by Whyte, Jack
"You know me, all of you, by repute if in no other way. I am Uther, son of Uric, son of Ullic Pendragon, and I stand here as chosen King in their name and in yours . . ." His voice faded away and none sought to break the silence that followed. He allowed his listeners to absorb what he had said and then he spoke again.
"From this day hence, my home is here among these mountains with you, my people. When I leave these hills, it will be because you, the people of our Federation, need me to go, to safeguard our well-being."
Again he stopped speaking, unhurried, allowing what he had said to sink home to his listeners, and as he waited he turned slowly in a complete circle, looking up into the throngs that packed the ramped walls. Finally, when he gauged that they had absorbed what he had said and were on the point of starting to discuss it among themselves, he spoke again, his voice loud and confident, carrying clearly in the silence.
"I have gained knowledge and learning from my lime in Camulod, and the lessons I have learned I will put to work here in our lands. Like every whole man here, I am a warrior. But unlike most of you, I have learned to fight as the Romans fought, and then, in Camulod, I have learned to light as the Romans never thought to fight—from horseback. I have learned crafts and skills in fighting that we here, among our mountains, have never known, and I have not learned those skills and crafts alone. I had companions with me there in Camulod, lest you forget. . . Pendragon companions from among your ranks, who learned the same lessons with me, by my side, and who are now possessed of knowledge their forefathers never had. Knowledge of horses and of saddles with stirrups and of the use of them in war. Knowledge of ways of waging war never known in Britain until now, because they never existed until the warriors of Camulod brought them into being. This new knowledge, all of it, will keep our Federation safe and strengthen it against those who would seek to harm us."
He spun quickly around so that he was suddenly facing the crowd that had been at his back, raising his voice as he turned, so that he could still be heard by everyone.
"My men are here among you today and will remain here, and some of them are Camulodian. Talk to them, speak with them.
question them on anything that interests you. You will find them still to be much like yourselves, I promise you . . . Many of you gathered here today have been in Camulod. at some time in the past few years, and you know the people there are all our friends. We have had dealings with them in true and open friendship since the days of my Grandfather Ullic.
"There might be some among you, however, who condemn them still for not being Pendragon, as though that marks them as somehow inferior to us. Well, I will admit that they are not Pendragon, which means that they are different, but what of that? They are the next best thing to being Pendragon! They are friends of Pendragon, and have demonstrated that for almost three entire decades now. And far from being inferior in any way, they have shown themselves, time and again, to be our equals in a host of ways that we cannot begin to emulate— allies, proven in the fires of war against the invaders, whether those be Saxon Outlanders or Hibernian pirates or Cornish boars.
"The Camulodian people stand with us against our enemies. There is nothing Roman about Camulod. The people there were all born and bred here in Britain.
"I wear the armour of Camulod for but one single reason—I wear it because it works! There is no stronger, tougher or more effective armour in the world. It will turn any blade, deflect any missile, save for a well-shot Pendragon long shaft. It is the finest armour ever devised by man, and I trust in its strength and its utility. I wear it not because it makes me feel better than you or different in any way from any of you. I wear it because it makes me feel safe to know that if anyone wishes to kill me, they are going to have to face me, eye to eye, and carve or hack their way through my fine armour before they can succeed." Again he paused, looking around him, then continued.
"We have a war to wage, as you all know, against Cornwall. The leader there, a pestilence called Gulrhys Lot, is a human serpent. He sent his murderers, bearing poisoned arrows, to shoot down your King, my father. Uric. He did the same in Camulod, where his creatures used the selfsame venom-bearing weapons to bring about the death of Picus Britannicus, the Legate Commander of Camulod and son of its founder, Caius Cornelius Britannicus. This Gulrhys Lot is an evil man and a craven one. He will send others to do what he dare not attempt himself, and he is afraid to show his face to any of us in the light of day, but he will strive to destroy us all, to serve his monstrous lusts. This is a creature of darkest night, and he is hungry for this land of ours . . .
"I swear to you . . . I swear to you . . . he will have none of it! His armies might come swarming to our shores, but we will meet them and destroy them as they come. And as we meet them, Camulod will guard our back, its cavalry, invincible in war, committed to our use when we have need of it, as our longbows will be committed, too, to their defence. Together, we will stamp out Gulrhys Lot and sear the name and memory of him from people's minds. Cornwall will regret the day he moved against Pendragon."
Someone at the back of the huge crowd, high up on the ramped walls, called out Uther's name, repeating it in approval, and scores, then hundreds of voices added their weight to his, so that the thunder of the chant soon became overwhelming. Uther raised both hands in acknowledgment and turned slowly in a circle, mouthing his thanks and keeping his hands extended, as though in a blessing, until he had completed his turn and stood facing the front once again. And as he turned, his eyes scanned the crowd constantly, so that each person there felt that, at least once, he had made eye contact with the new King and that the King had been speaking directly to him or her at that time, offering his thanks.
At least one of those people, Huw Pendragon's sister Glynda, sat entranced, wide-eyed with adoration. And when Uther had stopped speaking and the assembly was dismissed, she turned to her companions with sparkling eyes.
"Isn't he wonderful? Mairidh, would you not love to meet him and to know him? You could, you know, I am quite sure of that. Lord Balin here is an important man, an ambassador. I am sure you could arrange to meet King Uther easily."
Her listeners exchanged knowing glances as she was speaking, and now Mairidh smiled gently at her young companion, seeing the innocence in the girl's young eyes. "Child," she said, "we already know Uther very well, and have known him for years. Our friendship with his family reaches far, far back, before you were born."
Glynda went slack-mouthed with surprise. She turned her gaze from Mairidh to Balin, seeking reassurance. "Is that true. Lord Balin?"
She was completely unaware of casting a slur of any kind on Mairidh's veracity, and the old man smiled and shrugged. "Aye, child, as far as the friendship goes, I have known Uther's grandfather, Ullic Pendragon, for many, many years—in fact I have been privileged to know all of his grandparents, save one. His Pendragon grandmother, Ullic's wife, was long dead ere I even met Ullic, but Publius and Luceiia Varrus of Camulod, the parents of Uther's mother Veronica, have been friends of ours for many years. But then, I am an old man and I tend to dwell in the past, as all old people do. The friendship with young Uther, to which Mairidh refers, was more hers than my own, but it has lasted—how long now, Mairidh? Ten years?"
"At least that long, my love." Mairidh smiled again at Glynda. "He saved my life once, did you not know that?" Glynda's eyes became enormous with wonder and Mairidh nodded in confirmation. "It's true. I was abducted by a raiding party and Uther happened to see it. He followed us and saved me heroically while my abductors slept. He is your King now, but he was my saviour then, and no more than a mere boy at the time, almost a child, perhaps younger than you are now."
"How? Oh, my lady, do tell me about it, please."
Mairidh shook her head at the anguished urgency in the young woman's voice. "Ah, my dear, it was a long time ago, and it is a very long tale. Perhaps later tonight, after dinner. We shall see."
And so it was left, with Glynda fretfully wondering whether she wou
ld ever get to hear the story, and Mairidh reflecting yet again upon how she had really met Uther Pendragon for the first time. She would never, could never, forget any detail of that first meeting, or of any of the many that followed it, but she felt no tiniest portion of guilt at having deceived her young friend, however gently, regarding the details.
As she and her party joined the departing throng and began making their way towards the exit from the temple, the woman called Mairidh walked with her head down, ignoring everyone around her and allowing her memory to drift back across the years.
Chapter NINETEEN
July was supposed to be a month of blue skies and summer breezes, but this year it had been more like late November, with dull, leaden skies, heavy with rain-filled clouds, and cold, howling winds that could cut through the warmest clothing and chill a body right down to the bone. The current storm, the latest in a series, had begun the day before, buffeting Nemo with cold, blustery winds and torrential rain. She had been drenched and chilled within an hour, the thickly woven, waxed wool of her heavy, hooded campaign cloak soaked through, so that it became an added burden to be borne, dragging at her with its sodden weight. And she was still a full day's ride from Camulod.
A year had passed since the Choosing, and nine months since Uther had driven Lot's forces back to Cornwall, and the time had been swallowed by the crises and small miseries of everyday life. A harsh winter had hit them hard in Tir Manha, diminishing their stores of corn and provender with frightening speed, and now summer was bringing little relief, its sullen, rainy malevolence threatening the harvest yet to come.
For hours she rode though the trees, away from the deserted road, hoping to find shelter of some kind, but there was nothing, not a cave or even a large animal burrow into which she might crawl. An enormous fire had burned the entire forest several years earlier, and nothing had had time to grow again to any decent size. The solitary ruined hut she found in a narrow ravine on a hillside that had somehow escaped the blaze had been completely useless to her, abandoned for decades, its roof long vanished and its decayed walls incapable of sheltering her from the howling wind.
She struck out directly for the only place she knew of that would offer her at least a rudimentary roof over her head: a ruined stone cattle shed, abandoned countless years earlier, but which still retained a remnant of a once good, thick roof of sod laid over rotted logs. If the remaining portion of the roof had not collapsed since the previous winter, it would offer her at least the opportunity to try to build a fire.
It had been dark for more than an hour by the time she finally crossed the ten or twelve miles and reached the crossroads close to where the shed lay. It took her another hour after that, working in the windblown darkness, to locate the ruined building—the roof, such as it was, was still in place—and then to find a spot within its walls where, by tenting her soaked cloak as a barrier against the gusting wind, she could create sufficient shelter to strike sparks into tinder and finally kindle a tiny flame strong enough to feed with twigs, huddling over it constantly to protect it from the cold, questing breath of the destructive wind.
Only when the tiny fire was burning briskly did she reach into her scrip for the thick tallow candle she always carried, and she lit it carefully with a flaming twig. Then, carefully guarding the candle flame in the hollow of her arm beneath her upraised cloak, she was able to move sufficiently far away from the fire to see and reach the supply of old, sun-dried wood, whitened with age, that lay against one of the walls, used and replenished by travellers like herself. Cautiously then, pre parcel to react at any moment to threats from the wind, Nemo set about building a real fire, feeding the dried-out lengths of wood one at a time to the hungry, growing flames. Her mood improved from moment to moment as they began to leap and dance vigorously, filling the angle between the ruined walls with flickering shadows and yellow brightness, and at last defying the wind to do its worst.
Nemo stood up and removed her sodden cloak, then reached behind her back with her left hand and grasped the naked blade that hung there, flipping it strongly, straight upwards, with an easy, accustomed movement that allowed her other hand the purchase to draw the long cavalry sword that hung through an iron ring between her shoulder blades, its hilt projecting high above her right ear. As soon as the sword was free, she reversed her grip on it and thrust the blade into the dirt floor. The sound of its point grating into the soil pleased her, and she gazed at the long, deadly weapon swaying there within her reach before she reached down and picked up her shield, a wooden disk covered with iron-studded leather. Slowly then, taking pains to position everything correctly, she lowered the loops at the back of the shield down over the hilt of the sword so that it hung securely, anchored to the pommel and the boss of the hilt by its own weight against the tension of the straps. Then, satisfied, she gathered up her cloak again and hung it carefully over the framework she had formed, where it could be dried by the fire's heat. She checked it to be sure that the cloak would not fall down, and then she moved away reluctantly, loosening her short-sword in its sheath, and went to look after her horse.
Strictly speaking, as a cavalry trooper, she knew she should have attended to the horse's needs before her own, but she was chilled and exhausted, close to the end of her resources, whereas the horse was still in good condition—cold and weary, perhaps, but yet far better able to withstand the ravages of the weather for another hour than she was. There was no place to stable him, for the broken roof that sheltered her was barely large enough to cover her and her fire, but she led her mount into the lee of the building's wall, out of the worst of the wind.
Working quickly, she first removed her precious saddlebags and the iron flail that she carried so proudly, hanging from a hook beside her saddle horn exactly as Uther's hung from his. Then she took off the animal's saddle and its thick saddle blanket, the latter amazingly warm and dry where the heavy saddle had sheltered it. The big gelding tossed his head and snorted his relief, flexed his back muscles and turned his hindquarters directly into the wind, lowering his head in search of grazing. She knew he would not move away before she returned.
She draped the blanket and saddlebags over the saddle and hitched it up until it rode on her left hip. Then, picking up the flail in her free hand, she carried everything over to the fire, where she positioned the saddle with care and spread the blanket out over it to dry out. From the saddlebags she removed the equipment she carried for the horse: a cylindrical leather nosebag, folded flat, a set of leg hobbles, a wide, stiff-bristled grooming brush and a leather bag of oats, sealed by a drawstring, that was about one-quarter full. From the other bag she produced a tightly folded and bound one- man blanket, woven of thick wool yarn that had been brushed and coated lightly with a scraping of wax. She also removed her most precious possession, a leather boiling bag, given to her years earlier by Uther. Its edges had been carefully stretched and sewn over the rim of the wide iron ring that formed its top, and she checked carefully, as she always did, to make sure that no damage had been done to it in her travels. She laid the bag aside, along with the long, slender, hand-crafted legs of the collapsible iron tripod on which it was made to rest. Within the leather of the boiling bag itself reposed another, smaller bag, this one containing a spoon and a cup, both made of horn, the cup itself containing a measure of salt wrapped in a twist of cloth, and several individually wrapped plants and herbs: small onions, cloves of garlic and dried mushrooms. Nemo ignored the cooking items for the time being, taking out only the horn cup and replacing everything else where it had been, except for the folded and tied blanket, which she stowed carefully for safekeeping beneath the curve of the saddle by the lire.
She filled the nosebag with oats, then scooped up her metal helmet and removed its leather liner. A steady stream of rainwater poured from one end of the sagging remnant of roof, and Nemo moved towards it, holding her helmet upside down to catch the falling water. When it was almost completely filled, she held it carefully in the crook of
her elbow and bent to pick up the nosebag, and then she made her way around the sagging wall to the rear of the building.
The horse was used to being hobbled and made no attempt to move away as Nemo knelt awkwardly, fighting the stiffness of her armour as she fastened the restraints around his forelegs; he knew that as soon as she had finished with the hobbling, she would stand up and remove the bridle and the hated bit from his mouth. Moments later, his head was free and he was slurping noisily from the water in the helmet. He was not very thirsty, however, and he soon tossed his head to show that he had had enough. Muttering softly to him, allowing him to hear the comforting sound of her voice rather than any kind of sensible words, Nemo strapped on his nosebag and left him to eat. He tossed his head gently and stomped about a little until he had himself placed the way he wanted, rump firmly presented to the unfriendly wind, and then he lowered his head and its hanging bag to the ground and settled down to eat his oats. Nemo watched him for a moment or two and then collected her helmet and left him there.
Back by the fireside, Nemo sat on the saddle and undid the fastenings of her armoured coat, then spread it wide, throwing it open to allow the heat to penetrate her damp, quilted tunic. She reached beneath her right arm to pull out the thick leather wallet that she carried there for safety, protected, like her heart itself, by the thick armour of her fighting coat. The wallet contained the dispatches that Uther had entrusted to her care for delivery to Merlyn, and she peered down at it closely to make sure that it was still securely closed. Then she tugged hard on the strap that crossed her chest and held the wallet firmly in its place, testing it, too, before thrusting the wallet back into place beneath her arm. She used the blanket from her saddlebag then to dry her face and neck as well as she could, towelling her short-cropped, wet hair. Stripping completely to dry herself properly would have meant stripping off her armour, and when it was cold, wet and stiff, removing armour became a formidable task. Putting it back on quickly would have been simply impossible, and there was something too intimidating about exposing herself naked to anything that might be out there watching in the night, seeing her barely sheltered by broken walls and a sagging fragment of roof, and lit up by the fitful, flickering firelight, with the darkness pressing in upon her from every side.