“I come with a quarrel,” Tristan said loudly. He had left his six guards just outside the hall door where a cold sleet was spitting across the hilltop. The guards were grim men in wet armour and dripping cloaks whose shields were the right way up and whose war spears were whetted bright.
“A quarrel!” Bedwin said as though the very thought was remarkable. “Not on this auspicious day, surely not!”
Some of the warriors in the hall growled challenges. They were drunk enough to enjoy a quarrel, but Tristan ignored them. “Who speaks for Dumnonia?” he demanded.
There was a moment’s hesitation. Owain, Arthur, Gereint and Bedwin all had authority, but none was pre-eminent. Prince Gereint, never a man to put himself forward, shrugged the question away, Owain stared balefully at Tristan, while Arthur respectfully deferred to Bedwin who suggested, very diffidently, that as the kingdom’s chief counsellor he could speak as well as any man on behalf of King Mordred.
“Then tell King Mordred,” Tristan said, ‘that there will be blood between my country and his unless I receive justice.”
Bedwin looked alarmed and his hands fluttered with calming motions as he tried to think what to say. Nothing suggested itself to him and in the end it was Owain who responded. “Say what you have to say,” he said flatly.
“A group of my father’s people,” Tristan said, ‘were given protection by High King Uther. They came to this country at Uther’s request to work the mines and to live in peace with their neighbours, yet late last summer some of those neighbours came to their mine and gave them sword, fire and slaughter. Fifty-eight dead, tell your King, and their sarhaed will be the value of their lives plus the life of the man who ordered them killed, or else we shall come with our own swords and shields to take the price ourselves.”
Owain roared with laughter. “Little Kernow? We’re so frightened!”
The warriors all around me shouted scorn. Kernow was a small country and no match for Dumnonia’s forces. Bishop Bedwin tried to stop the noise, but the room was full of men drunk into boastfulness and they refused to calm down until Owain himself called for silence. “I heard, Prince,” Owain said, ‘that it was the Blackshield Irish of Oengus Mac Airem who attacked the moor.”
Tristan spat on the floor. “If they did,” he said, ‘then they flew across country to do it, for no man saw them pass and they did not steal so much as an egg from any Dumnonian.”
“That’s because they fear Dumnonia, but not Kernow,” Owain said, and the hall burst into jeering laughter again.
Arthur waited until the laughter had subsided. “Do you know of any man other than Oengus Mac Airem who might have attacked your people?” he asked courteously.
Tristan turned and searched the men squatting on the hall floor. He saw Prince Cadwy of Isca’s bald head and pointed at it with his sword. “Ask him. Or better still’ he raised his voice to quieten the jeers ‘ask the witness I have outside.” Cadwy was on his feet and shouting to be allowed to fetch his sword while his tattooed spearmen were threatening all Kernow with massacre.
Arthur slapped his hand on the high table. The sound echoed in the hall, drawing silence. Agricola of Gwent, sitting next to Arthur, kept his eyes down, for this quarrel was none of his business, but I doubt if a single nuance of the confrontation was escaping his shrewd wits. “If any man draws blood tonight,” Arthur said, ‘he is my enemy.” He waited until Cadwy and his men subsided, then looked again to Tristan. “Bring your witness, Lord.”
“Is this a court of law?” Owain objected.
“Let the witness come in,” Arthur insisted.
“This is a feast!” Owain protested.
“Let the witness come, let him come.” Bishop Bedwin wanted the whole distasteful business over, and agreeing with Arthur seemed the quickest way to settle it. Men at the hall’s edges shuffled closer to hear the drama, but laughed when Tristan’s witness appeared, for she was just a small child, perhaps nine years old, who walked calmly and stiff-backed to stand beside her Prince who put an arm about her shoulder. “Sarlinna ferch Edain.” He gave the child’s name, then squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “Speak.”