Thunder! Christians made the sign of the cross again, but no man there could have doubted the sign. Taranis, the God of Thunder, had spoken, proof that the Gods had come to the High Council, had come, moreover, at the bidding of a young girl who, despite the cold that made men draw their cloaks about them, wore nothing but a white shift and a slave's leash.
No one moved, no one spoke, no one even fidgeted. The horns of mead rested and men left lice unscratched. There were no kings here any more, nor warriors. There were no bishops, no tonsured priests, nor old wise men. There was only a hushed, scared crowd who stared in awe as a young girl stood and unpinned her hair to let it fall black and long against her slim white back. Morgan gazed at the floor, Tanaburs gaped and Bishop Bedwin mouthed silent prayers as Nimue walked to the speech space beside the brazier. She held her arms out to her side and turned very slowly, sunwise, so that every man in the room could see her face. It was a face of horror. Her eyes showed white, nothing more, and her tongue protruded from a distorted mouth. She turned, and turned again, turning ever faster, and I swear a communal shudder went through the crowd. She was shaking now as she spun, and edging ever nearer to that great seething fire until she threatened to fall into its flames, but suddenly she leaped into the air and gave a shriek before collapsing on to the small tiles. Then, like a beast, she scuttled on all fours, questing her way back and forth along the line of shields that had been split to let the fire's heat warm the High King's legs, and when she reached the fox shield of Gundleus she reared up like a striking snake and spat once.
The spittle landed on the fox.
Gundleus started up from his throne, but Tewdric checked him. Tanaburs struggled to his feet also, but Nimue turned on him, her eyes still showing white, and screamed. She pointed at him, her shriek ululating and echoing in the vast Roman hall, and the power of her magic made Tanaburs sink down again to the floor.
Then Nimue shuddered, her eyes rolled and we could see their brown pupils again. She blinked at the crowded hall as if surprised to find herself in such a place, and then, with her back to the High King, she went utterly still. The stillness denoted that she was in the grip of the Gods and when she now spoke she would be speaking for them.
“Does Merlin live?” Tewdric asked respectfully.
“Of course he lives.” Nimue's voice was filled with scorn and she offered no title to the King who questioned her. She was with the Gods and had no need to pay respect to mere mortals.
“Where is he?”
“Gone,” Nimue said, and turned around to look at the toga-clad King on the platform.
“Gone where?” Tewdric asked.
“To seek the Knowledge of Britain,” Nimue said. Every man listened hard for this, at last, was real news. I could see Sansum the Mouse Lord wriggling in his desperate need to make a protest at this pagan interference with the High Council, but so long as King Tewdric questioned the girl there was no way that a mere priest could interfere.
“What is the Knowledge of Britain?” High King Uther asked. Nimue turned around again, one full turn sunwise, but she turned only so she could gather her thoughts for the answer which, when it came, was delivered in a chanting, hypnotic voice. “The Knowledge of Britain is the lore of our ancestors, the gifts of our Gods, the Thirteen Properties of the Thirteen Treasures which, when gathered, will give us back the power to claim our land.” She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was back to its normal timbre. “Merlin strives to knit this land as one again, a British land,” and here Nimue whirled round so that she was staring straight into Sansum's small, bright, indignant eyes, 'with British Gods.“ She turned back to the High King. ”And if Lord Merlin fails, Uther of Dumnonia, we all die."
A murmur sounded in the room. Sansum and the Christians were yelping their protests now, but Tewdric, the Christian King, waved them to silence. “Are those Merlin's words?” he demanded of Nimue. Nimue shrugged as though the question was irrelevant. “They are not my words,” she said insolently. Uther had no doubt that Nimue, a mere child on the edge of womanhood, spoke not for herself but for her master and so he leaned his great bulk forward and frowned at her. “Ask Merlin if he will take my oath? Ask him! Will he protect my grandson?”
Nimue paused a long time. I think she sensed the truth of Britain before any of us, before even Merlin and certainly long before Arthur, if, indeed, Arthur ever knew, but some instinct would not let her speak that truth to this old, dying and stubborn man. “Merlin, my Lord King,” she finally said in a tired voice that implied she merely discharged a necessary but time wasting duty, 'promises at this moment, upon his soul's life, that he will take the death-oath to protect your grandchild."
“So long!” Morgan astonished us all by interjecting. She scrambled to her feet, looking squat and dark beside Nimue. Firelight glinted off her gold helm. “So long!” she cried again, then remembered to sway to and fro in the brazier's smoke as if to suggest the Gods were taking over her body. “So long, Merlin says, as Arthur shares the oath. Arthur and his men should be your grandson's protector. Merlin has spoken!” She spoke the words with all the dignity of someone accustomed to being an oracle and prophetess, but I, if no one else, noticed that no thunder sounded in the rainswept night. Gundleus was on his feet protesting Morgan's pronouncement. He had already suffered a council of six and a trio of oath-takers to be imposed upon his power, but now it was proposed that his new kingdom was to support a war-band of possible enemy warriors. “No!” he cried again, but Tewdric ignored the protest as he stepped down from the dais to stand beside Morgan and face the High King. It was thus made plain to most of us in the hall that Morgan, even if she had been uttering in Merlin's voice, had nevertheless spoken what Tewdric had wanted her to speak. King Tewdric of Gwent might have been a good Christian, but he was a better politician and knew exactly when to have the old Gods support his demands.
“Arthur ap Neb and his warriors,” Tewdric now said to the High King, 'will be a better surety for your grandson's life than any oath of mine, though God knows my oath is solemn." Prince Gereint, who was Uther's nephew and, after Owain, the second most powerful warlord in Dumnonia, might have protested Arthur's appointment, but the Lord of the Stones was an honest man of limited ambition who doubted his ability to lead all Dumnonia's armies and so he stood beside Tewdric and added his support. Owain, who was the leader of Uther's Royal Guard as well as the High King's champion, seemed less happy at the appointment of a rival, but eventually he too stood with Tewdric and growled his assent.
Uther still hesitated. Three was a lucky number and three oath-takers should have sufficed, and the addition of a fourth might risk the Gods' displeasure, but Uther owed Tewdric a favour for having dismissed his proposal of Arthur as Norwenna's husband and now the High King paid his debt. “Arthur shall take the oath,” he agreed, and the Gods alone knew how hard it was for him thus to appoint the man he believed to be responsible for his beloved son's death, but appoint him he did and the hall rang with acclamation. Gundleus's Silurians alone were silent as the spears splintered the pavement and the warrior cheers echoed in the smoky cavernous dark.
Thus, as the High Council ended, was Arthur, son of nobody, chosen to be one of Mordred's sworn protectors.
Norwenna and Guneus were married two weeks after the High Council ended. The ceremony was performed at a Christian shrine in Abona, a harbour town on our northern shore that faced across the Severn Sea towards Siluria, and it cannot have been a joyful occasion for Norwenna returned to Ynys Wydryn that very same evening. None of us from the Tor went to the ceremony, though a pack of Ynys Wydryn's monks and their wives accompanied the Princess. She returned to us as Queen Norwenna of Siluria, though the honour brought her neither new guards nor added attendants. Gundleus sailed back to his own country where, we heard, there were skirmishes against the Ui Liathain, the Blackshield Irish who had colonized the old British kingdom of Dyfed that the Blackshields called Demetia.