Jack Whyte - Uther

He shook his head. "I did not say I had seen you before. I simply recognized you for who you are. That's why I mentioned Deirdre of the Violet Eyes."

So astounded was she at hearing him use the name a second time that she could not even think to protest. "Explain that." she whispered.

He glanced quickly from her to Dyllis and then back to Ygraine.

"Deirdre was your sister, who suffered a strange childhood illness and died many years ago, is that not correct?"

She nodded, too stunned to speak.

"Aye, well, she did not die when your family thought she had. She survived for many years, though she was deaf and mute, and she travelled eventually to Britain, where she met and wed my beloved cousin, Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod. He and I found her alone and lost one day in the woods while we were on patrol—actually, I found her, or Nemo did, to be strictly truthful—and we took her back with us to Camulod. She had your face, unmistakably."

"She had my face . . ."

"Aye, she did. She is dead now, killed, murdered, almost a year ago, and we never discovered who did it. She died carrying my cousin Merlyn's child."

"But—"Ygraine looked away, trying to find words. Her head was reeling, her shock overwhelming her ability to deal with all the information that had come at her so swiftly. She shook her head, hard, and forced herself to think clearly, grasping at the one incongruous though! that had occurred to her in listening to what he had said. "But wait. . . she was deaf and mute from childhood. Her world was one of silence. How, then, could she have told you who she was?"

"She did not tell us. It was your brother Donuil who told Merlyn her real name, when the two, brother and sister, met again in Camulod—Lady!"

Strange noises had been buzzing in Ygraine's head for what seemed to be a long time, but when she heard her brother's name on this man's lips, suddenly everything about her began to spin. And then she felt as though she were flying through the air, weightless and without substance, with only a roaring in her ears, filling her head.

With a red haze fading quickly from in front of her eyes, she regained her senses moments later to find Uther Pendragon's face close to her own, his brows knitted in a ferocious scowl, while from above his shoulder Dyllis peered down at her, wide-eyed. Somewhat frantically, Ygraine struggled to sit upright, realizing only as she did so that the man's arm was completely encircling her, supporting her weight as though he had been carrying her. She realized then that she had fainted, and that he must have caught her as she fell, then borne her to the cot on which she now reclined with his support. Her heart fluttering, close to the edge of panic, she sat bolt upright and swung her feet around and down until they were solidly on the ground, pushing him away from her as she did so, protesting that she was perfectly well and required no assistance.

Uther stood upright immediately and took a long pace backwards, and she concentrated hard upon not looking at him as she brought herself back to order and decorum. Finally, when she felt that she was in command of herself again, she nodded once, curtly, in tacit acknowledgment of his assistance and courtesy.

"Lady, I said too much, too soon. You will have much to think about now. I will leave you to the questions that must be bubbling in your mind, and I will come back later. At least then I might be able to answer some of your questions. When I do come back, let there be no more talk between us two of Gulrhys Lot. His crime is committed, his foulness demonstrated, and neither you nor I can hold the other one responsible for his degeneracy. So let his name lie cursed and unspoken from this time between you and me." He raised his clenched fist to his breast in salute, then bowed stiffly from the waist and turned. Just before he left, however, he hesitated and half turned back to speak over his shoulder. "Forgive me, lady, if my bluntness has angered you. I had not intended saying all I said, and I had not considered how it might offend you to learn of it so suddenly and unexpectedly. In truth, I did not think at all . . . So now I, too, must spend some time alone, considering all the many complex strangenesses that are involved in this."

They watched him leave the tent, dipping his head as he passed through the doorway, and then Dyllis turned, her eyes filled with wonder, and opened her mouth to speak, but Ygraine cut her short.

"Leave me alone now, Dyllis, if you would. Go you and find you something to keep you occupied. As our jailer said, I have many questions calling to be answered, and I don't even know how to ask most of them. I have to think, and the last thing I need is to have you hovering there, gazing at me wide-eyed."

As soon as the other woman had gone, Ygraine adjusted her girdle until it was slack, arranged her gown loosely about her for comfort and lay down on her cot, closing her eyes against the light. Her mind was buzzing with long-repressed memories of her childhood in Eire and the swarm of siblings and cousins and relatives among whom she had grown up. Some of their names and faces had been lost to her for years. Even Deirdre, her younger sister, whose name she had borrowed in her vain attempt to deceive the Cambrian, had remained walled up until now in some vault in her memory; she had chosen the name simply because it was one she thought to be safe and beyond any random association with her own. Now, however, she allowed her thoughts to drift to the terror she and all her kin had felt when the child had suffered for so long and then survived the terrifying illness that had stricken her. an illness that resembled no other sickness known to anyone, not even the eldest and most learned Druids in her father's lands.

Deirdre had clung stubbornly to life and in the end had survived, but at a terrible cost. The magnificent violet eyes that had given her her name had been faded and permanently dimmed, leached of their colour in some frightening manner by the severity of the fevers that had consumed her tiny body, so that they were pale grey forever after. Even her rich, chestnut hair had lost its lustrous colour. She had lost her voice, too, in that illness, and her hearing, and thinking back on it again, Ygraine shuddered afresh, thinking it was no wonder that the people of her father's kingdom had eyed the child uneasily thereafter and whispered among themselves of witchcraft and the interference of the dark gods of night and death.

Several years after that illness, little Deirdre fell ill again, and this time she wandered away unnoticed from their father's encampment one night in the grip of a high fever and was never seen again. Everyone mourned her then as dead, for it had been inconceivable that the child—she was a mere twelve years old, even then -might survive a second time, unable to hear or speak or to fend for herself in the wild forest that surrounded their home.

And now this upstart Cambrian Outlander brought word that Deirdre had not only survived but had married his cousin, Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod. It was inconceivable! For years now, since the days before she had come to Britain to be bride to Gulrhys Lot, she had been imbued with the tales of Uther Pendragon's savagery, his sullen, violent malevolence, and his furious lusts for blood and conquest. And hand in glove with those tales, she had heard much about the cowardly behaviour of his cousin, Merlyn of Camulod, a bird of the same plumage, fed on the same seeds of depravity since childhood, but less brave, although no less malicious, than his kinsman. And now she was being asked to believe that her own sister had married this same Merlyn Britannicus, and that her brother Donuil also lived in Camulod on friendly terms with these people? It was a ridiculous thing to suggest.

Ygraine found that she was frowning, even though her eyes were closed, and grinding her teeth as she dug deep to find and bolster the hatred that had always lain within her breast for Uther Pendragon. She could remember Gulrhys Lot describing to her father all the reasons why it was necessary for the two Kings and their two peoples to form a strong and enduring alliance. United, they would be able to withstand the advances and thwart the ambitions of this brash, hybrid tribe who called themselves Camulodians and who had but recently emerged from an alliance between the Pendragon clans of Cambria and the upstart dregs, deserters and leavings of the Roman armies that had fled Britain. Uther Pendragon and Merlyn of Camulod had always been among her greatest personal foes, the avowed enemies of the people of Cornwall.