We paused at the back of the hall and I saw Galahad mouth a silent prayer to his God. A wolfhound with a chewed ear and scarred haunches sniffed our boots, then loped back to its master who stood with the other warriors on the rush-covered earth floor. In a far corner of the hall a hard softly chanted a war song, though his staccato recitation was ignored by the men who were listening to Gundleus describing the forces he expected to come from Demetia. One chief, evidently a man who had suffered from the Irish in the past, protested that Powys had no need of the Black-shields' help to defeat Arthur and Tewdric, but his protest was stilled by an abrupt gesture from Gorfyddyd. I half expected that we would be forced to linger while the council finished its other business, but we did not have to wait more than a minute before we were conducted down the hall's centre to the open space in front of Gorfyddyd. I looked at both Gundleus and Tanaburs but neither recognized me.
We fell to our knees and waited.
"Rise," Gorfyddyd said. We obeyed and once again I looked into his bitter face. He had not changed much in the years since I had seen him last. His face was as pouchy and suspicious as when Arthur had come to claim Ceinwyn's hand, though his sickness in the last few years had turned his hair and beard white. The beard was skimpy and could not hide a goitre that now disfigured his throat. He looked at us warily. "Galahad," he said in a hoarse voice, "Prince of Benoic. We have heard of your brother, Lancelot, but not of you. Are you, like your brother, one of Arthur's whelps?"
"I am oath-bound to no man, Lord King," Galahad said, 'except to my father whose bones were trampled by his enemies. I am landless."
Gorfyddyd shifted in his throne. His empty left sleeve hung beside the armrest, an ever-present reminder of his hated foe, Arthur. "So you come to me for land, Galahad of Benoic?" he asked. "Many others have come for the same purpose," he warned, gesturing about the crowded hall. "Though I daresay there is land enough for all in Dumnonia."
"I come to you, Lord King, with greetings, freely carried, from King Tewdric of Gwent."
That caused a stir in the hall. Men at the back who had not heard Galahad's announcement asked for it to be repeated and the murmur of conversation went on for several seconds. Cuneglas, Gorfyddyd's son, looked up sharply. His round face with its long dark moustaches looked worried, and no wonder, I thought, for Cuneglas was like Arthur, a man who craved peace, but when Arthur spurned Ceinwyn he had also destroyed Cuneglas's hopes and now the Edling of Powys could only follow his father into a war that threatened to lay waste the southern kingdoms.
"Our enemies, it seems, are losing their hunger for battle," Gorfyddyd said. "Why else does Tewdric send greetings?"
"King Tewdric, High King, fears no man, but loves peace more," Galahad said, carefully using the title Gorfyddyd had bestowed on himself in anticipation of his victory.
Gorfyddyd's body heaved and for a second I thought he was about to vomit, then I realized he was laughing. "We Kings only love peace," Gorfyddyd said at last, 'when war becomes inconvenient to us. This gathering, Galahad of Benoic' he gestured at the throng of chiefs and princes 'will explain Tewdric's new love of peace."
He paused, gathering breath. "Till now, Galahad of Benoic, I have refused to receive Tewdric's messages. Why should I receive them? Does an eagle listen to a lamb bleating for mercy? In a few days I intend to listen to all Gwent's men bleating to me for peace, but for now, since you have come this far, you may amuse me. What does Tewdric offer?"
"Peace, Lord King, just peace."
Gorfyddyd spat. "You are landless, Galahad, and empty-handed. Does Tewdric think peace is for the asking? Does Tewdric think I have expended my kingdom's gold on an army for no cause? Does he think I am a fool?"
"He thinks, Lord King, that blood shed between Britons is wasted blood."
"You talk like a woman, Galahad of Benoic." Gorfyddyd spoke the insult in a deliberately loud voice so that the raftered hall echoed with jeers and laughter. "Still," he went on when the laughter had subsided, 'you must take some answer to Gwent's King, so let it be this." He paused to compose his thoughts. "Tell Tewdric that he is a lamb sucking at Dumnonia's dry teat. Tell him my quarrel is not with him, but with Arthur, so tell Tewdric that he may have his peace on these two conditions. First, that he lets my army pass through his land without hindrance and second that he gives me enough grain to feed a thousand men for ten days." The warriors in the hall gasped, for they were generous terms, but also clever. If Tewdric accepted then he would avoid the sack of his country and make Gorfyddyd's invasion of Dumnonia easier. "Are you empowered, Galahad of Benoic," Gorfyddyd asked, 'to accept these terms?"
"No, Lord King, only to enquire what terms you would offer and to ask what you intend to do with Mordred, King of Dumnonia, whom Tewdric is sworn to protect."
Gorfyddyd adopted a hurt look. "Do I look like a man who makes war on children?" he asked, then stood and advanced to the edge of the throne dais. "My quarrel is with Arthur," he said, not just to us, but to the whole hall, 'who preferred to marry a whore out of Henis Wyren rather than wed my daughter. Would any man leave such an insult unavenged?" The hall roared its answer. "Arthur is an upstart," Gorfyddyd shouted, 'whelped on a whore mother, and to a whore he has returned! So long as Gwent protects the whore-lover, so long is Gwent our enemy. So long as Dumnonia fights for the whore-lover, so long is Dumnonia our enemy. And pur enemy will be the generous provider of our gold, our slaves, our food, our land, our women and our glory! Arthur we will kill, and his whore we shall put to work in our barracks." He waited until the cheers had died away, then stared imperiously down on Galahad. "Tell that to Tewdric, Galahad of Benoic, and after that tell it to Arthur."
"Derfel can tell it to Arthur." A voice spoke from the hall and I turned to see Ligessac, sly Ligessac, once commander of Nor-wenna's guard and now a traitor in Gundleus's service. He pointed to me. "That man is Arthur's sworn man, High King. I swear it on my life."
The hall seethed with noise. I could hear men shouting that I was a spy and others demanding my death. Tanaburs was staring at me intently, trying to see past my long, fair beard and thick moustaches, then suddenly he recognized me and screamed, "Kill him! Kill him!"
Gorfyddyd's guards, the only armed men in the hall, ran towards me. Gorfyddyd checked his spearmen with his raised hand that slowly silenced the noisy crowd. "Are you oath-bound to the whore-lover?" the King asked me in a dangerous voice.
"Derfel is in my service, High King," Galahad insisted.
Gorfyddyd pointed at me. "He will answer," he said. "Are you oath-bound to Arthur?"
I could not lie about an oath. "Yes, Lord King," I admitted.
Gorfyddyd stepped heavily off the platform and stretched his one arm towards a guard, though he still stared at me. "Do you know, you dog, what we did to Arthur's last messenger?"
"You killed him, Lord King," I said.
"I sent his maggot-ridden head to your whore-lover, that is what I did. Come on, hurry!" he snapped at the nearest guard who had not known what to put in his King's outstretched hand. "Your sword, fool!" Gorfyddyd said, and the guard hastily drew his sword and gave it hilt first to the King.
"Lord King." Galahad stepped forward, but Gorfyddyd whirled the blade so that it quivered just inches from Galahad's eyes.
"Be careful what you say in my hall, Galahad of Benoic," Gorfyddyd growled.
"I plead for Derfel's life," Galahad said. "He is not here as a spy, but as an emissary of peace."
"I don't want peace!" Gorfyddyd shouted at Galahad. "Peace is not my pleasure! I want to see Arthur weeping as my daughter once wept. Do you understand that? I want to see his tears! I want to see him pleading as she pleaded with me. I want to see him grovel, I want to see him dead and his whore pleasuring my men. No emissary from Arthur is welcome here and Arthur knows that! And you knew that!" He shouted the last four words at me as he turned the sword towards my face.
"Kill him! Kill him!" Tanaburs, in his raggedly embroidered robe, leaped up and down so that the bones in his hair rattled like dried beans in a pot.
"Touch him, Gorfyddyd," said a new voice in the hall, 'and your life is mine. I shall bury it in the dung heap of Caer Idion and call the dogs to piss on it. I shall give your soul to the spirit children who lack playthings. I shall keep you in darkness till the last day is done and then I shall spit on you till the next era begins, and even then, Lord King, your torments will hardly have begun."
I felt the tension sweep out of me like a rush of water. Only one man would dare speak to a High King thus. It was Merlin. Merlin! Merlin who now walked slow and tall up the hall's central aisle, Merlin who walked past me and with a gesture more royal than anything Gorfyddyd could manage, used his black staff to thrust the King's sword aside. Merlin, who now walked to Tanaburs and whispered in his ear so that the lesser Druid screamed and fled from the hall.
It was Merlin, who could change like no other man. He loved to pretend, to confuse and to deceive. He could be abrupt, mischievous, patient or lordly, but this day he had chosen to appear in stark, cold majesty. There was no smile on his dark face, no hint of joy in his deep eyes, just a look of such arrogant authority that the men closest to him instinctively sank to their knees and even King Gorfyddyd, who a moment before had been ready to thrust the sword into my neck, lowered the blade. "You speak for this man, Lord Merlin?" Gorfyddyd asked.
"Are you deaf, Gorfyddyd?" Merlin snapped. "Derfel Cadarn shall live. He shall be your honoured guest. He shall eat of your food and drink of your wine. He shall sleep in your beds and take your slave women if he desires. Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of Benoic are under my protection." He turned to stare at the whole hall, daring any man to oppose him. "Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of
Benoic are under my protection!" he repeated, and this time he raised his black staff and you could feel the warriors quake beneath its threat. "Without Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of Benoic," Merlin said, 'there would be no Knowledge of Britain. I would be dead in Benoic and you would all be doomed to slavery under Saxon rule." He turned back to Gorfyddyd. "They need food. And stop staring at me, Derfel," he added without even looking at me.
I had been staring at him, as much with astonishment as with relief, but I was also wondering just what Merlin was doing in this citadel of the enemy. Druids, of course, were free to travel where they liked, even in enemy territory, but his presence at Caer Sws at such a time seemed strange and even dangerous, for though Gorfyd-dyd's men were cowed by the Druid's presence they were also resentful of his interference and some, safe at the hall's rear, growled that he should mind his own business.
Merlin turned on them. "My business," he said in a low voice that nevertheless stopped the small protest dead, 'is the care of your souls and if I care to drown those souls in misery then you will wish your mothers had never given birth. Fools!" This last word was snapped loudly and accompanied by a gesture from the staff that made the armoured men struggle down to their knees. None of the kings dared to intervene as Merlin swept the staff to give one of the skulls hanging from a pillar a sharp crack. "You pray for victory!" Merlin said. "But over what? Over your kin and not your enemies! Your enemies are Saxons. For years we suffered under Roman rule, but at last the Gods saw fit to take the Roman vermin away and what do we do? We fight among ourselves and let a new enemy take our land, rape our women and harvest our corn. So fight your war, fools, fight it and win, and still you shall not have victory."
"But my daughter will be avenged," Gorfyddyd said behind Merlin.
"Your daughter, Gorfyddyd," Merlin said, turning, 'will avenge her own hurt. You want to know her fate?" He asked the question mockingly, but answered it soberly and in a voice that had the lilt of a prophetic utterance. "She will never be high and she will never be low, but she will be happy. Her soul, Gorfyddyd, is blessed, and if you had the sense of a flea you would be content with that."
"I shall be content with Arthur's skull," Gorfyddyd said defiantly.
"Then go and fetch it," Merlin said scornfully, then plucked me by the elbow. "Come, Derfel, and enjoy your enemy's hospitality."
He led us out of the hall, walking unconcernedly through the iron and leather ranks of the enemy. The warriors watched us resentfully, but there was nothing they could do to stop us leaving nor to prevent us taking one of Gorfyddyd's guest chambers that Merlin had evidently been using himself. "So Tewdric wants peace, does he?" he asked us.
"Yes, Lord," I answered.
"Tewdric would. He's a Christian so he thinks he knows better than the Gods."
"And you know the minds of the Gods, Lord?" Galahad asked.
"I believe the Gods hate to be bored, so I do my best to amuse them. That way they smile on me. Your God," Merlin said sourly, 'despises amusement, demanding grovelling worship instead. He must be a very sorry creature. He's probably rather like Gorfyddyd, endlessly suspicious and foully jealous of his reputation. Aren't you both lucky that I was here?" He grinned at us, suddenly and mischievously, and I saw how much he had enjoyed his public humiliation of Gorfyddyd. Part of Merlin's reputation was made by his performances; some Druids, like lorweth, worked quietly, others, like Tanaburs, relied on a sinister wiliness, but Merlin liked to dominate and dazzle, and humbling an ambitious king was as pleasurable to him as it was instinctive.
