‘Maybe they will.’
He shook his head. ‘Saxon and Briton, Derfel, they don’t mix.’
‘I mix, Lord,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘But if your mother had never been captured, Derfel, you’d have been raised a Saxon and you’d probably have been in Aelle’s army by now. You’d be an enemy. You’d worship his Gods, you’d dream his dreams, and you’d want our land. They need a lot of space, these Saxons.’
But we had at least penned Aelle in, and next day, in the great palace by the river, we met Cerdic. The sun shone that day, sparkling on the canal where the Governor of Britain had once moored his river barge. The sparkling sun-motes hid the scum and mud and dirt that now clogged the canal, but nothing could hide the stench of its sewage.
Cerdic held a council meeting first and while it debated we Britons met in a room that stood above the river wall and overlooked the water so that the ceiling, which was painted with curious beings that were half women and half fish, was dappled by shimmers of rippling light. Our spearmen guarded every door and window to make certain we could not be overheard.
Lancelot was there, and had been allowed to bring Dinas and Lavaine. The three men still insisted that their peace with Cerdic had been wise, but Meurig was their only supporter and the rest of us were angry in the face of their sullen defiance. Arthur listened to our protests for a while, then interrupted to say that nothing would be solved by arguing about the past. ‘What’s done is done,’ he said, ‘but I do need one assurance.’ He looked at Lancelot. ‘Promise me,’ he said, ‘that you made no promises to Cerdic.’
‘I gave him peace,’ Lancelot insisted, ‘and suggested he help you fight Aelle. That is all.’
Merlin was seated in the window above the river. He had adopted one of the palace’s stray cats and now petted the animal on his lap. ‘What did Cerdic want?’ he asked mildly.
‘Aelle’s defeat.’
‘Just that?’ Merlin asked, not bothering to hide his disbelief.
‘Just that,’ Lancelot insisted, ‘nothing more.’ We all watched him. Arthur, Merlin, Cuneglas, Meurig, Agricola, Sagramor, Galahad, Culhwch and myself. None of us spoke, but just watched him. ‘He wanted nothing more!’ Lancelot insisted and to me he looked like a small child telling plain lies.
‘How remarkable in a king,’ Merlin said placidly, ‘to want so little.’ He began teasing the cat by flicking one of the braided strands of his beard at its paws. ‘And what did you want?’ he asked, still mildly.
‘Arthur’s victory,’ Lancelot declared.
‘Because you did not think Arthur could win it by himself?’ Merlin suggested, still playing with the cat.
‘I wanted to make it certain,’ Lancelot said. ‘I was trying to help!’ He looked round the room, seeking allies, and finding none but the youthful Meurig. ‘If you don’t want peace with Cerdic,’ he said petulantly, ‘then why don’t you fight him now?’
‘Because, Lord King, you used my name to secure his truce,’ Arthur said patiently, ‘and because our army is now many marches from home and his men lie in our path. If you had not made peace,’ he explained, still speaking courteously, ‘then half his army would be on the frontier watching your men and I would have been free to march south and attack the other half. As it is?’ He shrugged. ‘What will Cerdic demand of us today?’
‘Land,’ Agricola said firmly. ‘It’s all the Saxons ever want. Land, land, and more land. They won’t be happy till they have every scrap of land in the world, and then they’ll start looking for other worlds to put under their ploughs.’
‘He must be satisfied,’ Arthur said, ‘with the land he’s taken from Aelle. He’ll get none from us.’
‘We should take some from him,’ I spoke for the first time. ‘That land he stole last year.’ It was a fine stretch of river-land on our southern frontier, a fertile and rich tract that ran from the high moors down to the sea. The land had belonged to Melwas, the client King of the Belgae whom Arthur had sent in punishment to Isca, and it was land we sorely missed for its loss brought Cerdic very close to the rich estates about Durnovaria and also meant that his ships were just minutes away from Ynys Wit, the great island that the Romans had called Vectis and which lay just off our coast. For a year now Cerdic’s Saxons had raided Ynys Wit ruthlessly and its people were forever calling on Arthur for more spearmen to protect their holdings.
‘We should have that land back,’ Sagramor supported me. He had thanked Mithras for returning his Saxon girl unharmed by placing a captured sword in the God’s London temple.
‘I doubt,’ Meurig intervened, ‘that Cerdic made peace in order to yield land.’
‘Nor did we march to war to cede land,’ Arthur answered angrily.
‘I thought, forgive me,’ Meurig insisted, and a kind of quiet groan went through the room as he persisted with his argument, ‘but you said, did you not, that you could not prosecute war? Being so far from home? Yet now, for a stretch of land, you would risk all our lives? I hope I am not being foolish,’ he chuckled to show that he had made a joke, ‘but I fail to understand why we risk the one thing we cannot afford to endure.’
‘Lord Prince,’ Arthur said softly, ‘we may be weak here, but if we show our weakness, then we will be dead here. We do not go to Cerdic this morning ready to yield one furrow, we go making demands.’
‘And if he refuses?’ Meurig demanded indignantly.
‘Then we shall have a difficult withdrawal,’ Arthur admitted calmly. He glanced out of a window that looked down into the courtyard. ‘It seems our enemies are ready for us. Shall we go to them?’
Merlin pushed the cat off his lap and used his staff to stand up. ‘You won’t mind if I don’t come?’ he asked. ‘I’m too old to endure a day of negotiations. All that bluster and anger.’ He brushed cat hairs off his robe, then turned suddenly on Dinas and Lavaine. ‘Since when,’ he asked disapprovingly, ‘have Druids worn swords or served Christian Kings?’
‘Since we decided to do both,’ Dinas said. The twins, who were almost as tall as Merlin and much burlier, challenged him with their unblinking gaze.
‘Who made you Druids?’ Merlin demanded.
‘The same power that made you a Druid,’ said Lavaine.
‘And what power was that?’ Merlin asked, and when the twins did not answer, he sneered at them. ‘At least you know how to lay thrushes’ eggs. I suppose that kind of trick impresses Christians. Do you also turn their wine to blood and their bread to flesh?’
‘We use our magic,’ Dinas said, ‘and theirs too. It’s not the old Britain now, but a new Britain and it has new Gods. We blend their magic with the old. You could learn from us, Lord Merlin.’
Merlin spat to show his opinion of that advice, then, without another word, stalked from the room. Dinas and Lavaine were unmoved by his hostility. They possessed an extraordinary self-confidence.
We followed Arthur down to the great pillared hall where, as Merlin had foretold, we blustered and postured, shouted and cajoled. At first it was Aelle and Cerdic who made most of the noise and Arthur, as often as not, was the mediator between them, but even Arthur could not prevent Cerdic becoming land rich at Aelle’s expense. He kept possession of London and gained the valley of the Thames and great stretches of fertile land north of the Thames. Aelle’s kingdom shrank by a quarter, but he still possessed a kingdom and for that he owed Arthur thanks. He offered none, but just stalked from the room when the talking was done and left London that same day like a great wounded boar crawling back to his den.
It was mid afternoon when Aelle left and Arthur, using me as an interpreter, now raised the matter of the Belgic land Cerdic had captured the year before, and he went on demanding the return of that land long after the rest of us would have given up the effort. He made no threats, he just repeated his demand over and over until Culhwch was sleeping, Agricola yawning, and I was tired of taking the sting from Cerdic’s reiterated rejections. And still Arthur persisted. He sensed that Cerdic needed time to
consolidate the new lands he had taken from Aelle, and his threat was that he would give Cerdic no peace unless the river-lands were returned. Cerdic countered by threatening to fight us in London, but Arthur finally revealed that he would seek Aelle’s help in such a fight and Cerdic knew he could not beat both our armies.
It was almost dark when Cerdic at last yielded. He did not yield outright, but grudgingly said he would discuss the matter with his private council. So we woke Culhwch and walked out to the courtyard, then through a small gate in the river wall to stand on a quay where we watched the Thames slide darkly by. Most of us said little, though Meurig irritably lectured Arthur about wasting time making impossible demands, but when Arthur refused to argue the Prince gradually fell silent. Sagramor sat with his back against the wall, incessantly stroking a whetstone down his sword blade. Lancelot and the Silurian Druids stood apart from us; three tall, handsome men who were stiff with pride. Dinas stared at the darkening trees across the river while his brother gave me long speculative looks.
We waited an hour and then, at last, Cerdic came to the river bank. ‘Tell Arthur this,’ he told me without any preamble, ‘that I trust none of you, like none of you and want nothing more than to kill all of you. But I will yield him the Belgic land on one condition. That Lancelot is made King of that land. Not a client King,’ he added, ‘but King, with all the powers of independent kingship.’
I stared into the Saxon’s grey-blue eyes. I was so astonished by his condition that I said nothing, not even to acknowledge his words. It was all so clear suddenly. Lancelot had made this bargain with the Saxon, and Cerdic had hidden their secret agreement behind an afternoon of scornful rejections. I had no proof of that, but I knew it had to be true, and when I looked away from Cerdic I saw that Lancelot was staring expectantly at me. He spoke no Saxon, but he knew exactly what Cerdic had just said.
‘Tell him!’ Cerdic ordered me.
I translated for Arthur. Agricola and Sagramor spat in disgust and Culhwch gave a brief, sour bellow of a laugh, but Arthur just gazed into my eyes for a few grave seconds before nodding wearily. ‘Agreed,’ he said.
‘You will leave this place at dawn,’ Cerdic said abruptly.
‘We will leave in two days,’ I responded, without bothering to consult Arthur.
‘Agreed,’ Cerdic said, and turned away.
And thus we had our peace with the Sais.
It was not the peace Arthur wanted. He had believed we could so weaken the Saxons that their ships would stop arriving from beyond the German Sea, and that in another year or two we might have driven the rest out of Britain altogether. But it was peace.
‘Fate is inexorable,’ Merlin said to me next morning. I found him in the centre of the Roman amphitheatre where he slowly turned to gaze on the banked stone seats that rose in a full circle about the arena. He had commandeered four of my spearmen who sat at the arena’s edge and watched him, though they were as ignorant as I was about their duties. ‘Are you still looking for the last Treasure?’ I asked him.
‘I do like this place,’ he said, ignoring my question as he turned around to give the whole arena another long inspection. ‘I do like it.’
‘I thought you hated the Romans.’
‘Me? Hate the Romans?’ he asked in pretended outrage. ‘How I do pray, Derfel, that my teachings will not be passed to posterity through the mangled sieve you choose to call a brain. I love all mankind!’ he declared magniloquently, ‘and even the Romans are perfectly acceptable if they stay in Rome. I told you I was in Rome once, didn’t I? Full of priests and catamites. Sansum would feel quite at home there. No, Derfel, the fault of the Romans was coming to Britain and spoiling everything, but not everything they did here was bad.’
‘They did give us this,’ I said, gesturing at the twelve tiers of seats and the lofted balcony where the Roman lords had watched the arena.
‘Oh, do spare me Arthur’s tedious lecture about roads and lawcourts and bridges and structure.’ He spat the last word out. ‘Structure! What is the structure of law and roads and forts but a harness? The Romans tamed us, Derfel. They made us into taxpayers and they were so clever at it that we actually believe they did us a favour! We once walked with the Gods, we were a free people, and then we put our stupid heads into the Roman yoke and became taxpayers.’
‘So what,’ I asked patiently, ‘did the Romans do that was so good?’
He smiled wolfishly. ‘They once crammed this arena full of Christians, Derfel, then set the dogs on them. In Rome, mind you, they did it properly; they used lions. But in the long term, alas, the lions lost.’
‘I saw a picture of a lion,’ I said proudly.
‘Oh, I am fascinated,’ Merlin said, not bothering to hide a yawn. ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it?’ Having silenced me thus, he smiled. ‘I saw a real lion once. It was a very unimpressive threadbare sort of thing. I suspected it was receiving the wrong diet. Maybe they were feeding it Mithraists instead of Christians? That was in Rome, of course. I gave it a poke with my staff and it just yawned and scratched at a flea. I saw a crocodile there too, only it was dead.’
‘What’s a crocodile?’
‘A thing like Lancelot.’
‘King of the Belgae,’ I added acidly.
Merlin laughed. ‘He has been clever, hasn’t he? He hated Siluria, and who can blame him? All those drab people in their dull valleys, not Lancelot’s sort of place at all, but he’ll like the Belgic land. The sun shines there, it’s full of Roman estates and, best of all, it’s not far from his dear friend Guinevere.’
‘Is that important?’
‘Don’t be so disingenuous, Derfel.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means, my ignorant warrior, that Lancelot behaves as he likes with Arthur. He takes what he wants and does what he wants, and he can do it because Arthur has that ridiculous quality called guilt. He’s very Christian in that. Can you understand a religion that makes you feel guilty? What an absurd idea, but Arthur would make a very good Christian. He believes he was oath-sworn to save Benoic, and when he failed he felt he had let Lancelot down, and so long as that guilt rankles Arthur, so long will Lancelot behave as he wishes.’
‘With Guinevere too?’ I asked, curious at his earlier mention of Lancelot and Guinevere’s friendship, a mention that had possessed more than a hint of salacious rumour.
‘I never explain what I cannot know,’ Merlin said loftily. ‘But I surmise Guinevere is bored by Arthur, and why not? She’s a clever creature and she enjoys other clever people, and Arthur, much as we love him, is not complicated. The things he desires are so pathetically simple; law, justice, order, cleanliness. He really wants everyone to be happy, and that’s quite impossible. Guinevere isn’t nearly so simple. You are, of course.’
I ignored the insult. ‘So what does Guinevere want?’
‘For Arthur to be King of Dumnonia, of course, and for herself to be the real ruler of Britain by ruling him, but till that happens, Derfel, she will amuse herself as best she can.’ He looked mischievous as an idea occurred to him. ‘If Lancelot becomes the Belgic King,’ he said happily, ‘then just you watch Guinevere decide that she doesn’t want her new palace in Lindinis after all. She’ll find somewhere much closer to Venta. You see if I’m not right.’ He chuckled at that thought. ‘They were both so very clever,’ he added admiringly.
‘Guinevere and Lancelot?’
‘Don’t be so obtuse, Derfel! Who on earth was talking about Guinevere? Really, your appetite for gossip is quite indecent. I mean Cerdic and Lancelot, of course. That was a very subtle piece of diplomacy. Arthur does all the fighting, Aelle gives up most of the land, Lancelot snatches himself a much more suitable kingdom, and Cerdic doubles his own power and gets Lancelot instead of Arthur as his neighbour on the coast. Very neatly done. How the wicked do prosper! I like to see that.’ He smiled, then turned as Nimue appeared from one of the two tunnels that led under the seats into the arena. She hurried over th
e weed-strewn turf with a look of excitement on her face. Her gold eye, that so frightened the Saxons, gleamed in the morning sun.
‘Derfel!’ she exclaimed. ‘What do you do with the bull’s blood?’
‘Don’t confuse him,’ Merlin said, ‘he’s being more than usually stupid this morning.’
‘In Mithras,’ she said excitedly. ‘What do you do with the blood?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘They mix it with oats and fat,’ Merlin said, ‘and make puddings.’
‘Tell me!’ Nimue insisted.
‘It’s secret,’ I said, embarrassed.
Merlin hooted at that. ‘Secret? Secret! “Oh, great Mithras!” ’ he boomed in a voice that echoed from the tiered seats, ‘ “whose sword is sharpened on the mountain peaks and whose spearhead was forged in the ocean deeps and whose shield doth shadow the brightest stars, hear us.” Shall I go on, dear boy?’ he asked me. He had been reciting the invocation with which we began our meetings, and which was supposed to be a part of our secret rituals. He turned from me in scorn. ‘They have a pit, dear Nimue,’ he explained, ‘covered with an iron grille, and the poor beast gushes its life away into the pit and then they all dip their spears into the blood, get drunk and think they’ve done something significant.’
‘I thought so,’ Nimue said, then smiled. ‘There’s no pit.’
‘Oh, dear girl!’ Merlin said admiringly. ‘Dear girl! To work.’ He hurried away.
‘Where are you going?’ I called after him, but he just waved and walked on, beckoning to my lounging spearmen. I followed anyway and he made no attempt to stop me. We went through the tunnel and so out into one of the strange streets of tall buildings, then west towards the great fortress that formed the north-west bastion of the city’s walls, and just beside the fort, built against the city wall, was a temple.
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