“And yield Dumnonia to Gorfyddyd?”
“Gorfyddyd will enthrone Mordred in time,” Arthur said, ‘and that is all that matters.”
“He says as much?” I asked.
“He does.”
“And what else would he say?” I argued, appalled that my Lord should even contemplate exile. “But the truth,” I added forcefully, ‘is that Mordred will be Gorfyddyd’s client and why should Gorfyddyd enthrone a client? Why not put one of his own relatives on the throne? Why not put his son Cuneglas on our throne?”
“Cuneglas is honourable,” Arthur insisted.
“Cuneglas will do whatever his father tells him,” I said scornfully, ‘and Gorfyddyd wants to be High King, which means he certainly won’t want the old High King’s heir growing to be a rival. Besides, do you think Gorfyddyd’s Druids will let a maimed king live? If you go, Lord, I number Mordred’s days.”
Arthur did not respond. He sat there, his hands on the table’s edge and his head down as he stared at the floor. He knew I was right, just as he knew that he alone of Britain’s warlords fought for
Mordred. The rest of Britain wanted their own man on Dumnonia’s throne, while Guinevere wanted Arthur himself to sit there. He looked up at me. “Did Guinevere he began.
“Yes,” I interrupted him bleakly. I had supposed he was referring to Guinevere’s ambition to place him on Dumnonia’s throne, but he had been thinking of another matter entirely.
He jumped off the table and began pacing up and down. “I understand your feelings for Lancelot,” he said, surprising me, ‘but consider this, Derfel. Suppose that Benoic had been your kingdom, and supposing that you believed I would save it for you, indeed you knew that I was oath-bound to save it, and then I did not. And Benoic was destroyed. Would that not make you bitter? Would it not make you distrustful? King Lancelot has suffered greatly, and the suffering was at my hands! Mine! And I want, if I can, to make his losses good. I can’t recapture Benoic, but I can, perhaps, give him another kingdom.”
“Which?” I asked.
He smiled slyly. He had the whole scheme worked out and he was taking an immense pleasure in revealing it to me. “Siluria,” he said. “Let us suppose we can defeat Gorfyddyd, and with him, Gundleus. Gundleus has no heir, Derfel, so if we can kill Gundleus a throne is vacant. We have a king without a throne, they have a throne without a king. More, we have an unmarried king! Offer Lancelot as husband to Ceinwyn and Gorfyddyd will have his daughter as a queen and we shall have our friend on the Silurian throne. Peace, Derfel!” He spoke with all his old enthusiasm, building a wonderful vision with his words. “A union! The marriage union I never made, but now we can make it again. Lancelot and Ceinwyn! And to achieve it we only need to kill one man. Just one.”
And as many other men who needed to die in battle, I thought, but said nothing. Somewhere to the north a rumble of thunder sounded. The God Taranis was aware of us, I thought, and I hoped he was on our side. The sky through the tiny high windows was black as night.
“Well?” Arthur pressed me.
I had not spoken because the thought of Lancelot wedding Ceinwyn was so bitter that I could not trust myself to speak, but now I forced myself to sound civil. “We have to buy off the Saxons and defeat Gorfyddyd first,” I said sourly.
“But if we do?” he asked impatiently, as though my objections were trivial obstacles.
I shrugged as though the idea of the marriage was far beyond my competency to judge.
“Lancelot likes the idea,” Arthur said, ‘and his mother does too. Guinevere approves as well, but then she would because it was her idea to marry Ceinwyn to Lancelot in the first place. She’s a clever girl. Very clever.” He smiled as he always did when he thought of his wife.
“But even your clever wife, Lord,” I dared to say, ‘cannot dictate Mithras’s adherents.”
He jerked his head as though I had struck him. “Mithras!” he said angrily. “Why can’t Lancelot join?”