Jack Whyte - Uther

Daris spoke to me at great length about the ceremony of picking a new King for the Pendragon people, an event known as the Choosing.

This Choosing will now take place as close to Midsummer as may be possible due to the upheavals of this war. There are two traditional Choosing times each year: Midsummer and Midwinter, with Midsummer being the more potent. My Uric will be replaced then by a new King selected from among the current Chiefs.

I have been through it once before, when dear Uncullic died and Uric was selected as the Chosen One by his fellow Chiefs, all seven of them, including Uric, voting in conclave. At that time I thought little of it. It seemed inevitable to me that Uric would assume his father's position, becoming the fifth in his direct line to serve as King of the Pendragon. It was plain for all to see that Uric was the best man.

By the same token, the new King should be Uther as Chief of Pendragon in his own right. I know his father dreamed of that and wished it might be so, for we talked of it, he and I, not long ago, when it seemed like an event destined for some distant, future day.

Now, cruelly, that day is here, and Uther is not merely unprepared, he is almost unknown by the Chiefs who will select the new King. He has been too long gone from Tir Manila and from Cambria itself, spending most of his time in Camulod, mainly at my insistence. The fault is mine.

I have always been afraid, since my earliest days here, of what too much exposure to the Cambrians and their savage ways might do to my son. And I have always insisted that he spend at least half of his young life with you and father and my family in civilized surroundings. I regret that bitterly today, because I now know, too late, that I was wrong. We are at war with Cornwall, as are you in Camulod, but Uther is seen here as being one of yours and not as one of ours, and the wars have thrown up another warrior Chief, a man called Meradoc, Chief of the largest of the three Llewellyn clans, who means to claim the King's Seat. I detest the man, and I know Uric had little time for him, but my personal distaste counts for nothing in the reality of things. The man is an able Chief, it seems.

And so I must remain in Tir Manila in the hope that others, including you and Garreth Whistler, with whom I will send this, will be able to convince Uther that his duty lies here, and that he owes his primary loyalty to his Pendragon heritage and to the memory of his father and his ancestors.

I know my son, and I know his failings and how headstrong and proud he can be. I know, too, that should he choose not to contest his birthright in the Choosing, he will regret it forever afterwards. This Choosing is his destiny. I know that now beyond dispute or foolish maternal selfishness. And if my presence in Tir Manha will urge his return, then my place must be here.

So, dear Mother, my request of you is to send my son home, however unwilling he might be. I pray that you will use every persuasive power at your command to convince him that he must be here by Midsummer to represent his family, his people and himself.

With all my love, your grieving daughter, Veronica

Chapter FOURTEEN

"Come on, lads! You'll be a King's escort on the way back, so let's start to look like one now."

The disordered column of armoured, mounted men making their way up the steep slope reacted to the jibe in their individual ways. Some groaned in mock protest, others muttered good- humouredly and a small number scowled, but most had a grin or a smile for the man haranguing them from the knoll by the side of the path they were climbing. Only a few kept their eyes downcast, too concerned with the treacherous ground beneath their horses' hooves to spare any attention for their leader's high spirits. The climb had been long and hard, their path a dried-out stream bed choked with water-smoothed pebbles and boulders. On either side, the flanks of the deep gully towered over them, coated with impenetrable brush and gnarled, stunted ancient trees, cutting the struggling horsemen off from the world. Now, as they approached the crest, the perceptible lessening of the heights above was the only sign they had that they were nearing the summit.

"Almost there now, lads. We'll rest at the top."

At that moment, one of the rocks littering the stream bed rolled under a misplaced hoof, and a horse went lurching sideways, skittering for a foothold and somehow managing to remain upright, although it almost unseated its rider, whose skill was the only thing that saved him from a dangerous fall. In the moment of feeling his mount lurch off balance, the trooper transferred all his weight, jamming his left foot hard into its stirrup and shifting his upper body forward to his right, dropping the reins to grasp the horn of his saddle with his right hand while he threw his left arm out as a counterweight. So close was he to the side of the stream bed that his outstretched hand touched solid ground and he used it to brace himself, leaning on it for a moment before thrusting himself back, straight-armed, into the saddle.

"Well done, Marc!" the leader shouted, but the rider, busy gathering his reins again and soothing his startled horse, paid him no heed. He moved on, his eyes now scanning the ground ahead of him, and the few remaining horsemen followed him, equally careful. The watcher on the knoll waited until the last of them had passed, and then he turned his head to look at his companion, who was staring back down the hill the way they had come.

"You see something down there?"

Garreth Whistler shrugged his broad, green-clad shoulders and pulled his horse around. "No, Uther, I see nothing," he said, sighing but smiling. "I was thinking, that's all."

Uther Pendragon grinned, shaking his head ruefully. "Garreth, Garreth, Garreth, there's little hope for you at all, with all this thinking! How many times have I told you it's dangerous to think?"

The Whistler sat silent in his saddle, gazing at the younger man and making no response other than a slow puckering of his lips as he nibbled at the skin of his inner cheek.

Uther raised one eyebrow. "So what were you thinking about this time?"

"Several things. One was that I've been spending too much time in Camulod."

"How so?"

"I'm being Romanized, that's how! Here we are out of sight of that damned road for barely an hour, and I'm mourning the loss of it. I've grown too soft."

Uther Pendragon glanced down to where Garreth had been staring and his smile gave way to a pensive, speculative look. The road Garreth spoke of lay miles behind them, utterly lost in dense forest. The narrow wedge of sky tilled with broken clouds that stretched above their present resting place was the only thing in sight that was not forest.

"Roads are good," Uther muttered. "No better, faster way of crossing country. The Romans were remarkable for that, if nothing else."

"Aye, but why didn't they build a road across these hills when they were building everywhere else?"

Another smile tugged at the corners of Uther's mouth. "Roman roads had but a single purpose, Garreth: to transport Roman armies from place to place in the shortest possible time in order to confront Rome's enemies and stamp them out. We of the Pendragon were too few then, and too distant, to attract their ire."

"Hmm! So now we have to struggle overland. Someone should have told the Romans we were here."

Garreth was now in his early forties, and he had been Uther's mentor, friend and self-appointed bodyguard for ten years. That alone would have entitled him to keep himself apart from the ruck of Uther's troops, even without the rank of Second in Command that the Chief had bestowed upon him. Garreth knew that, too. Although he rode saddled and stirrupped like the others, Garreth alone wore none of the uniform armour and trappings that marked them all as troopers of Camulod, despite the fact that most of them were Pendragon warriors. Instead, and to set himself apart, Garreth proudly wore the garb of his own people, Uther's people, the Pendragon Celts from southern Cambria.