Jack Whyte - Uther

He and Lagan had arrived in the Crag Fort an hour earlier, and Uther was impressed by the way they had been received. The fort was strongly guarded, encircled by two separate lines of vigilant sentinels, the farthest of these about a hundred paces out from the walls and made up of pairs of guards, each pair posted some twenty paces from its neighbours on either side. The walled fort itself was small, its rectangular enclosure no greater than seventy-live, perhaps eighty paces to a side, but it was a strongly built affair, made from local stone, and Uther had identified it at first glance as a military installation, built hundreds of years earlier by the Romans to house regular patrols, or perhaps even a permanent garrison of approximately one hundred and twenty men and officers, that being the number of men in a maniple, the tactical lighting unit of a cohort. A tight cluster of guards had been on duty by the heavy, wooden main gates, and it had been evident from the outset that Lagan was expected, because no one had sought to question either him or his companion as they unsaddled their horses and left them to Herliss's stablehands before crossing the guard lines and entering the main fort. Uther had felt, going in, that no one even glanced at his face, but he had not permitted himself to believe it. He had simply accepted that Herliss's people, at least, were alert and knew what they were about, well prepared to safeguard their own part of Cornwall.

Once safely within the walls, Lagan had led Uther directly to the main building, a log structure that had once served as the headquarters building of the Roman garrison. It was the largest building in the enclosure and was surrounded by some half a score of smaller buildings, all built of logs around four or six supporting posts. About half of these, long and low, were evidently barracks, and others were plainly used for storage and maintenance and other utilitarian purposes. Several of the remaining buildings looked like substantial dwellings, and Uther had seen three, at least, that were connected to each other by enclosed walkways.

They found Herliss waiting for them in the main hall, and as they greeted each other Uther's eyes went immediately to the far wall, where a few household servants were loading food onto a table that already groaned beneath the profusion of dishes—hot, cold, flesh, fowl, fish, fruit, vegetable and bread—that lay piled upon it. Herliss explained that the Queen and her women would join them soon and had already been informed of their arrival. None of them had yet eaten, he added, the Queen having decided to await the arrival of their expected guests, and in consequence, everyone was hungry and impatient.

Herliss summoned one of his guards, who had been waiting to lead Uther to the quarters that had been assigned to him. There, Herliss explained, he would find a hoi brazier and a selection of clean, dry clothing. Uther had begun to thank the old man when, without warning, Ygraine walked into the hall.

He managed to greet the Queen somehow and pay his respects to her women without betraying his absolute confusion, and then excused himself, dripping rainwater, to scurry away with his head down, following the guard who had been waiting for him. Once there, however, safely ensconced and alone, Uther felt under no constraint to hurry and change his clothes before rushing back to the hall where the others awaited him. Instead, he changed slowly, drying himself at leisure and luxuriating in the glow of the brazier as he dressed himself again in the clean, warm clothing that had been laid out for his use. And while he was doing so, he permitted himself for the first time since the arrival of Lagan Longhead in his camp to consider all the chaotic thoughts that had been going through his mind.

His first thoughts upon hearing Lagan's unexpected invitation had been of ambush and treachery, but those had been short-lived. Lagan had been wearing Uther's own ring, as arranged between Uther himself and Ygraine. and Uther could think of no circumstances that might have induced Ygraine to give up that secret to anyone else. Not even Herliss had been privy to that arrangement. And so he had accepted Lagan's invitation at face value. From the moment of that decision, however, he had been forced to reflect upon the feelings that he held for Ygraine. It had been many months since he had last seen the Cornish Queen, and the bare truth was that it had been an equally long time since he had thought of her to any degree.

Only now, in the privacy of this strange chamber with its welcome brazier, did he admit to himself that he had been intrigued by the thought of seeing her again—and to be truthful, a voice in his mind said, of bedding her again. As the thought occurred to him, he turned his head and looked at the bed, a substantial affair that was raised high off the floor on solid legs and covered with a wealth of rich bedding. It was a sturdy, solid bed, made for everything a man could require of it, and he smiled to himself.

The simple sight of her, her welcoming smile, had blinded him. Her radiance and beauty had almost rocked him physically with the force of its impact. Stunned by the instantaneous awareness that he had been able to forget how beautiful she was, he had hesitated momentarily in mid-step as he mewed to greet her, feeling his eyes go wide and knowing that he was betraying far more than was wise. He had been consumed instantly and utterly by the red, fire-lit glory of her hair seen from fifteen paces distant and by the forgotten brilliance of her great green eyes in the startling whiteness of her flawless face. And then the memory of her smooth, bare hip beneath his hand had caused an explosion in his chest, bringing his heart up into his throat and snatching the breath away from him. He remembered the weight of her, defenceless and abandoned in his arms, pulling him down as he lowered his head to kiss that generous, laughing mouth with its wide, full, soft lips.

When he had found himself face to face with her, gazing into her smiling eyes, he had thought he might never be able to find words with which to greet her properly, but words came to him and he had muttered something that aroused neither comment nor surprise from her or from anyone else. He had felt her fingers close warmly over his own and had known beyond doubt that she was even happier to see him than he was to see her, but he could think of nothing to say or do other than to bend forward, slip one arm around her pliant waist and sink his face into the silken warmth of her soft neck. And even as that thought filled his mind, he had imagined the gentle breeze of her warm breath in his ear, and his throat had closed completely with lust and embarrassment. Ygraine, however, had seemed to notice nothing amiss and looked away from him, still smiling, to say something to Herliss. Awkward and fumbling and tongue-tied, he had been grateful for the excuse to flee to his quarters, where he might find time and opportunity to overcome this unaccustomed panic. He had managed to be pleasant, he knew, to the Lady Dyllis and to her companion, whose name was Roman, Lydia, and he knew, too, that he had eventually managed to escape without making an utter fool of himself.

He recalled now hearing his Uncle Publius speaking years before about being thunderstruck—the awestruck love of an adolescent boy for a beautiful woman whom he has seen for the first time. But he was no adolescent youth, and this was no first-time encounter: he was Uther Pendragon, King of the Pendragon Federation of south Cambria, and he had lain with this woman months earlier. How, then, could he have been so dumbfounded at the sight of her? The truth was disconcerting and confusing, and by the time he had returned to the main hall he was still less than fully prepared to meet the Cornish Queen with equanimity, face to face, eye to eye.