Jack Whyte - Uther

He began by handing her the letter from her beloved daughter, but she made no move to open it and read it while he was there, preferring, he knew, to savour and anticipate the pleasure she would gel from reading it when she could be alone to appreciate it. This time was for her grandson, and she listened closely as he told her all his tidings, smiling and frowning alternately. And when he had finished, she amazed him yet again.

"Tell me about those women you captured, the ones you sent here. The tall, beautiful one with the yellow hair like Cay's was striking, to say the least. . . She called herself Lot's wife, Ygraine, and for a while all the men here thought they had landed a prize of great value."

Uther smiled. "You knew, of course, that she was not."

"Well, not quite, not at first. I know the real Ygraine is sister to Donuil and to poor Deirdre, and I felt from the beginning that there was something far from right. I barely spoke to the woman at all, and I betrayed nothing. Call it a woman's intuition if you will. But I merely decided to wait for Donuil and wait upon his word . . .

"I knew he would be back the following day, for he had gone out hunting with Caius the day before, and so I watched for him and took him aside the moment he got back, before he had a chance to confront his 'sister.' Of course, one look was all that was required."

Uther was grinning widely now. "So what did you do then? Did you confront her?"

"No, Donuil and I decided to say nothing. We did not know what was happening, what was involved, but I decided it might be unwise to let her know we knew she was not who she said she was. I had mixed feelings about keeping her imposture a secret, but I decided to wait and see what would transpire. And then your messenger arrived a few days later with your written dispatch informing Titus and Flavius that she was not the Queen, but that they should say nothing about knowing the truth and simply release her and her women, under escort, back to the boundaries of Cornwall. So I have a question for you, grandson: how did you know she was not who she said she was? To the best of my knowledge, you knew nothing about the woman, and you barely knew her sister Deirdre or her brother Donuil."

Uther shook his head in admiration. "You are a clever old woman, Grandmother Luceiia."

"No, I am simply a woman. I have a mind that is not haltered by being masculine. So tell me, how did you find out who she was, or who she was not?"

"I knew, because the woman she pretended to be was there with her, pretending to be one of the Queen's attendants." And he proceeded to tell her the tale, starting from the beginning and omitting nothing except the intimate details of what had taken place between himself and Ygraine.

Luceiia sat silent throughout, eyeing him shrewdly, and when he had finished she pursed her lips and reached across in front of her to pick up a small silver bell from a low table. When a woman appeared in answer to her summons, she asked for wine for herself and her grandson and then sat silent again, staring into the brazier in the fireplace.

"I find that as I grow older, the cold becomes more sharp," she said, and then she lapsed into silence again, her mouth moving occasionally as she appeared to chew upon everything he had said. The serving woman returned with a tray bearing twin silver goblets and a beautiful silver ewer, misted with cold and beaded with drops of moisture. Uther thanked her with a nod and she placed the tray on the table and withdrew. Quietly, being careful not to distract his grandmother from her thoughts, he rose and filled the two cups with pale yellow wine, then placed one close by her elbow. Finally she looked up at him and nodded.

"So she is your source, Ygraine, and this Duke, Herliss. And the other woman, the blond one . . . Morgas . . . what of her? Does she know the truth?"

"Gods, no! Nor is she any longer in Cornwall. She returned to her home in the northlands to marry some local King there. I have not seen her since she left our camp to come here to Camulod."

"Good, that pleases me. She spoke of you, and I could tell she knew you, partially at least, but there was something about her that I could not warm to."

Uther felt momentarily uncomfortable, wondering how much the old lady knew or guessed, but he could see little profit to be gained in pursuing that, and so he let it pass.

Uther explained the thoughts he had entertained about how best to serve his mother in the coming fight, and how he had decided she would be safest at home in Tir Manha, where he hoped Luceiia would join her to wait out the spring campaign in safety. Luceiia, however, would have none of that. She herself was far too old and set in her ways now to leave her home in Camulod to seek some fleeting safety in another land. She would remain where she had lived for so many years, close to her memories and the graves of her husband and her brother.

On the matter of Merlyn, Luceiia had little to offer Uther in the way of hope for the future. Merlyn was physically well, she told him, alert and happy and in full possession of most of his faculties, apart from memory. But he had lost his aggressiveness and his love for fighting. Gone was his once brilliant and instinctive grasp of campaigning, strategy and tactical matters. He could still fight, she had been told, but it was as though he fought only for the pleasure of the exercise. Young Donuil was convinced that Merlyn had completely lost the propensity to kill, and in any real fight involving lethal weapons and ill feelings, Merlyn would be killed simply due to his own unwillingness to inflict harm on an opponent.

Luceiia laid her hand over Uther's. She had always loved Merlyn, she told him, but since his injury she had grown to love the new Merlyn Britannicus, with his gentleness and loving nature, even more than she would have believed possible. She would dearly love to have her great-nephew back, she said, but even were that to happen and Merlyn was suddenly restored to them as he had always been, she feared she might regret the loss of that new gentleness.

They were interrupted at that point by Luceiia's women bringing them an evening meal, and for hours after that they sat talking by the glowing brazier, discussing bygone days and precious memories of Caius Britannicus, his son Picus and Publius Varrus. Uther went to bed that night feeling a contentment he had not known in ages, and he slept well and soundly.

The following day Uther was up and into the kitchens before the cocks began to crow, and by sunrise, his belly pleasantly full and his heart at peace, he was meeting with Titus, Flavius, Donuil and Merlyn, and Popilius Cirro, arranging the final details of their plans as firmly as was possible, given the nature of the tasks ahead of them. He was finished by mid-morning and summoned Nemo to him, ordering his Dragons to be ready to leave by noon, and after that he took the time to say his farewells properly to everyone, including his grandmother.

He noticed something was amiss among his troops as he went to mount up in the main courtyard at noon, and he drew Nemo aside, out of their hearing.

"What's going on here? The men look angry."

Nemo blinked at him with her normal, vacuous look. "Some of them don't want to leave yet."

"Well, that's a pity, but I have to be back in Tir Manha quickly. There might be word from Cornwall." He began to move away, but then he hesitated and turned back. "And what's wrong with you?"

Nemo was gazing at the walls by the rear gate behind Uther's shoulder. She shrugged, her face still expressionless. "I like it here. We should come back and live here one day. It should be a Pendragon place."

Uther was surprised. Nemo seldom ventured an opinion on anything. He looked closely into the dull eyes that had been a part of his life for so many years, and there, under the customary stolid, vaguely sullen look, he thought he discerned, for the first time in as long as he could recall, the features of the lost child he and Garreth had saved rather than the hard-nosed, truculent Nemo. Inexplicably, he felt a lump come into his throat, and he coughed to hide his sudden embarrassment, turning to look at whatever she was gazing at so fixedly. He could see nothing but the high rear walls of the fort.