It had been a long and chastening few days for Arthur.

The shock of one of his father's thegns having their own, hidden cultivator - and then seeking to use it to kill him - had sent Uther's court into a spiral of paranoia.

With no knowledge as to whom had set the trap, Tintagel had been purged of all but those whose loyalty to the King was absolutely sure. It said nothing good for everyone's perception as to the severity of the situation that this turned out to be such a small list. Neither, it was fair to say, did expelling ninety per cent of the courtiers and retainers do too much for the administrative capabilities of the kingdom.

As if, what appeared to be, wholesale insurrection by a number of the ruling class was not enough, rumours of Saxon incursions up and down the border did little to quell rising tensions. Likewise, Arthur being unable to blow off steam in his usual way was making for a pretty untenable situation at court.

"My Lord, I do not understand why you do not consult Merlin."

"And I don't understand why my father hasn't cut your cock off and thrust it down your whining throat, Sir Pascent."

"Arthur," Uther rumbled warningly.

"Apologies, Sir Pascent. On reflection, I recognise that, due to the size of your member, it is unlikely to reach your throat. Maybe it would be better going up your nose? Although, even then, you have somewhat wide nostrils ..."

"My Lord, do I need to suffer this?"

"You do not, Sir Pascent. Arthur, you will be quiet, or you will leave."

"To be allowed to leave is all I ask, Father. We have tales of Saxon war parties moving, unopposed, across our northern border. Our people are dying. All I ask is to be able to respond."

Uther was not a religious man. In his youth, he had travelled extensively and come to realise that every tribe had their own version of the same, bloodthirsty paternal figures. It seemed to him that people the world over fashioned gods that gave them an excuse to do all sorts of horrible things to each other. The acts were appalling, but they were treated as just because they were done in the name of a higher power. 'Sorry to have burned your village and murdered your children. Tartalus, eh? What's he like?'

Even so, for all his atheistic scorn, he found himself offering a little prayer to whoever may be listening to give him the strength this morning to deal with his son. "Arthur," if Uther's teeth were more gritted, they'd splinter, "I say with all sincerity that there is nothing I, nor anyone else in the room, would like better than to unleash you upon our enemies."

"Then, why -"

"Have some sense, boy!" Uther roared, his patience snapping. "The Saxons are advancing in unheard-of numbers. You've seen the same reports as I, and you know they appear to have wizards numbering amongst their forces. We have questions as to the stoutness of our allies, and there are an unknown number of hostile cultivators across the realm. We are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis."

"All the more reason -"

"All the more reason for you to shut up and fuck your wife!"

There was an awkward silence as all eyes in the room did their level best not to glance the way of Princess Guinevere. For her part, she merely shrugged and poured herself another goblet of wine.

Uther pressed on. "You are my only heir. You have no natural children of your own. All the Saxons need to do, all the traitors in our own halls need do, is kill - or god forbid, capture - you and that will be that. No one doubts your efficacy on the battlefield, my son. But we need Leodegrance's ten thousand spears more than we need you in the saddle, and those spears are contingent on your wife's swollen belly. I, therefore, order, once again, that your sole contribution to this war effort is to take your wife to your bedchamber and lay siege upon her! Until then, and only then, will we discuss whether you get to leave Tintagel!"

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All eyes turned to Arthur, who, red-faced, turned and stormed from the room.

"Thank you, my Lord. Now, if we could return to the question of Merlin -"

"Pascent?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Shut the fuck up."

*

Arthur managed to hold on to his temper long enough to reach the stables. Once out of sight, he let forth a bellow and punched the wall once, twice, three times before collecting himself. It would be much easier to bear this frustration if anything his father said was wrong. But he'd pretty much hit the nail squarely on the head.

Leodegrance had promised ten thousand spears the moment it was confirmed Guinevere was pregnant. At the time, that had been seen as pretty much a foregone conclusion - the number of little Arthur bastards running around Britain was almost legendary. Rumour had it he just had to look at a serving girl in the right way, and nine months later, there'd be another modest drain on Uther's treasury.

But, no.

It was not that he did not find his wife attractive; gods knows, he had eyes. It was just ... he found the whole thing rather distasteful. It was as of he was being treated like a prize bull, and the whole world was waiting for him to breed. Every time he saddled up, as it were, to fulfil his part of the bargain, it was like he had an audience of the whole of Britain holding their breath and urging him on.

It wasn't just Leodegrance's spears that depended on his virility. It was, as his father kept making very clear, the future of the entire British race.

That seemed like quite a lot of pressure to rest on his actions in the bedchamber and, to speak the truth, he was having a touch of performance anxiety.

Give him a shield wall, bristling with ill-intent any day.

Bors appeared at his side. "My Lord? What would you have us do? The boys aren't wild about facing cultivators in the field, but neither do they want to sit here whilst the countryside burns. Many of them have families out there, and the news is pretty dire. If we leave it much longer, they're going to go out there themselves in ones and twos. Have to say, I don't blame them."

Arthur shook his head. "I know. It's slaughter out there. And it's not just the wizards - and gods know they're bad enough - but there's so many different points of conflict. If it continues like this, we will be flung back towards the sea before we draw our swords in earnest."

He reached into the saddle bag of Llamrei and unfurled his map tracking the disposition of the enemy forces. It showed the latest news they had of the Saxon advance. Without Merlin, it was, by its very nature, massively unreliable, but it was the best they had been able to cobble together. Not that it told them anything they did not already know; there were signs of an unchecked Saxon advance all over the border.

Although now he looked at it again, that was not entirely true.

"What do you think has happened there?"

"My Lord?"

"We know there's been a pretty much uniform advance from around twenty different war parties. An unusually coherent advance, to be sure, but that makes sense if they've got cultivators to keep communication channels open. And that's true everywhere we've gathered reports apart from there. It looks like the advance stalled at that one point, and the force retreated backwards."

"That's near Vortigern's castle, sir."

"Ah, the dragon. Do you think they've decided to go around it?"

"Doubt it, sir. That dragon's gnarly. You wouldn't want it at your back if you were looking to stretch your supply line across the countryside. It'd be feasting on the wagon train as soon as the soldiers were out of sight. It collects things, too. I wouldn't want to take the risk of it seeing a shield it liked the look of and wanting to gather up."

"Fair. So, why do you think they halted there?"

Bors shrugged. "Perhaps they engaged it and were defeated?"

"Maybe."

"You want me to go and have a look, don't you?"

"I do."

"You want me to go out there, in the middle of a wholescale invasion and see what a famously grumpy dragon has done to a Saxon army, potentially containing a cultivator?"

"That sounds like an absolutely wonderful plan. If you'd get right on that, that would be peachy."

"And I'm doing this rather than us devise an elaborate ruse for you to sneak out, perhaps dressed as a washerwoman, and do it instead?"

"I'm going to have to play the 'once and future King; card again, I'm afraid."

"If I'm honest, I'm getting pretty fed up with that card, sir."

Arthur looked back at the throne room and grimaced. "So am I, Bors. So am I."