Pendragon Saga: Chapter 3
Prince Arthwr III of Deheubarth
House Words: Son of the Dragon
Standard: Crown of Or on an Azure Field
Living Members: 13
June 17, 911
Prince Arthur didn’t recognize the man staring back at him in the mirror.
Of course it was him, the same thin face, his father’s long nose and flaxen hair, his mother’s delicate features he’d been teased about endlessly in the training yard. But the years had changed him. He was gaunt, his eyes were sunken and tired, lips pursed tightly, a nervous habit picked up through years of tragedy, war and difficult decisions.
“Your guests are arriving, m’lord.”
Arthwr turned and nodded at the chamberlain, who hurried in a couple of pages. They helped the Prince of Deheubarth dress, a beautiful golden shirt woven fresh for the occasion, and one brought him the crown of Deheubarth in its ornate case, a dragon rampant carved on the cover. The golden band was heavier than it looked, he’d have a headache from it before the night was out.
Still, this was his first royal feast, and he had reason to appear princely. His offensive started tonight.
As he descended through the keep he could hear the sharp notes of the psaltery cutting through laughter and boisterous greetings. He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the onslaught of greetings and petty chatter. As he stepped around the corner and stood in the entrance to Caerllion’s modest hall, a herald announced his presence:
“His majesty Arthwr of House Pendragon, third of his name, Prince of Deheubarth, lord of Gwent, lord of Morgannwg, lord of Sir Gaerfyrddin, lord of Ferlix, lord of Penllyn, heir to the Kingdom of Wales.”
A hundred feet rose in respect for their prince, and Arthwr waved and gave a small bow of his head to his subjects, smiling–happy to have that mortifying formality out of the way–and the raucous laughter took up again, the music picking up with a popular ballad by Anarawd of Caer Gybi–who’d charmed the courts of Wales with his tales from places as far away as Moray two years prior. As he passed by them through the hall, his closest friends clapped him on the back, his childhood friend and confidant Alberto Azzo, another in Lord Hyfaidd ap Rhodri of Dyfedd, grown into his dark beard and a shrewd, intelligent gaze, chatting with Arthwr’s younger brother, Mordred, and a couple other knights. After greeting them each he continued through the hall to take his place at the high table. Just as he was about to climb the stairs he noticed Lord Hywel the Foolish, a boyish haircut betrayed by the stubble on his face. The Lord of Brycheiniog glowered at the excesses of the celebration from a corner near the kitchen entrance, eyes looking for trouble or debauchery.
Lord Hywel was a more recent companion, there had been seditious grumblings from Brycheiniog of unfair taxation… always taxation… During the war for the principality of Deheubarth in Arthwr’s first year on the throne, the prince had worried himself sick Hywel would declare against Caerllion, taking away precious levies and even more precious silver. Arthwr had appealed to Hywel’s intense faith and honour as a knight and vassal in service of Deheubarth. Now the Lord of Brycheiniog was one of his staunchest allies.
His father had his battlefield, the court was Arthwr’s. However shy and reclusive, he would do anything to keep what his father had built together, however it pained him.
“Tewdwr’s here,” Lord Hywel muttered in disgust as the two glanced over at the Mayor of Machynlleth. Even through his beard, even from the distance between them, they could see the roiling blisters of pox about Mayor Tewdwr’s mouth as he laughed with his coterie of lowborn grunts, grabbing at a serving girl.
“Here to petition for your seat on the council, I believe.”
Hywel grimaced, “He can fight me for it.”
Arthwr laughed and clasped his friend’s hand before continuing to the high table. Plump Princess Mathilde spoke with the wives of his vassals, beautiful Lady Heulwen of Dyfedd and sour-faced Lady Sybil of Brycheiniog. He bowed to his wife, who nodded back respectfully before continuing on their conversation, picking at a plate of smoked ham before her. His son and heir Arthur sat at the table, sullen, eyes scanning the crowd, cool and calculating, beside his younger brother Myrddin, the spitting image of Arthwr’s brother Morgan at that age. Little Cicely, only a year old, would be feasting with her wet nurse that evening, safe from the festivities.
Arthwr sidled in beside his wife, taking the heavy wooden seat at the head of the high table. The chatter became muted as a hundred guests turned to hear the greeting from their liege.
“My friends,” Arthwr called out even, practiced. When he was reading from the script of a ruler he was fine, it was down amongst his subjects he felt most uneasy and vulnerable. “I will delay the festivities no longer. Eat, drink, and be merry!”
There were shouts of celebration, cries of “Long live the Prince!” Arthwr lowered himself into his seat and a servant was at his hand with a chalice of wine, which he accepted happily. His battlefield, the court; his war had begun this evening, the summer solstice, long before a sword would be drawn.
*
As the week of celebrations dragged on Arthwr was more and more exhausted. The endless toasts, the petty petitions, the chatter, constant chatter. He was surprised how keenly his wife attended to him during the week of festivities. They had never been particularly close, theirs had always been a functional marriage, an alliance with a duke of Austria during his father’s reign long since forgotten. She was beautiful but reserved, like him, and terrified of sex, so they rarely shared their marital bed. She sought solace for being far from home in food and drink. Still, she was intelligent, looked after the household, saw to their children’s education. Perhaps seeing him acting the prince at the feast inspired something in her, they’d spoken more in one night than they had the entirety of their marriage, and Arthwr was surprised to learn they had a great deal in common, chiefly a love of poetry.
Caerllion hosted a small tourney on the field down the hill, an unlanded knight named Sir Seisyll taking a small pouch of silver for his victory in a melee, outstripping even the rapacious Sir Dafydd, Arthwr’s most skilled knight, at the blade. The prince wondered if perhaps money could be found to take Seisyll on before he continued his wandering.
At night they feasted, more toasts, more petitions, more chatter, before the households and retainers of the lords and ladies stumbled down to their tents on the tourney field. Lady Mathilde and Arthwr would entertain their vassals and their children. Hywel would bemoan only having daughters, Rhodri would speak of all manner of esoteric knowledge of the human body that perhaps wasn’t appropriate just after dinner, Mordred would drunkenly profess his love for his comrade-in-arms–he’d taken quite enthusiastically to the bottle lately… Alberto watched the proceedings with his usual intensity.
“Fuck, but Owain isn’t looking well.”
Lord Hyfaidd nodded over at the youngest Pendragon brother one night of feasting. Dark-haired Owain spoke to his golden-haired twin from the lower family table. Owain in pale blue finery that hung off him like a pavillon over too little structure. Morgan was garbed in the simple robes of a brother of the cloth. Owain had a heaping plate in front of him that he hadn’t touched.
“He did not take father’s death well,” Arthwr admitted. Not long after they had laid Prince Arthur II in the Pendragon crypt beneath Caerllion’s chapel, they noticed a drastic change in Owain’s weight. The family learned he barely ate, Arthwr had even called for his twin to return from Ceredigion, where he’d been serving with the other brothers of the nearby monastery. Arthwr had set Brother Morgan up as the court physician in hopes that his presence and care would help Morgan, but still his younger brother and chancellor was little more than pallid skin stretched over a skeleton.
Mordred snorted into his ale, “And yet you and I have soldiered on well enough!”
Arthwr smiled, but his gaze fell again on his skeletal brother.
Prince Arthur II’s death had come as a shock, but perhaps not a surprise. He’d been melancholic since the murder of Uther, and when he discovered it was one of his own household knights–Alberto’s father, no less–Arthur had been inconsolable. And then the murder of Hywel, Arthur’s longtime blood brother and confidant, unsolved, pushed him over the edge.
He became careless on the battlefield, and in training. One day, in the Prince’s 45th year, he decided to train with a longsword rather than his usual warhammer. He’d cleaved himself in the face, so the court had scrambled to find a physician since old Menechem had died some years ago. A man and his wife showed up for the position, charlatans, Arthwr guessed, since the treatment was worse than the wound itself. Feverish, failing, Arthwr sat with his father all night, holding his hand when the man was not convulsing in delirious pain. In his more lucid moments the mighty prince, one of the greatest warriors of their time, sobbed out for “Hywel”. Not his former squire Lord Hywel, not his son, Arthwr guessed, but his long-serving steward and friend. Arthwr found that curious, but going through his father’s papers he found no reason he’d ask for a dead man over his wife or family in his final moments. The only mentions of Hywel were in relation to plans for the tradeport.
And then Arthwr had been crowned prince, third of his name.
Soldiered on indeed. The difficulties of succession came from his younger brothers, sword-swinging Mordred and the odd little idiot Hywel. By law, Mordred inherited Morgannwg, Hywel: Gaerfyrddin, which deprived Caerllion of income and levies.
Not even a month in their respective keeps, word came to Arthwr that his brothers schemed against him to put another Pendragon on the throne. The freshly crowned prince assumed it was Mordred, a warrior who squired under Prince Arthur II, an honourable man if a little thick headed… but somehow Hywel had convinced him and Lord Hyfaidd it should be he, not Mordred or Arthwr, to sit on the throne in Caerllion. Creepy little Hywel, who could barely lace his own boots…
Word came of their uprising while the forces of Caerllion were far away, off to fight Mathilde’s brother’s war in East Francia. Arthwr sent frantic messages, but by the time they returned, their feet having barely touched foreign soil, Aberhonddu was already besieged. Why the seat of Lord Hywel and not Caerllion? Arthwr had always wanted to ask Mordred, but didn’t want to open old wounds. It was probably their idiot younger brother’s idea anyways…
Mordred was captured in the early battles, and bowed to Arthwr’s mercy, and eventually, after the deaths of many of his levied peasants Lord Hyfaidd, too, withdrew from the conflict. Hywel kept fighting to the bitter end. Arthwr felt guilt, not pleasure, stripping his two younger brothers of their lands. Hywel ran off to God knows where and Mordred had hated him for a time, but unified Deheubarth had prospered. Under the martial leadership of Lord Hywel the Foolish the forces of Deheubrath had taken Ferlix, then Penllyn. Pendragon, not Aberffraw, now controlled most of Wales.
But not all of it.
On the last night of the festivities, Arthwr gathered his friends in his study to share some wine and ale before they returned home.
People, groups of people, were difficult for Arthwr, but these men were closer to him than his brothers… save Mordred, who was indeed his brother. At a lull in the conversation the prince cleared his throat, and all eyes turned on him.
“Uh oh, is he going to profess his undying, brotherly love to us?” said Hyfaidd.
“Mordred, how is he for a good brotherly fucking?” asked Alberto.
Mordred sniffed, slurring, “We haven’t been intimate in years!”
The drunken men roared with laughter. Even Lord Hywel cracked a smile despite the sodomitical jests.
“My brothers–” Arthwr began.
“There it is,” muttered Hyfaidd, and the others snorted into their cups.
“–I have gathered you here to discuss something of great import.”
Alberto jabbed Mordred in the ribs, “I know a crone with some tea that would get the job done. Nip that bastard right in the bud.”
“Or a good push down some stairs,” Mordred added, “worked on that one laundry wench.”
Lord Hywel sneered in disgust at the mere suggestion.
Arthwr gave them all a withering look, but then smiled, “If you’d like I can have the servants replace our ale with water.”
The men quieted.
“My father, our Prince, taught us as children our people had a destiny,” Arthwr continued. “Not to rule Deheubarth, not to rule Wales, but to rule all of England.”
“Heaping load of Saxon horseshit it is,” Mordred intoned into his cup.
Arthwr let silence hang for a moment, let the anticipation build, before he continued. “We now have an opportunity to begin the conquest of Gwynedd.”
This sobered the men.
“My prince,” his marshal said, keeping his tone even. “We have an alliance with Gwynedd.”
“Yea,” Mordred slurred, furious, “You’re marrying your son off to one of their whores.”
A sore subject between Mordred and Arthwr. His younger brother was brash, impatient. He wouldn’t hear that sometimes a marriage can be a defensive maneuver. His son and heir, Arthur, was betrothed to Heledd ferch Rhodri, the daughter of the Prince of Gwynedd. When Arthwr was taking Ferlix and Penllyn, the last thing Deheubarth needed was an invasion from Gwynedd, whose forces were overwhelming in those days.
“My friends, we will not be taking land from Aberffraw.”
He drew a piece of paper from his desk and handed it to Lord Hywel. His marshal scanned it quickly, before passing it around. Alberto passed it back to Arthwr without looking at it, he knew the contents, he’d brought the information to his prince.
“After the death of Lord Idwal of Eryri, the lordship was passed down to your half-brother, Hyfaidd.”
“Cadell…” Hyfaidd nodded, the matter coming together in his mind. Another child through his mother after she remarried, Cadell was the son of the former lord of Eryri, who also ruled over the Island of Mann.
“Sanctimonious little shit,” Mordred growled. “Principality of Mann, my arsehole! Principality of gull shit and northmen bastards, more like.”
Alberto stated the fact: “Eryri belongs to Mann, not Gwynedd.”
Arthwr nodded. “Gwynedd will have a claim, but will also have an alliance. We all know alliances end, through death of a ruler or death of their child.”
Alberto grinned at the idea, but Arthwr shook his head. “We will not be murdering my son’s betrothed. The men of Deheubarth are men of honour. We will honour the marriage, as we will honour the alliance, as we honour the ownership of Eryri.”
The gathered men liked this, and nodded to each other, grumbling about taking Wales back from Cadell.
“But,” he continued raising his cup, “when the alliance ends we will already have this land, and we will continue to claim ever inch of our birthright. Pendragon will rule all of Wales.”
“And then all of fucking England!” Mordred cried, and the others cheered.
This was Arthwr’s battlefield, and this battle had been won without spilling a drop of blood.
That would come in time.
