So he returned Bedwyr's smile, and sat down in the new place of honour. He saw Gawain, leaning close to his brother, whisper something, and Agravain nodding, then the King spoke, opening the Council, and they fell silent. The meeting droned on. Mordred noticed with amusement how Agravain and Gareth, at first rigid with importance and attentive to every word, soon grew bored and impatient, and sat in their seats as if on thorns. Gawain, like the greybeard beside him, was frankly dozing in a shaft of sunshine from a window. The King, patient and painstaking as ever, seemed to throw off preoccupations with an effort. The round table in the middle of the hall was loaded heavily with papers and tablets, and by it the secretaries scribbled without ceasing.
As usual at the Round Hall councils, routine matters were dealt with first. Petitions were heard, complaints tabled, judgments given. King's messengers brought what information was fitted for the public ear, and later, those of the King's knights-errant who had returned home would report on their adventures to the Council.
These were the travelling knights who acted at once as Arthur's eyes and as his deputies. Years ago, once the Saxon wars were over and the country settled, Arthur had looked around for means to occupy what Merlin had called "the idle swords and the unfed spirits." He knew that the long and prosperous peace which contented most men was not to the liking of some of his knights, not the young men only, but the war veterans, men who knew no other life but that of fighting. There was no longer any need for the picked body of Companions, the knights who under Arthur had led the force of cavalry which had been used as such a swift and deadly weapon during the Saxon campaigns. The Companions remained his personal friends, but their status as commanders was changed. They were appointed personal representatives of the King himself, and, as deputies armed with royal warrants, and each in command of his own men, they travelled the kingdoms, answering the call of the petty kings or leaders who needed help or guidance, and taking with them the High King's justice and the High King's peace wherever they went. They also policed the roads. Robbers still lurked in the wilder parts of the country, haunting fords and crossways where traders or rich travellers might be ambushed. These they sought out and killed, or brought them back for the King's justice. One other and most important task was the protection of monasteries. Arthur, though not himself a Christian, recognized the growing importance of these foundations as centers of learning and as an influence for peace. Their hospitality, moreover, was a vital part of the peaceful commerce of the roads.
Three of these knights presented themselves now. As the first of them came forward there was a stir of interest in the hall, and even the sleepers roused themselves to attention. Sometimes the reports were of fighting; occasionally prisoners were brought in, or tales told of strange happenings in remote and wild parts of the country. This had given rise to the belief held by the ignorant, that Arthur never sat down to supper until he had heard some tale of marvels.
But there were no marvels to be presented. One man came from North Wales, one from Northumbria, the third — one of the knights deputed to watch the Saxon boundaries — from the upper Thames valley. This man reported some activity, though peaceful, in Suthrige, that region south of the Thames occupied by Middle Saxon settlers; some kind of official visit, he thought, from a party of Cerdic's West Saxons. The man from North Wales told of a new monastic foundation where the Christian grail, or cup of ceremonial, would be raised on the next feast day. The man from Northumbria had nothing to report.
Mordred, watching from his place beside the King, noticed with quickened interest that Agravain, waiting with obvious impatience through the speeches of the first two knights, went still and attentive while the last one spoke. When the man had done, and been dismissed with the King's thanks, Agravain visibly relaxed and went back to his yawning.
Northumbria? thought Mordred, then filed the thought away and turned his attention to the King.
At last the hall was cleared of all but councillors and Companions. Arthur sat back in the royal chair, and spoke.
He came straight to the news that had caused him to call the Council.
A courier from the Continent had arrived on the previous evening with grave tidings. Two of the three young sons of Clodomir, the Frankish king, had been murdered, and their brother had fled for sanctuary to a monastery, from which it was thought that he would not dare emerge. The murderers, the boys' uncles, would no doubt proceed to divide King Clodomir's kingdom between them.
The news carried grave implications. Clodomir (who had been killed a year ago in battle with the Burgundians) had been one of the four sons of Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, who had led his people out of their northerly lands down into what had once been the prosperous country of Roman Gaul, and had made it his own. Savage and ruthless, like all of the Merwing dynasty, he had nevertheless created a powerful and stable kingdom. At his death that kingdom had been divided, as was the custom, among his four sons. Clodomir and Childebert, the eldest legitimate sons, held the central part of Gauclass="underline" Clodomir to the east, his lands bordering on those of the hostile Burgundians; and Childebert to the west, in that part of Gaul which bordered and contained the peninsula of Brittany.
And here lay the rub.
Brittany, called Less Britain in the common tongue, was in fact almost a province of the High Kingdom. Over a century ago it had been populated by men from Greater Britain, and the tie remained strong; communication was easy and trade brisk, and the tongue, with slight regional variations, was the same. Brittany's king, Hoel, was cousin to Arthur, and the two kings were bound to one another, not only through kinship and treaties of alliance, but because Brittany was still as much part of the federation of lands known as the High Kingdom as was Cornwall, or the Summer Country round Camelot itself.
"The matter," said the King, "is not desperate; indeed, it may turn out for the best, since infants never make safe rulers. But you see the situation. Clodomir was killed at Vézeronce last year by the Burgundians. They are still hostile, and wait only for a chance to attack again. So we have the vital central province of the Franks, with the Burgundians to the east, and on the west the land ruled by King Childebert, which contains our own Celtic province of Brittany. Now Clodomir's kingdom will be divided yet again, in which case King Childebert will extend his lands eastward, while his brothers move in from north and south. Which means that, as long as we retain the friendship of these kings, we have them as a barrier between ourselves and the Germanic peoples to the east."
He paused, then, looking around, repeated: "As long as we have the friendship of these kings. I said the matter was not yet desperate. But in time it may be. We must prepare for it. Not yet, as some of you wish, by raising armies. That will come. But by forming alliances, bonds of friend ship, cemented by offers of help and fair trading. If the kingdoms of Britain are to remain secure against the destroyers from the east, then all the kingdoms within our sea-girt coasts must join together in their defense. I repeat, all."
"The Saxons!" said someone. It was Cian, a young Celt from Gwynedd.
"Saxons or English," said Arthur, "they own, by agreement, a good proportion of the eastern and south-eastern coastal lands, those which were the territories of the old Saxon Shore, with what other settlements were granted them by Ambrosius, and by myself after Badon Hill. These Saxon Shore lands lie like a wall along the Narrow Sea. They can be our bulwark, or they can betray." He paused. There was no need to gather eyes. All were fixed on him. "Now this is what I have to say to the Council. I have called a meeting with the chief of their kings, Cerdic of the West Saxons, to talk to him about defense. At our next Council I shall be prepared to tell you the result of that meeting."