His father seems to think that this is admirable, and so, in fact, do all the other men around us here. They praise the boy's courage, his ferocity, his single-mindedness. I find myself unable to see beyond their wrongness. How can they even think such nonsense, let alone voice the thoughts ? They are applauding the emergence of murderous traits in a mere boy—my boy!—and I am finding it more and more difficult within my own heart to forgive Uric for what I now see as his callousness towards his son.
Although what I am about to say might seem strange to you, and you might perhaps even think me disloyal to my husband in thinking such a thing, let alone setting it down in writing, I have no intent here to voice either plaint or grievance. I have no wish to complain at all about anything, Mother, but I find myself under a compulsion to say this to someone, to anyone who will listen without condemnation. I have learned to appreciate that I really came into a different world when I left your home to live with my husband's people. I never knew how sheltered our lives were in our Colony or how hard you and Daddy worked to keep us safe and protected as children from the realities of the life most other people know. Growing up. we, or I at least, had no awareness of how privileged and fortunate we were to be living as we lived. Even so, I can remember that we had many instances of violence in our Colony, incidents caused by raiding parties of various kinds from Outlanders to bandits and even domestic battles and upheavals. I knew that people died in such incidents, and I also knew that many others were savagely wounded, but that awareness was far less than real. And, in truth, nothing that I had ever seen or experienced could have prepared me for the extremes of violence I have found here in Cambria.
In this land, even here in Tir Manha, life itself is considered to be of little value, and most particularly so if the life being squandered or lost or taken belongs to a stranger or someone who does not belong to one's own family or one's own village.
In our beloved Camulod, men consider themselves to be either farmers, artisans or soldiers. All three ranks and standings are equal, and no man feels any shame in being what he is. In Cambria, on the other hand, every man is a warrior first, and then perhaps something else afterwards. And if that something else involves manual labour of any kind, there is always the taint of shamefulness about it.
Until I came here I did not know that there is a difference between the terms "warrior" and "soldier." Now I fully realize just how great that difference is. Soldiers are disciplined, and warriors need not be. Even more important, however, is the fact that soldiers, operating to a plan as a single organized force, are accountable for their actions, and warriors are not. When a soldier behaves badly, breaking a law or otherwise behaving in a criminal manner, he can be brought to answer for it by the system that governs or employs him. Not so with warriors. There is no system for warriors. The only source of rebuke and discipline for a warrior is another, stronger warrior, and the rebuke takes the form of violent death.
My Uric is King over seven clans of warriors, all of whom are every bit as savage and unpredictable as those Saxons whose very name fills people elsewhere in Britain with fright and fear. That savagery permeates our entire life here. And now I fear very greatly that it has affected my son and that I failed to see it happening. So much so, in fact, that I now find myself resenting things, circumstances and traditions and customs that have caused me no concern at all these past fifteen years.
The last lime young Cay was here, I found myself looking at him. not simply once but frequently, and comparing him to Uther, may God forgive me, searching for the finer elements in him that were not present in my own son. Cay is a gentle and wonderful young man, and all of us, Uther perhaps most of all, love him dearly. So there is, in his pleasant, sunny nature, much that any mother would enjoy seeing in her own son. He calls me Auntie Vron, his own personal name for me, and it makes me feel warm and content each time he does so. I know he calls you Aunt Luceiia, but I wonder if you are aware that he refers to you very lovingly as Auntie Looch whenever he talks of you to others. Cay is more circumspect than Uther in dealing with the feelings and sensitivities of others. He will seek to pacify and to soothe ruffled feathers and hurt feelings, and will strive to find a peaceful way to settle altercations and differences of opinions. Not so my darling Uther. He abhors nothing more than dishonesty, admires nothing more than forthright truth proclaimed in all its shameless purity. And he believes, and always has believed, that anyone who cannot stand to hear the truth laid out openly should stay away from those who stand behind it. It is a hard, uncompromising attitude he takes for one so young and one that sometimes fails to make friends for him, but his father the King admires him for it and so do his Councillors. So, too, do I, I suppose, although I sometimes wish he were not quite so forceful in his beliefs.
Please watch him closely, Mother, when he is with you in Camulod this time. I know you always do, since he is your firstborn grandson, but this time I would ask you to look upon him with a more discerning eye now that you have read some of my concerns and reservations. I know you will speak of them, too, with Daddy, so please tell him that his Magpie might be losing her sight, or at least her insight, since she is having difficulty nowadays seeing the sparkle in what has always been her dearest possession.
Ask Daddy, too, if you would, to find some reason to speak with one of Uther's companions, the one they call Nemo Hard-Nose, and warn him that, even though he might have trouble discerning it at first, Nemo Hard-Nose is a woman. She is aptly named. Hard, unyielding, more male and more warrior than the toughest of her companions in training, she betrays nothing female in her behaviour or comportment, and judging by the way Uther and the others speak of her, none of them has any awareness of her as a woman. I find her strange and unsettling to be around, although I have been in dose proximity to her on only two occasions. I have asked Uther about her, but all he would tell me is that he has known her since she was a child and that she has earned her place among his troopers. When I pressed him further, he grew uncomfortable and told me that he could not discuss any of "his men" with Outsiders. He is their Commander, and he has a duty to them to respect their privacy as long as they do what they are supposed to do. I asked no more after that, not wishing him to think of me as being over-inquisitive. But the girl does not like me. I felt hostility emanating from her as I passed by her. She never looked at me or spoke to me, but I could sense her dislike so strongly that I felt cold, and I knew she was jealous of me. Of what could she be jealous? Of my being my son's mother? That makes no sense. Tell Daddy his opinion on this matter, on this man-woman, is important to me.
I know you will write back to me eventually, and until you do, I will be waiting and wondering what your response will be. Give my dearest love, please, to Daddy, but keep half of it for yourself.
Veronica
Chapter ELEVEN
Because Uther led his raw recruits into Camulod beneath the ancient banner of his clan—a red dragon outlined in white on a field of green—the Camulodian troopers coined an instantaneous jibe about the rabble who were sent with the fifteen-year-old Uther: they called them the "dragon guards." Uther, acutely aware of how closely he was being watched by the governors of Camulod—his Grandfather Varrus, his Uncle Picus and all of the Council of the Colony—bit down on his anger and decided, against all his urgings and with the able assistance of Garreth Whistler, to do and say nothing in response to the goading. Garreth, at twenty-seven, was by far the eldest of the contingent Uther had brought with him, and if anything, he had more to contend with than any of his companions, for his Cambrian status as King's Champion earned him nothing in the way of respect from the Camulodians, who had heroes and traditions of their own and regarded anyone and everyone from Cambria as upstart savages. In their eyes, Garreth Whistler was simply another bumpkin recruit from the mountains, and an elderly one at that, compared to the youthful know-nothings with whom he rode.