It was spring, the leaves were green, and there were such high hopes in the freshening land.
THE HIGH COUNCIL WAS held at Glevum, a Roman town that lay beside the River Severn just beyond Dumnonia’s northern border with Gwent. Uther was carried there in a cart drawn by four oxen, each beast decorated with sprigs of may and saddled with green cloths. The High King enjoyed his ponderous progress through his kingdom’s early summer, maybe because he knew this would be his last sight of Britain’s loveliness before he went through Cruachan’s Cave and over the sword bridge to the Other-world. The hedgerows between which his oxen plodded were white with hawthorn, the woods were hazed by bluebells while poppies blazed among the wheat, rye and barley and in the almost ripe fields of hay where the corncrakes were noisy. The High King travelled slowly, stopping often at settlements and villas where he inspected farmlands and halls, and advised men who knew better than he how to layer a fulling pond or geld a hog. He bathed in the hot springs at Aquae Sulis and was so recovered when he left the city that he walked a full mile before being helped once more into his fur-lined cart. He was accompanied by his bards, his counsellors, his physician, his chorus, a train of servants and an escort of warriors commanded by Owain, his champion and commander of his guard. Everyone wore flowers and the warriors slung their shields upside down to show they marched in peace, though Uther was too old and too cautious not to make certain that their spear-points were whetted bright each new day.
I walked to Glevum. I had no business there, but Uther had summoned Morgan to the High Council. Women were not normally welcome at any councils, high or low, but Uther believed no one spoke for Merlin as Morgan did and so, in his despair at Merlin’s absence, he called for her. She was, besides, Uther’s natural daughter, and the High King liked to say that there was more sense in Morgan’s gold-wrapped head than in half his counsellors’ skulls put together. Morgan was also responsible for Norwenna’s health and it was Norwenna’s future that was being decided, though Norwenna herself was neither summoned nor consulted. She stayed at Ynys Wydryn under the care of Merlin’s wife, Guendoloen. Morgan would have taken no one but her slave Sebile to Glevum, but at the last moment Nimue calmly announced that she was also travelling there and that I was to accompany her.
Morgan made a fuss, of course, but Nimue met the older woman’s indignation with an irritating calm. “I have been instructed,” she told Morgan, and when Morgan shrilly demanded by whom, Nimue just smiled. Morgan was double Nimue’s size and twice her age, but when Merlin had taken Nimue to his bed the power in Ynys Wydryn passed to her and in the face of that authority the older woman was helpless. She still objected to my going. She demanded to know why did Nimue not take Lunete, the other Irish girl among Merlin’s foundlings? A boy like me, Morgan said, was no company for a young woman, and when Nimue still did nothing but smile, Morgan spat that she would tell Merlin of Nimue’s fondness for me and in that telling would lie the end of Nimue, at which clumsy threat Nimue simply laughed and turned away.
I cared little for the argument. I just wanted to go to Glevum and see the jousting and hear the bards and watch the dancing and, most of all, to be with Nimue.
And so we went, an ill-assorted quartet, to Glevum. Morgan, blackthorn staff in hand and gold mask glinting in the summer sun, stumped ahead, her limp making each heavy step into an emphatic gesture of disapproval at Nimue’s company. Sebile, the Saxon slave, hurried two paces behind her mistress with her back stooped beneath the bundle of bedding cloaks, dried herbs and pots. Nimue and I walked behind, barefoot, bare-headed and unburdened. Nimue wore a long black cloak over a white robe that she gathered at her waist with a slave’s halter. Her long black hair was pinned high and she wore no jewels, not even a bone pin to gather her cloak. Morgan’s neck was circled with a heavy golden torque and her dun-coloured cloak was clasped at her breast with two golden brooches, one cast as a triple-horned deer and the other the heavy dragon ornament that Uther had given to her at Caer Cadarn.