And yet more tidings, far more doleful. You may already know that Lot has seized Tir Gwyn and declared Herliss and Lagan traitors, condemned to be killed on sight. That has been so for several months now. The latest infamy, however, is difficult to imagine, let alone to describe and set down in words. It appears that some of Lot's creatures managed to infiltrate Herliss's following and discovered where he was encamped. Lagan was away when they made their attack, but they captured Herliss, and Lagan's wife and son, Lydda and Cardoc. Herliss they killed immediately, bringing back his head to Lot in a cask of salt water, but they brought the woman and her son alive, in chains, to face Lot's mercy.
By our dear Christus, I can barely speak of this, but if ever proof were needed that my benighted spouse is insane and needs to be killed, it is contained in what I must describe next. Lot gave the woman Lydda over to his soldiers for their pleasure, and they used her until they eventually killed her. I know that in itself, although monstrous, is not unheard of, but what followed is. He made the boy, who was eleven years old, watch the atrocities that were being heaped upon his mother, telling him constantly as he watched that his father, Lagan, was to blame for what was happening. The poor boy was beside himself until his reason left him and he apparently fell silent, never to speak again. Then, when Lydda was dead, Lot had her feet cut off and sent them back, along with the child's hands, severed from his body after his murder, to where Herliss and his people had been camping when they were captured. This was a reminder, he sent word to Lagan, of the penalties for disloyalty to a friend.
I have no knowledge of Lagan's reaction, and I have no wish to think about it, but the man must he demented with grief.
And finally: at this time, Lot is hiding in the north, in his northernmost stronghold, which is an ancient place with no name other than "the Shelter." It is on the coast, some twelve leagues north of the island fortress at Rosnant, where there they are adding to the fortifications and building barracks, although there is not yet sufficient comfort in the place for Lot's taste. He will stay in the Shelter, it seems, until word reaches him of success in the southeast against the Saxons. I have also heard a rumour, but not a solid one, that he has gone there to await the arrival of a new fleet of Erse galleys, nothing to do with me or mine. If that rumour is true, then he might well be waiting for a fleet of galleys belonging to our ancient enemies who call themselves the Sons of Condran. If he is as terrified of my brother Connor as I think he is, it would make a kind of twisted sense for him to seek alliance with the Sons of Condran, and they would be perfect for each other.
I think you may have a chance to deal with Lot once and for all if you can take him while he is walled up in the Shelter. They think of it as a coastal fort, but it is not quite on the seacoast. My understanding is that it stands on a headland overlooking the sea, but the cliffs are of soft stone and subject to crumbling and collapse, and so the walls of the fort itself are set back some distance from the lip of the cliffs. I have been told, however, that you might be able to surround it completely and take it. You yourself will be the best judge of that when you see the place.
Those are all my tidings and my inky-fingered scribe has shown great patience with my stumbling and my changes. He assures me, however, that by the time he has recopied my words, you will see no sign of where the changes have occurred.
I have but one thing more to say to you, and it is this. We have never spoken of love, we two, and if truth be known, I have never really known what love is. Now, however, looking at our son, I know the feeling that threatens to consume me is love, and it is strangely like the feelings that have boiled here in my breast since last I saw your face. I know that when I gaze into your eyes again and see you hold our son in your strong arms, I will know love at last and forever. Farewell, and come to me safely. We will be moving soon to another of Lot's strongholds, since we have already been here for too long, and I will find a way of sending word to you when that occurs, so that you will be able to come and find us.
Farewell, and think of me sometimes.
Think of me sometimes. Uther smiled briefly upon reading that the first time. But then, slightly overwhelmed by the profusion of information in the letter, he left his quarters, saddled his horse and rode away to where he could be alone and free of interruptions. And there, on the bank of a fast-flowing stream, he sat down on a moss- covered tree stump and read Ygraine's words again several times aloud, allowing himself to be buffeted by the conflicting emotions they stirred up in him.
Among the first of these were pride and a sense of incredulous wonder. He had a son. That single piece of knowledge affected him more deeply than anything else he could remember. A son, Arthur Pendragon. He liked the name, sufficiently akin to his own to ring well in his ears when he spoke it aloud, as he did repeatedly. Arthur Pendragon. Uther Pendragon; Arthur Pendragon. And not merely a son, but an extraordinary one, beautiful and the image of his father, but with shining golden eyes the like of which his mother had never seen. He had heard of such eyes, however, among his own ancestry. Caius Britannicus, brother to his Grandmother Luceiia, had had such eyes—eagle's eyes, his grandmother had called them. And now they had resurfaced in his own son, the eyes of a golden eagle.
He sat silent for a long time after that, the letter loosely gripped in the hand that hung by his side as he sat gazing into nothingness, trying to imagine the boy and how he would grow up. But then other thoughts intruded and stole the warm glow from his eyes. Lagan Longhead had had a son, too, and had doted upon the boy. And now the lad was dead, his severed hands sent to Lagan, along with his mother's feet, in token of Lot's displeasure. Displeasure! Uther's stomach soured at the thought of what his friend must have endured on seeing those remains, and he had little difficulty in agreeing with Ygraine that Lagan must be well-nigh demented with grief and rage. But then the significance of Ygraine's news of Lot's present whereabouts came to him, and he sprang to his feet, determination swelling in his chest like a hard knot. He would find this Shelter and burn it about Lot's ears, and then he would send the whoreson's singed head to Lagan.
His mind resolved, and feeling more positive than at any time since entering Cornwall weeks earlier, he turned his attention to a new strategy, and as soon as he had regained his camp, Uther summoned his field commanders to discuss their imminent foray into the north to contain Lot in the bolt-hole called the Shelter.
Despite his wish to avoid prolonged sieges, Uther had nonetheless discussed the possibility of mounting a direct strike against a fortified position with his field commanders several times in the recent past, on the clearly defined understanding that they might be fortunate enough to gain absolute knowledge of Lot's whereabouts and be able to pin him in one place, unable to flee. That last point was arguable in this instance for a number of reasons, including their utter lack of knowledge about the place called the Shelter, and Uther's senior commanders did not hesitate to raise their objections. The report on which Uther was basing his proposed plan to march northward against Lot was no more trustworthy, they suggested, than an earlier report that had come to them about an army of Erse warriors called Galloglas that was supposed to land on the northwestern coast of Cornwall some time within the following few days. If that report was in any way true, they pointed out, then Uther might well be leading his army into needless danger, and a costly battle against a nameless enemy would do them little good when their true quarry was Gulrhys Lot himself.
Uther did not accept that. The enemy army described as Galloglas in that report, which had come from a nameless sympathizer, must, he believed, be the same Erse fleet mentioned in his report —- the fleet that Lot had marched north to await. Based on that belief, he argued that the newcomers would sail directly to where Lot awaited them in the fort known as the Shelter.