Jack Whyte - Uther

"What? What's wrong? What is it?"

Mairidh shook her head. "Nothing. I was remembering what happened." She sat up, holding her robe tightly at the throat so that it covered her completely. "You killed both of them."

An expression of surprise made his face go tight, and then he shrugged. "Aye. But you sound disappointed. Should I have let them live and left you with them?"

"No, of course not. That's not what I meant."

He half turned towards her, squatting back on his haunches, watching her eyes. "What did you mean, then?"

"I don't know, Merlyn. It's simply that until I saw you there, until you did it . . . I would never have considered that you might . . ." Her voice tailed away.

"Might what? Might have been capable?"

"I suppose so, yes. You seemed too young . . ."

He lifted the spitted hare away from the fire, and his muttered response drifted back to her over his shoulder. "Well you were wrong. I'm not too young. I'm almost sixteen."

She knew, intuitively, that he had misconstrued her words. "I meant too young to kill—not too young to be a man . . ." she explained.

"Is there a difference?"

Now she knew she had offended him, but she had no idea how to undo the damage, and her voice was uncertain. "Merlyn?"

"That's not my name."

"What?"

"I said that's not my name!" He looked back at her, his face flushed and guilty-looking. "When I said my name was Merlyn, I lied. Merlyn is my cousin. My name is Uther."

Mairidh merely blinked at him, uncomprehending. "Why? Why would you lie about a thing like that?"

"Because I knew who you were, and I thought you might recognize my real name."

"You knew who I was? How could you? And how would I know you as—what is it? Uther? I have never heard that name before. Why should I recognize it?"

"It's Uther Pendragon. My father is Uric, King of our people." As understanding began to come to her, he pressed on. "You told me about your husband, and I knew his business was with my father. His name is Balin. You told me that, too, but I already knew it. I have seen him, although I have never met him, and I felt. . . strange learning who you were. I knew even then, the first time I saw you, that I loved you . . . and although I would not have dared to think that I might ever touch you, I feared that if you knew I was my father's son, you might not wish to talk with me."

Now Mairidh smiled at him, savouring that admission of love—the all-consuming first love of adolescence. "Well, now you know it was a foolish fear, don't you?" she said.

"Do I? Would you have lain like that with me had you known who I truly was at the outset?"

"Of course I would! I did know who you truly were, Uther, and in the most important way of all for any woman: you were the one person in the world I most wanted to lie with me and take me as you did. Your name was the least significant thing in my mind."

He stood staring at her now, his hand lowering the peeled stick that spitted the hare so that the cooked carcass was in danger of sliding off the end of it. She nodded towards it.

"You're going to drop that into the fire, you know. Much better if you simply set it down, and we'll eat it. I'm starved."

The boy glanced towards the roasted hare, then moved it away from the flames, lowering the end of the spit to the grass as he looked back at her, his eyes searching hers for any sign of mockery.

"Do you mean that? You enjoyed . . . what we did?"

"Well, of course I enjoyed it! Come here, closer, over here . . ." She waited until he approached close enough for her to be able to reach out and touch his cheek. "Now look at me, look close into my eyes! I want you to read the truth there. Look at me and hear me . . . I loved every moment of it, and I have no regrets . . . none at all. Do you?"

His denial was immediate and emphatic, a wordless, negative head shake.

She smiled again and spoke more softly, caressing him with her tone. "Well, in truth, I do have one regret . . . I regret that we were interrupted so brutally, but that is the only regret I have. No, that's untrue, too . . . I also regret not knowing you would follow me and save me from those creatures. It would have been far easier had I known you would come for me." She paused, eyeing the hare again. "Are we going to eat that?"

He raised the stick again and withdrew it from the carcass, bracing the hot, smoking meat with a smaller stick until the main skewer came free and then laying the cooked meat on a large burdock leaf beside the fire. "I've no salt, though."

Mairidh laughed and allowed the robe to slip from her shoulders. "Let's eat it then, because I'm famished. If I need salt, I'll lick some sweat from your chest."

Later, when they lay temporarily sated with eating before the sun went down, Uther wanted to make love to her, but Mairidh demurred gently, pleading soreness and exhaustion and reminding him of all she had gone through the night before. Instantly abashed and embarrassed by his own thoughtlessness, he was profuse in his apologies, but she soothed him then and made him lie down beside her, and for a space they were quiet. But soon his awareness of her closeness stirred him afresh, and she took pity on him, relieving him with her hand in the space of a few heartbeats.

After that he slept for a short time, for he had had even less sleep than she the night before.

Later still, when his breathing changed sufficiently to tell her he was no longer asleep, she smoothed her hand up his flank as far as his hip bone, and felt him grow tense, anticipating more intimacy.

"How long will we stay here, Uther?"

"Hmm?" He was almost asleep, but he roused himself and looked around at the willow trees that stood silhouetted against the late-evening sky and screened their refuge from the rest of the world. "Tonight. We'll sleep here and head homeward in the morning. We'll be there by noon. They'll be looking for us by now, though. My father will be angry . . . Your husband will be too, I should think."

"Worried, certainly, and fretful. But not angry. He knows I would not simply run off. Had I wished to do that, I would have done it long since, and had I not wished to be here with him, I would not have come to Cambria. So he will be afraid I've come to harm, and hence he will be happy to see me returned safely by my rescuer. He will be very grateful . . . particularly when I have told him how heroic you were following me, alone and unarmed." She felt him go tense beside her. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"What will you tell him? He'll know we were—"

She silenced him by laying her hand flat against his chest, gentling him with its steady pressure.

"Hush you! He will know only what I tell him. You were swimming and came running when you heard me scream. My attackers turned on you and beat you, then threw you into the river and stole all your possessions. But instead of drowning, you climbed back and followed them, killed them both and set me free. And then you brought me back with you. Most of that is true, save for the opening . . ."

He said nothing, and she lay silent for a spell. Then, "Was that the first time you ever killed someone?"

He turned his head away, and for a long time she thought he would not respond, but then he drew a deep breath. "It won't be the last." He kept his face averted, and she stroked the soft hairs at the nape of his neck.

"You sound very sure of that."

"I am. I am the King's son, and I'm of age. I'll be a warrior soon, and I must be a champion." His voice was very quiet.

"What do you mean by that, a champion?"

He turned back to her, wordlessly, his right hand moving in utter confidence now to her breast, the thumb brushing her nipple, stirring the smouldering fires in the depth of her so that her breath caught in her throat and she shuddered, reaching for him, yet turning her body so that his maleness thrust against her hip.