The Winter King

  Arthur ignored him, plunging instead into the pelting rain that was bedraggling the pathetic votive ribbons draped on the Holy Thorn. ‘Call the other spearmen inside,’ Arthur ordered Issa. My men had waited outside the shrine in case Sansum had attempted to hide his treasures beyond the encircling wall, but now the spearmen came into the enclosure to help drive the frantic monks away from the pile of rocks that hid their secret treasury. Some of the monks dropped to their knees as they saw Nimue. They knew who she was.

  Sansum ran from the church and threw himself on to the rocks, dramatically decreeing that he would sacrifice his life to preserve God’s money. Arthur shook his head sadly. ‘Are you sure of this sacrifice, Lord Bishop?’

  ‘Dear sweet God!’ Sansum bellowed. ‘Thy servant comes, slaughtered by wicked men and their foul witch! All I did was obey Your word. Receive me, Lord! Receive Thy humble servant!’ This was followed by a scream as he anticipated his death, but it was only Issa lifting him by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his robe and carrying him gently away from the stone pile to the pond where he dropped Sansum into the shallow, muddy water. ‘I’m drowning, Lord!’ Sansum shouted. ‘Cast into mighty waters like Jonah into the ocean! A martyr for Christ! As Paul and Peter were martyred, Lord, so now I come!’ He blew some urgent bubbles, but no one beside his God was taking any notice and so he slowly dragged himself out of the muddy duckweed to spit curses at my men who were eagerly dragging the stones aside.

  Beneath the rock pile was a cover of wooden boards that lifted to reveal a stone cistern crammed with leather sacks, and in the sacks was gold. Thick gold coins, gold chains, gold statues, gold torques, gold brooches, gold bracelets, gold pins; the gold fetched here by hundreds of pilgrims seeking the blessing of the Thorn, that Arthur now insisted a monk count and weigh so that a proper receipt could be issued to the monastery. He left my men to supervise the tally while he led a damp and protesting Sansum across the compound to the Holy Thorn. ‘You must learn to grow thorn trees before you meddle in the affairs of kings, my Lord Bishop,’ Arthur said. ‘You are not restored to the King’s chaplaincy, but will stay here and learn husbandry.’

  ‘Mulch the next tree,’ I advised him. ‘Let the roots stay damp while it settles in. And don’t transplant a tree in flower, Bishop, they don’t like it. That’s been the trouble with the last few thorns you planted here; you dug them out of the woods at the wrong time. Bring them across in winter and dig them a good hole with some dung and mulch and you might get a real miracle.’

  ‘Forgive them, Lord!’ Sansum said, dropping to his knees and gazing into the damp heavens.

  Arthur wanted to visit the Tor, though first he stood beside Norwenna’s grave that had become a place of veneration for Christians. ‘She was an ill-used woman,’ he told me.

  ‘All women are,’ Nimue said. She had followed us to the grave that stood close beside the Holy Thorn.

  ‘No,’ Arthur insisted. ‘Maybe most people are, but not all women any more than all men. But this woman was, and we still have to avenge her.’

  ‘You had your chance of vengeance once,’ Nimue accused him harshly, ‘and you let Gundleus live.’

  ‘Because I hoped for peace,’ Arthur said. ‘But next time he dies.’

  ‘Your wife,’ Nimue said, ‘promised him to me.’

  Arthur shuddered, knowing what cruelty lay behind Nimue’s desire, but he nodded. ‘He is yours,’ he said, ‘I promise it.’ He turned and led the two of us through the pouring rain to the Tor’s summit. Nimue and I were going home, Arthur to see Morgan.

  He embraced his sister in the hall. Morgan’s gold mask shone dully in the stormy light, while round her neck she wore the bear claws set in gold that Arthur had brought her from Benoic so very long ago. She clung to him, desperate for affection, and I left them alone. Nimue, almost as though she had never been away from the Tor, ducked through the small door into Merlin’s rebuilt chambers while I ran through the rain to Gudovan’s hut. I found the old clerk sitting at his desk, but not working for he was blinded with cataracts, though he said he could still make out light and dark. ‘And mostly it’s dark now,’ he said sadly, then smiled. ‘I suppose you’re too big to hit now, Derfel?’

  ‘You can try, Gudovan,’ I said, ‘but it won’t do much good any more.’

  ‘Did it ever?’ He chuckled. ‘Merlin spoke of you when he was here last week. Not that he stayed long. He came, he talked with us, he left us another cat as if we didn’t have enough cats already, and then he left. He didn’t even stay the night, he was in such a hurry.’

  ‘Do you know where he went?’ I asked.

  ‘He wouldn’t say, but where do you think he went?’ Gudovan asked with a touch of his old asperity. ‘Chasing Nimue. At least I suppose that’s what he’s doing, though why he should chase that silly girl, I don’t know. He should take a slave!’ He paused and suddenly seemed on the edge of tears. ‘You know Sebile died?’ he went on. ‘Poor woman. She was murdered, Derfel! Murdered! Had her throat slit. No one knows who did it. Some traveller, I assume. The world goes to the dogs, Derfel, to the dogs.’ For a moment he seemed lost, then he found the thread of his thoughts again. ‘Merlin should use a slave. Nothing wrong with a willing slave and there are plenty in town who oblige for a small coin. I use the house down by Gwlyddyn’s old workshop. There’s a nice woman there, though these days we tend to talk more than we bump about the bed. I get old, Derfel.’

  ‘You don’t look old. And Merlin isn’t chasing Nimue. She’s here.’

  Thunder sounded again and Gudovan’s hand found a small piece of iron that he stroked for protection against evil. ‘Nimue here?’ he asked in amazement. ‘But we heard she was on the Isle!’ He touched the iron again.

  ‘She was,’ I said flatly, ‘but isn’t now.’

  ‘Nimue …’ He said the name almost in disbelief. ‘Is she staying?’

  ‘No, we all go east today.’

  ‘And leaving us alone?’ he asked petulantly. ‘I miss Hywel.’

  ‘So do I.’

  He sighed. ‘Times change, Derfel. The Tor isn’t what it was. We’re all old now and there are no children left. I miss them, and poor Druidan has no one to chase. Pellinore rants to emptiness, while Morgan is bitter.’

  ‘Wasn’t she always?’ I asked lightly.

  ‘She has lost her power,’ he explained. ‘Not her power to tell dreams or heal the sick, but the power she enjoyed when Merlin was here and Uther was on the throne. She resents that, Derfel, just as she resents your Nimue.’ He paused, thinking. ‘She was especially angry when Guinevere sent for Nimue to fight Sansum about that church in Durnovaria. Morgan believes she should have been summoned, but we hear that the Lady Guinevere wants no one but the beautiful around her and where does that leave Morgan?’ He chuckled at the question. ‘But she’s still a strong woman, Derfel, and she has her brother’s ambition so she won’t be content to stay here listening to the dreams of peasants and grinding herbs to cure the milk-fever. She’s bored! So bored that she even plays throwboard with that wretched Bishop Sansum from the shrine. Why did they send him to Ynys Wydryn?’

  ‘Because they didn’t want him in Durnovaria. Does he really come here to play games with Morgan?’

  Gudovan nodded. ‘He says he needs intelligent company and that she has the cleverest mind in Ynys Wydryn, and I dare say he’s right. He preaches to her, of course, endless nonsense about a virgin whelping a God who gets nailed to a cross, but Morgan just lets it roll past her mask. At least I hope she does.’ He paused and sipped from a horn of mead in which a wasp was struggling as it drowned. When he put the horn down I fished the wasp out and squashed it on his desk. ‘Christianity gains converts, Derfel,’ Gudovan went on. ‘Even Gwlyddyn’s wife, that nice woman Ralla, has converted, which probably means that Gwlyddyn and the two children will follow her. I don’t mind, but why do they have to sing so much?’

  ‘You don’t like singing?’ I teased him.

  ‘No one loves a good song
better than I!’ he said stoutly. ‘The Battle Song of Uther or the Slaughter Chant of Taranis, that’s what I call a song, not this whining and moaning about being sinners in need of grace.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘I hear you were in Ynys Trebes?’ he asked.

  I told him the tale of the city’s fall. It seemed an appropriate story as we sat there with the rain falling on the fields outside and a gloom lowering over all Dumnonia. When the tale was told Gudovan stared sightlessly through the door, saying nothing. I thought he might have fallen asleep, but when I rose from the stool, he waved me down. ‘Are things as bad as Bishop Sansum claims?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re bad, my friend,’ I admitted.

  ‘Tell me.’

  I told him how the Irish and the Cornish were raiding in the west where Cadwy still pretended to rule an independent kingdom. Tristan did his best to restrain his father’s soldiers, but King Mark could not resist enriching his poor kingdom by stealing from a weakened Dumnonia. I told him how Aelle’s Saxons had broken the truce, but added that Gorfyddyd’s army still posed the greatest threat. ‘He’s assembled the men of Elmet, Powys and Siluria,’ I told Gudovan, ‘and once the harvest is gathered he’ll lead them all south.’

  ‘And Aelle doesn’t fight against Gorfyddyd?’ the old scribe asked.

  ‘Gorfyddyd has purchased peace from Aelle.’

  ‘And will Gorfyddyd win?’ Gudovan asked.

  I paused a long time. ‘No,’ I finally said, not because it was the truth, but because I did not want this old friend to worry that his last glimpse of this life would be a flash of light as a warrior’s sword swung towards his blinded eyes. ‘Arthur will fight them,’ I said, ‘and Arthur has yet to be beaten.’

  ‘You’ll fight them too?’

  ‘It’s my job now, Gudovan.’

  ‘You would have made a good clerk,’ he said sadly, ‘and it is an honourable and useful profession, even though no one makes us lords because of it.’ I thought he had not known of my honour and I suddenly felt ashamed of being so proud of it. Gudovan groped for his mead and took another sip. ‘If you see Merlin,’ he said, ‘tell him to come back. The Tor is dead without him.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Goodbye, Lord Derfel,’ Gudovan said, and I sensed he knew we would never meet again in this world. I tried to embrace the old man, but he waved me away for fear of betraying his emotions.

  Arthur was waiting at the sea gate where he stared westward across the marshes that were being storm-swept by great pale waves of rain. ‘This will be bad for the harvest,’ he said bleakly. Lightning flickered above the Severn Sea.

  ‘There was a storm like this after Uther died,’ I said.

  Arthur pulled his cloak tight around his body. ‘If Uther’s son had lived …’ he said, then fell silent rather than finish the thought. His mood was as dark and bleak as the weather.

  ‘Uther’s son could not have fought Gorfyddyd, Lord,’ I said, ‘nor Aelle.’

  ‘Nor Cadwy,’ he added bitterly, ‘nor Cerdic. So many enemies, Derfel.’

  ‘Then be glad you have friends, Lord.’

  He acknowledged that truth with a smile, then turned to gaze northwards. ‘I worry about one friend,’ he said softly. ‘I worry that Tewdric won’t fight. He’s tired of war, and I can’t blame him for that. Gwent has suffered much worse than Dumnonia.’ He looked at me and there were tears in his eyes, or maybe it was just the rain. ‘I wanted to do such great things, Derfel,’ he said, ‘such great things. And in the end it was I who betrayed them, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No, Lord,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Friends should speak the truth,’ he chided me gently.

  ‘You needed Guinevere,’ I said, embarrassed to be speaking thus, ‘and you were meant to be with her, else why would the Gods have brought her to the feasting hall on the night of your betrothal? It isn’t for us, Lord, to read the minds of Gods, just to live our fate fully.’

  He grimaced at that, for he liked to believe he was master of his own fate. ‘You think we should all rush madly down the paths of destiny?’

  ‘I think, Lord, that when fate grips you, you do well to put reason aside.’

  ‘And I did,’ he said quietly, then smiled at me. ‘Do you love someone, Derfel?’ he asked.

  ‘The only women I love, Lord, are not for me,’ I answered in self-pity.

  He frowned, then shook his head in commiseration. ‘Poor Derfel,’ he said softly and something about his tone made me look at him. Could he believe I had meant to include Guinevere among those women? I blushed and wondered what I should say, but Arthur had already turned to watch as Nimue came from the hall. ‘You must tell me about the Isle of the Dead sometime,’ he said, ‘when we have the time.’

  ‘I shall tell you, Lord, after your victory,’ I said, ‘when you need good tales to fill long winter evenings.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘after our victory.’ Though he did not sound hopeful. Gorfyddyd’s army was so huge and ours so small.

  But before we could fight Gorfyddyd we had to buy a Saxon’s peace with God’s money. And so we travelled towards Lloegyr.

  We smelt Durocobrivis long before we came near the town. That smell came on our second day of travel and we were still a half-day’s journey from the captured town, but the wind was in the east and it carried the sour reek of death and smoke far across the deserted farmlands. The fields were ready for harvest, but the people had fled in terror of the Saxons. At Cunetio, a small Roman-built town where we had spent the night, refugees filled the streets and their livestock had been crowded into hastily re-erected winter sheep pens. No one had cheered Arthur in Cunetio, and no wonder, for he was blamed for both the war’s length and its disasters. Men grumbled that there had been peace under Uther and nothing but war under Arthur.

  Arthur’s horsemen led our silent column. They wore their armour, they carried spears and swords, but their shields were slung upside down and green branches were tied to their spear-tips as signs that we came in peace. Behind the vanguard marched Lanval’s spearmen, and after them came two score of baggage mules that were loaded with Sansum’s gold and with all the heavy leather shields that Arthur’s horses wore in battle. A second smaller contingent of horsemen formed the rearguard. Arthur himself walked with my wolf-tailed spearmen just behind his banner holder who rode with the leading group of horsemen. Arthur’s black mare Llamrei was led by Hygwydd, his servant, and with him was a stranger I took to be another servant. Nimue walked with us and, like Arthur, tried to learn some Saxon from me, but neither was a good pupil. Nimue was soon bored by the coarse tongue while Arthur had too much on his mind, though he duly learned a few words: peace, land, spear, food, mother, father. I was to be his interpreter, the first of many times that I spoke for Arthur and returned his enemy’s words.

  We met the enemy at midday as we descended a long gentle hill where woods grew on either side of the road. An arrow suddenly flickered from the trees and slashed into the turf just ahead of our leading man, Sagramor. He raised a hand and Arthur shouted at every man in the column to be still. ‘No swords!’ he ordered. ‘Just wait!’

  The Saxons must have been watching us all morning for they had assembled a small war-band to face us. Those men, sixty or seventy strong, trailed out of the trees behind their leader, a broad-chested man who walked beneath a chieftain’s banner of deer-antlers from which hung shreds of tanned human skin.

  The chieftain had the Saxon’s love of fur; a sensible affection for few things stop a sword stroke so well as a thick rich pelt. This man had a collar of heavy black fur about his neck and strips of fur around his upper arms and thighs. The rest of his clothing was leather or wool: a jerkin, trousers, boots, and a leather helmet crested with a tuft of black fur. At his waist hung a long sword, while in his hand was that favourite Saxon weapon, the broad-bladed axe.

  ‘Are you lost, wealhas?’ he shouted. Wealhas was their word for us Britons. It means foreigners and has a derisive ring, just as our word Sais d
oes for them. ‘Or are you just tired of life?’ He stood firmly in our road, feet apart, head up and with his axe resting on his shoulder. He had a brown beard and a mass of brown hair that jutted sharply out from under his helmet’s rim. His men, some in iron helmets, some in leather, and almost all carrying axes, formed a shield–wall across the road. A few had huge leashed dogs, beasts the size of wolves, and of late, we had heard, the Sais had been using such dogs as weapons, releasing them against our shield–walls just a few seconds before they struck with axe and spear. The dogs frightened some of our men far more than the Saxons did.

  I walked with Arthur, stopping a few paces short of the defiant Saxon. Neither of us carried spear or shield and our swords rested in their scabbards. ‘My Lord,’ I said in Saxon, ‘is Arthur, Protector of Dumnonia, who comes to you in peace.’

  ‘For the moment,’ the man said, ‘peace is yours, but only for the moment.’ He spoke defiantly, but he had been impressed by Arthur’s name and he gave my Lord a long curious inspection before glancing back to me. ‘Are you Saxon?’ he asked.

  ‘I was born one. Now I am British.’

  ‘Can a wolf become a toad?’ he asked with a scowl. ‘Why not become a Saxon again?’

  ‘Because I am sworn to Arthur’s service,’ I said, ‘and that service is to bring your King a great gift of gold.’

  ‘For a toad,’ the man said, ‘you howl well. I am Therdig.’

  I had never heard of him. ‘Your fame,’ I said, ‘gives nightmares to our children.’

  He laughed. ‘Well spoken, toad. So who is our King?’

  ‘Aelle,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t hear you, toad.’

  I sighed. ‘The Bretwalda Aelle.’

  ‘Well said, toad,’ Therdig said. We Britons did not recognize the title Bretwalda, but I used it to placate the Saxon chief. Arthur, who understood nothing of our talk, patiently waited until I was ready to translate something. He had trust in those he appointed and would not hurry me or intervene.