She was staring at him, appalled. "You killed them? No, you could not do that." It was almost a question, and he could see from her expression that she believed he could indeed do exactly that. He said nothing, gazing at her in silence until she blurted, "You murdered all of them ? Six score of them?"
"Aye," he said, sighing. "That's what I thought you would think—the first thing that sprang into your head. No, lady, I did not murder them, nor did I have my men murder them on my behalf. I gave them back their weapons and some food and set all of them free on the high moors, miles from anywhere."
"Hah! You expect me to believe that? That you would free men to return home and rearm themselves to come against you again? I would have to be a fool to think so!"
He shrugged his wide shoulders, looking her in the eyes and seeing how desperately she would have liked to believe him. "Perhaps you are, then. You would know that better than I. I think, though, that you would certainly be a fool to think that any of those men would dare go back again to Lot, expecting forgiveness for having lost his wagons and his siege engines, as well as his wife and all her ladies . . . but most particularly his siege engines. I doubt if I would be that brave or that foolish . . .
"I set them free, lady, certain that they all knew that Lot would never have done the same. None of those men will ever come against me again, and that is no more than the simple truth."
She gazed into his eyes, recognizing that it was as he said, and she felt something, something that had been hard and sharp-edged, break loose and fall away inside her.
He reached out and touched her shoulder, turning her gently to face the direction from which she had arrived.
"Come, lady, let me walk back with you." He left his helmet lying on the tabletop as he turned and moved away slowly, deep in thought and making no attempt to touch her again, so that she followed him, walking quickly until she had gained his side. He spoke to her as they went, his tone conversational.
"Tomorrow, the Queen and her other women will leave here and travel northward, back to Camulod. We have a wagon for them, so they will not have to walk. There they will be lodged in comfort and in far more safety than I can offer them in the middle of a raiding campaign until Gulrhys Lot has come to terms with me. Should he turn out to be the man you have described to me. then . . . I know not what I might do. That's a bridge I won't cross till I need to, as they say. But that's it. I have made up my mind. So please tell the other women what I intend to do and that they need to be ready. And some time later, you and the Lady Dyllis will leave in search of Lot, to acquaint him with my terms for the Queen's return. When he and I have agreed upon those terms, the Queen and all her women will be freed to return home. Ah, there they all are. They must have been concerned for you. I'll stop here."
He did so immediately, and Ygraine, on the point of hurrying forward to where the other women awaited her, turned suddenly and raised one hand to prevent him from leaving immediately. He paused, one eyebrow raised as he waited for her question, but she had to cast about before she could find the words with which to phrase it.
"My worn—, the women, my friends, and the Queen . . . should Gulrhys Lot refuse to discuss . . . what did you call it, terms for them? Should that occur, would you . . . will you . . . kill them?"
Uther Pendragon looked at her solemnly and then drew himself erect, heaving a huge sigh. "Barbarian," he said. "Is that the kindest word you might have for me, perhaps? No, lady, I would not kill your friends, nor would I feed them to my dogs or even give them to my men for sport. I would not even keep them prisoners, adding a further insult to their own King's disregard for them. Now, were you to tell that to Gulrhys Lot, then he would certainly refuse to treat with me on their behalf, but you yourself would be betraying your Queen and your friends in the telling, so dwell upon that if you will. And now farewell, lady, until I send for you again." He bowed and walked away, back towards his horse, leaving her staring after him.
Ygraine did not sleep well that night, because the word she took back to the women's tent regarding their impending move northward to Camulod set off a storm of fearful speculation among them that not even her authority could have quelled, and it did not die down until long after the lights had been lit and supper had been brought to them.
What would the Cambrian King's reaction be when he discovered how he had been duped? Ygraine told them of his promise, but surely, if he was the ogre he was said to be, his anger would be boundless and unrestrained. Would any of their lives be safe from his fury? They began to whisper stories and dimly remembered rumours of the savagery of the Camulodian raiders who had first penetrated Cornwall several years earlier, and the atrocities they had reportedly committed against peaceful Cornish farmers and residents, and there was little sleep in the command tent that night.
There was little sleep in Uther's tent, either, for the King lay awake for hours, fretting in spite of his own admonitions to himself. It had been important to him that day, far more important than he had known at the time, to assure Ygraine of his good intentions and to dispel the image of the fearsome villain that Gulrhys Lot had hung about his neck. He tossed and turned incessantly, fighting that lifelong war within himself, the struggle between who and what he was and who and what he ought to be, brandishing a torch against the darkness he felt inside, trying to banish the ogre that raged inside him. He had seen fear in her eyes. And in the darkness of his tent he recalled, though he tried not to, the fears of his mother, who would not bear another child lest it be branded with the hatreds of the Pendragon clan. And so he lay awake until the morning light crept in to chase the shadows away.
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Come morning, the guards were everywhere, under the unsmiling eye of the surly one called Nemo, shepherding the women as they gathered up all their belongings and made shift to decamp northward. Bemused, Ygraine watched all of their preparations, amazed at how, after mere days in strictly confined seclusion, such a small number of women could have gathered and dispersed so great an array of clothing and belongings. After little more than an hour of chaos, however, everything had been gathered up and packed, and a stream of troopers had carried the cases from the enormous command tent to the equally gigantic commissary wagon that had been placed at the disposal of the women for their journey.
Six matched horses, all of them larger than any horse Ygraine had ever seen before, were tethered in the traces of the huge wagon, which sat upon shaped layers of leafed, iron springs fastened to its axles and rode on four vast wheels bound with broad, thick tires of solid iron greater in width than the entire span of her hand. So massive was this vehicle and so high its bed above the ground that the women had to use a ladder to climb up into it.
Ygraine and Dyllis embraced each of the women in turn as they climbed up into the high wagon, and Ygraine was one of the few who remained dry-eyed at the parting, although she attributed most of the flowing tears to her companions' natural and understandable fears rather than to any grief over leaving her and Dyllis behind. Then, as the teamster gathered the reins together in one huge hand and cracked his whip over the beasts' heads for the first time, she stepped back and away, holding her hand high in a gesture of farewell but watching the straining muscles of the enormous animals as they threw their weight into the traces and pulled the heavy wagon into rumbling motion. She stood there motionless for some time after that, aware of Dyllis's closeness and watching the receding wagon until it turned and was lost to sight behind a bank of trees.