Uther cc-7

by Jack Whyte

  The room was sparsely furnished, yet comfortably appointed to Lot's own needs. It contained one deep, stuffed and padded armchair made of softly tanned leather and another, less luxurious but still comfortable chair with a padded, upright back in the form of a classic Roman Stella for a guest. These two chairs faced the fireplace, one on either side. Three other plain, armless wooden chairs were spaced against the walls around the room, and there were two tables, the small one Lot was using now, which always held jugs of mead and wine, and another, longer work table, much larger than its companion, which was set against the rear wall of the room, accompanied by a plain, three-legged stool. That table was where the King spent most of his working day, for Gulrhys Lot took pride in telling everyone that he worked at being King. That was true, Lagan knew, and no exaggeration. But he also knew that Lot enjoyed the sense of power that accrued to him because of his literacy in a time and place where very few could read or write.

  Lot read well and wrote a clear, flowing script that always surprised Lagan in its neat and methodical firmness, for it was cleaner and more legible than Lagan's own. The two had learned together as children, their teacher an elderly, crippled Roman scribe who had undertaken to educate both Duke Emrys and his son in return for a roof over his head and the protection that entailed. Lot, stubborn and wilful even then, had refused to learn unless his friend could learn with him, and so Lagan Longhead had been set apart from all his fellows by being taught to read and write.

  Glancing at the work table now with all its paraphernalia —quill pens and styluses, ink pots, parchments and papyrus— Lagan noted a scattering of scrolls, several of them rolled but two unfurled and held open by heavy weights. Gulrhys Lot had quickly seen all the advantages of literacy, and nowadays he insisted that his primary advisers knew how to read and write also. Lagan often smiled at that thought, for he believed that there were several among those primary advisers who were as literate as tree stumps, but they were all clever enough to keep more learned men about them, and thus they were able to survive, serving the King and preserving their own privilege.

  As Lot was bringing Gaulish wine for both of them, a howl of boyish outrage drifted in through the window, and Lagan crossed to look out to where a cluster of six boys was grouped around a seventh, this one holding his arms tightly clasped around his head and keening at the top of his voice. One of the smaller boys hung back, clutching a heavy dowel of ash wood and looking apprehensive. Off to one side, an elderly, dour-looking warrior stood silently watching, scowling in disapproval. Lagan grunted, smothering a laugh.

  "Looks like young Twoey got in a good one on Owen. Is this what you were watching when I came in?" He took the drink the King was holding out to him.

  Lot nodded. "Aye. They improve daily, learning the disciplines of fighting intelligently, in spite of their dislike of each other."

  "Or perhaps because of it. They are a fractious crew, aren't they?"

  Lot did not respond other than to turn away, looking out into the small exercise yard. Lagan winced to himself, thinking that he might have offended the King. Gully was unpredictable when his sons were the subject of discussion. He could criticize them; others could not. This time, however, Lot took no offence.

  "Six of them," he grunted. "You would think at least two of them could get along."

  "Perhaps it's their mothers' fault," Lagan answered quietly, half turning to where the King stood gazing out and down.

  "Perhaps? That's a foolish observation. There's more jealousy among those six bitches than among all my chieftains combined. I ought to banish all of them."

  Lagan allowed himself a smile. This, too, was a common theme between them. "You chose them, Sir King," he drawled.

  "Chose them be damned. They chose themselves, through pregnancy. They are a herd of cows!"

  "The regal concubines . . ."

  Lot's head jerked around. "There is sometimes too much of the Roman in you, my friend. You are impertinent, with too much Latin."

  "I learned it by your side. Lord Lot, from your own teachers."

  "Aye, you did, better than me!" He grunted a laugh and swallowed a mouthful of wine, then looked out into the courtyard again.

  Lagan look a sip from his own drink. "You sent for me. What do you need?"

  Without looking at him, Lot turned and moved away from the window, crossing directly to the table, where he put down his cup and picked up a rolled scroll and a tubular dispatch case made of toughened hide. He slipped the scroll into the cylinder and then turned and offered it to Lagan.

  "I need you to go to Herliss today. Give him this and bring me back his answer as quickly as you can."

  Lagan pursed his lips and took the container from the King's hand, hefting the weight of it in his own. "Is my father expecting this? Will he be surprised?"

  "No, he is not expecting it. . . not immediately, at any rate. But no, he will not be surprised. Inconvenienced, perhaps, but he is my steward, and this relates to his duties."

  Lagan merely nodded. "And why so sudden, Gully? You made no mention of this when we spoke together yesterday."

  "There was no thought of it in my head yesterday."

  "Am I allowed to ask what it concerns?"

  "Aye, of course you are. Sit down, man, sit down. Since when have you needed to stand in my presence?"

  Lagan never had, but he knew better than to spoil the mood of the moment by saying so. Gully had little ways about him, and this was one of them: by reminding Lagan that he had no need to stand, he intimated that he had the power to make him stand.

  Lagan sank into the chair the King had indicated, and Lot hooked another forward with his foot, settling into it and leaning close.

  "There are two matters of great import that your father holds in his stewardship, and both of them are dealt with in this missive. I could not exaggerate their importance, Lagan, even were I so inclined. Suffice to say that only you could carry it for me. There is no one else I could or would trust with such a mission, and you will see why when I tell you that the first of them is treasure. Your father holds great stores in my name. Gold, jewels and weaponry, but chiefly weaponry. I need it now. I believe he has it scattered for safekeeping throughout his strongholds on the coast."

  Lagan nodded in agreement. His father had four coastal strongholds, each of them guarding a harbour for Lot's marauding pirate fleets. In return for safe anchorage, the pirates paid him tribute in Lot's name—one full half of the booty they brought back from every voyage. Herliss collected all of it and held in safekeeping for the King.

  "Lagan, I believe Uther Pendragon will be back here again with the spring weather, hammering at our gates. The winter has been mild, so spring is almost here." The King was being his most appealing self, his voice deep and low and filled with trusting confidentiality. Lagan waited, saying nothing.

  There came a thump at the door behind them, and one half of if swung open, held by the arm of a guard, to admit Lestrun, Lot's most senior adviser. The old man ducked under the extended arm as he shuffled in, then nodded to Lagan, offered the same gesture, perhaps somewhat more deeply, to his King, and proffered a pair of tightly rolled scrolls from beneath his right arm. Lot looked at them contemptuously, and for a moment Lagan thought he would savage the elderly Lestrun for interrupting them, but then he nodded curtly, jerking his head towards the long work table.

  "Put them over there with the others."

  Lestrun bowed his head but remained where he was, facing the King. "I will, as you say, Lord Lot," he said quietly, almost hissing in the sibilant, lilting tones that were so unmistakably from the northwest of Cambria. "But not before you promise me that you will read them as soon as you are alone. Both are highly important, and a decision must be made today on one of them, at least, if you are to achieve what you have told me must be done."

  As the other spoke, the King's face went white with sudden fury. "Curse you, man! Will you have me do your bidding like a threatened boy? Put them down and get out!"
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  The old man nodded calmly, unimpressed. "I will do so, but not before I have your word. It is your own designs, your own intent, that are at risk, here. Rail at me all you wish, but if I fail to have you do what must be done, you will have my head off in any case."

  Lot's nostrils flared, and Lagan wondered, as he had many times before, at the old councillor's utter lack of fear in defying a man who was so notoriously ill to cross. And then, to his astonishment, the King's color disappeared abruptly and he barked a laugh that might have been admiring.

  "By the gods, Lestrun, one of these days you will push me too far, and I will regret having killed you after it is done . . . Very well, I promise I will read the blasted things as soon as I am alone again, and I will make my decision immediately upon having done so. Now get out."

  The old man bowed, then nodded to Lagan, his face expressionless, before turning to withdraw, and again an unseen guard held the door ajar until he had gone. The sight of a disembodied arm clad in leather armour, stretched across the open doorway, suddenly incensed Lagan intolerably. When the door closed again, he looked at Lot.

  "Why do you have these people. Gully? It's hardly as if you need them."

  "Who, my advisers?" This was said with a half smile.

  "No, damnation, these guards. You don't need guards. To guard against what, your own folk? I had to pass by ten of them between the main entrance and your quarters. Six outside, two in the yard and two right here outside your chamber. Are you expecting to be attacked?"

  The King's small smile remained in place, but he did not answer immediately, and the thought occurred to Lagan, not for the first time, that the well-known half-smile concealed far more than it illumined.

  "Do you believe I'm expecting to be attacked here in my own house? No, Lagan, no." The smile was full-blown now, the voice that spoke the words mellifluous and confiding. "It is not the man who needs the guards. It is the rank, the title."

  Lagan blinked, his brow furrowing. "I don't follow you."

  "It's quite simple. I am a King, Lagan. Kings require guards, not to protect them—at least not all the time—but to define them."

  "Define them as what. Gully? And to whom? You are as clearly defined in my eyes today as you were when first we became friends two decades and more ago."

  "Aye, in your eyes, my friend. In your eyes, I have not changed, and in the name of all the gods at once I swear I have not. But in the eyes of others . . ." A rising intonation made the statement a rhetorical question. "I have changed my station. I am a King, today . . ." He turned suddenly and walked away to perch on the edge of the table that held the drink flagons, his left leg extended and his right knee bent and supported by a foot on the seat of the wooden chair by the table's side. "Sit down there, where I can see your face."

  Lagan moved silently and sat facing Lot, squinting slightly against the brightness of the late-winter sunlight that now fell across his face. Lot waited until he was settled, cup in hand, and then continued, leaning forward slightly to rest his elbow on his knee.

  "When my father became clan Chief, and as both his fame and his influence grew, he was able to travel beyond these shores, into Gaul at first, and then southward all the way into Iberia. On those journeys—for not all of them were warlike—he encountered Kings among the upstart Burgundians of southern and central Gaul, and even among the incoming Franks, whose holdings fie further afield. And he took note of how such men behaved: how they dressed: how they conducted their lives; and how they governed their peoples.

  "It was after he came home from one such voyage, victorious and rich with booty, that he took for himself the title dux, or duke, of Cornwall, and he set out thereafter to live in ducal style. The Romans, who set great store upon such things, were far from stupid. They knew that people see what they are shown. Show people a humble man in rags, and they will treat him as a nothing. Show them that same man dressed up in furs and leather, with warriors at his back, and tell them he is a duke, and they will bow to him and grovel for his favour, though they know not a duke from a cook . . .

  "As Duke Emrys, my father demanded and received far more respect and obedience than he had ever known formerly. The duke became much stronger and far more powerful than the man. The duke became a symbol . . . a symbol of his people, of his clan, of his possessions." Lot stopped and gazed down at his right hand, one finger of which wore the heavy ring he used to seal letters and documents. He wiggled his fingers, so that the heavy ring flickered in the light from the window. "This seal is such a symbol. Its boar's head is my mark, my identity. The presence of its imprint on the wax seal of a document is the visible proof to all men that I have approved and authorized the contents." He removed the ring and held up his hand, splaying his fingers. "Take it away from me, however, smash it with a hammer, and until I have another made to replace it, you have deprived me of the ability to express my authority to distant people. Surely you see that?"

  Lagan nodded slowly before taking another deliberate sip from his cup.

  "Good. Well, a King is another, similar symbol, and a King is greater, stronger, richer than a duke. Duke Emrys, my father, brought prosperity to Cornwall and it flourished under his leadership. Upon his death. I swore to increase my father's successes in every area, and I did so. I renegotiated with the mercenaries he had hired and extended their range of operations. I increased his wealth, and I increased his holdings. Overall, I increased his power my power. My task now is to preserve and defend that power, that prosperity and that leadership, for those who depend on it."

  Lot paused, watching his listener keenly.

  "Lagan, let me put it plainly and bluntly. Cornwall is now a kingdom, and I am at its head. In all my dealings with others beyond our lands, I must be seen to be a King and to have the strengths and resources of a King. So, when visitors come to our doors, they will be met by guards, whose solemn duty is the guarding of the King. There is no more to it than that." He broke off, frowning. "Now what's wrong?"

  Lagan was shaking his head, pursing his lips. "No visitors come here," he said flatly, and for a moment he thought Lot was going to fly into one of his rages. But then the King burst into laughter.

  "By the gods, Lagan, you vex me sometimes, but I'm grateful for your thick-headed common sense, nonetheless. You're right, of course. No one comes here to visit. . . not yet, at least. But they will, Lagan, they will, and soon. They will come in swelling numbers to beseech the favours and the mercy of Cornwall."

  "The siege engines."

  "Aye . . . the siege engines. It's time for Cornwall to grow."

  "Hmm. And what about Camulod? That could stunt your growth. Now that Merlyn Britannicus no longer commands in Camulod, Uther Pendragon seems to have the running of its armies, as well as his own. And Pendragon's a hard man, from all I hear of him, and a bad enemy. Harder than his cousin Merlyn ever was.

  He'll do everything in his power to make sure you won't grow much beyond Cornwall as long as he's alive."

  Lot's eyes filled with fury. "Then that whoreson will not live long! I have designs for him and his maggot breed. When your father brings the wagons from the south, you'll see some changes here. Our men will be better armed than the enemy, and they'll be trained to use those weapons."

  Lagan had heard enough, and he had no wish to revisit this debate on weaponry. In his eyes, from all that he had gathered and from the small amount of fighting he had experienced directly in this war, the disciplined cavalry forces marshalled by Camulod were outstripped only by the long, deadly bows and arm-long arrows of Uther Pen- dragon's Cambrian warriors. Those longbows. Lagan was convinced, were the most dangerous weapons in existence, and Cornwall possessed no effective counter to their deadly threat. He moved back to the window only to find that the boys were gone, set free by their tutor, who was alone in the yard now, piling their mock weapons neatly beneath the lean-to where they were stored. He spoke again, hoping to steer Lot away from the discussion of weaponry.

  "You said there w
ere two topics in this message. What's the other one?"

  "My wife, Ygraine."

  Lagan half turned towards the King, looking at him over his shoulder. "What of her? I saw her when I was at my father's place last time, and I thought she was looking well. I told you that, did I not?"

  "Did you, by the gods? I don't recall it. And did she send her love to me?"

  " I had no opportunity to speak to her. I saw her from afar." He turned completely now, his back to the outer courtyard, and noticed the expression on the King's face for the first time. "What's wrong, Gully?"

  Lot sniffed angrily and threw a lock of hair back from his forehead with a toss of his head. "Nothing is wrong, but my wife—my Queen—needs to come back here. I need her to come back here, where I can keep an eye on her."

  Lagan was puzzled. "How so, keep an eye on her? What has she been doing?"

  "Nothing . . ." Lot's hesitation was short-lived. "It's not her I need to watch, it's her family." Lot almost smiled. "We were speaking of symbols a moment ago. Well, Ygraine is another symbol, the symbol of the alliance between me and her family in Eire."

  Lagan nodded, frowning slightly. "As I recall, it wasn't much of a success, that alliance, was it?"

  "No, it was not, but I need to keep it alive, now more than ever. You may recall that Ygraine's father, King Athol Mac Iain he calls himself, sent an army against Camulod when first I marched north against them. It was a fiasco. They fell foul of that swine Merlyn, who caught them on the march and butchered them, then sent them home with their tails between their legs. And since then, they have refused to renew hostilities against Camulod, claiming some prince of theirs is held as hostage to their blood oath."

  "So why do you think it's worth keeping your alliance alive?"

  Lot looked at Lagan and then let his gaze slide beyond him towards the window at Lagan's back.

  "Because Athol Mac Iain controls two large fleets of galleys. Transportation that I am going to need one of these days."