by J A Cummings
Lot was waiting just inside the gate when the rider returned, and Uriens, who had accepted that this fight was for the benefit of the King of Lothian alone, was at his side. “Well?” Lot demanded.
“It’s Pendragon,” the rider said. “And Armorica, Estrangore, Benoic, Gannes, Eburacum and Lindum.”
Uriens snorted. “He’s got nothing. Armoricans run at the first hint of battle, Bagdemagus is an old man who’s lost his nerve, and Lindum is still recovering from the Saxon siege. Eburacum is strong, but they’re not enough to take on our numbers.”
“Take a message to Pendragon,” Lot told the rider. “Go under a flag of truce. Tell him that we have three times the number of fighters that he has, and that unlike him, we are all tried warriors. Tell that boy to leave me the sword from the stone and go crawling back to Caer Gai.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
They watched the rider head back out. Uriens asked, “Do you think he’ll surrender?”
“No. And I really don’t want him to.” Lot crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “A crown fits best when you cut it off of the head that’s wearing it.”
They allowed the rider to enter the outer edge of the camp, and Arthur went to meet him. His entourage followed at a respectful distance, including Gawain and Constantine, who fell in with Arthur’s knights. Merlin looked at Gawain.
“Welcome to the real world,” he told the young prince. “Your fate lies out here, not back in Lothian, or in Orkney.”
The knight hesitated, then asked, “What is my fate, Master Merlin?”
“A glorious one.” The druid smiled at him. “Your name will be remembered forever.”
Gawain nodded. “In good ways or in bad?”
Merlin canted his head and considered his companion. “That all depends upon your point of view,” he said. “But you will always be known as a hero.”
The young prince was gratified by that answer, and he accepted it, committing it to memory. Together, Gawain and Merlin walked to where Arthur was standing, his arms crossed and his feet planted as the rider from Vinovia approached on horseback. Merin put his hand on Gawain’s arm, holding him tightly.
The rider dismounted and bowed to Arthur. “Your Majesty, I -” He caught sight of Gawain beneath Merlin’s hand, and his words died in his throat.
“Go on,” Arthur said.
He looked away from his errant prince and said, “I bring you a message from King Lot. He encourages you to leave him the sword you took from the stone and return to Caer Gai. You are outnumbered three to one and you face tried warriors. You will not prevail.”
“I see.” Arthur glanced at Gawain, then said, “My return message is this: I have his son and the son of King Uriens as my royal hostages. My sword and my crown are mine and mine alone. If he thinks he can take them, he should try, but I warn him that this will not end well for him.”
The rider nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
They watched him return to Lot with Arthur’s message. Gawain asked, “Royal hostage?”
Arthur nodded. “It is common, I am told, for kings to hold the sons of their vassals as surety against bad behavior. Let your father think about that for a while.”
“But I’m your knight. I’m here to fight for you,” he protested. He felt betrayed by the High King’s words, as if he had been belittled.
“And you shall, if that’s your wish.” Arthur turned to him. “I said what I did just to get at your father’s pride. I welcome you at my side, Sir Gawain.”
The young man nodded, mollified. “Then that is where I’ll be.”
“Good. I was hoping that’s what you would say.”
“Royal hostage?” Lot thundered, seizing the axe from his belt. “I will kill the fucking bastard!”
Sir Bruis, Lot’s second, bravely put a hand on the raging monarch’s shoulder and asked the rider, “Did you see Prince Gawain?”
“Yes, sir,” he nodded.
“Did he look injured?”
“By Odin’s eye, if they touched one hair on my boy’s head -!” Lot roared.
The rider looked worriedly at the king and took one step back out of the range of the axe. “He looked well. He was standing with Pendragon’s knights but he was not bound, and he showed no signs of abuse.”
“Merlin,” the king spat. “This is all his doing. Hel take that bastard! I will cut out his liver! I will stuff it up his ass!”
“Merlin was holding your son’s arm when I saw him.”
“That monster! That bastard! I’ll fucking kill them all!”
Bruis stepped in front of Lot, saying quickly to the rider, “Go.”
The rider wasted no time getting as far from the king as he could get.
King Prydain of Hen Ogledd turned his back on Lot’s continued raging and stalked toward his lodging in the governor’s villa. Along the way, Huail, the Pictish chieftain, fell into step beside him.
“What now, father?” Huail asked.
“Now we know that Pendragon’s bastard is there, and not hiding like Lot said he would be. We need to eliminate him before this battle goes any further. If we cut the head off the snake, the body will writhe but it will have no way to harm us. They will be cast into disarray.” He nodded a passing acknowledgment to the guard who opened the gold-trimmed double doors for them. “The thrust of the main attack will not come until the morning, unless Lot completely loses his mind, so we have all night to work with.”
Huail nodded. “I know what to do.”
“I know.” They reached Prydain’s chamber, and he put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Make me proud, my boy, and I will make you king of Gododdin. Bring me his sword, and his head.”
The chieftain grinned. “I will do everything I can.”
Arthur walked into his pavilion, and Griflet looked up from setting up the map table. Another man who was working on the table, one of the porters, bowed to the king. Arthur smiled and nodded in return.
“Thank you, Aoden,” Arthur said. “I’ve got it from here.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The porter bowed again and left them alone.
“Well?” Griflet asked. “Did they get a good look at you?”
“A good look and more. We’ve already traded messages across the field.”
“That was fast.”
“Apparently Lot doesn’t like to waste time. I know I don’t.” He sat at the table. “Do we have any charts of this region?”
“Bedivere is fetching them.”
“He always has a map,” the king mused. “I don’t know where he keeps them. It’s as if he travels with a cartographer’s library.”
“Maybe he does,” Griflet shrugged. “I’ve never looked into his bags. I never wanted to give my uncle the impression that I was all that interested in what he did.”Arthur raised an eyebrow, and his lover elaborated. “He’s already conceited enough without me adding to it.”
He chuckled. “Oh, I see.”
Griflet unfolded a trio of chairs for the other three sides of the table, sitting in the last one that he erected. “So the fight begins in the morning.”
“Yes. They’ll probably attack at dawn.” He shifted the maps on the table. “They might even send someone to kill me in the night. We should be ready for that eventuality.”
The knight glanced at the open flap on the pavilion, then asked, “Do you trust Gawain?”
He answered without looking up. “Completely.”
“He’s already shown himself to be capable of treachery.”
“No. You’re looking at it all wrong.” Arthur looked up. “His father is the traitor. Gawain is holding fast to his loyalty to this crown, and he brought news of Lot’s intentions as a result. People keep saying he showed a capacity for betrayal, but really, he’s proving to me how honorable and trustworthy he is.”
Griflet snorted softly. “I guess it all depends on perspective.”
“Of course it does. Perspective makes a butcher into a hero if he’s on your side.”
The king looked up at him and said simply, “I’m just a man.”
Merlin walked into the tent. “No, Arthur. You are more than that.”
“I disagree.”
“Good. Nobody who thinks he’s a hero actually is, and only those who do not want to rule are meant for it.” He sat. “Tell me, my king: how many men are you prepared to lose?”
Arthur looked down at the charts and switched their order once again, moving the map on top of the pile down to the bottom of it. “That isn’t mine to decide. God or the Fates or the Macha or whoever rules death in battle… that is who will decide the answer to that question.”
The druid smiled. “I wasn’t asking how many would die. I was asking how many you are willing to see go down before you call an end to this.”
“I will call an end to this when we’re victorious,” he answered. “As for how many - well, every man is subject to his own destiny. I won’t stop fighting, even if the blood flows like a river.”
“Which it will.”
“Most likely.”
“And you’re ready for that?”
He put down the maps and looked at Merlin. “What are you trying to get at?”
He gazed back at Arthur calmly. “There will be thousands of men who die tomorrow. Men whose families depend upon them for protection and support. Men with wives and children back at home.”
“Is this a test?”
“Everything is a test. Are you prepared to send all of those men to their doom?”
The king’s eyes hardened. “I have to be. That’s what war is. If we fight this battle well enough, fight hard enough, then we won’t have to fight it again. If we leave the thing half-done, then Lot will be encouraged, and insurrection will reign supreme. What could have been hundreds of deaths will turn into thousands, and it won’t be only soldiers who die. I can’t have that. I won’t suffer civil war, and I won’t allow the innocent civilians of this realm to be put to the sword. And I will solidify my rule over my people before we face the Saxons again.”
Merlin nodded. “Good. As long as you’re aware of the price that will be paid.”
“I know what will happen tomorrow. You don’t need to remind me that I’m sending husbands and fathers to their deaths. I am painfully aware of that fact. The time for flinching is after the wound is suffered, not before. We can reflect on the sorrows of warfare after the battle is done.” Griflet stared at him, and Arthur turned to him, annoyed. “What?”
“Sometimes it’s like you’re two people.”
“Everyone has multiple sides,” the king dismissed. “I’m no different.”
“When it comes to warfare,” his lover objected, “you are.”
He remembered his dream of the Macha, and it was like a whisper in the back of his mind. She was a dark goddess, to be certain, and an even darker goddess had taken an interest in him, as well, as the black tattoo around his wrist testified. Arthur looked at the black line on his skin and remembered his vision on Ynys Môn. Perhaps there was something to what Griflet was saying.
“I am her Champion,” he said softly.
“What? Whose champion?”
He looked up into Griflet’s confused eyes. “The Morrigan.”
Bedivere and Ector came into the pavilion, interrupting the conversation. “Here are the maps of this entire region,” the lord of Viroconium was saying as he walked. “We should have a good sense for things from these.”
He placed a set of vellum sheets onto the table before his king. Arthur looked at them carefully. “These are very detailed.”
“I collect maps, the more detailed the better,” he said.
Ector sat down. “Bors and Ban have encamped in the forest to conceal our true numbers,” he said. “Bagdemagus and his men will hold the back of the corridor. That leaves us and the troops from Eburacum and Lindum here to face the early attack.”
“Any sign that the enemy will move before the morning?”
“No.”
“Excellent.” Arthur looked through the maps that Bedivere had brought, and he nodded in satisfaction. “Our plan is going to work.”
“God willing, yes,” Ector said. To Arthur’s eyes, he looked tired and sad.
“Father,” he said softly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine. I just hate this waiting and would like for the fight to start.” He forced a smile. “The sooner it’s started, the sooner it’s over.”
“Amen to that,” Brastias said, coming into the tent, as well. He was accompanied by Gawain and Constantine.
Arthur looked at his men and felt certainty wrap around his bones. The die had been cast, and he could feel all of their fates surrounding them. Their destinies, at least for the battle to come, had been sealed.
The night was thick with the nervousness of anticipation. The infantry and archers sat around their fires, enjoying the camaraderie, talking too much and laughing a little too loudly. Arthur slipped out of his tent and walked through the camp, listening to the songs and the jokes that the men were sharing. He knew that this would be the last night some of them ever saw, and it was clear that they knew it, too.
He was not in his royal finery or armor as he walked through, but dressed in the clothes he had brought with him from Caer Gai. He was able to pass more or less unseen and unremarked. Most of the men had no idea who he was, especially those from Estrangore and Armorica, and as a result they were free with their conversation and opinions.
“Come here, boy,” one man called from within the halo of light from his campfire. He was a young Armorican, no more than twenty years of age, but he already had battle scars on his face. He held up a bottle. “Ale to share. Sit you down with us.”
Arthur smiled. “Should we be drinking the night before a big battle?”
“That’s the best time in the world to drink.” The man scooted aside on the fallen log he was using as a seat. Apparently, the forest had sacrificed some of its trees for his soldiers’ comfort. “Sit you here. Join us.”
He sat where he was told, and the other men at the circle smiled at him. “Are you all from Armorica?” Arthur asked.
“Yes.” The man offered him the bottle, and Arthur took a swig. He handed it back. “I’m Denis, and these are my comrades in arms, Alren, Cavan, Titus and Brig.”
“Well met,” the king smiled to them. “I’m Arthur.”
“Well met,” they echoed back.
“That’s the king’s name,” Alren said.
“Yes, it is.”
“And you,” Denis asked. “Where are you from? The king’s lands?”
“Cambria. Gwynedd, to be precise.”
Titus nodded sagely. “I was in Cambria once. Best mutton I’ve ever had.”
“That’s a hell of a way to talk about the boy’s sisters!” Alren hooted. They all laughed, including Arthur.
Cavan raised his own bottle. “To the king.”
“Which one?” Arthur asked.
“All of them.”
Those with bottles raised them, and they all said, “To the king.”
“And to the mutton,” Alren added with a salacious wink.
“Dear little lambs,” Denis smiled. He drained his bottle and looked at Arthur apologetically. “Sorry. Late comers go without. Thought I had more when I invited you.”
“It’s all right.” He smiled. “Tell me about your homes.”
Titus said, “We’re from Benoic in Armorica. Our home is green and lovely, believe me, lovelier than Britannia.”
“Impossible,” he smiled. “Britannia is the most beautiful place on earth.”
“If you say so, Briton. Have you ever been to Armorica?”
“Not yet. Maybe someday.”
“Well,” Titus said, “if you ever make it to Benoic, look me up. I live in town outside King Ban’s castle. I’m a blacksmith there. I’ll make you some nice nails or something.”
Denis snorted. “Just don’t as
k him for anything more complicated than nails, because he’ll probably get confused.”
They laughed at Titus’s expense, but he laughed along with them good-naturedly. He nodded to Arthur. “I hope you live through tomorrow, boy.”
“I hope we all do.” Heads nodded all around the fire. “Is King Ban a good man?”
Alren sat up straighter. “The best. He’s a wise and just king, and he leads us well and with grace. His queen is beautiful, and they’ve just been blessed with their first son.”
“To King Ban,” Titus said.
“King Ban!”
They drank to their king’s health, and then Cavan asked, “Who’s your king?”
“The High King is from Cambria,” Denis advised. “That’s his king.”
“Anybody seen him?”
Brig spoke in a gruff voice that was surprisingly deep. “I saw him on his horse today. He’s bigger than I would have expected him to be, since he’s so young.”
“How young is he?” Titus asked.
“Sixteen,” Arthur answered.
“Pfft. That’s nearly a man,” Denis dismissed. “What’s he supposed to be, child-sized?”
Brig shook his head. “No. That’s not what I mean. I mean, he’s taller than I expected, even though I’ll wager he’s not yet done growing. And he’s broad through the shoulders. Cuts an impressive figure on horseback. His armor is a work of art - Titus, you will be impressed when you see it.”
Alren muttered into his bottle, “Let’s hope he can fight as well as he looks.”
Arthur nodded. “Amen to that.”
“I heard that he fought very well in Londinium and again outside of Lindum,” Cavan said. “The Cambrians are full of talk about how strong he is and how fierce.”
Brig said, “Of course they are. He’s their king - they’re going to praise him. They almost have to, just to keep their necks.”
“I think he’s probably worthy of it,” Cavan ventured.
Titus said, “Time will tell.”
The group fell quiet and watchful as a figure in a black robe approached. Merlin was gliding through the camp like a ghost, his hands hidden in the opposite sleeves, an inscrutable expression on his face. Everywhere he went, men hushed and looked up at him in apprehension. He went from campfire to campfire until finally he came to where Arthur was sitting.