“Are you deaf, Gorfyddyd?” Merlin snapped. “Derfel Cadarn shall live. He shall be your honoured guest. He shall eat of your food and drink of your wine. He shall sleep in your beds and take your slave women if he desires. Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of Benoic are under my protection.” He turned to stare at the whole hall, daring any man to oppose him. “Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of
Benoic are under my protection!” he repeated, and this time he raised his black staff and you could feel the warriors quake beneath its threat. “Without Derfel Cadarn and Galahad of Benoic,” Merlin said, ‘there would be no Knowledge of Britain. I would be dead in Benoic and you would all be doomed to slavery under Saxon rule.” He turned back to Gorfyddyd. “They need food. And stop staring at me, Derfel,” he added without even looking at me.
I had been staring at him, as much with astonishment as with relief, but I was also wondering just what Merlin was doing in this citadel of the enemy. Druids, of course, were free to travel where they liked, even in enemy territory, but his presence at Caer Sws at such a time seemed strange and even dangerous, for though Gorfyd-dyd’s men were cowed by the Druid’s presence they were also resentful of his interference and some, safe at the hall’s rear, growled that he should mind his own business.
Merlin turned on them. “My business,” he said in a low voice that nevertheless stopped the small protest dead, ‘is the care of your souls and if I care to drown those souls in misery then you will wish your mothers had never given birth. Fools!” This last word was snapped loudly and accompanied by a gesture from the staff that made the armoured men struggle down to their knees. None of the kings dared to intervene as Merlin swept the staff to give one of the skulls hanging from a pillar a sharp crack. “You pray for victory!” Merlin said. “But over what? Over your kin and not your enemies! Your enemies are Saxons. For years we suffered under Roman rule, but at last the Gods saw fit to take the Roman vermin away and what do we do? We fight among ourselves and let a new enemy take our land, rape our women and harvest our corn. So fight your war, fools, fight it and win, and still you shall not have victory.”
“But my daughter will be avenged,” Gorfyddyd said behind Merlin.
“Your daughter, Gorfyddyd,” Merlin said, turning, ‘will avenge her own hurt. You want to know her fate?” He asked the question mockingly, but answered it soberly and in a voice that had the lilt of a prophetic utterance. “She will never be high and she will never be low, but she will be happy. Her soul, Gorfyddyd, is blessed, and if you had the sense of a flea you would be content with that.”
“I shall be content with Arthur’s skull,” Gorfyddyd said defiantly.
“Then go and fetch it,” Merlin said scornfully, then plucked me by the elbow. “Come, Derfel, and enjoy your enemy’s hospitality.”
He led us out of the hall, walking unconcernedly through the iron and leather ranks of the enemy. The warriors watched us resentfully, but there was nothing they could do to stop us leaving nor to prevent us taking one of Gorfyddyd’s guest chambers that Merlin had evidently been using himself. “So Tewdric wants peace, does he?” he asked us.
“Yes, Lord,” I answered.
“Tewdric would. He’s a Christian so he thinks he knows better than the Gods.”
“And you know the minds of the Gods, Lord?” Galahad asked.
“I believe the Gods hate to be bored, so I do my best to amuse them. That way they smile on me. Your God,” Merlin said sourly, ‘despises amusement, demanding grovelling worship instead. He must be a very sorry creature. He’s probably rather like Gorfyddyd, endlessly suspicious and foully jealous of his reputation. Aren’t you both lucky that I was here?” He grinned at us, suddenly and mischievously, and I saw how much he had enjoyed his public humiliation of Gorfyddyd. Part of Merlin’s reputation was made by his performances; some Druids, like lorweth, worked quietly, others, like Tanaburs, relied on a sinister wiliness, but Merlin liked to dominate and dazzle, and humbling an ambitious king was as pleasurable to him as it was instinctive.