Nemo would smile, thinking of that, hugging her secret to her bosom, exultant in the knowledge that no one, not even Uther himself, knew that it was she who had exacted revenge for him and started building the name that would keep all men in awe of him and his prowess. From then on, they would say of him that he was one who had no enemies—alive.
Nemo followed Uther around closely whenever he was in his Cambrian grandfather's lands, arranging her itinerary from day to day so that she could always be somewhere near to him if possible. And during those dreadful occasions when he would disappear for long months, detained by his relatives on his mother's side in far-off Camulod, Nemo would hold herself tightly in control throughout his seemingly interminable absences, swallowing and ignoring her frustrations with great difficulty, thanks only to her certain knowledge that King Ullic would never permit his grandson to stay away from Cambria for too long.
Nemo knew in her heart that Uther would always be her champion, no matter where he went, and he never failed her. Not even on the day, years later, that she had thought would be the end of the world.
She had left the hut early on a bright morning in early summer, the year she turned twelve, making her daily journey to the well, carrying a brace of water pails mounted on a yoke across her shoulders. She had passed the corner of the barrel-maker's shed and was angling to her left, towards the well, when a man came into view on her right, cutting diagonally across her path from the gates leading into the village. She glanced at him incuriously, attracted more by his movement than anything else, and then she froze in mid- step, her mouth falling open and her heart leaping up into her throat in fear. The man was Leir the Druid, her father, and slightly behind his tall, stooped figure, she saw the smaller, shambling shape of her half-brother Carthac, his gross cranial deformity visible even from a distance.
Certain that she had been seen, and overwhelmed by panic, she hid behind the barrel-maker's wall and stood motionless for a long time, her heart hammering at her rib cage. There was not the slightest doubt in her mind that they had discovered her whereabouts by some gross mischance and had come to take her home with them. There was also not the slightest doubt in her mind that she would die here in Tir Manha rather than go with them.
She let the heavy wooden yoke fall from her shoulders, its pails clattering in the morning stillness, and fumbled for the short knife she carried at her belt. It was scarcely a dagger, but it was all she had, and she ran the ball of her thumb nervously over its sharp edge, looking around her to see who else was watching. Not another person moved anywhere in sight. She strained her ears for the sound of approaching footsteps but heard nothing, and eventually, in spite of her terror, she approached the blind corner of the barrel-maker's shed and slowly poked her head around the corner.
The streets lay empty on both sides, and for a moment she was tempted to believe that she might have dreamed it all. But she knew she had not. Leir the Druid was in Tir Manha somewhere. He had found her, and soon the entire village would be turning out to look for her, to send her home with him. Fresh terror flared up inside her. He could be anywhere now, from the King's Hall to a neighbour's hut or even inside the shed she was leaning against. The sole place she could rely on his not being was behind her.
Slowly, taking one step at a time and leaving her pails and her wooden yoke abandoned where they lay, Nemo began to back away, feeling her entire body vibrating with tension, expecting at every moment to hear her name shouted with a command to stop where she was and give herself up to her father's care. But the shout never came, and no one came close to where she walked, so that she made her way unnoticed across the entire space of the rear half of Tir Manha until she could turn and run, fast and far.
The previous month, she and Uther had found a bear's winter den on a heavily treed hillside in the forest, less than a mile from the walls of Tir Manha. They had stumbled upon the place by accident while trying to locate Uther's best hunting arrow, which had brushed a sapling branch and been deflected high and to their right to disappear among a jumble of broken slabs of rock on the side of a steep, moss-covered cliff that was literally held in place, slabs and all, by the massed and massive roots of ancient oak and elm trees. Nemo had climbed higher than Uther at one point, attracted by a faint pathway descending from the upper edge of the cliff and disappearing behind one ledge of the green, moss-encrusted rock lace. The path had been beaten by a large bear whose tracks, made months before, were still visible, set in dried mud in front of the hole that led into a small but deep, dark cave. Since then, the two of them had used the spot as a private meeting place, telling no one else about it. She knew that Uther would know where to find her once it had become clear that she had disappeared.
Nemo reached the bottom of the cliff and within moments had reached the entrance to the cave. It was summer, but nonetheless she threw a large stone through the entrance and waited, listening closely, before she moved to enter the den. She heard nothing, and nothing came charging out at her, but even that did not mean the cave was empty. She knew that the proper thing to do would be to light a fire and then to throw a lighted brand into the blackness. That would bring out any frightened animal that might be crouching in there. But Nemo had neither the time nor the patience to go looking for the materials to build a fire. She drew her small knife and sucked in a huge breath, then stepped inside. For the space of a heartbeat she held her breath, her face a rictus of anticipation, but then she relaxed. The cave was empty.
She turned and looked for signs of her passage, but none could be seen. Because it was still early summer and the heat had not yet had a chance to penetrate the depths of this ancient stretch of forest, everything visible, the entire enclosure of the sylvan world stretching in front of her, was still painted in shades of green. High above Nemo's head, the towering treetops were crowned with a thick canopy of leaves, and even the great, thigh-thick ropes of root looping the cliff face all around her were covered with a greenish, mossy growth.
Uther would be coming sooner or later.
Nemo looked down at the ledge she was standing on and then lowered herself to sit with her legs dangling over the edge, her back comfortably lodged against the cliff face by the cave's entrance. The air was warm; the sun filtered through the leaves. She finally closed her eyes and allowed herself to think, without panic now, about her narrow escape from the Druid.
Uther did arrive in the middle of the afternoon, and she watched him as he climbed silently and swiftly up to where she sat. When he reached her perch, he stood looking down at her for a while, his face expressionless, and then he dipped his hand into his scrip and pulled out a wedge of cold fowl, leg and thigh, wrapped in a clean piece of cloth, handing it to her silently. Nemo took it with a nod of thanks and attacked it. She had eaten nothing since the previous night, and she was ravenous. When she had finished, Uther stood waiting, leaning indolently against the rock face with his left shoulder, his weight braced on his right foot, his head cocked to one side. He had learned long before that day that words were a commodity she used but sparingly, and sometimes heeded even less, and so he was content to wait, knowing that she had something to tell him.