She laughed at that. ‘I should know? Why do I care if he beds some Irish child? I don’t need to know, but he does need to tell me.’ She looked at me again. ‘And he’ll want to know how I reacted, won’t he?’
‘Will he?’ I asked in some confusion.
‘Of course he will. So tell him, Derfel, that I laughed.’ She stared defiantly at me, then suddenly shrugged. ‘No, don’t. Tell him I wish him all happiness. Tell him whatever you like, but ask one favour of him,’ She paused, and I realized how she hated asking for favours. ‘I do not want to die, Derfel, by being raped by a horde of lice-ridden Saxon warriors. When Cerdic comes next spring, ask Arthur to move my prison to a safer place.’
‘I think you’ll be safe here, Lady,’ I said.
‘Tell me why you think that?’ she demanded sharply.
I took a moment to collect my thoughts. ‘When the Saxons come,’ I said, ‘they’ll advance along the Thames valley. Their aim is to reach the Severn Sea and that is their quickest route.’
Guinevere shook her head. ‘Aelle’s army will come along the Thames, Derfel, but Cerdic will attack in the south and hook up north to join Aelle. He’ll come through here.’
‘Arthur says not,’ I insisted. ‘He believes they don’t trust each other, so they’ll want to stay close together to guard against treachery.’
Guinevere dismissed that with another abrupt shake of her head. ‘Aelle and Cerdic aren’t fools, Derfel. They know they have to trust each other long enough to win. After that they can fall out, but not before. How many men will they bring?’
‘We think two thousand, maybe two and a half.’
She nodded. ‘The first attack will be on the Thames, and that will be large enough to make you think it is their main attack. And once Arthur has gathered his forces to oppose that army, Cerdic will march in the south. He’ll run wild, Derfel, and Arthur will have to send men to oppose him, and when he does, Aelle will attack the rest.’
‘Unless Arthur lets Cerdic run wild,’ I said, not believing her forecast for a moment.
‘He could do that,’ she agreed, ‘but if he does then Ynys Wydryn will be in Saxon hands and I do not want to be here when that happens. If he won’t release me, then beg him to imprison me in Glevum.’
I hesitated. I saw no reason not to pass on her request to Arthur, but I wanted to make certain that she was sincere. ‘If Cerdic does come this way, Lady,’ I ventured, ‘he’s liable to bring friends of yours in his army.’
She gave me a murderous look. She held it for a long time before speaking. ‘I have no friends in Lloegyr,’ she said at last, icily.
I hesitated, then decided to forge on. ‘I saw Cerdic not two months ago,’ I said, ‘and Lancelot was in his company.’
I had never mentioned Lancelot’s name to her before and her head jerked as though I had struck her.
‘What are you saying, Derfel?’ she asked softly.
‘I am saying, Lady, that Lancelot will come here in the spring. I am suggesting, Lady, that Cerdic will make him lord of this land.’
She closed her eyes and for a few seconds I was not certain whether she was laughing or crying. Then I saw it was laughter that had made her shudder. ‘You are a fool,’ she said, looking at me again. ‘You’re trying to help me! Do you think I love Lancelot?’
‘You wanted him to be King,’ I said.
‘What does that have to do with love?’ she asked derisively. ‘I wanted him to be King because he’s a weak man and a woman can only rule in this world through such a feeble man. Arthur isn’t weak.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But Lancelot is, and perhaps he will rule here when the Saxons come, but whoever controls Lancelot it will not be me, nor any woman now, but Cerdic, and Cerdic, I hear, is anything but weak.’ She stood, crossed to me and plucked the letter from my hands. She unfolded it, read it a last time, then tossed the parchment into the fire. It blackened, shrivelled, then burst into flame. ‘Go,’ she said, watching the flames, ‘and tell Arthur that I wept at his news. That’s what he wants to hear, so tell him. Tell him I wept.’
I left her. In the next few days the snow thawed, but the rains came again and the bare black trees dripped onto a land that seemed to be rotting in the misty damp. The solstice neared, though the sun never showed. The world was dying in dark, damp despair. I waited for Arthur’s return, but he did not summon me. He took his new bride to Durnovaria and there he celebrated the solstice. If he cared what Guinevere thought of his new marriage, he did not ask me.
We gave the feast of the winter solstice in Dun Caric’s hall and there was not a person present who did not suspect it would be our last. We made our offerings to the midwinter sun, but knew that when the sun rose again it would not bring life to the land, but death. It would bring Saxon spears and Saxon axes and Saxon swords. We prayed, we feasted and we feared that we were doomed. And still the rain would not stop.
PART TWO
Mynydd Baddon
‘Who?’ Igraine demanded as soon as she had read the first sheet of the latest pile of parchments. She has learned some of the Saxon tongue in the last few months and is very proud of herself for that achievement, though in truth it is a barbarous language and much less subtle than the British.
‘Who?’ I echoed her question.
‘Who was the woman who guided Britain to destruction? It was Nimue, wasn’t it?’
‘If you give me time to write the tale, dear Lady, you will find out.’
‘I knew you were going to say that. I don’t even know why I asked.’ She sat on the wide ledge of my windowsill with one hand on her swollen belly and with her head cocked to one side as though she were listening. After a while a look of mischievous delight came to her face. ‘The baby’s kicking,’ she said, ‘do you want to feel it?’
I shuddered. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I was never interested in babies.’
She made a face at me. ‘You’ll love mine, Derfel.’
‘I will?’
‘He’s going to be lovely!’
‘How do you know,’ I enquired, ‘that it is a boy?’
‘Because no girl can kick this hard, that’s why. Look!’ And my Queen smoothed the blue dress tight over her belly and laughed when the smooth dome flickered. ‘Tell me about Argante,’ she said, letting go of the dress.
‘Small, dark, thin, pretty.’
Igraine made a face at the inadequacy of my description. ‘Was she clever?’
I thought about it. ‘She was sly, so yes, she had a sort of cleverness, but it was never fed by education.’
My Queen gave that statement a scornful shrug. ‘Is education so important?’
‘I think it is, yes. I always regret I never learned Latin.’
‘Why?’ Igraine asked.
‘Because so much of mankind’s experience is written in that tongue, Lady, and one of the things an education gives us is access to all the things other folks have known, feared, dreamed and achieved. When you are in trouble it helps to discover someone who has been in the same predicament before. It explains things.’
‘Like what?’ Igraine demanded.
I shrugged. ‘I remember something Guinevere once said to me. I didn’t know what it meant, because it was in Latin, but she translated it, and it explained Arthur exactly. I’ve never forgotten it either.’
‘Well? Go on.’
‘ Odi at amo,’ I quoted the unfamiliar words slowly, ‘ excruaor.’
‘Which means?’
‘I hate and I love, it hurts. A poet wrote the line, I forget which poet, but Guinevere had read the poem and one day, when we were talking about Arthur, she quoted the line. She understood him exactly, you see.’
‘Did Argante understand him?’
‘Oh, no.’