Bernard Cornwell - The Winter King

“Ireland,” I said, 'is further."

I felt the shake of her head on my chest. “Ireland is cursed.”

“Why?” I asked.

“They owned the Treasures of Britain,” she said, 'and let them go-'

I did not want to talk of the Treasures of Britain, nor of the Gods, nor of anything that would spoil this moment. “Kernow, then,” I agreed.

“A small house,” she said, then listed all the things a small house needed: jars, pans, spits, winnowing sheets, sieves, yew pails, reaping hooks, croppers, a spindle, a skein winder, a salmon net, a barrel, a hearth, a bed. Had she dreamed of such things in her damp, cold cave above the cauldron? “And no Saxons,” she said, 'and no Christians either. Maybe we should go to the isles in the Western Sea? To the isles beyond Kernow. To Lyonesse.“ She spoke the lovely name softly. ”To live and love in Lyonesse," she added, then laughed.

“Why do you laugh?”

She lay silent for a while, then shrugged. “Lyonesse is for another life,” she said, and with that bleak statement she broke the spell. At least she did for me, because I thought I heard Merlin's mocking laughter cackling in the summer leaves, and so I let the dream fade as we lay unmoving in the long, soft light. Two swans flew north up the valley, going towards the great phallic image of the God Sucellos that was carved in the chalk hillside just north of Gyllad's land. Sansum had wanted to obliterate the bold image. Guinevere had stopped him, though she had not been able to prevent him from building a small shrine at the foot of the hill. I had a mind to buy the land when I could, not to farm, but to stop the Christians gras sing over the chalk or digging up the God's image.

“Where is Sansum?” Nimue asked. She had been reading my thoughts.

“He's the guardian of the Holy Thorn now.”

“May it prick him,” she said vengefully. She uncurled from my arms and sat up, pulling the blanket up to our necks. “And Gundleus is betrothed today?”

“Yes.”

“He won't live to enjoy his bride,” she said, more in hope, I feared, than in prophecy.

“He will if Arthur can't beat their army,” I said.

And next day the hopes of that victory seemed gone for ever. I was making things ready for Gyllad's harvest; sharpening the sickles and nailing the wooden threshing flails to their leather hinges, when a messenger arrived in Durnovaria from Durocobrivis. Issa brought us the messenger's news from town and it was dreadful. Aelle had broken the truce. On Lughnasa's Eve a swarm of Saxons had attacked Gereint's fortress and overrun its walls. Prince Gereint was dead, Durocobrivis had fallen, and Dumnonia's client Prince Meriadoc of Stronggore was a fugitive and the last remnants of his kingdom had become a part of Lloegyr. Now, as well as facing Gorfyddyd's army, Arthur must fight the Saxon war host. Dumnonia was surely doomed.

Nimue scorned my pessimism. “The Gods won't end the game this soon,” she claimed.

“Then the Gods had better fill our treasury,” I said sharply, 'because we can't defeat both Aelle and Gorfyddyd, which means we have to buy the Saxon off or else go down to death."

“Little minds worry about money,” Nimue said.

“Then thank the Gods for little minds,” I retorted. I worried about money endlessly.

“There's money in Dumnonia if you need it,” Nimue said carelessly.

“Guinevere's?” I said, shaking my head. “Arthur won't touch it.” At that time none of us knew how big was the treasure Lancelot had fetched back from Ynys Trebes; that treasure might have sufficed to buy Aelle's peace, but the exiled King of Benoic was keeping it well hidden.

“Not Guinevere's gold,” Nimue said, and then she told me where a Saxon's blood-price might be found and I cursed myself for not thinking of it sooner. There was a chance after all, I thought, just a chance, so long as the Gods gave us time and Aelle's price was not impossibly high. I reckoned it would take Aelle's men a week to sober up after their sack of Durocobrivis so we had just that one week to work our miracle.

I took Nimue to Arthur. There would be no idyll in Lyonesse, no sieve or winnowing sheet and no bed beside the sea. Merlin had gone north to save Britain, now Nimue must work her own sorcery in the south. We went to buy a Saxon's peace while behind us, on the bank of our summer stream, the flowers of Lughnasa wilted.

Arthur and his guard rode north on the Fosse Way. Sixty horsemen, caparisoned in leather and iron, were going to war and with them were fifty spearmen, six mine and the rest led by Lanval, Guinevere's erstwhile guard commander, whose job and purpose had been usurped by Lancelot, King of Benoic, who, with his men, was now the protector of all the high people living in Durnovaria. Galahad had taken the rest of my men north to Gwent and it was a measure of our urgency that we all marched before the harvest, but Aelle's treachery gave us no choice. I marched with Arthur and Nimue. She had insisted on accompanying me even though she was still far from strong, but nothing would have kept her away from the war that was about to begin. We marched two days after Lughnasa and, perhaps as a portent of what was to come, the sky had clouded over to threaten a heavy rain. The horsemen, with their grooms and pack-mules, together with Lanval's spearmen, waited on the Fosse Way while Arthur crossed the land bridge to Ynys Wydryn. Nimue and I went with him, taking only my six spearmen as an escort. It was strange to be back beneath the Tor's looming peak where Gwlyddyn had rebuilt Merlin's halls so that the Tor's summit looked almost as it had on the day when Nimue and I had fled from Gundleus's savagery. Even the tower had been rebuilt and I wondered if, like the first tower, it was a dream chamber in which the whispers of the Gods would echo to the sleeping wizard. But our business was not with the Tor, but with the shrine of the Holy Thorn. Five of my men stayed outside the shrine's gates while Arthur, Nimue and I walked into the compound. Nimue's head was shrouded with a hood so that her face with its leather eye-patch could not be seen. Sansum hurried to meet us. He looked in fine condition for a man who was ostensibly in disgrace for rousing Durnovaria to deadly riot. He was plumper than I remembered and wore a new black gown that was half covered with a cope lavishly embroidered with golden crosses and silver thorns. A heavy golden cross hung on a golden chain at his breast, while a torque of thick gold shone at his neck. His mouse-like face with its stiffly tonsured brush offered us a smirk that was intended as a smile. “The honour you do us!” he cried, his hands flying apart in welcome. “The honour! Dare I hope, Lord Arthur, that you come to worship our dear Lord? That is His Sacred Thorn! A reminder of the thorns that pricked His head as He suffered for your sins.” He gestured towards the drooping tree with its small sad leaves. A group of pilgrims surrounding the tree had draped its pathetic limbs with votive offerings. Seeing us, those pilgrims shuffled away, not realizing that the poorly dressed farm boy who worshipped with them was one of our men. It was Issa, whom I had sent on ahead with a small offering of coins for the shrine. “Some wine, perhaps?” Sansum now offered us. “And food? We have cold salmon, new bread, some strawberries even.”

“You live well, Sansum,” Arthur said, looking around the shrine. It had grown since I had last been in Ynys Wydryn. The stone church had been extended and two new buildings constructed, one a dormitory for the monks and the other a house for Sansum himself. Both buildings were of stone and had roofs made of tiles taken from Roman villas.

Sansum raised his eyes to the threatening clouds. “We are merely humble servants of the great God, Lord, and our life on earth is all due to His grace and providence. Your esteemed wife is well, I pray?”