Bernard Cornwell - The Winter King

In Gwent they waited for Gorfyddyd of Powys to attack, but no attack came. Instead a messenger rode south from Gorfyddyd's capital at Caer Sws and two weeks later Arthur rode north to meet the enemy King. I went with him, one of twelve warriors who marched with swords, but no shields or war spears. We went on a mission of peace, and Arthur was excited at the prospect. We took Gundleus of Siluria with us, and first marched east to Tewdric's capital of Burrium that was a walled Roman town filled with armouries and the reeking smoke of blacksmiths' forges, and from there we went north accompanied by Tewdric and his attendants. Agricola was defending Gwent's Saxon frontier and Tewdric, like Arthur, took only a handful of guards, though he was accompanied by three priests, among them Sansum, the angry little black-tonsured priest whom Nimue had nicknamed Lughtigern, the Mouse Lord. We made a colourful party. King Tewdric's men were cloaked in red above their Roman uniforms while Arthur had outfitted each of his warriors with new green cloaks. We travelled beneath four banners: Mordred's dragon for Dumnonia, Arthur's bear, Gundleus's fox and Tewdric's bull. With Gundleus rode Ladwys, the only woman in our party. She was happy again and Gundleus seemed content to have her back at his side. He was still a prisoner, but he wore a sword again and he rode in the place of honour alongside Arthur and Tewdric. Tewdric was still suspicious of Gundleus, but Arthur treated him like an old friend. Gundleus, after all, was a part of his plan to bring peace among the Britons, a peace that would allow Arthur to turn his swords and spears against the Saxons. At the border of Powys we were met by a guard come to do us honour. Rushes were laid on the road and a hard sang a song telling of Arthur's victory over the Saxons in the Valley of the White Horse. King Gorfyddyd had not come to greet us, but instead sent Leodegan, the King of Henis Wyren whose lands had been taken by the Irish and who was now an exile in Gorfyddyd's court. Leodegan had been chosen because his rank did us honour, though he himself was a notorious fool. He was an extraordinarily tall man, very thin and with a long neck, wispy dark hair and a slack wet mouth. He could never keep still, but darted and jerked and blinked and scratched and fussed all the time. “The King would be here,” he told us, 'yes indeed, but cannot be here. You understand? But all the same, greetings from Gorfyddyd!“ He watched enviously as Tewdric rewarded the hard with gold. Leodegan, we were to learn, was a much impoverished man and spent most of his days trying to recoup the vast losses that had been inflicted on him when Diwrnach, the Irish conqueror, had taken his lands. ”Shall we move on? There are lodgings at.. “ Leodegan paused. ”Bless me, I've forgotten, but the guard commander knows. Where is he? There. What's his name? Never mind, we'll get there."

The eagle flag of Powys and Leodegan's own stag banner joined our standards. We followed a Roman road that lay spear-straight across good country, the same country that Arthur had laid waste the previous autumn, though only Leodegan was tactless enough to mention the campaign. “You've been here before, of course,” he called up to Arthur. Leodegan had no horse and so was forced to walk alongside the royal party.

Arthur frowned. “I'm not sure I know this land,” he said diplomatically.

“Indeed you do, yes indeed. See? The burned farm? Your work!” Leodegan beamed up at Arthur. “They underestimated you, didn't they? I told Gorfyddyd so, told him straight to his face. Young Arthur's good, I said, but Gorfyddyd has never been a man to hear sense. A fighter, yes, a thinker, no. The son is better, I think. Cuneglas is definitely better. I rather hoped young Cuneglas might marry one of my daughters, but Gorfyddyd won't hear of it. Never mind.” He tripped on a tussock of grass. The road, just like the Fosse Way near Ynys Wydryn, was embanked so that the surface would drain into the edging ditches, but the years had filled in the ditches and drifted soil on to the road's stones that were now thick with weed and grass. Leodegan persisted in pointing out other places that Arthur had laid waste, but after a while he gave up trying to provoke any response and so fell back to where we guards walked behind Tewdric's three priests. Leodegan attempted to talk to Agravain, the commander of Arthur's guard, but Agravain was in a sullen mood and Leodegan finally decided that I was the most sympathetic of Arthur's entourage and so questioned me eagerly about Dumnonia's nobility. He was trying to discover who was and who was not married. “Prince Gereint, now? Is he? Is he?”

“Yes, Lord,” I said.

“And she's in health?”

“So far as I know, Lord.”

“King Melwas, then? He has a queen?”

“She died, Lord.”

“Ah!” He brightened immediately. “I have daughters, you see?” he explained very earnestly. “Two daughters, and daughters must be wed, must they not? Unwed daughters are no use to man or beast. Mind you, to be fair, one of my two darlings is to be married. Guinevere is spoken for. She's to marry Valerin. You know of Valerin?”

“No, Lord.”

“A fine man, a fine man, a fine man, but no…” He paused, seeking the right word. “No wealth! No real land, you see. Some scrubby stuff west, I think, but no money worth counting. He has no rents, no gold, and a man can't go far without rents or gold. And Guinevere's a princess! Then there's Gwenhwyvach, her sister, and she has no prospects of marriage at all, none! She lives off my purse only, and the Gods know that's thin enough. But Melwas keeps an empty bed, does he? That's a thought! Though it's a pity about Cuneglas.”

“Why, Lord?”

“He doesn't seem to want to marry either girl!” Leodegan said indignantly. “I suggested it to his father. Solid alliance, I said, adjoining kingdoms, an ideal arrangement! But no. Cuneglas has his eye set on Helledd of Elmet and Arthur, we hear, is to marry Ceinwyn.”

“I wouldn't know, Lord,” I said innocently.

"Ceinwyn's a pretty girl! Oh yes! But so's my Guinevere, only she's to marry Valerin. Dear me. What a waste! No rents, no gold, no money, nothing but some drowned pasture and a handful of sickly cows. She won't like it! She likes her comfort, Guinevere does, but Valerin doesn't know what comfort means!

Lives in a pig hut, so far as I can make out. Still, he is a chief. Mind you, the deeper you go into Powys the more men call themselves chiefs.“ He sighed. ”But she's a princess! I thought one of Cadwallon's boys in Gwynedd might marry her, but Cadwallon's a strange fellow. Never liked me much. Didn't help me when the Irish came."

He fell silent as he brooded on that great injustice. We had travelled far enough north now for the land and the people to be unfamiliar. In Dumnonia we were surrounded by Gwent, Siluria, Kernow and the Saxons, but here men spoke of Gwynedd and Elmet, of Lleyn and Ynys Mon. Lleyn had once been Henis Wyren, Leodegan's kingdom, of which Ynys Mon, the island of Mona, had been a part. Both were now ruled by Diwrnach, one of the Irish Lords Across the Sea who were carving out kingdoms for themselves in Britain. Leodegan, I reflected, must have been easy meat for a grim man like Diwrnach whose cruelty was famous. Even in Dumnonia we had heard how he painted the shields of his war-band with the blood of the men they killed in battle. It was better to fight the Saxons, men said, than take on Diwrnach.

But we travelled to Caer Sws to make peace not to contemplate war. Caer Sws proved to be a small muddy town surrounding a drab Roman fort set in a wide, flat-bottomed valley beside a deep ford across the Severn that was here called the River Hafren. The real capital of Powys was Caer Dolforwyn, a fine hill topped by a royal stone, but Caer Dolforwyn, like Caer Cadarn, had neither the water nor the space to accommodate a kingdom's law court, treasury, armouries, kitchens and storehouses, and so just as Dumnonia's day-to-day business was conducted from Lindinis, so the government of Powys functioned out of Caer Sws and only in times of danger or at high royal festivals did Gorfyddyd's court move down the river to Caer Dolforwyn's commanding summit.