Leader of Battles 003: Gwenhwyfar by David Pilling

Author:David Pilling [Pilling, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, War & Military, Medieval Europe, Arthurian
Amazon: B00T7MXLAI
Published: 2015-02-04T07:00:00+00:00

13.

Caerleon

In her strange new role as consort and unofficial advisor to the High King, Gwenhwyfar did her best to learn quickly. She was full of questions about the kingdom her husband ruled, and in the first few months of their marriage she and Artorius often sat up late together in the royal bedchamber, deep in conversation.

She learned how lonely his position was, how difficult he found it to trust anyone, and his resentment at being forced to take on the mantle of High King.

“There was no-one else at the time,” he explained to her, not long after their disastrous wedding night, “Constantine had been killed in battle and left no heir. None of the surviving kings would accept the burden.”

He gazed moodily at the crown in his hands. The golden wreath shone darkly in the candlelight, its sullen glow reflected in the pits of his eyes.

“The blood of the Saxons was still warm on the field of Badon,” he murmured, “when Cei stuck this thing on my head, and Gwalchmei draped Constantine’s royal cloak over my shoulders. The soldiers acclaimed me there and then, even though I pleaded with them not to. My voice went unheard. Chaff in the wind.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Morgana always told me I was born to be High King. I should have listened to her. No man can escape his fate.”

Gwenhwyfar wanted to know more of Morgana, the mysterious Seer of Britannia, daughter of Ambrosius Aurelianus. She had not been seen for many years. It was widely assumed she had died or else vanished into Annwn, the pagan Otherworld where the gods of Britannia’s past still held sway.

Artorius spoke little of her, and batted aside his wife’s questions. With his usual gruff practicality, he preferred to concentrate on the here and now, the current state of his kingdom and the dangers it faced.

“My enemies call me Half-King,” he said, unrolling a map of Britannia on the table between them, “they mean it as an insult, and like all the best insults it has a grain of truth.”

He traced his thumb down the middle of the island, starting at the Wall and then all the way down to the south coast. “I have effective control over the West,” he explained, “the sub-kings of Gwynedd, Powys, Dyfed, Gwent, Dumnonia and Cerniw all pay homage to me as their overlord. Then there are the smaller kingdoms of Rhos, Brycheiniog, Ergyng, and others.”

“East of the great dyke, built by Ambrosius and his father, are the Debated Lands. We have some outposts - see, here at Lindum and Ratae. North of those, a few garrison towns along the Wall still acknowledge me as High King. Others stand derelict, or have become little kingdoms in their own right.”

“What of the country beyond the Wall?” asked Gwenhwyfar, studying the map with interest. To her the great Wall that spanned the neck of Britannia, built by the Emperor Hadrian to divide the civilised southlands from pagan wilderness, was the stuff of legend.

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