Jack Whyte - Uther

She felt him stiffen slightly in the bed beside her. "Yes, well, no man would want to hear such things."

"Of course not, but in Lot's case, it is more than doubly true. I believe my husband is not capable of siring children, and I am glad of it from the bottom of my being. It makes me suspect that the Christians might be right, and that there is a wise, just and all- knowing God who looks out for all people."

It was pitch-black where they lay, unrelieved by any speck of light, but she knew he had turned his head and was looking at her. "What do you mean when you say he cannot sire children? Didn't you say you lay with him to lull his suspicions in the first place?"

"Aye, I did. He is more than capable of rutting—goes at it like a stallion. But that does not mean that he's capable of getting sons."

"Oh, come, Ygraine, of course it does!"

"No, it does not!"

"Yes, it does! If he were unable to do it. . . if he could not. . . stand or perform, I might agree with you, but by your own admission he can do the deed."

"But that means nothing, Uther, nothing at all." He could hear the bewilderment in her voice as she continued. "Or is it—? Do you think—? Surely you do not believe that only women can be barren. Is that it? What about his other wives, then, the ones before me? I le had three of them, you know, and they're all still alive. Do you believe that all three of them were barren? Do you?"

Uther lay silent, offering no contribution.

"Well, if you do think that, then you must also believe in strange coincidences, for the one begets the other, if you but stop to think on it. Two of those barren women have had children since leaving him."

Still Uther remained quiet, making no attempt to speak or to criticize.

"I have lain with him for months, and I was sick with fear, throughout much of that time, of getting with child by him. But it has not happened, and it has not been for lack of effort on his part. I think my brother must have convinced him that a son and heir would be looked upon with great favour in my father's lands in Eire. Be that as it may, however, he has achieved nothing in the way of quickening my womb, and so I have been speaking to the mothers of his six so-called sons. And what think you I have found?"

Uther's only response was to raise an eyebrow, but she was already answering her own question.

"Lot sired none of the brats, not one. And all the men who did sire them were killed, in one fashion or another, before their sons were born. Lot had no connection with the death of any of them, it seemed, and none of the men knew him personally, but he adopted all of their children, knowing that he could not have fathered them. He made sure, however, that in return for their continuing welfare and existence, the boys' mothers would remain silent about the true paternity of their children." She allowed that thought to hang between them for several moments before she spoke again.

"It is disgusting and pitiable, but Lot adopted those boys—and all their mothers agree with me in this—solely because he wants the world to think he sired them. And that can only mean that he himself suspects his own incapability of breeding sons. And yet he would never admit such a failing even to himself—particularly to himself, in fact. That is where the sanity of what he does breaks down and falls apart. He cannot bear to think of himself as being unable to breed an heir of his own, and he refuses to believe the evidence of his own experiences.

"He has no idea I know any of this, needless to say, and I would go to almost any lengths to stop him from suspecting that I do. But since I do know, I have been able to ask him some questions and to raise some points—all in seeming innocence—in conversation with him, and I have found the results to be most interesting. It galls him—no, it infuriates him, to be forced to consider, even indirectly, any suggestion that he might be, could be, incapable of getting himself an heir. He grows inflamed at the merest suggestion of such a thought and flies into the most frightening rages."

Uther hitched himself closer to her and increased the movement of his hands on her body, and soon a minor resurrection was achieved between the spread forks of their legs. He penetrated her almost without assistance and then lay lodged there, stirring only minutely.

"Did you really think you might be with child by me?"

They were lying almost at right angles to each other because of the way they were joined, their legs intertwined, and she reached out in the darkness and twined her fingers in his hair at arm's length. He reached up and clasped her wrist, running his fingers along her arm to her locked elbow, then dropped his hand straight down to her breasts, cupping and kneading the fullness of one of them, pinching the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She stiffened against him and snorted with pleasure, pushing herself down onto the flesh that impaled her, and then twisted her fingers in his hair and wrenched his head sideways gently.

"The thought occurred to me. King Cambria, because I am a normal, healthy woman of child-bearing age, and I had been thoroughly serviced by a virile man during the space of two long, active and intensely satisfying nights. Have you fathered any children yet?"

He lay thinking for a moment and then shook his head in the darkness. "I don't think so . . . None that I know of, anyway."

"I would not be too sure of that, were I you. Do you remember Morgas?"

"Of course I remember Morgas. What about her?"

"She is no longer with me. Soon after her return from her captivity in Camulod, she left my household and returned to her home country to be wed, but I heard from another of my women that her monthly courses were already late by the lime she left to return home."

Uther rose up to rest on one elbow. "Do you think there is any truth to it?"

"I have no idea, but it would not be impossible, would it? Would it concern you greatly, were it true?"

"No, I don't suppose it would—" his tone was reflective,"—but it would be nice to know."

"To what end? If Morgas is now wed, her husband will assume the child is his, so it were best you let it be."

"Aye, I suppose so."

"Now," she said, "empty your mind of thoughts of Morgas and her beauty." Ygraine lay smiling in the darkness.

"I confess," he said slowly, pushing his pelvis against her again, "that I am jealous, knowing that now you'll have to lie with Lot again, simply to stay ahead of his suspicions."

"Jealous? That would make you jealous?" He could hear the amusement in her voice.

"Yes, that would make me jealous."

"Well, then, you need not be, for what he claims of me is his by right of marriage, but what I choose to withhold from him is mine by right of possession. Besides, I'll have no need of going to him this time. I have been with him recently enough to render him incapable of suspicion. You, on the other hand, I simply wish to render incapable, eventually." She moved against him lasciviously, drawing him further into her, and all need or desire for conversation faded immediately.

They were all astir just after dawn, Uther and Ygraine managing, somehow, to appear as well rested and refreshed as any of the others. Over the course of a short breakfast of eggs, mixed on a hot skillet with chunks of smoked meat and served on thick slabs of bread fried in animal fat, Uther discussed ways and means of remaining in touch with Herliss and Lagan over the course of the coming winter. The device of using his ring had worked well, and none of them could see any need to change the procedure, and so Ygraine kept the ring in her possession for future use.

Now that he and Lagan had formed an amicable relationship based on mutual trust, however, Uther conceded that it should be easier for the two of them to meet in future, providing that they kept their actual meetings hidden from curious eyes and used a go- between in the final stages to set up the times and venues. Since either one might have to call such a meeting, Uther acquired a token from Lagan similar to the one he had given to Ygraine. Lagan's token was a thumb-tip-small, distinctive granite pebble. It appeared to have been painted in alternating stripes of black and orange, but the colours were natural layers in the stone, and the granite itself had been polished to a glass-smooth finish and drilled with a hole that permitted a leather thong to be looped through it. Uther took it and slipped the leather thong over his head, allowing the pebble to rest against his chest under his tunic.