“Better that Dumnonia fall than Benoic,” Bleiddig said, and ignored the angry murmur that followed his words.
“I took an oath to defend Mordred,” Arthur pointed out.
“You took an oath to defend Benoic,” Bleiddig answered, shrugging away Arthur’s objection. “Bring the child with you.”
“I must give Mordred his kingdom,” Arthur insisted. “If he leaves the kingdom loses its king and its heart. Mordred stays here.”
“And who threatens to take the kingdom from him?” Bleiddig demanded angrily. The Benoic chieftain was a big man, not unlike Owain and with much of Owain’s brute force. “You!” He pointed scornfully at Arthur. “If you had married Ceinwyn there would be no war! If you had married Ceinwyn then not only Dumnonia, but Gwent and Powys would be sending troops to aid my King!”
Men were shouting and swords were drawn, but Arthur bellowed for silence. A trickle of blood escaped from beneath his wound’s scab and ran down his long, hollow cheek. “How long,” he asked Bleiddig, ‘before Benoic falls?”
Bleiddig frowned. It was clear he could not guess the answer, but he suggested six months or maybe a year. The Franks, he said, had brought new armies into the east of his country and Ban could not fight them all. Ban’s own army, led by his champion, Bors, was holding the northern border while the men Arthur had left behind, led by his cousin Culhwch, held the southern frontier.
Arthur was staring at his map of red and white tiles. “Three months,” he said, ‘and I will come. If I can! Three months. But in the meanwhile, Bleiddig, I shall send you a war-band of good men.”
Bleiddig argued, protesting that Arthur’s oath demanded Arthur’s immediate presence in Armorica, but Arthur would not be budged. Three months, he said, or not at all, and Bleiddig had to accept the compromise.
Arthur gestured for me to walk with him in the colonnaded courtyard that lay next to the hall. There were vats in the small courtyard that stank like a latrine, but he appeared not to notice the stench. “God knows, Derfel,” he said, and I knew he was under strain for using the word “God’, just as I noticed he used the singular Christian word though he immediately balanced the score, ‘the Gods know I don’t want to lose you, but I need to send someone who isn’t afraid to break a shield-wall. I need to send you.”
“Lord Prince’ I began.
“Don’t call me prince,” he interrupted angrily. “I’m not a prince. And don’t argue with me. I have everyone arguing with me. Everyone knows how to win this war except me. Melwas is screaming for men, Tewdric wants me in the north, Cei says he needs another hundred spears, and now Ban wants me! If he spent more money on his army and less on his poets he wouldn’t be in trouble!”
“Poets?”
“Ynys Trebes is a haven of poets,” he said bitterly, referring to King Ban’s island capital. “Poets! We need spearmen, not poets.” He stopped and leaned against a pillar. He looked more tired than I had ever seen him. “I can’t achieve anything,” he said, ‘until we stop fighting. If I could just talk to Cuneglas, face to face, there might be hope.”
“Not while Gorfyddyd lives,” I said.
“Not while Gorfyddyd lives,” he agreed, then went silent and I knew he was thinking of Ceinwyn and Guinevere. Moonlight came through a gap in the colonnade’s roof to touch his bony face with silver. He closed his eyes and I knew he was blaming himself for the war, but what was done could not be undone. A new peace would have to be made and there was only one man who could force that peace on Britain, and that was Arthur himself. He opened his eyes and grimaced. “What’s the smell?” he asked, noticing it at last.
“They bleach cloth here, Lord,” I explained, and gestured toward the wooden vats that were filled with urine and washed chicken dung to produce the valuable white fabric like the cloaks Arthur himself favoured.
Arthur would usually have been encouraged at such evidence of industry in a decayed town like Durocobrivis, but that night he just shrugged away the smell and touched the trickle of fresh blood on his cheek. “One more scar,” he said ruefully. “I’ll soon have as many as you, Derfel.”