“You should wear your helmet, Lord,” I said.
“I can’t see right and left when I do,” he said dismissively. He pushed away from the pillar and gestured for me to walk with him round the arcade. “Now listen, Derfel. Fighting Franks is just like fighting Saxons. They’re all German.;, and there’s nothing special about the Franks except that they like to carry throwing spears as well as the usual weapons. So keep your head down when they first attack, but after that it’s just shield-wall against shield-wall. They’re hard fighters, but they drink too much so you can usually out-think them. That’s why I’m sending you. You’re young, but you can think which is more than most of our soldiers do. They just believe it’s enough to get drunk and hack away, but no one will win wars that way.” He paused and tried to hide a yawn. “Forgive me. And for all I know, Derfel, Benoic isn’t in danger at all. Ban is an emotional man’ he used the description sourly ‘and he panics easily, but if he loses Ynys Trebes then he’ll break his heart and I’ll have to live with that guilt too. You can trust Culhwch, he’s good. Bors is capable.”
“But treacherous.” Sagramor spoke from the shadows beside the bleaching vats. He had come from the hall to watch over Arthur.
“Unfair,” said Arthur.
“He’s treacherous,” Sagramor insisted in his harsh accent, ‘because he’s Lancelot’s man.”
Arthur shrugged. “Lancelot can be difficult,” he admitted. “He’s Ban’s heir and he likes to have things his own way, but then, so do I.” He smiled and glanced at me. “You can write, can’t you?”
“Yes, Lord,” I said. We had walked on past Sagramor who stayed in the shadows, his eyes never leaving Arthur. Cats slunk past us, and bats wheeled next to the smoking gable of the big hall. I tried to imagine this stinking place filled with robed Romans and lit by oil-lamps, but it seemed an impossible idea.
“You must write and tell me what’s happening,” Arthur said, ‘so I don’t have to rely on Ban’s imagination. How’s your woman?”
“My woman?” I was startled by the question and for a second I thought Arthur was referring to Canna, a Saxon slave girl who kept me company and who was teaching me her dialect that differed slightly from my mother’s native Saxon, but then I realized Arthur had to mean Lunete. “I don’t hear from her, Lord.”
“And you don’t ask, eh?” He shot me an amused grin, then sighed. Lunete was with Guinevere who, in turn, had gone to distant Durnovaria to occupy Uther’s old winter palace. Guinevere had not wanted to leave her pretty new palace near Caer Cadarn, but Arthur had insisted she go deeper into the country to be safer from enemy raiding parties. “Sansum tells me Guinevere and her ladies all worship Isis,” Arthur said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Exactly.” He smiled. “Isis is a foreign Goddess, Derfel, with her own mysteries; something to do with the moon, I think. At least that’s what Sansum tells me. I don’t think he knows either, but he still says I must stop the cult. He says the mysteries of Isis are unspeakable, but when I ask him what they are, he doesn’t know. Or he won’t say. You’ve heard nothing?”
“Nothing, Lord.”
“Of course,” Arthur said rather too forcefully, ‘if Guinevere finds solace in Isis then it cannot be bad. I worry about her. I promised her so much, you see, and am giving her nothing. I want to put her father back on his throne, and we will, we will, but it will all take longer than we think.”
“You want to fight Diwrnach?” I asked, appalled at the idea.
“He’s just a man, Derfel, and can be killed. One day we’ll do it.” He turned back towards the hall. “You’re going south. I can’t spare you more than sixty men God knows it isn’t enough if Ban really is in trouble but take them over the sea, Derfel, and put yourself under Culhwch’s command. Maybe you can travel through Durnovaria? Send me news of my dear Guinevere?”
“Yes, Lord,” I said.