by Mary Stewart
The sun was setting behind the improvised pavilion in a splash of scarlet. It must have rained again that day; the grass was sodden, every blade heavy with drops. The familiar slate-grey clouds furled and unfurled slowly across the sunset. As I was led forward, they were lighting the torches. These looked small and dull against the sunset, more smoke than flame, dragged and flattened by the gusty breeze.
I waited at the foot of the platform. The King's eyes looked me up and down, but he said nothing. He was still reserving judgement. And why not, I thought. The kind of thing I seemed to have produced must be fairly familiar to him. Now he waited for proof of at least some part of my prophecy. If it was not forthcoming, this was still the time and the place to spill my blood. I wondered how the wind blew from Less Britain. The stream was a full three hundred paces off, dark under its oaks and willows.
Vortigern signed to me to take my place on the platform beside him, and I mounted it to stand at his right, on the opposite side from the priests. One or two of the officers moved aside from me; their faces were wooden, and they did not look at me, but I saw the crossed fingers, and thought: Dragon or no dragon, I can manage these. Then I felt eyes on me, and looked round. It was the greybeard. He was gazing fixedly at the brooch on my shoulder where my cloak had blown back from it. As I turned, his eyes lifted to mine. I saw his widen, then his hand crept to his side, not to make the sign, but to loosen his sword in its scabbard. I looked away. No one spoke.
It was an uncomfortable vigil. As the sun sank lower the chilly spring wind freshened, fretting at the hangings. Where puddles lay in the reedy ground the water rippled and splashed under the wind. Cold draughts knifed up between the duckboards. I could hear a curlew whistling somewhere up in the darkening sky, then it slanted down, bubbling like a waterfall, into silence. Above us the King's banner fluttered and snapped in the wind. The shadow of the pavilion lengthened on the soaked field.
From where we waited, the only sign of activity was some coming and going in the trees. The last rays of the sun, level and red, shone full on the west face of King's Fort, lighting up the head of the crag crowned with the wrecked wall. No workmen were visible there; they must all be in the cave and the adit. Relays of boys ran across and back with reports of progress. The pumps were working well and gaining on the water; the level had sunk two spans in the last half hour... If my lord King would have patience, the pumps had jammed, but the engineers were working on them and meanwhile the men had rigged a windlass and were passing buckets... All was well again, the pumps were going now and the level was dropping sharply... You could see the bottom, they thought...
It was two full hours of chill, numb waiting, and it was almost dark, before lights came down the track and with them the crowd of workmen. They came fast but deliberately, not like frightened men, and even before they came close enough to be clearly seen, I knew what they had found. Their leaders halted a yard from the platform, and as the others came crowding up I felt my guards move closer.
There were soldiers with the workmen. Their captain stepped forward, saluting.
"The pool is empty?" asked Vortigern.
"Yes, sir."
"And what lies beneath it?"
The officer paused. He should have been a bard. He need not have paused to gather eyes: they were all on him already.
A gust of wind, sudden and stronger than before, tore his cloak to one side with a crack like a whip, and rocked the frame of the pavilion. A bird fled overhead, tumbling along the wind. Not a merlin: not tonight. Only a rook, scudding late home.
"There is nothing beneath the pool, sir." His voice was neutral, carefully official, but I heard a mutter go through the crowd like another surge of wind. Maugan was craning forward, his eyes bright as a vulture's, but I could see he did not dare to speak until he saw which way the King's mind was bending. Vortigern leaned forward.
"You are certain of this? You drained it to the bottom?"
"Indeed, sir." He signed to the men beside him, and three or four of them stepped forward to tip a clutter of objects in front of the platform. A broken mattock, eaten with rust, some flint axe-heads older than any Roman working, a belt buckle, a knife with its blade eaten to nothing, a short length of chain, a metal whip-stock, some other objects impossible to identify, and a few shards of cooking pots.
The officer showed a hand, palm up. "When I said 'nothing,' sir, I meant only what you might expect. These. And we got as near to the bottom as made no difference; you could see down to the rock and the mud, but we dredged the last bucket up, for good measure. The foreman will bear me out."
The foreman stepped forward then, and I saw he had a full bucket in his hand, the water slopping over the brim.
"Sir, it's true, there's naught there. You could see for yourself if you came up, sir, right to the bottom. But better not try it, the tunnel's awash with mud now, and not fit. But I brought the last pailful out, for you to see yourself."
With the word, he tipped the full bucket out, deluging the already sodden ground, and the water sloshed down to fill the puddle round the base of the royal standard. With the mud that had lain in the bottom came a few broken fragments of stone, and a silver coin.
The King turned then to look at me. It must be a measure of what had happened in the cavern yesterday that the priests still kept silent, and the King was clearly waiting, not for an excuse, but an explanation.
God knows I had had plenty of time to think, all through that long, cold silent vigil, but I knew that thinking would not help me. If he was with me, he would come now. I looked down at the puddles where the last red light of sunset lay like blood. I looked up across the crag where stars could be seen already stabbing bright in the clear east. Another gust of wind was coming; I could hear it tearing the tops of the oaks where Cadal would be waiting.
"Well?" said Vortigern.
I took a step forward to the edge of the platform. I felt empty still, but somehow I would have to speak. As I moved, the gust struck the pavilion, sharp as a blow. There came a crack, a flurry of sound like hounds worrying a deer, and a cry from someone, bitten short. Above our heads the King's banner whipped streaming out, then, caught in its ropes, bellied like a sail holding the full weight of the wind. The shaft, jerked sharply to and fro in soft ground loosened further by the thrown bucketful of water, tore suddenly free of the grabbing hands, to whirl over and down. It slapped flat on the sodden field at the King's feet.
The wind fled past, and in its wake was a lull. The banner lay flat, held heavy with water. The white dragon on a green field. As we watched, it sagged slowly into a pool, and the water washed over it. Some last faint ray from the sunset bloodied the water. Someone said fearfully, "An omen," and another voice, loudly, "Great Thor, the Dragon is down!" Others began to shout. The standard-bearer, his face ashen, was already stooping, but I jumped off the platform in front of them all and threw up my arms.
"Can any doubt the god has spoken? Look up from the ground, and see where he speaks again!"
Across the dark east, burning white hot with a trail like a young comet, went a shooting star, the star men call the firedrake or dragon of fire.
"There it runs!" I shouted. "There it runs! The Red Dragon of the West! I tell you, King Vortigern, waste no more time here with these ignorant fools who babble of blood sacrifice and build a wall of stone for you, a foot a day! What wall will keep out the Dragon? I, Merlin, tell you, send these priests away and gather your captains round you, and get you away from the hills of Wales to your own country. King's Fort is not for you. You have seen the Red Dragon come tonight, and the White Dragon lie beneath him. And by God, you have seen the truth! Take warning! Strike your tents now, and go to your own country, and watch your borders lest the Dragon follow you and burn you out! You brought me here to speak, and I have spoken. I tell you, the Dragon is here!"
The king was on his feet, and men were shouting. I pulled the black cloak round me, and without hurrying turned away through the crowd of workmen a
nd soldiers that milled round the foot of the platform. They did not try to stop me. They would as soon, I suppose, have touched a poisonous snake. Behind me, through the hubbub, I heard Maugan's voice and thought for a moment they were coming after me, but then men crowded off the platform, and began thrusting their way through the mob of workmen, on their way back to the encampment. Torches tossed. Someone dragged the sodden standard up and I saw it rocking and dripping where presumably his captains were clearing a path for the King. I drew the black cloak closer and slipped into the shadows at the edge of the crowd. Presently, unseen, I was able to step round behind the pavilion.
The oaks were three hundred paces away across the dark field. Under them the stream ran loud over smooth stones.
Cadal's voice said, low and urgent: "This way." A hoof sparked on stone. "I got you a quiet one," he said, and put a hand under my foot to throw me into the saddle.
I laughed a little. "I could ride the firedrake itself tonight. You saw it?"
"Aye, my lord. And I saw you, and heard you, too."
"Cadal, you swore you'd never be afraid of me. It was only a shooting star."
"But it came when it came."
"Yes. And now we'd better go while we can go. Timing is all that matters, Cadal."
"You shouldn't laugh at it, master Merlin."
"By the god," I said, "I'm not laughing."
The horses pushed out from under the dripping trees and went at a swift canter across the ridge. To our right a wooded hill blocked out the west. Ahead was the narrow neck of valley between hill and river.
"Will they come after you?"
"I doubt it."
But as we kicked the beasts to a gallop between ridge and river a horseman loomed, and our horses swerved and shied.
Cadal's beast jumped forward under the spur. Iron rasped. A voice, vaguely familiar, said clearly: "Put up. Friend."
The horses stamped and blew. I saw Cadal's hand on the other's rein. He sat quietly.
"Whose friend?"
"Ambrosius'."
I said: "Wait, Cadal, it's the greybeard. Your name sir? And your business with me?"
He cleared his throat harshly. "Gorlois is my name, of Cornwall."
I saw Cadal's movement of surprise, and heard the bits jingle. He still had hold of the other's rein, and the drawn dagger gleamed. The old warrior sat unmoving. There was no sound of following hoofs.
I said slowly: "Then, sir, I should rather ask you what your business is with Vortigern?"
"The same as yours, Merlin Ambrosius." I saw his teeth gleam in his beard. "I came north to see for myself, and to send word back to him. The West has waited long enough, and the time will be ripe, come spring. But you came early. I could have saved myself the pains, it seems."
"You came alone?"
He gave a short, hard laugh, like a dog barking. "To Vortigern? Hardly. My men will follow. But I had to catch you. I want news." Then, harshly: "God's grief, man, do you doubt me? I came alone to you."
"No, sir. Let him go, Cadal. My lord, if you want to talk to me, you'll have to do it on the move. We should go, and quickly."
"Willingly." We set the horses in motion. As they struck into a gallop I said over my shoulder: "You guessed when you saw the brooch?"
"Before that. You have a look of him, Merlin Ambrosius." I heard him laugh again, deep in his throat. "And by God, there are times when you have a look of your devil-sire as well! Steady now, we're nearly at the ford. It'll be deep. They say wizards can't cross water?"
I laughed. "I'm always sick at sea, but I can manage this." The horses plunged across the ford unhindered, and took the next slope at a gallop. Then we were on the paved road, plain to see in the flying starlight, which leads straight across the high ground to the south.
We rode all night, with no pursuit. Three days later, in the early morning, Ambrosius came to land.
BOOK IV — THE RED DRAGON
1
THE WAY THE CHRONICLES TELL IT, you would think it took Ambrosius two months to get himself crowned King and pacify Britain. In fact, it took more than two years.
The first part was quick enough. It was not for nothing that he had spent all those years in Less Britain, he and Uther, developing an expert striking force the like of which had not been seen in any part of Europe since the disbanding nearly a hundred years ago of the force commanded by the Count of the Saxon Shore. Ambrosius had, in fact, modelled his own army on the force of the Saxon Shore, a marvellously mobile fighting instrument which could live off the country and do everything at twice the speed of the normal force. Caesar-speed, they still called it when I was young.
He landed at Totnes in Devon, with a fair wind and a quiet sea, and he had hardly set up the Red Dragon when the whole West rose for him. He was King of Cornwall and Devon before he even left the shore, and everywhere, as he moved northwards, the chiefs and kings crowded to swell his army. Eldol of Gloucester, a ferocious old man who had fought with Constantine against Vortigern, with Vortigern against Hengist, with Vortimer against both, and would fight anywhere for the sheer hell of it, met him at Glastonbury and swore faith. With him came a host of lesser leaders, not least his own brother Eldad, a bishop whose devout Christianity made the pagan wolves look like lambs by comparison, and set me wondering where he spent the dark nights of the winter solstice. But he was powerful; I had heard my mother speak of him with reverence; and once he had declared for Ambrosius, all Christian Britain came with him, urgent to drive back the pagan hordes moving steadily inland from their landing-places in the south and east. Last came Gorlois of Tintagel in Cornwall, straight from Vortigern's side with news of Vortigern's hasty move out of the Welsh mountains, and ready to ratify the oath of loyalty which, should Ambrosius be successful, would add the whole kingdom of Cornwall for the first time to the High Kingdom of Britain.
Ambrosius' main trouble, indeed, was not lack of support but the nature of it. The native Britons, tired of Vortigern, were fighting-mad to clear the Saxons out of their country and get their homes and their own ways back, but a great majority of them knew only guerrilla warfare, or the kind of hit-and-ride-away tactics that do well enough to harass the enemy, but will not hold him back for long if he means business. Moreover, each troop came with its own leader, and it was as much as any commander's authority was worth to suggest that they might regroup and train under strangers. Since the last trained legion had withdrawn from Britain almost a century before, we had fought (as we had done before the Romans ever came) in tribes. And it was no use suggesting that, for instance, the men of Devet might fight beside the men of North Wales even with their own leaders; throats would have been cut on both sides before the first trumpet ever sounded.
Ambrosius here, as everywhere, showed himself master. As ever he used each man for what that man's strength was worth. He sowed his own officers broadcast among the British — for co-ordination, he said, no more — and through them quietly adapted the tactics of each force to suit his central plan, with his own body of picked troops taking the main brunt of attack.
All this I heard later, or could have guessed from what I knew of him. I could have guessed, also, what would happen the moment his forces assembled and declared him King. His British allies clamoured for him to go straight after Hengist and drive the Saxons back to their own country. They were not unduly concerned with Vortigern. Indeed, such power as Vortigern had had was largely gone already, and it would have been simple enough for Ambrosius to ignore him and concentrate on the Saxons.
But he refused to give way to pressure. The old wolf must be smoked out first, he said, and the field cleared for the main work of battle. Besides, he pointed out, Hengist and his Saxons were Northmen, and particularly amenable to rumours and fear; let Ambrosius once unite the British to destroy Vortigern, and the Saxons would begin to fear him as a force really to be reckoned with. It was his guess that, given the time, they would bring together one large force to face him, which might then be broken at one blow.
The upshot was that they marched northwards within the week, and came on Vortigern at Doward.
* * *
Doward is in the valley of the Guoy, which the Saxons pronounce Way or Wye. This is a big river, which runs deep and placid-seeming through a gorge whose high slopes are hung with forests. Here and there the valley widens to green pastures, but the tide runs many miles up river, and these low meadows are often, in winter, awash under a roaring yellow flood, for the great Wye is not so placid as it seems, and even in summer there are deep pools where big fish lie and the currents are strong enough to overturn a coracle and drown a man.
Well north of the limit of the tidal floods, in a wide curve of the valley, stand the two hills called Doward. The one to the north is the greater, thick with forest and mined with caves inhabited, men say, by wild beasts and outlawed men. The hill called Lesser Doward is also forested, but more thinly, since it is rocky, and its steep summit, rising above the trees, makes a natural citadel so secure that it has been fortified time out of mind. Long before even the Romans came, some British king built himself a fortress on the summit which, with its commanding view, and the natural defenses of crag and river, made a formidable stronghold. The hill is wide-topped, and its sides steep and rough, and though siege engines could at one point be dragged up in dead ground, this ended in crags where the engines were useless. Everywhere except at this point there was a double rampart and ditch to get through before the outer wall of the fortress could be reached. The Romans themselves had marched against it once, and only managed to reduce it through treachery. This was in the time of Caratacus. Doward was the kind of place that, like Troy, must be taken from within.