Shadow of the King

by Helen Hollick

  Again, Gwenhwyfar was behind him, having to trot occasionally to keep pace with his long stride. “It is only the heathen who can answer the questions I must ask,” she replied.

  He walked on, head high, his staff stabbing into the ground with every pace, saying no other word until they neared the camp. She could smell the smoke of her mens’ hearth-fire, hear the faint murmur of their voices. Ider would be waiting, anxious, at the edge of the trees, not settling until she returned.

  “You have the look of a woman who has lost something that must be found,” the hermit announced. “I will pray that Jesu may help you find it.”

  They stepped out into the clearing, a shallow river ran down to where the hard earth slipped into sand, and the sand into the sea. Ider, as she expected, grunted, nodded at her, turned to join his men. The hermit went direct to his bothy, slipped inside.

  At dawn, Gwenhwyfar made her way, with only Ider for company along that same twisting path and out among the mist-wreathed columns of Stones. She walked the few miles with her heart light, her steps making no sound on the dew-wet grass. Where the Stones ended she found the place where the Ladies dwelled. They were of the Goddess, but were not the Ladies she sought. There had once, and not so long ago, been many such scattered groups throughout all of Less Britain and Gaul, but their following was dwindling now, here as in Britain, with the young girls going to serve Mary the Mother of God, rather than the Goddess, Mother of Earth. None of the five knew of one called Morgaine who had a boy-child named Medraut, but then Gwenhwyfar had not expected them to. For a journey to end it must have a beginning, and no journey could end too soon after its starting.

  By mid-morning she and her men were again on their way. At least now, from the telling of the Ladies by the Place of Stones, they had some vague idea of where they need ride, where they need look.

  July 472

  XLIII

  Bedwyr, riding through the gateway into the outer settlement of Ambrosius’s stronghold, was surprised, and not pleasantly. The place was busy, full with people occupied with the various needs of daily routine, but they were civilians, a good portion of the men clad in the garments of Christianity. Where were the soldiers, armed men, trained professionals? He halted his horse by a trough, let it extend his head to drink. July had been hot and humid, a long, uncomfortable month of sticky, itching skin and irritable, flaring tempers. In a few months time, when the bite of winter was nipping sharp at fingers and feet, they would look back and long for this heat – as a fall of snow would be most welcome now! Christ God, this was supposed to be a fortress! A bell began to toll, striking one solemn note. Bedwyr’s gaze followed a group of monks as they made their way through a stone archway into a shaded courtyard from where the summons came. A gaggle of five young boys ran from a narrow side-street, dodged around his horse and scampered after the monks, one pausing to grin a quick apology.

  Bedwyr dismounted, led his horse after them but stopped this side of what was an obvious boundary. Through the arch, in contrast to the business of the streets, order, neatness and an air of calm solitude. The monks, and the boys – more of them now, at least four and twenty – were entering a low, single-storey chapel, stone-built in the traditional equal cruciform shape. So, Ambrosius had his abbey built, and his school for boys. His fists clenched, Bedwyr turned away, clicked his tongue for the horse to walk on, headed for the lane that ascended steeply upward to where another gate stood open. The fortress proper. Well, he hoped Ambrosius knew what he was doing, that those simple-clad, sandalled monks knew how to wield a staff and club as easily as they did gospel and crucifix. He shook his head as he began the climb up the cobbled track. If not, that fine, recent-built place would soon enough be blackened and lying as a smoking ruin.

  He had to wait for the most part of an hour. He was offered wine, fresh baked bread, sheep and goat’s cheese. He drank the wine, nibbled the cheese, paced the floor, barely noticing its splendid mosaic pattern depicting the ascension of Christ. There were soldiers up here within the fort, guards at the perimeter wall. A half-century, about forty men, drilling on the parade-ground before the principia building. Others loitered around the barrack blocks, some grumbling between themselves, as soldiers always did, at the unfairness of the fatigues rota. A few men looked up as Bedwyr passed by, saluted a superior officer, but with reluctance, no snap of enthusiasm or interest. Someone had come to take his horse and he was escorted here, into the antechamber of this Roman-style house-place. And asked to wait.

  “My business is important,” Bedwyr had said, twice now, received in response the same answer: please wait, lord Ambrosius will not be long.

  More wine, more cheese. A door opened and closed somewhere among the rooms behind this one. Footsteps, but no one came. Another quarter of one hour. Another door, more steps, and Ambrosius entered, his hand extended in greeting. “You ought to have joined me at Mass, Bedwyr,” he chided. “We have a new-appointed Abbot, his words are most uplifting.”

  The thought that there were more important matters needing attention beyond the listening to a new abbot’s monotonous liturgy crossed Bedwyr’s mind, but he held his tongue, answered with a polite mumble. “Another time?”

  “Indeed! Please, sit. May I offer wine, something to eat?”

  “Thank you. No.” Bedwyr remained standing, ignoring the offer of a couch. Pointedly, he looked at the two servants who had entered with their master. Ambrosius dismissed them. From his waist pouch, Bedwyr brought out a small, bronze Saxon brooch, handed it to Ambrosius who took it, frowned, passed it back.

  “They have reached your part of the woods, then?” Ambrosius seated himself on a couch, patted a cushion into place behind his back, his good humour evaporating.

  Bedwyr put away the saucer-shaped brooch that carried the mask of a human face, fastened the leather thongs of the pouch. “It is in my mind they have been worn for some months, hidden beneath folds of a cloak or kept safe within a pouch.” He patted his own. “That they are now beginning to be worn openly is, I think, significant.”

  “Yet there is no whisper on the wind of a hosting. No mumbling of a meeting point.”

  Pursing his lips, Bedwyr agreed, but added, “There are war spears, I have seen them, though I was told they were for hunting.” He lifted one hand, fingers curled as if cradling a sword pommel. “There is a sharp edge being put to the sword and axe. Nothing tangible, nothing obvious, more a pricking at the nape of the neck.” He let his hand fall; he wanted to shout, to get angry, to say all the things that were in his head and heart to the man before him. To tell him of this inadequacy and inefficiency. To say that Britain desperately needed Arthur back… but he was sworn to secrecy, could not betray his King, nor Gwenhwyfar. Could not betray the confidence of men such as Geraint, Cadwy, the trust of Lady Ragnall. “The Saxons are about to rise,” he said, pushing thoughts of Arthur from his mind. It might all be wrong, Arthur might be dead. “And you are not making ready.” It came out, not as an admonishment or judgement but with a hurt cry of saddened pain.

  “Aelle will not call for a hosting this year.” Ambrosius placed his palms, fingers spread, on his knees, spoke with a conviction of certainty. “But if he does, I shall be ready.”

  Scornful, Bedwyr challenged the assurance. “Ready? How? Do you plan to pray for a victory?” He swung away from Ambrosius, faced the wall, leant one hand upon its smooth, dark-red painted plaster. “When Aelle comes,” he turned around, managed to keep the anger from his voice, “he will be coming with an army at his back!”

  “And if he does not come?”

  It was not an answer Bedwyr had expected. He stood, mouth open, the words he had intended to say trapped as irrelevant. He frowned. “Of course he will come.” He heard the question in his voice. Did Ambrosius know, then, something he did not?

  “His eldest son will not be able to fight. Aelle will not act without Cymen.”

  Bedwyr gasped, his face coming alight with a glimmer of hope; happen God had not deserted t
hem after all! “Is he ill? Mortally so?”

  Ambrosius shook his head. “Not ill. Few die from a break to the leg, but he will not be from his bed until the leaves change, too late for battle by then. The Saex will not fight during winter.”

  The answering comment was a curse, one of Arthur’s favourite colourfully embellished oaths. The anger was rising again. “Are you so certain they will not? Or next spring, what of then? Do we still sit here on our backsides, running our thumbs along our blades, waiting?”

  Refusing to rise to the bait, Ambrosius leant deeper into the comfort of his couch. His back was aching, his shoulders stiff. He had lain awkward during the night, would take a hot bath, have his slave massage the tense muscles. “I have placed my resources where I think them to be effective, Bedwyr. If Aelle cannot form a hosting there will be no battle. When the time comes you will have your orders. I expect you, and others who hold like command, to contain the Saex in their own territories. Your East Saxons will not meet with Aelle of the south.” Ambrosius pushed his cushion a little higher up his spine, confident in his judgement.

  The anger was seething, bubbling below the surface. “Are you mad? Contain the Saex? Is that what you want us to do?” Incredulous, Bedwyr stood before Ambrosius, too stunned by the utter stupidity to release that checked anger. “My few men against God alone knows how many? We’ll be slaughtered – if we ever even manage to fight our way out of our fortress.” He strode across the few paces between them, thrust his face close into Ambrosius’s. “Aelle understands the rule. You obviously do not. United we win. Detached, we die.”

  “No, Bedwyr, I say again, the Saex will not fight. You and your men will ensure they have no heart to fight with. No men, no weapons to fight with. You misunderstand me, Bedwyr.” Ambrosius stood, folded his arms, threading his hands into the loose sleeves of his robe. “I am not intending to wait for them to attack us. We attack them. Through the winter, we burn and destroy. Come spring, there will be no Saex left to fight. Not even the women or children.”

  For many long seconds Bedwyr stood there, staring at the man dressed in the style of a monk. “My God,” he said, appalled, “you are to commit us to a war that will be bloodier than any slaughter ever made.”

  “No,” Ambrosius stated, blandly. “I am to do what I set out to do. I intend to destroy the Saex.”

  XLIV

  So, they had taken a barge up the River Liger, had stayed a few days at Juliomagus, then continued on to Caesarodunum. From where the letter Winifred held in her hand had come. She tapped the scrolled parchment against her lips, thinking.

  That Gwenhwyfar had gone in search of Arthur was obvious. How she had discovered him to be alive was inconclusive, but not difficult to realise. Winifred had known she could not ensure the silence of all Mathild’s men – mind, it came as some personal satisfaction to know she had almost achieved it. Precautions against failure had, naturally, been taken, had reaped reward, although Gwenhwyfar had led the spies a merry, winding dance these last months! Agreeing to wed Bedwyr, changing her mind, living a while at the Holy House of Durnovaria. Oh, what a time Winifred’s paid spies had had, trailing and observing. The cost was mounting, ah, but worth every spent piece!

  For although Winifred knew Arthur might live, she had no clue, no hint of gossip or whispered speculation of where to look for him. Torturing Mathild’s men had gained her nothing. Her smile was smug, cat-like in her gloating self-satisfaction for Gwenhwyfar, it seemed, was inadvertently to solve the riddle.

  She folded her arms, watched her grandson toddle across the courtyard outside, miss his footing and fall onto his knees. His nurse ran to him, all hugs and consolation, but the boy stubbornly pushed her aside, scrabbled to his feet and tried again. Winifred quietly applauded, her expression as proud as any doting grandmother’s should be. Cynric was a determined whelp, for the three months he had been here at Winifred’s steading, a few miles from Venta Bulgarium, she had not heard him cry or wail once. A boy a handful of months into his second year, Cynric had the resilience of a warrior. Stubborn, with a mind made to succeed at all cost. Like his father.

  Huh! Was there any doubting Cynric was Arthur’s child?

  Winifred shed her breath with a loud, partially impatient sigh. It was a pity Cerdic was the mismatch of the family. Pig-headed, aye, but to all the wrong leanings. Determined, but only in the area of a determination to do all in his power to oppose his mother.

  It was a marvel she had been allowed this short while to have the boy with her, happen even Cerdic had a small grain of sense in his granite-bound brain! Winifred placed her palms together, the fingers pressing under her chin. There had been fighting again along the Elbe, the peoples moving up from the south and from the east, causing confrontation with those already settled along that busy, important waterway. Cerdic was safe – for at least a while, a few years or so; happen, if he were fortunate, more than that, but three times now his waterside buildings had been burned to the ground, his fortified settlement attacked. Added to that, so many of those who were supposed to be loyal to him had left, taken a craft or walking away, preferring to offer allegiance to some other man of status. Too many remembered the killing of Mathild to remain loyal to Cerdic. Those first few months after her death had been difficult, disquieting, for he had found need to prove himself worthy over again. There were not so many supporting Cerdic now. Those few who stayed remained for the boy, the child of Mathild’s body, but there were not enough of them to secure the boy’s safety, that was now certain, or else Cerdic would never have sent him here, away from the sporadic raiding, safe with his grandmother.

  Winifred chuckled, mayhap the turning of events would force her son to consider the taking of Britain as his own. There would soon be precious little for him along the Elbe.

  As she watched the boy, that wandering thought came again to mind. Whose child was he? Cerdic’s? Arthur’s? She would never know for certain, but this she did know, Cerdic enjoyed his women, he had lost his boyhood at the age of three and ten. Yet no woman, outside of Mathild’s bed, had borne him a child.

  Cynric noticed his grandmother watching him, laughed happily up at her. He adored the woman for she allowed him anything he wanted, unashamedly indulged his every whim. Winifred blew him a kiss from her fingers. She, in return, idolised the boy. He, she hoped, would not turn out to be the bitter disappointment that his father – whichever one of them was the father – had proved to be.

  August 472

  XLV

  Antessiodurum was a town teetering on the brink of Christian fame. Narrow, steep-rising streets, buildings huddled shoulder to shoulder – a town that was doing well for itself. The abbey with its complex of buildings was already impressive, nestling as it did beside the river and below the domineering height of the town. A congenial place to be, Antessiodurum, if you had the time to wander and admire. Along both banks of the wide, slow-moving river idled clusters of trees, cool with green shade, while in the water fish lazed beneath the span of the only bridge. Fields of fertile soil supported recently-harvested crops of corn, and strong, healthy vines. Drowsing heat and murmured pleasantries; trade agreed over a goblet of local wine, a crowded town where no one cared to hurry, where there was time to sit all day in the sun.

  Gwenhwyfar hated the place.

  Accommodation had been the first difficulty. The world with all his children, it seemed, had decided to visit Antessiodurum this same week, drawn by a festival, a celebration to the glory of some local, minor Christian deity. Eventually they found a tavern that was little more than a flea-ridden hovel, where the food was mildly edible if not wholly appetising. Ider had long since taken it upon himself to sleep across his Lady’s door-place, not trusting even his own men to see to her safety. The horses had, through the same necessity, been stabled in shoddy stalls where the hay was musty and feed smelt of mildew.

  No one knew, or admitted to know, of the pagan Ladies. Ask a question, receive a shrug, uplifted arms, slow-shaken head, blank o
r askance expression. “Ladies? No, not here, this is a Christian place.”

  Gwenhwyfar began to despair, even to doubt the wisdom of this fool idea. Would she not do better to turn around, find some obsolete place in Less Britain and settle there in quiet oblivion for the rest of her days? As many in Britain would prefer.

  She sat at a table outside a street taverna, Ider standing behind, leaning one shoulder against the wall his expression gruff, as always when on duty, his eyes narrowed, watching all who passed with a glower of suspicion. Once or twice, his hand tightened around his sword pommel. Ider, too, had little liking for this place. Antessiodurum reminded him of an old villa he had once visited as a child with his father. Grand on the outside, giving the appearance of ordered wealth. Inside, comfortable, with servants and wine and good food, but Ider had noticed the threads of spreading cracks on the plaster walls, the patched tunics of the serving girls and the small portions offered only the once, no chance of a second mouthful.

  Gwenhwyfar sipped her wine, had not touched the greasy stew in the bowl before her. The barge journey up the Liger river had been frustrating for its slowness, for the river was low, the exceptional summer heat rapidly drying its many tributaries. The craft had to laboriously follow the shrinking navigable channels, and with the river more than a mile wide in places, each manoeuvre to change direction became an unbearable delay. The horses drooped beneath the heat, listless and bored, the monotony of the scenery lulling the passengers into a hypnotic daze. The relief was enormous when they disembarked a few miles after the river had swung to the south. To ride again, to be in command of their own pace.

  Leaning her elbow on the table, Gwenhwyfar rested her cheek on her fist. With passing interest, watched two young women walk by, catching a glimmer of their conversation. She smiled to herself. Either that erotic description had been exaggerated boasting or the dark-haired girl had a stallion for a bed-mate. Listening, she chewed at some dead skin by her fingernail. Na, that would be impossible to do… Christ and all the gods, she was sitting here, speculating on some wretched whore’s bedsports!