Uther cc-7

by Jack Whyte

  Herliss picked up his tankard again and emptied it. "Tell me, what are your plans for Cornwall?"

  Uther gazed at him blank-faced for a long count and then shook his head. "For Cornwall? I have no plans for Cornwall, other than to kill this creature who kings it and then get back to my own home as quickly as I can. I have hundreds of plans for Cambria, for my own home, all of them urgent, but I can tend to none of them since every time I turn around this rabid animal who calls himself your King is sneaking and snarling at my back. I want him dead. Dead and dismembered. I want his loathsome hide nailed to a wall for everyone to see and spit upon. I want him gone from this world, never to harm another living soul, his maggot-eaten skull impaled before my tent, a grinning warning to all men who would be like him. What I want, in the end, is the opportunity to live my life among my own, in peace and comfort. I want a wife of my own, and sons to bear my name, and I want them to live contentedly in Tir Manha in Cambria."

  Herliss had sat gazing at Uther throughout this declaration, his eyebrows rising slightly as the outpouring increased in fervour and in vehemence, and when it was done, he sat with pouting lips for a count of live heartbeats. Then he nodded.

  "Fine. We both want the same thing: Lot dead and you gone back to Cambria or Camulod or wherever you want to be, so that Cornwall can recover from the chaos and the damage he has caused. Lot is a rabid animal and must be treated as one, struck down swiftly, immediately and lethally. To do that, though, we'll have to be close to him and in a position of trust. Closeness we can achieve, but that last is near impossible. He trusts no one. This nonsense with Lagan and my grandson proves the truth of that."

  "But if you win free from here and take the Queen back with you in a spectacular escape, then he will have to welcome you for the sake of appearances. Is that not so?"

  "Aye, it is . . . at least it would be so, were he a normal man. But I believe he's crazed, and growing more so all the time. So what will actually happen once we do win back is in the hands of the gods. But if we succeed without disaster blasting us, what then? Will the Queen start sending you intelligence of what Lot intends to do? Will you need me to do that, too?"

  "Aye, but only as and when you learn, or the Queen learns, of developments in Lot's planning. And we must take great care as to how we go about such things. If we are to rid ourselves of this monster, then we need to work closely together and yet take as few risks as possible, for you and your people will be unable to trust or depend upon any of Lot's mercenaries."

  "Agreed. So how will we go about this?"

  "You will start by bribing my people, immediately and lavishly, so that they will arrange for you to visit the Queen's bodyguard. Once there, you will tell Alasdair, their captain, that the Queen has provided you with treasures from her and her women in order that you might suborn our troopers and arrange a mass escape. It will be obvious that you have made a successful start on your planning. I'll provide the people to be bribed, and they will be my best and most trusted. They will go along with everything, and your own troops will be none the wiser. You'll achieve your escape and return to Lot, avoiding any encounter with your own son on the way, and once you are safely reinstalled in your own home and your own responsibilities, I will find a way of coming to you and we can work out ways and means of remaining in touch with each other."

  "Good. I'll wager that Lagan will be our main liaison."

  Uther smiled and nodded. "I hope you are right. I would enjoy meeting him. And we have a mutual friend in Cambria, the Lady Mairidh."

  "Lydda's sister. Aye. She is married to my brother, Balin."

  Uther called for two more tankards of beer before turning to smile at the grizzled Cornish veteran. "We have agreed on mighty things here, you and I. Our world will not remain the same, I think, in the aftermath of what has occurred today."

  Their beer came quickly, and as they tipped an offering onto the ground to appease and thank the gods, Herliss nodded, his eyes on the foam atop his tankard.

  "Aye . . . Uther, Ygraine and Herliss. A strange mix, I think. I wonder, will anyone take note of it in times to come?"

  Chapter TWENTY-NINE

  Until the moment he found himself kissing her, Uther had had no conscious intention of bedding Ygraine of Cornwall. She was a hostage for one thing, and his honour as her captor and her value as a commodity both dictated that he treat her with care, consideration and courtesy, returning her undamaged at the end of her captivity. That her husband had refused to trade for her was a setback, but Uther had almost expected Lot's indifference and had been thinking, from the moment of the woman's capture, that he could surely trade her with advantage back to her father, Athol Mac lain, King of the Hibernian Scots in Eire. For that reason alone, therefore, Uther would have regarded any contemplation of Ygraine in a sexual light as a foolish, irresponsible and reprehensible waste of time. Besides, he was fresh from the bed of the magnificent Morgas, who, if she lacked many of the attributes of the ideal wife, lacked none of the requirements of the ideal mistress.

  There was one other factor, however, over and above all others that would have prevented him from ever making advances to Ygraine of Cornwall, and that was his own sense of culpability over what had happened to her unfortunate sister Deirdre. Even now, years removed from the tragic events that had estranged him from his cousin Merlyn, the memory of what took place that night in the games room at Camulod still had the power to make Uther writhe and cringe within his own mind.

  Uther Pendragon had little experience of guilt in his life; it was an alien emotion to him and one that he was ill-equipped to handle.

  He could be awe-inspiring in his rages and utterly implacable in his anger, but he seldom had cause to regret or to reconsider the consequences of his actions at such times. He had not fought in anger since the incident with Nemo's three assailants. Instead, he had learned to give his rage full rein, vociferously, concealing his displeasure from no one, but once his initial anger had spent itself, he would then act calmly, dealing out redress dispassionately for the wrongs he had suffered. He had no truck with guilt, and no need to bear it.

  Shame, however, was an entirely different matter, and sufficiently close to guilt to be indistinguishable from it in Uther's mind. His sense of shame was highly developed, despite the fact that he had never consciously recognized its overriding presence in his life, and it was shame and not guilt that made him squirm and brought him his worst mental anguish. He would struggle awake at night sometimes, drenched in sweat and writhing with half-remembered sensations of the aftermath of follies he had committed as a boy, in his hare-brained, determined and unnecessary attempts to perform wonderful deeds that would earn his Grandfather Ullic's approval. His grandfather and his father had been men of great probity, and he could well remember their stern disapproval of people who brought shame of any kind close to them or theirs. What had happened that night in the games room—his precipitation of the ensuing events—appalled Uther and was his darkest, most shameful secret.

  He had ridden away from Camulod that night in the blackest of foul moods, spurring his horse savagely and plunging the few men he had conscripted into reckless, careering danger, leading them blindly through a stormy night that was as black as his own despair, a swirling, wind-churned chaos of cold, rainy squalls. And as he rode, rowelling his unfortunate horse and driving it far more savagely than his needs dictated, he raved and cursed silently in his head, damning and condemning the girl for daring to bite him, for scorning him, for rejecting him. As his first unsustainable rage ebbed away, he realized, from the pain in his chilled, clenched hand, that he was brandishing his sword for no reason, behaving like a madman, and the shame began to well up in him.

  The child had done no wrong. She had merely defended herself in the only way open to her. She was a frightened, threatened little animal—mute, deaf and defenceless. He, in willful arrogance, had thrust his penis into her unwilling mouth, and when she had bitten him deservedly, he had been swept up by an ins
ensate fury and attempted to thrash her. Only Merlyn had stopped him. Uther shuddered with revulsion at his own behaviour and flushed with burning shame, despite the chilling, wind-swept rain.

  Thereafter, he rode his mount more gently and thought more penetratingly than he had thought in many a year, stripping himself of false protestations and facing the unpalatable truth. His mother lay sick, perhaps dying, and he had been avoiding his obligation to return home to her, vainly seeking to convince himself that his true duty lay in Camulod. To that end, he had sought diversion in the games room that night with willing women . . . willing but ineffectual in distracting his mind from the knowledge that he was behaving abominably, betraying himself with his fear of returning to bleak, inhospitable Cambria and Tir Manha, the home he resented and the people he despised for their dour, bleak lack of tolerance and compassion. Recognizing the truth now that he had faced it, he was horrified by the knowledge that his own vain, indefensible dislikes should have deprived his mother of his presence in a time of need, and he wondered, not for the first time, at the deep-buried, bitter harshness in him that had the power to make him behave as he sometimes did, against all the urgings and concerns of his better nature.

  It was a long, miserable journey to Tir Manha, and he would never forget the aching relief he felt on arriving to discover that his mother had recovered from her sickness. His shame, however, did not abate. On the contrary, many weeks later, when he discovered the whole truth of what had happened in Camulod after he left, it grew enormously, for he knew beyond dispute that had he, in his rage, not driven the terrified girl out into the night, she would never have met the man, or men, who had savaged her, leaving her for dead, battered and bleeding, ravished and sodomized, so that she survived only by some miracle. So great was his self-loathing then that he was incapable of defending himself in the face of Merlyn's suspicions that he had been responsible. In Uther's own mind, he had been responsible for the girl's flight. But it pained him and saddened him more than he would have thought possible that Merlyn could suspect him of such foul baseness as had been perpetrated under the cover of darkness upon the poor little waif. That pain would remain with him for the rest of his life, and because of it, he would never have imposed himself knowingly upon another member of Cassandra's family. Whatever lusts he had, however intense, he would direct them elsewhere.

  Ygraine, on the other hand, had no such scruples. But neither had she any sexual appetites—or so she believed. She would have ridiculed the notion that she might ever indulge in sexual pleasure with anyone, let alone her Cambrian captor. Ygraine of Cornwall had known no man in almost three years and believed that she had purged herself forever of the need to know another. Her few physical encounters with her own husband had been terrifying and depraved, and they had appalled and disgusted her, frightening her and scarring her deeply. She had come to believe, deep within her being, that no man could possibly be attracted to her after the defilements her husband had heaped upon her, and at the same lime she had convinced herself that all men were as he was, and that no man would ever again have occasion or opportunity to defile her as he had.

  The two of them were destined to rut, nevertheless, and months later they would agree that the die was cast for both of them at some point on that first afternoon when they had admitted Herliss to their newly hatched plan to save his life. The huddled, conspiratorial intimacy brought them close enough to each other mentally and physically to ignite their awareness of each other, and it was like the explosive combustion that engulfs and consumes a moth that has fluttered too close to a candle flame—a completely unexpected turn of events that took both of them unawares and swept them irresistibly up and out of themselves as it hurled them into each other's arms with the inevitability of death.

  Uther was vibrant with excitement over their plan, and at one point he reached out spontaneously and squeezed her forearm, easing the pressure of his grip almost immediately but making no attempt to remove his hand as he spoke earnestly to her, gazing directly into her eyes. That was when she first felt the awareness— the lusty thing, as she thought of it afterwards—stirring in her belly.

  "This is going to work. Herliss has agreed to take part. Now we have to plan, all of us . . . and carefully. The worst thing that could happen here is for anyone but we three to find out what's afoot."

  Ygraine sat staring at him as he went on to outline their next moves, but she barely absorbed half of what he said, for she had been thunderstruck, instantly dizzied, her whole being plunged into turmoil by the sudden, physical awareness of his hand upon her arm. All the reactions that she would have thought of as normal had been instantly routed by the incredible, undreamed-of sensations that the touch of his hand, even through the fabric of her sleeve, sent rushing and flushing through her entire body. Her skin rose up in tingling gooseflesh, her nipples hardened, her throat constricted, threatening her ability to breathe, and her head filled up with a roaring, rushing sound that made her feel nauseated.

  She was appalled by her own body's tumultuous reactions, and she was excruciatingly aware of the hot flush that had suffused her face and neck. Had they seen? Was it possible they had not noticed? But Uther and Herliss were intent on their discussions, and as time passed, her pulse rate slowed down, her breathing gradually settled to an approximation of normal, and she felt the hectic colour subside slowly from her face and neck until she eventually reached the stage at which she knew they might look at her and see nothing beyond the normal.

  Inside herself, however, Ygraine felt far from normal. Never before in her life had she been so unexpectedly overcome with lust, and the experience had shaken her, rattling her confidence and making her doubt her own perceptions. Since her escape to Herliss's White Fort, Ygraine had been celibate. But now she was convinced by the furious tide of sensations that had assailed her that she had but little true knowledge of her own body and its dictates. She heaved a deep breath, lighting to keep it silent, and then, struggling to appear natural and casual, she allowed herself to look again at her two companions.

  They were deeply involved in the logistics of the escape, attempting to reconcile their needs and requirements with the realities facing them. They had to arrange the disappearance, silent and unnoticed, of approximately fifty people, almost all of whom would be afoot. Only Herliss, the Queen and Dyllis would ride horses in their flight. The others, mainly Ygraine's bodyguard, would march out as they always did. Ironically, however, all the normal difficulties of escape would be reversed in this instance. None of the obvious problems of organizing a large-scale breakout would cause the slightest difficulty here, since this was an engineered escape. The real difficulty, verging upon an impossibility, lay in the need to keep its true nature secret from the very people who would be escaping.

  "We can't afford to overlook Popilius Cirro in all of this," Uther was saying to Herliss when Ygraine began to listen again.

  "Who? You mean the fellow who came in this morning with your army?"

  "Aye. Popilius is a good man—none better—but he's not really one of mine, and he is of the old ways, the old Roman ways."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Popilius is the senior soldier of Camulod, the highest-ranking soldier—as opposed to a trained staff officer—in all their army. In the Roman legions he would have been called the primus pilus, the First Spear, and to tell the truth, that's what they call him in Camulod to this day. I le actually served in the legions as a boy, in Asia Minor with my uncle Picus Britannicus, when Picus was senior cavalry legate to Stilicho—" He broke off, seeing the expression on Herliss's face. "You've heard of Stilicho, haven't you?"

  "Aye, I think so, a long time ago. Wasn't he the Emperor'.'"

  "Almost. He was imperial regent for the Emperor Honorius."

  "Blabbety-blah-blah . . . what does that mean?"

  "Imperial regent? It means a temporary ruler, governing in the name of an emperor too young to govern by or for himself. Stilicho did that after the death of Theo
dosius while the old man's son, Honorius, was still a little boy. Much good it did him, though. As soon as Honorius was old enough to stand on his own, he wiped out all his former friends and supporters—had Stilicho murdered with the rest of them. He would have killed Uncle Picus, too, as part of the same sweep, but Picus managed to escape and made his way back here to Britain. Merlyn and I were seven years old when he got back. He brought a small group of friends with him, and Popilius Cirro was the youngest of them, hardly more than a boy. But boy or not, he had saved Picus's life and stood by him throughout their flight, and so Picus trained him personally after that once he himself had taken over as Commander in Chief of Camulod. Now Popilius is answerable only to the Legate Commander of Camulod. And Popilius is so trustworthy that it makes him a danger to us . . ."

  "How so?" It was the first time Ygraine had spoken and she was surprised that her voice betrayed no hint of a tremor.

  Uther turned to her. "Because of you. lady. He has no idea who you really are, and I think we would be foolish to tell him."

  "Why is that?"

  "Well, to begin with, he might, and probably would, refuse to set you free, no matter how I tried to convince him otherwise. Consider this from his viewpoint. I am his ally in this war, but my priorities and his—Cambrian and Camulodian—might not be the same. You are a prize beyond value, the spouse of the enemy's Commander in Chief. Popilius would see it as culpable folly to release you, and he would judge me insane and perhaps even treacherous to be considering this plan of ours. But even if he were to go along with our designs and do all that we asked of him, he would still be duty bound to make report on his return to Camulod on what I had done. And once that report was lodged, our secret would be out. That kind of knowledge cannot be contained once it has been released, and Lot has spies and informers everywhere, even in Camulod, for we can't keep our gates closed against the world, and the place is always full of strangers coming and going. Mark my words, Lot would hear of it within days, one way or another, so I say we should tell Popilius nothing. We have already sent one Queen to Camulod. Let him believe she is the real one.