The Eagles' Brood cc-3

by Jack Whyte

  I stopped to eat and change horses at noon in an open meadow that seemed miraculously free of corpses and signs of conflict, and less than half an hour after that I came across a scene that harrowed me far more than the carnage of battle through which I had been riding all morning.

  I emerged from a small valley between two low, swelling hills to find myself in a devastated farmstead. The farmhouse itself had been no more than a hovel, but it had been burned and its walls had collapsed upon themselves. The bodies of the farmer and three children, one of them a newborn child, lay sprawled in a pathetic, huddled group close by the gutted building. Beside them knelt the mother, alive and, as far as I could tell, unharmed. She knelt erect, her dry eyes staring into the surrounding hills with the haunted blankness of dementia. I dismounted and approached her with the idea of offering to help in some way, but she was unaware of me or my existence. Even when I took her hand she offered no response, but when I stooped towards the slaughtered baby at her knees she turned on me like a wild thing and tried to bite me. I withdrew hastily and she subsided immediately, ignoring me thereafter, resuming her empty-eyed watch over her dead family and I stood there uncomfortably, my stomach roiling with unwarranted guilt and sickness, until I convinced myself that I could do nothing for her. I backed away in silence and left her there with her grief. Moments later, I found the sea.

  Because of the angle from which I had made my unwitting approach, it took me some time to realize at first that the slope I was ascending had an unnatural-looking edge against the sky, but as I drew closer, it became plain that there was no more land ahead of me, that I was ascending a hill that had been sheared off at some time. I ended my ascent on the edge of a cliff that dropped straight down" to a rock-strewn beach far below. The tide was out, exposing a long, narrow belt of steeply shelving sand beyond which the sea stretched empty and endless, but after the first wondering glance at the enormity of the vista, my eyes were drawn to a broad swath of hoofprints churned into the wet sand far below and disappearing into the distance to my right. A large party of horsemen had passed below this point only a short time before. Their passage was plain, but the evidence of it in the sand was chaotic, and I was too far away to discern with any certainty the direction in which they had travelled. Individual tracks flanked the main body of the passage on both sides, and I could clearly see in these where flying hooves had thrown scatterings of sand behind them as they went, but it was equally clear that these individual riders, whoever they were, had ridden hard in both directions. I could see for several miles westward, and there was nothing except the broad path dwindling into the distance. I felt instinctively that the signs led east, to my left, but my view in that direction was blocked by the swell of the next headland, and beyond that I could see the crest of another, this one set back so that its top rose above the flank of the one between us. The coastline obviously curved inland to form a bay, and as the coast receded the height of the cliffs dwindled drastically.

  I cast one last glance westward, seeing nothing there but the empty shoreline, then I touched my spurs to the big black and rode downhill, angling my descent to take the straightest line to the eastern inlet.

  As I regained the edge of the escarpment by the sea I saw bright colours in the far distance, three or more miles away on the beach on the far side of the sweeping bay that now came into view. A band of horsemen—I estimated about a score at first glance—milled in confusion there, almost at the water's edge. The cliff below me was still perilous, although not one-quarter as high as it had been before, and my view to the left was still obstructed by the lie of the land, but the ground was shelving rapidly downhill to my left, the terrain changing from rocky cliffs to enormous, grass-crowned dunes, and I saw that I would soon find a way down. I swung left again, this time keeping to the edge of the clifftop, and as I rode the scene below unfolded. A second party of riders, half again as large as the first and hidden from me previously, now streamed into view, from beneath the cliffs that had hidden them from me. They made their way ponderously through the yielding sand, struggling inexorably towards the first party. Uther's great red war cloak with its blazoned dragon was unmistakable at the head of this second group, even from this distance. Pursuers and pursued.

  My heart in my mouth from the excitement of my discovery, I reined in briefly to consider my options. My horse was still fresh—I had not been aboard him for an hour and he had not been exerted. I could see even from where I was that Uther's horses were exhausted. He and his men were only now beginning to approach the first curve of the bay's end. Slightly more than a mile, I guessed, Separated them from their quarry across the water, but they would have to ride more than twice that far to reach them. And now I could see that the far party were fighting to drag a boat to the water's edge. It was & big, cumbersome vessel and the ebb tide had left it stranded high on the sand. They seemed to be making little headway.

  Again I looked to Uther's group. Their progress, too, was painfully slow. The sand where they were now was deep and dry. I was a good mile behind them. I could descend to the beach soon, but the yielding sand would hamper me, too, whereas the ground here, above the beach, was firm. By staying high, I could make far better time, but would have further to ride to catch up. I let go the lead reins of my two extra horses and sank my spurs into the big black, keeping him on the high ground and letting him find his own way at his own speed. He was ready to run, and his great hooves devoured the distance along the clifftop. As I overhauled Uther's party and passed them on my right, my mind was working frantically, trying to determine who the people in the other group might be. From the bright colours of their clothes, I already suspected that some of them might be women, although many of the Celts I had seen, especially the Hibernian Scots, loved bright, patterned clothing. But if there were women among this group, who were they? Lot was dead, and his wife was Uther's mistress, so she would not be attempting to escape him.

  I had arrived, very quickly I thought, at the point beyond which geometry negated speed. Riding further on my present path would take me further away from my target with every stride, so I swung hard to the right and my horse slithered and slid its way to the bottom of the cliff, which was now no more than a steep, sandy shelf above the beach. Now I found myself galloping between high dunes of sand that hid the activity ahead of me, but grateful that the ground was still firm enough to present no problem to my wonderful horse.

  It seemed to take me an age to emerge from the dunes by the water's edge, and long before I arrived there I had heard the sound of baying voices announcing the beginnings of a fight. The deepest point of the bay now lay to my right and I was still more than a mile from the brawl ahead of me. I saw a scattering of riderless horses that told me immediately how the struggle would go. The heavy boat lay abandoned at the end of a deep score in the sand, its bows awash, but the men who had been struggling to launch it had been caught before they could either free the boat or remount to meet their attackers. Now Uther's men swirled around them, some of their horses actually in the water so that light flashed from the splashes they made and from their sweeping blades as they hacked and slashed at their quarry.

  And yet the fight was far from over. The men afoot were fighting well although barely holding their own. Armed with the bravery of desperation they had formed a line of defence in front of the brightly clothed members of the group who, as I had suspected, were women, and were now huddled in and around the boat. A new core of resistance formed even as I watched, however, and it was an amazing sight to my distant eyes. Half a score of men, seeing the inevitable failure of their efforts to launch the boat, had scattered and apparently fled from the main action, but only to reform in a tight group, ranked in a close formation on the side of a low dune. Now, armed with what looked to me to be Pendragon bows, this group began pouring a concerted, lethal stream of well-aimed volleys into Uther's mounted troops, smashing them from their horses like straw mannikins.

  What nonsense was this? And where w
ere Uther's own bowmen? As these questions sprang into my mind I felt my great horse falter and check beneath me and I knew he could not continue much longer at this speed, fetlock-deep in yielding, clogging sand. And even as I leaned forward to. encourage him, everything changed in the fight in front of me.

  In response to a summons from Uther, many of his men broke away from their individual struggles and reformed into a solid wall of horses that they used to smash their way through the defenders, trampling them underfoot, to reach the women in and around the boat. In moments after that each mounted man had hauled a struggling, fighting woman up in front of him, holding her close around the waist or the neck and using her as a living shield against the bowmen. As soon as the last woman—there were eight of them—had been subdued, Uther himself led the group in a concerted charge against the bowmen on the dune. I watched in disbelief, seeing all of this unfolding the way a sleeping man watches a scene of horror engulf him in a nightmare, powerless to change a detail of his dream and knowing that it will only grow worse as it progresses. My horse was barely moving now, and I was still four hundred paces from the boat, five hundred from the dune. I screamed Uther's name, feeling my voice break at the peak, but no one heard me.

  The bowmen on the dune had stopped shooting now. It takes a certain kind of inhumanity to commit callous murder on a living, helpless woman, even when she embodies your own death. Frozen, the bowmen stood and watched, arrows nocked, as Uther's men swept towards them. And then finally, when less than fifty paces separated the two groups, one aimed and fired and drew and fired again and one rider went down, his shield and he both dead. Three more aimed and fired and Uther's group was cut to half its size, but Uther was almost at the foot of the dune by then and the bowmen broke and scattered, casting aside their useless weapons and drawing their swords. Uther threw his helpless shield to the ground and charged after one of the disarmed bowmen. I watched the slaughter in agony, still approaching. I could feel the strength draining away from my body like water pouring from a broken vase, and despair , threatened to overwhelm me. I did not know what was happening here, or who these victims were, but I had seen more callous slaughter from my cousin here than I would ever have believed him capable of.

  I reined in my mount and sat there, staring. Apart from Uther and his three remaining riders by the dune, there was barely a movement on the beach. One of the women thrown from the backs of the horses got up slowly and stood swaying for a time, then began moving among the others, checking each of them for signs of life. She stooped quickly and helped another to her feet, this one swathed in an enveloping yellow garment that covered her completely except for her arms and one long, slender leg that shone from a large tear in the fabric. The two women clung to each other. Three more of Uther's men were still alive, and now mounted their horses again and began to converge, with Uther and the others, upon the two women. No one had seen me yet, sitting my horse some two hundred paces distant. Now I urged my mount forward again, but even as it began to walk, I reined in and waited.

  Uther had dismounted and was approaching the women, who stood side by side, facing him. I waited for him to remove his helmet, but he did not. He merely stopped a few paces from them and stooped quickly to grasp a handful of cloth adorning one of the dead women lying by his feet. He wiped the blood from his sword blade on the cloth and straightened up, slipping the sword back into its sheath. He then flipped the edges of his cloak back across his shoulders. Puzzled, I watched him fumbling at the front of his clothing. I realized his purpose at the same time the women did, for they both turned to run. He closed the distance between them in one leap and grasped the yellow-clad woman by the shoulder, spinning and pushing her so that she fell heavily. The other woman attacked him immediately, and he thrust her aside, throwing her as casually and as easily as if she had no substance. Then he grasped the woman on the ground and, with a great heave, ripped the yellow covering from her body, tumbling her through the air so that I saw naked flesh and long, red hair as the other woman attacked him yet again, leaping this time on to his back. Now I kicked my horse into movement, and as I did so I saw Uther bend and heave and dislodge his assailant, throwing her over his shoulder so that she fell in front of him. He held her with one hand around her wrist and then pulled her erect before jerking her close to him. I knew from the way she stiffened, rigid, that he had stabbed her, pulling her onto a dagger, and I watched her sink to her knees and then fall away to the side. And now Uther was tugging at his clothes again, loosening his belt and tearing at his trousers to expose his loins. I watched him fall to his knees and drag the red-haired woman towards him, grasping her and pulling at her so that he held one of her knees in the crook of each elbow, I was very close, little more than a hundred paces away, still moving like a man in a dream. All eyes were on Uther and his sport. My mind was reciting a litany...

  Deirdre of the Violet Eyes. Cassandra of the Valley. Deirdre of the Weeping Sighs. Cassandra in the Valley. Deep the grave where Deirdre lies. Cassandra, Merlyn's Folly...

  I had been unaware of unslinging Publius Varrus's great bow from where it lay across my back; unaware of fitting an arrow; unaware of anything except my own criminally irresponsible naivety, All the pathetic human weakness and frailty of my doubts and agonizing over Uther's capacity to sink to the level of brutality involved in the savage beating and the murder of my beloved now writhed in my scornful awareness. How could I ever have doubted it? I had always known that Uther had a blackness in him I could never plumb. And today, here, I had seen more of it than I had suspected in thirty years of knowing him intimately. And now I found my voice again.

  His head jerked up at the sound of my shout, and the six men behind him immediately broke from their admiring huddle and began to spread out, moving towards me. I ignored them.

  Uther disengaged himself almost casually from the woman's body and stood up, his male organ gleaming wetly as he stuffed it into his clothing and began to rebuckle his belt. I knew I could kill him from where I sat, but I lusted to confront him, to tell him why he was dying by my hand. Instead, I shot the man closest to me, driving my first arrow through his head, between his eyes, and stringing a second arrow almost before the first struck home. As the dead man's companions began to react, and to spur their horses, I shot a second and then a third, aiming almost casually and without either compunction or excitement. They were merely an annoyance, coming as they did between me and my task that day. Two of the surviving three made the mistake of trying to break away and flee; the third kept coming at me. Had they come together, they would have had me, but as it was, I shot the man approaching me through the breastplate of his armour when he was less than ten paces from me. With the hollow but solid, slightly metallic thunk of his death loud in my ears, I turned after his two companions. One I brought down at the edge of the water. He fell into the waves of the returning tide. The last of them, far off by now, presented the first challenge I had yet had. I sighted carefully, leading him as he rode across my left side, and loosed my arrow. It arced and hummed in a perfect trajectory and he watched it seek him, throwing up an arm as though to fend it off, so that it sank to the feathers into his exposed armpit.

  My cousin had mounted his horse by this time and sat watching me, waiting. The body of the red-haired woman lay almost beneath his horse's feet. I leaned from the saddle and gently dropped my bow to the sand, and then shrugged the quiver strap over my shoulder and let that fall, too. That done, I nudged my horse slowly towards him. He sat motionless, his helmeted head cocked to one side, watching me and waiting for my next move. When only ten paces separated us, I halted and stared at him. When I spoke, I was amazed at the calmness of my own voice, for I wanted to scream.

  "Bloody business, killing women, Cousin." I nodded at the woman's body. "But not your first time, eh?"

  I began counting my heartbeats during the silence that followed. At twelve, he said, "'Cousin?' Who are you?" I felt as though I had been struck, and I actually felt myself reel. This
was not Uther! "Are you deaf? Who are you?"

  Slowly, my hand shaking, I reached up and undid the chin strap of my helmet. He sat watching as I took it off and held it in the crook of my left arm and now I saw him react, although his reaction stunned me more than his first words had. I saw his eyes narrow beneath the front plate of his helmet as he stiffened with surprise, and then he spoke again, hesitantly on the first word, and then with complete conviction.

  "Ambrose...Ambrose of Lindum! I thought you went home."

  Now it was he who undid his helmet and removed it to show me a face I had not thought ever to see again. He was Derek, the king from Ravenglass, whom I had met and befriended briefly on the road two years before.

  "You're with us," he said. "At least you were.. .with Lot. Why did you kill my men?"

  I ignored the question. "Where's Uther?"

  "Uther?" I could hear the mystification in his voice. "How would I know?"

  "You're wearing his armour."