Uther

"Herliss, I have heard much about you. I wish we had met under better conditions."

Herliss said nothing, but his nostrils flared and he raised one eyebrow high in disdain. Uther ignored the look.

"I am Uther Pendragon."

"I know who you are." The voice was a deep, leonine growl, the Latin flawless and fluent. "The Trickster."

Uther frowned, then blinked, his body inclining slightly forward. "The what? What did you call me?"

"The Trickster. Why not? It is your name. You would deny it?"

"You have me confused with someone else. I am no trickster, nor am I known as such."

Herliss sucked in his cheeks as though he might spit, but then he merely swallowed what was in his mouth.

"Why lie about it when the whole world knows you for what you are? Do not treat me as you would one of your own fools. Did you not spirit a woman out of a locked and guarded room, and was it not witnessed by a multitude?"

Uther had stiffened in anger as Herliss began this response, but before it was done he had slumped back in his saddle, and now he threw back his head and laughed aloud, tugging his horse's head down with one hand, so that the great beast snuffled and stamped in protest.

"Ah, Herliss, now I understand your error, even though you do not. Time and distance can warp even the truth of truth, it seems. It was my cousin, Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod, who dreamed up that escapade and made it happen, earning the reputation you now attribute to me. Merlyn's your Trickster, not I. And he became the Trickster simply by being cleverer by far than anyone and everyone else who dealt with him, including myself."

Uther drew himself up until he was sitting arrow-straight, and at the same time he raised his hand in the prearranged signal. Behind him, immediately, he heard the sounds of movement as his people began to pull away, leaving him alone with Herliss in a circle of men who watched, but were too far away to hear what was being said. He watched Herliss's eyes narrow as the Cornish leader tried to understand what was happening, and then recaptured the veteran's attention with a question.

"Where did you learn to speak the Roman tongue? You speak it very well."

"I should. I learned it among the Romans years ago." Herliss was frowning, plainly wondering about the sudden, unexpected departure of Uther's escorting party. "Where are they going and why?"

"They moved away because I told them I might want to talk to you without being overheard. You saw me give the signal. They obeyed it. There's no trickery involved."

"Mayhap not, but you are a trickster, nonetheless. You won this victory here by trickery."

"Aye, perhaps I did. but trickery is legitimate in warfare, and I know you know that well. From what I have heard, you have been famed for your own deceits at times. Besides, your point is moot. All I did in this instance was set a trap. You were the one who walked into it in the full light of day. No trickery involved there, Herliss. Carelessness, perhaps. Negligence . . . one might perhaps propose an argument in favour of such a thing. But trickery? No, not on my part. Had your scouts paid attention and scouted properly, they would have found us, or at worst found signs of our preparations. We had hundreds of men concealed in these pits, Herliss . . . impossible to hide so many without trace. But your people found nothing, and that was mainly because they did not look closely, or closely enough."

Faced with such incontrovertible logic, Herliss could make no response, but Uther spoke right on through the silence that ensued.

"I know your brother, Balin, and his wife, Mairidh. We have been friends for years, the three of us. I like them both immensely." He waited briefly for a response and received none.

"Your son, Lagan," he continued. "Is he yet well? I never met him, but years ago your brother used the story of Lagan, his favourite nephew, to convince me that my overwhelming hatred of all things Cornish was foolish and ill advised, and so I have grown to manhood with the strange feeling that I have a friend whom I have never met among your people." He paused, his eyes fixed on his enemy, and then continued.

"I can see you are confused and taken aback by hearing things you might never have expected to hear, so I'll ask no more of you for now than this: try to contain yourself in patience for a while and to accept the restraints I will put upon you as my prisoner. Were I to set you free now and alone, your life would not continue long once Lot had heard of your survival at the cost of his Queen's freedom. In holding you, therefore, I merely hold your life in safekeeping. If your Queen is to continue living, be it in freedom or in servitude, then she will need someone—some man, strong and used to authority—in whom she can confide and in whom she can place her trust with confidence. You will be that man. So be it you offer no trouble to the men I set to guarding you, your conditions of confinement shall be light and in no way onerous. I promise you this, however: cross me in this, and I will have you trussed like a captive cockerel bound for the stewpot." He stopped and gazed at the older man. "Will you consent to this?"

Herliss pursed his lips and nodded briefly. "Aye, I will, so be it you do not ill-treat my men."

"Their treatment depends upon their own behaviour. Good will beget good, ill, ill." Uther glanced towards the senior of the two men who had brought up the prisoner and waved him forward. "Take the Lord Herliss back to the others, but when we stop tonight to make camp, keep him apart and see to it that he is well fed and well quartered."

He glanced once more at Herliss and nodded in dismissal before hauling on his horse's reins and straightening his back, standing up in his stirrups again to look about him. He saw immediately that Huw Strongarm was returning, walking quickly and intently. Uther sat silent and waited for Huw to reach him, knowing that the only thing that could have caused such a precipitate return on Huw's part was the nature of the wagons' contents. When Huw arrived, he paused for a moment to gather his breath, and Uther forestalled him.

"What have we captured? Weapons?"

Huw jerked his head in a nod. "Aye," he said. "Weapons of a kind, anyway. Great balks of timber, grey and well seasoned, huge wheel sections and miles of hempen rope. You had better come and look, see for yourself."

Less than an hour later, his inspections of the wagons complete, Uther, still mounted, sat waiting once again for Herliss to be brought to him, but this time, when the veteran commander arrived, Uther wasted no time on pleasantries and gave the grizzled Cornishman no chance to speak until he had spoken his mind.

"Siege engines," he began, an edge of incredulity in his voice. "You are carrying siege engines? Where would Gulrhys Lot find such things? And why would he want them? No one has had any use for those things here in Britain since the Romans left almost thirty years ago, and even they used no siege engines in Britain for a hundred years before that." He did not wait for Herliss to respond. "But if Lot is moving them, taking the trouble to shift them, then he is thinking of employing them, so where? He can't have need of them here in Cornwall. The fortifications here are primitive- hill forts, all of them, even his own Golant. Excellent strongholds and highly defensible, but steep slopes and deep ditches, Herliss. No stone walls or towers. Hill forts can be invested, encircled and cut off and then starved out over time, but they cannot be taken by artillery or siege engines. Primitive they may be, but they're also nigh on impregnable and impervious to every weapon except time, thirst and starvation." He paused and looked hard at Herliss. "The only exception that I know about in all this land of Cornwall is your own place, Tir Gwyn, the White Fort. Balin told me it is strongly fortified, high on a defensible ridge with great, glistening walls of snow-white, glassy stone that blazes in the sun, visible for miles. Lot could besiege your Tir Gwyn and probably take it from you if he lusted for it. But why, then, would you be taking him the means to do that to you? That makes no sense at all . . .