Jack Whyte - Uther

Uther, seven at the time but big for his age, had ignored Ivor for as long as he could, according to Garreth's account of what had happened, but ignoring the lout had been the worst possible course of action. Uther had ended up with a bruised and bleeding leg.

Nemo was outraged to learn that Garreth had not immediately gone looking for the boy called Cross-Eyed Ivor and punished him. But it was not and could never be his place, Garreth said to King Ullic, to intervene physically in this affair between boys. That was something Uther must resolve alone and in public view. Garreth could not be seen to be involved, because he believed that any intervention by him, the King's Champion, would surely destroy any chance young Uther had of escaping from the older boy's tyranny through his own efforts. If Uther were to gain the respect <>l his peers in this, he could do it only by standing alone against the bully. And so, Garreth informed the King, he had advised Uther to cut the bully down to size by approaching him again directly and tackling him immediately when he, Uther, was ready to fight, instead of waiting for Ivor to come to him when Ivor was ready.

Nemo listened carefully as Garreth Whistler reported to his patron how he had spoken to Uther of honour and duty, of commitment and dedication, and of the urgency of knowing how to distinguish friends from enemies. He had talked to the boy, he said, about degrees of enmity and friendship, defining them clearly and using, in some instances, words that Nemo had never heard. A friend he defined as anyone who reacted benignly to a leader's presence, plans, actions, results and ultimate objectives. An enemy was anyone who did not. And, Garreth had insisted, the only way to deal with an implacable enemy was to convert him to a friend—or kill him, if that was the only way of gaining his compliance. Nemo took clear and careful note of that. He should do all in his power to endear himself to friends, Garreth had explained. And if he did it well enough, he would have no living enemies.

No sensible man ever likes or chooses to light when there is no need, Garreth had told the boy, for lighting always entails the risk of serious injury and death. But once a man decides that he must fight, then his commitment should be total, and his attention to the outcome—his eventual victory—should be tightly focused upon that end alone. Any man who fought without that kind of dedication was a fool, Garreth said, and deserved to die.

A few days after she overheard that conversation, the seven- year-old Uther, this time armed with a heavy stick and accompanied only by his cousin Cay, once again went looking for the bully Cross-Eyed Ivor and found him in the market square, surrounded by his entire crew of sycophants. Wasting no time, Uther shouted a challenge at Ivor across the intervening space and then ran directly to the attack. Cay moved aside, interposing himself between Uther and the onlookers, keeping one eye on the fight and the other, more warily, on Ivor's cronies, lest any of them be tempted to take Ivor's side. His presence was unnecessary. Those who witnessed the fight reported that Uther's ferocity made him seem like a madman, heedless of danger. His face distorted with rage, he ignored the blows being directed at him, using his stick two-handed, as a club at times, to keep the larger boy beyond arm's reach. At other times he also used his stick as a lever, with which he eventually tripped his opponent. He brought him crashing down on the cobblestones of the market square and then thrashed him until he howled for mercy. But as soon as he, and all the others watching, could be sure that Ivor was beaten, Uther stopped the punishment and stepped back, calmly lowering his weapon to his side. Ivor rolled over, sobbing and blubbering at first, but gaining more control of himself as he pushed himself upward to his hands and knees, where he remained for a while, head downward, drooling blood and spit onto the cobblestones.

Uther watched him for a space of heartbeats, then stepped forward again, placing the thicker end of his stick on the other's back, between the shoulder blades.

"Ivor," he said quietly but clearly. "You and I should be friends, for the time will come when I will have no living enemies. Think on it." Uther Pendragon then turned slowly, eyeing each of the watching boys individually. Many of them had never harmed him, but some among them had been quick to torment him in the past at Ivor's urging. Few of either kind would meet his eye, however, and so he nodded to Cay and then turned and walked away, swinging his stick. Cay, grinning with delight, followed him in silence.

To celebrate Uther's victory, which in his eyes marked a momentous step forward in the boy's life and training, Garreth Whistler decided that he and his new student, accompanied by some of Uther's friends, should go fishing. They left that very afternoon and were gone for seven days.

Ivor the bully might have thought afterwards on what Uther Pendragon said to him concerning friendship, but no one would ever know, for in the course of that same night someone, or some supernatural agency, introduced a deadly adder, Britain's only venomous serpent, into young Ivor's bedding, and in his thrashing to escape from the embrace of the sleeping skins in which he had wrapped himself, the boy was bitten many times. He died before the sun rose, and Uther Pendragon, ranging the forest riverbanks that morning fishing for silver trout, had no idea that his lifelong reputation had been initiated.

Nemo would smile, thinking of that, hugging her secret to her bosom, exultant in the knowledge that no one, not even Uther himself, knew that it was she who had exacted revenge for him and started building the name that would keep all men in awe of him and his prowess. From then on, they would say of him that he was one who had no enemies—alive.

Nemo followed Uther around closely whenever he was in his Cambrian grandfather's lands, arranging her itinerary from day to day so that she could always be somewhere near to him if possible. And during those dreadful occasions when he would disappear for long months, detained by his relatives on his mother's side in far-off Camulod, Nemo would hold herself tightly in control throughout his seemingly interminable absences, swallowing and ignoring her frustrations with great difficulty, thanks only to her certain knowledge that King Ullic would never permit his grandson to stay away from Cambria for too long.

Nemo knew in her heart that Uther would always be her champion, no matter where he went, and he never failed her. Not even on the day, years later, that she had thought would be the end of the world.

She had left the hut early on a bright morning in early summer, the year she turned twelve, making her daily journey to the well, carrying a brace of water pails mounted on a yoke across her shoulders. She had passed the corner of the barrel-maker's shed and was angling to her left, towards the well, when a man came into view on her right, cutting diagonally across her path from the gates leading into the village. She glanced at him incuriously, attracted more by his movement than anything else, and then she froze in mid- step, her mouth falling open and her heart leaping up into her throat in fear. The man was Leir the Druid, her father, and slightly behind his tall, stooped figure, she saw the smaller, shambling shape of her half-brother Carthac, his gross cranial deformity visible even from a distance.

Certain that she had been seen, and overwhelmed by panic, she hid behind the barrel-maker's wall and stood motionless for a long time, her heart hammering at her rib cage. There was not the slightest doubt in her mind that they had discovered her whereabouts by some gross mischance and had come to take her home with them. There was also not the slightest doubt in her mind that she would die here in Tir Manha rather than go with them.