We talked for a time then about Tressa, and about my relationship with her, and I was absolutely open with my brother. He was curious, of course, and evidently did not want to pry, but I was so happy in my life with Tress that I told him everything in my mind, and he listened and was glad for me. I spoke at length about Arthur and Tress and the relationship—not really surprising, given a modicum of thought and consideration—that had sprung into life between them, based upon mutual trust and liking and their shared human need: his for a mother and hers for a child. The three of us had, in the short space of several months, created a family for ourselves, strange though it might have appeared to be in the eyes of others. Lovers though we were, openly and unashamedly, Tress and I continued to live apart. Similarly, Arthur continued to sleep in the home of his friends Gwin and Ghilleadh, as he had always done, being cared for by his former nurse Turga and deferring to Shelagh in all things as his adoptive mother. And yet somehow, Arthur and Tress and I had become a solid, tightly interdependent familial unit, sharing our lives, our strengths and weaknesses, our beliefs and our ideas, without stinting, and blessed in being able to do so without the internal jealousies and strife that seemed to mar so many other people's family lives.
When I had finished talking of my love, we sat in companionable silence for a little while, and then Ambrose turned our conversation again to young Arthur.
"The boy looks well," he said. "He's growing tall, as we expected he would, and he shows signs of having shoulders as broad as yours and mine. He's skinny, though, don't you think?"
"He's a growing boy, Ambrose, and that's normal. I was that way at his age, weren't you? All the food he ingests—and he eats like a horse—is used to push him up to his full height. Once he's achieved that, he'll grow in breadth and weight."
Ambrose glanced at me, his eyes twinkling. "You sound like Lucanus."
"And so I should. Those were Luke's very words to me, when I said the same foolish thing to him, bare months ago. The boy will grow upward, first, and then fill out. In the meantime, our task is to make sure he stays as strong as he can be."
"And how do we do that?"
"He's almost ten, now, as I said, and in the past year his education has undergone a shift in direction—less book study, less indoor theorizing, more practical training in weaponry and soldiery. He and his friends have been working with the new training swords, ever since you left for Camulod last time with Connor—" I broke off as his eyes crinkled into a broad smile. "What is it?"
"Nothing, really. I remember the weight of those things, that's all. Are you still making them from solid oak? Those boys should hardly be able to lift them, let alone swing them."
I nodded. "Aye, well, that's true. For the time being, they're using lighter shafts suited to their strength, and using them two-handed, treating them most of the time as spear shafts. But that is changing, and the boys are growing stronger every day as they build up the muscles in their arms and shoulders. Dedalus and Rufio are sharing responsibility for training them, and as our two most able experts on the new weapons, they are hard taskmasters. Wait you, till you see. I promise you, you'll be surprised."
My brother nodded and changed the subject. "There's one more thing I wanted to discuss with you. It's for your ears alone, I think, although what you choose to do with the information is your concern."
I turned to face him squarely, alerted by something in his tone. "What is it?"
"Arthur may have a brother in Cornwall."
"What?" I sat blinking at him, unable to accept the import of what I had heard him say. He shrugged, holding my gaze, content to allow me to think through what he had said. "That's not possible," I said finally. "Uther and Ygraine are both dead since his birth."
"Cay, your mother has been dead since your birth and yet you and I are brothers."
"We had different mothers."
"Precisely so."
I sat staring at him as the full import of what he had said began to sink home to me. "Sweet, gentle Jesus! Are you telling me that Uther sired a child on another woman before he died?"
"No, I'm telling you that I have heard a report—a rumour, and no more than that—that Uther lay, initially, with one of Ygraine's women, before he entered into his liaison with the Queen herself. I have no knowledge of the truth of it, the story simply came to me by chance, overheard as a soldiers' legend, like the tale of your magic in the empty room, that Uther had rutted wondrously amidst Queen Ygraine's women. You know how soldiers are. They give their heroes, and dead heroes in particular, attributes and personalities that would defy the gods. The word is, among some of the men, that Uther plowed a broad furrow in Cornwall and fathered bastards by the score."
"Well, that's not difficult to believe. Uther's appetites were legendary in that respect, and most of his men almost destroyed themselves seeking to outdo him. Rape and venery are part of war and part of the payments soldiers take for risking their lives. Given how long that war dragged on, Cornwall must be full of bastards sired by Uther's men. and I've no doubt my cousin did his share of repopulating the countryside after his armies emptied it."
"Aye, no doubt." Ambrose leaned forward" and pushed at a burning log with his foot, thrusting it closer to the heart of the fire. "But one of those bastards he sired may be of noble blood on both sides of the tryst, and that could breed a challenge to young Arthur, in time to come. The rumour says that the woman involved was one of the Queen's ladies, sent to Lot's court by her brother, a king called Crandal."
The name surprised me, for in the space of a single day, never having heard it before, I had now heard it twice. Ambrose told me that this man was a king among the Painted People north of the Great Wall and that his name had spread far and wide in recent years because of his conquests. Apparently the man was no mere warrior but a champion and a hero to his people. He had never been beaten in battle and had conquered all the lands that lay around his own, so that his domain now extended the length and breadth of eastern Caledonia, from the Wall to the edge of the high mountains in the north and west.
I sat listening in silence, aware only of Ambrose's voice and the crackling of the fire, until he had finished. When his voice tailed off, though, I was still dissatisfied.
"So why did you bring up his name now?"
He looked at me in surprise. "Why? Because now, it appears, he is preparing to strike southward, into Britain below the Wall. But this matter of his sister makes the business more immediate to us. I didn't want to mention the woman's involvement today, when we were speaking earlier, because the boy was present."
"Hmm." It was my turn now to stare into the fire, thinking deeply. "So where is this woman now?"
Ambrose shook his head. "I know nothing of her. In the tale I heard, she left to have her child elsewhere, once it was known that the Queen had taken up with Uther."
"She was banished?"
"No, apparently not. From what I heard, she had lain with Uther at the Queen's instigation, as a ploy to win favours for her mistress. That she was quickened was ... unfortunate—unplanned but not disastrous. It was only later that the Queen herself became involved with Uther."
"Damnation! So this story could be true? There could be another heir to Uther's kingdom?"
"Aye, and a firstborn one, at that. Bastard though he be, he's no more so than Arthur."
"So where is he?"
Ambrose shook his head slowly. ."Who knows? He could be anywhere, concealed like our own boy for his own safety. But bear in mind, Caius, I heard only a rumour. It may be total fabrication."