Read Online Warlord 2 Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell - Free Book Online Page A

Arthur’s jerkin and it ripped the cloth as we tugged it away. We dropped the beast into the brambles, then helped Arthur to his feet. The three of us stood grinning, our clothes muddied and torn and covered with leaves, twigs and the blood of the boar. ‘I’ll have a bruise there,’ Arthur said, tapping his chest. He turned to Lancelot, who had not moved to help during the struggle. There was the briefest pause, then Arthur bowed his head. ‘You gave me a noble gift, Lord King,’ he said, ‘and I took it most ignobly.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘But I enjoyed it all the same. And we shall all enjoy it at your betrothal feast.’ He looked at Guinevere and saw that she was pale, almost trembling, and immediately he crossed to her. ‘Are you ill?’
    ‘No, no,’ she said, and she put her arms about him and leaned her head against his bloodied chest. She was crying. It was the first time I had ever seen her cry.
    Arthur patted her back. ‘There was no danger, my love,’ he said, ‘no danger. I just made a hash of the killing.’
    ‘Are you hurt?’ Guinevere asked, pulling away from him and cuffing away her tears.
    ‘Only scratched.’ His face and hands were lacerated by thorns, but he was otherwise unwounded except for the bruise caused by the tusk. He stepped away from her, picked up his spear and gave a whoop. ‘I haven’t been put on my back like that in a dozen years!’
    King Cuneglas came running, worried about his guests, and the huntsmen arrived to truss and carry the corpse away. They must all have noted the comparison between Lancelot’s unstained clothes and our dishevelled and bloody state, but no one remarked on it. We were all excited, pleased to have survived and eager to share the story of Arthur holding the brute away from his body by its tusks. The story spread and the sound of men’s laughter rang loud among the trees. Lancelot alone did not laugh. ‘We must find you a boar now, Lord King,’ I said to him. We were standing a few paces from the excited crowd that had gathered to watch as the huntsmen gralloched the beast to give Guinevere’s hounds a meal of its guts.
    Lancelot gave me a sidelong, considering glance. He disliked me every scrap as much as I disliked him, but suddenly he smiled. ‘A boar,’ he said, ‘would be better than a sow, I think.’
    ‘A sow?’ I asked, smelling an insult.
    ‘Didn’t the sow charge you?” he asked, then opened his eyes guilelessly wide. ‘Surely you don’t think I was referring to your marriage!’ He offered me an ironic bow. ‘I must congratulate you, Lord Derfel!
    To marry Gwenhwyvach!’
    I forced my anger down, and made myself look into his narrow mocking face with its delicate beard, dark eyes, and long hair oiled as black and shining as a raven’s wing. ‘And I must congratulate you, Lord King, on your betrothal.’
    ‘To Seren,’ he said, ‘the star of Powys.’ He gazed at Ceinwyn who stood with her hands clasped to her face as the huntsmen’s knives ripped out the long coils of the boar’s intestines. She looked so young with her bright hair drawn up at the nape of her neck. ‘Doesn’t she look charming?’ Lancelot asked me in a voice like the purr of a cat. ‘So vulnerable. I never believed the stories of her beauty, for who would expect to find such a jewel among Gorfyddyd’s whelps? But she is beautiful, and I am so very fortunate.’
    ‘Yes, Lord King, you are.’
    He laughed and turned away. He was a man in his glory, a King come to take his bride, and he was also my enemy. But I had his bone in my pouch. I touched it, wondering if the struggle with the boar had broken the rib, but it was still whole, still hidden and just waiting for my pleasure. Cavan, my second-in-command, came to Caer Sws on the eve of Ceinwyn’s betrothal and brought with him forty of my spearmen. Galahad had sent them back, reckoning that his work in Siluria could be completed by the twenty remaining men. The Silurians, it seems, had