Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

I laughed. "Not before we take care of Ironhair, Carthac and even Uderic. We can't walk away prematurely."

Llewellyn grunted, "Nah, that's already begun, simply thanks to your being here in Cambria. That horseshit with the ambush won't go unremarked or unrewarded. There was nothing there of honour or bravery, and it was clear proof that Uderic has begun to treat with the invaders. He has done little enough to endear him to Pendragon in the past, and any music in his song has become hard to hear, these past four months. This latest treachery will kill him—at the very least, it will kill his designs. You mark my words, Merlyn of Camulod—within the month, you'll have as many Pendragon bows at your command as you have troopers now, and that will bring an end to Carthac and the filth that follows him. With every new Pendragon in your camp you'll take a step closer to uniting all Pendragon under one head. That head won't be Pendragon, true enough, since you are nominally Outlander yourself, but we will at least follow a leader who has Pendragon's interests at heart. "

"What about Huw?"

Once again, the curious stillness I had noticed before descended upon Llewellyn. Now he moved his head minutely to look at me attentively. "What about him?"

I had no answer, yet I felt a lightness in me and so pressed ahead.

"I don't know. I'm merely wondering aloud. I'm an Outlander, as you correctly said. I have no ambition to lead the. Pendragon anywhere in anything. And yet, for them to coalesce, to come together as you have said, they'll need a leader. It strikes me now that Huw Strongarm might be the one. Isn't he some kind of chief among you? I know his family held the land to the south of here, along the coast. It was he who rented holdings there to Liam Twistback, for the raising of his beasts, and I remember him saying his family had held those lands since long before the Romans came. "

Llewellyn sniffed, then nodded his head in a tiny gesture of acknowledgement. "That's true. Huw is a chief. One of our foremost, if you think in terms of claim to leadership. His forefathers have ranked among our best and most able chiefs since pre Roman times, as you have said. But Huw has no desire for kingship. All he wants is peace and the chance to lead his life at ease among his family. "

"But he has been at war for years. When did he last spend . any length of time at home?"

"Long years ago... " Now Llewellyn's face twisted again in what I was coming to recognize as his favourite kind of smile, a tiny dicker of wry amusement. "What are you saying, Merlyn of Camulod? Spit it right out. "

"I am saying, I suppose, that the quickest way for Huw Strongarm to win home in peace might be for him to take upon himself the burden of leadership, don't you agree? He's an honourable man—"

"Horseshit! You can't feed on honour. That's a Roman concept—we have no need of honour. But you're right if what you're saying is that Huw Strongarm is highly thought of among his people. That's a fact, and it's not an easy status to achieve. "

"Well then, we should convince him that he is responsible for helping bring this conflict to an end. Would the people follow him, were he to step forward?"

'They would. I'm sure of that. But would he be willing? That's what I don't know... " He paused, thinking, and then continued. "Let's go back a bit, to what we were talking about earlier—young Pendragon, your Arthur" "What about him?"

"About his father, first. Huw was Uther's closest friend among all our folk, did you know that?" I merely nodded, and he continued. "Aye, well it was more than that, too. Uther was Huw's king, you see. There was no slightest doubt of that in either of their minds. Huw was Uther's man, to the death, and had always been so. That's why he has never had the slightest wish to rule the Pendragon: when Uther fell, the kingship fell, and Huw never thought in terms of kingship for himself. He is, above all else, a king's man, not a king. If Uther ever set a task for him, that task became Huw's life till it was done. " Again he paused, and I waited. "So, it seems to me that Huw Strongarm might stand up and fight to champion the boy, the son of his true king. What think you about that?"

"I think we should ask him, now, while it is fresh in our minds. Where might he be?"

"Not far from here, wherever he is." Llewellyn stood up. "I'll find him and bring him back. Stay you here."

While the enigmatic one eyed man was gone, I sat alone, rethinking everything that had come to pass so surprisingly in the previous hour or so. It was growing dark rapidly now, so that I could barely see beyond the firelight, and I threw some new fuel on the embers that remained in the shallow pit in front of me. It had caught and been more than half consumed by the time Llewellyn returned, accompanied by Huw Strongarm.

I could see from the look on Huw's face that Llewellyn had said nothing about why he had brought him to me. It took almost an hour of talking, during which several of my men came looking for me and were all sent away again unheard, but by the end of the hour, Huw had agreed to my suggestion, backed as it was by Llewellyn's quiet, strong support. He would, he agreed, serve as a rallying point for those of his people who might come to him—his modesty was such that he had serious doubts that any would—and he would, furthermore, prepare the way, and the people of Cambria, for the coming of their true king, Uther's only son, Arthur Pendragon.

I had to bite hard on my lip, hearing those words, for memories of what my brother had told me of another, firstborn son reared up again to frighten me. I stifled the thought, nonetheless, and swore in return to Huw that, if he were as true to this as he had been to Uther, I would be no less true in supporting him, with all the strength of Camulod, in his endeavours to end this present war. And so we were agreed.

By midafternoon of the following day, not a single Pendragon Celt remained in camp. Llewellyn and Huw had begun their work almost immediately, and throughout the morning the Pendragon had been assembling in groups throughout the camp, only to break up again and circulate, spreading the word and then regathering in larger groups. By noon, close to three hundred men had assembled there, vociferous in their support of Huw Strongarm. Huw had addressed them briefly then, amid a crowd of my own troopers attracted by all the activity and excitement, and shortly after that the noisy, colourful Celtic crowd had begun drifting apart and scattering to the winds, to carry the word of Uderic's perfidy and Huw Strongarm's summons to arms to every village and hamlet in the Pendragon lands.

Small in number though their group had been, their passing nevertheless left a certain quiet hanging over our encampment. To keep my men occupied and to expend the useful energies stirred up in them by the morning's events, I set them to refurbishing and refortifying the ancient walls. We would be staying in this place for two full weeks and perhaps even longer, awaiting the return of Huw and Llewellyn, and there was much to do to set aright forty years of neglect and make the place acceptable again as a defensible stronghold.

I joined in the work, stripped to my tunic and glad of the hard exercise as I sweated among a chain of men, passing heavy building blocks from the man behind me to the one ahead, towards a group of our masons working industriously to repair a fallen section of wall. I had been hard at it for well over an hour by the time Derek and Benedict found me, and so I felt no pang of conscience as I walked away from the chain with them, wiping the sweat from my shoulders, neck and face with a rough cloth. A squad of messengers had arrived, Ben said, with word from Tertius Lucca, who was holding the harbours at Caerdyff and Caerwent on the south Cambrian coast, behind us and to the east. Lucca had. received word that a substantial train of supply wagons was on its way north from Camulod. It would proceed directly to him in Caerdyff, and he would redirect it to us.