“But he hasn’t,” I said bleakly.
“The High King won’t have him back. The High King blames him.” Ligessac paused and looked around again in case he was being overheard. “The High King reckons Arthur wanted Mordred dead so he could be king himself, but that’s not true. Arthur’s not like that.”
“What is he like?” I asked.
Ligessac shrugged as if to suggest the answer was difficult, but then, before he could answer anything, he saw Menw returning. “Not a word, boy,” he warned me, ‘not a word.”
We had all heard similar tales, though Ligessac was the first man I met who claimed to be at the Battle of the White Horse. Later I decided he had not been there at all, but was merely spinning a tale to earn a credulous boy’s admiration, yet his account was accurate enough. Mordred had been a drunken fool, Arthur had been the victor, but Uther had still sent him back across the sea. Both men were Uther’s sons, but Mordred was the beloved heir and Arthur the upstart bastard. Yet Arthur’s banishment could not stop every Dumnonian believing that the bastard was their country’s brightest hope; the young warrior from across the seas who would save us from the Saxons and take back the Lost Lands of Lloegyr.
The second half of the winter was mild. Wolves were seen beyond the earth wall that guarded Ynys Wydryn’s land bridge, but none came close to the Tor, though some of the younger children made wolf charms that they hid beneath Druidan’s hut in hope that a slavering great beast would leap the stockade and carry the dwarf off for supper. The charms did not work and as the winter receded we all began to prepare for the great spring festival of Beltain with its massive fires and midnight feasting, but then a greater excitement struck the Tor.
Gundleus of Siluria came.
Bishop Bed win arrived first. He was Uther’s most trusted counsellor and his arrival promised excitement. Norwenna’s attendants were moved out of the hall and woven carpets were laid over the rushes, a sure sign that a great person was coming to visit. We all thought it must be Uther himself, but the banner which appeared on the land bridge a week before Beltain showed Gundleus’s fox, not Uther’s dragon. It was bright morning when I watched the horsemen dismount at the Tor’s foot. The wind snatched at their cloaks and snapped their frayed banner on which I saw the hated fox-mask that made me cry out in protest and make the sign against evil.
“What is it?” Nimue asked. She was standing beside me on the eastern guard platform.
“That’s Gundleus’s banner,” I said. I saw the surprise in Nimue’s eyes for Gundleus was King of Siluria and allied with King Gorfyddyd of Powys, Dumnonia’s sworn enemy.
“You’re sure?” Nimue asked me.
“He took my mother,” I said, ‘and his Druid threw me into the death-pit.” I spat over the stockade towards the dozen men who had begun to walk up the Tor that was too steep for horses. And there, among them, was Tanaburs, Gundleus’s Druid and my evil spirit. He was a tall old man with a plaited beard and long white hair that was shaved off the front half of his skull in the tonsure adopted by Druids and Christian priests. He cast his cloak aside halfway up the hill and began a protective dance in case Merlin had left spirits to guard the gate. Nimue, seeing the old man caper unsteadily on one leg on the steep slope, spat into the wind and then ran towards Merlin’s chambers. I ran after her, but she thrust me aside saying that I would not understand the danger.
“Danger?” I asked, but she had gone. There seemed to be no danger for Bedwin had ordered the land gate thrown wide open and was now trying to organize a welcome out of the excited chaos on the Tor’s summit. Morgan was away that day, interpreting in the dream temple in the eastern hills, but everyone else on the Tor was hurrying to see the visitors. Druidan and Ligessac were arraying their guards, naked Pellinore was baying at the clouds, Guendoloen was spitting toothless curses at Bishop Bedwin while a dozen children scrambled to get the best view of the visitors. The reception was supposed to be dignified, but Lunete, an Irish foundling a year younger than Nimue, released a pen of Druidan’s pigs so that Tanaburs, who was first through the stockade gate, was greeted by a squealing frenzy.