‘Bishop,’ I said wearily, for it was Sansum, and we were both Mordred’s prisoners.
‘It’s a mistake!’ Sansum insisted. ‘I shouldn’t be here!’
‘Tell them,’ I said, jerking my head towards the guards outside the hut, ‘not me.’
‘I did nothing. Except serve Argante! And look how they reward me!’
‘Be quiet,’ I said.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus!’ He fell on his knees, spread his arms and gazed up at the cobwebs in the thatch.
‘Send an angel for me! Take me to Thy sweet bosom.’
‘Will you be quiet?’ I snarled, but he went on praying and weeping, while I stared morosely towards Caer Cadarn’s wei summit where a heap of severed heads was being piled. Mj men’s heads were there, joining scores of others that had beer fetched from all across Dumnonia. A chair draped in a pale blue cloth was perched on top of the pile; Mordred’s throne. Women and children, the families of Mordred’s spearmen, peered at the grisly heap, and some then came to look through our hut’s low door and laugh at my beardless face.
‘Where’s Mordred?’ I asked Sansum.
‘How would I know?’ he answered, interrupting his prayer.
‘Then what do you know?’ I asked. He shuffled back onto the bench. He had done me one small service by fumbling the rope free from my wrists, but the freedom gave me little comfort for I could see six spearmen guarding the hut, and I did not doubt that there were others I could not see. One man just sat facing the hut’s open entrance with a spear, begging me to try and crawl through the low door and thus give him a chance of skewering me. I had no chance of overpowering any of them. ‘What do you know?’ I asked Sansum again.
‘The King came back two nights ago,’ he said, ‘with hundreds of men.’
‘How many?’
He shrugged. ‘Three hundred? Four? I couldn’t count them, there were so many. They killed Issa in Durnovaria.’
I closed my eyes and said a prayer for poor Issa and his family. ‘When did they arrest you?’ I asked Sansum.
‘Yesterday.’ He looked indignant. ‘And for nothing! I welcomed him home! I didn’t know he was alive, but I was glad to see him. I rejoiced! And for that they arrested me!’
‘So why do they think they arrested you?’ I asked him.
‘Argante claims I was writing to Meurig, Lord, but that can’t be true! I have no skill with letters. You know that.’
‘Your clerks do, Bishop.’
Sansum adopted an indignant look. ‘And why should I talk to Meurig?’
‘Because you were plotting to give him the throne, Sansum,’ I said, ‘and don’t deny it. I talked with him two weeks ago.’
‘I was not writing to him,’ he said sulkily.
I believed him, for Sansum had ever been too canny to put his schemes on paper, but I did not doubt he had sent messengers. And one of those messengers, or perhaps a functionary at Meu-rig’s court, had betrayed him to Argante who had doubtless craved Sansum’s hoarded gold. ‘You deserve whatever you’re going to get,’ I told him. ‘You’ve plotted against every king who ever showed you kindness.’
‘All I ever wanted was the best for my country, and for Christ!’
‘You worm-ridden toad,’ I said, spitting on the floor. ‘You just wanted power.’
He made the sign of the cross and stared at me with loathing. ‘It’s all Fergal’s fault,’ he said.
‘Why blame him?’
‘Because he wants to be treasurer!’
‘You mean he wants to be wealthy like you?’
‘Me?’ Sansum stared with feigned surprise. ‘Me? Wealthy? In the name of God all I ever did was put a pittance aside in case the kingdom was in need! I was prudent, Derfel, prudent.’ He went on justifying himself, and it gradually dawned on me that he believed every word he said. Sansum could betray people, he could scheme to have them killed as he had tried to kill Arthur and me when we had gone to arrest Ligessac, and he could bleed the Treasury dry, yet all the time he somehow persuaded himself that his actions were justified. His only principle was ambition, and it occurred to me, as that miserable day slunk into night, that when the world was bereft of men like Arthur and of Kings like Cuneglas, then creatures like Sansum would rule everywhere. If Taliesin was right then our Gods were vanishing, and with them would go the Druids, and after them the great Kings, and then would come a tribe of mouse lords to rule over us.
The next day brought sunshine and a fitful wind that fetched the stench of the heaped heads to our hut. We were not allowed out of the hut and so were forced to relieve ourselves in a corner. We were not fed, though a bladder of stinking water was thrown in to us. The guards were changed, but the new men were as watchful as the old. Amhar came to the hut once, but only to gloat. He drew Hywelbane, kissed her blade, polished her on his cloak, then fingered her newly honed edge. ‘Sharp enough to take your hands off, Derfel,’ he said. ‘I’m sure my brother would like a hand of yours. He could mount it on his helmet! And I could have the other. I need a new crest.’ I said nothing and after a time he became bored with trying to provoke me and walked away, slashing at thistles with Hywelbane.
‘Maybe Sagramor will kill Mordred,’ Sansum whispered to me.
‘I pray so.’
‘That’s where Mordred’s gone, I’m sure. He came here, sent Amhar to Dun Caric, then rode eastwards.’
‘How many men does Sagramor have?’
‘Two hundred.’
‘Not many,’ I said.
‘Or perhaps Arthur will come?’ Sansum suggested.
‘He’ll know Mordred’s back by now,’ I said, ‘but he can’t march through Gwent because Meurig won’t let him, which means he has to ship his men by boat. And I doubt he’ll do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Mordred is the rightful King, Bishop, and Arthur, however much he hates Mordred, won’t deny him that right. He won’t break his oath to Uther.’
‘He won’t try and rescue you?’
‘How?’ I asked. ‘The moment these men saw Arthur approaching they’d cut both our throats.’
‘God save us,’ Sansum prayed. ‘Jesus, Mary and the Saints protect us.’
‘I’d rather pray to Mithras,’ I said.
‘Pagan!’ Sansum hissed, but he did not try to interrupt my prayer.
The day drew on. It was a spring day of utter loveliness, but to me it was bitter as gall. I knew my head would be added to the heap on Caer Cadarn’s summit, but that was not the keenest cause of my misery; that came from the knowledge that I had failed my people. I had led my spearmen into a trap, I had seen them die, I had failed. If they greeted me in the Otherworld with reproach, then that was what I deserved, but I knew they would welcome me with joy, and that only made me feel more guilty. Yet the prospect of the Otherworld was a comfort to me. I had friends there, and two daughters, and when the torture was over and my soul was released to its shadowbody, I would have the happiness of reunion. Sansum, I saw, could find no consolation in his religion. All that day he whined, moaned, wept and railed, but his noise achieved nothing. We could only wait through one more night and another long hungry day. Mordred returned late in the afternoon of that second day. He rode in from the east, leading a long column of marching spearmen who shouted greetings to Amhar’s warriors. A group of horsemen accompanied the King and among them was one-handed Loholt. I confess I was frightened to see him. Some of Mordred’s men carried bundles that I suspected would contain severed heads, and so they did, but the heads were far fewer than I had feared. Maybe twenty or thirty were tipped onto the fly-buzzing heap, and not one of them looked to be black-skinned. I guessed that Mordred had surprised and butchered one of Sagramor’s patrols, but he had missed his main prize. Sagramor was free, and that was a consolation. Sagramor was a wonderful friend and a terrible enemy. Arthur would have made a good enemy, for he was ever prone to forgiveness, but Sagramor was implacable. The Numidian would pursue a foe to the world’s end.