Jack Whyte: Uther

Well! Another day gone by. I begin to believe that, once interrupted, it becomes impossible to resume writing the same day. Yesterday, when I went to your father's call, I found that one of the young stableboys had been kicked by a horse. He must have been careless in some way, but we will never know, because he died without regaining his senses. He was only eight years old, and your father was very angry that the child had been left alone to do a man's work. We had a noisy and exciting evening of heated arguments and cold anger as he tried to discover the truth of what happened from a number of people who really did not know. Generally, however, your father is well, in radiant health and strong as a man half his age. He continues to spend the greatest portion of his time in his old forge, banging away at white-hot metal, all the while in danger of suffocating from smoke and noxious fumes. But he is happiest when he is there, so what can I, a mere woman, do to dissuade him ? It makes me smile to recall it, but there was a time when I thought he must regret that I had so little interest in his forge and what he did in there. I was wrong. I have learned to believe that your father is perfectly happy to have me stay in my place, here in our home, and allow him to do as he must in his place of work. And when he comes home to me, as he always does, I never doubt his gladness at setting eyes on me. Now that is a gift I wish I could bestow on you, daughter. But the only person who can grant that gift to you is your own man, Uric, and the only means you have of influencing him to do that is to manage his home, share in his dreams, encourage his visions and love him.

It is a beautiful day here, and the sky is flushing pink with the promise of a wondrous sunset. It is strange to think you might not be able to see it where you are, among the hills. It might be raining there, or be dark and foggy.

Well, child, now that you are a child no longer, know that we love you none the less, your father and I. Carry your own child proudly and with gladness, whether it be boy or girl, and never fear about your ability to bear men- children for your husband. I produced only girls, but the women of our family have always been breeders of strong men, so perhaps I was an aberration. You, I am convinced, will bring forth boys. I will not insult you by asking you if you would come home to have your child. I know your place is there in your husband's land, as Enid's is here, in her husband's, even though Picus is away at war. I remind God every day and night, in my prayers, to keep all of you strong and healthy and safe above all. God bless you, child. You are in my mind and my heart at all times.

Your loving mother, LV

Greetings, my dear Mother:

I overheard Uncullic this morning telling Uric that he intends to ride by Camulod on his way to wherever he is going in the week ahead. Thus, mindful of the enormous pile of papyrus you sent me recently, hinting that should I ever think to write to you I should not lack the means of doing so, I thought to take this opportunity to write and let you know that I am well and having no trouble at all with the burden I am carrying. The grandchild I will bring to you is all male. His strength and his lack of delicacy and consideration tell me that he could be nothing else but he has been well behaved, generally speaking, and I am quite sure he will cause me no insurmountable difficulty when it comes time to bring him out to face the world in which he must live. My dearest hope is that you and my father are both as healthy as I feel, because if you are, I should rejoice.

We are caught up in the end-of-the-year celebrations, although Samhain, the winter solstice, has already passed long since, and the days are beginning to lengthen. Now that I am living among the Cambrians and have made their way of life my own, I am often astonished to see just how different their customs and celebrations are from ours. I can clearly remember sitting listening to Bishop Alaric on one bright, lovely summer's afternoon several years ago as he told us about the various ways in which the communities in the small territories wherein we live have come to use different ceremonies and rituals to celebrate the same important events throughout the year. Events like the solstices, when the sun reaches the limits of its flight and sets off again upon its return course. But even our beloved Bishop could not convey the scope of such differences.

I know that our own tradition in Camulod is rooted in our Roman past. But the Celtic clans celebrate Samhain when we celebrate Saturnalia. I had heard the name before, and I recall that as a child I passed the Samhain festival with you and my father in two small communities that I remember lying to the south and west of Camulod. Neither of those two occasions, however, bears any slight resemblance to what goes on here in Cambria at this time of the year. And then recently, within those regions and among those clans where Christianity has spread, the rituals and the events we celebrate are changing every year. But all that matters is that we celebrate. It matters not what name we give to the celebration or how we observe it. The people are glad of the opportunity to celebrate something, anything, and they are ready for the pleasure. The crops are safely in, the fields are all prepared for winter, and the lagging year is drawing to a close amid the hope brought on by lengthening evenings and small unseen promises of greener, warmer days to come in a year that is entirely new.

Not all of us in King Ullic's household are celebrating this year, however. There is one unfortunate woman here whose heart is sore and heavy, and where I, in similar circumstances, would be blessed and strengthened in time of need by my beloved husband, she lacks that source of strength and comfort. She has a husband, but he is a very different kind of man from mine. Her name is Tamara, and her husband, whose name is Leir, is a Druid. He is also related to Uncullic, a cousin of some kind. I have been told that his grandfather and Ullic's father were first cousins, born to the brother and sister of the first Pendragon King of the Federation, another Ullic, as you know, Ullic Green Eye, who ruled almost a hundred years ago. I wonder if that means he had only one eye? Or one green eye and one of another colour? But that cannot be, since all these Cambrian kings must be physically perfect. I must find someone to ask about that.

I stopped when I had written those last words and walked away from my table, because I found myself writing nonsense. And my fingers were starting to cramp. They are blackened to the first knuckle with ink, too. Unlike you, however, I have been able to come back to the task the same day, for less than an hour has gone by since I stopped writing.

I set out to tell you about poor Tamara and her trouble. I have come to know her quite well these past few months because, like me, she was with child, her first. Alas, no longer. Tamara is very small, a tiny wisp of a woman, but her child, a boy, was enormous, so large, in fact, that there were whisperings of twins among the elderwives here, before her time arrived. Twin births are not looked upon with favour among the Celtic peoples, I have learned, and this is particularly so among King Ullic's clans here in Cambria.

As it turned out, however, and despite what the elder- wives might mutter during their shadowy gatherings, Tamara was unfortunate in that she bore no twins. Instead, she bore one single, monstrous lump of a boy who tore her cruelly while forcing his way, a month and more before his time, out of her small body That was four days ago, and poor Tamara remains abed, too weak even to sit upright. I am astounded that she has survived this long. Mother, she lost so much blood! I knew it was going badly with her. Anyone with ears knew that. And I wanted to do something to assist her in her terrible pain and loneliness, although I know not what that something might have been, but the elderwives kept me from the chamber, so that I could only listen to her screams and moans growing more piteous as she herself grew weaker. It lasted more than an entire day before the child was finally born, deformed, his head completely flattened on one side by some hideous mischance. In the normal way of things in this land, which can be frighteningly savage, the child would have been stifled at birth because of his deformity, but for some reason, concerning which it seems to me everyone is being very secretive, the elderwives were loath to kill him before consulting with his father, the Druid Leir.