a warrior like my brothers and spurned his desire for me to be a monk and serve the church. I told the abbot and left.”
“Was he angry?” Merlin asked.
“As a churchman, he understood. I’d —”
“No, Grandfather, was he —”
“Ahh … very angry, yes,” Owain said. “But he didn’t disinherit me at that time.”
The light from the forge dimmed, and Merlin pressed the bellows faster to keep it going. “In leaving the abbey, did you reject God?”
“Not really. Just being a monk.” His father returned to the forge and scooped fresh char-wood around the edges. “As the son of a chieftain in Kembry, I had certain privileges, among which was meeting others of my rank. And higher. One became a fast friend. He was a lad three years younger than I, named Uthrelius, the son of High King Aurelianus.”
Merlin dropped the bellows handles. “You and Uther are friends?”
The smithy was deathly silent, until his father said, “Not anymore. But I served in his war band before we parted. And a bitter parting it was. He was just a prince then. Now a score of years have gone by.” Owain turned away from the forge, and his voice became wistful. “Many years … and he is High King and I am nothing. Nothing but a blacksmith.”
“But you’re more than that, Tas,” Merlin said. “And you can be more. It doesn’t matter what you do with your hands. It’s your character and faithfulness. Your honesty.”
“Sometimes I doubt it. Uther certainly won’t think so.”
Merlin hadn’t considered what Uther would think. “Will he even remember you? Does he know you’re in —”
“Bosventor? No. He doesn’t expect to see my face tomorrow. Nevertheless, he won’t have forgotten. But I hope time will have lessened his rage at me for deserting the war band.”
“And that’s why we’re here. In the smithy.”
His father pulled the blade out to check its color.
“Yes. And I hope I’ll have my most excellent sword for him. Normally I’m angry when a man says he’ll pay for an elaborate weapon like this and then disappears. But now I’m glad. We’ll give it to Uther … and may he forgive me.”
CHAPTER 19
REVELATIONS OF THE HEART
Natalenya screamed.
Vortipor jerked backward. “Thunder of Taranis, don’t do that!”
He stepped forward again with his arm raised, and Natalenya shrieked even louder.
His upraised hand reached out … and grasped a cast-iron pot from where it hung from the ceiling above her. “See, I’m just getting this for your mother.”
Natalenya’s shoulders trembled as she exhaled.
One of the servants peered through the doorway, then hurried away.
“Why did you shout?” Vortipor asked, cracking the knuckles of his right hand on the hilt of his dagger, which hung from his belt. “You have no need to fear me.”
Natalenya stared at him. His young face had already been bronzed and lined from years spent out in the wind and sun. If not for his sparse beard over his youthful chin, he’d appear twice her age. But his eyes … they lingered on her more than she liked. A wolf, she thought, who has no bone to gnaw.
“W-why does my mother need the pot?” she asked to break the silence.
“To warm up honey. And everyone else, including you, was busy.”
“I see.”
“She seems to have no end of jobs for me.” He stretched his neck down and peered at her, scum on his lips showing in the sallow light. “Why’d it take so long to take that wine to my father?”
Her face flushed. “I … I was delayed.”
He shook his head. “I see now. Did they tell you something, perhaps?”
She lifted her chin. “No!”
Natalenya’s mother walked into the room and cleared her throat loudly.
Vortipor whirled to face her.
“There is the pot,” her mother called. “Come along. The honey isn’t getting any warmer.”
The two left the room together, but before he turned the corner, Vortipor grinned at Natalenya, and his teeth seemed to her sharp and leering.
In the corner of the culina, she sat on the bench next to the shuttered window and prayed for help. How could her life change so in the course of a few hours? Was her father really going to promise her to Vortipor? If only her mother had a say. But no, her father only made decisions in consultation with his moneybag.
And what of her father’s and Vortigern’s talk about the High King? Were they considering treason? She had never known her father to speak that way, so it didn’t make sense. He was a man who loved high positions, and as