“Guinevere is my wife.” We all heard Arthur shout that statement. Bishop Bedwin added his support to lorweth, but Bedwin could not change Arthur's mind. Not even the prospect of war would change Arthur's mind. lorweth raised that possibility, saying that Dumnonia had insulted Powys and the insult would needs be washed clean with blood if Arthur did not change his mind. Tewdric of Gwent had sent Bishop Conrad to plead for peace, begging Arthur to renounce Guinevere and marry Ceinwyn, and Conrad even threatened that Tewdric might make a separate peace with Powys. “My Lord King will not fight against Dumnonia,” I heard Conrad reassure Bedwin as the two bishops paced up and down on the terrace in front of Lindinis's villa, 'but nor will he fight for that whore of Henis Wyren."
“Whore?” Bedwin asked, alarmed and shocked by the word.
“Maybe not,” Conrad allowed. “But I tell you one thing, my brother, Guinevere's never had a whip taken to her. Never!”
Bedwin shook his head at such laxity on Leodegan's part, then the two men walked out of my earshot. Next day both Bishop Conrad and the Powysian embassy left for their homes and took no good news with them.
But Arthur believed the time of his happiness had come. There would be no war, he insisted, for Gorfyddyd had already lost one arm and would not risk the other. Cuneglas's good sense, Arthur claimed, would ensure peace. For a time, he said, there would be grudges and mistrust, but it would all pass. He thought his happiness must embrace the world.
Labourers were hired to extend and repair Lindinis's villa to make it into a palace fit for a princess. Arthur sent a messenger to Ban of Benoic, beseeching his former lord to send him masons and plasterers who knew how to restore Roman buildings. He wanted an orchard, a garden, a pool of fish; he wanted a bath with heated water; he wanted a courtyard where harpists would play. Arthur wanted a heaven on earth for his bride, but other men wanted revenge and that summer we heard that Tewdric of Gwent had met with Cuneglas and made a treaty of peace, and part of that treaty was an agreement that Powys's armies could march freely across the Roman roads that crossed Gwent. Those roads led only to Dumnonia.
Yet, as that summer passed, no attack came. Sagramor held
Aelle's Saxons at bay while Arthur spent a summer in love. I was a member of his guard, so I was with him day in and day out. I should have carried a sword, shield and spear, but as often as not I was burdened with flasks of wine and hampers of food for Guinevere liked to take her meals in hidden glades and by secret streams and we spearmen were required to carry silver plate, horn cups, food and wine to the designated spot. She gathered a company of ladies to be her court and, so help me, my Lunete was one of them. Lunete had grumbled bitterly at having to abandon her brick house in Corinium, but it took her only a few days to decide that a better future lay with Guinevere. Lunete was beautiful and Guinevere declared that she would only be surrounded by people and objects that were pretty, and so she and her ladies dressed in the finest linens decorated with gold, silver, jet and amber, and she paid harpists, singers, dancers and poets to amuse her court. They played games in the woods where they chased each other, hid and paid forfeits if they broke one of the elaborate rules that Guinevere devised. The money for these games, like the money being spent on Lindinis's villa, was provided by Leodegan who had been appointed the treasurer of Arthur's household. Leodegan swore the money all came from back rents and maybe Arthur believed his father-in-law, though the rest of us heard dark tales of Mordred's treasury being lightened of gold and filled with Leodegan's worthless promises of repayment. Arthur seemed not to care. That summer was his foretaste of Britain at peace, but for the rest of us it was a fool's heaven. Amhar and Loholt were brought to Lindinis, though their mother Ailleann was not summoned. The twins were presented to Guinevere, and Arthur, I think, hoped they would live in the pillared palace that was rising around the heart of the old villa. Guinevere kept the twins company for one day, then said their presence upset her. They were not amusing. They were not pretty, she said, just as her sister Gwenhwyvach was not pretty, and if they were not pretty, nor amusing, they had no place in Guinevere's life. Besides, she said, the twins belonged to Arthur's old life, and that was dead. She did not want them, nor did she care that she made that announcement publicly. She touched Arthur's cheek. “If we want children, my Prince, we shall make our own.”
Guinevere always called Arthur a prince. At first Arthur claimed he was no prince, but Guinevere insisted he was Uther's son and therefore royal. Arthur, to humour her, allowed her to call him by the title, but soon the rest of us were ordered to use it too. Guinevere ordered it and we obeyed. No one had ever challenged Arthur about Amhar and Loholt and won the argument, but Guinevere did and so the twins were sent back to their mother in Corinium. The harvest was poor that year for the crops were blighted by late rain that left them blackened and wilting. Rumour claimed that the Saxon harvest had been better, for the rains had spared their lands and so Arthur led a war-band east beyond Durocobrivis to find and capture their stores of grain. He was happy, I think, to escape the songs and dances of Caer Cadarn, and we were happy that he was at our head again and that we were carrying spears instead of feasting cloths. It was a successful raid, filling Dumnonia with captured grain, plundered gold and Saxon slaves. Leodegan, now a member of Dumnonia's council, was given the task of distributing the free grain to every part of the kingdom, but there were horrid rumours that much of it was being sold instead and that the resultant gold found its way to the new house Leodegan was building across the stream from Guinevere's damp-plastered palace.
Madness ends sometimes. The Gods decree it, not man. Arthur had been mad for love all summer, and it was a good summer despite our menial occupations, for a happy Arthur was a beguiling and generous Lord, but as autumn swept the land with wind, rain and golden leaves, he seemed to wake from his summer dream. He was still in love indeed I do not think he was ever out of love with Guinevere but that autumn he saw the damage he had done to Britain. Instead of peace there was a sullen truce, and he knew it could not last.
We cut ash pollards for spears and the blacksmiths' huts rang with the sound of hammer on anvil. Sagramor was called back from the Saxon frontier to be nearer to the kingdom's heart. Arthur sent a messenger to King Gorfyddyd, acknowledging the hurt he had done to the King and to his daughter, apologizing for it, but pleading that there must be peace in Britain. He sent a necklace of pearls and gold to Ceinwyn, but Gorfyddyd returned the necklace draped about the messenger's severed head. We heard that Gorfyddyd had stopped drinking and taken his kingdom's reins back from his son, Cuneglas. That news confirmed that there would never be peace until the insult done to Ceinwyn had been avenged by Powys's long spears.
Travellers brought tales of doom from everywhere. The Lords Across the Sea were bringing new Irish warriors into their coastal kingdoms. The Franks were massing war-bands on the edge of Brittany. Powys's harvest was stored and its levies were being trained to fight with spears instead of cutting corn with sickles. Cuneglas had married Helledd of Elmet and men of that northern country were now coming to swell the ranks of Powys's army. Gundleus, restored in Siluria, was forging swords and spears in the deep valleys of his kingdom, while to the east, more Saxon boats were grounding on their captured shores.