Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

"Why did you permit her to escape from Uther's camp?"

He gave a wolfish grin full of sharp canines. "No one 'permitted' her. They closed ranks against us and fought to the last man to give her and her escort time to get away. We've been after them ever since."

I felt a vast calm flowing through me. "What do you know of Camulod?"

He grunted. "Nothing, except that they're hard bastards. They fight hard and they die hard. Why d'you ask that?"

"Because I'm one of them. Now you're going to have to kill me, too, before I kill you."

He settled back in his saddle, his eyes narrowing, hefting his fearsome, hooked weapon, and I heard him sigh before putting his, Uther's, helmet back on his head again.

"You said you were from Lindum, in the north," he said, sounding disappointed. "I believed you. I even liked you."

I nodded. "I can be likable enough, I'm told. But I lied to you. We were caught unawares on the road that day, among Lot's gathering army. We had to lie our way out. I am Merlyn Britannicus, of Camulod. Uther's grandmother and my grandfather were brother and sister." I would fight and kill this man, I knew, or be killed by him, but in spite of all I had seen, I could find no anger in my soul against him. I searched for more fuel. "Why rape the woman and kill the others?"

He was genuinely surprised by my question. "What? Why not, by all the gods? We're at war. Spoils to the victor, death to the vanquished. That's the way life is."

He was right. I unsheathed my long cavalry sword. He looked at it, and then back into my eyes. "You think you can kill me, Merlyn Britannicus?" I did not respond and he went on, "Tell me, you said you dreamed of how I killed Pendragon?"

I nodded. "I awoke with the pain through my bowels, but I didn't know what had caused it until I saw your hook there. That reminded me."

"What time was this?"

"Just at daybreak."

"When I killed him."

"Apparently."

He shook his head in apparent wonderment, clearly at a loss as to what to make of me and my behaviour, then sighed again, a deep, dull, barking sound, and pulled back hard on his reins, dancing his horse around to face me on its other side. "Look, I don't want to fight you, man, but I will if I have to, whether you be Ambrose of Lindum or Merlyn of Camulod. In either case, I have no fear of you, sorcerer though it seems you may be, but neither have I any wish to kill you. So why don't we both simply ride away from here? I'll tell you where your cousin is and you can bury him."

His words did not surprise me. Perhaps they should have, but I barely heard them. I was too busy looking at his saddle bow, at the red-leather-handled, iron-balled flail that hung there, suspended by a leather loop on the side his horse had exposed to me in turning. His eyes followed my gaze and he looked down to where the weapon hung.

"What are you looking at?"

"That flail, is it yours?"

"Aye, mine by possession. It was hanging there when I claimed the horse."

I kneed my own mount towards him. "Then it was my cousin's. May I have it?"

He looked askance at me, one eyebrow raised high, then, seeing that I still held my helmet cradled in my arm, he sighed a third time, dropped his reins on his horse's neck and shifted his hooked weapon to his other hand. I leaned towards him and took Uther's flail when he held it towards me, feeling the familiar weight of it tug at my shoulder.

"My thanks." I raised it high in my right hand, pointing the junction of the chain and handle skyward until the ball dangled before my eyes. Was it the one Uther had made so long ago, or was it another, made to replace the first after that one had been thrown into the mere in my small valley? I knew that I would never know, but now I found myself grateful for the doubt that had again replaced my former certainty. I blinked away the sudden tears that had filled my eyes and hung the weapon gently from my own saddle bow. The northern king had watched me in silence throughout all of this. I looked at him again. "Where will you go now?"

He shrugged. "Find Lot, perhaps, or go home. All my men are gone. Some home, most dead."

"Lot is dead, too. I found his body hanging from a tree." I reached into my scrip and drew out the ring. "See? I took his boar seal."

Derek of Ravenglass sniffed. "Hmm! That's that, then. I'm going home. I've a desire to see my children again."

"Where will I find Uther?"

He shrugged and hung his hook axe again on the side of his saddle, plainly convinced that we had no fight with each other. "Back the way we came. Follow our tracks along the beach. It must be twelve miles or more. You'll see where our tracks enter along a wide stream bed with a great, white gleaming boulder standing in the middle of it. Can't miss it, it's huge and bright white. Your cousin and his people are lying in a clearing three more miles upstream. A lot of mine are lying there too."

We sat gazing at each other in silence for several moments longer, then Derek of Ravenglass cleared his throat. "Well then," he growled, "I wish you well, Ambrose called Merlyn. We were never friends, but we've never really been enemies, either, have we? We've got a saying among our people that only those touched by the gods feel the pain of others. Me, I've never believed in the gods, any of 'em, but there's not a doubt in my mind that you felt your cousin's death. So I think you really might be touched by the gods in spite of what I've always thought. That's why I have no wish to fight you. Farewell."

He spun his horse and moved away and I watched him silently until he disappeared among the distant dunes. Neither of us had considered sharing the company of the other and that was as it should be. When he had gone from view, I looked again at the naked woman lying by my horse's feet and as I did so, she coughed weakly.

Only when I was kneeling by her side, cradling her in my bent arm, did I become aware of how familiar she appeared, and then I knew beyond a doubt that this was Ygraine, sister to Donuil and Deirdre. The resemblance to both of them was there, unmistakable, in her face, and when she opened her great, green eyes, I knew her as the woman from my dreams of the previous night and my skin chilled again with goose bumps. She was unaware of me, or of herself or where she was. Uther's was the first name that sprang to her lips, and then she repeated it, this time less distinctly, slurring the vowels so that it sounded like "Ather."

As I knelt there beside her, a wavelet rippled up the beach and soaked my knee. The tide was flowing fast now, and I thought to move her, but as soon as I began to lift her I stopped again. She was dying and my entire sleeve was soaked with blood. When I looked, I saw that the back of her head was matted with blood that welled slowly, but far too freely to staunch, and her head was crushed. I knew without looking further that she had been kicked by Derek's horse, probably while he was mounting to face my approach.

Presently her eyes focused on my face and she seemed to know me as she asked, "Where is my baby?"

"Baby, Lady? There is no baby here."

"Yes, my baby. My baby bear. I promised Uther I would keep him safe and take him..."

"Take him where, Lady?"

"To Camulod! My baby! To Uther in Camulod.""

"Ygraine," I whispered, "Uther is gone."

"Uther? Ather...My son is Arthur. Pendragon's baby bear, his father call—" Her eyes went wide, startled, and she stiffened in my arms. "Uther?" she cried, and slumped dead.

I laid her gently on the sand and closed her eyes, seeing in my mind the eyes of her sister and her brother. How long I knelt there, my fingers on her eyelids, I have no idea, but I was grieving for her and for all of us who lived in this sad land of Britain. And then I heard, from behind me, clear and distinct as a cockerel's crow, the sound of a baby crying. Incredulous, I swung around to find myself kneeling almost in the sea and hearing the wailing of a baby coming from the great, clumsy, heavy boat that now rode gracefully upon the waves.