But other men were also thinking of Dummonia’s kingship. I learned that early in the spring when Saint Tewdric died. Arthur was sneezing and shivering with the last of the winter’s colds and he asked Galahad to go to the old King’s funeral rites in Burrium, the capital of Gwent which lay just a short journey up river from Isca, and Galahad pleaded with me to accompany him. I mourned for Tewdric, who had proved himself a good friend to us, yet I had no wish to attend his funeral and thus be forced to endure the interminable droning of the Christian rites, but Arthur added his pleas to Galahad’s. ‘We live here at Meurig’s pleasure,’ he reminded me, ‘and we’d do well to show him respect. I would go if I could,’ he paused to sneeze, ‘but Guinevere says it will be the death of me.’
So Galahad and I went in Arthur’s place and the funeral service did indeed seem never ending. It took place in a great barn-like church that Meurig had built in the year marking the supposed five hundredth anniversary of the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ on this sinful earth, and once the prayers inside the church were all said or chanted, we had to endure still more prayers at Tewdric’s graveside. There was no balefire, no singing spearmen, just a cold pit in the ground, a score of bobbing priests and an undignified rush to get back to the town and its taverns when Tewdric was at last buried. Meurig commanded Galahad and me to take supper with him. Peredur, Galahad’s nephew, joined us, as did Burrium’s bishop, a gloomy soul named Lladarn who had been responsible for the most tedious of the day’s prayers, and he began supper with yet another long-winded prayer after which he made an earnest enquiry about the state of my soul and was grieved when I assured him that it was safe in Mithras’s keeping. Such an answer would normally have irritated Meurig, but he was too distracted to notice the provocation. I know he was not unduly upset by his father’s death, for Meurig was still resentful that Tewdric had taken back his power at the time of Mynydd Baddon, but at least he affected to be distressed and bored us with insincere praise of his father’s saintliness and sagacity. I expressed the hope that Tewdric’s death had been merciful and Meurig told me that his father had starved to death in his attempt to imitate the angels.
‘There was nothing of him at the end,’ Bishop Lladarn elaborated, ‘just skin and bone, he was, skin and bone! But the monks say that his skin was suffused with a heavenly light, praise God!’
‘And now the saint is on God’s right hand,’ Meurig said, crossing himself, ‘where one day I shall be with him. Try an oyster, Lord.’ He pushed a silver dish towards me, then poured himself wine. He was a pale young man with protuberant eyes, a thin beard and an irritably pedantic manner. Like his father he aped Roman manners. He wore a bronze wreath on his thinning hair, dressed in a toga and ate while lying on a couch. The couches were deeply uncomfortable. He had married a sad and ox-like Princess from Rheged who had arrived in Gwent a pagan, produced male twins and then had Christianity whipped into her stubborn soul. She appeared in the dimly lit supper room for a few moments, ogled us, said and ate nothing, then disappeared as mysteriously as she had arrived.
‘You have any news of Mordred?’ Meurig asked us after his wife’s brief visit.
‘We hear nothing new, Lord King,’ Galahad said. ‘He is penned in by Clovis, but whether he lives or not, we don’t know.’
‘I have news,’ Meurig said, pleased to have heard it before us. ‘A merchant came yesterday with news from Broceliande and he tells us that Mordred is very near death. His wound is festering.’ The King picked his teeth with a sliver of ivory. ‘It must be God’s judgement, Prince Galahad, God’s judgement.’
‘Praise His name,’ Bishop Lladarn intervened. The Bishop’s grey beard was so long it vanished under his couch. He used the beard as a towel, wiping grease from his hands into its long, dirt-clotted strands.
‘We have heard such rumours before, Lord King,’ I said.
Meurig shrugged. ‘The merchant seemed very sure of himself,’ he said, then tipped an oyster down his throat. ‘So if Mordred isn’t dead already,’ he went on, ‘he probably will be soon, and without leaving a child!’
‘True,’ Galahad said.
‘And Perddel of Powys is also childless,’ Meurig went on.
‘Perddel is unmarried, Lord King,’ I pointed out.
‘But does he look to marry?’ Meurig demanded of us.
‘There’s been talk of him marrying a Princess from Kernow,’ I said, ‘and some of the Irish Kings have offered daughters, but his mother wishes him to wait a year or two.’
‘He’s ruled by his mother, is he? No wonder he’s weak,’ Meurig said in his petulant, high-toned voice, ‘weak. I hear that Powys’s western hills are filled with outlaws?’
‘I hear the same, Lord King,’ I said. The mountains beside the Irish Sea had been haunted by masterless men ever since Cuneglas had died, and Arthur’s campaign in Powys, Gwynedd and Lleyn had only increased their numbers. Some of those refugees were spearmen from Diwrnach’s Bloodshields and, united with the disaffected men from Powys, they could have proved a new threat to Perddel’s throne, but so far they had been little more than a nuisance. They raided for cattle and grain, snatched children as slaves, then scampered back to their hill fastnesses to avoid retribution.
‘And Arthur?’ Meurig enquired. ‘How did you leave him?’
‘Not well, Lord King,’ Galahad said. ‘He would have wished to be here, but alas, he has a winter fever.’
‘Not serious?’ Meurig enquired with an expression that suggested he rather hoped Arthur’s cold would prove fatal. ‘One does hope not, of course,’ he added hastily, ‘but he is old, and the old do succumb to trifling things that a younger man would throw off.’
‘I don’t think Arthur’s old,’ I said.
‘He must be nearly fifty!’ Meurig pointed out indignantly.
‘Not for a year or two yet,’ I said.
‘But old,’ Meurig insisted, ‘old.’ He fell silent and I glanced round the palace chamber, which was lit by burning wicks floating in bronze dishes filled with oil. Other than the five couches and the low table there was no other furniture and the only decoration was a carving of Christ on the cross that hung high on a wall. The Bishop gnawed at a pork rib, Peredur sat silent, while Galahad watched the King with a look of faint amusement. Meurig picked his teeth again, then pointed the ivory sliver at me. ‘What happens if Mordred dies?’ He blinked rapidly, something he always did when he was nervous.
‘A new King must be found, Lord King,’ I said casually, as though the question held no real importance for me.
‘I had grasped that point,’ he said acidly, ‘but who?’
‘The Lords of Dumnonia will decide,’ I said evasively.
‘And will choose Gwydre?’ He blinked again as he challenged me. ‘That’s what I hear, they’ll choose Gwydre! Am I right?’
I said nothing and Galahad finally answered the King. ‘Gwydre certainly has a claim, Lord King,’ he said carefully.