Jack Whyte - Uther

Uric Pendragon made no attempt to deny it. He merely turned his head and gazed into the distance.

"Whistler has done wonders for the boy, Uric, and I know it better than anyone. Uther will be Chief one day, perhaps even King, and so I watch him closely. Garreth was charged—-your own father charged him personally—with teaching the boy to be a warrior worthy of his name, and by the blood of every Druid ever killed in Britain, I say he has done that superlatively well. Your son, at fifteen, is a warrior, superb in all respects, and now he can boast three more dead men to adorn his name even before he assumes his formal manhood."

"Unarmed men." King Uric's voice was a growl.

"Unarmed or not, the men are dead, and that's done with. Besides, I was talking of Garreth Whistler, not of Uther's escapade.

"It was no part of Garreth's duty that he himself should become a horse warrior. He is the King's Champion, the flower of his people—our people. But Uther spends much time in Camulod and so, therefore, does Garreth Whistler. Uther is besotted with the Camulodian cavalry and must, perforce, become a mounted Camulodian trooper. Whistler, much as he might dislike that thought, sees nonetheless that the young Uther can never be a mere trooper. As your son he must command, and so he must be taught to be a commander of cavalry. It follows, therefore, to Garreth Whistler's logic and loyalty, that he, himself, must become a mounted trooper in order to learn those things that he must teach, in turn, to the boy who is his charge."

Daris paused again, and the King stood silent, waiting for him to resume. Far above their heads, Nemo sat back down again and made herself more comfortable.

"So—" Daris's voice was quiet now, but every syllable carried clearly up to Nemo "—we may not speak ill, or even think ill, of Garreth Whistler, you and I. He has given up more than either of us in the service of our young heir, for in relinquishing the honour of being King's Champion he has forfeited much. He has almost become a foreigner, mounted upon a foreign horse and carrying foreign weapons. He has learned to speak a foreign tongue. He is still greatly loved, and rightly so, but there are some, envious and disgruntled, who yet whisper that he has become an alien among his own family and people . . . and all for his selfless and total dedication to the duty we have put upon him."

"What are you saying, priest?"

"I am saying that Garreth Whistler deserves your full gratitude and no trace of anger or dissatisfaction. And I am saying that he could no more control young Uther's impulsiveness in the grip of angry emotions than you could. Uther is a hothead, sudden and volatile and violent—always has been—and you and I have quarrelled over that before, when it was you who said it and I who disagreed with you out of too much fondness for the boy. Uther has always had that tendency to be headstrong and sudden. I believe that there is simply a well of violence simmering in the boy and likely to break surface at any moment when he is crossed severely enough to stir up his passions."

"Hmm." The King was silent for a time, and then he grunted again and nodded his head. "I agree with you. The boy is far too hot-tempered for his own good. But would you agree with me if I told you that I have noticed—and Garreth Whistler backs me in this—that he seems to respond well to responsibility that extends beyond himself?"

"I don't know if I would or not. What are you saying?"

"The boy does well when he is put in command of a situation. Set him to a task and explain to him what's involved and what depends on the outcome, and he'll do it conscientiously and well, without allowing himself to be distracted until the job is completed. Would you agree?"

There was a long pause, and then Daris responded, nodding his head. "You're right. He sticks with his task until he has acquitted himself completely of all responsibilities, and only then will he allow himself to be lured into other, more pleasurable things. At times like that he never allows himself to be distracted or seduced away from what he has to do and never allows his emotions to take control of him."

"Good. Then I think I might have the answer to his hotheadedness. An ongoing task, a large responsibility. One that only he can handle."

"At fifteen?" There was heavy skepticism in the Druid's tone, but the King ignored it completely.

"There could be no better age. Do you remember the story Publius Varrus told you the last time you and he were here at the same time of how it fell to Uther and Cay to teach the troops of Camulod how to sit in a saddle and control a horse with stirrups? And the boys were, what, eight years old at the time?"

"Yes, but they—"

"But nothing, Daris! They did it because they were the only two in the entire place who could use the single saddle that Camulod possessed. The thing had been sitting there in plain view for years before the boys were born, and no one had even suspected what it was. Varrus had captured it from some Franks taken in a raid years earlier and kept it as a keepsake, thinking it to be some kind of chair fashioned for a crippled boy. But it was a new form of weapon, a saddle with stirrups, made to fit a boy's legs. They never thought to see it as a thing a full-grown man might use, and so they saw nothing until young Cay grew into it and showed them how it should be used."

The High Priest nodded. "I remember that. I was impressed, but I fail to see—"

"Cay taught Uther how to ride in that saddle, Daris, immediately after he himself had learned to, because the two of them were of a size. And they became, in very fact, the first of Camulod's cavalry troopers. But they achieved it simply because their youth, their size, gave them the ability to do so. They had the equipment, while the others, fully grown men, had to wait until their saddles could be developed and manufactured. That was less than eight years ago, Daris, but Camulod is strong with cavalry today. So here is my idea. And hear me out, if you will, before you seek to undermine my logic with any argument. . .

"Camulod is hungry for our new Pendragon longbows. We now have more than a hundred, with several hundred more in various stages of completion. Camulod has uses for our bows, and to give our friends their due, they have never tried to buy the bows alone. They know the value of the weapons to us and the difficulties involved in not only producing them—growing the wood and then curing and shaping it before each weapon can be made—but also in the training of men to use them. So they are prepared to use our people and their bows, and to reward us handsomely for the use of our superior weaponry. Do you agree with what I have said so far?"

"Of course."

"Good. Now I propose that it is time for what the Romans called a quid pro quo, a giving in return for a gift."

"And what might that be?" Daris was smiling.

"A benefit to us in Cambria from their superior weaponry."

"Their—you mean their cavalry?"

"No . . . ours."

The Chief Druid pushed back his high cowl and scratched his head. "Forgive me, Uric, I must be misunderstanding something very simple. What do you mean?"

Uric let out a single, booming grunt of laughter. "I mean the answer to our problem with young Uther's hotheadedness: responsibility. Look, he travels every year between here and Camulod, there and back, no? Always with Garreth Whistler, but sometimes they travel with young Cay in tow, too, and when that happens there is usually an escort of some kind to ride with them from Camulod. Sometimes—most times, in fact—the escort is not really an escort but a military expedition of one kind or another, perhaps a patrol that would be travelling this way even if the boys were not.

"But now we find ourselves approaching a new kind of difficulty. In the past, the boys were merely boys, and they were travelling through our own lands, so they were in little danger—certainly no danger that Garreth Whistler could not handle with or without a military escort. Today, however, everything has changed. My son rides over a rise, finds an assault in progress and reacts predictably. He flies out of control and leaps into the middle of what might have been a disaster. I believe, nevertheless, that had he been in command of a body of troops, responsible for them, he would have reacted differently. I believe he would not have risked his life under those circumstances."