He managed to greet the Queen somehow and pay his respects to her women without betraying his absolute confusion, and then excused himself, dripping rainwater, to scurry away with his head down, following the guard who had been waiting for him. Once there, however, safely ensconced and alone, Uther felt under no constraint to hurry and change his clothes before rushing back to the hall where the others awaited him. Instead, he changed slowly, drying himself at leisure and luxuriating in the glow of the brazier as he dressed himself again in the clean, warm clothing that had been laid out for his use. And while he was doing so, he permitted himself for the first time since the arrival of Lagan Longhead in his camp to consider all the chaotic thoughts that had been going through his mind.
His first thoughts upon hearing Lagan's unexpected invitation had been of ambush and treachery, but those had been short-lived. Lagan had been wearing Uther's own ring, as arranged between Uther himself and Ygraine. and Uther could think of no circumstances that might have induced Ygraine to give up that secret to anyone else. Not even Herliss had been privy to that arrangement. And so he had accepted Lagan's invitation at face value. From the moment of that decision, however, he had been forced to reflect upon the feelings that he held for Ygraine. It had been many months since he had last seen the Cornish Queen, and the bare truth was that it had been an equally long time since he had thought of her to any degree.
Only now, in the privacy of this strange chamber with its welcome brazier, did he admit to himself that he had been intrigued by the thought of seeing her again—and to be truthful, a voice in his mind said, of bedding her again. As the thought occurred to him, he turned his head and looked at the bed, a substantial affair that was raised high off the floor on solid legs and covered with a wealth of rich bedding. It was a sturdy, solid bed, made for everything a man could require of it, and he smiled to himself.
The simple sight of her, her welcoming smile, had blinded him. Her radiance and beauty had almost rocked him physically with the force of its impact. Stunned by the instantaneous awareness that he had been able to forget how beautiful she was, he had hesitated momentarily in mid-step as he mewed to greet her, feeling his eyes go wide and knowing that he was betraying far more than was wise. He had been consumed instantly and utterly by the red, fire-lit glory of her hair seen from fifteen paces distant and by the forgotten brilliance of her great green eyes in the startling whiteness of her flawless face. And then the memory of her smooth, bare hip beneath his hand had caused an explosion in his chest, bringing his heart up into his throat and snatching the breath away from him. He remembered the weight of her, defenceless and abandoned in his arms, pulling him down as he lowered his head to kiss that generous, laughing mouth with its wide, full, soft lips.
When he had found himself face to face with her, gazing into her smiling eyes, he had thought he might never be able to find words with which to greet her properly, but words came to him and he had muttered something that aroused neither comment nor surprise from her or from anyone else. He had felt her fingers close warmly over his own and had known beyond doubt that she was even happier to see him than he was to see her, but he could think of nothing to say or do other than to bend forward, slip one arm around her pliant waist and sink his face into the silken warmth of her soft neck. And even as that thought filled his mind, he had imagined the gentle breeze of her warm breath in his ear, and his throat had closed completely with lust and embarrassment. Ygraine, however, had seemed to notice nothing amiss and looked away from him, still smiling, to say something to Herliss. Awkward and fumbling and tongue-tied, he had been grateful for the excuse to flee to his quarters, where he might find time and opportunity to overcome this unaccustomed panic. He had managed to be pleasant, he knew, to the Lady Dyllis and to her companion, whose name was Roman, Lydia, and he knew, too, that he had eventually managed to escape without making an utter fool of himself.
He recalled now hearing his Uncle Publius speaking years before about being thunderstruck—the awestruck love of an adolescent boy for a beautiful woman whom he has seen for the first time. But he was no adolescent youth, and this was no first-time encounter: he was Uther Pendragon, King of the Pendragon Federation of south Cambria, and he had lain with this woman months earlier. How, then, could he have been so dumbfounded at the sight of her? The truth was disconcerting and confusing, and by the time he had returned to the main hall he was still less than fully prepared to meet the Cornish Queen with equanimity, face to face, eye to eye.
Lagan was already there, and when Uther arrived they gathered around the dining table. There was no formality in the sealing arrangements, save that the Queen's two women sat together at one end of the table and Ygraine herself sat at the head. Uther approached the table as eagerly as anyone, for he had eaten very little since the previous night and was sharp set with hunger.
Only when the edges had been chewed from their appetites did conversation begin, and then it was desultory, confined to mundane things, until Uther asked Herliss to tell him about how the Queen's party had managed their "escape" and their eventual homecoming.
It had been a simple matter, Herliss began. After Uther's departure with Popilius Cirro and the main body of the raiding party, the skeletal force left behind to guard the camp and look after the remaining prisoners had remained at high alert for twenty-four hours and had then relaxed. The night after that, the escape plan had been put into effect. Once the remaining guards had been "overcome" by Nemo's crew, the escapees had made their way out of the valley without difficulty and had managed to win safely back to Lot's main base at Golant within a matter of days. Nemo's group had remained with them for two days and had then left them close by the sea coast, in the professed hope of finding a ship that would carry them to Gaul. None of the Queen's party had thought the fleeing group would survive to reach foreign shores, but they had made no move to interfere with Nemo's intentions. What was far more important was that none of the Queen's bodyguard, including their leader, Alasdair Mac lain, had thought to question any aspect of the affair, and all of them were convinced that they owed their safety and their lives to Herliss and his loyalty and ingenuity. They truly believed, the old man told Uther, that their captors would have killed them sooner or later rather than set them free. All of them had seen the other Cornish prisoners being marched away under guard, never to return.
Uther sniffed when he heard that. "Did any of the others ever return here?"
Herliss grunted. "Aye, well, the false Queen, Morgas, and the rest of the Queen's women were brought back quickly enough once your messengers had delivered your instructions to Camulod to set them free and return them to their homeland. They were here within a matter of two weeks, I would say. Some of your people from Camulod rode with them as escorts and then sent word to Lot that they could be collected from the edges of his land. By the time Lot's people arrived to meet the women, the Camulod troops had gone."
Uther nodded. "Good, that was as I instructed. But I was not speaking of the women. I was wondering about those other warriors of yours . . . the people we set free up on the moors?"
Old Herliss turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "You loosed nigh on a hundred and twenty men—six score, all of them mine. None of them was ever reported seen again."
Uther's forehead was creased in perplexity. "Are you saying they all vanished?"