But looking at Uthyr's face, calm and strong and happy as it was just then, I held my peace, that the moment not be lost; and afterwards I was glad that I had done so.
We rode that day to rejoin Arthur; much of the remaining population of Llwynarth came with us, though a strong guard was left (pride-puffed with their charge and lamenting their stay-at-home status by turns) to protect the King and Queen, and the Princess Marguessan, and the other noncombatants who remained in safety at the Bear's Grove.
Once we were well on our way, I spoke to Morgan of her father's warning to me, not in jest precisely, but more lightly than Uthyr had done, thinking to make as little of it as I might. I was most disconcerted to see her reaction: The planes of her face shifted, the hazel eyes grew clouded, and, as she had been that time in Collimare so long since, she was 'gone' even as she still rode beside me. Then almost at once she was back again, looking somberly at me out of eyes now piercingly clear.
"It is not what I wish to say, Talyn, but I fear my father is correct to fear my sister and her lord." She looked as if she could say more, but would not; then she shook her head and turned her gaze away east, where Arthur awaited us in Agned's shadow.
So it was that I returned to Arthur's side, joining his forces as they began to slip now southward and eastward and northward, meeting in the mountains to the west of Agned, where they should go unseen by spying Ravens and curious townsfolk alike.
I remembered well the land hereabouts, from my passing through with Elphin, on our way to Tinnavardan so many years ago; indeed, I myself had crossed the region on occasion during my time of travel as anruth, picking my way along the valleys of the three main rivers—the Brosna, the Saimhor and the Velindre. That last was the largest of the three, becoming larger still after the others did pour their waters into it, sweeping south and east past Agned in a great loop, then running south westward to find the sea, down by the coast at the little island of Caer Ys.
Many other watercourses there were as well, some little more than riverlets seeping down from the hills, others sizable streams, all latticing the high upland that lay between the Rough Bounds to the west and Agned's sprawling bulk in the east. Cruach Agned was more a massif than a single great hill: Three-peaked and slope-shouldered, it dominated the landscape of low hills and high moors, and it was two days' march from side to side.
We had staked much upon that distance: For on the far side of Agned, some fifty miles away from where we had set camp, was Ravens' Rift, the chief Theocracy garrison in these parts. Midway between the mountain and the Sea of Glora, the Rift sat across the main road to Caer Dathyl, a menacing gray hulk housing enough Ravens to shadow our entire force. Indeed, more Ravens still had been sent there in the fortnight past, their mission being to bar our passage at whatever cost. Well—our ostensible passage: We had no more intention of coming within ten miles of the Rift than we had of walking to Tara. But Owein and his wool-brained advisors thought we had no more of strategy and daring than did they; thought that we should simply stroll down into the Rift's guarded pass, straight and stupidly into their arms. We had plans for the troops at the Rift, right enough; but not the same plans as those.
"They think we cannot deal with all the bog and marshland hereabouts," said Tarian, greeting us with affection and relief when at last we arrived in camp, and plunging at once into a briefing on our military prospects. "And that we must go by way of the Rift because we have no other choice of ground; that is their limited wisdom! In truth," she added, linking one arm through mine and the other through Morgan's and walking us down toward Arthur's tent at the camp's center, "had I any real choice, I too had chosen ground less laced with water upon which to make our stand—but it will serve well enough. By the time they tumble to what we are working on them, it will be too late; but first we must come down from here and get ourselves over there." She pointed east, to the rolling gray-green moor on the other side of Saimhor. "And by then the vermin at the Rift will have other pressing business with which they must deal."
"Oh aye?" I had not yet heard this part of the battle plan, and should have liked to hear it put forth by one of its chief architects; but we had come by now to Arthur's tent, and halted just beyond the faha that was guarded by two of our Companions. "Even so, Tari, Owein's armies are near halfway here from Caer Dathyl; they must soon swing north to make the Rift. To lure them here instead will take much, and they will come at us hard."
Tarian's grin flashed. "I am counting on it! Else our plan fails…"
"A risky plan, War-leader," said Morgan, speaking for the first time.
"Only risk will serve these days, Princess… But your brother waits on you both within. Go and see and speak with him, while we still have time for talk."
* * *
Chapter Thirty-two
Time ran short indeed: That next morning after our arrival in camp, Arthur led his forces down from the hills and across the three rivers, with no smallest attempt at concealment or stealth; indeed, his whole purpose just now was that we should be seen. And two days after, as obediently as if he had been a sheep and Arthur the herd-dog, came Owein Rheged lumbering up out of the southeast with all his force.
They camped facing us across the expanse of moorland, thinking that by so doing they blocked our further march south; but in truth they had positioned themselves precisely where Arthur wished to have them. In numbers they were our superior, but that we had expected; and the odds were not much longer than those we had fought often enough before.
For a full day there was silence, as Owein's commanders ordered their leaguer and we waited on their doing so; but we knew we should hear from them soon enough. Indeed, the silence broke on the second morning: We had been out among the lines, Arthur and some of the rest of us, when Daronwy, who had been looking out over the ground between the two encampments, suddenly stiffened and straightened.
"Artos, an embassy comes."
But he too had seen, and was already making his way down the slope to where those who rode toward us under the white banner must come. Unbidden, we scurried behind him, for all the world like Cabal after his master and ours: myself, Daronwy, Elen, Betwyr, a few others who like ourselves had no pressing duties just then. The true tasks lay heavy upon the shoulders of Tarian and Keils and Grehan, in their Fian clochan overlooking the plain, where they planned the fight both here and elsewhere.
Arthur halted so abruptly we all but piled into him. From my place just to his left, I ran a glance over the embassy from Owein, and then started violently in my sudden shock: The rider beneath the white flag was Owein, just now dismounting to come forward on foot to where we stood waiting.
I could not see Arthur's face, but I could well behold Owein's; and he also mine, for I saw the baleful five-second glance with which he favored me, and I read the astonished thought behind the half-rueful smile: Mabon Dialedd, indeed! I made a small bow in civil greeting, but he ignored me from then on, being instead intent on Arthur.
Who studied Owein just as intently for half a minute in expressionless silence; and if you do think that sounds no great time, I invite you to count those moments out for yourself while staring into the eyes of your own worst foe. And then he spoke.
"Owein," said Arthur, "forbid thy Ravens."
Whatever Owein Rheged might have been expecting to hear from the lips of Arthur Penarvon, it surely was not that; and he was plainly taken aback by the surprise of it. But recovering at once—not for naught had he been master of the planet for nigh on thirty years—he replied in kind.
"Arthur," said Owein, "play thy game."
That was all they said to each other, then: Owein mounted and rode back to his camp; Arthur watched him out of sight, then turned on his heel and strode back to the clochan and his war-leaders. But late that night, as we sat around the table in Arthur's tent and pondered what might come from Owein in form of battle in the morning, another message came to Arthur from his enemy's hand.
It was not even a message diptych, th
e usual medium for such things, but a more ancient form of communication: a sheet of parchment, folded several times and sealed with Owein's seal.
Arthur received it with apparent lack of interest from the hand of the Fian who brought it, then glanced up to meet a full dozen imploring stares.
He shook his head, a smile of amusement and exasperation both on his face. "It will say little, you know. He and I said all there was to say this afternoon."
"Artos, you exchanged eight words," said Betwyr. "Eight only, out of all that might have been said."
Again he shook his head, with less of amusement and more of sadness in the smile now.
"Nay, braud, had we talked from now to Nevermas we had said but little more, and naught more to the point; only swords shall be our discourse now… But, to please all you, before you perish of curiosity—"
He broke the seal and read the contents. When he said nothing, I held out my hand, and still without a word he pushed the parchment to me across the table's width. I picked it up and unfolded it, and no more was on the page but this:
'If thou come, and if ever thou come to Tara.' The words were in the High Gaeloch; the sign-manual was bold and clear: 'Edeyrn.'
I passed the parchment round the table, and the silence in the tent was absolute. When the page came back again to me, I handed it once more to Arthur, who had watched with great interest our faces as one by one we read the Marbh-draoi's message.
"A threat, if you like," I said. "What answer shall you give him?"
Arthur sat up with sudden energy. "This first," he said. "Later, perhaps some other answer. But for now this."
He had been writing a few words on a parchment of his own, and this he now pushed across to me. I looked down at the words that were written there, in the blackest of ink, in Arthur's sprawling scrawl; and the others craned and crowded close to read.
No more was on that page but this:
'And if I go to Tara, and if I go.' The words were in the High Gaeloch; the sign-manual was firm and flowing: 'Arthur.'
So we left it, that last night before Keltia changed forever: Arthur, having sent his parchment on its way to Edeyrn, thrust the Marbh-draoi's letter under his tunic and inside his leinna, swearing to Morgan and me a private vow to keep it next his heart until the heart of one of them—Edeyrn or Arthur—no longer beat.
Neither Morgan nor Merlynn—who had joined us in camp, bringing the renewed and constant prayers and blessings of Uthyr and Ygrawn, to witness for himself what he had Seen so many years since—much liked this rather dramatic and most uncharacteristic gesture. No more did I, and I could guess the ground of their misgiving: that perhaps some subtle ill-working had been wrought upon the parchment, a scribed rann for evil and hurt against Arthur and his folk, or Arthur alone. Though I did not share their doubts, to set their minds at rest I promised to speak of it to Arthur; but when I did mention it, he laughed and shook his head.
"Nay, that would be too simple for his devious mind! Be assured, the Marbh-draoi has other plans for me; indeed, for all of us… There will be a time for such fears; but just now there is naught here, Talyn, but ink and parchment only, and we have far realer things to face this day. So Guenna and Merlynn can rest easy, and do you bid the others easy also, and be so yourself. We will be giving his words a proper answering very soon now."
Indeed, the answer Arthur was preparing to make was beginning to be phrased even now, beyond the door of the tent: Dawn was breaking far off past Agned, though here at the mountain's foot it was yet dark, and with that distant daybreak came the first stab of that other horn of battle with which Owein Rheged would be this day gored. By this hour, the second strike of our two-pronged attack—the forces that Arthur had sent by water, sailing down the length of the Sea of Glora—would be coming to land on the beaches near Ravens' Rift, would be moving inland to engage the Theocracy forces stationed there to bar our passing—or rather, the passing they had been expecting us to make by road. The main battle would of course be ours at Agned, since here it was that Arthur and Owein would cross swords at last; but unless those Rift troops were prevented from marching west to join with Owein, our fight was doomed from the start.
This then was the strategy that Tarian had alluded to on that morning Morgan and I came to camp; that had been planned by Grehan and Keils and Arthur and herself—and it was far more than a diversionary attack. In truth, it had been the original plan for the main attack, and only after Tarian had devised the strategy for battle beneath Agned had the plan been altered. Hellish difficult of implementing as well; not until afterwards did I come to learn how the craft for the sea venture had been built and hidden—some had been concealed at Collimare itself, as it happened—or how the forces to sail them had trained in secret, small groups at a time, in every loyal fishing village on Gwynedd.
The fleet was under the command of Tryffin Tregaron, who had not been engaged on family business those months of absence of Kernow (save in the larger sense of 'family'), but in shipbuilding and fitting and seamanship, at which callings the Kernish are equalled by few and surpassed by none; also my old teacher Scathach, who came of a seafaring line; and—somewhat of a surprise here—Marguessan's husband, Irian Locryn, who knew the Sea of Glora well, as his family's lands bordered its shores. They proved bonny ship-lords all three, as would soon be seen.
But though our friends on the sea that morning were much in our hearts and prayers—as were we in theirs—we had matters of our own to attend to; and after perhaps two hours' sleep, Arthur came out of his tent to begin to deal with them.
He looked by no means like a hard-pressed commander about to lead his forces into the fight of all their lives. His red-brown hair bare of any helm, his frame armored for the field in a findruinna lorica, his scarlet cloak whipping out behind him and the sword Llacharn hanging at his side—despite the last-minute panics all round him, the shouted contradictory orders, the sleep he had not gotten, Arthur looked that day like a man who had come at last within reach of that which he had long sought, and not about to let it slip through his grasp.
The ground Arthur had chosen for his first great battle, and onto which he had so cleverly lured his opponent, was a vast plain that lay between Agned and the river Saimhor; level if rough for the most part, at one side it sloped abruptly into a hollow, masked from the higher ground across which Owein must come to engage us. To the west, the lattice of streams and wetlands, which we had crossed two days since, and the broader barrier of the Saimhor effectively narrowed in Owein's front and choice of approach, and had the additional advantage of preventing him from trying to turn our right flank. On the east, the plain ran right up into the outlying spurs of Agned, and neither we nor Owein could take that way for escape.
But Arthur's strategy made no allowance for escape: A deliberately understrength right, pledged to a holding action, and a center denied, can serve as the pin on which the rest of the army pivots to smash the enemy's line. It is a daring tactic, but irresistible when it works—it can crumple an enemy flank like a dead leaf—and we had had occasion to employ it before now, though never for such high and desperate stakes as these.
"The operative word here being 'desperate,' " Tarian had dourly observed at the commanders' council the preceding night. "Well, Artos, you did say you had something new in mind. What you did not see fit to mention to Keils and Grehan and me was that the something new was defeat."
But Arthur, not offended in the slightest, had grinned and made her a half-bow from where he sat at the table's head.
"Now there speaks my cautious war-leader! Nay, Douglas, look not so; that is just what I do wish to hear from you—and from Aoibhell, or Rathen, or any other of you here who cares to play antiadvocate," he had added, glancing over the score or more of us Companions who packed the tent and crowded the table.
"Then I shall do so as well," Kei had said at once. "Artos, it is a most uncertain plan, and I am not sure the armies will not be slow to follow you. Do not forget, this is the fi
rst time they have been flown all together at Ravens. The raids and skirmishings we have fought are one thing, but this is the first true battle we shall fight as one force, and takes a deal more leading. Who, for one thing, shall you put on the right to hold this pivot?"
Arthur had given him a quick quizzical look. "You and Betwyr," he had said, smiling as Kei rolled his eyes. "You have been my wheelhorses long time now; never have I had greater need of two stern and steady anchors on whom all the fight shall turn, and maybe all the day depend."
Kei had shaken his head dolefully. "And do you not think to use that silver tongue of yours on me, either—aye, well, who else but Betwyr and me?"
And just so had the dispositions been settled: Arthur put those two on the right with several companies, artfully placed to appear a far larger force; and in the center with Ferdia and Elen—a brazen ruse, for it was not a proper center at all but just sufficient to make Owein think the position strongly held—he placed the standard. This was not the vexillum of the Counterinsurgency that flew that day from many lances, but the ancient, forbidden Royal Standard of the House of Don, that had not been seen or flown for two hundred years.
"Would that my father might see that," said Morgan, tucking her hair under a helm and slinging on her baldric.
"A brave sight," I agreed. And so was she: It hurt my heart to look at her and know that very soon now she would be beside me in the thick of things; still, better she was at my side than off where I could not see her and know how she did fare. I had told myself this a thousand times that day already, and it made me feel no better now than it had the first time of telling; so to hide my fear and shame I pointed out over the expanses of moor and upland lying before us. "Good ground for a fight; but how is this place called, so that we bards may properly sing of it after?"
The Hawk's Gray Feather Page 36