For just two hours after we had left Caer Sws, in a stretch of lonely woodland where no farms stood, but only steep-sided hills and fast streams and thick, heavy trees, we found Leodegan of Henis Wyren waiting beside the track. He led us without a word down a path that twisted between the roots of great oaks to a clearing beside a pool made by a beaver-dammed stream. The woods were thick with dog mercury and lilies while the last bluebells made a dancing shimmer in the shadows. Sunlight fell on the grass where primroses, cuckoo pints and dog violets grew and where, shining brighter than any flower, Guinevere waited in a robe of cream linen. She had cowslips woven into her red hair. She wore Arthur's golden torque, bracelets of silver and a cape of lilac-coloured wool. The sight of her was enough to catch a man's throat. Agravain cursed quietly.
Arthur threw himself off his horse and ran to Guinevere. He caught her in his arms and we heard her laugh as he whirled her about. “My flowers!” she cried, putting a hand to her head, and Arthur let her gently down, then knelt to kiss the hem of her robe.
Then he stood and turned. “Sansum!”
“Lord?”
“You can marry us now.”
Sansum refused. He folded his arms over his dirty black robe and tilted up his stubborn mouse face.
“You are betrothed, Lord,” he insisted nervously.
I thought Sansum was being noble, but in truth it had all been arranged. Sansum had not come with us at Tewdric's bidding, but at Arthur's, and now Arthur's face turned angry at the priest's stubborn change of heart. “We agreed!” Arthur said, and when Sansum just shook his tonsured head, Arthur touched the hilt of Excalibur. “I could take the skull off your shoulders, priest.”
“Martyrs are ever made by tyrants, Lord,” Sansum said, dropping to his knees in the flowery grass where he bent his head to bare the grubby nape of his neck. “I'm coming to you, O Lord,” he bawled towards the grass, “Thy servant! Coming to Thy glory, oh praise Thee! I see the gates of heaven open! I see the angels waiting for me! Receive me, Lord Jesus, into Thy blessed bosom! I'm coming! I'm coming!”
“Be quiet and get up,” Arthur said tiredly.
Sansum squinted slyly up at Arthur. “You won't give me the bliss of heaven, Lord?”
“Last night,” Arthur said, 'you agreed to marry us. Why do you refuse now?“ Sansum shrugged. ”I have wrestled with my conscience, Lord.“ Arthur understood and sighed. ”So what is your price, priest?"
“A bishopric,” Sansum said hurriedly, struggling to his feet.
“I thought you had a Pope who grants bishoprics,” Arthur said. “Simplicius? Isn't that his name?”
“The most blessed and holy Simplicius, may he still live in health,” Sansum agreed, 'but give me a church, Lord, and a throne in the church, and men will call me bishop."
“A church and a chair?” Arthur asked. “Nothing more?”
“And the appointment to be King Mordred's chaplain. I must have that! His sole and personal chaplain, you understand? With an allowance from the treasury sufficient for me to keep my own steward, doorkeeper, cook and candle man He brushed grass off his black gown. ”And a laundress," he added hastily.
“Is that all?” Arthur asked sarcastically.
“A place on Dumnonia's council,” Sansum said as though it were trivial. “That's all.”
“Granted,” Arthur said carelessly. “So what do we do to get married?” While these negotiations were being consummated I was watching Guinevere. There was a look of triumph on her face, and no wonder for she was marrying far above her poor father's hopes. Her father, slack mouth trembling, was watching in abject terror in case Sansum should refuse to perform the ceremony, while behind Leodegan stood a dumpy wee girl who seemed to be in charge of Guinevere's quartet of leashed deer hounds and what little baggage the exiled royal family possessed. The dumpy girl, it turned out, was Gwenhwyvach, Guinevere's younger sister. There was a brother, too, though he had long since retired to a monastery on the wild coast of Strath Clota where strange Christian hermits competed to grow their hair, starve on berries and preach salvation to the seals. There was little enough ceremony to the marriage. Arthur and Guinevere stood beneath his banner while Sansum spread his arms to say some prayers in the Greek tongue, then Leodegan drew his sword and touched his daughter's back with the blade before handing the weapon to Arthur as a sign that Guinevere had passed from her father's authority to her husband's. Sansum then scooped some water from the stream and sprinkled it over Arthur and Guinevere, saying that thereby he was cleansing them of sin and receiving them into the family of the Holy Church that hereby recognized their union as one and indissoluble, sacred before God and dedicated to the procreation of children. Then he stared at each of us guards in turn and demanded that we declare that we had witnessed the solemn ceremony. We all made the declaration and Arthur was so happy that he did not hear the reluctance in our voices, though Guinevere did. Nothing escaped Guinevere. “There,” Sansum said when the paltry ritual was done,
'you're married, Lord."
Guinevere laughed. Arthur kissed her. She was as tall as he was, maybe a finger's breadth taller, and I confess as I watched them that they looked a splendid pair. More than splendid, for Guinevere was truly striking. Ceinwyn was beautiful, but Guinevere dulled the sun with her presence. We guards were in shock. There was nothing we could have done to stop this consummation of our Lord's madness, but the haste of it seemed as indecent as it was deceitful. Arthur, we knew, was a man of impulse and enthusiasm, but he had taken our breath away by the speed of this decision. Leodegan, though, was jubilant, babbling to his younger daughter how the family finances would now recover and how, sooner than anyone knew, Arthur's warriors would sweep the Irish usurper Diwrnach out of Henis Wyren. Arthur heard the boast and turned quickly. “I doubt that's possible, Father,” he said.
“Possible! Of course it's possible!” Guinevere intervened. “You shall make it my wedding gift, Lord, the return of my dear father's kingdom.”
Agravain spat his disapproval. Guinevere chose to ignore the gesture, and instead walked along the row of guards and gave us each a cowslip from the diadem she had worn in her hair. Then, like criminals fleeing a lord's justice, we hurried south to leave the kingdom of Powys before Gorfyddyd's retribution followed.
Fate, Merlin always said, is inexorable. So much followed from that hurried ceremony in the flower-speckled clearing beside the stream. So many died. There was so much heartache, so much blood and so many tears that they would have made a great river; yet, in time, the eddies smoothed, new rivers joined, and the tears went down to the great wide sea and some people forgot how it ever began. The time of glory did come, yet what might have been never did, and of all those who were hurt by that moment in the sun, Arthur was hurt the most.
But on that day he was happy. We hurried home.
The news of the marriage rang in Britain like a God's spear clanging against a shield. At first the sound stunned, and in that calm period, while men tried to understand the consequences, an embassy came from Powys. One of that embassy was Valerin, the chief who had been betrothed to Guinevere. He challenged Arthur to a fight, but Arthur refused, and when Valerin tried to draw his sword we guards had to drive him out of Lindinis. Valerin was a tall, vigorous man with black hair and a black beard, deep-set eyes and a broken nose. His pain was terrible, his anger worse and his attempt at revenge thwarted. lorweth the Druid was chief of Powys's delegation, which had been sent by Cuneglas rather than Gorfyddyd. Gorfyddyd was drunk with mead and rage, while his son still hoped there was a chance to retrieve peace from the disaster. The Druid lorweth was a grave and sensible man and he talked long with Arthur. The marriage, the Druid said, was not valid for it had been conducted by a Christian priest and the Gods of Britain did not recognize the new religion. Take Guinevere for your lover, lorweth urged Arthur, and Ceinwyn for your wife.