Gwydre returned his father’s stare. I thought for a moment that he would falter, or perhaps argue with his father, but instead he gave Arthur a good answer. ‘What I want, father,’ he said, ‘is to treat folk well, to give them peace and offer them justice.’
Arthur smiled to hear his own words served back to him. ‘Then perhaps we should try to make you King, Gwydre. But how?’ He walked back to the furnace. ‘We can’t lead spearmen through Gwent, Meurig will stop us, but if we don’t have spearmen, we don’t have the throne.’
‘Boats,’ Gwydre said.
‘Boats?’ Arthur asked.
‘There must be two score of fishing-boats on our coast,’ Gwydre said, ‘and each can take ten or a dozen men.’
‘But not horses,’ Galahad said, ‘I doubt they can take horses.’
‘Then we must fight without horses,’ Gwydre said.
‘We may not even need to fight,’ Arthur said. ‘If we reach Dumnonia first, and if Sagramor joins us, I think young Meurig might hesitate. And if Oengus mac Airem sends a warband east towards Gwent then that will frighten Meurig even more. We can probably freeze Meurig’s soul by looking threatening enough.’
‘Why would Oengus help us fight his own daughter?’ I asked.
‘Because he doesn’t care about her, that’s why,’ Arthur said. ‘And we’re not fighting his daughter, Derfel, we’re fighting Sansum. Argante can stay in Dumnonia, but she can’t be Queen, not if Mordred’s dead.’ He sneezed again. ‘And I think you should go to Dumnonia soon, Derfel,’ he added.
‘To do what, Lord?’
‘To smell out the mouse lord, that’s what. He’s scheming, and he needs a cat to teach him a lesson, and you’ve got sharp claws. And you can show Gwydre’s banner. I can’t go because that would provoke Meurig too much, but you can sail across the Severn without rousing suspicions, and when news comes of Mordred’s death you proclaim Gwydre’s name at Caer Cadarn and make certain Sansum and Argante can’t reach Gwent. Put them both under guard and tell them it’s for their own protection.’
‘I’ll need men,’ I warned him.
‘Take a boatload, and then use Issa’s men,’ Arthur said, invigorated by the need to take decisions.
‘Sagramor will give you troops,’ he added, ‘and the moment I hear that Mordred’s dead I’ll bring Gwydre with all my spearmen. If I’m still alive, that is,’ he said, sneezing again.
‘You’ll live,’ Galahad said unsympathetically.
‘Next week,’ Arthur looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes, ‘go next week, Derfel.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
He bent to throw another handful of coals onto the blazing furnace. ‘The Gods know I never wanted that throne,’ he said, ‘but one way or another I consume my life fighting for it.’ He sniffed. ‘We’ll start gathering boats, Derfel, and you assemble spearmen at Caer Cadarn. If we look strong enough then Meurig will think twice.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’ I asked.
‘Then we’ve lost,’ Arthur said, ‘we’ve lost. Unless we fight a war, and I’m not sure I want to do that.’
‘You never do, Lord,’ I said, ‘but you always win them.’
‘So far,’ Arthur said gloomily, ‘so far.’
He picked up his tongs to rescue the shoe-plate from the fire, and I went to find a boat with which to snatch a kingdom.
Next morning, on a falling tide and in a west wind that whipped the River Usk into short steep waves, I embarked on my brother-in-law’s boat. Balig was a fisherman married to Linna, my half-sister, and he was amused to have discovered that he was related to a Lord of Dumnonia. He had also profited from the unexpected relationship, but he deserved the good fortune for he was a capable and decent man. Now he ordered six of my spearmen to take the boat’s long oars, and ordered the other four to crouch in the bilge. I only had a dozen of my spearmen in Isca, the rest were with Issa, but I reckoned these ten men should see me safe to Dun Caric. Balig invited me to sit on a wooden chest beside the steering oar.
‘And throw up over the gunwale, Lord,’ he added cheerfully.
‘Don’t I always?’
‘No. Last time you filled the scuppers with your breakfast. Waste offish-food, that. Cast offforrard, you worm-eaten toad!’ he shouted at his crew, a Saxon slave who had been captured at Mynydd Baddon, but who now had a British wife, two children and a noisy friendship with Balig. ‘Knows his boats, that I’ll say for him,’ Balig said of the Saxon, then he stooped to the stern line that still secured the boat to the bank. He was about to cast the rope off when a shout sounded and we both looked up to see Taliesin hurrying towards us from the grassy mound of Isca’s amphitheatre. Balig held tight to the mooring line. ‘You want me to wait, Lord?’
‘Yes,’ I said, standing as Taliesin came closer.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Taliesin shouted, ‘wait!’ He carried nothing except a small leather bag and a gilded harp. ‘Wait!’ he called again, then hitched up the skirts of his white robe, took off his shoes, and waded into the glutinous mud of the Usk’s bank.
‘Can’t wait for ever,’ Balig grumbled as the bard struggled through the steep mud. ‘Tide’s going fast.’
‘One moment, one moment,’ Taliesin called. He threw his harp, bag and shoes on board, hitched his skirts still higher and waded into the water. Balig reached out, clasped the bard’s hand and hauled him unceremoniously over the gunwale. Taliesin sprawled on the deck, found his shoes, bag and harp, then wrung water from the skirts of his robe. ‘You don’t mind if I come, Lord?’ he asked me, the silver fillet askew on his black hair.
‘Why should I?’
‘Not that I intend to accompany you. I just wish passage to Dumnonia.’ He straightened the silver fillet, then frowned at my grinning spearmen. ‘Do those men know how to row?’
‘Course they don’t,’ Balig answered for me. ‘They’re spearmen, no use for anything useful. Do it together, you bastards! Ready? Push forward! Oars down! Pull!’ He shook his head in mock despair.
‘Might as well teach pigs to dance.’
It was about nine miles to the open sea from Isca, nine miles that we covered swiftly because our boat was carried by the ebbing tide and the river’s swirling current. The Usk slid between glistening mudbanks that climbed to fallow fields, bare woods and wide marshes. Wicker fish traps stood on the banks where herons and gulls pecked at the flapping salmon stranded by the falling tide. Redshanks called plaintively while snipe climbed and swooped above their nests. We hardly needed the oars, for together the tide and current were carrying us fast, and once we reached the widening water where the river spilled into the Severn, Balig and his crewman hoisted a ragged brown sail that caught the west wind and made the boat surge forward. ‘Ship those oars now,’ he ordered my men, then he grasped the big steering oar and stood happily as the small ship dipped her blunt prow into the first big waves. ‘The sea will be lively today, Lord,’ he called cheerfully. ‘Scoop that water out!’ he shouted to my spearmen. ‘The wet stuff belongs outside a boat, not in it.’ Balig grinned at my incipient misery. ‘Three hours, Lord, that’s all, and we’ll have you ashore.’