Uther cc-7

by Jack Whyte

  It seemed that he was, for as Uther approached the group in front of the gates, the golden-haired giant sprang out ahead of all the others and bounded to take hold of Uther's bridle.

  "Tiddler," he shouted. "Late again, as usual, never where you are supposed to be at any time! We have been waiting for you now these three days past. Welcome home."

  Ignoring all the others in his delight, Uther kicked free of his stirrups and swung his right leg up over his horse's head, dropping to the ground and throwing his arms around his cousin, hugging him close. Wordlessly then, he shifted his weight suddenly, grasped Merlyn by the shoulders, hooked his right leg behind the other's knee and twisted, [t was an incomplete movement, halted almost in the execution, but it was a trick from their boyhood, practised a thousand times and calling for a particular and specific response. Merlyn reacted immediately, countering in exactly the right way, intuitively and with consummate ease, and Uther's heart soared.

  "Hah!" he roared. "How long since you've done that?" He leaned backwards and peered into Merlyn's eyes, gripping him by the upper arms. "I was speaking of that very move to Dergyll ap Griffyd only weeks ago." He thought he saw a flicker of uncertainty in the eyes that looked back at him, and he hurried on. "You remember Dergyll ap Griffyd. You threw him on his arse with that same move the first time we ever met him, when we were boys and my father took us up to Carmarthen for the first time. He remembered it well, for he spent months practising it himself thereafter. He asked to be remembered to you."

  But even as he spoke, Uther felt his spirits sinking. It was plain that Merlyn held no memories of Dergyll or of the incident he was describing. The clear, golden eyes had gone blank and then filled up with something resembling panic that quickly faded to regret. Uther tried hard to give no indication of his overwhelming disappointment, but he lost the flow of words that had sprung so readily to his tongue. He stood there for a moment longer, gazing at his cousin and struggling against the grief that had suddenly swollen up in his throat. Nothing had changed, he finally admitted to himself. Merlyn was glad to see him and knew who he was. but only because he had learned. Although everything about the outside of the man proclaimed him to be Caius Merlyn Britannicus, the truth was, still, that he was not.

  This was the Merlyn who had never known his own wife, Deirdre, or the expectant joys of impending fatherhood. That thought, springing from nowhere, almost confounded Uther, reminding him of the child that would soon be born to him and calling up pain-filled shame over the role he had played, however unwittingly, in the tribulations Merlyn had endured.

  He fought down the sudden urge to weep, blinking his eyes rapidly and swallowing hard, and then forced himself to smile again before he reached up to tap the centre of his cousin's forehead with the knuckle of his index finger.

  "It's good to see you again, Cay. Good to know that head of yours is as hard as it ever was." He drew a deep breath, then released his cousin and turned back to where the others who had come to meet him stood watching. "Gentlemen, well met again."

  The Erse giant Donuil stood smiling there, close by Merlyn as always, and beside him the saturnine physician Lucanus, who dipped his head in silent greeting. Many of the other faces on the outskirts of the group were known to Uther, too, even if the names attached to them eluded him for the moment. The veteran legates, Titus and Flavius, stood in front, still wearing their old and proud imperial armour, and behind them towered the huge bulk of Popilius Cirro, the epitome, as always, of the dignified senior centurion. Before moving to meet them, Uther turned to where Nemo stood at attention, holding the reins of Uther's horse in one hand and her own in the other, and nodded a signal to dismiss the squadron. Only then did he move forward to embrace the two old legates and greet Popilius, who nodded courteously and bade him welcome, not quite smiling but plainly glad to see him.

  As they moved into the fort, however, a thought occurred to Uther, and he turned again to Merlyn, who was close by his side.

  "You called me Tiddler. I had forgotten that name. Haven't heard it in twenty years. How did you remember it?"

  Merlyn smiled and shook his head. "Aunt Luceiia told me about it. She remembers everything about our boyhood."

  Again Uther felt disappointment well up in him, and he turned to Titus and Flavius to mask it. "Where is my grandmother?" His tone reflected his sudden concern as he remembered now that he had expected Luceiia to come hurrying to greet him, not having seen him since the year before, and he became aware again of the bulk inside his tunic that was a heavy letter to her, written by his mother Veronica. "Is she not well?"

  The Legate Titus answered him: "The Lady Luceiia is very well and will be disappointed to have missed your arrival."

  Flavius completed the answer, making Uther smile as he realized again that these two men had been together for so long that they thought almost as one person. "She is down in the Villa with some of the women of her Council, but please don't ask us what she is doing. We seldom know, and we never inquire. Come inside and tell us about your journey. We have much to discuss, and perhaps we can deal with some of it—"

  "Before your grandmother returns," Titus finished. "We have some excellent red wine, brought in from Gaul by a visiting bishop. Come you."

  Once Uther had exchanged greetings with everyone and stowed his travelling gear in his allocated quarters, Titus, Flavius, Popilius and an assortment of dignitaries, including the governing committee of the Council of Camulod and several senior garrison staff, including his Cousin Merlyn, spent the next two hours bringing Uther up to date concerning the hurried arrangements they had made to forestall Lot's upcoming advance against the Colony.

  All ten of the border guard posts protecting the outer limits of the Colony's lands had been refurbished and refortified, the resident garrisons of six of them increased to double standard. The remaining four, those guarding the southern and eastern approaches to Camulod, had been greatly enlarged to more than double their original size and garrisoned accordingly. It was one of those that Uther had passed by on his way in. A widening of the roadway down from the fortress gates to the plain beneath had already been in process when Popilius returned, in order to improve access and egress in time of need, and the reinstallation of the temporary fort on the drilling plain had been quickly achieved by setting upwards of more than a thousand people, including old men, women and boys, to the task of building it. It was a temporary erection, Cirro said, dirt and logs, ditch and ramparts, but it would endure as long as the need for it might last. In addition to that, artillery platforms had been built on Camulod's hillsides, overlooking the open spaces surrounding the fort below, and artillery machines—huge torsion-wound devices that could hurl rocks and missiles made from heavy tree trunks— had been built and set up on the platforms.

  As the litany of preparations continued, Uther began to feel better and better about Camulod's prospects for surviving the attacks that were to come. It was the veteran Titus, however, who put into words what all of them were thinking: that all of these preparations were for a defensive war, with no contingency for going out to carry a cavalry battle, Camulod's single strongest advantage, to the enemy. Camulod, through its entire brief history, had never been involved in a defensive war. All things considered, however, it was clear to Uther that the situation was better than he had anticipated. The Colony could tight defensively, and effectively, for as long as it might have to. All the Colonists would be withdrawn into the safety of the walled fortress itself, and the place had its own water and was well enough supplied with other stores to endure a siege of six months or longer, should that much be necessary.

  The informal meeting broke down into a general discussion of many things, and Uther soon excused himself, pleading road weariness and the need to find hot water in which to bathe. Titus and Flavius both accompanied him to the furnace-fired bathhouse against the rear wall of the fort and remained with him as he undressed himself and sank into the luxury of the hot pool. They left him then to complete his
ablutions and dress to go and meet his grandmother.

  Luceiia Britannicus Varrus was a constant source of amazement to her grandson. Luceiia had to be more than sixty years old, he knew, and that was an incredible age to him. He knew only one woman of comparable age in all of Cambria, and she was a wrinkled crone, twisted and warped with age and viewed with terror and superstitious awe by everyone, because she was widely believed to be a familiar of the dark gods who ruled the Cambrian night. How else could anyone explain such longevity in a land where the few women who lived to reach their fortieth year were old and withered?

  Luceiia Varrus, however, bore her advanced age with dignity and retained the unmistakable characteristics of the magnificent beauty that she had been in her youth. Her back was long and straight, unbowed by time or tribulation, and her long hair fell in a heavy, silver mane, shot through with shimmering remnants of raven black. Her mouth, far from being sunken and toothless, was still full and generous. Granted, her lips were far less full than they once had been, and her teeth were more yellowish now than white, but she still had all of them, and her smile was a thing of beauty, filled with love and humour.

  Greeting her again and hugging her gently to his chest, Uther wondered, as he always did, about the spirit that sustained her and kept her youthful. How could it be that she remained so vital, where others of her age were long dead and gone? But then another thought occurred to him fleetingly. Though there was no one like Luceiia in Cambria, there were other elderly women in Camulod, more than a mere few of them, and all of them were healthy, clean and well groomed despite their age. These were the women of her Council, primarily, the matriarchs of the founding families. They lived gentle lives, well cared for by their children and descendants, and they knew none of the hardships that ruled the lives of Cambria's women from day to day and year to year.

  Luceiia's exuberant greeting pushed all other thoughts from his head. She was in fine fettle, as usual, and delighted to see her grandson. When she had finished fussing over his appearance, she took him by the hand and welcomed him into her home, insisting that he spend the night there. But he asked her indulgence and insisted in his turn upon remaining in the visitor's quarters assigned to him, since he might be awakened at any hour of the night now that the word was out that he was here, and only briefly. Luceiia accepted his demurral with no more than a tiny sniff of disappointment, and then demanded all his tidings, including his first impressions of Camulod on this visit.

  He began by handing her the letter from her beloved daughter, but she made no move to open it and read it while he was there, preferring, he knew, to savour and anticipate the pleasure she would gel from reading it when she could be alone to appreciate it. This time was for her grandson, and she listened closely as he told her all his tidings, smiling and frowning alternately. And when he had finished, she amazed him yet again.

  "Tell me about those women you captured, the ones you sent here. The tall, beautiful one with the yellow hair like Cay's was striking, to say the least. . . She called herself Lot's wife, Ygraine, and for a while all the men here thought they had landed a prize of great value."

  Uther smiled. "You knew, of course, that she was not."

  "Well, not quite, not at first. I know the real Ygraine is sister to Donuil and to poor Deirdre, and I felt from the beginning that there was something far from right. I barely spoke to the woman at all, and I betrayed nothing. Call it a woman's intuition if you will. But I merely decided to wait for Donuil and wait upon his word . . .

  "I knew he would be back the following day, for he had gone out hunting with Caius the day before, and so I watched for him and took him aside the moment he got back, before he had a chance to confront his 'sister.' Of course, one look was all that was required."

  Uther was grinning widely now. "So what did you do then? Did you confront her?"

  "No, Donuil and I decided to say nothing. We did not know what was happening, what was involved, but I decided it might be unwise to let her know we knew she was not who she said she was. I had mixed feelings about keeping her imposture a secret, but I decided to wait and see what would transpire. And then your messenger arrived a few days later with your written dispatch informing Titus and Flavius that she was not the Queen, but that they should say nothing about knowing the truth and simply release her and her women, under escort, back to the boundaries of Cornwall. So I have a question for you, grandson: how did you know she was not who she said she was? To the best of my knowledge, you knew nothing about the woman, and you barely knew her sister Deirdre or her brother Donuil."

  Uther shook his head in admiration. "You are a clever old woman, Grandmother Luceiia."

  "No, I am simply a woman. I have a mind that is not haltered by being masculine. So tell me, how did you find out who she was, or who she was not?"

  "I knew, because the woman she pretended to be was there with her, pretending to be one of the Queen's attendants." And he proceeded to tell her the tale, starting from the beginning and omitting nothing except the intimate details of what had taken place between himself and Ygraine.

  Luceiia sat silent throughout, eyeing him shrewdly, and when he had finished she pursed her lips and reached across in front of her to pick up a small silver bell from a low table. When a woman appeared in answer to her summons, she asked for wine for herself and her grandson and then sat silent again, staring into the brazier in the fireplace.

  "I find that as I grow older, the cold becomes more sharp," she said, and then she lapsed into silence again, her mouth moving occasionally as she appeared to chew upon everything he had said. The serving woman returned with a tray bearing twin silver goblets and a beautiful silver ewer, misted with cold and beaded with drops of moisture. Uther thanked her with a nod and she placed the tray on the table and withdrew. Quietly, being careful not to distract his grandmother from her thoughts, he rose and filled the two cups with pale yellow wine, then placed one close by her elbow. Finally she looked up at him and nodded.

  "So she is your source, Ygraine, and this Duke, Herliss. And the other woman, the blond one . . . Morgas . . . what of her? Does she know the truth?"

  "Gods, no! Nor is she any longer in Cornwall. She returned to her home in the northlands to marry some local King there. I have not seen her since she left our camp to come here to Camulod."

  "Good, that pleases me. She spoke of you, and I could tell she knew you, partially at least, but there was something about her that I could not warm to."

  Uther felt momentarily uncomfortable, wondering how much the old lady knew or guessed, but he could see little profit to be gained in pursuing that, and so he let it pass.

  Uther explained the thoughts he had entertained about how best to serve his mother in the coming fight, and how he had decided she would be safest at home in Tir Manha, where he hoped Luceiia would join her to wait out the spring campaign in safety. Luceiia, however, would have none of that. She herself was far too old and set in her ways now to leave her home in Camulod to seek some fleeting safety in another land. She would remain where she had lived for so many years, close to her memories and the graves of her husband and her brother.

  On the matter of Merlyn, Luceiia had little to offer Uther in the way of hope for the future. Merlyn was physically well, she told him, alert and happy and in full possession of most of his faculties, apart from memory. But he had lost his aggressiveness and his love for fighting. Gone was his once brilliant and instinctive grasp of campaigning, strategy and tactical matters. He could still fight, she had been told, but it was as though he fought only for the pleasure of the exercise. Young Donuil was convinced that Merlyn had completely lost the propensity to kill, and in any real fight involving lethal weapons and ill feelings, Merlyn would be killed simply due to his own unwillingness to inflict harm on an opponent.

  Luceiia laid her hand over Uther's. She had always loved Merlyn, she told him, but since his injury she had grown to love the new Merlyn Britannicus, with his gentleness and loving nature,
even more than she would have believed possible. She would dearly love to have her great-nephew back, she said, but even were that to happen and Merlyn was suddenly restored to them as he had always been, she feared she might regret the loss of that new gentleness.

  They were interrupted at that point by Luceiia's women bringing them an evening meal, and for hours after that they sat talking by the glowing brazier, discussing bygone days and precious memories of Caius Britannicus, his son Picus and Publius Varrus. Uther went to bed that night feeling a contentment he had not known in ages, and he slept well and soundly.

  The following day Uther was up and into the kitchens before the cocks began to crow, and by sunrise, his belly pleasantly full and his heart at peace, he was meeting with Titus, Flavius, Donuil and Merlyn, and Popilius Cirro, arranging the final details of their plans as firmly as was possible, given the nature of the tasks ahead of them. He was finished by mid-morning and summoned Nemo to him, ordering his Dragons to be ready to leave by noon, and after that he took the time to say his farewells properly to everyone, including his grandmother.

  He noticed something was amiss among his troops as he went to mount up in the main courtyard at noon, and he drew Nemo aside, out of their hearing.

  "What's going on here? The men look angry."

  Nemo blinked at him with her normal, vacuous look. "Some of them don't want to leave yet."

  "Well, that's a pity, but I have to be back in Tir Manha quickly. There might be word from Cornwall." He began to move away, but then he hesitated and turned back. "And what's wrong with you?"