Uther had been born into a family wherein the men were accustomed to thinking aloud and did so all the time. His grandfather and his father were both celebrated, among a people who placed great value upon such things, for their oratory and the soaring music of their voices. In matters of debate and dialogue, in argument, arbitration and level-headed negotiation, they were renowned talkers, powerful persuaders and manipulators of multitudes.
Young Uther had known, however, from the earliest days of his childhood, a truth that most people did not: that the liquid flow of persuasive urgings that spilled from the mouths of the male elders of his family was anything but spontaneous. The sweeping, seemingly fluid exhortations to their clansmen and kinsfolk were carefully and painstakingly structured, then rehearsed and polished for days prior to being delivered. Uther's childhood had been filled with instances of seeing his grandfather, especially, pacing the floor for hours, shoulders hunched in concentration as he muttered for his own ears the words and arguments he would later pour out for the attention of his assembled people. It had taken Uther a long time to realize and accept that the passionate flow of eloquence spilling horn King Ullic's lips was made up of the same words to which he himself had been listening for the previous few days or sometimes weeks, whispered or muttered almost inaudibly as the King moved from room to room, or from corner to corner, deep in concentration.
When the time came for the words to be said in public, however, all of the repetitive work of stringing them together in the first place came to fruition, so that the speaker, knowing the words fluently, could concentrate upon delivering them to maximum effect, using tone, pitch, rhythm and cadence to sway his listeners. Once he had learned that lesson—and he had shivered with an overwhelming rash of gooseflesh when it finally sank home to him— Uther had been stricken with awe at the combined powers of words and forethought. From that moment forward he would never lose sight of the importance of knowing in advance exactly what he would say when presenting an argument or defending his opinions on a particular topic.
Uther came to seek Nemo out more and more often, until what had begun as a whimsy had become a habit. The habit bred a strange form of dependency upon her presence, so that after a relatively brief period of time, Nemo, in a strange and uncritical way, had become Uther's Witness. She became a part of his audience, openly or in concealment, every time he had important things to say to anyone, and since in those youthful days that usually meant to his family— particularly to his father and his grandfather—it also meant that Nemo had to listen from some hiding place. Neither of those two august beings, Ullic and Uric, would have been likely to accept the presence of a common urchin like Nemo. And so it came to pass that Nemo became an expert at concealment, hiding herself securely far ahead of time whenever she had to witness Uther speaking out on anything important. Uther, in turn, had come close to the point of losing conscious awareness of her presence, even when they were alone together, and he frequently spoke to her as though he were musing aloud to himself.
Never again would Nemo be open to such a profusion of lessons to learn and profit from. Every day she spent watching Garreth Whistler and his friends or listening to Uther, either in private or in public, brought her new awareness and important knowledge of the world in which she now lived. Thus it was that she learned of Uther's insecurity over the regard in which he was held by his Grandfather Ullic. Uther walked in absolute awe of the King, and for a long time Nemo found that puzzling, since she could see nothing awe-inspiring about the old man. Ullic was big, certainly—bigger than any other man Nemo had ever seen—and even among a proud and warlike people whose facial hair could be intimidating, his great, wild beard made him look ferocious enough to frighten anyone. But she had never heard anyone complain about the King's ill temper, and she had never seen him beat anyone. Indeed, she could remember no single instance of complaint about his behaviour. Ullic Pendragon merely looked ferocious; he did not behave ferociously. And he was old, his beard shot through with streaks of grizzled, wiry grey hair.
Through Uther's commentaries, however, Nemo soon came to see the Pendragon King in a different light. The boy loved his grandfather deeply, to such an extent that he was almost afraid to approach the old King too closely, lest he do something boyish and ill-considered—and Nemo quickly discovered that Uther believed he had a natural talent for such things—that might displease the great man. Uther always strove to keep himself close enough to be able to watch and see, hear and admire the King's feats, his opinions and judgments, formal and informal, and yet he remained far enough removed from the proceedings most of the time to be able to slip away whenever he wished, without having been noticed.
It took her a longer time, however, to realize that Uther had a deep-rooted and very real fear that his grandfather, his beloved and revered Tata, disapproved of him. This confounded Nemo, for even she could see, as unobservant and incurious as she was, that Ullic Pendragon, not the kind of man to dote on anyone, was fiercely proud of Uther. Uther himself, however, was absolutely incapable of seeing or believing anything of the kind. In his own eyes and for his own reasons, he judged himself unworthy of his grandfather's respect and admiration, and so he condemned himself to a life without either. He believed his grandfather disliked him, and he hurt himself so badly with this misguided conviction that he found himself driven constantly to attempt impossible things in order to win recognition and approval from the old man.
Because he was yet very young, however, Uther invariably failed to see the vainglorious aspect of all the wild things he tried to do, and because he never liked to talk about anything he found even slightly discomfiting, let alone embarrassing, he seldom spoke to anyone about what he was trying to achieve at such times. As a result, what his father called "Uther's escapades" usually ended in failure and dejection, the pain of them amplified because invariably King Ullic saw only what he believed to be the harebrained results of his grandson's mercurial nature.
One such incident occurred in the early autumn of the year Uther was ten. He had returned from Camulod sooner than was usual that year, and for some reason, unknown and unimportant to Nemo, Cay had not come with him. Uther had been different when he came home that year: he had grown considerably during the summer months and was far bigger than he had been when he left, but Nemo also noticed that he was more confident, and that was not quite so readily apparent to others.
He came home that year enthralled by several things he had learned from the craftsmen in the Colony, and one of these was the phenomenon of lines of cleavage, the almost magical divisions known only to jewellers that exist between the planes and structural elements of natural crystals, enabling a knowledgeable man to split a precious stone into smooth-faced, multi-faceted portions with one sharp, well-placed tooled edge and a few gentle taps.
Uther, who had always been a creature of great burning, but short-lived, enthusiasms, had seen this feat performed by a veteran craftsman called Murdo, a native from some far northern clan who made silver jewellery and decorated it with bright yellow and purple stones, clear as glass, that he brought from his homeland. Before seeing the man himself, Uther had seen a sample of Murdo's work, a large, circular and splendidly imposing brooch with a huge yellow jewel at its centre, and he had dismissed the jewel as a pretty but worthless piece of coloured glass. One of his companions had corrected him, however, insisting that the decoration was, in fact, a real jewel that the craftsman had cut from an ordinary stone and faceted with his own tools.