Bedwin, heavily cloaked against the seething rain, slipped and staggered his way through the treacherous mud. “My Lord Prince,” he gasped as he dashed out of the weather into the hall’s dubious shelter, ‘my apologies. I had not expected you so early. Inclement weather, is it not?” He wrung water from the skirts of his cloak. “Still, rather rain than snow, I think, don’t you?”
Tristan said nothing.
Bedwin was flustered by his guest’s silence. “Some bread, perhaps? And warm wine? There will be a porridge cooking, I’m sure.”
He looked about for someone to despatch to the kitchens, but the sleeping men lay snoring and immovable. “Little girl?” Bedwin winced because of an aching head as he leaned towards Sarlinna, ‘you must be hungry, yes?”
“We came for justice, not food,” Tristan said harshly.
“Ah, yes. Of course. Of course.” Bedwin pushed the hood away from his white tonsured hair and scratched in his beard for a troublesome louse. “Justice,” he said vaguely, then nodded vigorously. “I have thought on the matter, Lord Prince, indeed I have, and I have decided that war is not a desirable thing. Won’t you agree?” He waited, but Tristan’s face showed no response. “Such a waste,” Bedwin said, ‘and while I cannot find my Lord Owain to be at fault I do confess we failed in our duty to protect your countrymen on the moor. We did indeed. We failed sadly, and so, Lord Prince, if it pleases your father, we shall, of course, make payment of sarhaed, though not,” and here Bedwin chuckled, ‘for the kitten.”
Tristan grimaced. “What of the man who did the killing?”
Bedwin shrugged. “What man? I know of no such man.”
“Owain,” Tristan said. “Who almost certainly took gold from Cadwy.”
Bedwin shook his head. “No. No. No. It cannot be. No. On my oath, Lord Prince, I have no knowledge of any man’s guilt.” He gave Tristan a pleading look. “My Lord Prince, it would hurt me deeply to see our countries at war. I have offered what I can offer, and I shall have prayers said for your dead, but I cannot countermand a man’s oath of innocence.”
“I can,” Arthur said. He had been waiting behind the kitchen screen at the hall’s far end. I was with him as he stepped into the hall where his white cloak looked bright in the damp gloom.
Bedwin blinked at him. “Lord Arthur?”
Arthur stepped between the stirring, groaning bodies. “If the man who killed Kernow’s miners is not punished, Bedwin, then he may murder again. Do you not agree?”
Bedwin shrugged, spread his hands, then shrugged again. Tristan was frowning, not sure where Arthur’s words were leading.
Arthur stopped by one of the hall’s central pillars. “And why should the kingdom pay sarhaed when the kingdom did not do the killing?” he demanded. “Why should my Lord Mordred’s treasury be depleted for another man’s offence?”
Bedwin gestured Arthur to silence. “We do not know the murderer!” he insisted.
“Then we must prove his identity,” Arthur said simply.
“We can’t!” Bedwin protested irritably. “The child is not a Tongued-one! And Lord Owain, if he is the man you speak of, has sworn on oath that he is innocent. He is a Tongued-one, so why go through the farce of a trial? His word is enough.”
“In a court of words, yes,” Arthur said, ‘but there is also the court of swords, and by my sword, Bedwin,” here he paused and drew Excalibur’s glittering length into the half-light, “I maintain that Owain, Champion of Dumnonia, has caused our cousins of Kernow harm and that he, and no other, must pay the price.” He thrust Excalibur’s tip through the filthy rushes into the earth and left it there, quivering. For a second I wondered if the Gods of the Otherworld would suddenly appear to aid Arthur, but there was only the sound of wind and rain and newly woken men gasping.
Bedwin gasped too. For a few seconds he was speechless. “You…” he finally managed to say, but then could say no more.
Tristan, his handsome face pale in the wan light, shook his head. “If anyone should contend in the court of swords,” he said to Arthur, ‘let it be me.”