Enemy of God
Bernard Cornwell
MacMillan
Ene­my of God is the sec­ond nov­el of the War­lord se­ries, and im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lows the events de­scribed in The Win­ter King. In that book the King of Dum­non­ia and High King of Britain, Uther, dies and is suc­ceed­ed by his lamed ba­by grand­son, Mor­dred. Arthur, a bas­tard son of Uther's, is ap­point­ed one of Mor­dred's guardians and in time be­comes the most im­por­tant of those guardians. Arthur is de­ter­mined to ful­fil the oath he swore to Uther that Mor­dred, when he comes of age, will oc­cu­py Dum­non­ia's throne.Arthur is al­so de­ter­mined to bring peace to the war­ring British king­doms. The ma­jor con­flict is be­tween Dum­non­ia and Powys, but when Arthur is in­vit­ed to mar­ry Cein­wyn, a Princess of Powys, it seems that war can be avoid­ed. In­stead Arthur elopes with the pen­ni­less Princess Guin­evere and that in­sult to Cein­wyn brings on years of war that are end­ed on­ly when Arthur de­feats King Gorfy­ddyd of Powys at the Bat­tle of Lugg Vale. Powys's throne then pass­es to Cune­glas, Cein­wyn's broth­er, who, like Arthur, wants peace be­tween the Britons so that they can con­cen­trate their spears against the com­mon en­emy, the Sax­ons (the Sais).The Win­ter King, like the present book, was nar­rat­ed by Der­fel (pro­nounced Dervel), a Sax­on slave boy who grew up in Mer­lin's house­hold and be­came one of Arthur's war­riors. Arthur sent Der­fel to Ar­mor­ica (to­day's Brit­tany) where he fought in the doomed cam­paign to pre­serve the British king­dom of Benoic against Frank­ish in­vaders. Among Benoic's refugees who re­turn to Britain is Lancelot, King of Benoic, whom Arthur now wants to mar­ry to Cein­wyn and place on the throne of Sil­uria. Der­fel has fall­en in love with Cein­wyn.Der­fel's oth­er love is Nimue, his child­hood friend who has be­come Mer­lin's help­mate and lover. Mer­lin is a Druid and the lead­er of the fac­tion in Britain that wants to re­store the is­land to its old Gods, to which end he is pur­su­ing a Caul­dron, one of the Thir­teen Trea­sures of Britain, a quest which for Mer­lin and Nimue far out­ranks any bat­tle against oth­er king­doms or in­vaders. Op­pos­ing Mer­lin are the Chris­tians of Britain, one of whose lead­ers is Bish­op San­sum who lost much of his pow­er when he de­fied Guin­evere. San­sum is now in dis­grace and serv­ing as Ab­bot of the Monastery of the Holy Thorn at Ynys Wydryn (Glas­ton­bury).The Win­ter King end­ed with Arthur win­ning the great bat­tle at Lugg Vale. Mor­dred's throne is safe, the south­ern British king­doms are al­lied and Arthur, though not a king him­self, is their undis­put­ed lead­er.