"But not this time."
Garreth nodded, a terse jerk of his head that conveyed his reluctance to agree. "No, not this time. He's still too young, little more than a boy. That leaves only Meradoc, but he would be your biggest threat even were Huw old enough. Meradoc has the love and trust of all his own folk—" Garreth broke off, twisting his face wryly at the disbelief that had sprung into Uther's face. "Well, I may be overstating that a bit—he is Meradoc, and that in itself makes him hard to love—but nonetheless it is undeniable that he has strength enough among his own people to win. He has support, and that means he has the numbers, and it matters not whether he holds them through love or fear."
"Numbers mean nothing in this. There are but seven votes. Seven single voices."
"Numbers mean everything, Uther. Think you that the Chiefs will be unmoved by the opinion of their people? Would you vote in defiance of your own people, flouting them simply because you wish it? You could, because you are their Chief. But how would that affect the way your people think of you? Do you think after that they'll follow you willingly, or any other Chief who disregards their wishes, into battle, into death?" Garreth paused to let that sink in. "Meradoc will vote for himself, and you will vote for yourself, so those two votes are gone. That leaves but five, and of those five you will need three. You'll have no time available for courting anyone, because the Choosing will begin the moment you arrive. Everyone else will have shown up already, and you can be sure that Meradoc was the first to get there, to lay his claim for support among the others."
"He'd serve himself better by keeping quiet. Meradoc has no skill in bending men to like him."
"Perhaps not, but he is an able man, you can't deny him that, and that will speak loudly for him. He leads his people well, and the only real victories we have won so far in this war with Cornwall have been his—his planning, his force and his leadership. There's more than one minor chieftain who thinks that Meradoc would make a strong King."
"Aye, and the people would weep beneath his feet forever after. Meradoc is a bully, Garreth, and he's greedy."
Garreth shrugged. "Ambitious, isn't that the Roman word? He wouldn't be where he is now if he were not ambitious, and neither would any of the others, including you."
Uther Pendragon drew a deep breath and looked about him before responding to that. The last of his men had long since vanished up the steep stream bed, and even the sound of hooves had faded into silence. Finally he returned his gaze to Garreth Whistler, and his voice was as expressionless as his face.
"You think him stronger than me? The better man?"
Garreth curled his lip and kicked his horse into motion. "I should knock you off your horse for even asking that, boy. Come, we ought to keep up with the others."
As Uther swung his horse around to follow, Garreth set his mount to the rocky slope, half turning in his saddle to talk back over his shoulder.
"All I meant was that you should be careful of how you behave— to your own men and to the men who must judge you before choosing you. Don't look too confident, and don't look arrogant. But above all, don't look too Roman! If you ride into the gathering wearing that armour, you'll destroy any chance you have of being chosen. You know the Chiefs. You know how they think, how they disapprove of anything they see as differentness. Don't hand them the power to thwart you. Old they may be—several of them too old, perhaps, to remember how it feels to be young—but none of them has lost the taste for exercising power when he can. This conclave gives them that opportunity . . . the power to kill younger men's dreams."
Uther was very quiet thinking about that as their horses scrambled up the last portion of the steep climb to the crest. He knew Garreth was right, that something as insignificant as his appearance could cost him the King's Chair. How much better it would be if he could spring into prominence and into the kingship as his grandfather had.
Within the Pendragon Federation, Ullic, as Uther knew, had been the first man in living memory to serve as both King and War Chief. He had been elected King by the unanimous choice of his fellow Chiefs when he was only twenty-one, directly following the death of his own father, Udall. But Ullic Pendragon had already been wearing the huge Eagle Crown of the War Chief of Pendragon at the time of his election to the kingship.
A natural warrior, bred of generations of fierce fighters who led their clan with honour and distinction, Ullic had come early to recognition upon the unforeseen death, in a brilliantly executed ambush, of Ullic's Uncle Daffyd, War Chief of the Federation, and his entire staff of close subordinates. Their leaderless army found itself outflanked and outmanoeuvred by an enemy far more numerous than they had expected, led by a brilliant general, rather than by the simple seagoing brigand that they had all expected to find in command, and disaster loomed over all of them.
Within moments of the death of his commanding general, a lacklustre nonentity called Dennys ap Corfyl found himself promoted, ipso facto, to the rank of senior surviving chieftain in a trapped army. The hapless fellow, caught flat-footed, was overwhelmed by circumstances beyond his control or understanding. To young Ullic Pendragon, who had only recently celebrated his seventeenth birthday, it was evident that the man was totally at a loss. What few wits the fellow possessed were by that time thoroughly addled, and the faces of the men around him, who looked to him for leadership and salvation, were beginning to show strain and signs of panic.
Ullic reacted immediately and without thought, springing forward from where he stood and using a nearby boulder to help him jump up to a rocky ledge where all could see him and know who he was. For the first time ever, he raised his great voice to draw all eyes to him, and then he began to issue orders, crisp and terse and succinct. It never crossed his mind, after that first step, that anyone would seek or wish to gainsay him, and the men he harangued accepted his command immediately and instinctively, moving to obey his fast-flying instructions without the slightest hesitation.
He called on all of them to form up in their clan groups behind him and to follow the moves of his uncle's own personal guard of clansmen, over which he then assumed undisputed control. As he took his place at their head, they cheered him once, loudly and deeply, as their kinsman and commander, and then he led them forward, directly towards the left centre of the enemy army that had outflanked them. Inspired by his fiery enthusiasm, they smashed through the extended enemy formation facing them and then wheeled back to left and right, the sheer mass of their numbers and the fury of their determination rolling the enemy up in confusion, battering at them and pressing them back upon themselves so that they hampered each other in their dense-packed closeness.
There was nothing Roman about the way Pendragon warriors fought. They fought as their ancestors had, in small, tight-knit groups of individuals who knew and trusted each other completely. Capable of combining with other groups to form heavy and dense formations, they preferred to preserve the integrity of their small units, guarding one another's back and generally combining their weight and initiative to achieve the ultimate in ferocity and, with that, victory. Ullic, they quickly learned, could lead them with the sureness of a master, inspiring all of them with his flamboyant leadership, his courage, his immense strength and his great roaring voice. Within a very short space of time on that first day, the Pendragon forces went from being outflanked and close to defeat to being utterly dominant, sending their attackers reeling and finally routing them completely.
That afternoon when the battle was over and the last of the fleeing enemy survivors had disappeared, one of his father's senior veterans brought Ullic the dead War Chief's great helmet, and backed by the cheers and applause of the army, he insisted that the young man put it on. It was against tradition, for no one ever presumed to wear the Eagle Crown of a dead War Chief, but the day had been special, and Ullic felt he had acquitted himself well and given honour to his uncle and his kinsmen, and so he held the helmet above his head, straight-armed, and then lowered it gently over his brows, shouting his father's name.