"Now anyone with a memory can learn and memorize the battle plans of history's great generals . . . not all of whom were Roman, by the way. But the true greatness of the very finest strategists who ever lived, men like Julius Caesar and Alexander of Macedon, lay in the fact that every one of them was an original thinker. Men like those don't use other people's ideas. They dream up their own . . . ideas that have never been heard of before. And that is what you did today. That's a great ability, boy, and it is one that should be close-guarded. I learned about Caesar and Alexander from Caius Britannicus before you were born. Caius is dead now, of course, but his sister, your grandmother, knows as much about these things as he did. I will have her spend time with you, talking of things like that. . . Roman things.
"In the meantime, from this moment forward, I want you to start thinking of yourself as a commander of men, because you will be one someday. It might not be soon enough to please you, and you might not ever take my place as King, because it is not hereditary and therefore not within my power to bestow, but you will sit, as my first-born grandson, in my Chief's chair some day, when your own father dies. And as a Chief of Pendragon, you will have scope for all the strategy, all the ideas you can devise. You will need fresh notions of how to make things better for your people, but even more you will need to surround yourself with men you can trust, men of ability and men of strong personal honour to carry out your ideas and to improve on them with tactics. So I want you to remember what I told you about delegation. As I said, our people distrust it today, but who knows, if you work at it hard enough you might be able to change that, to everyone's benefit, by the time you achieve the Chief's chair."
The King stopped and looked his grandson straight in the eye, reaching out to grasp the boy by the upper arm. "You are ten now, are you not? Well, that's much more than halfway towards manhood, so you've spent more than half your time learning to be a boy. Now you have less than that amount of time to learn to be a man. One of these days—and it won't take long, believe me—you will be a warrior. And you will be a good one, I have not the smallest doubt. Your father and your mother have done a fine job of making you what you are today, and I find myself looking forward to the enjoyment of watching you grow older.
"You will find no shortage of people in this place, however, who will disapprove of everything you do . . . they do that already. Let them. All you have to do to rise above whatever they might say to you or about you is to keep what I tell you now in your heart: much of their disapproval—all of it, in fact—is born of envy. You are my grandson, Uther Pendragon. You are born to be a Chief and to enjoy privileges they will never know, so they will demand that you be perfect, without flaw or blemish . . . and that, of course, no man can be. So they will continue to be disapproving, but they will accept you, and they will respect you grudgingly, so be it you remain true to yourself and them. And for all of their complaining, they will obey you nonetheless. That is the way we Cambrians are, Uther. It is a thing inborn in all of us, whether we be Griffyd, Llewellyn, Pendragon . . . we are a race who do not smile easily, and we have no great admiration for the attribute of tolerance. We distrust everything we do not know and do not understand, and there is very little that we do know and understand. But we are an old people, Uther, ancient and strong, and we have reason to be proud of who and what we are. I believe it will be important for you to know that in the future and for you to understand it fully, although I don't think I understand it fully myself, even after a lifetime.
"So be it. I think the gods are telling me to pay more attention to you than I did to your father . . .
"More than twenty years ago, closer to thirty if truth be told, Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus told me that the Empire would collapse one day soon and that the Romans would be gone from Britain then, leaving us to go our way alone. I remember I laughed aloud the first time I heard that. Thought they were mad, I did. They were the Romans, not I, and yet I was the one who believed that Rome was eternal and rock-steady.
"Well, I stopped laughing over that long ago, because I began to see the signs of what they had described becoming plain in the months and years that followed hard on the heels of our early talks . . . and now it has been three years since the last Roman army units patrolled Britain. Everything is changing, Uther, all the things I knew and believed when I was your age, all the things in which I had trust. Your father is a man now, and there's nothing more that I or anyone else can teach him. All that remains for him to learn is what every man must learn for himself. But you, boyo . . . there are many things I know I can teach you, so you and I are going to spend a good deal more lime together after today. I am going to teach you how to be a Chief."
Seeing the expression on his grandson's face, he shook his head and wagged one finger in the air, drawing his features into a serious mask.
"It is not as straightforward as it sounds, despite what people may tell you. A man may hold the name and status of Chief but be a nothing all his life, doing no one good, including himself. It happens all the time . . . far from unusual. But for a man to be a Chief in reality and not in name alone is another thing altogether. To achieve that, a man must have worked hard to learn a few choice and specific things. And a good Chief will make a good King, because a King is simply a Chief with greater powers. I will teach you about honour and integrity. I'll teach you how to look at your people, man and woman, and at the problems that they have among themselves from time to time, the squabbles and the differences that soon call for judgment, and I will show you how to assess, in your own mind, the rights and wrongs and strengths and weaknesses of each case, so that you may judge wisely and without bias. There's more involved than simply being a judge, of course, much more, just as there is much more to life, but that's the kind of thing I can teach you. Would that please you?"
The boy nodded, wide-eyed, and his grandfather grinned and stood up.
"Good. Then let's return to those that love us—and to those who drive us wild with impatience."
Chapter SIX
Ullic was true to his word, and in the weeks that followed his talk with Uther, the two were often seen wandering together or fishing in a stream, up to their knees in icy water, talking earnestly together. At such times the King would brook no interruption, and his fierce gaze was enough to frighten off anyone who came close enough to claim his attention.
Less than a month after the day on which he made the promise, however, the King died of an apoplexy that suffused his face with blood, turned his eyes blood red and killed him instantly. He had been sitting, thinking, in his favourite spot atop an immense, round-topped boulder that lay on a hillside close by Tir Manila and from which Ullic, who had sat there almost every day of his life, had been known to swear that he could see into every part of his holdings when the light was right.
On the afternoon of his death, he had been shouting down to one of his advisers, who had approached him against all custom, defying the unwritten law that no one might disturb the King when he was on his Thinking Stone. An envoy had arrived, this man reported, bringing information that demanded an immediate response and therefore had to reach the King's attention instantly. Ullic had risen from his seat and was in the act of moving to climb down from the stone in his normal way and by his normal route when, according to those who saw it, he suddenly reared up to his full height, stiffened into rigidity and fell over backwards, crashing to the ground at the rear of the stone, out of sight of the watchers.
By the time they reached him, Ullic Pendragon was already dead. Several witnesses swore that he appeared to have caught his heel on some projection of the stone's surface, but nothing that might have caused the King to trip, stagger or lose his balance could be found, despite a most careful search. The stone was as smooth as an egg, and the Druids declared that Ullic died of an apoplexy—a flux of blood to the brain.