Shadow of Stone (The Pendragon Chronicles) (2 page)

"Consider the state of the roads, mother," Cador said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "The rain of the past few days..."

Enid sighed. "True. Her personal guard will be happy with simpler fare; it doesn't have to be hare stuffed with sage and dried apples or salmon in a sauce of clams."

Cador smiled. "There are always plenty of chickens to slaughter if we have more guests than expected."

He found himself wondering if Yseult would send a message using her power of calling, but rejected the idea. Not only did magic take a toll on her energy, it would be a very mundane use of her powers. Besides, from many conversations with her, he knew that magic did not always perform as intended. They would have to be patient and await her arrival in the normal way.

Just then, a commotion broke out in the direction of the stables, scuffling sounds accompanied by cheering and jeering.

"Excuse me," Cador said, giving his mother a brief kiss on the cheek.

He pushed through the crowd to see the two boys in fosterage with him, face-to-face, fists clenched, spoiling for a fight: Yseult's son Kustennin, and Gildas, son of his cousin Labiane and her husband Caw.

Gildas was also Cwylli's younger brother — a detail that would not have bothered him a few months ago, before he had adultered with her. Now he was reminded of it every time he looked at Gildas. The comforting smell of fresh bread was too far away to help him now.

"At least I don't have a mother like yours!" Gildas threw at the older boy with a mean smile.

"What do you mean by that?" Kustennin retorted. "Come on, say it, so I can punch your lying face in!"

"Unfair! You're bigger than me!"

"Enough!" Cador roared in the most kingly voice he could muster. He clapped his hands and addressed the gathering crowd. "There is nothing more to see here; go about your work!"

While servants and slaves returned to their duties, Cador took both boys by the shoulder. Strictly speaking, Kustennin was hardly a boy anymore, having celebrated his sixteenth birthday in February. As old as Cador had been when he fought at the battle of Caer Baddon, the largest battle Britain had ever known — where Cador had seen more death than he ever wanted to see again.

His two wards accompanied him sullenly out of the yard and to the relative peace of the gardens. "Now, what is this all about?" he asked, fearing he knew the answer.

"Kustennin tried to hit me!" Gildas said.

The older boy said nothing, not even bothering to defend himself.

Cador sat his wards down on a bench in the courtyard and faced them, arms crossed in front of his chest. "And what did you say to provoke him this time?" Cador asked Gildas, fed up with the way he used his smaller size to get away with insulting Kustennin.

Gildas's eyes widened; he was unused to taking the blame. Cador felt a twinge of conscience. Since last Christmas, his own sense of guilt had led him to overlook the boy's missteps even more. Gildas was three years Kustennin's junior, it was true, but that did not excuse everything — and Cador should not be forcing Kustennin to suffer for the sins of his uncle.

"I'm still waiting for an answer, Gildas. There are always two involved in any fight, and you are growing old enough now to take responsibility for your part in it."

Gildas mumbled something about priests, and Cador knew immediately what the argument had been about. Following Yseult's legendary affair with Drystan, many of the Christian priests of Britain had taken to referring to Kustennin's mother as "the unclean lioness of Dumnonia."

Gazing from one boy to the other, Cador repressed a sigh. His wards both: one the son of a woman he had loved hopelessly for years; the other brother to a woman with whom he had shared carnal relations without love — a moment of mutual comfort that had turned to sin in an alcove.

Cador wasn't sure what he believed in terms of religion, but he had been raised as a Roman and a Christian, and he could not escape the twinge of guilt whenever he looked at Gildas since his sister's last visit to Lindinis. Yes, before they fornicated behind a curtain, Cwylli had told him that she had just learned her husband Medraut was having an affair. But knowing Medraut had committed adultery first did not absolve Cador from his own crime of going from soothing a woman in need to taking advantage of her pain. And sinning against Medraut in turn.

Gildas had begun to fidget under Cador's intense gaze, perhaps a good thing. The boy had very little sense of his own wrongdoing, preferring to blame others rather than examining his own behavior. Not that he was the only person of Cador's acquaintance with that particular weakness, but with Gildas, it was unabated.

"How would you like it if someone insulted
your
mother?" Cador asked, not willing to release Gildas yet.

"
I
didn't insult Kustennin's mother," Gildas protested.

Cador cocked his head to one side. "You only quoted something you heard, is that your defense?"

Gildas nodded.

"Then let us say I heard something once about your mother, something a neighbor said about an affair she had many years ago. But those are not my words; they are the words of my neighbor. Are you telling me that my repeating it would not bother you?" Cador hardly knew what compelled him to voice what he should have kept to himself, even if he had framed it in such a way that it could be taken as fiction. But he had long resented the way Gildas's mother, Labiane, treated Yseult like dirt just because Labiane had not been able to marry Marcus Cunomorus herself.

Gildas's fists were tightly clenched on his thighs, while Kustennin gaped, blinking.

"Well?" Cador asked. "What would you do? Wouldn't you want to slug me, hard?"

Gildas took a deep breath but didn't answer.

Cador reached out a hand and pulled the boy up from the bench. "The next time you want to insult Kustennin's mother, remember how the idea makes
you
feel. Go now and clean the dirt off your tunic. The Lioness of Dumnonia could arrive at any moment, and whatever you or the priests might think of her, I'm sure you do not want to look like some servant boy when she gets here."

As Gildas ran off, Kustennin made as if to rise too, but Cador pushed him back on the bench and sat down beside him.

"Thank you," Kustennin said.

Cador laced his hands behind his head and grimaced. "I probably should not have taken your side, but at least you seem to know you should not be fighting with a mere boy."

Kustennin hung his head. "I
do
know. But Gildas —"

"Yes, yes, he should curb his tongue. That does not change the fact that you are bigger and older and should know better. There are worse things than being the son of a lioness, don't you think?"

"I never thought of it that way," Kustennin said, giving him a startled look.

"Then perhaps you should. It might also help if you spent more time at weapons practice than allowing your cousin to taunt you."

Kustennin jumped up. "You're right — now that the weather is better, I should be out there with them every day."

"You have other duties, but yes, that is one of the more important ones as a young king. I believe Sinnoch is still working on riding hurdles in the western practice field. Take one of the horses that is in need of exercise. We have at least another hour before supper."

Cador watched Kustennin run off in the direction of the stables, hoping that would keep his wards out of each other's hair for a while. After the youth was out of sight, he leaned his head back to enjoy the warm afternoon sun on his cheeks for a while. There were worse things in life than being a farmer king — such as being a warrior king. But as a farmer king he had duties regarding land and livestock. Reluctantly, he rose from the bench. In the villa courtyard, the rose bushes were beginning to develop their first buds. Cador's second wife had been an avid gardener and roses her passion; it was good that the roses were still here to remind him of her.

He turned away from the contemplation of loss contained in rose bushes and resumed his search for Alun.

Shortly after he returned to the busy yard, he saw his steward coming in the gate from the south, laughing with one of his overseers. Alun had been with him going on fifteen years now, had fought beside him in the wars against the Saxons both as man-at-arms and lieutenant. Since Cador had moved his seat from Dyn Draithou back to Lindinis, Alun had become his steward and head overseer. Villa life obviously suited him — to the tune of about two stone, most of it distributed around his midsection.

"Alun!" Cador called out, raising his arm and waving to call attention to himself over all the people coming in from a day in the fields. "Alun!"

The steward looked up and spotted him. After shaking hands with the overseer, he turned and headed in Cador's direction.

But today was not to be a day for consulting on how the spring planting progressed. Before Cador and his steward were within speaking distance, Kustennin came galloping through the northern gate, riding faster than he should, scattering people before him and sending chickens squawking to all sides.

Kustennin pulled up in the middle of the yard, spattering a puddle of rainwater on Cador's breeches. "Sinnoch sent me to tell you — a party of warriors riding hard from the north on the Aquae Sulis road!"

Cador stared up at his foster son, trying to comprehend the unexpected news. "Not your mother, then?"

Kustennin shook his head. "No. She would be coming from the west."

"And she would not be riding hard," Cador added. By this time, most of the people in the yard had gathered around them. "Did Sinnoch say anything about their device or their colors?"

"They carry the Pendragon banner, and another he didn't recognize."

"Did he describe it?"

"Crimson, with a symbol in white like a star or a triangle."

Gawain
. Bearing a message from Arthur.

Cador's heart sank, even though he regarded Gawain as a friend. If one of Arthur's nephews was leading this party, the threat was serious.

He turned to Alun. "Has there been word from Dyn Draithou of a signal fire?"

Alun shook his head. "No news. And the skies are clear and visibility excellent."

Cador sighed. "Then perhaps it is nothing," he murmured to himself, not really believing it. What if one of the beacons in Britain's system of signal fires had been taken out? What could be important enough for Gawain to bring the news, riding hard at that?

"What does it mean?" Kustennin asked. "A raid nearby?" He still had not dismounted, obviously forgetting such an unimportant detail in the excitement.

"It could be."

"But you don't think so," Alun said.

"No, I don't."

"What then?" Kustennin asked.

Cador drew a deep breath. "I fear that after over a decade of peace, war may have returned to Britain."

He caught sight of Enid a few paces away. "Mother, I think it's time to slaughter those chickens."

Chapter 2

Many a noble maid, so blew about

The word, had caught the young knight's fancy, caught,

But failed to hold, save for a week or month,

And he had gone his way and left the maid

To grieve, and all men call'd him "light of love,"

"False Gawain," too, but naught did Gawain care.

Oscar Fay Adams, "Gawain and Marjorie"

As Cador and his riders neared the approaching party on the road to Aquae Sulis, he saw that he had been right: Gawain led the small warband, the crimson banner with a white pentangle whipping in the wind above his head.

Cador hailed his former fighting companion. "Gawain! Welcome to Lindinis."

The two parties halted and Gawain and Cador clasped hands. "Well met, Cador!"

"Is it?"

Gawain grimaced. "The news is not good, no. But I am glad to see you have put off your blacks."

Cador shrugged and turned his mare back in the direction from which they had come. "I still mourn Terrwyn, but wearing dark colors does not help matters." He gestured towards the Pendragon banner. "What news is so important that Arthur sends you to us personally?"

"The northern coast of Dumnonia is under attack. The Mount of Frogs has fallen."

The Mount of Frogs — it was as Cador had suspected, the system of beacons was interrupted. "And who is behind the attacks?"

"The sons of Caw. They have forged an alliance with the Pictish tribes and now claim the area as their patrimony."

Cador shook his head. It was quite a distance to claim territory, all the way from the old Roman wall. The slender claims to patrimony of Caw's sons could only be an excuse. The true reason surely lay in the recent harsh winters, more devastating the farther north one traveled. In the past months, tales of widespread starvation in the far reaches of the north had traveled south to Dumnonia.

And now that spring had finally arrived and the seas were safe to navigate again, it was safe enough to make war.

Kustennin drew up next to them, and Cador could feel his excitement. War, adventure, something boys and young men dreamed of, just as Cador once had. Now all he could think of was trampled fields full of the dead and dying.