“Yes, Lord,” I said, and wondered how he had known it was a death-oath that had bound us on that dark night.
“So instead, let us walk.” He smiled at me, and gestured along the rampart. “A walking sentry stays warm,” he said. “I hear you're a good soldier?”
“I try, Lord.”
“And I hear you succeed, so well done.” He fell silent as we passed one of my comrades who was huddled against the palings. The man looked up at me as I passed and his face showed alarm that I might betray Owain's troop. Arthur pushed the cloak's hood back off his face. He had a long, firm stride and I had to hurry to keep pace with him. “What do you think a soldier's job is, Derfel?” he asked me in that intimate manner that made you feel he was more interested in you than anyone else in the world.
“To fight battles, Lord,” I said.
He shook his head. “To fight battles, Derfel,” he corrected me, 'on behalf of people who can't fight for themselves. I learned that in Brittany. This miserable world is full of weak people, powerless people, hungry people, sad people, sick people, poor people, and it's the easiest thing in the world to despise the weak, especially if you're a soldier. If you're a warrior and you want a man's daughter, you just take her; you want his land, you just kill him; after all, you're a soldier and you have a spear and a sword, and he's just a poor weak man with a broken plough and a sick ox and what's to stop you?“ He did not expect an answer to the question, but just paced on in silence. We had come to the western gateway and the split-log steps that climbed to the platform over the gate were whitening with a new frost. We climbed them side by side. ”But the truth is, Derfel,“ Arthur said when we reached the high platform, 'that we are only soldiers because that weak man makes us soldiers. He grows the grain that feeds us, he tans the leather that protects us and he polls the ash trees that make our spear-shafts. We owe him our service.”
“Yes, Lord,” I said and stared with him across the wide, flat land. It was not so cold as the night on which Mordred had been born, but it was still bitter, and the wind made it more so.
“There is a purpose to all things,” Arthur said, 'even being a soldier." He smiled at me, as though apologizing for being so earnest, yet he had no need to be apologetic for I was drinking in his words. I had dreamed of becoming a soldier because of a warrior's high status and because it had always seemed to me that it was better to carry a spear than a rake, but I had never thought beyond those selfish ambitions. Arthur had thought far beyond and he brought to Dumnonia a clear vision of where his sword and spear must take him.
“We have a chance' Arthur leaned on the high rampart as he spoke 'to make a Dumnonia in which we can serve our people. We can't give them happiness, and I don't know how to guarantee a good harvest that will make them rich, but I do know that we can make them safe, and a safe man, a man who knows that his children will grow without being taken for slaves and his daughter's bride price won't be ruined by a soldier's rape, is a man more likely to be happy than a man living under the threat of war. Is that fair?”
“Yes, Lord,” I said.
He rubbed his gloved hands against the cold. My hands were wrapped in rags that made holding my spear difficult, especially as I was also trying to keep them warm beneath my cloak. Behind us, in the feasting hall, a great roar of men's laughter gusted. The food had been as bad as any at a winter feast, but there had been plenty of mead and wine, though Arthur was as sober as I was myself. I looked at his profile as he gazed west towards the building clouds. The moon shadowed his lantern jaw and made his face seem bonier than ever. “I hate war,” Arthur said suddenly.
“You do?” I sounded surprised, but then I was young enough to enjoy war.
“Of course!” He smiled at me. “I happen to be good at it, maybe you are too, and that just means we have to use it wisely. Do you know what happened in Gwent last autumn?”
“You wounded Gorfyddyd,” I said eagerly. “You took his arm.”
“So I did,” he said, almost in a tone of surprise. “My horses aren't much use in hilly country, and no use at all in wooded land, so I took them north into Powys's flat farmlands. Gorfyddyd was trying to knock down Tewdric's walls so I started burning Gorfyddyd's haystacks and grain-stores. We burned, we killed. We did it well, not because we wanted to, but because it needed to be done. And it worked. It brought Gorfyddyd back from Tewdric's walls to the flat farmland where my horses could break him. And they did. We attacked him at dawn, and he fought well, but he lost the battle along with his left arm, and that, Derfel, was the end of the killing. It had served its purpose, do you understand? The purpose of the killing was to persuade Powys that it would be better for them to be at peace with Dumnonia than at war. And now there will be peace.”
“There will?” I asked dubiously. Most of us believed the spring thaw could bring only a fresh attack from Powys's embittered King Gorfyddyd.
“Gorfyddyd's son is a sensible man,” Arthur said. “His name is Cuneglas and he wants peace, and we must give Prince Cuneglas time to persuade his father that he'll lose more than one arm if he goes to war with us again. And once Gorfyddyd is persuaded that peace is better than war he'll call a council and we'll all go and make a lot of noise and at the end of it, Derfel, I shall marry Gorfyddyd's daughter, Ceinwyn.” He gave me a swift and somehow embarrassed look. “Seren, they call her, the star! The star of Powys. They say she's very beautiful.” He was pleased by that prospect and his pleasure somehow surprised me, but back then I had still not recognized the vanity in Arthur. “Let's hope she is as beautiful as a star,” he went on, 'but beautiful or not, I'll marry her and we'll pacify Siluria, and then the Saxons will face a united Britain. Powys, Gwent, Dumnonia and Siluria, all embracing each other, all fighting the same enemy, and all at peace with one another."
I laughed, not at him, but with him, for his ambitious prophecy had been so matter of fact. “How do you know?” I asked.
“Because Cuneglas has offered the peace terms, of course, and you're not to tell that to anyone, Derfel, otherwise it might not happen. Even his father doesn't know yet so this is a secret between you and me.”
“Yes, Lord,” I said, and I felt hugely privileged to be told such an important secret, but of course that was just how Arthur wanted me to feel. He always knew how to manipulate men, and he especially knew how to manipulate young, idealistic men.
“But what use is peace,” Arthur asked me, 'if we're fighting amongst ourselves? Our task is to give Mordred a rich, peaceful kingdom, and to do that we have to make it a good and just kingdom.“ He was looking at me now, and speaking very earnestly in his deep, soft voice. ”We cannot have peace if we break our treaties, and the treaty that let the men of Kernow mine our tin was a good one. I've no doubt they were cheating us, all men cheat when it comes to giving their money to kings, but was that reason to kill them and their children and their children's kittens? So next spring, Derfel, unless we finish this nonsense now, we shall have war instead of peace. King Mark will attack. He won't win, but his pride will ensure that his men kill a lot of our farmers and we shall have to send a war-band into Kernow and that's a bad country to fight in, very bad, but we'll win in the end. Pride will be settled, but at what price? Three hundred dead farmers? How many dead cattle? And if Gorfyddyd sees that we're fighting a war on our western frontier he'll be tempted to take advantage of our weakness by attacking in the north. We can make peace, Derfel, but only if we're strong enough to make war. If we look weak then our enemies will swoop like hawks. And how many Saxons will we face next year? Can we really spare men to cross the Tamar to kill a few farmers in Kernow?"