[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
folk of Durnovaria reckoned their town was built on a foundation of gold. Argante had long ago retrieved
the treasure I had hidden beside the Fosse Way, and to that she now added more and more, and she
was encouraged in her hoarding by Bishop Sansum who, as well as being Bishop of all Dumnonia, was
now named Chief Counsellor and Royal Treasurer. I did not doubt that he was using the last office to
skim the treasury for his own hoard. I accused him of that one day and he immediately adopted a hurt
expression. I do not care for gold, Lord, he said piously. Did not our Lord command us not to lay up
treasures on earth, but in heaven?
I grimaced. He could command what he liked, I said, but you would still sell your soul for gold,
Bishop, and so you should, for it would prove a good bargain.
He gave me a suspicious look. A good bargain? Why? Because you would be exchanging filth for
money, of course, I said. I could make no pretence of liking Sansum, nor he for liking me. The mouse
lord was always accusing me of trimming men s taxes in return for favours, and as proof of the accusation
he cited the fact that each successive year less money came into the treasury, but that shortfall was none
of my doing. Sansum had persuaded Mordred to sign a decree which exempted all Christians from
taxation and I dare say the church never found a better way of making converts, though Mordred
rescinded the law as soon as he realized how many souls and how little gold he was saving; but then
Sansum persuaded the King that the church, and only the church, should be responsible for collecting the
taxes of Christians. That increased the yield for a year, but it fell thereafter as the Christians discovered
that it was cheaper to bribe Sansum than to pay their King. Sansum then proposed doubling the taxes of
all pagans, but Argante and Fergal stopped that measure. Instead Argante suggested that all the taxes on
the Saxons should be doubled, but Sagramor refused to collect the increase, claiming it would only
provoke rebellion in those parts of Lloegyr that we had settled. It was no wonder that I hated attending
council meetings, and after a year or two of such fruitless wrangling I abandoned the meetings altogether.
Issa went on collecting taxes, but only the honest men paid and there seemed fewer honest men each
year, and so Mordred was forever complaining of being penniless while Sansum and Argante grew rich.
Argante became rich, but she stayed childless. She sometimes visited Broceliande and, once in a long
while, Mordred returned to Dumnonia, but Argante s belly never swelled after such visits. She prayed,
she sacrificed and she visited sacred springs in her attempts to have a child, but she stayed barren. I
remember the stink at council meetings when she wore a girdle smeared with the faeces of a newborn
child, supposedly a certain remedy for barrenness, but that worked no better than the infusions of bryony
and mandrake that she drank daily. Eventually Sansum persuaded her that only Christianity could bring
her the miracle and so, two years after Mordred had first gone to Broceliande, Argante threw Fergal, her
Druid, out of the palace and was publicly baptized in the River Ffraw that flows around Durnova-ria s
northern margin. For six months she attended daily services in the huge church Sansum had built in the
town centre, but at the end of the six months her belly was as flat as it had been before she had waded
into the river. So Fergal was summoned back to the palace and brought with him new concoctions of bat
dung and weasel blood that were supposed to make Argante fertile.
By then Gwydre and Morwenna were married and had produced their first child, and that child was a
boy whom they named Arthur and who was ever afterwards known as Arthur-bach, Arthur the Little.
The child was baptized by Bishop Emrys, and Argante saw the ceremony as a provocation. She knew
that neither Arthur nor Guinevere had any great love for Christianity, and that by baptizing their grandson
they were merely currying favour with the Christians in Dumnonia whose support would be needed if
Gwydre were to take the throne. Besides, Arthur-bach s very existence was a reproach to Mordred. A
King should be fecund, it was his duty, and Mordred was failing in that duty. It did not matter that he had
whelped bastards the length and breadth of Dumnonia and Armorica, he was not whelping an heir on
Argante and the Queen spoke darkly of his crippled foot, she remembered the evil omens of his birth and
she looked sourly towards Siluria where her rival, my daughter, was proving capable of breeding new
Princes. The Queen became more desperate, even dipping into her treasury to pay in gold any fraudster
who promised her a swollen womb, but not all the sorceresses of Britain could help her conceive and, if
rumour spoke true, not half the spearmen in her palace guard either. And all the while Gwydre waited in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl chiara76.opx.pl
folk of Durnovaria reckoned their town was built on a foundation of gold. Argante had long ago retrieved
the treasure I had hidden beside the Fosse Way, and to that she now added more and more, and she
was encouraged in her hoarding by Bishop Sansum who, as well as being Bishop of all Dumnonia, was
now named Chief Counsellor and Royal Treasurer. I did not doubt that he was using the last office to
skim the treasury for his own hoard. I accused him of that one day and he immediately adopted a hurt
expression. I do not care for gold, Lord, he said piously. Did not our Lord command us not to lay up
treasures on earth, but in heaven?
I grimaced. He could command what he liked, I said, but you would still sell your soul for gold,
Bishop, and so you should, for it would prove a good bargain.
He gave me a suspicious look. A good bargain? Why? Because you would be exchanging filth for
money, of course, I said. I could make no pretence of liking Sansum, nor he for liking me. The mouse
lord was always accusing me of trimming men s taxes in return for favours, and as proof of the accusation
he cited the fact that each successive year less money came into the treasury, but that shortfall was none
of my doing. Sansum had persuaded Mordred to sign a decree which exempted all Christians from
taxation and I dare say the church never found a better way of making converts, though Mordred
rescinded the law as soon as he realized how many souls and how little gold he was saving; but then
Sansum persuaded the King that the church, and only the church, should be responsible for collecting the
taxes of Christians. That increased the yield for a year, but it fell thereafter as the Christians discovered
that it was cheaper to bribe Sansum than to pay their King. Sansum then proposed doubling the taxes of
all pagans, but Argante and Fergal stopped that measure. Instead Argante suggested that all the taxes on
the Saxons should be doubled, but Sagramor refused to collect the increase, claiming it would only
provoke rebellion in those parts of Lloegyr that we had settled. It was no wonder that I hated attending
council meetings, and after a year or two of such fruitless wrangling I abandoned the meetings altogether.
Issa went on collecting taxes, but only the honest men paid and there seemed fewer honest men each
year, and so Mordred was forever complaining of being penniless while Sansum and Argante grew rich.
Argante became rich, but she stayed childless. She sometimes visited Broceliande and, once in a long
while, Mordred returned to Dumnonia, but Argante s belly never swelled after such visits. She prayed,
she sacrificed and she visited sacred springs in her attempts to have a child, but she stayed barren. I
remember the stink at council meetings when she wore a girdle smeared with the faeces of a newborn
child, supposedly a certain remedy for barrenness, but that worked no better than the infusions of bryony
and mandrake that she drank daily. Eventually Sansum persuaded her that only Christianity could bring
her the miracle and so, two years after Mordred had first gone to Broceliande, Argante threw Fergal, her
Druid, out of the palace and was publicly baptized in the River Ffraw that flows around Durnova-ria s
northern margin. For six months she attended daily services in the huge church Sansum had built in the
town centre, but at the end of the six months her belly was as flat as it had been before she had waded
into the river. So Fergal was summoned back to the palace and brought with him new concoctions of bat
dung and weasel blood that were supposed to make Argante fertile.
By then Gwydre and Morwenna were married and had produced their first child, and that child was a
boy whom they named Arthur and who was ever afterwards known as Arthur-bach, Arthur the Little.
The child was baptized by Bishop Emrys, and Argante saw the ceremony as a provocation. She knew
that neither Arthur nor Guinevere had any great love for Christianity, and that by baptizing their grandson
they were merely currying favour with the Christians in Dumnonia whose support would be needed if
Gwydre were to take the throne. Besides, Arthur-bach s very existence was a reproach to Mordred. A
King should be fecund, it was his duty, and Mordred was failing in that duty. It did not matter that he had
whelped bastards the length and breadth of Dumnonia and Armorica, he was not whelping an heir on
Argante and the Queen spoke darkly of his crippled foot, she remembered the evil omens of his birth and
she looked sourly towards Siluria where her rival, my daughter, was proving capable of breeding new
Princes. The Queen became more desperate, even dipping into her treasury to pay in gold any fraudster
who promised her a swollen womb, but not all the sorceresses of Britain could help her conceive and, if
rumour spoke true, not half the spearmen in her palace guard either. And all the while Gwydre waited in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]