The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [41]
He was not asking for prophecy; Uther looked askance and white-eyed at things of the Otherworld, like a dog that sees the wind. I shook my head.
"Of your enemies? Nothing, except that when Ralf came to me after leaving your court, he was set upon, and nearly killed. The men had no badge. They may have thought he was your messenger, or perhaps the Queen's. Troops from the barracks hunted the woods, but found no trace of them. More than that, I've heard nothing. But be sure that if I ever learn anything I will tell you."
He gave a brief nod, then went on, slowly, choosing his words. His manner was abrupt, almost reluctant. For myself, my mind was spinning, and I had to fight to hold myself calm and steady. We were coming now onto the battleground, but it must be a very different battle from the one I had planned for. "You and I," he had said. He would hardly have sent for me unless I was to have some concern in the child's future.
He was going over the same ground that Ygraine and I had covered. "...so you see why, if the child is a boy, he cannot stay with me, yet if I send him away, he is beyond my power to protect. But protection he must have. Bastard or no, he is my child and the Queen's, and if we have no other sons he must one day be declared my heir to the High Kingdom." He turned up a hand. "You see where this leaves me. I must consign him to a guardian who will keep him in safety for the first few years of his life...at least until this torn kingdom is settled and safe, and in the hands of strong and loyal allies, and my own declared heirs."
He waited again for my agreement. I nodded, then said, carefully neutral: "Have you chosen this guardian?"
"Yes. Budec."
So the Queen had been right, and the decision was made. But still he had sent for me. I held myself still and said, so flatly that it sounded indifferent: "It was the obvious choice."
He shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. I saw with some surprise that he was uneasy, nervous even. He even looked half pleased at my commendation of his choice. The knowledge steadied me. I realized that I had been so single-minded -- so wrapped in what I had believed was my and the child's driving fate -- that I had seen Uther falsely as the enemy. He was not so concerned: the plain fact was that Uther was a war-leader harassed perpetually by the strife in and around his borders, working desperately against time to patch a dam here, a sea-wall there, against the piling flood-water; and to him this affair of the child, though it might prove one day vitally important, was now little but a rub in the way of major issues, something he wanted out of the way and delegated. He had spoken without emotion, and indeed had set the thing out fairly enough. It was possible that he had sent for me, genuinely, to ask my advice, as his brother had been used to do. In which case...I wetted dry lips, and schooled myself to listen quietly, an adviser with a man beset by trouble.
He was speaking again, something about a letter. The message which had come yesterday. He pointed to the stool beside him where the parchment lay, crumpled as if he had thrown it down in anger. "Did you know about this?"
I picked the letter up and smoothed it out. It was brief, a message from Brittany, that had been sent to the King at Tintagel and brought here after him. King Budec had fallen sick of a fever, it said, during the summer. He had seemed on the way to recovery, then, towards the end of August, he had quite suddenly died. The letter finished with protestations of formal friendship from the new king, Hoel, Uther's "devoted cousin and ally..."
I looked up. Uther had sat back in his chair, shifting