“I like him,” I said awkwardly, as nervous of his question as I had been of Arthur’s about Owain.
Owain’s great shaggy head, so much like his old friend Uther’s, turned to me. “Oh, he’s likeable enough,” he said grudgingly. “I’ve always liked Arthur. Everyone likes Arthur, but the Gods alone know if anyone understands him. Except Merlin. You think Merlin’s alive?”
“I know he is,” I said fervently, knowing nothing of the sort.
“Good,” Owain said. I came from the Tor and Owain assumed I had a magical knowledge denied to other men. The word had also spread among his warriors that I had cheated a Druid’s death-pit, and that made me both lucky and auspicious in their eyes. “I like Merlin,” Owain went on, ‘even though he did give Arthur that sword.”
“Caledfwlch?” I asked, using Excalibur’s proper name.
“You didn’t know?” Owain asked in astonishment. He had heard the surprise in my voice, and no wonder, for Merlin had never spoken of making such a great gift. He sometimes talked of Arthur whom he had known in the brief time Arthur spent at Uther’s court, but Merlin always used a fondly disparaging tone as if Arthur was a slow but willing pupil whose later exploits were greater than Merlin had ever expected, but the fact that he had given Arthur the famous sword suggested that Merlin’s opinion of him was a great deal higher than he pretended it to be.
“Caledfwlch,” Owain explained to me, ‘was forged in the Other-world by Gofannon.” Gofannon was the God of Smith-craft. “Merlin found it in Ireland,” Owain went on, ‘where the sword was called Cadalcholg. He won it off a Druid in a dream contest. The Irish Druids say that when Cadalcholg’s wearer is in desperate trouble he can thrust the sword into the soil and Gofannon will leave the Otherworld and come to his help.” He shook his head, not in disbelief, but in wonderment. “Now why did Merlin give such a gift to Arthur?”
“Why not?” I asked carefully for I sensed the jealousy in Owain’s question.
“Because Arthur doesn’t believe in the Gods,” Owain said, ‘that’s why not. He doesn’t even believe in that milksop God the Christians worship. So far as I can make out Arthur doesn’t believe in anything, except big horses, and the Gods alone know what earthly use they are.”
“They’re frightening,” I said, wanting to be loyal to Arthur.
“Oh, they’re frightening,” Owain agreed, ‘but only if you’ve never seen one before. But they’re slow, they take two or three times the amount of feed of a proper horse, they need two grooms, their hooves split like warm butter if you don’t strap those clumsy shoes on to their feet, and they still won’t charge home into a shield-wall.”
“They won’t?”
“No horse will!” Owain said scornfully. “Stand your ground and every horse in the world will swerve away from a line of steady spears. Horses are no use in war, boy, except to carry your scouts far and wide.”
“Then why’ I began.
“Because,” Owain anticipated my question, ‘the whole point of battle, boy, is to break the enemy’s shield-wall. Everything else is easy, and Arthur’s horses scare battle lines into flight, but the time will come when an enemy will stand firm, and the Gods help those horses then. And the Gods help Arthur too if he’s ever knocked off his lump of horseflesh and tries to fight on foot wearing that suit of fish-armour. The only metal a warrior needs is his sword and the lump of iron at the end of his spear, the rest’s just weight, lad, dead weight.” He stared down into the fort’s compound where Ladwys was clinging to the fence that surrounded Gundleus’s prison. “Arthur won’t last here,” he said confidently. “One defeat and he’ll sail back to Armorica where they’re impressed by big horses, fish suits and fancy swords.” He spat, and I knew that despite Owain’s professed liking for Arthur there was something else there, something deeper than jealousy. Owain knew he had a rival, but he was biding his time as, I guessed, Arthur was biding his, and the mutual enmity worried me for I liked both men. Owain smiled at Ladwys’s distress. “She’s a loyal bitch, I’ll say that for her,” the big man said, ‘but I’ll break her yet. Is that your woman?” He nodded towards Lunete who was carrying a leather bag of water towards the warriors’ huts.