Bernard Cornwell – Warlord 1 – Winter King

Owain had left the hall and Ladwys was evidently being taught her new duties. Arthur flinched at the sound, and Ailleann raised her elegant head and frowned at him, but the only other person in the hall who seemed to notice Ladwys’s distress was Nimue. Her bandaged face was drawn and sad, but the scream made her smile because of the torment she knew the sound would give to Gundleus. There was no forgiveness in Nimue, not one drop. She had already begged Arthur and Owain for permission to kill Gundleus herself, and had been refused, but so long as Nimue lived Gundleus would know fear.

Arthur led a party of horsemen to Ynys Wydryn the next day and returned that evening to report that Merlin’s settlement had been burned to the ground. The horsemen also returned with poor mad Pellinore and an indignant Druidan who had taken shelter in a well belonging to the monks of the Holy Thorn. Arthur declared his intention of rebuilding Merlin’s hall, though how it was to be done without money and an army of labourers, none of us knew, and Gwlyddyn was formally appointed as Mordred’s royal builder and instructed to start felling trees to remake the Tor’s buildings. Pellinore was locked into an empty stone-built store-room attached to the Roman villa at Lindinis, which was the settlement nearest to Caer Cadarn and the place where the women, children and slaves who followed Arthur’s men found themselves roofs. Arthur organized everything. He was always a restless man who hated to be idle and in those first few days after Gundleus’s capture he worked from dawn until long after dusk. Most of his time was spent in arranging for his followers’ livelihoods; royal land had to be allotted to them and houses enlarged for their families, all without offending the people already living at Lindinis. The villa itself had belonged to Uther and Arthur now took it for himself. No task was too trivial for him and I even found him wrestling with a great sheet of lead one morning. “Give me some help, Derfel!” he called. I was flattered that he remembered my name and hurried to help him lift the unwieldy mass. “Rare stuff, this!” he said cheerfully. He was stripped to the waist and his skin was stained with the lead that he planned to cut into strips to line the stone gutter that had once carried water from a spring into the villa’s interior. “The Romans took all the lead away with them when they left,” he explained, ‘and that’s why the water conduits don’t work. We should get the mines working again.” He dropped his end of the lead and wiped his brow. “Get the mines working, rebuild the bridges, pave the fords, dig out the sluices and find a way of persuading the Sais to go back home. That’s enough work for one man’s life, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Lord,” I said nervously, and wondered why a warlord would busy himself repairing water conduits. The council was to meet later in the day and I thought Arthur would be busy enough preparing for that business, but he seemed more concerned with the lead than with matters of state.

“I don’t know if you saw lead, or cut it with a knife,” he said ruefully. “I ought to know. I’ll ask Gwlyddyn. He seems to know everything. Did you know that you always put tree trunks upside down if you use them for pillars?”

“No, Lord.”

“It stops the damp from rising, you see, and keeps the timber from rotting. That’s what Gwlyddyn tells me. I like that sort of knowledge. It’s good, practical knowledge, the kind that makes the world work.” He grinned at me. “So how are you liking Owain?” he asked.

“He’s good to me, Lord,” I said, embarrassed by the question. In truth I was still nervous of Owain, though he never showed me any unkindness.

“He should be good to you,” Arthur said. “Every leader depends on having good men for his reputation.”

“But I’d rather serve you, Lord,” I blurted out with youthful indiscretion.

He smiled. “You will, Derfel, you will. In time. If you pass the test of fighting for Owain.” He made the remark casually enough, but later I wondered if he foresaw what was to come. In time I did pass Owain’s test, but it was hard, and perhaps Arthur wanted me to learn that lesson before I joined his band of men. He stooped again to the lead sheet, then straightened as a howl sounded through the shabby building. It was Pellinore, protesting his imprisonment. “Owain says we should send poor Pell’ to the Isle of the Dead,” Arthur said, referring to the island where the violent mad were put away. “What do you think?”