"I believe that," Arthur murmured. "I wish I had met him. He must have been a fascinating man. Warrior and bishop. That's a strange blending."
"Aye, it was, and he was formidable in both aspects. You would have gained from knowing him. He would have liked you."
"How are your feet and legs nowadays?" We had been progressing slowly, Arthur mindful of the limp that prevented me nowadays from keeping pace with him.
I shrugged. "They function. Sometimes they pain me, but less and less frequently. One of these days, I'll have no pain at all." Carthac had maimed me at the moment of his death, when he thrust me away from him, into the firepit. The burns I had sustained had been severe and, when they healed, had left me with shortened tendons in my left knee and heel. My left hand had burned, too, and now its fingers were forever clawed and useless; the leprous area on the web of my left thumb had disappeared at the same time, burned into a knotted mass of hardened scar tissue. Further burns, to my face, had left me sufficiently disfigured for my friend Llewellyn to take great delight in telling me that when he was with me, he knew which of us was the better looking.
Arthur was still staring at me, so I stopped walking and faced him. "What? What is it? I know that look of yours. You have something in your mind you wish either to tell me or to ask me. Which is it?"
As I asked the question, I heard the clattering of approaching hooves, and then a rider drew his horse to a halt and leaped from the saddle to land rigidly at attention in front of his Commander, presenting a tightly rolled dispatch in his extended hand. I shook my head in silent wonder at the concentration that could produce this evidence of superhuman discipline. I had spent half my life upon a horse, but I had never been called upon to perform the prodigious feats of horsemanship and personal performance that these young men of Arthur's did without thought.
Arthur walked away to read the dispatch by the light of a nearby torch, and then nodded to the messenger, muttering something that I made no attempt to overhear. It was apparent from his stance that the missive contained no urgent summons, and the man who had brought it was dismissed.
"How do they do that, Arthur? How do they learn to leap down from a horse and land rigid on their feet like that, at attention? I've never seen anything like it in my life, and I've only seen it since you returned last time from Cambria. Is it necessary?"
He laughed. "No, Merlyn, it is not, and I'll grant you it seems... overzealous, but it's a harmless enough thing—a mark of the fever for excellence and distinction that seems to burn in all my men. It's a display of unit pride, no more. It began in the final stages of the Cornwall campaign, when we were cleaning up the detritus of Ironhair's levies. One of my officers, in a great hurry, leaped from his horse like that, to speak to me, and landed upright and rigid. It was sheer luck and completely unintentional, I'm quite sure, but he carried it off and pretended to have done it on purpose. Other young officers were watching, and all were impressed. Within the month, it had become the thing to do, an<} now it's standard. Elite troops develop elitist idiosyncrasies. "
"Aye, " I said, making no attempt to hide the irony in my tone. "I know what you mean. The Praetorians developed some, too. They killed and elected emperors, in their day... " When he did not react to my humour, I began to wonder if the thoughts he was guarding were blacker than I had suspected. "From the lack of concern you showed, I presumed that message you received held no great urgency. Was I wrong?"
He blinked his eyes, then focused them on me more keenly. "Oh, it did. Urgency enough, but there was nothing unexpected in it and there is nothing I can do about it now. It was from Bedwyr. His scouts report that Horsa's Danes are massing again, in the northeast, around Lindum. Bedwyr anticipates that they'll head directly south this time, into our most outlying territories. We've been anticipating something of the kind. Horsa needs to expand his holdings. We threw him out of Cambria and denied him any bases in Cornwall, and there's no room for his people elsewhere along the Saxon Shore, so he has to create new space along its boundaries. That involves intrusion upon us, although he doesn't know yet on whose toes he will be treading. By the time he does. I hope to have my forces well enough bestowed to smash him. He will be far from the sea, this time, with no fleet waiting offshore to spirit him and his defeated Danes away. But that's in the future. It makes no difference to the status quo. "
"Hmm. And you are sure of that? I distrust any analysis of the status quo when great distances are involved. "
'I do, too. But what more am I to do? I can't be everywhere at once, so I must simply wait and be prepared to move, instantly. "
"Very well. " I could not argue with his logic. "Now, what was it you wanted to ask or tell me?"
He laid his right hand on my shoulder. "Come, I'll walk with you to your quarters and ask you as we go. "
When we swung right and headed towards the distant lights of the town, I saw the silent, unobtrusive shadows of the squad of Pendragon bowmen who accompanied Arthur everywhere, as they fanned out and formed a ring about us. He saw me look at them and grinned again.
"My bodyguard. I've tried dismissing them and sending them away, but they are under Big Huw's orders, and it would be more than their lives are worth to obey me and thereby displease him. I'm merely their king; Huw Strongarm is their god. "
I made no comment on that. Arthur had become the king of the Pendragon clans a year before, under the protection and sponsorship of Huw Strongarm, who was now as much Arthur's loyal man as he had ever been Uther's.
"I'm concerned about this matter of the sword, Cay, " Arthur continued, and I immediately put every other thought out of my mind. He seldom called me Cay, and when he did, I knew that he had been thinking long and hard about some problem. I glanced at him, keeping my expression neutral.
"Why should you be concerned? Everything is arranged. "
"I know, but it still worries me. I can't see the sense of it, can't see any advantage to what is so openly a ruse. "
"It's not a ruse, Arthur. It is a symbol, and one of great import. The deed will be symbolic of your cause, Britain's cause. People need symbols to direct their beliefs. We've discussed this before now, several times. "
"We have, but... Merlyn, I'm still not satisfied that the idea will hold water. Look—" He sucked air through his teeth and then let out a pent up sigh. "It's not the symbol that concerns me—not the need for one, at least. I can see that clearly... I suppose it's the physical thing itself that worries me, the sword. I'm to produce my sword out of a stone. But it's my sword, Merlyn, Ambrose's sword! I've been using it for two years now, ever since you gave it to me that day in Cambria. People have seen it. They know it. They know I carry it with me every day, slung at my back, between my shoulders. Why are you so convinced that they will all be so impressed when they see me pull it from a stone? To my mind, they'll be more inclined to laugh. I know I would, were I to see such foolery. "
I had been holding up my hand to silence him for some time, but only now did he pause and look at me. When I was sure that he would say no more, I smiled and nodded.
"I have a question for you, now, and it's one I have never asked you before. Do you trust me, Arthur?"
"What kind of foolish question is that? Whom else could I trust in all the world if not you? Why would you even trouble to ask me?"
"I ask because I want you to engage that trust and bear with me in this. " His face fell, and I continued. "But if you have a single, tiny suspicion in your mind that I might ever do anything that could endanger or belittle you or what I believe to be your God sent cause, then tell me now, and I'll accept it and say no more about the sword. " He shrugged his big shoulders, mute. "Good, then two things more I'll say: I swear to you that no man watching the event will laugh, or will feel aught but awe and wonder. On my oath, I swear that to be true, Arthur. No man, or woman, will think less of you for what you will have done, and none will recognize the sword. You may doubt that, within yourself, but you have my oath on all of it. "