The Winter King (The Warlord Chronicles, #1)

by Bernard Cornwell

‘Kings don’t run, Morgan,’ he said, ‘they walk, they rule, they ride and they reward their good, honest servants. Take the gold.’

Magic, she said, happened at the moments when the lives of the Gods and men touched, but such moments were not commanded by men.

‘Every minute of every day and every moment of every night you must be open to the Gods, and if you are, then they will come. Not always when you want them, of course, but if you never ask, they’ll never answer; but when they do answer, Derfel, oh, when they do, it is so wonderful and so terrifying, like having wings that lift you high into glory.’

‘You trust me,’ I said bitterly, and thrust the spear into the muddy lake bottom to push the boat forward, ‘because I’m in love with you, and that gives you power over me.’

It was all so quick, so very quick. The wrist manoeuvres the sword, but the arm gives it force, and my arm held Hywel’s great strength that afternoon. My steel buried itself in the Silurian’s neck like an axe biting into rotten wood.

‘Yield me the child.’ Gundleus ignored the insults, knowing they were merely the defiance expected of a man facing battle. ‘Give me the crippled King!’ ‘Give me your whore, Gundleus,’ Owain retorted. ‘You’re not man enough for her. Give her to me and you can go in peace.’

Arthur stood and sheathed the sword. ‘I took an oath to protect my King,’ he said, ‘not to kill kings. What happens to you, Gundleus ap Meilyr, is not mine to decide, but you will be held captive till the decision is made.’

Taxes, as I was to learn, were the best source of wealth for men who did not want to work,

You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you’ll just weep yourself to death.

AUTUMN BRINGS BATTLE, for all through spring and summer the boats ferry new Saxons to our eastern shore, and the autumn is when those newcomers try to find their own land. It is war’s last fling before winter locks the land.

‘Not that it matters what God a king believes in,’ he told us before we marched, ‘because a king should be taught how to fight, not how to pray.’

‘Arthur is to Merlin what you are to me. Arthur is Merlin’s sword, but neither of us can control you. We give you power’ – she reached out her scarred left hand and touched the bare pommel of my sword – ‘and then we let you go. We have to trust that you will do the right thing.’

‘A child’s word carries no weight in law,’ he said plaintively. ‘A child is not among the Tongued-ones.’ The Tongued-ones were the nine witnesses whose word carried the weight of truth in law: a Lord, a Druid, a priest, a father speaking of his children, a magistrate, a gift-giver speaking of his gift, a maiden speaking of her virginity, a herdsman speaking of his animals and a condemned man speaking his final words. Nowhere in the list was there any mention of a child speaking of her family’s massacre.

‘We cannot have peace if we break our treaties, and the treaty that let the men of Kernow mine our tin was a good one. I’ve no doubt they were cheating us, all men cheat when it comes to giving their money to kings, but was that reason to kill them and their children and their children’s kittens?

‘Oaths are sacred, even to those of us who wonder if any God cares enough to enforce them.

‘Your deaths are in my hand,’ she told them, ‘your lives are all mine. I will use your souls as gaming-pieces. Each dawn that you wake alive you will thank me for my mercy, and each dusk you will pray that I do not see your filthy faces in my dreams.

It was a madness that love. Mad as Pellinore. Mad enough to doom Arthur to the Isle of the Dead. Everything vanished for Arthur: Britain; the Saxons; the new alliance; all the great, careful, balanced structure of peace for which he had worked ever since he had sailed from Armorica, was set whirling into destruction for the possession of that penniless, landless, red-haired Princess.

He knew what he was doing, but he could no more stop himself than he could stop the sun from rising. He was possessed, he thought about her, talked about her, dreamed of her, could not live without her, yet somehow, agonizingly, he kept up the pretence of his betrothal to Ceinwyn.

‘Peace is more than a marriage, Derfel. It has to be! You don’t make war over a bride. If peace is so desirable, and it is, then you don’t abandon it because a marriage doesn’t happen, do you?’ ‘I don’t know, Lord,’ I said. I only knew that my Lord was rehearsing arguments in his head, repeating them over and over until he believed them. He was mad with love, so mad that north was south and heat was cold. This, to me, was an Arthur I had not seen before; a man of passion and, dare I say it, selfishness.

Gorfyddyd of Powys. He had no manners himself and knew, as all kings know, that wives are for making dynasties and lovers for making pleasure.

Guinevere kept the twins company for one day, then said their presence upset her. They were not amusing. They were not pretty, she said, just as her sister Gwenhwyvach was not pretty, and if they were not pretty, nor amusing, they had no place in Guinevere’s life. Besides, she said, the twins belonged to Arthur’s old life, and that was dead. She did not want them, nor did she care that she made that announcement publicly. She touched Arthur’s cheek. ‘If we want children, my Prince, we shall make our own.’

Battle assaults the senses, and that assault ferments fear, and obedience is the narrow thread that leads out of fear’s chaos into survival.

One of the things I can’t stand about Christians is their admiration of meekness. Imagine elevating meekness into a virtue! Meekness! Can you imagine a heaven filled only with the meek? What a dreadful idea. The food would get cold while everyone passed the dishes to everyone else. Meekness is no good, Derfel. Anger and selfishness, those are the qualities that make the world march.’

Once you write something down it becomes fixed. It becomes dogma. People can argue about it, they become authoritative, they refer to the texts, they produce new manuscripts, they argue more and soon they’re putting each other to death. If you never write anything down then no one knows exactly what you said so you can always change it. Do I have to explain everything to you?’

I’d strike all their heads off, but traitors don’t reveal themselves, Lord Derfel. They wait in the dark and strike when you’re not looking.

‘I take no pleasure in this, Derfel,’ he said. ‘Why should you, Lord?’ ‘It does not do to offend Gods,’ Arthur said gloomily. ‘This God,’ Nimue said contemptuously, ‘is said to be a forgiving one. Better offend that kind than any other.’

‘My oath is this,’ he said, ‘that if I survive this battle with Gorfyddyd then I shall avenge the innocent souls I have condemned at Ratae. I will kill Aelle. I shall destroy him and his men. I shall feed them to the ravens and give their wealth to the children of Ratae. You two are my witnesses, and if I fail in this oath you are both released from all the bonds you owe me.’ He dropped the stone into the hole and the three of us kicked earth over it. ‘May the Gods forgive me,’ Arthur said, ‘for the deaths I have just caused.’ Then we went to cause some more.

We Irish know one thing above all others: an enemy forgiven is an enemy who will have to be fought over and over again.

‘You should know, Derfel, that some women always want their men to pay an exorbitant price. The more the man pays, the greater the woman’s worth, and I suspect Guinevere is a lady who values herself very highly. And so she should. So should we all.’

‘Touch him, Gorfyddyd,’ said a new voice in the hall, ‘and your life is mine. I shall bury it in the dungheap 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 envy your Christian God. He is three and He is one, He is dead and He is alive, He is everywhere and He is nowhere, and He demands that you worship Him, but claims nothing else is worthy of worship. There’s room in those contradictions for a man to believe in anything or nothing, but not with our Gods. They are like kings, fickle and powerful, and if they want to forget us, they do. It doesn’t matter what we believe, only what they want. Our spells only work when the Gods permit.

‘I do understand that you can look into someone’s eyes,’ I heard myself saying, ‘and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. Know that their voice can make your heart miss a beat and that their company is all your happiness can ever desire and that their absence will leave your soul alone, bereft and lost.’

‘I swore you no oath,’ he said to Arthur, ‘but I do now. Where you fight, Lord, I fight, and he who is your enemy is mine, and he who is your friend is my friend also. I swear that on the precious blood of the living Christ.’ He leaned forward, took Arthur’s hand and kissed it. ‘May my life be forfeit if I break my word.’

She touched the leather eyepatch and went silent as she summoned her energy for the revenge she craved. Her face was still bone pale and her black hair hung lank against her cheeks. The softness she had revealed at Lughnasa had been replaced by a chill bleakness that made me think I would never understand her. I loved her, not as I believed I loved Ceinwyn, but as a man can love a fine wild creature, an eagle or a wildcat, for I knew I would never comprehend her life or dreams.

‘I shall make Gundleus’s soul scream through the rest of time,’ she said softly, ‘I shall send it through the abyss into nothingness, but he will never reach nothingness, Derfel, he will always suffer on its edge, screaming.’ I shuddered for Gundleus.