The Winter King

  I took Nimue to Arthur. There would be no idyll in Lyonesse, no sieve or winnowing sheet and no bed beside the sea. Merlin had gone north to save Britain, now Nimue must work her own sorcery in the south. We went to buy a Saxon’s peace while behind us, on the bank of our summer stream, the flowers of Lughnasa wilted.

  Arthur and his guard rode north on the Fosse Way. Sixty horsemen, caparisoned in leather and iron, were going to war and with them were fifty spearmen, six mine and the rest led by Lanval, Guinevere’s erstwhile guard commander, whose job and purpose had been usurped by Lancelot, King of Benoic, who, with his men, was now the protector of all the high people living in Durnovaria. Galahad had taken the rest of my men north to Gwent and it was a measure of our urgency that we all marched before the harvest, but Aelle’s treachery gave us no choice. I marched with Arthur and Nimue. She had insisted on accompanying me even though she was still far from strong, but nothing would have kept her away from the war that was about to begin. We marched two days after Lughnasa and, perhaps as a portent of what was to come, the sky had clouded over to threaten a heavy rain.

  The horsemen, with their grooms and pack-mules, together with Lanval’s spearmen, waited on the Fosse Way while Arthur crossed the land bridge to Ynys Wydryn. Nimue and I went with him, taking only my six spearmen as an escort. It was strange to be back beneath the Tor’s looming peak where Gwlyddyn had rebuilt Merlin’s halls so that the Tor’s summit looked almost as it had on the day when Nimue and I had fled from Gundleus’s savagery. Even the tower had been rebuilt and I wondered if, like the first tower, it was a dream chamber in which the whispers of the Gods would echo to the sleeping wizard.

  But our business was not with the Tor, but with the shrine of the Holy Thorn. Five of my men stayed outside the shrine’s gates while Arthur, Nimue and I walked into the compound. Nimue’s head was shrouded with a hood so that her face with its leather eye-patch could not be seen. Sansum hurried to meet us. He looked in fine condition for a man who was ostensibly in disgrace for rousing Durnovaria to deadly riot. He was plumper than I remembered and wore a new black gown that was half covered with a cope lavishly embroidered with golden crosses and silver thorns. A heavy golden cross hung on a golden chain at his breast, while a torque of thick gold shone at his neck. His mouse-like face with its stiffly tonsured brush offered us a smirk that was intended as a smile. ‘The honour you do us!’ he cried, his hands flying apart in welcome. ‘The honour! Dare I hope, Lord Arthur, that you come to worship our dear Lord? That is His Sacred Thorn! A reminder of the thorns that pricked His head as He suffered for your sins.’ He gestured towards the drooping tree with its small sad leaves. A group of pilgrims surrounding the tree had draped its pathetic limbs with votive offerings. Seeing us, those pilgrims shuffled away, not realizing that the poorly dressed farm boy who worshipped with them was one of our men. It was Issa, whom I had sent on ahead with a small offering of coins for the shrine. ‘Some wine, perhaps?’ Sansum now offered us. ‘And food? We have cold salmon, new bread, some strawberries even.’

  ‘You live well, Sansum,’ Arthur said, looking around the shrine. It had grown since I had last been in Ynys Wydryn. The stone church had been extended and two new buildings constructed, one a dormitory for the monks and the other a house for Sansum himself. Both buildings were of stone and had roofs made of tiles taken from Roman villas.

  Sansum raised his eyes to the threatening clouds. ‘We are merely humble servants of the great God, Lord, and our life on earth is all due to His grace and providence. Your esteemed wife is well, I pray?’

  ‘Very, thank you.’

  ‘The news brings joy to us, Lord,’ Sansum lied. ‘And our King, he is well too?’

  ‘The boy grows, Sansum.’

  ‘And in the true faith, I trust.’ Sansum was backing away as we advanced. ‘So what, Lord, brings you to our small settlement?’

  Arthur smiled. ‘Need, Bishop, need.’

  ‘Of spiritual grace?’ Sansum enquired.

  ‘Of money.’

  Sansum threw up his hands. ‘Would a man searching for fish climb to a mountain top? Or a man panting for water go to a desert? Why come to us, Lord Arthur? We brothers are vowed to poverty and what meagre crumbs the dear Lord does permit to fall into our laps we give to the poor.’ He closed his hands gracefully together.

  ‘Then I am come, dear Sansum,’ Arthur said, ‘to make certain that you are keeping your vows of poverty. The war goes hard, it needs money, the treasury is empty, and you will have the honour of making your King a loan.’ Nimue, who now shuffled humbly behind us like a cowled servant, had reminded Arthur of the church’s wealth. How she must have been enjoying Sansum’s discomfort.

  ‘The church had been spared these enforced loans,’ Sansum said sharply and putting a scornful bite on the last word. ‘High King Uther, may his soul rest in peace, exempted the church from all such exactions, just as the pagan shrines’ – he crossed himself – ‘are shamefully and sinfully exempted.’

  ‘King Mordred’s council,’ Arthur said, ‘has rescinded the exemption, and your shrine, Bishop, is known as the wealthiest in Dumnonia.’

  Sansum raised his eyes to the sky again. ‘If we possessed so much as one gold coin, Lord, I would take pleasure in giving it to you as an outright gift. But we are poor. You should seek your loan on the hill.’ He gestured to the Tor. ‘The pagans there, Lord, have been hoarding infidel gold for centuries!’

  ‘The Tor,’ I intervened coldly, ‘was raided by Gundleus when Norwenna was killed. What little gold was there, and it was little, was stolen.’

  Sansum pretended to have just noticed me. ‘It’s Derfel, isn’t it? I thought so. Welcome home, Derfel!’

  ‘Lord Derfel,’ Arthur corrected Sansum.

  Sansum’s small eyes opened wide. ‘Praise God! Praise Him! You rise in the world, Lord Derfel, and what satisfaction that gives me, a humble churchman who will now be able to boast that he knew you when you were but a common spearman. A lord now? What a blessing! And what honour your presence does us! But even you know, my dear Lord Derfel, that when King Gundleus raided the Tor he also raided the poor monks here. Alas, what depredations he made! The shrine suffered for Christ and it has never recovered.’

  ‘Gundleus went to the Tor first,’ I said. ‘I know, because I was there. And by so doing he gave the monks here time to hide their treasures.’

  ‘Such fantasies you pagans hold about we Christians! Do you still claim we eat babies at our love feasts?’ Sansum laughed.

  Arthur sighed. ‘Dear Bishop Sansum,’ he said, ‘I know my request is hard for you. I know it is your job to preserve the wealth of your church so that it can grow and reflect the glory of God. All that I know, but I also know that if we do not have the money to fight our enemies then the enemy will come here and there will be no church, there will be no Holy Thorn, and the shrine’s Bishop’ – he prodded a finger into Sansum’s ribs – ‘will be nothing but dry bones pecked clean by ravens.’

  ‘There are other ways to keep the enemy from our gates,’ Sansum said, unwisely hinting that Arthur was the cause of the war and that if Arthur simply left Dumnonia then Gorfyddyd would be satisfied.

  Arthur did not become angry. He simply smiled. ‘Your treasury is needed for Dumnonia, Bishop.’

  ‘We have no treasury. Alas!’ Sansum made the sign of the cross. ‘As God is my witness, Lord, we possess nothing.’

  I strolled across to the thorn. ‘The monks of Ivinium,’ I said, referring to a monastery some miles to the south, ‘are better gardeners than you, Bishop.’ I scraped Hywelbane from her scabbard and prodded her tip into the soil beside the sorry tree. ‘Maybe we should dig up the Holy Thorn and take it to Ivinium’s care? I am sure their monks would pay highly for the privilege.’

  ‘And the Thorn would be further from the Saxons!’ Arthur said brightly. ‘Surely you approve of our plan, Bishop?’

  Sansum was waving his hands desperately. ‘The monks at Ivinium are ignorant fools, Lord, mer
e mumblers of prayers. If your Lordships would wait in the church, maybe I can find some few coins for your purpose?’

  ‘Do,’ Arthur said.

  The three of us were ushered into the church. It was a plain building with a stone floor, stone walls and a beamed roof. It was a gloomy place for only a little light came through the small high windows where sparrows bickered and wallflowers grew. At the church’s far end was a stone table on which stood a crucifix. Nimue, the hood thrown back from her hair, spat at the crucifix while Arthur strolled to the table, then hitched himself up so he could sit on its edge. ‘I take no pleasure in this, Derfel,’ he said.

  ‘Why should you, Lord?’

  ‘It does not do to offend Gods,’ Arthur said gloomily.

  ‘This God,’ Nimue said contemptuously, ‘is said to be a forgiving one. Better offend that kind than any other.’

  Arthur smiled. He was wearing a simple jerkin, trousers, boots, a cloak and Excalibur. He wore no gold, nor armour, but there was no mistaking his authority, nor, at that moment, his unease. He sat in silence for a time, then looked up at me. Nimue was exploring the small rooms at the back of the church and we were alone together. ‘Perhaps I should leave Britain?’ Arthur said.

  ‘And yield Dumnonia to Gorfyddyd?’

  ‘Gorfyddyd will enthrone Mordred in time,’ Arthur said, ‘and that is all that matters.’

  ‘He says as much?’ I asked.

  ‘He does.’

  ‘And what else would he say?’ I argued, appalled that my Lord should even contemplate exile. ‘But the truth,’ I added forcefully, ‘is that Mordred will be Gorfyddyd’s client and why should Gorfyddyd enthrone a client? Why not put one of his own relatives on the throne? Why not put his son Cuneglas on our throne?’

  ‘Cuneglas is honourable,’ Arthur insisted.

  ‘Cuneglas will do whatever his father tells him,’ I said scornfully, ‘and Gorfyddyd wants to be High King, which means he certainly won’t want the old High King’s heir growing to be a rival. Besides, do you think Gorfyddyd’s Druids will let a maimed king live? If you go, Lord, I number Mordred’s days.’

  Arthur did not respond. He sat there, his hands on the table’s edge and his head down as he stared at the floor. He knew I was right, just as he knew that he alone of Britain’s warlords fought for Mordred. The rest of Britain wanted their own man on Dumnonia’s throne, while Guinevere wanted Arthur himself to sit there. He looked up at me. ‘Did Guinevere –’ he began.

  ‘Yes,’ I interrupted him bleakly. I had supposed he was referring to Guinevere’s ambition to place him on Dumnonia’s throne, but he had been thinking of another matter entirely.

  He jumped off the table and began pacing up and down. ‘I understand your feelings for Lancelot,’ he said, surprising me, ‘but consider this, Derfel. Suppose that Benoic had been your kingdom, and supposing that you believed I would save it for you, indeed you knew that I was oath-bound to save it, and then I did not. And Benoic was destroyed. Would that not make you bitter? Would it not make you distrustful? King Lancelot has suffered greatly, and the suffering was at my hands! Mine! And I want, if I can, to make his losses good. I can’t recapture Benoic, but I can, perhaps, give him another kingdom.’

  ‘Which?’ I asked.

  He smiled slyly. He had the whole scheme worked out and he was taking an immense pleasure in revealing it to me. ‘Siluria,’ he said. ‘Let us suppose we can defeat Gorfyddyd, and with him, Gundleus. Gundleus has no heir, Derfel, so if we can kill Gundleus a throne is vacant. We have a king without a throne, they have a throne without a king. More, we have an unmarried king! Offer Lancelot as husband to Ceinwyn and Gorfyddyd will have his daughter as a queen and we shall have our friend on the Silurian throne. Peace, Derfel!’ He spoke with all his old enthusiasm, building a wonderful vision with his words. ‘A union! The marriage union I never made, but now we can make it again. Lancelot and Ceinwyn! And to achieve it we only need to kill one man. Just one.’

  And as many other men who needed to die in battle, I thought, but said nothing. Somewhere to the north a rumble of thunder sounded. The God Taranis was aware of us, I thought, and I hoped he was on our side. The sky through the tiny high windows was black as night.

  ‘Well?’ Arthur pressed me.

  I had not spoken because the thought of Lancelot wedding Ceinwyn was so bitter that I could not trust myself to speak, but now I forced myself to sound civil. ‘We have to buy off the Saxons and defeat Gorfyddyd first,’ I said sourly.

  ‘But if we do?’ he asked impatiently, as though my objections were trivial obstacles.

  I shrugged as though the idea of the marriage was far beyond my competency to judge.

  ‘Lancelot likes the idea,’ Arthur said, ‘and his mother does too. Guinevere approves as well, but then she would because it was her idea to marry Ceinwyn to Lancelot in the first place. She’s a clever girl. Very clever.’ He smiled as he always did when he thought of his wife.

  ‘But even your clever wife, Lord,’ I dared to say, ‘cannot dictate Mithras’s adherents.’

  He jerked his head as though I had struck him. ‘Mithras!’ he said angrily. ‘Why can’t Lancelot join?’

  ‘Because he’s a coward,’ I snarled, unable to hide my bitterness any longer.

  ‘Bors says not, so do a dozen other men,’ Arthur challenged me.

  ‘Ask Galahad,’ I said, ‘or your cousin Culhwch.’ Rain sounded sudden on the roof and a moment later began to drip from the high window-sills. Nimue had reappeared in the small arched door beside the stone table where she pulled the hood over her face again.

  ‘If Lancelot proves himself, will you relent?’ Arthur asked me after a while.

  ‘If Lancelot shows himself to be a fighter, Lord, I shall relent. But I thought he was your palace guard now?’

  ‘His wish is to command in Durnovaria only until his wounded hand heals,’ Arthur explained, ‘but if he does fight, Derfel, then you will elect him?’

  ‘If he fights well,’ I promised reluctantly, ‘yes.’ I was fairly sure it was a promise I would never have to keep.

  ‘Good,’ Arthur said, pleased as always to have found a measure of agreement, then he turned as the church door banged open with a gust of rainy wind and Sansum ran inside followed by two monks. The two monks were carrying leather bags. Very small leather bags.

  Sansum shook water off his robe as he hurried up the church. ‘We have searched, Lord,’ he said breathlessly, ‘we have hunted, we have pecked high and low, and we have assembled what little treasures our paltry house possesses, which treasures we now lay before you in humble but reluctant duty.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘We shall go hungry this season as a result of our generosity, but where a sword commands, we mere servants of God must obey.’

  His monks poured the contents of the two bags on to the flagstones. A coin rolled across the floor until I trapped it with my foot.

  ‘Gold from the Emperor Hadrian!’ Sansum said of the coin.

  I picked it up. It was a brass sesterce with the Emperor Hadrian’s head on one side and an image of Britannia with her trident and shield on the other. I bent the coin double between my finger and thumb and tossed it to Sansum. ‘Fool’s gold, Bishop,’ I said.

  The rest of the treasure was not much better. There were some worn coins, mostly copper with a few of silver, some iron bars that were commonly used as currency, a brooch of poor gold and some thin golden links from a broken chain. The whole collection was perhaps worth a dozen gold pieces. ‘Is this all?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘We give to the poor, Lord!’ Sansum said, ‘though if your needs are pressing then maybe I could add this.’ He lifted the golden cross from around his neck. The heavy cross and its thick chain were easily worth forty or fifty gold pieces and now, reluctantly, the Bishop held them out to Arthur. ‘My personal loan for your war, Lord?’ he suggested.

  Arthur reached for the chain and Sansum immediately jerked it back. ‘Lord,’ he dropped his voice so that only Arthur and I
could hear him. ‘I was unjustly treated last year. For the loan of this chain,’ he twitched it so that the heavy links clinked together, ‘I would demand that my appointment as King Mordred’s personal chaplain be honoured. My place is at the King’s side, Lord, not here in this pestilential marshland.’ Before Arthur could respond the door of the church opened once again and a rainsoaked Issa shambled inside. Sansum turned furiously on the newcomer. ‘The church is not open to pilgrims!’ the Bishop snapped. ‘There are regular services. Now get out! Out!’

  Issa pushed wet hair away from his face, grinned and spoke to me. ‘They hide all their goods beside the pond behind the big house, Lord, all of it under a pile of rocks. I watched them put today’s tribute there.’

  Arthur plucked the heavy chain from Sansum’s hand. ‘You may keep those other treasures’ – he gestured at the shabby collection on the floor – ‘to feed your paltry house through the winter, Bishop. And keep your torque as a reminder that your neck is in my gift.’ He strode towards the door.

  ‘Lord!’ Sansum shouted in protest. ‘I beg you –’

  ‘Beg,’ Nimue interrupted him, pushing the hood back from her face. ‘Beg, you dog.’ She turned and spat on the crucifix, then on to the church floor, then a third time at Sansum. ‘Beg, you piece of dirt,’ she snarled at him.

  ‘Dear God!’ Sansum blanched at the sight of his enemy. He reeled backward, making the sign of the cross on his thin chest. For a moment he seemed too terrified to even speak. He must have thought Nimue lost for ever on the Isle of the Dead, yet here she was, spitting in triumph. He crossed himself a third time, then wheeled on Arthur. ‘You dare bring a witch into God’s house!’ he screamed. ‘This is sacrilege! Oh sweet Christ!’ He dropped to his knees and gazed up at the rafters. ‘Cast fire from heaven! Cast it now!’