Bernard Cornwell - The Winter King

I wondered too why these grown men were so quick to welcome a former enemy, but of course they were desperate. A kingdom was being passed to a crippled child and Gundleus, for all his treacherous past, was a famous warrior. If he proved true then the peace of Dumnonia and Gwent was assured. Yet Uther was no fool and so he did his best to protect his grandson should Gundleus prove false. Dumnonia, Uther decreed, would be ruled by a council until Mordred was of age to pick up the sword. Gundleus would preside over the council and a half dozen men, chief of them Bishop Bedwin, would serve as his counsellors. Tewdric of Gwent, Dumnonia's firm ally, was invited to send two men, and the council, so composed, would have the final governance of the land. Gundleus was not pleased at the decision. He had not paid two baskets of gold to sit in a council of old men, but he knew better than to protest. He held his peace as his new bride and his stepson's kingdom were bound about with rules. And still more rules were laid down. Mordred, Uther said, would have three sworn protectors; men bound by death-oaths to defend the boy's life with their own. If any man harmed Mordred then the oath-takers would revenge the harm or else sacrifice their own lives. Gundleus sat motionless as the edict was made, but he stirred uncomfortably when the oath-takers were named. King Tewdric of Gwent was one, Owain, the Champion of Dumnonia, was the second and Merlin, Lord of Avalon, the third. Merlin. Men had been waiting for that name just as they had waited for the name of Arthur. Uther usually made no great decision without Merlin's counsel, yet Merlin was not present. Merlin had not been seen in Dumnonia for months. Merlin, for all any man knew, might be dead.

It was then that Uther looked at Morgan for the first time. She must have squirmed when her brother's paternity was denied, and with it her own, but she had not been commanded to the High Council as Uther's bastard daughter, but as Merlin's trusted prophetess. After Tewdric and Owain had sworn their death-oaths Uther gazed at the one-eyed, crippled woman. The Christians in the hall made the sign of the cross, which was their way of guarding against the evil spirits. “Well?” Uther prompted Morgan. Morgan was nervous. What was needed of her was an assurance that Merlin, her companion in mystery, would accept the high charge imposed by the oath. She was there as a priestess, not as a counsellor, and should have answered like a priestess. She did not, and her answer was insufficient. “My Lord Merlin will be honoured by the appointment, High Lord,” she said.

Nimue screamed. The sound was so sudden and so eerie that all about the hall men shivered and gripped their spear-shafts. Hair stiffened on the spines of the hunting dogs. Then the scream faded to leave a silence among the men. Smoke gusted in great fire lit shapes in the hall's dark roof where the rain beat on the tiles and then, in the scream's wake and far off in the storm-shaken night, there was the sound of thunder.

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."