Warlord 2 Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell Page A

to Her that if She gave me the strength to take my own freedom then I would never marry. I will love you,’ she promised me, looking up into my face, ‘but I will not be any man’s possession.’
    Maybe not, I thought, but she, like me, was still Merlin’s gaming piece. How busy he had been, he and Nimue, but I said nothing of that, nor of the Dark Road. ‘But you will be Guinevere’s enemy now,’ I warned Ceinwyn instead.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but I always was, right from the moment when she decided to take Arthur away from me, but I was just a child then and I didn’t know how to tight her. Last night I struck back, but from now on I’ll just stay out of sight.’ She smiled. ‘And you were to marry Gwenhwyvach?’
    ‘Yes,’ I confessed.
    ‘Poor Gwenhwyvach,’ Ceinwyn said. ‘She was always very good to me when they lived here, but I remember every time her sister came into the room she’d run away. She was like a big plump mouse and her sister was the cat.’
    Arthur came to the lower valley that afternoon. The glue holding the scraps of bone were still drying in Hywelbane’s hilt as his warriors filled the trees on Cwm Isaf’s southern slope that faced our small house. The spearmen did not come to threaten us, but had merely diverted themselves from their long march home to comfortable Dumnonia. There was no sign of Lancelot, nor of Guinevere, as Arthur walked alone across the stream. He carried no sword or shield.
    We met him at our door. He bowed to Ceinwyn, then smiled at her. ‘Dear Lady,’ he said simply.
    ‘You are angry with me, Lord?’ she asked him anxiously.
    He grimaced. ‘My wife believes I am, but no. How can I be angry? You only did what I once did, and you had the grace to do it before the oath was given.’ He smiled at her again. ‘You have, perhaps, inconvenienced me, but I deserved that. May I walk with Derfel?’
    We followed the same path that I had taken that morning with Ceinwyn, and Arthur, once he was out of sight of his spearmen, put an arm about my shoulders. ‘Well done, Derfel,’ he said quietly.
    ‘I am sorry if it hurt you, Lord.’
    ‘Don’t be a fool. You did what I once did and I envy you the newness of it. It just changes things, that’s all. It is, as I said, inconvenient.’
    ‘I won’t be Mordred’s champion,’ I said.
    ‘No. But someone will. If it was up to me, my friend, I would take you both home and make you champion and give you all I had to give, but things cannot always be as we want.’
    ‘You mean,’ I said bluntly, ‘that the Princess Guinevere will not forgive me.’
    ‘No,’ Arthur said bleakly. ‘Nor will Lancelot.’ He sighed. ‘What shall I do with Lancelot?’
    ‘Marry him to Gwenhwyvach,’ I said, ‘and bury them both in Siluria.’
    He laughed. ‘If only I could. I’ll send him to Siluria, certainly, but I doubt Siluria will hold him. He has ambitions above that small kingdom, Derfel. I’d hoped that Ceinwyn and a family would keep him there, but now?’ He shrugged. ‘I would have done better to give the kingdom to you.’ He took his arm from about my shoulders and faced me. ‘I do not release you from your oaths, Lord Derfel Cadarn,’ he said formally, ‘you are still my man and when I send for you, you will come to me.’
    ‘Yes, Lord.’
    ‘That will be in the spring,’ he said. ‘I am sworn to three months’ peace with the Saxons and I will keep that peace, and when the three months are up the winter will keep our spears stacked. But in the spring we march and I shall want your men in my shield-wall.’
    ‘They will be there, Lord,’ I promised him.
    He raised both hands and put them on my shoulders. ‘Are you also sworn to Merlin?’ he asked, staring into my eyes.
    ‘Yes, Lord,’ I admitted.
    ‘So you’ll chase a Cauldron that doesn’t exist?’
    ‘I shall seek the Cauldron, yes.’
    He closed his eyes. ‘Such stupidity!’ He dropped his hands and opened his eyes. ‘I believe in the