From the time before Enniaun had become Lord, when his father, Cunedda had been the Lion Lord of Gwynedd, representatives from that mountainous corner had been deliberately absent from Council. Vortigern had been King then, not Arthur, and it had been the King’s own nephew who had butchered Cunedda’s youngest son and violated Gwenhwyfar, his only daughter. It had been a bad time of darkness and bloodshed, and because of it, Gwynedd had taken herself away from the destruction of Britain and claimed independence. Enniaun called himself Prince, though many others of his thinking were claiming the right to title of King, as it had been in the Old Ways, before the coming of Rome. Ah, the differences between the men who had grown fat from the authority of Rome, and those who had found that her dominance left them lean and trodden under heel!
A voice from somewhere near the back of the crowd carried an insult, “So the wasps gather around the rotting fruit.”
Embarrassed silence. Men shuffled, dared not look at the next man or at Arthur. Enniaun broke the acute discomfort by suddenly guffawing, his great voice booming up to the vaulted ceiling and hanging there a moment before echoing along the walls. He hugged his sister, grinned at Arthur and said clearly, “I would rather say bees! Worker bees constant to their hive!”
A few ripples of laughter, mostly false.
Lindum’s Governor hastily motioned slaves forward to serve refreshment: fine wine, pastries and fruits. The awkward moment of tension passed, people relaxed, began to eat and drink.
The Governor dabbed sweat from his forehead. He did not welcome Arthur, wished him gone – wished him dead – but it would not do to have the Supreme King and the great Council of Britain at each other’s throats, brawling within the entrance hall to his basilica.
Time enough for that in its rightful place; on the morrow, within the confine of the Council Chamber; when they intended to curb the arrogance of this royal whelp.
XIV
Arthur slept poorly that night, tossing and turning beside Gwenhwyfar, mumbling through restless dreams. Some time during the long hours before dawn, Gwenhwyfar slid yawning from the bed to pour a generous goblet of wine for each of them.
“Sorry, Cymraes,” Arthur apologised as he took the offered drink. “I am unused to sleeping within doors, the noises of night filtering through my tent is preferable to the heavy silence of stone walls.” A thing from childhood, not easily shaken, this fear of confinement, but for all that, this was an excuse.
“It has never bothered you before,” she replied, sliding back into bed beside him. Her feet had become chilled even during the short while she had been out from under the furs. She sipped her wine, the warmth of its rich redness trickling down her throat and into her belly. “Does the calling of this Council worry you so much?” she asked.
Arthur took several gulps of his wine before swinging his legs from the bed, letting his bare feet dangle. He played with the goblet a moment, finished the contents, then with sudden irritation flung it across the room to clang against the stone walls and land, dented, on the floor, where it bounced twice and rolled beneath a stool.
Gwenhwyfar remained still, sipped her drink. “Since we left Winta’s village you have favoured a public image of good humour. The pretence does not fool me, husband.”
He half turned to her with a sheepish smile. “Am I so easily read?”
Gwenhwyfar placed her goblet on the floor and wriggling across the bed, took his face between her palms, kissed his lips. “I know what you are thinking as surely as I know my own thoughts. I hurt when you hurt, laugh when you laugh. That is part of loving the man who is as important as the sun, moon, earth and sky to me.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, returning her kiss, “you are not my Council.”
She laughed, playfully ruffled his untidy hair. “And glad I am not!” She eased her legs more comfortable. “Mithras, you look forward to meeting with your Council with as much enthusiasm as you would give to entering a plague-infested slave-pen!”
He saw her point, and laughing with her, swept her close to him, burying his head among her tumbled mass of copper-gold hair. Muffled, his voice said, “I almost wept for joy when I saw your two brothers. Gwynedd in her independence has grown strong. She is a power to be reckoned with.”
Gwenhwyfar rubbed her hand down his back, her fingers kneading at the tense muscles in his shoulders. “I wrote to Enniaun asking him for support,” she confessed into the dim light of the night-lit chamber. She faltered. Hard to decide between Arthur’s great need and the horror and blackness of the past. Those times, as Arthur had said, were best not recalled, but too, must never be forgotten. Etern had been her beloved brother. From early childhood they had run together. Even now, after the passing of years she could not wholly believe his cruel murder, expected one day to see him walk with his jaunty swagger through a door, or hear his favourite whistled tune.
With a noticeable catch of sad memory, Gwenhwyfar said, “It is time for the wounds to be healed.” She forced a lighter note. “I thought allies for you would not come amiss given the black mood of your Council.”
Arthur kissed her again in gratitude, once, gently, on the forehead, then stood, plunging forward with frustrated energy, slapping the wall with his palm. “I ought to disband Council, do away with them, rule alone with no piddling little fat men trailing their whines and grumbles between my feet!”
Reaching again for her drink, Gwenhwyfar paused, her eyes widening. “Could you do that?”
He stretched, reaching towards the low ceiling, muscles bulging and rippling along his arms, naked back and shoulders. He yawned, admitted, “I doubt it.”
“Yet there are some in Council you trust. Loyal friends, such as the Governor of Viroconium and Emrys.”
Arthur snorted. “Do the words friend and Emrys belong together in the same sentence?”
She acknowledged his half-serious jest with a quick smile and inclination of her head. “He is your uncle.”
“He was my father’s brother, but he did not support Uthr against the tyrant, Vortigern. Brothers, or fathers and sons, have killed for less disagreement than I and Emrys have regarding the ending of Roman authority.”
Gwenhwyfar frowned. “Yet he is loyal to you?”
Arthur puffed his cheeks, sat beside her, rubbed the cold from his arms with his hands. “Emrys believes in Rome – Rome as it is remembered, not as it is now. He claims I am hastening the fragmentation of the Province with my setting up of client kingdoms and tribal territories. We are caretakers, he says, we ought to be holding Britain in trust until the Emperor is free to return.” He placed one hand on her shoulder, touched and enjoyed the smoothness of her skin a moment, let his fingers drift across her neck, lie above the beat of her pulse.
“He would not support my father because Uthr was stirring war and he would not take part in a squabble concerning the parcelling out of goods unlawfully taken.” His fingers rambled lower, touched the swell of his wife’s breast. “Though for all his difference of opinion, Emrys has one quality. Never will he go back on an oath, and as appointed Governor of Caer Gloui, he has sworn allegiance to me. Whatever Council argue, I expect Uncle Emrys to stand firm for me.” His lips kissed where his fingers had lain. It sounded convincing enough when spoken, but was it truth? If Council intended to replace him with one of their own choosing, would they choose Emrys? He spoke another thought aloud, his lips hovering above a second, more intimate, caress. “Trust Emrys as a friend? Na, Gwenhwyfar, never that.”
He moved from her, looked for his goblet, went to retrieve it and fetched a jar of wine. His back to the bed, he said, “Until the day I can turn Hasta loose to graze peacefully in the summer sun I need to put faith in Mithras’s protection, and pray that men like Emrys see sense above personal belief.” He drained the goblet, placed it with exaggerated care on the table next to the wine jug. He lifted his arms, stretched, and let them fall with a slap to his bare thighs. He turned to face Gwenhwyfar. “I have no faith in prayer, my Cymraes.”
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Returning to the bed, he flopped down, lay on his back with hands flung behind his head. “Why can they not see that if they were to leave defence and security to me, then I would be only too happy to leave alone their irritating domestic worries? A king is as strong as his army – and although our numbers are not great, I command the best. The best ever.”
“They feel threatened, Arthur. Frightened. They see you as a mighty and powerful man who could crush them at the drop of your hand. Some of those men in Council saw Vortigern rise from poverty to supreme authority – those who did not see it with their own eyes, heard from the lips of their fathers. They saw hideous things happening with Vortigern’s blessings – and they fear worse may come with yours. Look what happened when Vortigern hired Hengest to fight for him. The bloodshed and enmity that followed! They see you doing the same. You show trust in the Saex, giving more to them than to the British. They see the Saex are your friends, as they were friends and kindred to Vortigern. Hengest’s daughter was Vortigern’s wife, their daughter once your wife. I also strongly doubted the wisdom of treating with them.”
He turned his head to her. “Ah, but you were prepared to listen to me, to go see the results of a treaty for yourself.”
Gwenhwyfar conceded a smile, laid herself on top of her husband, her body moulding to his. “Not at first. I protested loud, as I recall, at being forced to go among them.”
His sword- and rein-callused hands stroked the softness of her back, running over the delicious curve of her buttocks. “Changed your mind though, didn’t you?”
She answered, contrite, “They are men and women who wish to grow their crops and raise their children in peace.”
Wickedly teasing he replied, “That’s not what you said as we rode north one year past. ‘Heathen, uncouth savages’ you called them.”
“Aye well, there are many things they do differently from us.”
“Many things they do the same.” He was stroking the flesh along the inside of her thigh, his fingers inching erotically higher. “For one thing, they make love the same way.” He twisted suddenly, brought her around beneath him, their mutual wanting making them both eager.
“Blood of the Bull!” she panted, as they lay sweating in the aftermath. “Are you likely to have many a sleepless night during this Council gathering?”
He grinned. “You complain?”
“Na. Just preparing myself!”
XV
Weak autumn sunlight filtered through the cracked and broken glass of the high basilica windows; distorted shadows lengthening as the sun descended towards early evening. The most important and influential men of Britain were assembled in this room, a few sitting relaxed and half amused; the majority mistrustful and suspicious of the King’s intentions. Men like Emrys, southern landowners, and the hierarchy of the Christian Church, headed by Archbishop Patricius. Governors, Elders; influential and wealthy merchants and tradesmen – men who relied on the patronage of those landowners and the Church. Most of them disliked the Pendragon. There was no denying that he was a good commander, but he was too blunt and intransigent, he trod on too many toes and threatened too many positions of power. Plain bloody minded. Arthur was an army-created king who rode roughshod over civil matters, often ignored the judgements of Council and in his blatant pagan following of the soldier’s god, Mithras, disregarded the holy sanctity of the true, Christian God. The people loved him well enough, farmers, peasants and common tradesmen. What did uneducated commoners know of the intricacies of government?
Britain – meaning wealthy, southern Britain – these powerful assembled men declared, was heading like a bolting horse into anarchy. Lawlessness and corruption was slithering along the crumbling streets, winding through unharvested fields and taking root in the very heart of the land. Disorder, they announced, was causing chaos and confusion. And the Pendragon, they added for good measure, far from setting seal to just and legal government, was opening the gates of destruction wider.
A few men gave Arthur their support. Men from his own Dumnonia and the Summer Land; Enniaun from Gwynedd, and some other northern lords. The old tribal areas welcomed his strong, military authority, for their lands ranged across the rugged and poorer acres of Britain, encompassing the rough grazing of the moorlands, the marshes, the hills and the hostile borders of the dark and fearful forests. Many of them were taking up the title of king, for the tribes had never quite forgotten or abandoned their Old Ways. Four hundred years of Roman dominance had not entirely despatched their traditions and beliefs, beliefs subtly altered and intertwined within Roman law and custom, the one shape-changing into the other, but never totally taking over. The British had long memories and steadfast ambition. Especially where personal gain was concerned.
Outside this handful of allied lords there were a few whom Arthur fiercely, and impotently, opposed. Dissident men, one-time heel-hounds to Vortigern, now several years cold in his grave but with an irritatingly enduring influence. Men like Amlawdd. Vortigern had granted him land and a title. He had rejected any association with the Council of All Britain and was an agitating thorn in Arthur’s flesh; a troublemaker waiting for a future cauldron of dissent to come to the boil. But he was not strong enough to go openly against Arthur, nor yet had he enough courage – or foolishness – to give the Pendragon the excuse he needed to give open challenge and make a fight of it.
Arthur was seated apart from Council, his chair raised on a stepped dais. Several things he would change, intended to change, when opportunity presented itself. This ridiculous seating arrangement for instance. A typical formation in the Roman style, columns of stools set facing each other across the long, narrow chamber. Men needed to swivel or stand to see others along the rows, no chance to study expression or manner, a hindrance to close-watching a man’s eye and thought. Arthur would prefer to sit in the tribal way, gathered circular, where each could clearly see the other around the central hearth-fire. Equal met; equal spoken; equal heard.
But it could not come yet, these un-Roman ideas of his. Arthur sighed, shifted his backside against the hardness of his seat. He draped a leg over the arm, sitting askew, undignified, noted the frowns of disapproval at his informality.
A discussion had been in progress this half hour concerning raising the tithe on goose fat. Arthur stifled a yawn. As a boy he had been attacked by a gander, a hideously vicious brute that had proved as tough in the pot as in life. He had never much liked geese after that.
Nor did he have much of a liking for these pompous little men talking so passionately about this trivial thing as if it were a life or death crisis. Self-important bureaucrats, seeing themselves as the protectors of the Roman Province of Britain, standing nobly firm until Rome came again to sort the chaos and restore peace and prosperity. How easily men forget!
Rome had bled Britain almost dry of gold, tin, corn and young men. With trade collapsing into ruins and the country sinking to its knees, Rome had demanded higher and higher taxes, then callously abandoned the people, leaving Britain floundering. Were it not for the still rippling repercussions of Rome’s greed, Arthur would have no difficulty raising and paying a hundred times the men and horses he needed to sweep the Saex from these shores. He could send them scurrying back to whence they came in one, well-planned campaign. Yet these myopic hypocrites seated here in this crumbling bastion of Roman influence refused to see through their own created fog of misremembered delusion. The golden age of Rome? Rot! Tarnished centuries of corruption and greed more like!
Decision at last reached and the vote taken. The consents had it. Arthur hid a wry smile behind his shielding hand. He must remember to inform Gwenhwyfar about the increase of her goose-fat entitlement. She would be delighted!
Archbishop Patricius stood, adjusted the fall of his robe, waited for a hush among the scuffle of shifting positions and coughing that had erupted at the conclusion of voting. He had a look about him that raised Arthur’s interest. This was it then, the serious business.
&nbs
p; Being deliberately provoking, Arthur laid his left leg across the first. Sitting sideways in his chair, he hooked an elbow to the chair-back and waited for the Voice of the Church to speak.
Patricius looked directly at the King, his intense blue eyes unwavering, stance determined.
“Land is being casually parcelled out to the heathen Saex. Our land, our sacred British land. Where the Lord Jesu himself once walked as a child, now barbarian savages seep the soil with the blood of our fellow countrymen.” Nodding heads, a tapping of agreeing hands on knees and thighs. Patricius took a pace nearer to Arthur, with a flourish, produced a thin scroll of parchment from the folds of his robe.
“I have a list of the land lost to us. A shameful, despicable, sad, sorry list.” He unrolled it, dangled the lines of neat handwriting before his captivated audience a moment before turning it to read aloud. “Cantii. Given to that foul butcher Hengest as his own Saxon kingdom. British land in the region of Londinium has become the dark and God-rejected East Saex and Middle Saex…”
Arthur noisily cleared his throat, interrupted. “Those last two areas were settled under Rome’s Governorship.” He spread his hand. “They are third, no, fourth-generation settled by peaceful English.” He smiled at the Archbishop. “Take up the giving of that land with Rome. As you well know, it is nothing to do with me.”
For Patricius, that small detail was immaterial. He read on. “To the south of here the marshes – Anglia given to Icel,” he pronounced the English names as if they had a putrid taste, his nose and mouth wrinkling. “And I hear from Lindum’s good Governor the area you gave these poxed Humbrenses has been named Mercia, Land Of The Border!” He slapped the parchment, disgusted, with the back of his fingers, the harsh sound echoing against the damp stone walls. “Why a Saex title? Why do we not insist on Latin or British?” His sneer deepened.
Muttered agreement, even from a few tribal lords loyal to Arthur.
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