Jack Whyte - Uther

The Druids' chanting rose to a crescendo and died quickly away. Uther crossed his arms on his chest and bowed towards the bier with the Chief Druid and everyone else, whispering goodbye to Ullic the King as he did so.

Within the month, in response to the urgent summons of the Chief Druid, the seven Chiefs of the Pendragon Federation assembled to select a new King from among their own number to fill the place left empty by Ullic's death. Their unanimous choice, to no one's surprise other than his own, was Uther's father. Uric.

BOOK TWO

Greetings, Daughter, from your father and myself, both of us are well, our health better than it might he, considering how ancient we are grown, and for that we give thanks to God.

My grandson came to visit me this morning, to say his farewells and tell us that he is to leave for home tomorrow. It was the size of him, and the speed of his growth from infant to man, that made your father and me face up to the fact that we are, too rapidly, growing old. His visit reminded me, too, that the seasons have flown by again and that if I am to write to you this year, it must be done today.

I hope that all is well with you in Tir Manha. Uther says the mountains are very lovely there at this time of the year, but I felt, when he said it, that he was merely making conversation, being polite to his elders. Your father agreed with me, too, and we have both formed the distinct impression that our grandson is reluctant to leave us this year.

The explanation for that is easy to provide, and it has little to do with a reluctance to return to Cambria. This year, for the first time, I believe, Uther is loath to leave the girls of Camulod, and one girl in particular. Her name is Jessica, and she has been visiting here with her father, an old friend to Picus, who now lives in Gaul. She is a pretty little thing, sufficiently so to have turned the heads of Uther and Cay both, stirring a form of rivalry between them that is new. I suspect that my dear grandson fears he is leaving the field to his beloved cousin uncontested, and he seems completely unaware that his fears are groundless. Jessica will be returning to her home in Gaul within the week, and I doubt that she will ever return here, since her father is in failing health. Alas, love appears immortal to the young.

I wanted to tell you about that so that you will not be too concerned should you notice any listlessness or unease in your beloved son on his return. He may simply be pining, and if he is, it will pass. He has had no physical knowledge of love yet, to the extent of my knowledge. The child, Jessica, is an innocent, and I know she is at least as well guarded by her parents in such matters as Uther and Cay have been guarded recently by each other in that respect.

Both boys have grown this year, nevertheless, as I said, from infancy to young manhood almost overnight. It is hard to believe that fifteen years have passed since they were newborn babes.

Farewell, my dear Veronica, and I hope we will be able to see each other again soon. Know that you are in our minds and in our prayers every day, and that your father and I are proud of the grandson with whom you have blessed us.

LV

Chapter SEVEN

Mairidh was dreaming of the boy when the horse woke her with its snorting and stamping, and the moment reality began forcing itself upon her, she moaned and fought against it, refusing to open her eyes. The weight and warmth and smell of the man lying against her side, the feel of his heavy arm across her waist, gave her no pleasure, and she refused to open her eyes to look at him, knowing that when she did she would start an entire new day filled with pain and fear and brutality. He was snoring slightly, his face thrust into her armpit, his breath fluttering against her breast, and the rancid stink of his body made her want to vomit. The Pig. The name had sprung into her mind when she first saw him, and she had heard no other name to gainsay it. She had lost count of the number of times he and his companion had taken her the previous day and night, both of them seemingly insatiable. Now the thrust of his morning hardness pressing against her flank warned her that as soon as he awoke he would be back at her again.

Mairidh was no maiden. She had known her share of men— some said far more than her share—and she exulted in her body and the pleasures it gave her. These two, however, had abducted her after killing the boy. They had brutalized her and dragged her off with them, forcing her to run at the back of her own horse while they both rode the poor beast. They had tethered her by a too-short length of rope, so that as she ran she was in constant danger of being kicked by a flying hoof. Time and again she had fallen and been dragged, but even the beatings she endured for slowing them down had become preferable to the agony of stumbling and staggering behind the horse, hands bound in front of her. Eventually she had fallen into a stupor of exhaustion in which her body ran mechanically while her mind lost all awareness of what was happening.

They had killed the boy, and she had made it possible. Her reward—abduction and violation—had been immediate and inevitable. And even though her complicity in the killing had been unwitting, for a time she had felt that there must be some kind of arcane justice in what was happening to her. Such a beautiful boy, and she had lured him to his death.

Eventually, when they had decided they were far enough removed from the scene of the murder, they had made a rough camp and built a tiny fire, tying Mairidh to a nearby tree while the taller one went off to look around and check that they were where they ought to be and that they were in no danger. He had returned quickly, grinning and nodding to his companion that all was as it should be, and then the two of them had finally let down their guard and relaxed. They had relieved themselves, squatting within sight of her, and then they had eaten, giving her nothing. After that, the evening's entertainment had begun.

They had thrown dice to see which one would have her first, and the shorter of the two, the Pig, who lay beside her now on her right side, had won. The other had held her down, kneeling on her arms. She had fought them at first, but they had beaten her bloody, splitting her nose and lips, and eventually she had submitted and lain still, emptying her mind of everything but her husband's compassionate face while they took her, one after the other, time and again, arousing each other by example long after she would have believed they could sustain such lust.

On countless occasions over the past ten years, Mairidh and her husband Balin had discussed the ramifications of what she was now enduring, facing it as a distinct possibility because of the great amount of travelling they did together. The roads were unsafe everywhere in Britain nowadays, the entire countryside swarming with wandering bands of homeless and desperate men and women, and anyone faced with the prospect of travelling any distance from home had to give serious consideration to the possibility of robbery, abduction and violation in the course of their journey. In consequence, few people travelled nowadays in small groups, preferring to wait for company upon the road in order to enjoy the relative safety offered by larger numbers. Women, as always, were especially vulnerable.

Balin had been endlessly, and at times tediously, insistent upon the need for Mairidh to consider, realistically and ahead of the fact, all that might be and could be involved and entailed in such a misadventure. Her life was the first and most obviously endangered thing: she could be killed attempting to defend herself, or she could be killed from sheer brutality or by accident in the commission of a robbery. Whichever way the death occurred, it would end everything. Next came her health: they might break her bones and rupture her internal organs; they might scar her or mutilate her beyond recognition; or, even less pleasant to consider, they might infect her with some dreadful, incurable disease. Once, when she was a mere child, Mairidh had come face to face unexpectedly with a leper whose facial deterioration was far advanced and horrible to see. She had thought the incident forgotten, but for a term of months following Balin's initiation of these discussions, Mairidh had had terrifying dreams about being ravished by a progression of lepers, all of them as disfigured as the poor creature with whom she had come face to face.