Jack Whyte - Uther

"Well," he said, turning back and speaking for her ears alone, "if the gods are good to us in this coming war, perhaps we will come back and live here some day, you and I." Then he stepped forward, seized the reins of his horse and swung himself up into his high saddle.

Chapter THIRTY-FIVE

Their journey back to Tir Manha was fast and uneventful, and they arrived less than three days after leaving Camulod, Uther having pushed the pace of their advance relentlessly. Tir Manha showed none of the building activity that had been evident around Camulod, but there were definite signs of preparation for war everywhere as they drew close to home. It seemed to Uther that every Pendragon warrior in the clans had come to Tir Manha, and there were groups and squadrons of bowmen practising everywhere he looked.

He dismounted quickly, throwing his reins to Nemo, and went looking for his mother, knowing that she would be wondering about her own mother and if he had brought an answer to her long and detailed letter. He had not, because there had been no time for his grandmother to compose a response, but he was able to tell her everything that he and Luceiia had discussed, and to tell her of Luceiia's promise to write back immediately and send the letter on to Tir Manha with one of her priests. Veronica insisted on feeding him while he was there, and he humoured her by sitting down to the quick meal of fresh bread and cold, salted meat with homemade beer that she laid out for him.

When he finally reached his own private quarters, which were attached to the King's Hall and separate from his mother's, he told the guard outside that he was not to be disturbed. One of the first things he had seen on entering the gates was a young woman, sitting on a low wall and suckling a hungry baby from a milk- swollen breast. The sight had hit him hard, filling his mind with Ygraine and her expected child, and he had had no time since then to sit alone and allow the thoughts that teemed in his mind to settle down.

The afternoon was wearing on towards evening, and the small room in which he sat, dark on the brightest days, was filled with shadows that seemed almost solid. Kindling lay ready in the iron basket that filled the crude chimney in the far wall, and he used a twig to carry a flame from the open lamp on his table to the fireplace, cupping his hand to guard the flame and realizing that it would have been wiser to carry the lamp across the room and light the twig there. He stayed crouched in front of the basket until the flames were well established, then straightened up and went back to his table, where he lit three thick, stubby tallow candles from the smoky lamp. Then, enjoying the brightness of the growing, flickering light, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, letting the saddle-weariness seep out of his bones.

He was dozing when he heard a footstep, and he jerked his head up as a looming shadow blocked the light from the doorway. Uther was surprised to see Owain of the Caves.

"Well," he said, "I'd wager you never expected to be told you're a pleasure to behold, but you are. I thought you had gone north. Sit down, man. What are you doing here?"

The big man shook his head. "Your guard didn't want to let me come in, but I convinced him. I didn't go north. I told you I'd fight this war with you."

"Then where have you been? It's been a month since you disappeared."

"I went to find this." Owain pulled something from his scrip and tossed it casually onto the table in front of Uther, where it landed with a soft thump.

Uther stared at it, a small, grimy bag of rough, poorly tanned leather, closed by a drawstring. Suspecting a hoax, he looked up at his visitor beneath raised eyebrows.

"What is it?"

"Open it and see. It's a gift."

Uther picked the bag up cautiously and tested the contents with his fingers. It was something flat, but not completely so, for there were bumps and irregularities that he could not define. Curious, he raised it to sniff at it.

"Don't put it to your nose, man! I want you to enjoy it, and you won't if you do that. It's a plague, but a tame one."

Utterly mystified now, and more than a little disconcerted, Uther inserted two fingers into the drawstring noose and gently pried the bag open, then shook its contents out onto the table. Two objects fell almost noiselessly onto the wood, and the sight of them sent Uther rearing back in shock, sucking in his breath with a startled hiss. He heard Owain's bark of laughter, but he could not withdraw his eyes to look at him yet. Lying on the table in front of him was a pair of human ears—a matched pair, judging by the tufts of black hair adorning each of them.

"Well, you like them?"

It took some time before Uther was able to respond. "Whose are they—were they?"

"Issa's."

"Who is Issa?"

"Issa, man! The one you wanted to get sick."

"You mean Issa, the . . . ?"

"Aye, Lot's general. They're his. Proof that he's gone. You'll have to take my word on the other whoreson, Loholt. I couldn't get close enough to him to take his ears, too many of his people around him. But I dropped the whoreson from two hundred paces with an arrow through the centre of his head, right above the ear. Best shot I ever made in my life. No one even saw me. They didn't know where the thing came from, because the force of it hitting him swung him around and threw him over backwards like a bird hit in mid-flight. By the time they thought to look farther than they thought could be possible, I was well clear. But I thought you might forgive me for not hanging around there to collect his ears."

The significance of this was slow to penetrate Uther's mind. The greatest threat to all that he held dear had apparently, and against all likelihood, been removed by this one man, this strange, solitary, friendless, enigmatic killer who had sought to take his life when they first met, and whom Uther had befriended almost without thought, on an unguided impulse. Uther sat staring at him, open- mouthed, unable to speak or to move.

"Alone," he managed to say, finally. "You killed them both, alone?"

"No other way. A man alone can go anywhere he wants, so be he doesn't act the fool. I had more trouble hiding my bow, coming and going, than I had with anything else."

Uther sat blinking at him, struggling to overcome his awe. "So how did you hide it?" he managed to ask eventually. He was finding it easier to speak by the moment, although his mind was in a turmoil with conflicting facts and possible consequences.

"Hid it in plain view. I used a trick the medics use in Camulod. Wrapped it lengthwise with twigs, the way they splint a broken leg, and then wrapped the ends in thin strips of plaited leather. Time I finished with it, it was nothing like a bow—just a long walking staff. No one even glanced at it. You should have seen the shot I made on that Loholt fellow, though. Two hundred paces if it was one. The other one was easy—Issa—I saw him head off hunting and followed him. Waited until he was alone, stalking a boar, then dropped him with one between the shoulder blades. He didn't even know he was dead. So, do you feel better now?"

Uther, finally in control of himself, rose to his feet and stared into Owain's eyes. "Aye, my friend, I think you have made me very well. I will never be able to repay you for this service, but I want you to know that anything I have is yours, and anything I can ever do for you will be as good as done the moment that you ask it. You may have saved ten thousand lives with just two arrows."

The Cave Man flushed a deep red, uncomfortable faced with praise, but Uther could see that he was pleased, nevertheless. He nodded once and then again, and then made a "harrumphing" noise in his throat.

"Aye, well, I'm glad. I'll go now and sleep a bit, I think." His eyes returned to the ears that still lay on the table. "D'you want me to take those away?"