Guinevere smiled. ‘I don’t want it either, Derfel, but I do want Arthur. And what he wants, I must give him. I do owe him some happiness, do I not?’ she asked.
‘He wants to give up his power?’ I asked, and she nodded. Arthur had ever spoken of his dream of living simply with a wife, his family and some land. He wanted a hall, a palisade, a smithy and fields. He imagined himself a landowner, with no troubles other than the birds stealing his seed, the deer eating his crops and the rain spoiling his harvest. He had nurtured that dream for years and now, having beaten the Saxons, it seemed he would make the dream reality.
‘Meurig also wants Arthur to give up his power,’ Guinevere said.
‘Meurig!’ I spat. ‘Why should we care what Meurig wants?’
‘It is the price Meurig demanded before he agreed to let his father lead Gwent’s army to war,’
Guinevere said. ‘Arthur didn’t tell you before the battle because he knew you would argue with him.’
‘But why would Meurig want Arthur to give up his power?’
‘Because he believes Mordred is a Christian,’ Guinevere said with a shrug, ‘and because he wants Dumnonia to be ill-governed. That way, Derfel, Meurig stands a chance of taking Dumnonia’s throne one day. He’s an ambitious little toad.’ I called him something worse, and Guinevere smiled. ‘That too,’ she said, ‘but what he demanded, he must get, so Arthur and I will go to live in Silurian Isca where Meurig can keep an eye on us. I don’t mind living in Isca. It will be better than life in some decaying hall. There are some fine Roman palaces in Isca and some very good hunting. We’ll take some spearmen with us. Arthur doesn’t think he needs any, but he has enemies and he needs a warband.’
I paced up and down the room. ‘But Mordred!’ I complained bitterly. ‘He’s to be given back the power?’
‘It’s the price we had to pay for Gwent’s army,’ Guinevere said, ‘and if Argante is to marry Mordred then he must have his power or else Oengus will never agree to the marriage. Or at least Mordred must be given some of his power, and she must share it.’
‘And all Arthur achieved will be broken!’ I said.
‘Arthur has freed Dumnonia of Saxons,’ Guinevere said, ‘and he does not want to be King. You know that, and I know that. It isn’t what I want, Derfel. I always wanted Arthur to be the High King and for Gwydre to succeed him, but he doesn’t want it and he won’t fight for it. He wants quiet, he tells me. And if he won’t rule Dumnonia, then Mordred must. Gwent’s insistence and Arthur’s oath to Uther ensures that.’
‘So he’ll just abandon Dumnonia to injustice and tyranny!’ I protested.
‘No,’ Guinevere said, ‘for Mordred will not have all the power.’
I gazed at her, and guessed from her voice that I had not understood everything. ‘Go on,’ I said guardedly.
‘Sagramor will stay. The Saxons are defeated, but there will still be a frontier and there is no one better than Sagramor to guard it. And the rest of Dumnonia’s army will swear their loyalty to another man. Mordred can rule, for he is King, but he will not command the spears, and a man without spears is a man without real power. You and Sagramor will hold that.’
‘No!’
Guinevere smiled. ‘Arthur knew you would say that, which is why I said I would persuade you.’
‘Lady,’ I began to protest, but she held up a hand to silence me.
‘You are to rule Dumnonia, Derfel. Mordred will be King, but you will have the spears, and the man who commands the spears rules. You must do it for Arthur, because only if you agree can he leave Dumnonia with a clear conscience. So, to give him peace, do it for him and, maybe,’ she hesitated, ‘for me too? Please?’
Merlin was right. When a woman wants something, she gets it.
And I was to rule Dumnonia.
Taliesin made a song of Mynydd Baddon. He deliberately made it in the old style with a simple rhythm that throbbed with drama, heroism and bombast. It was a very long song, for it was important that every warrior who fought well received at least a half-line of praise, while our leaders had whole verses to themselves. After the battle Taliesin joined Guinevere’s household and he sensibly gave his patroness her due, wonderfully describing the hurtling wagons with their heaps of fire, but avoiding any mention of the Saxon wizard she had killed with her bow. He used her red hair as an image of the blood-soaked crop of barley amongst which some Saxons died, and though I never saw any barley growing on the battlefield, it was a clever touch. He made the death of his old patron, Cuneglas, into a slow lament in which the dead King’s name was repeated like a drumbeat, and he turned Gawain’s charge into a chilling account of how the wraith-souls of our dead spearmen came from the bridge of swords to assail the enemy’s flank. He praised Tewdric, was kind to me and gave honour to Sagramor, but above all his song was a celebration of Arthur. In Taliesin’s song it was Arthur who flooded the valley with enemy blood, and Arthur who struck down the enemy King, and Arthur who made all Lloegyr cower with terror. The Christians hated Taliesin’s song. They made their own songs in which it was Tewdric who beat down the Saxons. The Lord God Almighty, the Christian songs claimed, had heard Tewdric’s pleas and fetched the host of heaven to the battlefield and there His angels fought the Sais with swords of fire. Arthur received no mention in their songs, indeed the pagans were given none of the credit for the victory and to this day there are folk who declare that Arthur was not even present at Mynydd Baddon. One Christian song actually credits Meurig with Aelle’s death, and Meurig was not present at Mynydd Baddon, but at home in Gwent. After the battle Meurig was restored to his kingship, while Tewdric returned to his monastery where he was declared a saint by Gwent’s bishops. Arthur was much too busy that summer to care about making songs or saints. In the weeks following the battle we took back huge parts of Lloegyr, though we could not take it all for plenty of Saxons remained in Britain. The further east we went, the stiifer their resistance became, but by autumn the enemy was penned back into a territory only half the size they had previously ruled. Cerdic even paid us tribute that year, and he promised to pay it for ten years to come, though he never did. Instead he welcomed every boat that came across the sea and slowly rebuilt his broken forces. Aelle’s kingdom was divided. The southern portion went back into Cerdic’s hands, while the northern part broke into three or four small kingdoms that were ruthlessly raided by warbands from Elmet, Powys and Gwent. Thousands of Saxons came under British rule, indeed all of Dumnonia’s new eastern lands were inhabited by them. Arthur wanted us to resettle that land, but few Britons were willing to go there and so the Saxons stayed, farmed and dreamed of the day when their own Kings would return. Sagramor became the virtual ruler of Dumnonia’s reclaimed lands. The Saxon chiefs knew their King was Mordred, but in those first years after Mynydd Baddon it was to Sagramor they paid their homage and taxes, and it was his stark black banner that flew above the old river fort at Pontes from where his warriors marched to keep the peace.
Arthur led the campaign to take back the stolen land, but once it was secured and once the Saxons had agreed our new frontiers, he left Dumnonia. To the very last some of us hoped he would break the promise he had given to Meurig and Tewdric, but he had no wish to stay. He had never wanted power. He had taken it as a duty at a time when Dumnonia possessed a child King and a score of ambitious warlords whose rivalry would have torn the land into turmoil, but through all the years that followed he had ever clung to his dream of living a simpler life, and once the Saxons were defeated he felt free to make his dream reality. I pleaded with him to think again, but he shook his head. ‘I’m old, Derfel.’