire have made no hostile incursions into this land, and nothing further has come of the alliance.