The Irish king’s face clouded. “We have done all we can,” Conaire said stiffly. “What more would you have us do?”
“The enemy have yet to assemble their war host. We will never have a better opportunity to attack.”
“But it will be dark before we can assemble our own battle host,” Conaire pointed out.
“Better still,” replied Arthur with a grin. “Let darkness hide our numbers, and let us strike them before they strike us! Come, Conaire, we will carry the battle to them on the shore even while their ships are making landfall.”
Conaire hesitated; he was not inclined to such tactics and distrusted them. Arthur understood his reluctance. Conaire’s experience of warfare was that of an elder time, when kings met to wage combat in the morning and then rested and refreshed themselves to fight again in the evening, breaking off at dusk to return to their strongholds.
Arthur, nurtured on ruthless necessity and desperate cunning, had learned a keen and lethal shrewdness. He never considered the battle without also assessing the shape of the war. I never knew him to take the field without a thought to the next day’s battle. And that was what lay behind his thinking now: anything they could do to harry the enemy on this night would be to their advantage next time. And, as Arthur knew, we would need every benefit we could command.
I believe Conaire sensed the wisdom of acting on Arthur’s counsel, even if he did not fully perceive its source. Even so, Arthur did not coerce the Irish king—he coaxed; he cajoled.
“Ah, the sky is clear, and the moon will shine bright. It is a good night for a ride along the sea. Gwenhwyvar has told me of the beauty of the Eireann coast. I think I would like to see it by moonlight. What say you, Conaire?” asked Arthur. “Will you ride with us?”
“By my father’s head, Lord Arthur,” Conaire replied, “you are a very man. Well then, since we are going, let us at least lift a cup while we wait for our companions to join us.”
Gwenhwyvar stepped between the two men and, taking each by the arm, turned them towards the hall. “Well said, Conaire, we will drink to the friendship of kings. And then we will show this Briton the delights of these favored shores by moonlight.”
By the time the sun set, the first of Conaire’s warbands had arrived. The chieftains strode noisily into the hall to Conaire’s acclaim. He pressed cups into their hands, drank with them, and made much over our first skirmish with Vandal foe. Fergus and his people arrived last, and Cai and Bedwyr with him. Arthur quickly explained what he had seen, and described the encounter with the enemy.
“Where is this captured foeman?” asked Bedwyr when he had heard the tale. “Perhaps we should see if he is of a temper to speak to us.”
As Conaire was occupied with his lords, Arthur and I, Cai and Bedwyr, left the hall and went to the round house where the barbarian had been taken. He lay on his side on the dirt floor of the house; his hands and feet had been bound with a rope of braided leather. He sat up and scowled defiantly at us as we entered. The warrior guarding him acknowledged us, and said, “He has made no sound since waking. He just sits and glares like a sun-sick lizard.”
“We will watch him now,” said Arthur. “You may join your kinsmen in the hall.”
The warrior departed eagerly, and we stood for a moment looking at the captive. Tall—nearly as tall as Arthur—he was thick-limbed and brawny. His arms and legs were covered with small, even-spaced scars. His hair and eyes were black, and he wore no beard or mustache—indeed, save for his head, all the hair had been scraped from his body. His thin, faintly slanted eyes watched us sourly, without interest. Arthur nodded to Bedwyr, who stepped before him, questioning, “Who are you, Vandal? What is your name?”
The captive merely curled his lip.
“Answer me, and it will go well with you,” Bedwyr said, speaking slowly. “Do you hear me?”
The barbarian offered no reply; neither did he give the slightest indication that he understood Bedwyr’s speech.
“That is not the way to do it,” grumbled Cai. He stepped before the captive and, thumping himself on the chest, said, “Cai. I am…Cai.” He pointed a finger at the barbarian’s chest. “You?” He made the word a question, and to my surprise the barbarian answered.
“Hussa!” he growled in a low voice. “Hussa the groz.”
“You see?” said Cai, turning his head. “That is how—” But at that moment the barbarian pitched forward and rolled into Cai’s legs, knocking him to the ground. Bedwyr, who was nearest, leaped to Cai’s aid, pulling the captive off as Cai kicked himself free.
Bedwyr helped Cai to his feet and the barbarian lunged away. “That was foolish,” Cai said. “I will not make that mistake again.”
“What is he doing?” Arthur said, pushing past them. He rushed to the captive and rolled him onto his back. The barbarian clutched Cai’s dagger in his bound hands. He grinned viciously and spat in Arthur’s face.
“You filthy—” cried Cai, diving towards him.
Before Cai could lay hand to him, the barbarian turned the knife and plunged the blade into his own gut. His eyes bulged with the sudden shock. And then, hands and arms shaking with the effort, he forced the blade up under his own ribs and into his heart.
The savage smile became a rictus. A tremor shook the body and the barbarian slumped back, blood bubbling suddenly from his mouth. His legs twitched and he lay still.
“So,” observed Bedwyr, “we will get no more from him now.”
“We learned his name at least,” Cai said, feeling the place at his belt. “Why did he have to use my knife?”
“Was it his name?” I mused, looking at the stranger’s corpse. “I wonder.”
We returned to the hall and told Conaire what had happened. “It is for the best,” the Irishman reflected. “He would no doubt have been unhappy to remain here any longer.”
The first stars were shining in a skybowl of deep blue as we rode out from Rath Mor to meet the enemy host encamped on the shore.
We lay on our stomachs and gazed down upon the night-dark shore by the light of a bright half moon. The easy roll of the sea upon the strand sounded like the breathing of an enormous beast, and the campfires strung along the coast glinted and glimmered in a shimmering line into the sea-misted distance. Other lights shone across the water where enemy ships rode at anchor.
“Still but forty ships, and only half have come ashore,” observed Bedwyr. “That is good.”
“Oh, that is very good,” muttered Conaire.
“I make it between four and six hundred warriors,” Bedwyr continued. “Less than a thousand, anyway.”
“With as many more to follow,” said Arthur.
“Why have they come here?” wondered Cai.
“Be grateful that they are here,” I said.
“Grateful!” Bedwyr scoffed.
“Would you rather they were in Britain?” I asked.
Bedwyr looked at me for a moment. “I did not think of that.”
Conaire rose to his feet. “I have seen enough. Let us begin.”
“We will strike the first camp,” said Arthur, pointing to the nearest of the campfires. “And you, Conaire, will strike to the south—there.” He pointed to the next cluster of fires up the coast. “Create as much havoc as possible and retreat,” Arthur said. “Then we will assemble once more and strike again—moving south down the coast.”
Fergus sat his horse at the head of his warband and waited, holding the reins of our horses. “It is a good night for a battle,” he said, drawing the air deep into his lungs. “I wish I were riding with you.”
“There will be opportunity enough for that in the days to come,” Arthur told him.
The men of Uladh numbered three hundred and thirty, along with their five lords, and all were mounted; one hundred and fifty horsemen were placed under Arthur’s command, and the same number under Conaire’s. It had been decided that a smaller warband of thirty would remain behind to maintain a rear guard and prevent an enemy force from circlin
g round behind us; that task had fallen to Fergus, Gwenhwyvar and me.
The two warbands departed, leading their horses silently down the cliff track to the strand below; there, they would remount and take up their attack positions. Once they had reached the strand and moved off, we were to follow and guard our retreat. Arthur was determined that there should be no chance for the enemy to sound the alarm, so he and Conaire would attack at will, and without warning.
When the last of the warriors had descended the cliff track, we started down. Although the trail was steep and rough, the moonlit path was easy to see and we had no difficulty making our way down. The others had already vanished by the time we reached the strand. I wondered that so many warriors could melt so quickly and quietly into the darkness. We remounted and established a guard on the cliff trail, and another a short distance along the shore.
Then we settled ourselves to watch and wait, our weapons in our hands. I could see the enemy campfires stretching into the distance. The nearest lay only a few thousand paces from where we waited, and although I could not see any of the Vandali in the darkness, I could hear their voices—the sound carried inland on the sea breeze—a coarse, broken speech, harshly uttered. And with this, the clink and clatter of men making rough camp.
All at once, there came a shout from up the beach, brutally truncated in mid-cry. A heartbeat later, the invader camp was in turmoil. Shouts echoed along the cliffside. I glimpsed the forms of horses moving against the firelight, and the swift, flashing glint of weapons as they rose and fell. The darkness itself seemed to swirl and swarm.
As abruptly as it had begun, the attack was over. Almost before the enemy could arm themselves, the defenders had struck and vanished. And before the alarm could spread to the next camp, that camp, too, was under attack. In this way, the assault traveled up the coast away from us, and we gradually lost sight of our warriors—although the sound of the havoc they created continued long after they had gone.
Still we watched and waited. The night passed in a tense but idle vigil. Gwenhwyvar dismounted and walked a little way along the strand. I joined her. We walked a short while in silence, eyes and ears straining into the darkness. “Do not fret for him,” I told her. “He will be well.”
“Fret for Arthur? I wish I were with him.”
The sky was growing gray in the east when a call came from the clifftop above. We turned to see a dark figure making its way down the cliff track. “Lord Fergus,” said the man, running to meet us. “Conaire has returned. He is waiting for you.”
“And Arthur?” asked Gwenhwyvar, betraying a shred of concern after all.
“He has not yet returned,” the messenger replied.
“You go, Myrddin,” Fergus said. “I will wait here a little longer for Arthur.”
Gwenhwyvar and I left Fergus and ascended to the clifftop where Conaire and his warriors were waiting, exhausted and bruised from their night’s work, but jubilant.
“I regret you were not there to see us,” the king said. “When you hear the tale, you will rue your misfortune that you missed it. Oh, it was a beautiful fight, I tell you.”
His battlechiefs agreed loudly. “The enemy runs away at first sight of a horse!” some said. “And their leaders cannot command them.” Others offered, “They hardly know how to use their own weapons!”
The Irish were ecstatic at their easy mastery of a much more numerous foe. In this, I saw Arthur’s genius at work: he had designed this exercise not only to harass the enemy, but to inspire the Irish at the same time. They had gained confidence in their ability to attack and rout the invader with small risk to themselves. Thus, when next the two forces met, the Irish would hold themselves superior no matter how many foemen faced them across the line.
A pale white sun was showing above the eastern rim when Arthur finally returned. Like Conaire, he had suffered no loss greater than his night’s sleep. Unlike Conaire, he was far from jubilant. He kept his distress to himself, however, until we were alone at Rath Mor.
“What is troubling you, Arthur?” I asked. As he had seemed ill-disposed to talk on the way back, I waited until Gwenhwyvar had gone to bed before challenging him outright.
“I do not like these Vandali,” he said darkly.
“Conaire is very well pleased with them,” I remarked. We sat at the far end of the hut the Irish king had provided for their quarters; Gwenhwyvar slept in the bedplace behind the wattle wall.
“Yes,” granted Arthur, “but the Irish have little experience dealing with barbarians. They think that because the enemy fears our horses, he can be easily beaten.”
“What do you think?”
“I think they are waiting for their lord. He has yet to come ashore; when he does, it will begin.”
“Indeed. But why would he wait?”
Arthur shrugged heavily. “Who knows why the barbarians do anything? Their ways are past reckoning.”
“That is true.” I paused, then asked the question foremost in my mind. “Can the Irish defeat them?”
The High King of Britain considered this for a long time before answering. “No,” he said at last, shaking his head. “They are skilled horsemen and warriors,” he allowed, “but their courage is brittle and they are easily given to despair. Also they are wayward and contrary, Myrddin, I swear it. Tell them one thing and they do another.” He paused. “But that is not what disturbs me most.”
“What then?”
“We cannot drive these invaders away without the aid of the British kings,” he said gloomily.
I finished his thought: “And British kings will never risk their lives and kingdoms to aid the Irish.”
“They will sooner cut off their own arms than lift sword to defend Ierne,” he muttered. “Even so, how long do you think the barbarian will content himself with this scrag of turf and rock when Britain stands ripe for the plucking? Even the Irish do not content themselves with raiding one another, but ever and always leap across the sea to our fair shores when seeking easy plunder.”
He had read the situation aright, and I told him so.
“Aye,” he agreed grimly, “when the barbarian has plundered here, he will turn greedy eyes towards Ynys Prydein. Pray that does not happen, Myrddin. We have just put down the Saecsens—Britain cannot survive another war.”
7
“WAYWARD AND CONTRARY!” Gwenhwyvar cried. “Easily given to despair!” She charged into the room and planted herself before us, fists on hips.
“Gwenhwyvar,” Arthur said, somewhat startled. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Listen to the both of you,” she scolded. “I will tell you what troubles me, shall I? You haughty Britons think you are the only men alive who know how to throw a spear.”
“Calm yourself. I did not mean—” began Arthur.
“You think you are the only men under God’s blue heaven who know how to defend your land and people from enemy invaders! You think—”
“Enough, woman!” Arthur said, rising to his feet. “I am sorry! I did not mean for you to hear.”
“Sorry!” Gwenhwyvar stepped nearer, her nose almost touching his chin. “Sorry that I heard your scurrilous talk, or sorry for what you said?”
“I feel the way I feel,” Arthur told her, growing angry. “I cannot change that.”
“What do you know, you big stump?” Gwenhwyvar pushed her face into his, though she had to stand on toe tip to do it.
Arthur’s jaw bulged dangerously. “I know what I see with my own eyes.”
“Are you blind then?” Gwenhwyvar scoffed. “For a truth you know nothing of Ierne’s people. You know nothing of our courage. You know nothing—”
Taken by fury, she leaned too far and fell forward. Arthur, red-faced and furious, without a thought reached out, took her elbow and steadied her.
Quick as a lash, Gwenhwyvar snapped, “Take your hand from me, Briton!” placed both hands against his chest, and shoved him backwards. Caught off-balance Arthur went down, and Gwenhwyvar, supremel
y triumphant, stormed out of the house.
Arthur sat astonished for a moment. Then: “It is as I told you, Myrddin. They are a contrary race, and hasty. And that is the end of it.”
I put out a hand to help him up. “What will you do now?” I said, ignoring the squabble.
“We must return at once to Britain,” he said. “We must raise the support of Britain’s kings and persuade them to pledge warriors to the fight.”
“Easier to persuade the invaders to turn their ships and sail away,” I replied.
“You know them too well,” Arthur agreed. “Yet, I see no better hope for Ierne. Indeed, it is Britain’s best hope as well. For if we can defeat the Vandali here, Britain will remain unscathed.”
I left Arthur to his rest then, and went in search of a place where I might sit alone with my thoughts. I found a sheltered nook in the shadow of the wall, wrapped myself in my cloak, and settled down to contemplate the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen us.
Oh, it was a calamity and I knew it. Britain was newly united, the alliance still soft; it would harden in time—given the chance. But the British kings had suffered at Baedun, and they needed time to heal their wounds and rebuild their warbands. Even Arthur’s most loyal lords would view a war across Muir Eireann with cold eyes. The Irish had long been a thorn in the British flesh with their incessant raiding. Few Britons would see the prudence of Arthur’s summons—much less understand it—and none would welcome it.
At the very least they would resist. Worse, I feared, they would turn against him. And should worse come to worst, the fragile alliance would shatter; our hard-won peace would be but a memory, and the Kingdom of Summer would die in its infancy. It had long been all my care to aid that birth, and the last thing I desired was to see that long and arduous—and life-costly—work undone. Great Light, I would do anything, anything to prevent that.
I thought long and hard, and was drawn from my contemplation at last by the jangling clang of the alarm. Conaire, like the chieftains of old, had a strip of iron hung from a post outside his hall. When need arose, the iron was struck with a hammer and the people ran to answer the alarm.
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