Behind Tanaburs, their long swords scabbarded in sheaths wrapped in red cloth, strode Gundleus’s retinue. Their hair and moustaches were plaited and their beards long. They stood with the other warriors, edging them aside to make a solid phalanx of proud men come to their enemies’ High Council while Tanaburs, draped in his dirty grey robe embroidered with crescent moons and running hares, found a space among the counsellors. Owain, scenting blood, had stood to bar Gundleus’s path, but Gundleus offered the High King’s champion the hilt of his sword to show that he came in peace, then he prostrated himself on the mosaic floor in front of Uther’s throne.
“Rise, Gundleus ap Meilyr, King of Siluria,” Uther commanded, then held out a hand in welcome. Gundleus climbed the dais and kissed the hand before unslinging the shield with its blazon of a fox’s mask from his back. He placed it with the other shields, then took his throne and proceeded to look brightly about the hall as though he were very pleased to be present. He nodded to acquaintances, mouthing surprise at seeing some and smiling at others. All the men he greeted were his enemies, yet he slouched in the chair as though he sat by his own hearth. He even hooked a long leg over the chair’s arm. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the two women and I thought I detected a flicker of a scowl as he recognized Nimue, but the scowl vanished as his eyes flicked on through the crowd. Tewdric cordially invited him to give the High Council news of his kingdom, but Gundleus just smiled and said all was well in Siluria.
I will not weary you with most of the day’s business. Clouds gathered over Glevum as disputes were settled, marriages agreed and judgments given. Gundleus, though never admitting his trespasses, consented to pay Tewdric a fee of cattle, sheep and gold, with the same compensation to the High King, and many lesser complaints were similarly resolved. The arguments were long and the pleadings tangled, but one by one the matters were decided. Tewdric did most of the work, though never without a sideways glance at the High King to detect any minute gesture which hinted at Uther’s decision. Other than those gestures Uther hardly moved except to stir himself when a slave brought him water, bread or a medicine that Morgan had made from coltsfoot steeped in mead to calm his cough. He left the dais only once to piss against the hall’s rear wall while Tewdric, ever patient and ever careful, considered a border dispute between two chiefs of his own kingdom. Uther spat into his urine to avert its evil, then limped back to the dais as Tewdric gave his judgment which, like all the others, was recorded on parchment by three scribes sitting at a table behind the dais.
Uther was saving his small energy for the most important business of the day, which came after dusk. It was a dark twilight and Tewdric’s servants had fetched a dozen more blazing torches into the hall. It had also begun to rain hard and the hall became chill as streams of water found holes in the roof and dripped on to the floor or ran in rivulets down the rough brick walls. It was suddenly so cold that a brazier, an iron basket full four feet across, was filled with logs and set ablaze close to the High King’s feet. The royal shields were moved and Tewdric’s throne shifted aside so that the brazier’s warmth could reach Uther. The woodsmoke drifted about the room, eddying in the high shadows as it searched for a way out to the beating rain.
Uther at last stood to address the High Council. He was unsteady and so leaned on a great boar-spear as he spoke his mind about his kingdom. Dumnonia, he said, had a new ed ling and the Gods must be thanked for that mercy, but the Edling was weak, a baby and had a crippled foot. Murmurs greeted the confirmation of that rumoured ill omen, but subsided as Uther lifted a hand for silence. The smoke wreathed about him, giving him a spectral look as though his soul was already clad in his Otherworld’s shadow-body. Gold glinted at his neck and on his wrists, and a thin fillet of gold, the High King’s crown, circled his straggling white hairs.