‘Get rid of the whore!’ an anonymous voice shouted from the Blackshields.
‘You object to whores?’ Sagramor shouted back. ‘What kind of a warrior are you? A virgin? If you’re so intent on being virtuous then come up here and I’ll geld you.’ That brought laughter and so ended the immediate danger.
Argante sulked in her palace. She was calling herself the Empress of Dumnonia and demanding that Sagramor and I provide her with Dumnonian guards, but she was already so thickly attended by her father’s Blackshields that neither of us obeyed. Instead we both stripped naked and lowered ourselves into the great Roman bath where we lay exhausted. The hot water was wonderfully restful. Steam wisped up to the broken tiles of the roof. ‘I have been told,’ Sagramor said, ‘that this is the largest building in Britain.’
I eyed the vast roof. ‘It probably is.’
‘But when I was a child,’ Sagramor said, ‘I was a slave in a house even bigger than this.’
‘In Numidia?’
He nodded. ‘Though I come from farther south. I was sold into slavery when I was very young. I don’t even remember my parents.’
‘When did you leave Numidia?’ I asked.
‘After I had killed my first man. A steward, he was. And I was ten years old? Eleven? I ran away and joined a Roman army as a slinger. I can still put a stone between a man’s eyes at fifty paces. Then I learned to ride. I fought in Italy, Thrace and Egypt, then took money to join the Frankish army. That was where Arthur took me captive.’ He was rarely so forthcoming. Silence, indeed, was one of Sagramor’s most effective weapons, that and his hawklike face and his terrifying reputation, but in private he was a gentle and reflective soul. ‘Whose side are we on?’ he now asked me with a puzzled look.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Guinevere? Argante?’
I shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
He ducked his head under the water, then came up and wiped his eyes clear. ‘I suppose Guinevere,’
he said, ‘if the rumour is true.’
‘What rumour?’
‘That she and Arthur were together last night,’ he said, ‘though being Arthur, of course, they spent the night talking. He’ll wear his tongue out long before his sword.’
‘No danger of you doing that.’
‘No,’ he said with a smile, then the smile broadened as he looked at me. ‘I hear, Derfel, that you broke a shield wall?’
‘Only a thin one,’ I said, ‘and a young one.’
‘I broke a thick one,’ he said with a grin, ‘a very thick one, and full of experienced warriors,’ and I ducked him under the water in revenge, then splashed away before he could drown me. The baths were gloomy because no torches were lit and the very last of the day’s long sunlight could not reach down through the holes in the roof. Steam misted the big room, and though I was aware that other folk were using the huge bath, I had not recognized any of them, but now, swimming across the pool, I saw a figure in white robes stooping to a man sitting on one of the underwater steps. I recognized the tufts of hair on either side of the stooping man’s shaven forehead and a heartbeat later caught his words. ‘Trust me on this,’ he was saying with a quiet fervency, ‘just leave it to me, Lord King.’ He looked up at that moment and saw me. It was Bishop Sansum, newly released from his captivity and restored to all his former honours because of Arthur’s promises to Tewdric. He seemed surprised to see me, but managed a sickly smile. ‘The Lord Derfel,’ he said, stepping cautiously back from the bath’s brink, ‘one of our heroes!’
‘Derfel!’ the man on the pool steps roared, and I saw it was Oengus mac Airem who now launched himself to offer me a bear-like embrace. ‘First time I’ve ever hugged a naked man,’ the King of the Blackshields said, ‘and I can’t say I see the attraction of it. First time I’ve taken a bath too. Do you think it will kill me?’
‘No.’ I said, then glanced towards Sansum. ‘You keep strange company, Lord King.’
‘Wolves have fleas, Derfel, wolves have fleas,’ Oengus grunted.
‘So in what matter,’ I asked Sansum, ‘should my Lord King trust you?’
Sansum did not answer, and Oengus himself looked unnaturally sheepish. ‘The shrine,’ he finally offered as answer. ‘The good bishop was saying that he could arrange for my men to use it as a temple for a while. Isn’t that right, Bishop?’
‘Exactly so, Lord King,’ Sansum said.
‘You’re both bad liars,’ I said, and Oengus laughed. Sansum gave me a hostile look, then scuttled away down the flagstones. He had been a free man for just hours now, yet already he was plotting.
‘What was he telling you, Lord King?’ I pressed Oengus, who was a man I liked. A simple man, a strong man, a rogue, but a very good friend.
‘What do you think?’
‘He was talking about your daughter,’ I guessed.
‘Pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ Oengus said. ‘Too thin, of course, and with a mind like a wolf bitch on heat. It’s a strange world, Derfel. I breed sons dull as oxen and daughters sharp as wolves.’ He paused to greet Sagramor who had followed me across the water. ‘So what is to happen to Argante?’ Oengus asked me.
‘I don’t know, Lord.’
‘Arthur married her, didn’t he?’
‘I’m not even sure of that,’ I said.
He gave me a sharp look, then smiled as he understood my meaning. ‘She says they are properly married, but then she would. I wasn’t sure Arthur really wanted to marry her, but I pressed him. It was one less mouth to feed, you understand.’ He paused for a second. ‘The thing is, Derfel,’ he went on,
‘that Arthur can’t just send her back! That’s an insult, and besides, I don’t want her back. I’ve got plenty enough daughters without her. Half the time I don’t even know which are mine and which aren’t. You ever need a wife? Come to Demetia and take your pick, but I warn you they’re all like her. Pretty, but with very sharp teeth. So what will Arthur do?’
‘What is Sansum suggesting?’ I asked.
Oengus pretended to ignore the question, but I knew he would tell us in the end because he was not a man to keep secrets. ‘He just reminded me,’ he eventually confessed, ‘that Argante was once promised to Mordred.’
‘She was?’ Sagramor asked, surprised.
‘It was mentioned,’ I said, ‘some time ago.’ It had been mentioned by Oengus himself who was desperate for anything that might strengthen his alliance with Dumnonia which was his best protection against Powys.
‘And if Arthur didn’t marry her properly,’ Oengus went on, ‘then Mordred would be a consolation, wouldn’t he?’
‘Some consolation,’ Sagramor said sourly.
‘She’ll be Queen,’ Oengus said.
‘She will,’ I agreed.
‘So it isn’t a bad idea,’ Oengus said lightly, though I suspected it was an idea he would support passionately. A marriage with Mordred would compensate Demetia’s hurt pride, but it would also give Dumnonia an obligation to protect its Queen’s country. For myself I thought Sansum’s proposal was the worst idea I had heard all day, for I could imagine only too well what mischief the combination of Mordred and Argante might breed, but I kept silent. ‘You know what this bath lacks?’ Oengus asked.
‘Tell me, Lord King.’
‘Women.’ He chuckled. ‘So where’s your woman, Derfel?’
‘In mourning,’ I said.
‘Oh, for Cuneglas, of course!’ The Blackshield King shrugged. ‘He never liked me, but I rather liked him. He was a rare one for believing promises!’ Oengus laughed, for the promises had been ones that he had made without any intention of ever keeping them. ‘Can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead, though. His son’s just a boy and much too fond of his mother. She and those dreadful aunts of hers will rule for a while. Three witches!’ He laughed again. ‘I can see we might pick off a few pieces of land from those three ladies.’ He slowly lowered his face into the pool. ‘I’m chasing the lice upwards,’ he explained, then pinched one of the little grey insects that was scrambling up his tangled beard to escape the encroaching water.