The Winter King

by Bernard Cornwell

  Tewdric shook his head. ‘Gorfyddyd is refusing to receive my envoys. They are turned back at the frontier. But if we wait here and let his army waste its efforts against our walls then I believe he will become discouraged and will then negotiate.’ His men murmured agreement.

  Arthur tried one more time to dissuade Tewdric. He conjured a picture of our army rooted behind walls while Gorfyddyd’s horde ravaged the newly harvested farms, but the men of Gwent would not be moved by his oratory or his passion. They only saw outflanked shield–walls and fields of dead men, and so they seized on their King’s belief that peace would come if only they retreated into Magnis and let Gorfyddyd weary his men by battering its strong walls. They began to demand Arthur’s agreement for their strategy and I saw the hurt on his face. He had lost. If he waited here then Gorfyddyd would demand his head. If he ran to Armorica he would live, but he would be abandoning Mordred and his own dream of a just, united Britain. The clamour in the hall grew louder, and it was then that Galahad stood and shouted for a chance to be heard.

  Tewdric pointed at Galahad, who first introduced himself. ‘I am Galahad, Lord King,’ he said, ‘a Prince of Benoic. If King Gorfyddyd will receive no envoys from Gwent or Dumnonia, then surely he will not refuse one from Armorica? Let me go, Lord King, to Caer Sws and enquire what Gorfyddyd intends to do with Mordred. And if I do go, Lord King, will you accept my word as to his verdict?’

  Tewdric was happy to accept. He was happy with anything that might avert war, but he was still anxious for Arthur’s agreement. ‘Suppose Gorfyddyd decrees that Mordred is safe,’ he suggested to Arthur. ‘What will you do then?’

  Arthur stared at the table. He was losing his dream, but he could not tell a lie to save that dream and so he looked up with a rueful smile. ‘In that case, Lord King, I would leave Britain and I would entrust Mordred to your keeping.’

  Once again we Dumnonians shouted our protests, but this time Tewdric silenced us. ‘We do not know what answer Prince Galahad will bring,’ he said, ‘but this I promise. If Mordred’s throne is threatened then I, King Tewdric, will fight. If not? I see no reason to fight.’

  And with that promise we had to be content. The war, it seemed, hung on Gorfyddyd’s answer. To find it, next morning, Galahad rode north.

  I rode with Galahad. He had not wanted me to come, saying that my life would be in danger, but I argued with him as I had never argued before. I also pleaded with Arthur, saying that at least one Dumnonian should hear Gorfyddyd declare his intentions about our King, and Arthur pleaded my case with Galahad who at last relented. We were friends, after all, though for my own safety Galahad insisted that I travel as his servant and that I carry his symbol on my shield. ‘You have no symbol,’ I told him.

  ‘I do now,’ he said, and ordered that our shields be painted with crosses. ‘Why not?’ he asked me, ‘I’m a Christian.’

  ‘It looks wrong,’ I said. I was accustomed to warriors’ shields being blazoned with bulls, eagles, dragons and stags, not with some desiccated piece of religious geometry.

  ‘I like it,’ he said, ‘and besides, you are now my humble servant, Derfel, so your opinion is of no interest to me. None.’ He laughed and skipped away from a blow I aimed at his arm.

  I was forced to ride to Caer Sws. In all my years with Arthur I never did accustom myself to sitting on a horse’s back. To me it always seemed a natural thing to sit well back on a horse, but sitting thus it was impossible to grip the animal’s flanks with your knees, for which you had to slide forward until you were perched just behind its neck with your feet dangling in the air behind its forelegs. In the end I used to tuck one foot into the saddle girth to give me an anchoring point, a shift that offended Galahad who was proud of his horsemanship. ‘Ride it properly!’ he would say.

  ‘But there’s nowhere to put my feet!’

  ‘The horse has got four. How many more do you want?’

  We rode to Caer Lud, Gorfyddyd’s major fortress in the border hills. The town stood on a hill in a river bend and we reckoned its sentries would be less wary than those who guarded the Roman road at Lugg Vale. Even so we did not state our real business in Powys, but simply declared ourselves as landless men from Armorica seeking entry into Gorfyddyd’s country. The guards, discovering Galahad was a prince, insisted on escorting him to the town’s commander and so led us through the town that was filled with armed men whose spears were stacked at every door and whose helmets were piled under all the tavern benches. The town commander was a harassed man who plainly hated the responsibilities of governing a garrison swollen by the imminence of war. ‘I knew you must be from Armorica when I saw your shields, Lord Prince,’ he told Galahad. ‘An outlandish symbol to our provincial eyes.’

  ‘An honoured one in mine,’ Galahad said gravely, not catching my eye.

  ‘To be sure, to be sure,’ the commander said. His name was Halsyd. ‘And of course you are welcome, Lord Prince. Our High King is welcoming all …’ He paused, embarrassed. He had been about to say that Gorfyddyd was welcoming all landless warriors, but that phrase cut too close to insult when uttered to a dispossessed prince of an Armorican kingdom. ‘All brave men,’ the commander said instead. ‘You were not thinking of staying here, by any chance?’ He was worried that we would prove two more hungry mouths in a town already hard pressed to feed its existing garrison.

  ‘I would ride to Caer Sws,’ Galahad announced. ‘With my servant.’ He gestured towards me.

  ‘May the Gods speed your path, Lord Prince.’

  And thus we entered the enemy country. We rode through quiet valleys where newly stooked corn patterned the fields and orchards hung heavy with ripening apples. The next day we were among the hills, following an earth road that wound through great tracts of damp woodland until, at last, we climbed above the trees and crossed the pass that led down to Gorfyddyd’s capital. I felt a shudder of nerves as I saw Caer Sws’s raw earth walls. Gorfyddyd’s army might be gathering in Branogenium, some forty miles away, but still the land around Caer Sws was thick with soldiers. The troops had thrown up crude shelters with walls of stone roofed with turf, and the shelters surrounded the fort that flew eight banners from its walls to show that the men of eight kingdoms served in Gorfyddyd’s growing ranks. ‘Eight?’ Galahad asked. ‘Powys, Siluria, Elmet, but who else?’

  ‘Cornovia, Demetia, Gwynedd, Rheged and Demetia’s Blackshields,’ I said, finishing off the grim list.

  ‘No wonder Tewdric wants peace,’ Galahad said softly, marvelling at the host of men camped on either side of the river that ran beside the enemy’s capital.

  We rode down into that hive of iron. Children followed us, curious about our strange shields, while their mothers watched us suspiciously from the shadowed openings of their shelters. The men gave us brief glances, taking in our strange insignia and noting the quality of our weapons, but none challenged us until we reached the gates of Caer Sws where Gorfyddyd’s royal guard barred our way with polished spearheads. ‘I am Galahad, Prince of Benoic,’ Galahad announced grandly, ‘come to see my cousin the High King.’

  ‘Is he a cousin?’ I whispered.

  ‘It’s how we royalty talk,’ he whispered back.

  The scene inside the compound went some way to explaining why so many soldiers were gathered at Caer Sws. Three tall stakes had been driven into the earth and now waited for the formal ceremonies that preceded war. Powys was one of the least Christian kingdoms and the old rituals were done carefully here, and I suspected that many of the soldiers camped outside the walls had been fetched back from Branogenium specifically to witness the rites and so to inform their comrades that the Gods had been placated. There was to be nothing hasty about Gorfyddyd’s invasion, everything would be done methodically, and Arthur, I thought, was probably right in thinking that such a pedestrian endeavour could be tipped off balance by a surprise attack.

  Our horses were taken by servants, then, after a counsellor had questioned Galahad and determined that he was, indeed, who
he claimed to be, we were ushered into the great feasting hall. The doorkeeper took our swords, shields and spears and added them to the stacks of similar weapons belonging to the men already gathered in Gorfyddyd’s hall.

  Over a hundred men were assembled between the squat oak pillars that were hung with human skulls to show that the kingdom was at war. The men beneath those grinning bones were the kings, princes, lords, chiefs and champions of the assembled armies. The only furniture in the hall was the row of thrones placed on a dais at the far dark end where Gorfyddyd sat beneath his symbol of the eagle, while next to him, but on a lower throne, sat Gundleus. The very sight of the Silurian King made the scar on my left hand pulse. Tanaburs squatted beside Gundleus, while Gorfyddyd had Iorweth, his own Druid, at his right side. Cuneglas, Powys’s Edling, sat on a third throne and was flanked by kings I did not recognize. No women were present. This was doubtless a council of war, or at least a chance for men to gloat over the victory that was about to be theirs. The men were dressed in mail coats and leather armour.

  We paused at the back of the hall and I saw Galahad mouth a silent prayer to his God. A wolfhound with a chewed ear and scarred haunches sniffed our boots, then loped back to its master who stood with the other warriors on the rush-covered earth floor. In a far corner of the hall a bard softly chanted a war song, though his staccato recitation was ignored by the men who were listening to Gundleus describing the forces he expected to come from Demetia. One chief, evidently a man who had suffered from the Irish in the past, protested that Powys had no need of the Blackshields’ help to defeat Arthur and Tewdric, but his protest was stilled by an abrupt gesture from Gorfyddyd. I half expected that we would be forced to linger while the council finished its other business, but we did not have to wait more than a minute before we were conducted down the hall’s centre to the open space in front of Gorfyddyd. I looked at both Gundleus and Tanaburs but neither recognized me.

  We fell to our knees and waited.

  ‘Rise,’ Gorfyddyd said. We obeyed and once again I looked into his bitter face. He had not changed much in the years since I had seen him last. His face was as pouchy and suspicious as when Arthur had come to claim Ceinwyn’s hand, though his sickness in the last few years had turned his hair and beard white. The beard was skimpy and could not hide a goitre that now disfigured his throat. He looked at us warily. ‘Galahad,’ he said in a hoarse voice, ‘Prince of Benoic. We have heard of your brother, Lancelot, but not of you. Are you, like your brother, one of Arthur’s whelps?’

  ‘I am oath-bound to no man, Lord King,’ Galahad said, ‘except to my father whose bones were trampled by his enemies. I am landless.’

  Gorfyddyd shifted in his throne. His empty left sleeve hung beside the armrest, an ever-present reminder of his hated foe, Arthur. ‘So you come to me for land, Galahad of Benoic?’ he asked. ‘Many others have come for the same purpose,’ he warned, gesturing about the crowded hall. ‘Though I daresay there is land enough for all in Dumnonia.’

  ‘I come to you, Lord King, with greetings, freely carried, from King Tewdric of Gwent.’

  That caused a stir in the hall. Men at the back who had not heard Galahad’s announcement asked for it to be repeated and the murmur of conversation went on for several seconds. Cuneglas, Gorfyddyd’s son, looked up sharply. His round face with its long dark moustaches looked worried, and no wonder, I thought, for Cuneglas was like Arthur, a man who craved peace, but when Arthur spurned Ceinwyn he had also destroyed Cuneglas’s hopes and now the Edling of Powys could only follow his father into a war that threatened to lay waste the southern kingdoms.

  ‘Our enemies, it seems, are losing their hunger for battle,’ Gorfyddyd said. ‘Why else does Tewdric send greetings?’

  ‘King Tewdric, High King, fears no man, but loves peace more,’ Galahad said, carefully using the title Gorfyddyd had bestowed on himself in anticipation of his victory.

  Gorfyddyd’s body heaved and for a second I thought he was about to vomit, then I realized he was laughing. ‘We Kings only love peace,’ Gorfyddyd said at last, ‘when war becomes inconvenient to us. This gathering, Galahad of Benoic’ – he gestured at the throng of chiefs and princes – ‘will explain Tewdric’s new love of peace.’ He paused, gathering breath. ‘Till now, Galahad of Benoic, I have refused to receive Tewdric’s messages. Why should I receive them? Does an eagle listen to a lamb bleating for mercy? In a few days I intend to listen to all Gwent’s men bleating to me for peace, but for now, since you have come this far, you may amuse me. What does Tewdric offer?’

  ‘Peace, Lord King, just peace.’

  Gorfyddyd spat. ‘You are landless, Galahad, and empty-handed. Does Tewdric think peace is for the asking? Does Tewdric think I have expended my kingdom’s gold on an army for no cause? Does he think I am a fool?’

  ‘He thinks, Lord King, that blood shed between Britons is wasted blood.’

  ‘You talk like a woman, Galahad of Benoic’ Gorfyddyd spoke the insult in a deliberately loud voice so that the raftered hall echoed with jeers and laughter. ‘Still,’ he went on when the laughter had subsided, ‘you must take some answer to Gwent’s King, so let it be this.’ He paused to compose his thoughts. ‘Tell Tewdric that he is a lamb sucking at Dumnonia’s dry teat. Tell him my quarrel is not with him, but with Arthur, so tell Tewdric that he may have his peace on these two conditions. First, that he lets my army pass through his land without hindrance and second that he gives me enough grain to feed a thousand men for ten days.’ The warriors in the hall gasped, for they were generous terms, but also clever. If Tew-dric accepted then he would avoid the sack of his country and make Gorfyddyd’s invasion of Dumnonia easier. ‘Are you empowered, Galahad of Benoic,’ Gorfyddyd asked, ‘to accept these terms?’

  ‘No, Lord King, only to enquire what terms you would offer and to ask what you intend to do with Mordred, King of Dumnonia, whom Tewdric is sworn to protect.’

  Gorfyddyd adopted a hurt look. ‘Do I look like a man who makes war on children?’ he asked, then stood and advanced to the edge of the throne dais. ‘My quarrel is with Arthur,’ he said, not just to us, but to the whole hall, ‘who preferred to marry a whore out of Henis Wyren rather than wed my daughter. Would any man leave such an insult unavenged?’ The hall roared its answer. ‘Arthur is an upstart,’ Gorfyddyd shouted, ‘whelped on a whore mother, and to a whore he has returned! So long as Gwent protects the whore-lover, so long is Gwent our enemy. So long as Dumnonia fights for the whore-lover, so long is Dumnonia our enemy. And our enemy will be the generous provider of our gold, our slaves, our food, our land, our women and our glory! Arthur we will kill, and his whore we shall put to work in our barracks.’ He waited until the cheers had died away, then stared imperiously down on Galahad. ‘Tell that to Tewdric, Galahad of Benoic, and after that tell it to Arthur.’

  ‘Derfel can tell it to Arthur.’ A voice spoke from the hall and I turned to see Ligessac, sly Ligessac, once commander of Norwenna’s guard and now a traitor in Gundleus’s service. He pointed to me. ‘That man is Arthur’s sworn man, High King. I swear it on my life.’

  The hall seethed with noise. I could hear men shouting that I was a spy and others demanding my death. Tanaburs was staring at me intently, trying to see past my long, fair beard and thick moustaches, then suddenly he recognized me and screamed, ‘Kill him! Kill him!’

  Gorfyddyd’s guards, the only armed men in the hall, ran towards me. Gorfyddyd checked his spearmen with his raised hand that slowly silenced the noisy crowd. ‘Are you oath-bound to the whore-lover?’ the King asked me in a dangerous voice.

  ‘Derfel is in my service, High King,’ Galahad insisted.

  Gorfyddyd pointed at me. ‘He will answer,’ he said. ‘Are you oath-bound to Arthur?’

  I could not lie about an oath. ‘Yes, Lord King,’ I admitted.

  Gorfyddyd stepped heavily off the platform and stretched his one arm towards a guard, though he still stared at me. ‘Do you know, you dog, what we did to Arthur’s last messen
ger?’

  ‘You killed him, Lord King,’ I said.

  ‘I sent his maggot-ridden head to your whore-lover, that is what I did. Come on, hurry!’ he snapped at the nearest guard who had not known what to put in his King’s outstretched hand. ‘Your sword, fool!’ Gorfyddyd said, and the guard hastily drew his sword and gave it hilt first to the King.

  ‘Lord King.’ Galahad stepped forward, but Gorfyddyd whirled the blade so that it quivered just inches from Galahad’s eyes.

  ‘Be careful what you say in my hall, Galahad of Benoic,’ Gorfyddyd growled.

  ‘I plead for Derfel’s life,’ Galahad said. ‘He is not here as a spy, but as an emissary of peace.’

  ‘I don’t want peace!’ Gorfyddyd shouted at Galahad. ‘Peace is not my pleasure! I want to see Arthur weeping as my daughter once wept. Do you understand that? I want to see his tears! I want to see him pleading as she pleaded with me. I want to see him grovel, I want to see him dead and his whore pleasuring my men. No emissary from Arthur is welcome here and Arthur knows that! And you knew that!’ He shouted the last four words at me as he turned the sword towards my face.

  ‘Kill him! Kill him!’ Tanaburs, in his raggedly embroidered robe, leaped up and down so that the bones in his hair rattled like dried beans in a pot.

  ‘Touch him, Gorfyddyd,’ said a new voice in the hall, ‘and your life is mine. I shall bury it in the dungheap of Caer Idion and call the dogs to piss on it. I shall give your soul to the spirit children who lack playthings. I shall keep you in darkness till the last day is done and then I shall spit on you till the next era begins, and even then, Lord King, your torments will hardly have begun.’

  I felt the tension sweep out of me like a rush of water. Only one man would dare speak to a High King thus. It was Merlin. Merlin! Merlin who now walked slow and tall up the hall’s central aisle, Merlin who walked past me and with a gesture more royal than anything Gorfyddyd could manage, used his black staff to thrust the King’s sword aside. Merlin, who now walked to Tanaburs and whispered in his ear so that the lesser Druid screamed and fled from the hall.