Despite the failure to dislodge any of the Saex whoresons from their encampment, the British were of good morale, eager to fight – and to fight well. They had not expected to achieve much in that previous attack, had attempted the idea more as a challenge, a warming-up, a flexing of muscles. Did not look upon the incident as defeat or loss, seeing it merely as an exercise, a chance to explore the Saex strength and seek out weaknesses. After all, few fortified places could be taken with ease.
Sunrise, the third day of the Roman month of Janus. An appropriate month, Ambrosius thought, if you disregarded the pagan element. Two-faced Janus, the pre-Christian god who looked ahead and behind. Behind, the failure. Ahead, the victory. It was time for battle.
After the Nativity and midwinter feasting, more men had arrived, not many, but every extra man was welcomed and valued. Powys had sent fifty, Rheged another thirty or so, the Mid-Land tribes over two hundred between them. The mild weather helped, and the eagerness for a fight. After that short bout of cold wind, the sun had shown through spindle thrift clouds for most days, persuading the birds to sing for their mating territories over-early. Even the buds of the elderberry and hazel were bursting into too early spring-worn green.
Briton and Saxon spent that night straddling the Ridge Way, camped no more than two miles apart. Dawn saw the Saxons dividing into two forces, Aelle of the South Saxons commanding one, Aesc of the Cantii Jutes the other, holding the advantage of deploying on slightly higher ground. The British saw no reason to make private complaint, drew a similar stand. Ambrosius and his own men, the infantry of Britannia Secunda, taking the northward division; Amlawdd with the militias and tithe-bound men the southern. Battle-lines drawn, division facing division astride the ancient track that led south to north. A pause, waiting for the last few stragglers to make their way into the rear, a chance for individuals to make a last peace with their own god.
Ambrosius bent his knee to pray, head bowed, lips silently moving the intoned words. Coinciding with his Amen, the sun rose, filtering a pale, subdued glow onto the winter-bare ground – and the Saxon lines rippled and shifted, their spear tips and swords gleaming faintly in the weak burst of new light. Ambrosius called his horse forward, mounted, settled himself into the saddle and raised his arm, commanded his column to advance at the run. There came a great shout, and the British rushed forward to meet the slow-advancing Saex. The crash and clash of weaponry, the yelling and shouting and cursing reverberating across the lower lands that fell away to each side of the high ridge, sending winter birds into wild, raucous flight. As wild, the furious melee of men.
Although they held the higher advantageous ground, the uprush of the British, so determined, so intent, allowed the Saxons not one pace forward from their first-drawn lines. With Amlawdd and the tribes’ warriors beating and hacking at Aesc’s Jutes, and Ambrosius himself leading against the Bretwalda, Aelle, it became an even match as more and more of the Saex, peasant men many of them, poorly clothed, ill-armed, fell dead or dying. Twice more. The sun rose to the zenith, slid westward, the gather of winter-dark clouds bringing dusk early. The Saxons broke, began to fall back, steadily, pace by pace, fighting still, but drawing back. Night enveloped the Ridge, with a sudden-come bluster of wind-driven rain, and the Saxons turned and ran for the sheltered safety of their fortified place at Radingas.
Dismounting his horse, weary, blood-grimed, battered and aching, Ambrosius, again that day, bowed his head in prayer. They had seen off the Saex, it was a victory, but such a small one. Such a very small, temporary, one.
LXVII
Gwenhwyfar tugged her fingers, sensuous, through Arthur’s thick, dark, hair; on down over the naked, rapidly cooling skin of his back, running across the haphazard pattern of scars. More than she remembered, her touch lingering over the newer, unfamiliar disfigurements. Many of them, too vicious; a miracle he had survived them. “If ever, at any time, I grow tired of you, remind me of this. Remind me of what we have just shared,” she murmured.
He quirked a light smile, one that tilted the side of his lips; nuzzled his face deeper into the softness of her body. They had made love several times on the long, slow, journey home, kindling each other’s needs, rediscovering each other’s body, but those few uncertain explorations had been bound by an unspoken hesitation that harboured flickering doubts and wary apprehensions. Wounds heal, but the pain can take a while to cease its blistering throbbing, and the scars remain, red and evil before paling, puckering white against a dark, healthy, skin.
Now they were home, or near enough. They had rested a while at the first town – Antessiodurum, Gwenhwyfar’s least favourite place, giving Onager time to gain strength and recover, giving themselves time to be certain of their decisions. But Arthur had never looked back over his shoulder, and the boy, Medraut, made no murmur of returning to his mother. Hard, those first few days, for Gwenhwyfar to accept the child, another woman’s born son; harder still to sit quiet and calm as Arthur had told her everything of Morgaine, of her birthing, of her father. His. Unexpected, she had shown no anger or recoiling horror, Gwenhwyfar had accepted the fact. Arthur had sired a son on his own half-sister. What was done was done, threads in the multi-coloured tapestry of life were too close-woven to be unravelled. The dark knotted too tight to unravel within the gold.
“I remember her,” Gwenhwyfar had said. “A ragged, poorly child with scalds and hand-marks bruised on her skin.” Morgause had not cared for the girl, had abandoned her, left her for the other elderly priesthood women to see to her upbringing. “While I was waiting for you, that time at Yns Witrin, to come to me, Morgause was there with the child.” Gwenhwyfar remembered the sadness of the girl, the pity she had felt for her.
Watching the boy, sleeping curled as a babe, thumb stuffed between his teeth, she had remembered her own sons. They had seen troubles and sadnesses, even witnessed fear and the dark shadow of death. But never had they known the loneliness of the uncherished, the unloved.
“I could not leave him,” Arthur had said, that first night together. “I could not abandon him to an echo of my own childhood.”
And Gwenhwyfar, the mother in her, had understood. Understood more. She could perhaps birth Arthur more sons, but they would be too late, too young. Cerdic was grown, a man with a son of his own. Cerdic would most certainly come if he knew he could claim his father’s land with the ease of taking a choice bone from a new-whelped pup. Medraut was not hers, but then nor was he Winifred’s. That was the importance, the difference.
After leaving Antessiodurum they had ridden north along the road that became more travelled the further they journeyed. Stayed a while at Lutetia, on the island town of the Parisii, Arthur in no great haste to follow the last few miles to the coast and find a ship home. Gwenhwyfar in no great urgency to hasten him.
He had been sleeping badly. Restless dreams tossing with perspiration and sharp, fearful cries. The enveloping blackness of memories, galloping with the hard-forced pace of those unbidden night-riders, hostile on their red-eyed, black-coated mares. The sound of battle, the clash of sword on sword, the scream of men killed and dying. The red of blood, the black of death! Horror and fear revisiting, returning. Gwenhwyfar, warm and safe and strong. Her arms around him, comforting, reassuring, hand soothing the stark sweat of fear, closeness easing the ragged breath of drowning, suffocating, beneath that returned stench of the past.
It had to be faced, had to be done, they had to return to Britain. But it was so hard, so dreadfully hard!
On to the coast. The craft they had found had battled her way steadily through the strong winds. It was the wrong time of year for the sea, but she was a game little ship. Again, she raised her prow with the uplift of the heavy sea-swell the surging wind from behind, shadowing like a swooping king eagle, flecks of salt-spray keening into the breathless air. Arthur stood on the foredeck, legs spread, hands gripping the rail as if there was no tomorrow. Ahead, a grey-misted hint of something that was not sea nor sky. Rising higher, clearing, co
ming nearer as the ship kicked her way forward.
Britain. Home. Almost home.
Gwenhwyfar had come behind him, her tread muffled by the shout of waves and wind, her cloak and hair billowing as excitedly agitated as the single, square, bleached-blue sail. He had jerked as her arm slid around his waist, his hand flying, instinctive, to the pommel of his sword. Covered his disquiet with a laugh.
Gwenhwyfar rested her head on his shoulder, warming into his returned embrace; stood, silent a while watching the shape-changing grey mist congeal into the more solid shape of land. He was afraid, she knew that. Every muscle was tense, every nerve-end screaming, jagged. Afraid of going home, returning. Afraid of the fighting that surely would be waiting.
She linked her fingers through his. “You will be at ease,” she comforted, “once you are back.”
He answered, betraying himself with a shaking huskiness to his voice. “What if they no longer want me?”
Her answer was succinct. “For those who once followed you, it will be as if you had never been away. For those who did not,” she chuckled, kissed him, light, reassuring, on the cheek, “well, they did not want you in the first place. It did not bother you then. Ought it bother you now?”
He supposed not, but for all her flippancy this was not going to be easy. For too long had he been gone. Ambrosius was the Supreme now. Hard enough to have fought for, and won, a kingdom once. To retrieve it after so blindly letting it go? He closed his eyes, let his weight sink against Gwenhwyfar’s solidity. To fight again, knowing he had once failed; knowing he had irresponsibly killed so many men?
LXVIII
“I will not fight for that incompetent imbecile!” Bedwyr slammed his clenched fist onto the table, his expression as conscientiously fierce as the action. “Ambrosius has brought this mess upon himself, must get himself out of it, or die.”
Patient, Geraint choked down the temptation to match Bedwyr’s blazed anger. “Ambrosius is a good man, has done only as he thought best. You can not censure a man for pursuing his beliefs.”
“Pah!” Bedwyr thumped onto a stool, sat opposite Geraint, leaning his arms onto the table, his eyes glowering, mouth pouting. “You censure me? I believe in the Artoriani. Want to ride with them, take back what is ours!”
Disciplining his hands to relax along the carved arms of his oak-wood chair, Geraint inhaled three deep and slow breaths. “No, you want to become King. That I cannot condone, not yet. Not while the Saex have risen under one leader. There are times when, for all our hatreds and disappointments, we cannot afford to fight among ourselves. That,” he leant significantly forward, one finger raised, “was always the Pendragon’s belief. It ought be yours also.”
Bedwyr eased forward, the weight of his upper body taken by his tight folded arms. “I fight in the Pendragon’s name, for Arthur, for when he returns.”
The man opposite did not intend it to be audible, but the sigh was stronger than he realised. Geraint rested his head against the high back of his chair, closed his eyes. For how many days now had they been sparring with this self-same argument? These same words, round and around and around? In the name of the good God, was it not blindingly obvious Arthur was not coming back? Was not going to return?
Two months since, a rider had galloped up to Geraint’s Hall of Durnovaria, his horse lathered, ridden hard the distance from the port of Llongborth, the man come from across the sea, one of those who had accompanied Lady Gwenhwyfar.
“The Pendragon is found! He is alive!”
How that joyful, and so expectant news had then travelled! Despite the hushed warning it was to be kept tongue-locked within their own knowing.
Two months past. And still the Pendragon had not come.
“It is my belief it was false news, Bedwyr.” Geraint pushed himself wearily to his feet. “We must face the fact of our own eyes, our own sense. Something – some tragedy, illness, treachery, I do not know what, something, has befallen them. Him. Whatever it was that had prevented the Pendragon’s return three years past is still as prevalent now. If Arthur could have returned, he would have done so. If not…” He eased a second sigh. “We must accept, Bedwyr. We are, for all our hopes, our ambitions and dreams, God help us, on our own.”
Bedwyr remained at the table, leaning on his arms, his lips as tight folded. “The men are here, Geraint, waiting to fight. To fight against the Saex. To fight for Arthur and Britain.” He lifted his eyes and face, his chin, lightly stubbled with beard-growth, jutting determined. “They strain at the leash, anxious to fight this Saxon army, but they will not do so, not under Ambrosius’s banner. They will not follow a man who ordered the murder of old men, of women and children. Of those who farm, are settled and live at peace with Britain.” He unfolded his arms, lay his palms flat on the rough surface of the wooden trestle table, pushed himself up, as wearily as Geraint had done. Taking his cloak from where it lay over a bench he swung it around his shoulders, fastened the ornate pin. “This garment,” he said, settling the folds of the cloak comfortably around him, “is the red of the Artoriani. Beneath, I wear the white tunic. We,” he idled his hand in a general direction of the outside, “those of us who knew Arthur, who rode with and loved the Pendragon, have faith that if he can return to lead us into victory – and restore the peace that victory brings – if he can return, he will.” He ambled to the door, lifted its latch. “If we must ride against the Saex, then we ride under someone who will preserve all that Arthur stood for. We’ll ride as Artoriani, Geraint.” He half-turned, his eyes pleading to be understood, pleading for some unknown god to be listening and take pity. “We’ll ride under Arthur, when he returns to lead us.”
He left the room, the door closing with a quiet thud.
Geraint stood before the brazier, warming himself. His bottom lip was tucked between his teeth, and his head shook, slowly, from side to side. Dreams and hopes were one thing. The realities, another entirely.
LXIX
Deep into the mead, Aesc, self-styled king of the Cantii Saxons, was morose. This whole venture went against the grain of all sense. Why face degradation, blood and pain for the sake of obtaining land when he already had sufficient lordship over land enough? Talked into this fool thing by a honey-tongued ambition chaser! Ach, Aelle of the South Saxons had much to gain, little to loose, but he, Aesc? Curse the idle god who had allowed him to slip, unsuspecting, into this damn situation! He drained his tankard, slopped more mead into it, drank again. What, in all the power of Woden’s thunder, had possessed him? He had lost men, good fighting men. Could lose so much more! His wife his sons, his land, his wealth. Mead dribbled from his mouth, he rested his forehead against the rim of the drinking vessel, groaned. He ought have stayed at Canta Byrig, stayed in his own land, remained lord of his own future!
A hand, thick-wristed, muscle-armed, slapped onto his shoulder, a chortling laugh sounding behind. “My friend! More mead? This is excellent stuff, is it not? Something else we do better than the poxed British, ferment a fine brew!” As he spoke, Aelle’s other hand gripped firm around the mead-jar, poured a generous measure for the seated Cantii king, set the jug down again. Aelle placed himself next to his fellow Saxon, his tactfully appointed joint commander. “Have you thought on what I asked of you? Do you join us when we march on the morrow?” The joviality was, perhaps, a little false, a little too extreme, too hearty. Aesc, if he realised it, made no move or comment against that grand, extravagant show of friendship. The South Saxons needed the Cantii in this thing as much as the other way around. Without either side backing the other, the whole uprising would crumble into scattered pockets of weak minded, weak armed rebellion. Soon crushed, soon ended. Together, they almost stood a chance of succeeding.
“You could have more than that insubstantial corner of Britain.” Aelle’s arm was gripping firmer around Aesc’s shoulders, his lips close to his ear. “Much more. All yours, and mine, for the sake of one more effort, one last fight!”
The mead tankard thudded to the tabl
e, slopping the rich, dark drink over the side. Aesc half-turned, his surly, drink-sodden features growling behind the cragged, grimed skin, puckering beneath the unkempt, mead-stained beard and moustache. Why in Woden’s name was he still here at Radingas? Why in all the gods’ names had he not gathered together his men and arms and returned home? There was nothing here, save defeat and shame. And a sore head to face come morning.
“Fight?” He sneered. “Fight? As we fought ten days past, do you mean? Do we, then, chase a second opportunity to piss our breeches and run?”
The control to retain the good humour came with well-schooled patience. That was why Aelle had attained the position of Bretwalda – overlord, Supreme King – among the Saxon peoples. Aelle, not any other king or princeling. He was a large-built, sturdy man, strong-muscled in arm and thigh and brain. A man who could think as efficiently as he could fight.
“Ah,” he said, batting the air derisively, “that was a mere skirmish, a battle of no significance, save to test our strength against theirs. Let us be magnanimous about it, allow the British to make merry and crow loud about their poxed little victory. His fingers returned to grip, claw-like into Aesc’s flesh, the bite hard, even through the padding of cloak and tunic. “Let them win a small battle. We, my comrade, shall win the war!”
Almost insolent, Aesc picked at the clasping fingers, setting them loose, pushed the hand aside. “War? Why did I get myself embroiled in your farting war? This is your need, not mine!”
Assessing the hostility, Aelle moved himself a fraction along the bench. He must take care, for as mule-minded as Aesc could be, he was an essential ally. They must fight together! Together, they had strength and determination; together, the British could be defeated. “Agreed, it is I who require the more land, to enlarge that which I have already laid claim to, but it is we, my friend, we who can drive the British into the hills, we who can send them scurrying across the sea to their God-mumbling sanctuaries in Less Britain. It may take us a while, may take the spilling of much of our blood. The losing of many battles.” He leant slightly more forward, more intimidating, more sincere. “But I say again, you and I with our unity can win!”
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