We had been discussing Uther's plans. He was about to leave for his mountain kingdom to claim his inheritance and see that all was in order. After that, he intended to raise some levies and to lead a retaliatory strike against Lot. We had just agreed on a plan to augment his mountain forces with a strong contingent of infantry and cavalry from Camulod. These would march under the nominal command of one of our junior commanders, a brilliant young Celtic cavalryman called Gwynn, until such time as they could join up with Uther.
I was seated at Uncle Varrus's old desk by the open window, and Uther had just stood up from where he had been leaning against the arm of one of the big couches by the wall. He was on his way out, opening the heavy doors, when I made some comment or asked him something about his father. To this day I have no recollection of what it was I said, but Uther swung around to face me, his face black with sudden anger, and for a moment I thought he was going to attack me. He stopped short, however, expending visible effort on biting back die words that had sprung to his tongue, and finally, after an obvious struggle for control of himself, smiled at me strangely—a tight, small, regretful smile—before shaking his head and starting to turn away from me again.
"No!" I snapped, "Stop right there. Let's have this out."
He stopped and turned back to face me, his eyes guarded now, empty of any sign of the sudden hostility that had overtaken him. "Well?" he asked.
I cleared my throat, suddenly at a loss, and then asked him directly. "What was all that about? That display? What were you going to say?"
He stared at me for the space of several heartbeats, blinking his eyes slowly, and then he sighed a sharp, impatient sigh and turned away again, only to check himself and swing back towards me. "No, dammit," he said, "It's time someone told you."
'Told me what?" I asked.
He looked at me and I could see him hesitate as he searched his mind for the proper words to use. Finally, he moved back and sat on the arm of the couch again, his eyes fixed on mine as though pinning me to my place.
"Cay," he said finally, his voice pitched low, but in a tone that suggested he would brook no argument. "You are an amiable fellow. You are a good friend and can be an enjoyable companion when you want to be, but you can also turn my stomach at times.
"You are always so right. Are you aware of that, Cay? Aware of how predictable, and ultimately how infuriating that can be? You are always right! You are always so...so correct, so decorous, so proper, so courteous, and you know all the correct things to say on any occasion, and that's all very well, but there are some things in this world you know nothing about!" He stopped, took a very deliberate breath, ignoring my stunned expression, and continued. "Judgments, for example. Let's talk about judgments for a moment/You're a great judge, Cay...Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a great judger! You find it very easy to pass judgment on practically everything and everyone, based on the relevance of that thing or person to your personal values, and its performance according to your criteria."
I stood wide-eyed, stunned by his sudden eloquence, so out of character for a man I knew to be generally only semi- articulate. I felt both my feelings and my pride hurt, although I had not yet had time to absorb Uther's attack on me. The martinet in me told me he was overreacting to something, obviously something I had said. But what had I said? As these thoughts were flashing through my mind, he drove on without pause.
"And that's another thing, of course. You also have set criteria for everything—for every conceivable circumstance under the sun or moon—so you never lack a standard for any of your judgments—" I started to interrupt his diatribe, but he shouted me down, telling me it was time for me to hear some home truths. I subsided as he continued. "I was talking about judgments and I had not finished. You are forever making judgments, Cay, and the frightening thing about that is I don't think you are even aware of it. Everything has to be either black or white in your world. Everything has to fit within a category, and only you are allowed to designate the categories. You did it to me, with that silly child Cassandra, or whatever her name was. Someone thrashed her. You decided I was the one because I had been angry at her, angry and vengeful, so your verdict was guilty!
"And my father. You judged him, too, and found him lacking. You judged him a nonentity. Don't interrupt me!" This last was hissed at me as I moved to speak and, abashed by his vehemence, I subsided again as he went on. "I know my father was no Publius Varrus and certainly no Caius Britannicus...He knew it, too. He wasn't even an Ullic Pendragon. But by the Living God, he was a Pendragon and he was a King, and he was a good man, a kind and considerate father who loved his children and was not afraid to show that love, even when the children had grown..." His voice faltered and grew quiet.
"I never spent much time with my father, Cay, but the time I did spend with him was among the best I ever spent with anyone. I could talk to my father in a way I could never have with you, or anyone else. Sometimes we didn't even need words. We were happy enough simply being together..." His words died away completely, and by this time I had absolutely no thought of stopping him.
Eventually he continued, his anger swelling again. "Look at you! You're astounded that I can show any feelings of grief or love, aren't you? I know you are, because for years you've had me categorized as a profligate, a fighter, a soldier and a savage, with little of your education and few of your refinements. My prime concerns, in your mind, are wine, women, horses and fighting, isn't that so? Of course it is. I know that!" He stopped abruptly and looked at me, soberly.
"Well, hear me, Cousin Caius. I loved my father, Uric the King, Uric Pendragon. And I intend that my sons should say the same of me, when I die. I want them to say, with pride, 'I loved my father, Uther the King!' If I am correct, and your judgment of me has been wrongs take note of that. It will not be the first time your judgment has been wrong in the eyes of others. And yet there is no sin in being wrong, Cousin. As long as we can admit our errors. We learned that long ago, you and I, from old Bishop Alaric. The tendency to error is what makes us all human, but only the capacity for compassion exalts a man beyond the merely human."
He paused and stood there for a few moments before continuing in a more reflective tone, almost as an afterthought, "You have a need for more compassion, Cay, and that means you must try to be more human. Learn to evince a willingness to make more errors—if you can. Perhaps then you might find, deep inside, some tolerance. Try it. Cousin. You will improve by it, believe me."
With that, he spun on his heel and strode from the room, leaving me with much to think about, although in the time that passed immediately after his departure I was unable to think at all. My self-esteem reeled in the wake of such a brutal, unexpected attack. He was distraught, I told myself. His father's death had unhinged him, making him say things he neither meant nor believed. But even as my mind formed the words I saw the lie in them. Uther had said what he said because he believed it. He saw me as a self-righteous prig, disdainful of anything that did not bear my own, personal imprimatur. He believed my attitude towards him and his father was one of condescension, condemnation and disapproval. I stopped, chilled by a tiny, barely identifiable tic of recognition buried somewhere deep down at the back of my consciousness. And as I examined it, the chill grew, raising goose-flesh as I thrilled with the horror of perceiving, and admitting, that my cousin was right . Having felt that—or perhaps merely suspected it—I could go no further without confronting it fully, and so, in all ignorance, I set about what I later—often ruefully and sometimes even bitterly—had to acknowledge to be one of the biggest follies of a life that has sometimes seemed drowned in folly: I took myself to task without the slightest thought of the enormity of what I was about. I set out to break down whatever it was that made me myself— to divide it into segments comprehensible to myself, determined to arrive at a complete knowledge of myself and to discover my own true beliefs and attitudes about the people around me and the life we all shared. I can recall the callow, arrogant ignorance with which I took up this task that day, the foolish boastfulness with which I assumed that I would be able to plumb the depths of my own character in the space of a day or so, and arrive at a means of changing myself completely—for the better and for ever! I was completely unaware that I was throwing myself into a lifetime's task, and a heart-breaking, painful process that, once begun, would become impossible to abandon or even to neglect.