Jack Whyte - Uther

"The only time you need be ashamed of fear, he told me, the only time, is when you allow your fear to rule you, for then it changes and becomes cowardice. So what you have to do is recognize your fear and then ride over it. It sounds easy enough, but it's really very difficult at first, because most men don't know what's involved. They know only that they're afraid and that they don't want to be hurt. No one has ever told them that they can face fear and overcome it simply by not allowing it to beat them. I've overcome it many times now, and it grows easier every time . . . not because your fear grows smaller, but only because you become more aware of the need to do it and get it over with. And if you do it well enough, knowing that everyone else is just as fearful as you are, then you can reach a state of mind where you can out-think your enemies and beat them by doing what they least expect. You seize the moment and make it yours. You hit first with all the strength you have and with the biggest, heaviest, sharpest weapon you possess, when he is least expecting it."

It was a long speech, the longest she had heard him make, and when he reached the end of it, she sat silent, waiting, unsure how to respond, doubting that there was anything to say that would not sound foolish or patronizing. But then he spoke again, almost inaudibly, as if he were speaking to his own inner ear.

"The rules for being a champion are simple. Conquer your own fear first."

"Really? Is it that easy?"

He turned his face towards her, half smiling, half frowning. "There's not much more than that, whether your name is Hercules, Julius Caesar or Uther Pendragon. You have to identify your enemy, face him as soon as you can and cut him down before he can tell you. No half measures, no compromises. You hit him as hard as you can, as soon as you can, and while he's reeling, you hit him again until he goes down and doesn't get back up. Do that once, and men begin to respect you; do it often enough, and they begin to fear you; do it ruthlessly enough, and eventually no others will challenge you."

"And what about you now? Have you begun to change, to become a champion, by killing those men this morning? Is that what you are trying to tell me?"

"No, it's not. I killed those men this morning because there was nothing else I could do, other than run away and leave you with them. That's part of overcoming your fear, you see . . . knowing what you have to do and then doing it before the fear of it can undo you."

"I see. But those were the first men you have ever killed . . . am I correct in that?"

"Aye, although I tried as hard as I could to kill another boy when I was twelve."

Mairidh had no adequate response to that, and so she subsided into silence and squirmed closer to his lean, hard body. She lay still for a time, cradled in the crook of his arm. feeling the warmth of his breath and the rise and fall of his chest until something—perhaps the depth and regularity of his breathing—told her he was asleep. She moved one hand along his forearm, feeling the solid bulk of muscle there, and she smiled to herself, enjoying the thought of how the man in him was so often usurped by the earnest, innocent boy. For now, the boy was hers to enjoy, and she was grateful. She was not tempted to consider that the man in him might someday be hers too; Mairidh was too wise for that. She smiled again and turned her face to smell the scent of him, and some time later she, too, drifted off to sleep.

When they woke up again, the first hints of dawn were beginning to lighten the sky, and they busied themselves in cleaning up, bathing in the hot pool and ransacking the Pig's sack for useful items. They found some cloths that they could use to dry themselves, but nothing else really useful, and so Uther ended up dressing himself in a loincloth made from Mairidh's sadly damaged shift and insisting that Mairidh cover her nakedness with his quilted tunic, over which she wore her own long, loose robe, effectively concealing herself from neck to knees. Then, their toilet completed to the best of their resources, they struck out for Tir Manha again.

Chapter NINE

Their homecoming occasioned a celebration even greater than they could have anticipated, for no one had connected their absences prior to the moment they reappeared together. Uther's friends had simply returned home without him on the day of his disappearance, and even when he failed to follow them by nightfall, no one was alarmed, for he was within a month of undergoing the manhood rituals, after which he would be a warrior, beholden to no man for permission to do whatever he might wish to do. Uther had been in intensive training for two years now, living in accordance with a strict regimen under the close and critical scrutiny of his tutors, studying the rituals and their forms, and preparing himself for the rigorous initiation rites and ceremonies that would mark his graduation from boy to warrior. As a natural part of that training discipline, he had long since established a pattern of spending days and weeks alone in the forest in all kinds of weather, surviving by his wits only, sometimes armed with nothing more than a knife or a sling, killing his own food and finding his own shelter. Some minor concerns began to be voiced, however, when one night became two. There were procedures and responsibilities involved in preparing for absences of two days or more—especially for the King's son—and had the young man not returned by noon the following day, his continuing absence might have caused greater excitement even than Mairidh's.

The case of the woman Mairidh was sufficiently different, however, to cause something of an uproar. This was a married woman, the wife of one of the King's honoured guests, and her disappearance was a matter that could not be taken lightly. A search had been launched by sunset on the first day of her disappearance when she had failed to return for the evening meal, and everyone who might have guessed at her whereabouts had been closely questioned. But neither search nor questioning had yielded any positive result. Even Brenna, the young woman who had accompanied Mairidh on the day of her first visit to Uther's swimming hole, had shaken her head in wide-eyed innocence when asked if she knew where the Lady Mairidh might have gone.

When the two missing persons appeared together, then, late in the morning of the third day following their "separate" disappearances, the effect on the entire populace of Tir Manha was joyous. They were seen from the walls the moment they emerged from the forest to approach the settlement surrounding the main gates of the stronghold, and by the time they had crossed the cleared fighting space, two hundred paces wide, to reach the first huts, the entire community, including Uther's parents, Uric and Veronica, had come pouring out to see and welcome them. And they were worth beholding. Both of them looked severely abused, barefoot and covered from head to foot with dried mud and dirt, bruises, cuts and abrasions. But it was Uther who drew the most attention at first, because he walked almost naked, holding himself rigidly upright, his loins covered by a length of material that very few there could have been expected to recognize: the last tattered remnants of the clothing Mairidh had worn beneath her long, loose robe on leaving the King's encampment.

Veronica Varrus stood still, slightly behind her husband and one of his advisers, frowning slightly as she looked closely at the pair. She assessed the appearance of each of them separately, noting and setting aside her observations on the small, unobtrusive ways in which they reflected an awareness of each other. When she was satisfied that she could learn no more from looking, her face cleared, and she stepped forward, smiling, to embrace her son and to welcome back her errant guest.