Shadow of the King (30 page)

Deliberate, Ambrosius misunderstood. “Dine alone, I imagine, with but

the servants for company.” He produced a smile, was glad to receive a laugh

in return.

“I will enter with you then, after all, I thank you.” Cadwy offered his hand

in friendship, as pax. “My companions will not miss me, and your kitchen will,

no doubt, have better fare than a back-street tavern.”

It was confidence and pride that had changed Cadwy, Ambrosius could see it

now, confidence in himself. Arthur had held confidence. In what he was, what

he was doing. Was that why Ambrosius had so despised him? Because he had

nothing for himself save self-doubt and indecision?

Arthur’s father had been the shining star and, after him, Arthur had blazed as

brightly—brighter. For Ambrosius there had always been the shadow. Always

following, two paces behind. Now he was the one ahead, but still he stood in

the half-light of their presence. He had to take up the torch, blaze his own trail.

Had to!

“Are you to heed Council?” Cadwy questioned during the meal that was

simple but well cooked. They had talked around this issue, exchanging light

conversation, ambling on solid territory, mindful of putting a foot wrong, of

damaging this new-found, emerging acquaintance.

The oysters were good. Ambrosius took another, levered open the shell with

his eating knife. “My Councillors have fat arses and narrow brains.”

His son’s hand paused over the selecting of a leg of roasted chicken or a wing

of duck. “You are not going to endorse application to Rome then?”

“Christ’s good name, no! Help us? A remote, poxed island? If Rome would

not aid Gaul, what chance do we have?”

“But Council…”

“Council is turd-scared of the need to spend our insubstantial treasury. To

send for help, and sit and wait, would be more economical in the short term

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than funding an army, than fighting a war. Sit and wait, in the hope trouble

may never materialise, will go away.”

“But such a choice,” Cadwy remarked with all seriousness, “would invite

trouble, entice the Seax.”

Lifting his goblet in salute, Ambrosius drank to the observation. “Which is

why I must raise myself an army as strong and as dedicated as Arthur once had.

I have a fancy to lead an army into victory, to kick the arse of this impudent

boy, Vitolinus.” He lifted his hand, sucked his cheek. “My only problem, I do

not know how in hell to do it!”

“And what of Rome?” Cadwy could not resist asking the question, for too

many times had he heard his father defending what had once been.

“Rome,” Ambrosius opined, “is not the power she once was.”

Cadwy’s eyebrows rose. Was this his father talking? Had he partaken of overmuch

wine, perhaps? “You have changed your views somewhat,” he tried, tactfully.

Another oyster, another goblet of wine. “It galls for me to admit Arthur was

right about Rome, that the old ways are gone, can never be again. But he is not

here to belch derision. A man may be allowed to change?”

“Certainly.” With a wicked grin, “Happen you will be taking the title

king, next?”

Ambrosius tossed a laugh. “Ah no, there is a limit! To totter delicately out

from the shade is one thing, but to prance naked in the sun? I think not.”

For there they were of like mind, Arthur and Ambrosius. Stubborn, on

matters of principal. A genetic trait of the Pendragons. To be as stubborn as

bloody-minded mules.

Ten

September 470

The sea crossing had been appalling. The voyage upriver, although

short, was tedious. And the welcome? As cold as the easterly wind. But

then, Winifred had expected nothing else from her son.

Cerdic was taller by the height of almost two handspans, and his features

were maturing, bearing the first stubbling of beard-growth along his chin and

upper lip; very much the confident young man, far from the image of the

dependent boy the mother remembered. Although his scowl had remained

as aggressive, and his manner as offensive. Winifred found herself to be quite

amused at his childish hostility towards her. He had yet to perfect the ability

to impart scathing insult without rousing his own anger. A trick he would, no

doubt, soon learn. His father had used it to perfection.

Winifred did not consider her uninvited, unannounced, and unwanted arrival

as discourteous or inconsiderate. She was Cerdic’s mother, and to her respect

was due without comment or question. Her son thought otherwise, and made

those thoughts perfectly clear. He had no love for her, did not want her on his

land or in his settlement—much less, living as a guest beneath his own roof.

Where he could, he ignored her or answered in monosyllabic grunts. By the

third day of her coming, he was tempted to board one of the Saxon longships

and disappear with the crew on a trading expedition. Except there were things

that needed tending within his settlement, and he was damned if his wretched

mother would drive him away from his own home. The occasional day of

hunting would provide some legitimate respite from her uncompromising,

critical tongue.

The settlement over which Cerdic’s Hall presided—Leofric’s Hall as it had

once been—seethed out in a raggle-taggle bustle from behind the rummage of

slave and cattle-pens, boat-sheds, and warehouses erected along the river bank,

where the natural tidal current drifted into a sheltering bend. Boats and ships of

all kinds were moored alongside the wharves, between slipways, or in dry dock

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for repair. The river itself was crammed with fishing vessels, barges, trading ships,

and the impressive, sixty-foot, single-masted, thirty-oared longships. Magnificent

craft, built for speed and durability, craft that could cross the open sea, or slide,

silent, upriver—the English warships. Pirate craft. Winifred had counted eight

of these huge sea-beasts when her own barge had ponderously moored. She

was impressed. Cerdic was obviously doing well for himself. How much better

could he do, then, with the aid of her wise advice and judgement!

This was a riverside settlement where life revolved around the swing of the

tides; where fishermen returned from the open sea with their catch, merchants

and traders met to buy and sell or exchange cargoes of lead, iron, silver, and

gold. Where they came with expensive silks, brocades, wines, fruits, and spices.

The luxuries of ivories and exotic animals from the Africas, and for the everyday

trading of grain, wool, leathers, and pottery; hunting-dogs and slaves, the fair-

haired or the dark-skinned, as black as ebony. Along the banks, stacks of timber,

crates, and amphorae. New ships being built. Old ones awaiting dismantling.

Despite her misgivings, her anger and hurt at the way he had so viciously

and callously left her, Winifred had to admit privately she was proud of her

son’s acquisition. That pride did not extend to his choice of wife, the reason for

Winifred’s coming. Mathild, Winifred disliked. From the day she had heard—

from a trader’s lips—of her son’s marriage, decision was made. Reasons, had she

needed them, were plentiful. Cerdic was too young, she was too old, being all

of ten years his senior. Her past was suspect, and she had been wife to another.

Cerdic needed pure blood for a wife, for his future queen of Britain, for the

mother of his sons, Winifred’s grandchildren.

Meeting Mathild confirmed the contempt. Her faults, in Winifred’s eyes,

included pride, lack of respect, and the ability to lie with an ease that came

too glibly. Lies accompanied by an offhand manner that suggested a quick wit

and too many hidden secrets. Ah no, Winifred would not tolerate a daughter-

by-law who breathed enough spirit to become a possible rival. It was rare for

Winifred to meet her match and Mathild showed, from the first introduction,

that she held no fear or awe of her husband’s sharp-tongued mother, a fact

which delighted Cerdic and intensely annoyed Winifred. Only one other

person had treated her with such disdain. Arthur.

Mathild reminded Winifred of that man, for both held a single-minded

obstinacy and a willfulness deliberately to misunderstand or misinterpret.

The child, too, the son Mathild had borne Cerdic, brought Arthur to mind.

Something about the eyes, the shape of the nose? But then, the Pendragon was

1 8 4 H e l e n H o l l i c k

his grandsire, a strong resemblance was to be expected. Or so Winifred judged,

those first few days, until her gold, placed in the right hands, and tattle gleaned

from the right lips, began to sow other suspicions.

Mathild was feeding the boy herself, giving her own milk, employment

frowned upon by her mother-by-law, a cause for more sparring. The day had

been wet with drizzle, although it had not stopped the men from setting off

through the marshes with their dogs and spears in search of game to hunt.

The women had remained within-doors, Winifred reading, comfortably settled

beside the hearth-place of Cerdic’s own private chamber, Mathild standing at

her loom in the corner, or occasionally going into the main Hall to supervise

some task necessitating her head-woman’s presence.

Late afternoon. The men would return soon with wet cloaks and tired

hounds, muddied boots, cold hands, and empty bellies. The child had awoken,

cried for his own feeding, hushed into gurgles of contentment when offered his

mother’s breast.

Winifred frowned, could not resist a barbed comment. “You will lose

your figure by suckling a child. A woman your age ought be more mindful

of these things.”

“My son is of more importance than the shape of my breasts.”

“Your husband will not agree with you.” Winifred’s immediate response

was accompanied by a snort of derision. “His eye already roves to younger,

firmer, girls.”

Mathild chuckled—she had quickly discovered how to defend against the more

hurtful remarks. Winifred could not tolerate being mocked, or outmanoeuvred.

“Cerdic may bed with as many fillies as he pleases. It is of no consequence.”

She regarded Winifred candidly. “My son is of more importance to me than is

yours.” Added, “Did Cerdic not mean more to you than your husband?”

Ruffled, Winifred snapped, “My husband was a bastard.”

The smile was there in the voice, though not on the face, as Mathild quipped,

“Cerdic, then, is much like his father.”

She shifted the boy to her other breast, fondly watched his eager guzzling.

He had brown hair with a slight curl, large eyes, a placid, contented temper.

Features like his father, but spirit and character? No. Cynric would be

different there.

Setting aside the scroll she was reading, Winifred stood, strode over to

Mathild, her shadow slanting across the child’s face. She was a tall woman,

Winifred, austere in her Christian, holy woman’s robing, her face pinched,

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without humour or sparkle of contentment. She achieved happiness by causing

the pain of others.

“I have been asking questions about you, Madam.”

I wager you have!
Mathild thought.

“You were taken as slave after your husband was killed.”

“I have made no secret of that.”

“A woman is used for only one thing by a slave-master.”

The babe, full-bellied, was drifting into sleep. Mathild laid him across her

shoulder, adjusted her clothing. “Nor is that secret.” She looked up at the

woman standing so ominously over her. “It seems you have been asking the

wrong questions, or have received the wrong answers.”

“I think not.”

Unexpectedly, Winifred reached forward and took the child. Anxious,

Mathild checked an impulse to retrieve him, but Winifred was holding him

with care, cradling him, rocking him into deeper sleep, soft-crooning to him.

“He will be a fine boy, Cynric, Arthur’s grandson.” A pause. Winifred spoke

her next words slyly. “Or is he?”

Even Winifred, used to countering with implacable lies, was impressed by

Mathild’s instant answer.

“I know not, madam. Only you know the truth of Cerdic’s siring.”

“You fight without rules, Mathild,” Winifred answered with a sneer, “like

a man would, like Arthur would.” She ambled to the cradle, lay the child

tenderly in his bed, covered him. It had come as some surprise to herself, on

first seeing the boy, that she held these maternal feelings. But then, why not?

She was his grandmother. He was the child of her child—wasn’t he? She turned

to Mathild, challenged her outright. “You were, for some time, with Arthur. I

have suspicion that he sired the child, not Cerdic.”

The incredulous laugh was, at least, plausible. “And how do you decide

on that?”

Winifred seated herself, casual, picked up her scroll, but did not unroll it.

Mathild stated blandly, “Arthur was killed in battle in July. Cynric’s birthing