Camulod Chronicles Book 7 - Uther Read online

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  First published in Viking by Penguin Books Canada Limited, 2000 Published in Penguin Books, 2001

  3579 108642 Copyright © Jack Whyte, 2000

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication

  may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or

  by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)

  without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination

  or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Manufactured in Canada

  Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Whyte, Jack, 1940- Uther

  ISBN 0-14-026087-0

  I. Title.

  PS8595.H947U83 2001 C813'.54 C2001-930647-4 PR9199.3.W59U83 2001

  For my wife, Beverley,

  and the Clan: Jode, Mitch and Holly, Jeanne and Michael, and Phyllis

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I had a difficult time in the early stages of writing this book, purely because of my perspective on the story. I knew what I wanted to achieve, and Uther's story was all there in my head, intact from the outset, but I gradually allowed myself to become ensnared in the need to avoid rehashing events that had taken place in my novel Eagles' Brood, which I convinced myself had already covered the same ground. And then I read and was riveted by Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Shadow, a "parallel novel" to his earlier masterpiece Ender's Game. I devoured it, and with enjoyment came enlightenment as I realized that, in agonizing over repetitiveness in Uther, I had painted myself into a false corner within my own mind, and that the story of Uther Pendragon's life really bears only the faintest resemblance to the story of Eagles' Brood, sharing common elements and time frames, but unfolding independently of the tale of Caius Merlyn Britannicus and his upbringing in Camulod. From that moment, I started all over again, from the beginning, and the storyline flowed as smoothly as fishing line off a reel when a big fish takes the hook. And so I hereby acknowledge my indebtedness to Orson Scott Card for his contribution, albeit unbeknownst to him, to the development of this book.

  I also want to offer my thanks publicly to Mark Burgess in San Diego, who runs my "official" website at camulod.com. Mark is the webmaster who originally set up the Reader's Forum within the site, and in the few years that have elapsed since then, thanks to Mark's foresight, I have come to know hundreds of my readers from all over the world, corresponding with them through the Forum. Their feedback has been invaluable, and their responses to the sample chapters I have posted on the site have helped me greatly in shaping various elements within this book.

  No one, however, has been more influential in shaping the book, all the way from rough draft to completion, than my editor, Catherine Marjoribanks, whose keen eye for inconsistencies and irrelevance continues to astound me after an association of almost ten years. The author-editor bond is a strange and unique phenomenon that surpasseth understanding, in this case involving close communication and much mutual, nitty-gritty give and take between two people who seldom meet and who live half a continent apart. It is a relationship that I would hate to lose or have to change.

  Southwest Britain

  PROLOGUE

  This was no spontaneous gathering to welcome her as a young bride to her new home; Veronica Varrus recognized that truth very quickly. What was happening here had nothing to do with her at all. Her arrival, mere moments earlier, accompanied by her new husband and his father, King Ullic Pendragon, was no more than a coincidence.

  Veronica had no idea what was going on, or even what she was seeing ahead of her in the darkness. There were simply too many people crowded between her and the centre of all that distant activity But whatever was happening over there on the other side of the crowd looked exciting and mysterious. She stretched up on tiptoe and craned her neck, bobbing and twisting as she tried to find a clear view between the black, jostling outlines of the people ahead of her. Close behind her and around her, most of the other members of the group who had been her travelling companions seemed to be as awed and curious as she was, muttering among themselves in tones that betrayed their uncertainty. King Ullic Pendragon, who had been moving ahead of her at the head of the group only moments earlier, seemed to have vanished suddenly, swallowed up by the swarm of people.

  The source of all the excitement was fire, that much she could identify. In the distance, fifty paces or more ahead of where she stood, dense, rolling clouds of yellowish smoke belched upward from several large bonfires, the undersides of the billowing columns reflecting the light from the flames beneath them, and against that roiling, volatile background, grotesque shapes and shadows danced and cavorted, all of them obscured and ill-defined against the blackness of the surrounding night.

  She could smell something strange in the air, too, some kind of thick, smoky odour that had nothing to do with the burning wood of the bonfires—a dense, heavy smell, vaguely familiar and yet alien somehow. She sniffed again, deeply, trying to identify it and failing, but knowing that recognition would come to her sooner or later; she could only assume that the strange, cloying aroma had something to do with the festivities. This was a celebration of some kind, she was convinced of that, if only because she could conceive of no other reason for such a huge concentration of people to have come together.

  Perhaps everyone here at Tir Manha, the place that was to be her home from this time on, had been forewarned of their approach and had stayed awake this far into the night simply to welcome her and her new husband, Uric Pendragon. That had been her first wishful thought, but Uric's reaction had quickly banished it. One glance at his face had shown Veronica that he was as surprised as she to find this hive of activity where they had expected to find only a sleeping settlement. But his surprise contained no sign of gladness, pleasure or delight. The scowling frown that had swept over his normally open, smiling face had filled her immediately with concern and deep misgivings.

  Now she looked up at her husband as he stood beside her, unusually silent and still, staring back over his right shoulder at something she could not see.

  "Uric . . . ?"

  He gave no sign that he had heard her, and that brought a quick frown to her face, because for the ten days since their wedding in her parents' home in Camulod, Uric Pendragon had seen and heard nothing but her, had lived only for her, anticipating her every word and wish. Now, finding herself ignored and seeing the urgency in his posture, the strained set of his neck and shoulders, she moved quickly, stepping around him to see what he was looking at.

  Something important was going on between his father the King and the party of elderly men with whom he now stood in conclave. Ullic was a huge man, even though on this occasion he was not wearing the great eagle helmet that made him appear even larger than he was. Looking directly at him, Veronica could see that for the firs
t time in weeks Ullic's face bore no semblance of a smile. His expression was grave, cast into deeply etched shadows by the flickering light of the torches held by the men surrounding him, the elders of the King's Council.

  Ullic was listening attentively to what one of the oldest men was saying, and whatever he was being told, it was not pleasing to him. Finally, after he had listened intently for a long time, interrupting the speaker only twice, and briefly, Veronica saw the King turn away from the old man quickly, as though in disgust, and then glance in her direction, as if checking to see if she and Uric were watching. She saw him bring his hands up to his face and cover his eyes, cupping his hands with a squeezing motion, almost as though he were washing his face, and then pressing his fingertips hard into his temples before dragging them down his cheeks all the way to his beard. When he took his hands away, dropping them to his sides, he tilted his head back and sucked in a great breath, stretching himself hugely, spreading his fingers and rising almost to tiptoe before sinking his chin upon his breast and crossing his arms over his chest. He stood like that for long moments, frowning intensely, while Veronica counted a full score of her own heartbeats.

  When at last Ullic straightened up, determination was in every line of his bearing. He nodded his head abruptly, and the elder who had been haranguing him and had been watching him closely ever since, clearly waiting for a decision, spun around and raised his arm vertically, then brought it sweeping down in what was obviously a prearranged signal. Immediately after that a whirling ball of fire went flying up into the air, describing a high arc before falling back to the ground.

  Even as the fireball arced upwards, Veronica recognized it as a whirling torch, hurled into the air by someone who had been nursing it carefully for just such a purpose. Others followed it, and almost immediately the night sky was filled with flickering, whirling lights in colours that ranged from orange through yellow to bright blue. They seemed to be falling into some kind of pit on the other side of the screen of people who blocked her view, but before she could even begin to move forward to see what was happening there, she felt her husband, Uric, grasp her by the upper arm and begin to pull her back and away from the flaring, spinning torches. Surprised and slightly displeased, she twisted in protest, shrugging her arm free of his grasp and continuing to move forward, but he caught her again immediately, before she could even begin to evade him, his grasp this time quicker and stronger, clamping her right wrist. She heard his voice close above her head as he pulled her arm up behind her back, gently but firmly, and swung her around, his free hand flat against her belly.

  "No, love, this is not for you. Come now, away with the two of us, you and me, and to bed."

  "What? Uric, let go of me, that hurts! Why should . . . ? I don't want to go to bed!"

  She dug in her heels and fought against his pull, trying to twist out of his grip again, but instead of releasing her, Uric swiftly transferred his grip, seized her by both elbows and lifted her. Then he spun her in the air as though she were weightless and threw his arms about her from behind so quickly that she was imprisoned before she could even guess his intent.

  "No, woman, no!" His voice was huge, raw and angry in her ears, and the roughness of his grasp around her ribs was painful enough to make her catch her breath in the beginnings of panic. His left hand closed over his other wrist beneath her breasts, hugging her even closer against his chest. Ignoring her cries and furious kicking, he strode away with her, carrying her towards the blackest part of the night, away from the swelling noises of the crowd and the flickering glow of the fires.

  Veronica suddenly found herself filled with a violent, consuming fury, fuelled by the sheer impossibility of what was happening to her. This man who was restraining her, confining her and virtually abducting her was her new husband, the guardian to whom she had been wed a mere ten days earlier and who had sworn, in the presence of her family and all their friends, to nurture, defend and protect her. Now he was acting like a man demented, treating her like some kind of domesticated beast, mauling her painfully and hauling her away into the darkness for some twisted purpose of his own.

  Without warning, they came face to face with Ullic Pendragon the darkness, his face faintly illumined by the light from the distant fires. Veronica saw his eyes widen in surprise at the sight of them, registered the quick glance down at her kicking scissoring legs and then saw the way his eyes returned to his son's face.

  Uncullic! Help me!" It had always been her special name for the King, coined before her infant tongue could master the intricacies of Uncle Ullic," but this time it failed to have any effect. The king nodded to his son, then stepped aside to let them pass. Only when she shrieked his name again, angry and confused and humiliated did he look her in the eye. Then he reached out briefly and touched her cheek with the knuckle of one finger before acknowledging her.

  "Daughter," he said, "I regret this, but I had no way of knowing, nor did he. Better you should not be here. Go now with your man."

  Go? Go where?" Veronica was wailing as her husband carried her into the darkness of the night, his enormous strength making light of her frenzied struggles. But suddenly, unable to see quite where he was going, Uric placed one foot firmly on a spot where there was nothing to sustain it. His ankle twisted in the hole his foot had found, and he fell heavily sideways, grunting with the pain and releasing Veronica as he instinctively threw out his arms to try to check his fall.

  In an instant, she was up and running, completely unhurt and filled with the strength of angry youth, holding her skirts high above her knees where they would not interfere with her speed as she fled back towards the flickering lights and the roiling smoke. Behind her, she heard Uric roar her name, but she ignored him, concentrating only on where she was placing her flying feet.

  A tiny part of her mind knew that she had no reason to be running back towards the fires and no reason, really, to be running anywhere, but its small, sane whisper went unheeded. Veronica Varrus was too far out of her depth by then, and too suddenly terror had leaped up to overwhelm her reason. Surrounded by darkness, whirling smoke, strange faces, stranger noises and smells and a crushing press of unfamiliar people, she found no logic in the world that yawed around her.

  Now, as she approached the frenzied celebrants, their enormous fire-flung shadows dancing before her, she looked back over her shoulder and saw that she was not being pursued. No one was following her, and in relief she slowed her pace until she came to a complete stop, her heart hammering in her chest and her ribs heaving painfully as she fought to bring her breathing under control. Her mind was filled with the way her beloved Uncullic had ignored her, and a great ball of grief ached in her chest.

  And then, finally, she became aware of the screaming. It had been there all along, mixed in among the mad cacophony of the crowd. But it was far louder now, and increasing in both volume and intensity even as she listened: an insane, soul-searing screaming, a kind of screaming she had never heard before. Frantic and appallingly indescribable, it sounded like nothing that could ever issue from a human throat. With an overwhelming, dehumanizing fear, a quaking awareness that the skies might split apart at any moment and rain down death and destruction, Veronica Varrus realized that what she was hearing came not from one human throat but from scores, perhaps hundreds of voices.

  Moving now in a kind of terror-stricken dream, her footsteps following one upon the other without volition, she walked forward towards the light and the indescribable noise, aware of the people around her now, looking at her and moving out of her way, until she stood in the forefront of the crowd, gazing on the sight from which her husband had sought to protect her. Though she had no memory of raising them, her hands were pressed tightly over her ears in a futile attempt to shut out the infernal noises. Yet she made no move to cover her eyes; if this was the truth her husband had tried to keep from her, she would know it.

  The crowd had fallen back, away from the heat, and she could feel the flames searing her face eve
n from twenty paces distant. Someone had dug an enormous pit in the centre of a vast, open space. It measured roughly ten paces to each side and extended four paces into the earth. As she saw it, a door to memory opened somewhere in her mind, and so she was unsurprised to see the enormous gallows frame that had been erected over it. She had once heard someone, either Ullic or Uric, talking about such a thing, although she had paid scant attention at the time. She remembered a description of wood soaked in pitch, of everlasting fires of Druid sacrifice.

  The great gallows frame reared up six or seven long paces in height above the top of the pit, and from it, suspended by chains, hung three wooden cages. Each of these was tightly packed with men, some of them evidently dead or unconscious, but most of them still alive—and screaming. The flames from the pit beneath, fed by the tarry pitch, had reached the cages easily by this time, and the wooden frames were all alight, the middle one burning far more fiercely than the two flanking it. As she watched, stupefied, there came a loud, sharp crack, clearly audible above everything else and the middle cage broke apart, splitting into pieces and hurling its living contents down into the inferno underneath. The unfortunates in the remaining cages, seeing the fate that awaited them and recognizing its imminence, began throwing themselves against the burning bars of their cages in despair. In another cage one side fell away, and a knot of men threw themselves immediately outward and down into the pit, disappearing from view in the incandescent heart of the fire. The thrust of their leaping and the shifting of their weight threw the entire cage out of balance and it tilted violently, dislodging even more screaming prisoners, some of whom leaped frantically outward, vainly trying to leap over the fire and land in safety on the side of the pit.

  Veronica watched them fall and disappear, melted into liquescent nothingness by the white heat at the centre of the furnace, and when she raised her eyes again towards the last surviving cage, all movement there had ceased. Everyone in that cage was dead, and it only remained now for the bars or the floor to burn through and release the bodies to tumble into the fire.