Unaccountably, his face had darkened into something resembling a perplexed scowl. Now he shook his head. "No, but I find that difficult to accept," he growled. "I mean. Your loyalty is all to the boy, and I killed his father. How can you trust me that much, knowing what I said to you when you first came here?"
"Why should I mistrust you? Here, I'll trust you even further, with this knowledge ... " I paused, watching his face as keenly as he watched mine. I had been keeping back a truth from Derek. I knew him, now, to be a just and honourable man, and until that moment I had been loath to tell him what I knew about his full role in Arthur's fate: how his passing lust had left the boy not merely fatherless, but motherless. Now, I believed, the time had come to tell him. Perhaps it would bind him further to us and the success of our mission.
"Not only did you kill the lad's father, you killed his mother, too."
He jerked back from me as though I had slapped him across the face, his eyes flaring wide with angry disbelief. I held up my hand to quell his response before it could reach his lips. "It's true, Derek!" He checked himself, then sat as though turned to stone, even the motion of his eyes suspended. I continued, keeping my voice level now. "The woman on the beach—the one you were ... employed with, when I arrived. Do you recall?"
"The red-haired one ... " He glanced sideways quickly; guiltily, to where Lucanus stood listening, as though expecting Luke to assail him next.
"Aye, the red-haired one," I confirmed quietly. "That was Ygraine of Cornwall, Lot's wife and Uther's mistress ... Arthur's mother."
Derek of Ravenglass seemed to shrink as though all the air in him had been released, and as he did, I saw credence growing in his eyes. But then he shook his head, a tiny gesture of bewilderment. "But ... I didn't kill her. She was alive! I threw her aside when you rode up, but she was unhurt"
I nodded, still speaking gently. "That's true, Derek, she was. But then you mounted your war horse, to meet me man to man, and in the mounting, your horse kicked her or trampled her, I know not which. She lay dying when I found her, her skull crushed. And the child, Arthur, was in the birney."
In the silence that followed, Lucanus moved to Derek's side and placed one hand on his shoulder. "That was an act of God, my friend ... the killing ... We both know that. No blame in it accrues to you. You took the woman as a prize of war, against her will—that's normal in such cases. You had no intent to kill her, did you?"
Derek shook his head, his eyes filled with confusion and a suggestion, at least to my eyes, of regret and even pain. "No," he murmured, his big voice now barely audible. "She was ripe and lush. I wanted her, but I had no thought of killing her ... And yet I killed the others. Some of them ... one of them. She fought me, to keep me from the red-haired one. She seized my dagger and came at me. I turned her wrist and thrust, and pulled her onto the point ... "
"Self-defence," Lucanus said. I was startled that he should condone such things, even obliquely, but I saw at once that he was being politic. "Ygraine, the red-haired woman, is the important one here. You had no thought of killing her, of bringing about her death in any way, had you?" Derek shook his head, and Luke went on.
"You had no knowledge of her death, did you, until here and now? You were unaware your horse had kicked or trampled her in your scramble to mount up when Cay, here, arrived to challenge you, thinking you to be Uther, am I correct?" Again, a wordless nod was Derek's sole response. "Good, then. No willful involvement in the young woman's death may be attributable to you. But there is more, so you had better let Cay tell it to you, and listen carefully."
Derek collected himself and straightened with a deep sigh, looking me straight in the eye again. "There's more? Then best to give it to me quickly. How much more can there be?"
"Not much, but it is vital, and only we two, Luke and I, have knowledge of it. You will be the third, and last, to know the full connection ... how the circle closes. Arthur, I swear, will never know, nor any other, from our lips." I stopped, and glanced at Lucanus, suddenly uneasy. "Luke, if you please, make sure we are alone." He moved immediately to verify that no one was within hearing range, and we waited until he returned, nodding to me that all was clear. I turned again to Derek.
"Ygraine was daughter to your strongest ally, the Eirish king, Athol Mac Iain. She was sister to Connor and to Donuil—sister, too, to my own wife, Deirdre. So you see, the boy is Athol's own grandson, heir to Eire's Scots. He also stands heir to Lot's Cornwall, since Lot acknowledged him and never knew the secret of his true paternity. And he is even heir to my domain in Camulod, in that he is my ward—my nephew and my cousin both. All of Ygraine's kin know that she died in Lot and Uther's war, but none of them, not even Donuil, knows how she died or who killed her. So let it be, and let her rest. Ygraine is dead, she has been mourned, and her son is being protected and well cared for.
"There, if you wish to play the cynic, lies the basis of my trust in you, as yours must lie in me. I've come to know you better since then, and I believe you when you say you'd never do such a thing. But had I so wished, I could long since have used my knowledge to your ruin. You must now believe I never will, and have never contemplated doing so." I paused for a moment to give him a chance to absorb this new information. "And so! Are we at peace with this, we three?"
Once again Derek of Ravenglass heaved a great, long sigh, then stood up slowly, his hand outstretched to me. I rose, too, and shook with him, and felt my own throat clench to see the tears that stood in his fierce eyes. He blinked several times to clear them, and then spoke, gulping air to drive his voice, which came out, nonetheless, sounding infirm and shaky.
"So be it," he whispered. "I swear, on all I hold dear, that the boy will never lack a home, or safety and protection, while I breathe."
Lucanus had placed his hand over both of ours, and now he thrust down, breaking our grip in token of a bargain sealed. "So be it," he grunted, laughing. "Now may we go and eat? I, at least, am famished."
On the third day after that, we awoke before dawn to find the snow holding mastery over our new domain, drifting silently down in the stillness of the dark to lay a mantle of utter quiet upon everything. I had awaited its arrival with trepidation; we all had. Our memories of the recent evil winter were yet undimmed, and so we had prepared ourselves to face all manner of hardships here, so high in the hills. We bought up grain from Derek's people and laid in great stores of food and fuel and fodder for our beasts, all of which were safely housed beneath strong roofs. But that storm was brief, and after it had passed the air grew warm again, and the snow melted, so that we came to midwinter and a new year before we saw another snowfall. This time, however, the snow remained when the storm had passed and the air grew colder, but not lethally so.
The children had a wonderland in which to play, and the boys used the steeply sloping, cobbled surface of the hillside road as a chute. They spent entire days, once Dedalus and Rufio had shown them what to do, hauling heavy, metal shields high up towards the pass above the fort, then sliding down, perched on these precarious chariots, to where a high bank of snow, thrown up by some of the men for that purpose, checked their dangerously swift descent. Turga had been scandalized when she learned what the two men had shown the boys, and Rufio, who spent much time with her, earned the rough edge of her tongue to such an extent that he maintained a wary distance from her for days afterward.
I remember quite clearly that I was of Turga's opinion for a while, since my first sight of the activity had revealed Arthur himself, whirling like a top, his hair flying as he clung fiercely to the edging of a circular, metal-bossed shield within the curve of which he sat cross-legged. His teeth were bared in what I took to be a fearful grimace while the thing spun downward, beyond control, at a speed far greater than any horse could run. As I watched in horrified disbelief, my mouth open in a strangled shout, the thing mounted the snow piled on one side of the narrow road, shot down again and catapulted across to the opposite edge of the road, flying into the air and sending the boy, shrieking, into a snowbank. I began to run towards him, calling for help, but he leaped to his feet and began jumping up and down in glee, screaming to Gwin, Ghilly and Bedwyr, who were still high up at the top of the descent, staring down at him.