Jack Whyte - Uther

Herliss had sat gazing at Uther throughout this declaration, his eyebrows rising slightly as the outpouring increased in fervour and in vehemence, and when it was done, he sat with pouting lips for a count of live heartbeats. Then he nodded.

"Fine. We both want the same thing: Lot dead and you gone back to Cambria or Camulod or wherever you want to be, so that Cornwall can recover from the chaos and the damage he has caused. Lot is a rabid animal and must be treated as one, struck down swiftly, immediately and lethally. To do that, though, we'll have to be close to him and in a position of trust. Closeness we can achieve, but that last is near impossible. He trusts no one. This nonsense with Lagan and my grandson proves the truth of that."

"But if you win free from here and take the Queen back with you in a spectacular escape, then he will have to welcome you for the sake of appearances. Is that not so?"

"Aye, it is . . . at least it would be so, were he a normal man. But I believe he's crazed, and growing more so all the time. So what will actually happen once we do win back is in the hands of the gods. But if we succeed without disaster blasting us, what then? Will the Queen start sending you intelligence of what Lot intends to do? Will you need me to do that, too?"

"Aye, but only as and when you learn, or the Queen learns, of developments in Lot's planning. And we must take great care as to how we go about such things. If we are to rid ourselves of this monster, then we need to work closely together and yet take as few risks as possible, for you and your people will be unable to trust or depend upon any of Lot's mercenaries."

"Agreed. So how will we go about this?"

"You will start by bribing my people, immediately and lavishly, so that they will arrange for you to visit the Queen's bodyguard. Once there, you will tell Alasdair, their captain, that the Queen has provided you with treasures from her and her women in order that you might suborn our troopers and arrange a mass escape. It will be obvious that you have made a successful start on your planning. I'll provide the people to be bribed, and they will be my best and most trusted. They will go along with everything, and your own troops will be none the wiser. You'll achieve your escape and return to Lot, avoiding any encounter with your own son on the way, and once you are safely reinstalled in your own home and your own responsibilities, I will find a way of coming to you and we can work out ways and means of remaining in touch with each other."

"Good. I'll wager that Lagan will be our main liaison."

Uther smiled and nodded. "I hope you are right. I would enjoy meeting him. And we have a mutual friend in Cambria, the Lady Mairidh."

"Lydda's sister. Aye. She is married to my brother, Balin."

Uther called for two more tankards of beer before turning to smile at the grizzled Cornish veteran. "We have agreed on mighty things here, you and I. Our world will not remain the same, I think, in the aftermath of what has occurred today."

Their beer came quickly, and as they tipped an offering onto the ground to appease and thank the gods, Herliss nodded, his eyes on the foam atop his tankard.

"Aye . . . Uther, Ygraine and Herliss. A strange mix, I think. I wonder, will anyone take note of it in times to come?"

Chapter TWENTY-NINE

Until the moment he found himself kissing her, Uther had had no conscious intention of bedding Ygraine of Cornwall. She was a hostage for one thing, and his honour as her captor and her value as a commodity both dictated that he treat her with care, consideration and courtesy, returning her undamaged at the end of her captivity. That her husband had refused to trade for her was a setback, but Uther had almost expected Lot's indifference and had been thinking, from the moment of the woman's capture, that he could surely trade her with advantage back to her father, Athol Mac lain, King of the Hibernian Scots in Eire. For that reason alone, therefore, Uther would have regarded any contemplation of Ygraine in a sexual light as a foolish, irresponsible and reprehensible waste of time. Besides, he was fresh from the bed of the magnificent Morgas, who, if she lacked many of the attributes of the ideal wife, lacked none of the requirements of the ideal mistress.

There was one other factor, however, over and above all others that would have prevented him from ever making advances to Ygraine of Cornwall, and that was his own sense of culpability over what had happened to her unfortunate sister Deirdre. Even now, years removed from the tragic events that had estranged him from his cousin Merlyn, the memory of what took place that night in the games room at Camulod still had the power to make Uther writhe and cringe within his own mind.

Uther Pendragon had little experience of guilt in his life; it was an alien emotion to him and one that he was ill-equipped to handle.

He could be awe-inspiring in his rages and utterly implacable in his anger, but he seldom had cause to regret or to reconsider the consequences of his actions at such times. He had not fought in anger since the incident with Nemo's three assailants. Instead, he had learned to give his rage full rein, vociferously, concealing his displeasure from no one, but once his initial anger had spent itself, he would then act calmly, dealing out redress dispassionately for the wrongs he had suffered. He had no truck with guilt, and no need to bear it.

Shame, however, was an entirely different matter, and sufficiently close to guilt to be indistinguishable from it in Uther's mind. His sense of shame was highly developed, despite the fact that he had never consciously recognized its overriding presence in his life, and it was shame and not guilt that made him squirm and brought him his worst mental anguish. He would struggle awake at night sometimes, drenched in sweat and writhing with half-remembered sensations of the aftermath of follies he had committed as a boy, in his hare-brained, determined and unnecessary attempts to perform wonderful deeds that would earn his Grandfather Ullic's approval. His grandfather and his father had been men of great probity, and he could well remember their stern disapproval of people who brought shame of any kind close to them or theirs. What had happened that night in the games room—his precipitation of the ensuing events—appalled Uther and was his darkest, most shameful secret.

He had ridden away from Camulod that night in the blackest of foul moods, spurring his horse savagely and plunging the few men he had conscripted into reckless, careering danger, leading them blindly through a stormy night that was as black as his own despair, a swirling, wind-churned chaos of cold, rainy squalls. And as he rode, rowelling his unfortunate horse and driving it far more savagely than his needs dictated, he raved and cursed silently in his head, damning and condemning the girl for daring to bite him, for scorning him, for rejecting him. As his first unsustainable rage ebbed away, he realized, from the pain in his chilled, clenched hand, that he was brandishing his sword for no reason, behaving like a madman, and the shame began to well up in him.

The child had done no wrong. She had merely defended herself in the only way open to her. She was a frightened, threatened little animal—mute, deaf and defenceless. He, in willful arrogance, had thrust his penis into her unwilling mouth, and when she had bitten him deservedly, he had been swept up by an insensate fury and attempted to thrash her. Only Merlyn had stopped him. Uther shuddered with revulsion at his own behaviour and flushed with burning shame, despite the chilling, wind-swept rain.

Thereafter, he rode his mount more gently and thought more penetratingly than he had thought in many a year, stripping himself of false protestations and facing the unpalatable truth. His mother lay sick, perhaps dying, and he had been avoiding his obligation to return home to her, vainly seeking to convince himself that his true duty lay in Camulod. To that end, he had sought diversion in the games room that night with willing women . . . willing but ineffectual in distracting his mind from the knowledge that he was behaving abominably, betraying himself with his fear of returning to bleak, inhospitable Cambria and Tir Manha, the home he resented and the people he despised for their dour, bleak lack of tolerance and compassion. Recognizing the truth now that he had faced it, he was horrified by the knowledge that his own vain, indefensible dislikes should have deprived his mother of his presence in a time of need, and he wondered, not for the first time, at the deep-buried, bitter harshness in him that had the power to make him behave as he sometimes did, against all the urgings and concerns of his better nature.