The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [143]
Other troubles hit nearer home and more immediately. It was a year of starvation. The spring was long and cold and wet, the fields everywhere flooded, long past the time when corn should have been sown and growing. Cattle disease was everywhere in the south, and in Galava even the hardy blue-fleeced hill sheep died, their feet rotted away so that they could not move on the fells to feed themselves. Late frost blasted the fruit buds, and even as the green corn grew, it turned brown and rotted in the stagnant fields. Strange tales came north. A druid had run mad and attacked Uther for leading the country away from the Old Religion; and a Christian bishop stood up in church and railed against him for being a pagan. There was a story of an attempt on the King's life, and of the hideous way in which the King had punished the men responsible.
So spring and summer wore through, in disaster, and by the beginning of autumn the country lay like a waste land. People died of starvation. Folk talked of a curse laid on the country; but whether God was angry because the country shrines still claimed their sacrifices, or whether the old gods of hill and woodland exacted vengeance for neglect, no one was sure. All that was certain was that there was a blight on the land, and the King ailed. There was a meeting of nobles in London demanding that Uther should name his heir. But it seemed -- Ector told me this -- as if he still feared, not knowing friend from foe; all he would say was that his son lived and thrived, and would be presented to the nobles at the next Easter feast. Meanwhile his daughter Morgian passed her twelfth birthday, and would be taken north for her wedding at Christmas.
With the autumn the weather changed, and a mild, dry season set in. It was too late to help the crops or the dying cattle, but grateful to men starved of the sun, and the bright weather came in time to ripen some of the fruit that the spring storms and the summer rot had left on the trees. In the Wild Forest the mists curled through the pines in the early morning, and the September dews glittered everywhere on the cobwebs. Ector left Galava to meet with Rheged and his allies at Luguvallium. The King of Ireland had sailed for home and there was still peace in Strathclyde, but the defense line along the Ituna Estuary from Alauna to Luguvallium was to be manned, and there was talk of Ector as its commander. Cei went with his father. Arthur, scarce three months from his fourteenth birthday, tall enough for sixteen, and already (according to Ralf) a notable swordsman, fretted visibly, and grew daily more silent. He spent all his days now in the forest, often with me (though not so much as formerly), but most of the time, Ralf told me, hunting or taking breakneck rides through the rough country.
"If only the King would make some move," said Ralf to me. "The boy will kill himself else. It's as if he knew that there was something in the future for him, something un-guessed at, but that gives him no peace. I'm afraid he'll break his neck before it happens. That new horse of his -- Canrith he calls it -- I wouldn't care to get astride it myself, and that's the truth. I can't think what possessed Ector to give it to him; a guilt gift perhaps."
I thought he was right. The white stallion had been left for Arthur when Ector took Cei up to Luguvallium with him. Bedwyr had gone, too, though he was no older than Arthur. Ector was hard put to it to explain to Arthur why he could not go. But until Uther spoke, we could do nothing.
The full moon