"He has no idea I know any of this, needless to say, and I would go to almost any lengths to stop him from suspecting that I do. But since I do know, I have been able to ask him some questions and to raise some points—all in seeming innocence—in conversation with him, and I have found the results to be most interesting. It galls him—no, it infuriates him, to be forced to consider, even indirectly, any suggestion that he might be, could be, incapable of getting himself an heir. He grows inflamed at the merest suggestion of such a thought and flies into the most frightening rages."
Uther hitched himself closer to her and increased the movement of his hands on her body, and soon a minor resurrection was achieved between the spread forks of their legs. He penetrated her almost without assistance and then lay lodged there, stirring only minutely.
"Did you really think you might be with child by me?"
They were lying almost at right angles to each other because of the way they were joined, their legs intertwined, and she reached out in the darkness and twined her fingers in his hair at arm's length. He reached up and clasped her wrist, running his fingers along her arm to her locked elbow, then dropped his hand straight down to her breasts, cupping and kneading the fullness of one of them, pinching the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She stiffened against him and snorted with pleasure, pushing herself down onto the flesh that impaled her, and then twisted her fingers in his hair and wrenched his head sideways gently.
"The thought occurred to me. King Cambria, because I am a normal, healthy woman of child-bearing age, and I had been thoroughly serviced by a virile man during the space of two long, active and intensely satisfying nights. Have you fathered any children yet?"
He lay thinking for a moment and then shook his head in the darkness. "I don't think so . . . None that I know of, anyway."
"I would not be too sure of that, were I you. Do you remember Morgas?"
"Of course I remember Morgas. What about her?"
"She is no longer with me. Soon after her return from her captivity in Camulod, she left my household and returned to her home country to be wed, but I heard from another of my women that her monthly courses were already late by the lime she left to return home."
Uther rose up to rest on one elbow. "Do you think there is any truth to it?"
"I have no idea, but it would not be impossible, would it? Would it concern you greatly, were it true?"
"No, I don't suppose it would—" his tone was reflective,"—but it would be nice to know."
"To what end? If Morgas is now wed, her husband will assume the child is his, so it were best you let it be."
"Aye, I suppose so."
"Now," she said, "empty your mind of thoughts of Morgas and her beauty." Ygraine lay smiling in the darkness.
"I confess," he said slowly, pushing his pelvis against her again, "that I am jealous, knowing that now you'll have to lie with Lot again, simply to stay ahead of his suspicions."
"Jealous? That would make you jealous?" He could hear the amusement in her voice.
"Yes, that would make me jealous."
"Well, then, you need not be, for what he claims of me is his by right of marriage, but what I choose to withhold from him is mine by right of possession. Besides, I'll have no need of going to him this time. I have been with him recently enough to render him incapable of suspicion. You, on the other hand, I simply wish to render incapable, eventually." She moved against him lasciviously, drawing him further into her, and all need or desire for conversation faded immediately.
They were all astir just after dawn, Uther and Ygraine managing, somehow, to appear as well rested and refreshed as any of the others. Over the course of a short breakfast of eggs, mixed on a hot skillet with chunks of smoked meat and served on thick slabs of bread fried in animal fat, Uther discussed ways and means of remaining in touch with Herliss and Lagan over the course of the coming winter. The device of using his ring had worked well, and none of them could see any need to change the procedure, and so Ygraine kept the ring in her possession for future use.
Now that he and Lagan had formed an amicable relationship based on mutual trust, however, Uther conceded that it should be easier for the two of them to meet in future, providing that they kept their actual meetings hidden from curious eyes and used a go- between in the final stages to set up the times and venues. Since either one might have to call such a meeting, Uther acquired a token from Lagan similar to the one he had given to Ygraine. Lagan's token was a thumb-tip-small, distinctive granite pebble. It appeared to have been painted in alternating stripes of black and orange, but the colours were natural layers in the stone, and the granite itself had been polished to a glass-smooth finish and drilled with a hole that permitted a leather thong to be looped through it. Uther took it and slipped the leather thong over his head, allowing the pebble to rest against his chest under his tunic.
Herliss had been sitting watching and listening to the two younger men, and now he leaned forward, swallowing the last mouthful of his breakfast. "So," he grunted, "the season is almost over, and Lot's people are already preparing for winter. They'll be launching no campaigns this late in the year, nor will you, I presume. When do you think you will be returning to Camulod?"
"To Camulod? I don't know. Popilius Cirro and his infantry will return there directly, once our work here in Cornwall is done, and that should be in a few weeks—a month at the very most, if winter holds off that long. But I have to return to my own place in Cambria and set my house in order there before I head for Camulod. Camulod has no shortage of able leaders and Roman-style administrators to keep things in order from year to year, but in Tir Manila we have no such luxuries. I alone am King, and I have been away from home for nigh on seven months. The gods alone can tell what I'll find waiting for my attention when I reach home again."
"So if we have to send for you or to you, it were best to seek you first in Cambria?"
"Aye, it would be wisest to do that. . . And when I do decide to go to Camulod, I'll send you word and let you know, too, how long I intend to remain there. What would be the best way to do that? With no direct meeting involved, there will be no need to use the stone for such an errand, will there?"
"No," Herliss grunted, shaking his head. "When the time comes, all you need do is send a messenger to me at Tir Gwyn. My White Fort's famous throughout Cornwall, so he will have no difficulty finding it. Tell him to ask for me and to present . . ." He broke off and thought quietly for a moment, then nodded. ". . . to present a wax seal imprinted with a cross of some description. That will identify him, since the Christian symbol is seldom used down here, and I have never known it used on a wax seal that sealed nothing. Can you remember that?"
"Aye, I will. A wax seal, marked with a cross and sealing nothing. Can you read or write Latin, Herliss?"
"Very badly, and I have not tried these thirty years, so I think the true answer is no. But Lagan can."
"Can you, by the gods?" Uther made no attempt to hide his surprise as he turned to Lagan Longhead. "Where did you learn that?"
Lagan smiled. "As a very young boy, I was a close friend to Lot when his father, Duke Emrys, decided that it would do his son no harm to be able to use the Roman tongue. Lot was headstrong even then, and he insisted that if he had to undergo the learning of Latin, then he should have company in his suffering. We had a wonderful teacher who imparted her own love of Latin to me. You know her as Mairidh, the wife of my Uncle Balin. She lived in your lands for a while."
"Aye, she did . . . right in Tir Manha, in fact. So were I to write to you, you would be able to read the letter and write back to me?"