Refilling his tankard, Gweir drank again, not so thirstily this second time, answered casually. “Last night I scouted up through those woods to the north of the road.”
Ider remained silent. This he knew, this they had discussed before Gweir had set silently out on foot as dusk had settled.
“I found them.”
“They see you?”
Gweir laughed cynically, finished his wine, did not bother to answer the question.
Ider had realised at Antessiodurum they were being followed. Whoever the two horsemen were, they were not good at their job, not discreet enough, not careful enough. Unless that was their intention. To occasionally show themselves, to keep Gwenhwyfar’s guard guessing?
Rubbing his fingers across his nose, under his eyes, Ider asked, “Same horse?” Confirming what he already knew.
Gweir dipped his head. “Same horse. The roan. Why stable it alongside ours back at Antessiodurum? Why deliberately show themselves?” He folded his arms, resting them on the table. “And you were right, it is ill.”
Ider sucked his cheek, considering. “Get close enough to find out for definite?”
Gweir nodded. “Discharge from the nostrils, swelling under the jaw.” Ider swore.
Flicking his head backward in the direction of the convent Gweir asked, “Do we tell her?”
“That we have an unwelcome shadow, who seems to enjoy playing games, or we’ve been stabling with the strangling disease?” Ider stood up, stretched. He was an impressive man to look at, strong built, strong minded, dependable and unfalteringly loyal. Slowly he unsheathed the sword from the scabbard hanging at his side, tested its oiled, gleaming blade with his thumb.
“No matter, for both ‘tis the same answer.” He looked to the wall, behind which he knew Gwenhwyfar to be safe. “She already has over much to think on. This is our concern.”
He put the sword away, strode in the direction of the stabling. Those two following could be dealt with anytime, when they became too much of a nuisance. For now, they were a minor irritant, nothing more. Disease among the horses, however, was always a worry for a cavalryman.
L
There was only the one road. From a high vantage point the two men watched its snaking path as it dropped downward to the valley, taking turns to doze in the morning warmth. By noon it would be unbearable again and they would need to seek the shelter of shade, but while the sun rode low it was fairly pleasant. The one awake nudged his companion with his foot, startling him alert. He pointed, grunted. The second man sat upright, narrowed his eyes to study better the lone rider. The dun horse again. The second time he had ridden up this winding road alone.
“Where does he go?” the first man mused, speaking thoughts aloud. His tongue was Saxon with a Gaulish accent, though his dress and appearance, as with the other man, was clean-shaven, respectable Romano-Gaulish.
“Does it matter?” The second man shrugged apathetically, and rolled again to his back, set his hands behind his head. “Our orders are to wait and watch where the woman goes. I can be content with that.” He closed his eyes. Sought the sleep that had been interrupted.
Irritated, the other man got to his feet. “You’re a lazy bastard. It’ll be your fault if we’ve been discovered here.”
The response was a lewd gesture accompanied by, “So what if we have? We’re travellers, journeying in the same direction, nothing wrong with that. It is the others they must not know of.” Without opening his eyes he swung his arm up, flapped a hand somewhere behind his head, vaguely indicating the haze-shrouded hills at the far end of the valley. He smirked laughter. “But how would they know? We are the decoys. If we find out anything interesting, one of us goes back.” He wriggled his buttocks more comfortably into a hollow. “Meanwhile, I am enjoying the easy life. Let the woman stay where she is for as long as she likes, I say.”
The other man began collecting up his belongings, kicked his toe among the flattened grass where he had sat, to encourage it to spring up again. “I’m going after him.”
“And what if he sees you?”
“He won’t.”
The second man heaved himself upright, fumbled in one of his saddlebags. He tossed a leather pouch of gold coins at his companion. “I’d rather you did something useful. Ride into Avallon. Get me another horse.”
Catching the small bag, the first man weighed it in his hand then let it fall. He picked up his saddle, walked away into the covering shelter of the trees. “Get your own bloody horse. You should have taken more care of the last one.”
Gweir rode relaxed but alert, feeling more than knowing he was being watched. He let the dun pick his own pace. The road ran steep in places as it bent and twisted its path upward through these woods. He looked back once, appreciated, not for the first time, the impressive domination of that lone, high hill, upon which sat the Place of the Lady. It would take a determined army to assault that citadel. The sun, gaining strength in the east, reflected on the whitened walls of the chapel, built on the very crest of the highest ground; caught on the gold of the crucifix erected above the door-place. The hand of God marking His blessed territory, Gweir thought, before he set the dun at the next, even steeper bend.
The horse pricked his ears, turned his head to the north and whickered. At Gweir’s urging, continued forward. Another horse answered from a distance, well back into the trees, possibly from near where that rise of high ground gave a good view down the valley. So, that was where they had moved to. Ah well, this would save him the bother of coming out again tonight, to look for himself.
It was the bay that had called. The roan lay dead, partially buried beneath leaves and bracken. Gweir had found it last night. They had cut its throat with no time or reason to tend a sick horse.
He looked ahead, up the climbing road, his ears and senses alert for movement, for sound to either side among the darkness of the crowding trees. If there was to be an ambush, it would come here, where the going was slow, a long haul. Not that he expected one. Not yet.
“They are waiting to find out what we’re up to, why we are here.” That was Ider’s opinion, spoken last evening in a soft growl as he discussed tactics quietly with the men around their corner table in the tavern.
“Who else knows why we are making this journey?” one of them had said. “Beyond our friends?”
“More to the point,” another had added, “what is their intention?” Ider had grunted his opinion. “Probably, the same as us. To find whether the Pendragon is still alive.”
Loosening the sword at his side, Gweir tested that it would come quickly free should he need it in a hurry. His lips formed a half-grin. “If that be the case,” he had answered Ider, “they are more worthless than we thought.” The daylight had been fading, but the lamp set on the table, flickering in the evening breeze, had illuminated his features. “For the answer to that riddle, we already know.”
Gweir touched, as if it were a talisman, the roll of linen tied behind his saddle. Yesterday, he had seen him, admittedly at a distance, too far to see clearly or to hail, but it was enough. Gweir had known him.
Quietly, calmly, he had informed Gwenhwyfar this morning, as the first, faint caress of light had begun to dim the stars’ dance. She had met him a while later, in the stables behind the tavern, and had given him this thing.
“Take it to him,” she had said. “Tell him I am here.”
“Ought not you to go, my lady?” Gweir had said to her.
She had shaken her head, pushed a strand of loose hair from her eye. “Na,” she had answered him. “I cannot go.”
This morning, he had not understood. All this way, all this long journey – ought she not have been eager to see Arthur for herself?
But riding up the steepness of this lonely road, Gweir had realised the truth of it, for he felt the first unease that she too must have felt. What, if after all this distance, all this effort, Arthur did not want to return to Britain, to his men, his kingdom and his wife?
LI
With livestock to keep safe there was always fencing to be mended or tended. Goats especially, stupid animals, had an obsession with pushing through, finding weak timber, loosened posts. Arthur hit twice more with the mallet, tested the corner post for firmness, grunted, satisfied when it did not move, looked up as a horse came into the yard, picking its way across the sun-hardened mud ruts. A dun, well bred.
Few turned onto the uninviting track that meandered down the valley to this clustered settlement where the women of the Goddess dwelt. Those few, men, who did come, rode here for one reason only. For the pleasures a woman gave. And for the most part, the women welcomed them. Not here, though, not at Morgaine’s isolated dwelling. Men did not come to this place. How word spread there was already a man here, Arthur had never cared to ask; but spread it did.
His hand went automatically to the dagger sheathed at his waistband. He took a few paces forward, his eyes squinting against the bright glare of the sun. Stopped.
Something familiar, alarming. Arthur’s heart quickened, the unexpected rearing up to meet him square on. Gweir? By all the gods, Gweir! He licked his lips, wiped his hand down the outside of his thigh, the sweat on his palm sticky, annoying. Fleetingly, he wondered why he was not surprised. Had he known, all this time, someone, some foolish whelp, might just come looking for Morgaine, might come asking after where she had buried the body, what she had done with the man who had once been strong enough to be a king?
For his part, Gweir was as afeared as Arthur. All this while, all these miles. All the tears. The cry of greeting died on his lips. What did he say, now he was here, face to face with his Lord? The man he had loved; thought dead. How did he begin?
“We thought you were killed on that dreadful day.” It was as good an opening as any.
Arthur shrugged his shoulders. “As you see, I survived. You also escaped the clutch of the Otherworld.”
Gweir lifted his hand in a slight gesture of unimportant dismissal. “I missed most the fighting, was left for dead early in the day.” He brought his leg over his horse’s withers, slid to the ground. “I made my way back home. Back to Caer Cadan.” He did not say it, but it was there, deep in his voice, hurting, screaming. Why did you not also come home?
Again, Arthur shrugged, how could he answer? How could he say aloud that there had been nothing for him to go back to? That he had not the courage to face what once had been, with the blood of defeat stinking so strong on his hands? In the end, all he could say was, “I walked with death for a long time, and when I was recovered there was nothing left in my spirit to guide me back.”
Standing beside his horse, one hand to the reins, Gweir felt a surge of sudden, uprushed anger. All those tears, all those damned, wasted, tears! “Not even for us?” he said bitterly. “Not for all those men who would die a hundred deaths for you?” Then softer, perplexed, added, “You turned your back on so much, so many.”
“They say,” Arthur replied, a tightness catching in his throat, “that when learning to ride a horse if you fall you must get on again straightway, else your nerve shatters.” He spread his hands, the mallet dangling, “I fell, and there was no horse for me to mount.”
Gweir stepped forward leading his dun, held the reins out to Arthur. “Here is mine. Take him. Come home.”
Arthur’s smile was sad. “‘Tis not as simple as that, lad, I would that it were.”
“Where is the difficulty?” Gweir protested. “If ever you loved your men and your country, if ever you loved your wife,” – Arthur winced – “then mount this horse. Now.”
Arthur recognised the pain – did he not feel that same pain biting into his own, twisting soul? He shook his head, turned away.
His head hanging, Gweir shut his eyes against the well of tears. He had not intended to say all that, had not expected to be so angry. What had possessed him? Hastily, he untied the roll of linen from behind his saddle, ran the few steps that separated him and his Lord, held the bundle to him.
“She said to give you this. Said, this would tell you all you need to know.” Gweir put the thing into Arthur’s hand, stepped back as the Pendragon looked for a moment at it, unwrapped the covering. A leather scabbard, functional, nothing exceptional. Inside, a sword. He knew that pommel, knew the firm feel of power and strength that flowed from it into the skin of his hand; knew its wonder. Knew all that without need to draw the blade.
If his heart was pounding before, it now leapt faster. He licked dry lips, looked from the sword to Gweir, back to the sword. His sword. The sword he had taken in battle from a Saxon, the sword he had last seen at… He looked up at Gweir, asked simply, “She?”
Boldly, Gweir spoke out. It was the best way, best to fight with the edge of your blade, not the flat. “Bedwyr took the sword back to Britain, he thought it a thing he ought to do. Found, as you would have found had you returned, that further word never reached you; that you had been mistakenly told false. Bedwyr gave the sword to her, and now she has brought it here, returned it to you. For you to do with as you will.”
Dumb, with no word in his mind or mouth, Arthur stared blankly at Gweir, his lips slight parted, brow dipped in a questioning furrow.
“You were told wrong, my King, thank the Lord,” Gweir repeated, responding in a rush of words. “She recovered. She lives. Like me, like you, Gwenhwyfar lives. She is at the convent at the Place of the Lady, not a handful of miles from here, waiting for you.”
LII
Arthur leant his forehead down into the goat’s warm flank, his fingers working automatically, stripping the milk from her full udder, sending it hissing into the wooden bucket. She was a good animal, this one, content to stand quietly, rarely kicking or fidgeting. Not like her eldest daughter, a demon to milk. Arthur frequently threatened to butcher her. If it was not for her consistent yield, he probably would have done so by now.
His busy fingers slowed, stopped. The goat lifted her head, thoughtfully chewing, enjoying the feed placed in the bucket before her. Arthur shut his eyes, pressed back threatening tears.
A child’s feet, running. They were returned, Medraut and his mother. She called something to the boy, then he was at the byre door, his fingers fumbling with the stiff latch. Arthur scrubbed the back of his hand across his cheek, continued with the milking. Medraut, breathless, his face flushed from the exhilaration of running in the heat of the afternoon, was at his side.
“Mam says, can she have the milk as soon as you have finished?” Arthur grunted agreement.
“There were a lot of people in Avallon today, and we saw soldiers marching along the Roman road.” Receiving no reply the boy gaily chattered on. His father was often silent, often answered with only aye or no, or a grunt. “They were Burgundians, Mam said, hundreds of them, all singing and laughing as they marched! I wonder where they were going?” He was darting about, full of a child’s exuberant energy as he talked, swinging his arm as if it held a sword, parrying and thrusting, fighting an imaginary opponent. “The leaders wore chain armour and bright coloured cloaks, and their helmets had horse-tails on the top.”
“Many weapons?”
“Oh aye, spears and swords and great axes!” Medraut changed his imaginary weapon to an axe, which he swung haphazardly from side to side. Arthur had finished the milking, was moving the bucket to where it could not be knocked or kicked over. You only did that once, when milking; leave a full bucket where it was vulnerable. “You use an axe like that in battle, boy, you’ll be dead within the first few minutes.”
Medraut’s lips pouted.
Moving to the stacked woodpile to one side of the cluttered byre Arthur casually lifted the chopping axe from where it hung on a roof-support post. He set a log end on, on the earthen floor and gripping the shaft with both hands, brought the axe down, clean through the centre, the wood falling in two equal halves. “You can split a skull as effectively.” Arthur set the two billets of wood to the top of the pile.
“Have you ever killed a man with an axe?” Medraut
was impressed, his question asked with awe. He was a lad of six years, an age when warrior heroes and super-strength gods filled his mind and dominated the breathless stories he asked for.
“You use anything you have in battle, boy, including fists and teeth, knees and feet.” Arthur held the axe in his hand. It was heavy, not well made, an axe adequate for wood chopping not sturdy, reliable for battle. “The axe is a weapon for the ranks. Mine was the sword.”
“Have you been in many battles then, Da? Before you came to stay here with us?” Medraut knew little of his father’s past. That he had come from somewhere else, injured and unwell, he knew. He vaguely remembered a long walk with his mother, once, dimly remembered a lot of men fighting, but his mother had never talked of it, and neither had Arthur. It could all have been a dream. He often dreamt of battle and soldiers, marching and fighting, dreamt of being a hero, brave and strong.
Arthur snorted through his nose. “A few,” he answered. He sighed, placed the axe back where it belonged. “A few.” He turned his back on the woodpile, bent to lift the bucket of creamy, warm milk. It was there, hidden between the logs of wood, his sword, the sword that had once made him a king.
Opening the door for his father, Medraut was still chattering about the men he had seen, asking questions, reciting his observations, not noticing that Arthur’s answers were grunts or monosyllabic. “Some of them had their hair tied in a tail on top of their head, they looked like horses. Who was that man we saw riding away from here? What did he want?”
Abruptly, Arthur stopped, the milk slopping over the brim of the bucket. “What man?”
“The one riding a dun horse. We were coming down the hill, we saw him riding away.”
“Oh. He was seeking directions, had taken the wrong track.”
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