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Their love-making was
as fierce and intense as their fighting.

Arthur left for the North at sunrise;
Enniaun, with Gwynedd’s fighting men, intending to follow within the passing of
a few days.

Proud on the fine-bred grey pony his uncle
had given him, Llacheu rode, chatting joyfully to Geraint. Somewhere behind
with the baggage mules, travelled Gwydre, Enid and Nessa. Gwenhwyfar rode
beside Arthur. As far
as
Caer Luel, she had said. I
will come as
far
as
Caer Luel. No
further.

Arthur watched her as
she rode; she caught him looking, saw that boyish grin spread across his mouth.
Announced curtly, ‘It
you
say one word about last night, Pendragon, I will ensure your
men
know how you came to injure your wrist.’
His
expression was innocent amazement. ‘I was not going to
say anything!’
They rode on for almost one quarter of a mile.
Then, without
one hint of a smile or mischievous grin, he added, ‘Tonight
though, I’ll show you what I was thinking.’
Gwenhwyfar tried not to laugh.

April 462

§
XXIX

Winifred combed
Cerdic’s hair, chiding him for fidgeting. ‘But you’re pulling, it hurts!’

‘
You’ll
have a lot more hurts than pulled hair to endure before
you
grow old my lad!’ his mother scolded. She tucked the comb
under
her arm, inspected the boy’s neat cleanliness. Spitting on
her
finger, she wiped at a dirt mark on his cheek, then satisfied,
released him with a curt, ‘You’ll
do.’

‘
Why all
this fuss anyway?’ he asked, scuffing the floor with
his sandals. To
himself muttered, ‘Anyone would think this poxed Ambrosius was already King or
something.’
Unfortunate that Winifred heard.
She grabbed hold of his
arm, turning
him roughly to face her with a strict reprimanding
shake. ‘Insolent boy,’ she hissed, to herself
added, ‘how like
your bastard father
you are!’ She took both his arms in her
hands, squatted before him so that her eyes were level with his.

‘
Listen
to me, child, and listen well. Ambrosius Aurelianus will be riding through that
gate,’ she dipped her head over her left shoulder, ‘at any moment. He is to be
greeted and treated with full respect. Do you understand me?’ She gave the boy
a shake again, to emphasise her meaning.

Cerdic nodded, dutifully agreed. Better not
antagonise her
too much, her moods had been
hard enough to endure as it was these past weeks. Like a bear with an arrow
wound his mother,
lately.

‘Arthur, your father, has patched his
differences with his
uncle. They are not
exactly reconciled, but have at least agreed
to differ.’ And that could put an end to her plans. Damn
Arthur,
damn him to Hell! Cerdic shrugged, so what?
His
mother caught the gesture, shook the boy harder. ‘Do
you not see, child? If the Pendragon is killed in
this war with Lot
of the North, Ambrosius will become supreme. It will
be up to
181
Ambrosius to appoint the next king!’ She did not add,
It
must be
Cerdic,
it
will
be
my Cerdic!
So Cerdic promised to keep himself clean and trotted away,
running as soon as he was out of his mother’s
sight. There was a
large old tree at
the junction of the steading’s track and the road that snaked down from Venta
Bulgarium. He’d get a good view
of Ambrosius and his men approaching.

The sky was slate-grey, there would be more
rain soon. The track up to the farmsteading was drying out, but remained
muddied enough to mark his sandals and the hem of his new
white tunic. Cerdic, clinging along the lowest
bough of his tree,
shivered. The wind was shifting, coming in from the
sea. The tide was turning, probably. Cerdic liked the sea. He wanted to
go in one of the great Jute longships one day, if
ever his mother
would relent and let
him visit her grandfather. He had seen
them, those wonderful ships,
battling against a storm swell or sailing gracefully before a summer wind.
Horses ... Ambrosius was coming.

Cerdic swung down from his perch, stood with
arms folded,
legs straddled. He watched
critically as the first riders swept past
at a jogtrot, stepped forward, his hand held upright as
Ambrosius’s
horse approached. The man commanded a halt,
drew
his mount to a stand. He regarded Cerdic a moment,
before solemnly
raising his own hand in greeting.

‘Cerdic.’ The boy had his father’s eyes and
the Pendragon
nose – except there was
something more behind that precocious
expression.
Haughtiness? Superiority? Sa, that was it.
Ambrosius shifted in the saddle, an uncomfortable feeling,
being
regarded as an insignificant by a boy seven years of age.

Cerdic nodded assent,
his lips pursing. His upraised hand had
been
intended as a signal to halt, not a polite greeting. ‘You have come to talk
with my mother. She is not happy with the written treaty you have made with my
father. Neither am I.’ Ambrosius lifted his eyebrows. ‘Are you not?’
Cerdic missed the adult sarcasm. ‘My mother says
you intend
to be King after my father has gone, that you will ignore my
valid claim to be the next King.’
Ambrosius,
as with all his family, was a tall man. He sat hishorse, regarding the boy, in
a mind not
w
answer but to ride directly on. There was much for him to
do and he had no time to waste with small, impudent boys. He also wished to get
this coming interview with Winifred over and done with and he on his way. She
would not like being told that another had been appointed as Abbess at Venta,
nor would she much like having her own mind overturned. Ambrosius had no liking
for the woman, in fact, bitterly regretted being so influenced by her. It
galled him to admit the small truth that Winifred
was
manipulative and greedy for the
material things of life, with the
needs of God coming a distant second.
Galled even more to acknowledge that Arthur the Pendragon was mayhap right in
some things. About his first wife, Winifred, the
child of
Vortigern being one, and, it
seemed, looking at this flaxen-
haired, chubby boy, the ambitious intent
of his son, Cerdic for another. Knowing the Pendragon as he did, and looking
upon
the boy’s arrogance, Ambrosius realised
that Arthur was
justified in
disliking the lad, for all that he was of his own flesh
and blood. There
was too much Saex greed in him.

In return, Cerdic stared at Ambrosius. He saw a man in his late
thirties, with
receding hair and a thin-fleshed face. He had been
ill, so his mother said. Was there any
family resemblance? Did Ambrosius share any feature with Arthur? Eyes,
cheek-bones, chin? Cerdic did not know, for he had never seen his father.
Wanted to meet him – oh aye, wanted to meet the man who
detested his own son and made no secret that he wished him dead.
Wanted
to meet him because Cerdic fully intended to kill his
father. He dreamt about it often, planned the event to the smallest
detail.
A death by dagger or sword, an execution for the hatred and misery the father
had caused the son and the first wife. Standing looking so intently at
Ambrosius Aurelianus, Cerdic decided that perhaps he, too, ought to be removed.
He did not like the man. Liked him even less when he at last answered.

‘
I have no intention of
becoming a king, boy. It is a title I oppose. If death befalls your father
before his son has come of
age, then I will
take the full legal title of Governor of All
Britain. Until then, I remain Comes Britanniarum, Governor
of
Britannia Secunda.’
Cerdic had bristled at
the reference to son. It was not himself
this man referred to, but that
other boy, Llacheu. Through
clenched teeth
he said, ‘I am the Pendragon’s son. I will be king
after him.’
Ambrosius nudged his horse into a walk; his
entourage
moving off with him. All
he said to the boy was, ‘We shall see.’
Cerdic watched the group of men
ride up the track, followed a short way, to see his mother come out the house,
curtsey
obedience to the British man. Inside,
they would share wine
and bread and meat, and talk of the future.
Winifred was intent on ensuring that Ambrosius, now that he was allied to
Arthur,
still agreed to her position as legal
and only wife to the Pendragon. Their divorce, she maintained, had not been
accepted by his Holiness the Christian Pope in Rome; ergo, she
was still the Pendragon’s wife, Cerdic his only legitimate son.

Cerdic decided to go
fishing. Having met Ambrosius, having seen that look of undisguised scorn for a
Saex-born boy, he felt
there
would be no sympathetic help from Ambrosius
Aurelianus when the time came to fight for the royal
torque and
the Pendragon banner.

Cerdic was only seven years old, but already
he knew these things, and knew also that one day, one day, he would be King of
Britain.

May 462

§ XXX

‘
Damn this rain!’ Cei burst
into Arthur’s tent, dripping water
over the
hard-stamped floor. The dog, Cabal, pricked his ears at
the disturbance,
lifted his head, but seeing it was Cei, a friend, flopped back to sleep,
stretching his belly, with a sigh of contentment, to the warmth of the brazier.
Cei flung back the
hood of his saturated
cloak and shook himself as Cabal, were he
wet, would have done.

‘Do come in Cei,’ Arthur drawled, without
glancing up from
the parchment he was
reading. ‘Why not make it as wet in here
as it is out there?’
Cei scowled across the tent, and throwing the
cloak to
Arthur’s skinny boy slave, strode with a half-audible growl to
the central brazier, kicking Cabal aside to be
nearer the
warmth. He rubbed his hands before it a moment, then stood
warming his buttocks, a thin wisp of steam rising
from his damp
clothing.

Arthur was stretched the length of his
rumpled sleeping cot, boots muddied, legs gaitered, shoulders supported by a
rolled saddle blanket. At his elbow was a table supporting a flagon of
wine. In one hand, a half empty pewter tankard, in
the other,
the letter from Gwenhwyfar. It had come with the supplies.
Already its edges were crumpled and bent from his
reading and
rereading of it.

Looking up, Arthur
studied his cousin a moment. A big man,
muscular, with a bull neck, deep chest and broad
shoulders. His
square
chin jutted from an equally square, hard-lined face
which
carried an expression of displeasure, all too often found there these days.
Inverted eyebrows drooped with the taut, disapproving mouth. Cei was angry
about something. Again.
When was he not?
Draining the wine, Arthur replaced his
tankard
on the table and unravelled the parchment that had
rolled up on itself.
He scanned the writing, finding the passage where he had left off and continued
reading. He could hear her voice as he read the words, see her laughing,
smiling face. By the gods, how he missed her!

‘It is well that some of us are able to idle
our time,’ Cei muttered crossly.

Arthur ignored him.

Irritably, Cei crossed to a second, larger
table strewn as was usual with Arthur, by a multitude of maps, unread letters
and parchments. He uncovered another tankard and inspected its
inside for cleanliness. A distasteful sound left
his lips. ‘Call this
clean, boy?’ He thrust the thing at the slave who
was holding
Cei’s saturated cloak before a
second brazier in a valiant attempt
to
dry it. ‘This is disgustingly filthy — like the rest of this tent.
Look at the place. A midden heap!!’ Emphasising his
dis
pleasure, Cei prodded the muddle on the table with his finger and
then kicked at a discarded wine flagon that lay abandoned on the floor.

The boy dropped the cloak in a ragged heap
and ran to take
the tankard with a spate of
profuse apologies. He scurried away,
out into the rain, promising to
clean it immediately.