“Nwylle,” I said.
Igraine laughed and Sansum glared at her. “My Lady finds the words of our blessed Lord amusing?”
“I am just happy to be here,” Igraine said humbly, 'but I would love to know what a camel is."
“Everyone knows!” Sansum said derisively. “A camel is a fish, a great fish! Not unlike,” he added slyly,
'the salmon that your husband sometimes remembers to send to us poor monks?"
“I shall have him send more,” Igraine said, 'with the next batch of Derfel's skins, and I know he'll be sending some of those soon for this Saxon Gospel is very dear to the King."
“It is?” Sansum asked suspiciously.
“Very dear, my Lord Bishop,” Igraine said firmly.
She is a clever girl, very clever, and beautiful too. King Brochvael is a fool if he takes a lover as well as his Queen, but men were ever fools for women. Or some men were, and chief of them, I suppose, was Arthur. Dear Arthur, my Lord, my Gift-Giver, most generous of men, whose tale this is. It was strange to be home, especially as I had no home. I possessed some gold torques and scraps of jewellery, but those, save Ceinwyn's brooch, I sold so that my men would at least have food in their first days back in Britain. My other belongings had all been in Ynys Trebes, and now they formed a part of some Frank's hoard. I was poor, homeless, with nothing more to give to my men, not even a hall in which to feast them, but they forgave me that. They were good men and sworn to my service. Like me, they had left behind anything they could not carry when Ynys Trebes fell. Like me they were poor, yet none of them complained. Cavan simply said a soldier must take his losses like he takes his plunder, lightly. Issa, a farm boy who was an extraordinary spearman, tried to return a narrow gold torque that I had given him. It was not just, he said, that a spearman should wear a gold torque when his captain did not, but I would not take it, so Issa gave it as a token to the girl he had brought home from Benoic and the next day she ran off with a tramping priest and his band of whores. The countryside was full of such travelling Christians, missionaries they called themselves, and almost all of them had a band of women believers who were supposed to assist in the Christian rituals, but who, it was rumoured, were more likely to be used for the seduction of converts to the new religion.
Arthur gave me a hall just north of Durnovaria: not for my own, since it belonged to an heiress named Gyllad, an orphan, but Arthur made me her protector; a position which usually ended with the ruination of the child and the enrichment of the guardian. Gyllad was scarcely eight years old and I could have married her had I wanted and then disposed of her property, or else I could have sold her hand in marriage to a man willing to buy the bride along with the farmland, but instead, as Arthur had intended, I lived off Gyllad's rents and allowed her to grow in peace. Even so her relatives protested at my appointment. That very same week of my return from Ynys Trebes, when I had been in Gyllad's hall scarce two days, an uncle of hers, a Christian, appealed against my protector ship to Nabur, the Christian magistrate in Durnovaria, saying that before his death Gyllad's father had promised him the guardianship, and I only managed to keep Arthur's gift by posting my spearmen all around the courthouse. They were in full war gear with spearheads whetted bright, and their presence somehow persuaded the uncle and his supporters not to press their suit. The town guards were summoned, but one look at my veterans persuaded them that maybe they had better business elsewhere. Nabur complained about returning soldiers committing thuggery in a peaceful town, but when my opponents did not appear in court he weakly awarded me the judgment. I later heard the uncle had already purchased the opposite verdict from Nabur and that he was never able to have his money refunded. I appointed one of my men, Llystan, who had lost a foot in a battle in Benoic's woods, as Gyllad's steward and he, like the heiress and her estate, prospered.
Arthur summoned me the following week. I found him in the palace hall where he was eating his midday meal with Guinevere. He ordered a couch and more food to be fetched for me. The courtyard outside was crowded with petitioners. “Poor Arthur,” Guinevere commented, 'one visit home and suddenly every man is complaining about his neighbour or demanding a reduction in rent. Why don't they use the magistrates?"
“Because they're not rich enough to bribe them,” Arthur said.
“Or powerful enough to surround the courthouse with iron-helmed men?” Guinevere added, smiling to show that she did not disapprove of my action. She wouldn't, for she was a sworn opponent of Nabur who was a leader of the kingdom's Christian faction.
“A spontaneous gesture of support by my men,” I said blandly, and Arthur laughed. It was a happy meal. I was rarely alone with Arthur and Guinevere, yet when I was I always saw how contented she made him. She had a barbed wit that he lacked, but liked, and she used it gently, as she knew he preferred it used. She flattered Arthur, yet she also gave him good advice. Arthur was ever ready to believe the best about people and he needed Guinevere's scepticism to redress that optimism. She looked no older than the last time I had been so close to her, though maybe there was a new shrewdness in those green huntress eyes. I could see no evidence that she was pregnant: her pale green dress lay flat over her belly where a gold-tasselled rope hung like a loose belt. Her badge of the moon-crested stag hung around her neck beneath the heavy sun-rays of the Saxon necklace that Arthur had sent her from Durocobrivis. She had scorned the necklace when I had presented it to her, but now wore it proudly.
The conversation at that midday meal was mostly light. wanted to know why the blackbirds and thrushes stopped singing in the summer, but neither of us had an answer, any more than we could tell him where the martins and swallows went in winter, though Merlin once told me they went to a great cave in the northern wilderness where they slept in huge feathered clumps until the spring. Guinevere pressed me about Merlin and I promised her, upon my life, that the Druid had indeed returned to Britain. “He's gone to the Isle of the Dead,” I told her.
“He's done what?” Arthur asked, appalled.
I explained about Nimue and remembered to thank Guinevere for her efforts to save my friend from Sansum's revenge.
“Poor Nimue,” Guinevere said. “But she is a fierce creature, isn't she? I liked her, but I don't think she liked us. We are all too frivolous! And I could not interest her in Isis. Isis, she'd tell me, is a foreign Goddess, and then she would spit like a little cat and mutter a prayer to Manawydan.” Arthur showed no reaction to the mention of Isis and I supposed he had lost his fears of the strange Goddess. “I wish I knew Nimue better,” he said instead.
“You will,” I said, 'when Merlin brings her back from the dead."
“If he can,” Arthur said dubiously. “No one ever has come back from the Isle.”
“Nimue will,” I insisted.
“She is extraordinary,” Guinevere said, 'and if anyone can survive the Isle, she can."
“With Merlin's help,” I added.
Only at the meal's end did our talk turn to Ynys Trebes, and even then Arthur was careful not to mention the name Lancelot. Instead he regretted that he had no gift with which he could reward me for my efforts.
“Being home is reward enough, Lord Prince,” I said, remembering to use the title Guinevere preferred.
“I can at least call you Lord,” Arthur said, 'and so you will be called from now on, Lord Derfel." I laughed, not because I was ungrateful, but because the reward of a warlord's title seemed too grand for my attainments. I was also proud: a man was called lord for being a king, a prince, a chief or because his sword had made him famous. I superstitiously touched Hywelbane's hilt so that my luck would not be soured by the pride.