The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [184]
"I challenge the choice, King Uther!"
It was like throwing a boulder down into the path of a fast-flowing stream. The noise checked; men stared, muttered, shifted and looked about them. Then all at once it could be seen that the stream divided. There was cheering still for Arthur and the King's choice, but here and there were shouts ' of "Lothian! Lothian!" and through it all Lot said strongly: "An untried boy? A boy who has seen one battle? I tell you, Colgrim will be back all too soon, and are we to have a boy to lead us? If you must hand on your sword, King Uther, hand it to a tried and seasoned leader, to be held in trust for this young boy when he is grown!" He finished the challenge with a crash of his fist on the table, and round him the clamour broke out again: "Lothian! Lothian!" and then farther off down the hall, confusedly, other challenges being shouted down by "Pendragon!" and "Cornwall!" and even "Arthur!" It was to be seen then, as the clamour mounted, that only the fact that men were unarmed prevented worse things than insults being hurled from side to side of the hall. The servants had backed to the walls, and chamberlains bustled here and there, white-faced and placatory. The King, ashen, threw up a hand, but the gesture went almost unnoticed. Arthur neither moved nor spoke, but he had gone rather pale.
"My lords! My lords!" Uther was shaking, but with rage; and rage, as I knew, was as dangerous to him as a spear thrust. I saw that Lot knew it, too. I laid a hand on Uther's arm. "All will be well," I told him softly. "Sit back now and let them shout it out. Look, Ector is speaking."
"My lord King!" Ector's voice was brisk, friendly, matter-of-fact, cooling the atmosphere in the hall. He spoke as if addressing the King alone. The effect was noticeable; the hall grew quiet as men strained to hear him. "My lord King, the King of Lothian has challenged your choice. He has a right to speak, as all your subjects have a right to speak before you, but not to challenge, not even to question, what you have said tonight." Raising his voice a little he turned to the listening hall. "My lords, this is not a matter of choice or election; a king's heir is begotten, not chosen by him, and where chance has provided such a begetting as this, what question is there? Look at him now, this prince who has been presented to you. He has been in my household for ten years, and I, my lords, knowing him as I do, tell you that here is a prince to be followed -- not later, not 'when he is further grown,' but now. Even if I could not stand before you here to attest his birth, you have only to look at him and to think back to yesterday's field, to know that here, with all fortune and God's blessing, we have our true and rightful King. This is not open to challenge, even to question. Look at him, my lords, and remember yesterday! Who more fit to unite the kings from all the corners of Britain? Who more fit to wield his father's sword?"
There were shouts of "True! True!" and "What doubt can there be? He is Pendragon, and therefore our King!" and a hubbub of voices that was louder and more- confused even than before. Briefly, I remembered my father's councils, their power and order; then I saw again how Uther shook, ashen in his great chair. The times were different; this was the way he had had to do it; he could not enforce it other than by public acclaim.
Before he could speak, Lot was smoothly on his feet again. He was no longer shouting; he spoke weightily, with an air of reason, and a courteous inclination towards Ector. "It was not the prince's begetting that I challenged, it was the fitness of a young and untried youth to lead us. We know that the battle yesterday was only the preliminary, the first move in a longer and more deadly fight even than Ambrosius faced a struggle such as we have not seen since the days of Maximus. We need better leadership than is shown by a day's luck it a skirmish. We need, not a sick king's deputy, but a man vested with all the authority and God-given blessing