Jack Whyte - Uther

In the meantime, I have my son. The Monster has not seen him and does not even know he lives, even after three long weeks of happiness for me. I am surrounded again by my own people, and have been so for several months, for which I thank God daily, and we have managed to achieve a miracle despite the presence of the Monster's creatures crowding around my doors. One of my serving women, Clara, had her child the night before I had mine, and we were able to conceal my birthing the following night. It was sudden and relatively silent, and the concealment was unplanned at first, until we found that no one outside my chambers had even been aware of the event. Now Clara suckles my child, although I do, too, when I can be unobserved. Another of my women has sewn me a girdle containing a pillow large enough to make me look as though my babe is still to come, and so we have been able to pretend that nothing has yet occurred. I know not how long we will be able to keep up the deceit, but as long as we can, we will.

Here are some tidings that should be of note to you: there is a heavy concentration of Saxon forces gathered in the coastal region to the east, just beyond the borders of Cornwall. The Monster's glowering minions have deemed this to be a serious threat and he has sent an army to confront the Saxon interlopers and drive them back where they came from. Need I tell you he did not go himself? The army, ten thousand strong and under the command of a new-found mercenary champion, a sullen, dark-faced lout called Nabur, left weeks ago, just prior to your arrival. No word of how they are prospering has come back to us.

And yet more tidings, far more doleful. You may already know that Lot has seized Tir Gwyn and declared Herliss and Lagan traitors, condemned to be killed on sight. That has been so for several months now. The latest infamy, however, is difficult to imagine, let alone to describe and set down in words. It appears that some of Lot's creatures managed to infiltrate Herliss's following and discovered where he was encamped. Lagan was away when they made their attack, but they captured Herliss, and Lagan's wife and son, Lydda and Cardoc. Herliss they killed immediately, bringing back his head to Lot in a cask of salt water, but they brought the woman and her son alive, in chains, to face Lot's mercy.

By our dear Christus, I can barely speak of this, but if ever proof were needed that my benighted spouse is insane and needs to be killed, it is contained in what I must describe next. Lot gave the woman Lydda over to his soldiers for their pleasure, and they used her until they eventually killed her. I know that in itself, although monstrous, is not unheard of, but what followed is. He made the boy, who was eleven years old, watch the atrocities that were being heaped upon his mother, telling him constantly as he watched that his father, Lagan, was to blame for what was happening. The poor boy was beside himself until his reason left him and he apparently fell silent, never to speak again. Then, when Lydda was dead, Lot had her feet cut off and sent them back, along with the child's hands, severed from his body after his murder, to where Herliss and his people had been camping when they were captured. This was a reminder, he sent word to Lagan, of the penalties for disloyalty to a friend.

I have no knowledge of Lagan's reaction, and I have no wish to think about it, but the man must he demented with grief.

And finally: at this time, Lot is hiding in the north, in his northernmost stronghold, which is an ancient place with no name other than "the Shelter." It is on the coast, some twelve leagues north of the island fortress at Rosnant, where there they are adding to the fortifications and building barracks, although there is not yet sufficient comfort in the place for Lot's taste. He will stay in the Shelter, it seems, until word reaches him of success in the southeast against the Saxons. I have also heard a rumour, but not a solid one, that he has gone there to await the arrival of a new fleet of Erse galleys, nothing to do with me or mine. If that rumour is true, then he might well be waiting for a fleet of galleys belonging to our ancient enemies who call themselves the Sons of Condran. If he is as terrified of my brother Connor as I think he is, it would make a kind of twisted sense for him to seek alliance with the Sons of Condran, and they would be perfect for each other.

I think you may have a chance to deal with Lot once and for all if you can take him while he is walled up in the Shelter. They think of it as a coastal fort, but it is not quite on the seacoast. My understanding is that it stands on a headland overlooking the sea, but the cliffs are of soft stone and subject to crumbling and collapse, and so the walls of the fort itself are set back some distance from the lip of the cliffs. I have been told, however, that you might be able to surround it completely and take it. You yourself will be the best judge of that when you see the place.

Those are all my tidings and my inky-fingered scribe has shown great patience with my stumbling and my changes. He assures me, however, that by the time he has recopied my words, you will see no sign of where the changes have occurred.

I have but one thing more to say to you, and it is this. We have never spoken of love, we two, and if truth be known, I have never really known what love is. Now, however, looking at our son, I know the feeling that threatens to consume me is love, and it is strangely like the feelings that have boiled here in my breast since last I saw your face. I know that when I gaze into your eyes again and see you hold our son in your strong arms, I will know love at last and forever. Farewell, and come to me safely. We will be moving soon to another of Lot's strongholds, since we have already been here for too long, and I will find a way of sending word to you when that occurs, so that you will be able to come and find us.

Farewell, and think of me sometimes.

Think of me sometimes. Uther smiled briefly upon reading that the first time. But then, slightly overwhelmed by the profusion of information in the letter, he left his quarters, saddled his horse and rode away to where he could be alone and free of interruptions. And there, on the bank of a fast-flowing stream, he sat down on a moss- covered tree stump and read Ygraine's words again several times aloud, allowing himself to be buffeted by the conflicting emotions they stirred up in him.

Among the first of these were pride and a sense of incredulous wonder. He had a son. That single piece of knowledge affected him more deeply than anything else he could remember. A son, Arthur Pendragon. He liked the name, sufficiently akin to his own to ring well in his ears when he spoke it aloud, as he did repeatedly. Arthur Pendragon. Uther Pendragon; Arthur Pendragon. And not merely a son, but an extraordinary one, beautiful and the image of his father, but with shining golden eyes the like of which his mother had never seen. He had heard of such eyes, however, among his own ancestry. Caius Britannicus, brother to his Grandmother Luceiia, had had such eyes—eagle's eyes, his grandmother had called them. And now they had resurfaced in his own son, the eyes of a golden eagle.

He sat silent for a long time after that, the letter loosely gripped in the hand that hung by his side as he sat gazing into nothingness, trying to imagine the boy and how he would grow up. But then other thoughts intruded and stole the warm glow from his eyes. Lagan Longhead had had a son, too, and had doted upon the boy. And now the lad was dead, his severed hands sent to Lagan, along with his mother's feet, in token of Lot's displeasure. Displeasure! Uther's stomach soured at the thought of what his friend must have endured on seeing those remains, and he had little difficulty in agreeing with Ygraine that Lagan must be well-nigh demented with grief and rage. But then the significance of Ygraine's news of Lot's present whereabouts came to him, and he sprang to his feet, determination swelling in his chest like a hard knot. He would find this Shelter and burn it about Lot's ears, and then he would send the whoreson's singed head to Lagan.