Glynda went slack-mouthed with surprise. She turned her gaze from Mairidh to Balin, seeking reassurance. "Is that true. Lord Balin?"
She was completely unaware of casting a slur of any kind on Mairidh's veracity, and the old man smiled and shrugged. "Aye, child, as far as the friendship goes, I have known Uther's grandfather, Ullic Pendragon, for many, many years—in fact I have been privileged to know all of his grandparents, save one. His Pendragon grandmother, Ullic's wife, was long dead ere I even met Ullic, but Publius and Luceiia Varrus of Camulod, the parents of Uther's mother Veronica, have been friends of ours for many years. But then, I am an old man and I tend to dwell in the past, as all old people do. The friendship with young Uther, to which Mairidh refers, was more hers than my own, but it has lasted—how long now, Mairidh? Ten years?"
"At least that long, my love." Mairidh smiled again at Glynda. "He saved my life once, did you not know that?" Glynda's eyes became enormous with wonder and Mairidh nodded in confirmation. "It's true. I was abducted by a raiding party and Uther happened to see it. He followed us and saved me heroically while my abductors slept. He is your King now, but he was my saviour then, and no more than a mere boy at the time, almost a child, perhaps younger than you are now."
"How? Oh, my lady, do tell me about it, please."
Mairidh shook her head at the anguished urgency in the young woman's voice. "Ah, my dear, it was a long time ago, and it is a very long tale. Perhaps later tonight, after dinner. We shall see."
And so it was left, with Glynda fretfully wondering whether she would ever get to hear the story, and Mairidh reflecting yet again upon how she had really met Uther Pendragon for the first time. She would never, could never, forget any detail of that first meeting, or of any of the many that followed it, but she felt no tiniest portion of guilt at having deceived her young friend, however gently, regarding the details.
As she and her party joined the departing throng and began making their way towards the exit from the temple, the woman called Mairidh walked with her head down, ignoring everyone around her and allowing her memory to drift back across the years.
Chapter NINETEEN
July was supposed to be a month of blue skies and summer breezes, but this year it had been more like late November, with dull, leaden skies, heavy with rain-filled clouds, and cold, howling winds that could cut through the warmest clothing and chill a body right down to the bone. The current storm, the latest in a series, had begun the day before, buffeting Nemo with cold, blustery winds and torrential rain. She had been drenched and chilled within an hour, the thickly woven, waxed wool of her heavy, hooded campaign cloak soaked through, so that it became an added burden to be borne, dragging at her with its sodden weight. And she was still a full day's ride from Camulod.
A year had passed since the Choosing, and nine months since Uther had driven Lot's forces back to Cornwall, and the time had been swallowed by the crises and small miseries of everyday life. A harsh winter had hit them hard in Tir Manha, diminishing their stores of corn and provender with frightening speed, and now summer was bringing little relief, its sullen, rainy malevolence threatening the harvest yet to come.
For hours she rode though the trees, away from the deserted road, hoping to find shelter of some kind, but there was nothing, not a cave or even a large animal burrow into which she might crawl. An enormous fire had burned the entire forest several years earlier, and nothing had had time to grow again to any decent size. The solitary ruined hut she found in a narrow ravine on a hillside that had somehow escaped the blaze had been completely useless to her, abandoned for decades, its roof long vanished and its decayed walls incapable of sheltering her from the howling wind.
She struck out directly for the only place she knew of that would offer her at least a rudimentary roof over her head: a ruined stone cattle shed, abandoned countless years earlier, but which still retained a remnant of a once good, thick roof of sod laid over rotted logs. If the remaining portion of the roof had not collapsed since the previous winter, it would offer her at least the opportunity to try to build a fire.
It had been dark for more than an hour by the time she finally crossed the ten or twelve miles and reached the crossroads close to where the shed lay. It took her another hour after that, working in the windblown darkness, to locate the ruined building—the roof, such as it was, was still in place—and then to find a spot within its walls where, by tenting her soaked cloak as a barrier against the gusting wind, she could create sufficient shelter to strike sparks into tinder and finally kindle a tiny flame strong enough to feed with twigs, huddling over it constantly to protect it from the cold, questing breath of the destructive wind.
Only when the tiny fire was burning briskly did she reach into her scrip for the thick tallow candle she always carried, and she lit it carefully with a flaming twig. Then, carefully guarding the candle flame in the hollow of her arm beneath her upraised cloak, she was able to move sufficiently far away from the fire to see and reach the supply of old, sun-dried wood, whitened with age, that lay against one of the walls, used and replenished by travellers like herself. Cautiously then, pre parcel to react at any moment to threats from the wind, Nemo set about building a real fire, feeding the dried-out lengths of wood one at a time to the hungry, growing flames. Her mood improved from moment to moment as they began to leap and dance vigorously, filling the angle between the ruined walls with flickering shadows and yellow brightness, and at last defying the wind to do its worst.
Nemo stood up and removed her sodden cloak, then reached behind her back with her left hand and grasped the naked blade that hung there, flipping it strongly, straight upwards, with an easy, accustomed movement that allowed her other hand the purchase to draw the long cavalry sword that hung through an iron ring between her shoulder blades, its hilt projecting high above her right ear. As soon as the sword was free, she reversed her grip on it and thrust the blade into the dirt floor. The sound of its point grating into the soil pleased her, and she gazed at the long, deadly weapon swaying there within her reach before she reached down and picked up her shield, a wooden disk covered with iron-studded leather. Slowly then, taking pains to position everything correctly, she lowered the loops at the back of the shield down over the hilt of the sword so that it hung securely, anchored to the pommel and the boss of the hilt by its own weight against the tension of the straps. Then, satisfied, she gathered up her cloak again and hung it carefully over the framework she had formed, where it could be dried by the fire's heat. She checked it to be sure that the cloak would not fall down, and then she moved away reluctantly, loosening her short-sword in its sheath, and went to look after her horse.
Strictly speaking, as a cavalry trooper, she knew she should have attended to the horse's needs before her own, but she was chilled and exhausted, close to the end of her resources, whereas the horse was still in good condition—cold and weary, perhaps, but yet far better able to withstand the ravages of the weather for another hour than she was. There was no place to stable him, for the broken roof that sheltered her was barely large enough to cover her and her fire, but she led her mount into the lee of the building's wall, out of the worst of the wind.
Working quickly, she first removed her precious saddlebags and the iron flail that she carried so proudly, hanging from a hook beside her saddle horn exactly as Uther's hung from his. Then she took off the animal's saddle and its thick saddle blanket, the latter amazingly warm and dry where the heavy saddle had sheltered it. The big gelding tossed his head and snorted his relief, flexed his back muscles and turned his hindquarters directly into the wind, lowering his head in search of grazing. She knew he would not move away before she returned.