Shadow of the King (72 page)

the rain had stopped, although the day was dark and sombre, and with the

mountains swathed in low, dull wreaths of cloud, the prospect of it staying dry

was not promising.

“No. Should it?” The Pendragon would not have, ordinarily, come here—at

this time or any other, but he and Gwenhwyfar had been visiting Enniaun,

essentially to re-draft old treaties of alliance, additionally to greet old friends,

family faces. When Enniaun decided to pay his respects to Caw’s grieving family,

Arthur opted to travel with him. It would have been churlish, even taken as a

slight against the family, had he not, and for practicality, it was the same road

home. Company was always welcome to ease the tedium of travelling.

Clearing his throat at Arthur’s unembarrassed, matter-of-fact reply, Ambrosius

regretted asking the question, but felt he need add something relevant. “It was

a nasty business; the family took it hard.”

They had reached steeper ground, the path beginning to rise, churned, wet

and muddied, walking made difficult by the slush. Ambrosius’s boot slithered.

He lost balance, almost toppled, but Arthur was a man used to quick reaction,

urgent movement. He seized his uncle’s arm, steadied him, said, as bluntly as

before, “Aye, it was a nasty business. The consequence of war always is.”

Arthur dropped the hold on the arm, continued walking. “I took it hard.

Hueil was responsible for more than starting a civil war. He caused the murder

of my son. Remember?”

4 3 4 H e l e n H o l l i c k

Oh, Ambrosius remembered! He had been there, fighting that war with

Arthur. They had been almost friends then, for a short while when they shared

a common ground—the sorting of Hueil and his wanting more than just a

ragged cluster of settlements and a decaying stronghold. Few doubted the

ultimate necessity of ending Hueil’s life, taken for that of the boy’s. It had been

the manner of the doing: an execution without trial while Hueil had sought

the forgiveness of God.

Arthur had pulled ahead, striding out to catch up with his wife and her

brother, Enniaun. Ambrosius remained behind walking slower, mindful of the

precarious ground and the grumbling discomfort of his stomach. A nasty busi-

ness? Aye indeed. All of it.

Linking arms with Gwenhwyfar, Arthur grinned at her eldest brother.

“Somewhat poor condition, this stronghold of yours, Enniaun!” he teased.

“Ever heard of cobbles?”

“Not my stronghold, Pendragon! I freely gave it to Caw; it was his to do

with as he pleased.” Enniaun grunted as his boot sunk ankle deep in a mud rut.

“Cobbles cost coin to buy, labour to lay. Not wishing to speak ill of the dead,

but my Lord Caw was a—how shall I put it?—a frugal man.”

Tight-arsed bastard
,
Arthur thought the words, prudently kept them to himself.

Enniaun, glancing at him, guessed the thought. He laughed. “Oh I agree!”

“Who will hold Rhuthun now, brother?” Gwenhwyfar asked, her other arm

linked through his, so they walked three-abreast, herself secure from slipping

between the solidity of two men. “Or are you to take it back?”

“Various surviving sons,” Enniaun nodded at the backs of those of the family

walking ahead, “are already squabbling over it, with a few daughters adding

their shuttleworth.” He tossed a gruff laugh at Arthur. “I ought give it to you,

Pendragon, that would set things hopping! Jesu, it would start another war!”

“Gods, no! I have enough trouble brewing down south, without facing

additional storms up here among your ball-freezing mountains!”

They had reached the gate, a narrow and gloomy construction; were forced

to stop, wait their turn to pass through, respect necessitating that the grieving

family go first. Their public show of grief, loud and evident with raised,

wailing voices, doubled into reverberating echoes as they filed through the

low, dank, tunnel.

Low, confidential in Arthur’s ear, Enniaun whispered, “Were you not pleased

at one event down your way?”

“Winifred, you mean? Aye, in some aspects it is a relief to be rid of her.”

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 4 3 5

Shifting a skimming, sideways glance at Gwenhwyfar, Arthur added with what

seemed a careless shrug, “But even Winifred did not deserve to die in that way.”

Gwenhwyfar, who had been inspecting the amount of mud plastered around

the hem of her robe, snorted in a manner that conveyed distinct disagreement.

From which Enniaun, knowing his sister well, deduced there had passed angry

words between husband and wife.

“She ought to have been hacked to pieces long before!”

“She was once my wife.”

“She murdered. She lied, she cheated.”

“I agree, but she was also, once, my wife.”

Arthur had not understood the unexpected, disturbing feelings which had

seeped into him after hearing of Winifred’s murder. He should have rejoiced,

as Gwenhwyfar had, exclaimed his delight that he was, at last, rid of her

meddling interferences. Yet he had gone off quietly by himself, riding out

onto the lake-shimmering Summer Land levels, felt the raw exposure of an

inexplicable sadness. Guilt, he assumed, for never loving—liking—her, for

treating her so badly. Ah, guilt. The repercussions that emotion could rouse

after the dead had departed!

Predictably, Gwenhwyfar had greeted the news with favour. For so long had

she loathed Winifred, an odious woman who had set herself so determinedly as

a rival. Her only regret that she was not the one to be responsible for her ending.

In retrospect, the satisfaction was as rewarding, but at that first hearing of the

news she had felt cheated. The bitch was done with, that was what mattered.

For all Arthur’s inexplicable disquiet over her passing, she was, finally, firmly,

thankfully, done with.

“And the son?” Enniaun asked, as he motioned for Arthur and Gwenhwyfar

to proceed before him under the archway. They had touched on the matter

of Cerdic only briefly during the few days together, never quite pursuing

the subject in its entirety, for Arthur had steered away from it. For that,

too, was laying on his mind, heavy and weighted. He was responsible for

many things, had, by necessity made unpleasant, harsh, often cruel deci-

sions. For himself, personally, for his life outside that of being the Supreme

King, he had not always made the right choice. Inadvertently, occasionally

deliberately, he had hurt people, even those he loved. On his orders, men

lived or died, faced the bloodlust of war or the benevolence of forgiving

mercy. But that was part of living, the choice-making, the decision-taking.

Cerdic was a force let loose into the world, started by Arthur’s seed. Started

4 3 6 H e l e n H o l l i c k

unintentionally, yet was that not the ultimate reason for laying with a wife,

to procure children?

“My son,” Arthur’s answer was poignant, “took an axe and used it to hack

his own mother’s skull into two pieces. He made petition to me that he was

defending himself, had killed her for her inciting of war between Saxon and

British. We know it is all bullshit, but legally I cannot act against him.” He

paused, added, “He is a murderer, and I sired him—what does that make me?”

Where once the apparition of death, for all its ugliness, would not have clung

to Arthur, its dark foreboding now worried him, lingering like a malignant

presence gnawing at his stomach. Gaul had changed him. He had met fear,

and fear, once encountered, became a shadow that followed like a starving

stray dog. Kick it, shout at it, but it was always there, sniffing at heel. One day

he would die. There was never the cheating of the inevitable, but it was the

manner of it that clutched black and unforgiving at him. To be killed by an

axe-blade in the security of your own chamber and by one of your own blood,

your own creation. The thought filled him with dread.

They were walking under the long and narrow arch of the stone-built

gateway, their conversation reverberating, the words
took an axe, took an axe

seeming to echo louder than the others, obscene and ominous.

“For all the declaration of his innocence, you ought to have had an end to

him, I say!” Gwenhwyfar announced with finality as they emerged.

Ambrosius had almost caught them up, had heard her declaration.

“As I have so urged,” he said vehemently. The group, Arthur, Enniaun,

and Gwenhwyfar turned to look at him, waited for him breathlessly to come

up to them.

“What of the murdered priest? And the repeated rape of the girl, Winifred’s

handmaid? It was a disgraceful business, and it has been overlooked, set aside!”

“English, too, were butchered, Uncle, do not forget them,” Arthur added,

knowing Ambrosius would dismiss their killing as nothing of consequence.

Ambrosius waved his hand fastidiously. “What the Saex do between them-

selves is their business, not mine.”

Arthur sighed. He had already argued through this conversation with

Ambrosius at Council. “I will not commit my men to a war in order to bring

about the murder of my own son. If he meets me in battle, then that is his

doing, not mine.”

Cerdic had been clever—had more wisdom than Arthur would have given

him credit for. By sending immediate petition of his innocence, and declaring

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 4 3 7

that his mother had acted treasonably against the Supreme King, there was little,

legally, that Arthur could do. The sending of the heads of three of Cerdic’s own

Saxons had, of course, helped to sway the Council’s mind in Cerdic’s favour,

a decision bustled along by an eloquent representative attending Council in

Cerdic’s stead—a merchant-man, paid well, no doubt, to lie as efficiently

as he had. The men responsible for those other, shameful killings executed;

Winifred’s affluent steading a few miles outside Venta to be given by Cerdic

to the bishop of that same town; other possessions of his mother’s promised

with flourished generosity to notable men of influence who sat on the Council.

Oh aye, Council had voted for Cerdic! Had agreed that what was his mother’s

ought by right pass to him, to do with as he pleased; that her death had been

unfortunate but unavoidable.

They had all known Winifred for what she had been, and here Arthur could

not disagree with them, had cast his vote with those who proclaimed aye—

silencing Ambrosius’s protests. He knew Cerdic to be lying, but there was that

small element of doubt. For how often had Winifred boasted, threatened, it

would be she who made Cerdic into king in Arthur’s stead?

Ahead was the timber-built Hall, low, rectangular, the reed-thatch of its

roof sodden from the rain, the courtyard squelching with mud and rain-ruts.

The mourners were making their way across, through the open doors into

the welcome of dry warmth. To the left, the Stone, brooding, leering its stark

reminder of the past.

It had once functioned as a foundation for a taller, phallic, man-height shaped

stone, the Stone, the ritual symbol of the warrior, the sacred Stone on which

oaths were sworn, allegiances made. Caw had ordered its removal, despising its

heathen connection, but the base had proven beyond him, a rock, part of the

structure of the stronghold, impossible to remove or destroy.

A small boy was standing a few yards inside the gate, momentarily alone,

dejected, the streak of shed tears marking his cheeks. He watched the king emerge

from the darkness of the tunnel, saw, hanging at his side, the scabbard, the sword

pommel…the sword. The Pendragon’s sword. A sheathed blade that had been

drawn, glinting, in the afternoon sunlight, here, in this very courtyard. The boy

screamed, ran, slithered in the mud, fell, tumbled back to his feet, ran on.

He was barely noticed; Gwenhwyfar was discussing Cerdic with her brother,

the nonsense, in her opinion, of the Council’s decision to allow him to settle

in peace along the south coast. “There will be war,” she said. “My husband has

been the fool in this.”

4 3 8 H e l e n H o l l i c k

Arthur saw the boy. Heard his strangled, fear-ridden cry. Wondered.
I hate

you! I hate you!
Did hatred run so deeply putrid through the line of kindred

then? Eldest born to youngest. Father to son?

Cerdic. His son, grown to manhood, grown up with so much stark, twisted

hatred. What was he to do about Cerdic? He did not chastise Gwenhwyfar

for her scolding tongue; how could he, when she had the right of it. There

would come war between father and son, and there was always this other

question, hanging, insidious, in Arthur’s mind. What did Cerdic intend to do

about his father?

The boy had gone. Gildas. Ambrosius was to take him back to Ambrosium,

to the school flourishing there. Arthur’s other son, Medraut, wanted to be a

student there also. Medraut, who seemed more suited to book-learning than