“I’m a warrior.”
“Not those sort of risks. I mean making up stories about Merlin. You embarrassed me! And announcing yourself as the son of a slave! Didn’t you ever think how that might make me feel? I know we aren’t together any more, but people know we were once, and how do you think it makes me feel when you say you’re slave-born? You should think of others, Derfel, you really should.” I noted she no longer wore our lovers’ ring, but I would hardly have expected to see it for she had long found other men who could afford to be more generous than I ever could. “I suppose Ynys Trebes made you a little mad,” she went on. “Why else would you challenge Lancelot to a fight? I know you’re good with a sword, Derfel, but he’s Lancelot, not just any warrior.” She turned to look at where the King sat beside Guinevere. “Isn’t he wonderful?” she asked me.
“Incomparably,” I said sourly.
“And unmarried, I hear?” Lunete said coquettishly.
I leaned close to her ear. “He prefers boys,” I whispered.
She hit my arm. “Fool. Anyone can see he doesn’t. See how he looks at Guinevere?” It was Lunete’s turn to put her mouth close to my ear. “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered hoarsely, ‘but she’s pregnant.”
“Good,” I said.
“It isn’t good at all. She’s not happy. She doesn’t want to be lumpy, you see. And I don’t blame her. I hated being pregnant. Ah, there’s someone I want to see. I do like new faces at court. Oh, and one other thing, Derfel?” She smiled sweetly. “Take a bath, dear.” She crossed the room to accost one of Queen Elaine’s poets.
“Off with the old, on with the new?” Bishop Bedwin appeared beside me.
“I’m so old I’m surprised Lunete even remembers me,” I answered dourly.
Bedwin smiled then took me into the courtyard that was now empty. “Merlin was with you,” he said, not as a question, but as a statement.
“Yes, Lord.” And I told him how Merlin had claimed to be leaving the palace for just a few moments.
Bedwin shook his head. “He likes these games,” he said despairingly. “Tell me more.”
I told him all I could. We walked up and down the upper terrace through the smoke of the guttering torches and I spoke of Father Celwin and of Ban’s library, and gave him the real story of the siege and the truth about Lancelot, and I ended by describing Caleddin’s scroll that Merlin had snatched from the fall of the city. “He says,” I told Bedwin, ‘that it contains the Knowledge of Britain.”
“I pray God it does, may God forgive me,” Bedwin said. “Someone has to help us.”
“Are things bad?”
Bedwin shrugged. He looked old and tired. His hair was wispy now, his beard thin and his face more haggard than I remembered. “I suppose they could be worse,” he admitted, ‘but sadly they never get better. Things are really not much different from when you left, except that Aelle grows stronger, so strong that he even dares call himself the Bretwalda now.” Bedwin shuddered at the barbarous pretension. Bretwalda was a Saxon title and meant Ruler of Britain. “He captured all the land between Durocobrivis and Corinium,” Bedwin told me, ‘and he probably would have captured both those fortresses if we hadn’t purchased peace with the last of our gold. Then there’s Cerdic in the south and he’s proving even more vicious than Aelle.”
“Doesn’t Aelle attack Powys?” I asked.
“Gorfyddyd paid him gold just like we did.”
“I thought Gorfyddyd was sick?”
“The plague passed as plagues do. He recovered, and now he leads the men of Elmet along with the forces of Powys. He’s doing better than we feared,” Bedwin said bleakly, ‘perhaps because he’s driven by hate. He doesn’t drink like he used to and he’s sworn to avenge that lost arm on Arthur’s head. Worse than that, Derfel,
Gorfyddyd is doing what Arthur hoped to do; uniting the tribes, but sadly he’s uniting them against us and not against the Saxons. He pays Gundleus’s Silurians and the Blackshield Irish to raid our coasts and he bribes King Mark to help Cadwy, and I daresay he’s raising the money now to pay Aelle to break our truce. Gorfyddyd rises and we fall. In Powys they call Gorfyddyd the High King now. And he has Cuneglas as an heir while we have poor little lame Mordred. Gorfyddyd collects an army and we have war-bands. And once this year’s harvest is collected, Derfel, then Gorfyddyd will come south with the men of Elmet and Powys. Men say it will be the greatest army ever seen in Britain and it’s hardly a wonder that there are those’ he lowered his voice ‘who say we should make peace on his terms.”