‘I would like to see the king,’ Benesek told Merlin and gestured to the door overhung with golden thatch through which Lord Arthur and his men had gone.
‘And yet my Lord Uther has no mind to see you, Benesek,’ Merlin said. Then he grinned at me. ‘I never heard the High King say, “Fetch Benesek from the Mount, Merlin. I cannot die until I have spoken with him.”’
‘I would pay my respects, druid,’ Benesek growled. ‘The Lady’s too.’
‘You think my lord Uther cares about any of that now?’ Merlin asked him. He looked just the same as I remembered him, as if he had not aged a day. ‘You folk of the Mount have high opinions of yourselves for people who turned their backs on the affairs of Britain years ago.’
‘We play our part in the affairs of Britain,’ Benesek said, pouring scorn on the last three words. ‘And we would know who the High King names as his heir.’
‘Whoever will be king, let us hope that he can swing a sword, hey Lancelot?’ the druid said, narrowing his eyes at me. ‘For the gods are turning their backs on us and we are beset by enemies. The way things are going, sword-swinging and spear-thrusting will be the only course of action left to us, so let’s hope the next king is even better at it than Uther was.’ He pulled his pointed beard through a fist. ‘Not that blades and brawn will be enough. Not in the end.’
‘Merlin,’ Benesek growled, his patience ebbing now.
Merlin raised a hand towards the warrior. ‘Lancelot will accompany me into the king’s hall,’ he said, turning to Benesek. ‘You and this young ox—’ He stopped and regarded Bors for a moment. ‘What’s your name, young man?’ he asked.
‘Bors, lord,’ my cousin said.
‘Well, Bors, close your mouth before the flies get in,’ Merlin said, for Bors was staring at the druid as one would gape at a long-dead ancestor found eating the pottage left out for the ghosts on Samhain eve. Merlin turned back to Benesek. ‘Whatever message you have from Lady Nimue for Uther, tell it to Lancelot.’
Benesek’s long moustaches were quivering, such was his anger now. But Merlin was Uther’s adviser and so long as the High King himself was unable to make decisions about who should and who should not be given a royal audience, Merlin’s word was the power in Tintagel, perhaps in all Dumnonia.
‘I am the Lady’s emissary, not Lancelot,’ Benesek said.
I knew I should echo Benesek’s words and beseech Merlin that Benesek, and not I, should accompany him unto King Uther’s deathbed, not least because I knew if not I would suffer Benesek’s ill mood for the rest of our time at Tintagel. And yet I said nothing.
‘You may be a lord on your little hill, Benesek ap Berluse,’ Merlin said, ‘but here in the world you are chaff on the wind.’
‘And him?’ Benesek said, pointing at me. ‘Who is he to have earned such an honour? Is the lad not a Guardian of the Mount like me?’
‘He is,’ Merlin agreed, his quick eyes flicking back to me, ‘but he is young enough to be much more than that.’ He pulled again at his billy goat’s beard. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked me.
I swallowed and looked at the hall’s door above which the words ‘A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi’ were painted in the Roman script. I had learnt enough Latin in Armorica to read it: ‘A precipice in front, wolves behind’. That was Britain then, though I didn’t know it at the time.
I nodded but Merlin had already turned his back and was walking towards the door beside which Uther’s stewards waited to collect the swords, spears and long knives from those who had not already left these behind.
‘Wait,’ Benesek told him. ‘I need to tell the lad our Lady’s words should he get the opportunity.’
‘Be quick,’ Merlin said.
But Benesek took his time, even making me repeat the Lady’s message for Uther word for word so that I would not embarrass myself or the Guardians of the Mount. Then, frowning, he dismissed me with a flick of his hand and I went with Merlin to meet Uther Pendragon, High King of the Britons.
I had never stood under a roof as large as that which covered King Uther’s hall. Its timbers were old and gnarled and spattered with bird droppings, and above them the ancient black thatch made a stark contrast to the new thatch outside. The earthen floor, hard as rock under my feet, was strewn with sweet-smelling, newly scythed grass and, above the three round fire pits which ran the length of the hall, joints of cured meat hung on chains, suffused by the ever-rising smoke.
‘Come, Lancelot,’ Merlin said, for I had stopped to look up at the great swathe of wool which hung from a cross beam below that old rotting thatch. Once white, the wool was grey now, besmirched by smoke and time and perhaps even the filth of ancient battlefields. But the dragon on it was still blood red and vibrant looking; a terrible sharp-clawed and winged beast from whose gaping mouth curled a long-barbed tongue. Or perhaps this arrow-like protrusion was meant to be fire. Either way it was a magnificent banner and I wondered how many enemies in Britain had felt their guts sour with fear at the sight of that red dragon and the warlord who flaunted it as his symbol.
Then I came to the press of men who had gathered at the hall’s far end. They had their backs to me and yet their finely woven cloaks, neck torcs, sword belts, mail armour and the embroidered hems of their tunics announced them as the warlords of Britain, as did their bearing. Still, Merlin’s hissing had them shuffle one way or the other, splitting the throng so that the druid and I could get to the front.
I followed him, stepping around a sleeping wolfhound, feeling men’s and women’s eyes on me as we threaded our way through. My shoulder brushed a cloak which was more purple than red and I knew I had just passed Lord Constantine, nephew of King Uther and son of Ambrosius, named for his grandfather who had been King of Britain and, some said, Emperor of the Romans.
And then I stopped, because there in front of me, so close that I could have reached out and touched the bear skin covering him, close enough that I could smell him – the sour wine on each frayed breath, the sweet, fetid tang of old fever sweat and, faintly beneath these other scents, the odour of sickness and impending death – was Uther the Pendragon, King of Britain, sword of the true gods and scourge of Saxons.
And he looked nothing more than an old, feeble, dying man.
He lay in his bed, which had been set up in front of the dais upon which his dragon-carved, oaken throne sat conspicuously empty, and for a while I just stared at him. At his sallow-skinned, hollow-cheeked face. At his unhinged mouth and the worn, black teeth in it, and the straggly white hair which was so fine that I could see the brown age spots on his flaking scalp. Here was the great warrior of Britain. The strongest of her kings. The man whose reputation and victories filled as many songs as there were bards to sing them. No wonder the other lords of the Dark Isles had flocked to Tintagel like wolves to a stag’s carcass.
Five big spearmen lined the dais overlooking the assembly, their leader a thin, grim-faced, grey-bearded man called Gwydre who commanded King Uther’s bodyguard. Now, Gwydre stepped down from the dais and forbade me to take another step until he had lifted my cloak and patted the sleeves of my tunic to ensure that I had not concealed a blade. Satisfied, he nodded and stepped back, allowing me to approach the king’s bed. And someone somewhere hissed. I looked round and saw a woman baring her teeth at me. Her eyes shone amongst dark charcoal shadows. Her copper hair tumbled in a mass of fiery curls, her cheeks were high and sharp, and she was both beguiling and yet somehow terrifying.
‘Bear her no mind, boy,’ Merlin said, shooting the woman a look which would wither a briar but only had her hissing at him too. Clearly she did not care for me, though the gods alone knew what I had done to cause her offence. Or perhaps she was mad, I thought, and so pulled my gaze away from her and followed the druid.
‘Lord king,’ Merlin said. He had been trying without success to wake his lord but now he gripped Uther’s emaciated shoulder and gave it a vigorous shake. For a moment the king’s ragged breathing stopped, his mouth hanging open,
and the other kings and lords around me looked at each other and I knew I was not alone in thinking that Merlin’s touch alone had been enough to kill Uther. But then Uther opened his eyes and there rose a low murmur in the smoky hall, most men relieved, a few perhaps disappointed, that the High King was still with us.
‘Closer. Come closer,’ Merlin rasped at me.
Stiff and self-conscious, I glanced over my shoulder. Of all the faces in that room, the authoritative and magisterial, those lined with worry or pinched with suspicion or scarred by battle, the one which my eyes met was Lord Arthur’s. The expression on his lean and handsome face, in contrast to most of those around him, was something between curiosity and mild amusement. He gave the merest nod of his head, and so I turned back to the king’s bed and took two steps forward, then stopped, my knees touching the bear skin whose fur was stained and matted in places and here and there slick with some or other bodily fluid.
White smoke curled up from several iron dishes placed around the king’s bed. Herbs smouldered and blackened in these dishes and I guessed that they, along with the newly cut summer grass on the floor, were intended to sweeten the foul air.
Merlin leant over the king, close enough that his lips brushed Uther’s ear. ‘I have brought you the young man we spoke of,’ he said, jutting his neat beard at me. The High King’s eyes were cloudy, as though he were peering through Roman glass like that which filled the small window of the dream chamber in the Lady’s keep. But slowly, painfully slowly, his gaze sharpened until I knew that he saw me.
‘Lancelot,’ he said. So quiet, little more than an outward breath. As insubstantial as the smoke which meandered up to the thatch. And yet my name. From the Pendragon’s own mouth.
‘Lord king,’ I said, my own voice barely louder than his had been, for I was aware of all the eyes in that hall. I felt them on me like the lice I saw crawling in Uther’s scant white beard. Lord Constantine glared at me, his bare arms, criss-crossed with white scars, folded across his Roman breastplate. As if to remind us all that his grandfather had been declared Emperor of Rome, if only by his own troops, Lord Constantine grew no beard or moustaches but shaved his face to look like the statues of the old Roman generals which could still be found in parts of Britain. And yet there was nothing soft in that face, nor any obscuring the curiosity in it as he watched me now.
‘Lord king,’ I said again, louder this time. ‘The Lady Nimue of Karrek Loos yn Koos sends you greeting. My Lady thanks you for—’
I would have gone on with the message I had memorized had Uther’s grimace not stilled my tongue faster than a bard kills a note with a hand against the lyre’s string.
‘No time,’ he hissed.
He lifted an arm and beckoned me closer, the effort making the limb tremble. I glanced at Merlin, who nodded, and then I went closer and Merlin straightened and took a backward step that I might lean over the king as he had done.
What was Lord Arthur thinking now? Or King Cyngen Glodrydd of Powys or even Menadoc, King of Cornubia? Knowing now that I was a Guardian of the Mount, these men must have wondered what the High King of Britain could possibly have to say to the likes of me.
Uther put two fingers to his lips and whispered something into my ear and at first I thought he had said ‘He Merlin’ and I nodded to show that I knew Merlin well enough. But then I realized that the High King had not said ‘he’ but ‘heed’. He had told me to heed Merlin.
‘Yes, lord king,’ I said, my eyes flicking to Merlin. The druid gave me a knowing look and nodded to show that he had heard me assent to Uther’s command.
Uther’s eyes widened. ‘He sees you,’ he hissed. ‘In his dreams.’
I did not look up at Merlin then, because we both remembered what had happened that time on the island when I had interrupted his spirit journey by throwing myself at him and knocking him down.
I was hunched awkwardly over the dying king when, without warning, Uther’s hand took hold of my tunic and he pulled me even closer and his reeking breath brought bile to my throat. His moustaches tickled my cheek and I knew I would leave that hall with some of the High King’s lice in my own long hair.
‘Protect your king, Lancelot,’ he said, his fetid breath hot in my ear. ‘Be loyal.’ He tensed and instinctively I tried to pull away but his hand gripped my tunic still and he yanked me close again. ‘Protect … your … king,’ he hissed.
‘I will, lord,’ I said. Of course, I knew it must all be nonsense, the ramblings of a confused, dying man, for I was a Guardian of the Mount. This was my eighteenth summer and come Samhain I would swear an oath to the Lady, to serve her. To fight for her. And that oath, sworn at the Winter Solstice, would supersede all others, for such was the Lady’s standing in the Dark Isles. How then could I serve the new king of Dumnonia, whoever he might be, even if he kept Tintagel as his chief court as Uther had?
Even so, I told the doomed king that I would protect his heir. What harm in words?
‘Protect him,’ Uther croaked at me. His eyes were fierce and I caught a glimpse of the old Uther, the warrior king of the bards’ songs who haunted the dreams of Saxons all across eastern Britain from Rhegin in the south to Lindisware in the north. ‘Swear it!’ he rasped into my ear.
‘I swear it, lord king,’ I said, his greasy beard tickling my cheek, his stench in my nose as I lifted just my eyes to glance at the kings and chieftains of Britain who, I realized, had edged forward, hoping to hear the king’s words. But they were barely words at all. More like rasping sighs, and even Lord Arthur seemed to be leaning forward, his head cocked to one side and his ear turned towards us.
Uther’s eyes dulled again and a drawn-out wheeze escaped his throat, making me pull away and step back because I thought this long creaking sound would end in a death rattle. But instead of dying, the High King growled that he was thirsty and Queen Igraine herself took a cup from a slave and held it to her husband’s lips. Most of the wine dribbled into Uther’s beard, dark red streaming through white. Yet he seemed for a moment revived and managed to grunt thanks to his queen, who stayed by the bed, her hand resting upon his.
Merlin dismissed me as a man might flap his hand to waft away a stench and so I stepped back still further into the press of folk who stood in sombre silence between the head of the High King’s bed and the dais with its spearmen and empty, dragon-carved throne.
Though not all of those around me were kings or chieftains, lords and ladies. ‘What was all that about?’ Benesek growled in my ear. Somehow he and Bors had got past the spearmen who guarded the hall door and worked their way to the front of the crowd. Bors nodded and half smiled at me, clearly proud of their accomplishment.
‘I don’t know,’ I told Benesek, which was the truth, and yet I was ashamed to think that Benesek and Bors might have heard me swear an oath to the High King just months before I was to swear myself to the Lady’s service. No wonder Merlin had not wanted Benesek in the hall, not that Benesek had contested Uther’s demands of me even if he had heard them.
‘Well?’ One of the kings across from us called out, throwing that word into the silence like a challenge. ‘Who is the heir?’ He was a short man with copper-coloured hair, a narrow face and hard eyes, and I guessed from his looks, and his brazenness, that he was Einion ap Mor, ruler of Ebrauc and King of Northern Britain. ‘Who is the heir?’ he demanded again, ignoring those Dumnonians who were hissing and growling their disapproval of his behaviour. ‘That is what we came here to find out.’
Whilst many harangued this king for his outburst, some others murmured their support.
‘For once I agree with King Einion,’ a big man with a thick black beard said, drawing every eye in the hall. I surmised this was Cyngen Glodrydd of Powys, which currently enjoyed an uneasy truce with Ebrauc. ‘We did not come all this way to watch Uther die. We came to witness who will be king in Dumnonia when Uther burns on his balefire.’
‘You mean who will be High King of Britain?’ Merlin said, raising an eyebrow at Cyngen.
Cyngen spat onto the grass-strewn floor to show what he thought of that. ‘Uther earned that title,’ he said. ‘It cannot be passed along like a horn of mead.’
More appreciative muttering, but it was stopped abruptly by Gwydre thumping the butt of his spear on the boards of the dais. ‘Respect for the High King!’ Gwydre bellowed. ‘Remember your place, King Cyngen.’
‘Remember yours, Gwydre ap no one,’ Cyngen spat.
Gwydre bristled at that. One of his men levelled his spear.
‘Stay where you are!’ Merlin snapped at Uther’s men, raising his staff to add weight to his command, then he walked across the hall towards Cyngen, barely stirring the scythed grass on the floor, and stopped two paces from the King of Powys.
Cyngen was a bear of a man, a broad, hulking, black-bearded beast with a warped nose, a savagely scarred face and eyes as hard and dark as wet granite. And yet he flinched when Merlin lifted the ash staff.
‘We are all friends here, lord king,’ the druid said. ‘But I warn you, if you interrupt proceedings again I shall weave a spell that will turn your guts to foul stinking water and have you squatting in your own filth for seven days. And after seven days of this affliction you will be weaker than a day-old lamb. You will struggle in vain, flapping like a fish, but no one will want to wade into your slime and so you will die and be remembered by your people as the king who drowned in his own dung.’
Cyngen grimaced at this threat and Merlin pointed the staff at the King of Ebrauc, though his eyes were still on Cyngen’s. ‘That goes for you too, King Einion,’ he said, ‘only, you will drown after just four days seeing as you are a head and a half shorter than Cyngen here.’
This last prediction had enough humour in it to raise a few laughs and so break the ice of the moment, which may have been Merlin’s intention, for it was no small thing to threaten kings, even for a druid.
‘We just want to know who is to be king,’ King Cyngen rumbled, ‘and from the looks of it, if Uther does not tell us soon he never will.’
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