Jack Whyte - Uther

PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England 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 bonfiresa 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.