The Winter King

‘Not boys.’

  Igraine laughed. This day she was wearing an embroidered dress of blue dyed linen that suited her fair skin and dark hair. Two gold torques circled her neck and a tangle of bracelets rattled on a slim wrist. She stank of faeces, a fact I was diplomatic enough to ignore for I realized she must be wearing a pessary of a newborn baby’s first motions, an old remedy for a barren woman. Poor Igraine. ‘You hated Lancelot?’ she suddenly accused me.

  ‘Utterly.’

  ‘That isn’t fair!’ She jumped up from the window-sill and paced to and fro in the small room. ‘People’s stories shouldn’t be told by their enemies. Supposing Nwylle wrote mine?’

  ‘Who is Nwylle?’

  ‘You don’t know her,’ she said, frowning, and I guessed Nwylle was her husband’s lover. ‘But it isn’t fair,’ she insisted, ‘because everyone knows Lancelot was the greatest of Arthur’s soldiers. Everyone!’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But he must have been brave!’

  I stared through the window, trying to be fair in my mind, trying to find something good to say about my worst enemy. ‘He could be brave,’ I said, ‘but he chose not to be. He fought sometimes, but usually he avoided battle. He was frightened of his face being scarred, you see. He was very vain about his looks. He collected Roman mirrors. The mirrored room in Benoic’s palace was Lancelot’s room. He could sit there and admire himself on every wall.’

  ‘I don’t believe he was as bad as you make him sound,’ Igraine protested.

  ‘I think he was worse,’ I said. I do not enjoy writing about Lancelot for the memory of him lies like a stain on my life. ‘Above everything,’ I told Igraine, ‘he was dishonest. He told lies out of choice because he wanted to hide the truth about himself, but he also knew how to make people like him when he wanted. He could charm the fish from the sea, my dear.’

  She sniffed, unhappy at my judgment. Doubtless, when Dafydd ap Gruffud translates these words, Lancelot will be burnished just as he would have liked. Shining Lancelot! Upright Lancelot! Handsome, dancing, smiling, witty, elegant Lancelot! He was the King without Land and the Lord of Lies, but if Igraine has her way he will shine through the years as the very paragon of kingly warriors.

  Igraine peered through the window to where Sansum was driving a group of lepers from our gate. The saint was flinging clods of earth at them, screaming at them to go to the devil and summoning our other brothers to help him. The novice Tudwal, who daily grows ruder to the rest of us, danced beside his master and cheered him on. Igraine’s guards, lolling at the kitchen door as usual, finally appeared and used their spears to rid the monastery of the diseased beggars. ‘Did Sansum really want to sacrifice Arthur?’ Igraine asked.

  ‘So Bedwin told me.’

  Igraine gave me a sly look. ‘Does Sansum like boys, Derfel?’

  ‘The saint loves everyone, dear Queen, even young women who ask impertinent questions.’

  She smiled dutifully, then grimaced. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t like women. Why won’t he let any of you marry? Other monks marry, but none here.’

  ‘The pious and beloved Sansum,’ I explained, ‘believes women distract us from our duty of adoring God. Just like you distract me from my proper work.’

  She laughed, then suddenly remembered an errand and looked serious. ‘There are two words Dafydd did not understand in the last batch of skins, Derfel. He wants you to explain them. Catamite?’

  ‘Tell him to ask someone else.’

  ‘I shall ask someone else, certainly,’ she said indignantly. ‘And camel? He says it isn’t coal.’

  ‘A camel is a mythical beast, Lady, with horns, wings, scales, a forked tail and flames for breath.’

  ‘It sounds like Nwylle,’ Igraine said.

  ‘Ah! The Gospel writers at work! My two evangelists!’ Sansum, his hands dirty from the earth he had thrown at the lepers, sidled into the room to give this present parchment a dubious look before wrinkling his nose. ‘Do I smell something foul?’ he asked.

  I looked sheepish. ‘The beans at breakfast, Lord Bishop,’ I said. ‘I apologize.’

  ‘I am astonished you can abide his company,’ Sansum said to Igraine. ‘And shouldn’t you be in the chapel, my Lady? Praying for a baby? Is that not your business here?’

  ‘It’s certainly not yours,’ Igraine said tartly. ‘If you must know, my Lord Bishop, we were discussing our Saviour’s parables. Did you not once preach to us about the camel and the needle’s eye?’

  Sansum grunted and looked over my shoulder. ‘And what, foul Brother Derfel, is the Saxon word for camel?’

  ‘Nwylle,’ I said.

  Igraine laughed and Sansum glared at her. ‘My Lady finds the words of our blessed Lord amusing?’

  ‘I am just happy to be here,’ Igraine said humbly, ‘but I would love to know what a camel is.’

  ‘Everyone knows!’ Sansum said derisively. ‘A camel is a fish, a great fish! Not unlike,’ he added slyly, ‘the salmon that your husband sometimes remembers to send to us poor monks?’

  ‘I shall have him send more,’ Igraine said, ‘with the next batch of Derfel’s skins, and I know he’ll be sending some of those soon for this Saxon Gospel is very dear to the King.’

  ‘It is?’ Sansum asked suspiciously.

  ‘Very dear, my Lord Bishop,’ Igraine said firmly.

  She is a clever girl, very clever, and beautiful too. King Brochvael is a fool if he takes a lover as well as his Queen, but men were ever fools for women. Or some men were, and chief of them, I suppose, was Arthur. Dear Arthur, my Lord, my Gift-Giver, most generous of men, whose tale this is.

  It was strange to be home, especially as I had no home. I possessed some gold torques and scraps of jewellery, but those, save Ceinwyn’s brooch, I sold so that my men would at least have food in their first days back in Britain. My other belongings had all been in Ynys Trebes, and now they formed a part of some Frank’s hoard. I was poor, homeless, with nothing more to give to my men, not even a hall in which to feast them, but they forgave me that. They were good men and sworn to my service. Like me, they had left behind anything they could not carry when Ynys Trebes fell. Like me they were poor, yet none of them complained. Cavan simply said a soldier must take his losses like he takes his plunder, lightly. Issa, a farm boy who was an extraordinary spearman, tried to return a narrow gold torque that I had given him. It was not just, he said, that a spearman should wear a gold torque when his captain did not, but I would not take it, so Issa gave it as a token to the girl he had brought home from Benoic and the next day she ran off with a tramping priest and his band of whores. The countryside was full of such travelling Christians, missionaries they called themselves, and almost all of them had a band of women believers who were supposed to assist in the Christian rituals, but who, it was rumoured, were more likely to be used for the seduction of converts to the new religion.

  Arthur gave me a hall just north of Durnovaria: not for my own, since it belonged to an heiress named Gyllad, an orphan, but Arthur made me her protector; a position which usually ended with the ruination of the child and the enrichment of the guardian. Gyllad was scarcely eight years old and I could have married her had I wanted and then disposed of her property, or else I could have sold her hand in marriage to a man willing to buy the bride along with the farmland, but instead, as Arthur had intended, I lived off Gyllad’s rents and allowed her to grow in peace. Even so her relatives protested at my appointment. That very same week of my return from Ynys Trebes, when I had been in Gyllad’s hall scarce two days, an uncle of hers, a Christian, appealed against my protectorship to Nabur, the Christian magistrate in Durnovaria, saying that before his death Gyllad’s father had promised him the guardianship, and I only managed to keep Arthur’s gift by posting my spearmen all around the courthouse. They were in full war gear with spearheads whetted bright, and their presence somehow persuaded the uncle and his supporters not to press their suit. The town guards were summoned, but one look at my veterans persuaded them th
at maybe they had better business elsewhere. Nabur complained about returning soldiers committing thuggery in a peaceful town, but when my opponents did not appear in court he weakly awarded me the judgment. I later heard the uncle had already purchased the opposite verdict from Nabur and that he was never able to have his money refunded. I appointed one of my men, Llystan, who had lost a foot in a battle in Benoic’s woods, as Gyllad’s steward and he, like the heiress and her estate, prospered.

  Arthur summoned me the following week. I found him in the palace hall where he was eating his midday meal with Guinevere. He ordered a couch and more food to be fetched for me. The courtyard outside was crowded with petitioners. ‘Poor Arthur,’ Guinevere commented, ‘one visit home and suddenly every man is complaining about his neighbour or demanding a reduction in rent. Why don’t they use the magistrates?’

  ‘Because they’re not rich enough to bribe them,’ Arthur said.

  ‘Or powerful enough to surround the courthouse with iron-helmed men?’ Guinevere added, smiling to show that she did not disapprove of my action. She wouldn’t, for she was a sworn opponent of Nabur who was a leader of the kingdom’s Christian faction.

  ‘A spontaneous gesture of support by my men,’ I said blandly, and Arthur laughed.

  It was a happy meal. I was rarely alone with Arthur and Guinevere, yet when I was I always saw how contented she made him. She had a barbed wit that he lacked, but liked, and she used it gently, as she knew he preferred it used. She flattered Arthur, yet she also gave him good advice. Arthur was ever ready to believe the best about people and he needed Guinevere’s scepticism to redress that optimism. She looked no older than the last time I had been so close to her, though maybe there was a new shrewdness in those green huntress eyes. I could see no evidence that she was pregnant: her pale green dress lay flat over her belly where a gold-tasselled rope hung like a loose belt. Her badge of the moon-crested stag hung around her neck beneath the heavy sun-rays of the Saxon necklace that Arthur had sent her from Durocobrivis. She had scorned the necklace when I had presented it to her, but now wore it proudly.

  The conversation at that midday meal was mostly light. Arthur wanted to know why the blackbirds and thrushes stopped singing in the summer, but neither of us had an answer, any more than we could tell him where the martins and swallows went in winter, though Merlin once told me they went to a great cave in the northern wilderness where they slept in huge feathered clumps until the spring. Guinevere pressed me about Merlin and I promised her, upon my life, that the Druid had indeed returned to Britain. ‘He’s gone to the Isle of the Dead,’ I told her.

  ‘He’s done what?’ Arthur asked, appalled.

  I explained about Nimue and remembered to thank Guinevere for her efforts to save my friend from Sansum’s revenge.

  ‘Poor Nimue,’ Guinevere said. ‘But she is a fierce creature, isn’t she? I liked her, but I don’t think she liked us. We are all too frivolous! And I could not interest her in Isis. Isis, she’d tell me, is a foreign Goddess, and then she would spit like a little cat and mutter a prayer to Manawydan.’

  Arthur showed no reaction to the mention of Isis and I supposed he had lost his fears of the strange Goddess. ‘I wish I knew Nimue better,’ he said instead.

  ‘You will,’ I said, ‘when Merlin brings her back from the dead.’

  ‘If he can,’ Arthur said dubiously. ‘No one ever has come back from the Isle.’

  ‘Nimue will,’ I insisted.

  ‘She is extraordinary,’ Guinevere said, ‘and if anyone can survive the Isle, she can.’

  ‘With Merlin’s help,’ I added.

  Only at the meal’s end did our talk turn to Ynys Trebes, and even then Arthur was careful not to mention the name Lancelot. Instead he regretted that he had no gift with which he could reward me for my efforts.

  ‘Being home is reward enough, Lord Prince,’ I said, remembering to use the title Guinevere preferred.

  ‘I can at least call you Lord,’ Arthur said, ‘and so you will be called from now on, Lord Derfel.’

  I laughed, not because I was ungrateful, but because the reward of a warlord’s title seemed too grand for my attainments. I was also proud: a man was called lord for being a king, a prince, a chief or because his sword had made him famous. I superstitiously touched Hywelbane’s hilt so that my luck would not be soured by the pride. Guinevere laughed at me, not out of spite, but with delight at my pleasure, and Arthur, who loved nothing more than seeing others happy, was pleased for both of us. He was happy himself that day, but Arthur’s happiness was always quieter than other men’s joy. At that time, when he first came back to Britain, I never saw him drunk, never saw him boisterous and never saw him lose his self-possession except on a battlefield. He had a stillness about him that some men found disconcerting for they feared he read their souls, but I think that calm came from his desire to be different. He wanted admiration and he loved rewarding the admiration with generosity.

  The noise of the waiting petitioners grew louder and Arthur sighed as he thought of the work awaiting him. He pushed away his wine and gave me an apologetic glance. ‘You deserve to rest, Lord,’ he said, deliberately flattering me with my new title, ‘but alas, very soon I shall ask you to take your spears north.’

  ‘My spears are yours, Lord Prince,’ I said dutifully.

  He traced a circle on the marble table top with his finger. ‘We are surrounded by enemies,’ he said, ‘but the real danger is Powys. Gorfyddyd collects an army like Britain has never seen. That army will come south very soon and King Tewdric, I fear, has no stomach for the fight. I need to put as many spears as I can into Gwent to hold Tewdric’s loyalty staunch. Cei can hold Cadwy, Melwas will have to do his best against Cerdic, and the rest of us will go to Gwent.’

  ‘What of Aelle?’ Guinevere asked meaningfully.

  ‘He is at peace,’ Arthur insisted.

  ‘He obeys the highest price,’ Guinevere said, ‘and Gorfyddyd will be raising the price very soon.’

  Arthur shrugged. ‘I cannot face both Gorfyddyd and Aelle,’ he said softly. ‘It will take three hundred spears to hold Aelle’s Saxons, not defeat them, mark you, just hold them. The lack of those three hundred spears will mean defeat in Gwent.’

  ‘Which Gorfyddyd knows,’ Guinevere pointed out.

  ‘So what, my love, would you have me do?’ Arthur asked her.

  But Guinevere had no better answer than Arthur, and his answer was merely to hope and pray that the fragile peace held with Aelle. The Saxon King had been bought with a cartload of gold and no further price could be paid for there was no gold left in the kingdom. ‘We just have to hope Gereint can hold him,’ Arthur said, ‘while we destroy Gorfyddyd.’ He pushed his couch back from the table and smiled at me. ‘Rest till after Lughnasa, Lord Derfel,’ he told me, ‘then as soon as the harvest’s gathered you can march north with me.’

  He clapped his hands to summon servants to clear away the remains of the meal and to let in the waiting petitioners. Guinevere beckoned me as the servants hurried about their work. ‘Can we talk?’ she asked.

  ‘Gladly, Lady.’

  She took off the heavy necklace, handed it to a slave, then led me up a flight of stone steps that ended at a door opening into an orchard where two of her big deerhounds waited to greet her. Wasps buzzed around windfalls and Guinevere demanded that slaves clear the rotting fruit away so we could walk unmolested. She fed the hounds scraps of chicken left from the midday meal while a dozen slaves scooped the sodden, bruised fruit into the skirts of their robes, then scuttled away, well stung, to leave the two of us alone. Wicker frames of booths that would be decorated with flowers for the great feast of Lughnasa had been erected all around the orchard wall. ‘It looks pretty’ – Guinevere spoke of the orchard – ‘but I wish I was in Lindinis.’

  ‘Next year, Lady,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll be in ruins,’ she said tartly. ‘Hadn’t you heard? Gundleus raided Lindinis. He didn’t capture Caer Cadarn, but he did pu
ll down my new palace. That was a year ago.’ She grimaced. ‘I hope Ceinwyn makes him utterly miserable, but I doubt she will. She’s an insipid little thing.’ The leaf-filtered sun lit her red hair and cast strong shadows on her good face. ‘I sometimes wish I was a man,’ she said, surprising me.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Do you know how hateful it is to wait for news?’ she asked passionately. ‘In two or three weeks you’ll all go north and then we must just wait. Wait and wait. Wait to hear if Aelle breaks his word, wait to hear how huge Gorfyddyd’s army really is.’ She paused. ‘Why is Gorfyddyd waiting? Why doesn’t he attack now?’

  ‘His levies are working on the harvest,’ I said. ‘Everything stops for harvest. His men will want to make sure of their harvest before they come to take ours.’

  ‘Can we stop them?’ she asked me abruptly.

  ‘In war, Lady,’ I said, ‘it is not always a question of what we can do, but what we must do. We must stop them.’ Or die, I thought grimly.

  She walked in silence for a few paces, thrusting the excited dogs away from her feet. ‘Do you know what people are saying about Arthur?’ she asked after a while.

  I nodded. ‘That it would be better if he fled to Broceliande and yielded the kingdom to Gorfyddyd. They say the war is lost.’

  She looked at me, overwhelming me with her huge eyes. At that moment, so close to her, alone with her in the warm garden and engulfed by her subtle scent, I understood why Arthur had risked a kingdom’s peace for this woman. ‘But you will fight for Arthur?’ she asked me.

  ‘To the end, Lady,’ I said. ‘And for you,’ I added awkwardly.

  She smiled. ‘Thank you.’ We turned a corner, walking towards the small spring that sprang from a rock in the corner of the Roman wall. The trickle of water irrigated the orchard and someone had tucked votive ribbons into niches of the mossy rock. Guinevere lifted the golden hem of her apple-green dress as she stepped over the rivulet. ‘There’s a Mordred party in the kingdom,’ she told me, repeating what Bishop Bedwin had spoken of on the night of my return. ‘They’re Christians, mostly, and they’re all praying for Arthur’s defeat. If he was defeated, of course, they’d have to grovel to Gorfyddyd, but grovelling, I’ve noticed, comes naturally to Christians. If I were a man, Derfel Cadarn, three heads would fall to my sword. Sansum, Nabur and Mordred.’