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Now in my twilight years, I have found that my thought increasingly often returns to the days of my youth. I assume it is but natural for an old man to reminisce, to recall when his hair was still covering his head and his body still fit and able. And so the notion of telling this story has come to me.
Understand me when I say it is not vanity that drives me to put quill to parchment and tell of my glory days. Nay, it is a desire to tell of a world that once was, when law and order were scarce, and when chaos held our fair land in its sway. By the wise and just rule of our good King Arthur, peace reigns once more in Britain, and for many a knight not yet born in those times it might seem hard to believe what we endured in those years. Furthermore, there are some events that are still clouded, facts hidden in mystery and myth, which are now known only to me. Word has reached me of the death of the last of my companions of youth, and I find myself being the last who can tell what really happened. This story, therefore, concerns not me nor any exploits of mine, other than as my role as witness to some events without which our history would be very different.
This story begins in the year of Our Lord 494, although one could claim that the seeds of it were planted much earlier. Without Lord Band’s dishonourable abduction of the fair Egwene, the feud between him and Cadlew of Royston would never have come to be. Without Cunobaros, the father of Ceredig and Owain who later became the mad prophet of Landoine Forest, I doubt that the ambition of my friends would have been ignited or, indeed, that these memoirs would ever have been written. You see, for some reason people have always confided in me, and I have kept all secrets to myself until now. When I first met Cunobaros he looked at me with his eyes glittering of madness and said "Everybody tell you the truth. When you are alone, you must tell the truth". I have often pondered over his words, the only he ever uttered to me, and now that I am indeed alone left of our company, we who once built a prosperous kingdom and defeated a conspiracy most foul, I believe that he meant that I would reveal what I know.
But I get ahead of myself. In this document I will reveal many secrets, but please, do not judge my friends too harshly when I give the true stories behind the fire of Beale Valet, in which the Lords of both Huntingdon and Hertford and many others perished, and other events that may seem ghastly today. My friends were not villians, and neither were they heroes. They were men, simple men who did what seemed to be the best. The times were different then, harder and crueller, and compassion and mercy were by many seen as evidence of weakness. Brother turned against brother, son against father. Many of us believed that we were witnessing the last days, and feared for our souls.
For what it might be worth now, I will finally reveal the true identity of the late King Uther's murderer, and the terrible conspiracy that was behind that foul deed. On a lighter side, I can also tell the truth concerning the Black Devil who attacked this very castle with a legion of fiends in the shape of Saxon berserkers all those years ago.
I digress, I know, but please bear with me. My thoughts wander from image to image, like a butterfly from flower to flower in the spring meadow. I will try to be concise and relate what I have witnessed firsthand and what I have been told personally by the persons involved. Likewise, I will do my best to be a good chronicler and go from beginning to end, but knowing myself, I fear that I sometimes will have to retrace my steps to recapitulate something that slipped my mind when penning down related events.
Having said this, I welcome you to a journey into the past.
Sir Cullyn of Hertford Castle, Anno Domini 542
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Text (c) Örjan Westin 1999, art (c) Ann-Cathrine Loo 1999.