Shadow of the King

by Helen Hollick

  Self-conscious at being singled out, Cynric stepped up beside his father who put his hand, protective and proud, to his shoulder. Cynric straightened his back, lifted his chin, stared this man, Bieda, straight in the eye as seemed natural to do. They were here to help begin the fight for a Saxon kingdom, Father had said, and must be honoured with all respect and greeting. Port, he had explained, was an important man.

  “As important as you, Papa?”

  “Almost.” Would Cerdic have answered the truth? That Port was, possibly, more so than himself? For, unlike Cerdic, these were men experienced in battle, hardened men, warriors, who could boast the scars of wounds received, aye, and tell a tale of the many that had been given! Port had twenty and one hundred warriors to his name, each and every one of them experienced, tough, frightening men, men who knew the exhilaration of the victory, the anguished pain of losing. Cerdic had an advantage, however, for Cerdic had the higher wealth, an edge of status, and the claim of a right to territory. Port had nothing. Save for his men, two ships, and a ravaged homeland.

  The Saxon lands were disintegrating, worthless, becoming ragged around the edges, for the Franks, with Clovis as their new-chosen king, were becoming too much of a nuisance. Securing for themselves a wider and vaster territory, Clovis was pushing the tribespeople from their settlements. Port had fought against the Franks, had realised the impracticality of a few hundred needing to face, again and again, the many thousand.

  With good chance the Franks would soon turn south again, leave the Saxon wetlands alone; instead, harass Soissons, the Alamani and, if the men of Clovis proved as strong and determined as all indication gave, even press the Goths and Burgundians. But it was the Saxons who were being pressed at this moment. Cerdic had sent invitation to any who cared come, to any who cared join with his intention of taking a portion of Britain for his own. To Port, and many a chieftain of lesser rank, the prospect was alluring. An only choice. Try for something better rather than stay and drown as an unstoppable tide rolled in with the force of a moon-heightened spring flood.

  They answered. They came. Many as crew members on board trading ships, working their passage across the sea channel; a few, in their own small craft. Port was the only man of rank to equal Cerdic, to own two such superb longships. Warriors’ craft these, not the heavier-built, shorter trading vessels – and by far more beautiful.

  “He has the look of his mother about him,” Port observed, referring to the boy. He had been fond of his cousin Mathild, a girl with laughing eyes, a wise smile. A pity she was dead, but these accidents happen. His own wife had died in much the same way; a fall, a tragic blow to the head. Like Mathild, she had never opened her eyes again.

  “Has the look of the Pendragon also!” The older son, Maegla, scuffed the boy’s dark, slightly curling hair with his callused-palmed hand, before lightly tapping the tip of the boy’s long, straight nose.

  Cerdic’s jaw stiffened. Port noticed the pinched anger. He chuckled. “‘Tis all the proof we need, to show we come to fight for the man who has the right to wear the royal torque of Britain!”

  That slight tension eased, the shoulder slapping resumed, the laughter.

  The crews were coming ashore with shouts and hilarity, leaping from the deck, striding across the two gangplanks, eager to receive the welcome of the men, the shy kisses of the women. Eager for the feasting that would come at dusk and, with that, the giving of gifts.

  Battle was all-important. It warmed the blood, kept a man’s heart and desire alive. But the preliminaries, the making of new allegiances, the crafting of new friendships? Ah, that was as good!

  Mead, ale, beer, wine. Roasted, fattened bullocks; pork, lamb. Duck, hen, wildfowl. Fish and cheeses of all kinds. Fine-ground wheat and barley loaves, spiced or scattered with the seeds of poppy, caraway and fennel. Fresh-made butter.

  The feasting would be grand and special for these next three days, when the men Cerdic had asked to come to him and join as one under his banner, would unite together in his Hall, in his stronghold of Cerdicesora. Partake of his hospitality and declare for him, for Cerdic.

  And then, when the time was right, together they would fight.

  June 482

  XIX

  Like most of the men, Arthur did not care to make his way through the dark to the stinking latrine, away to the northern corner of the stronghold. As they all did, he used the wattle fence of the pig-pen behind the rear door of Geraint’s Hall. Geraint himself stood beside him, their urine puddling the mud at their feet.

  The late-night sea-damp air was chill, casting their breath in clouds of vapour. Both of them were the wrong side of sober – Geraint was noted for his selection of fine wines and strong beers – but who would stay clear-headed for a parting feast? The ride tomorrow would be long and hard, with the day after facing… ah, no man would think too far ahead when there was feasting in the lord’s Hall. The time for dwelling on battle was during that half-dark hour of dawn, when the wind stung your face, the shout of the enemy and the crash of spear on shield reached your ears. That was when death leered over your shoulder, not now, when the wine flowed and enjoyment was to be chased.

  Arthur adjusted himself, waited for his friend and cousin to finish. From beyond the fencing a snuffling, sucking sound of feet in mud and a huge snout lumbered over the top of the fence, wet, hairy, scenting the wind. The sow, ready for farrowing any day was investigating the smell, the sounds. Startled, Geraint jumped backward, his urine splashing over his boot. He swore. Arthur doubled in laughter.

  “Damn the bloody thing!” Geraint cursed, “I’ll have her for my supper when I return! Sod it!” He wiped at the wetness spreading over his bracae, shook his foot.

  “Frightened of a pig’s snout! Pissed yourself, eh, Geraint?”

  Geraint growled something non-complimentary, earned for himself more laughter. Arthur fell into step beside him as Geraint paced back to the light and noise emanating from the Hall, slapped his arm around his cousin’s shoulder.

  “Pay no mind, our boots will all be squelching come a few days. The marshes around Llongborth are wetter than a babe’s night napkin, so I hear.”

  “You talk for yourself,” Geraint jibed back. “I have no intention of removing my backside from my horse. If you want to paddle around up to your arse in sea-water and bog that is up to you.” They ducked through the low door, the rear entrance, stood a moment inside mutually surveying the scene of wild celebration.

  The eating had finished, with the trestle tables cleared away the dancing and entertainment begun. Mixing with Geraint’s men, the Artoriani, the elite cavalry – though it had taken this while to rebuild the numbers, find the horses, train them, drill in the rules of discipline. Were they as good as before? So many had died in Gaul.

  “We British? Fight on foot as the Saex do?” Arthur retorted, scornful. “What, when we have chance to keep our feet dry?”

  Geraint chuckled. “Unless another bloody sow should scare the piss out of us?” The two men laughed at the shared jest, made their way companionably together through the crowd, heading for their place of honour beside the warmth of the hearth.

  A girl swung by, head back, hair tossing, her mouth open with enjoyment, saw Arthur. She stepped aside from the group, slid her arm through his. “Come! Dance with me?” she carolled, guiding him into the whirl.

  “What? These old bones get giddy. I’d not last a heartbeat!” But for all the protest, Arthur swept his arm around her waist, took hold of a hand in the line and joined in the reel.

  She was lovely, her hair gleaming as bright as her eyes, her figure lithe as it bent and twirled with the exotic pace and step of the dance. She was dressed in a loose tunic of spring green, a thin gold and silver torque at her throat, silver earrings, gold bangles on her bare arms, sandals of narrow gold thread. More than one young man – and aye, those not so young – watched her, Arthur noticed.

  “You will have my wife reprimand me for dancing with so beautiful a girl, you k
now,” he chided as a couple twirled down between the formed parallel lines of fellow dancers who clapped the beat.

  “Would she much mind?” the girl answered, as they joined hands to swing each other around.

  “She can be a jealous woman.”

  “I could always dance with someone else.”

  “Then I would be jealous. And as I am the King you dare not offend me.” They were at the head of the dance, their turn to go down the line, two hands together, swirling around and around.

  Breathless, hand on chest, panting and dripping sweat, the dance ended, Arthur drew the girl aside, she placed a kiss, light, on his cheek; he touched her hair with his hand. The enjoyment of celebration left her eyes, she put her fingers over his hand.

  “How do we, the women left behind, bear it when you all go off to war? How do we not dwell on the knowing you might not be coming back?”

  Arthur quirked the side of his lips into a slight smile. “So many questions!” He took her fingers, squeezed them. “I would ask your mother, for I have no answer for you.”

  Archfedd withdrew her hand, a temperamental pout forming on her mouth. It was no good asking her. “She rides with you.”

  Nodding once, Arthur affirmed that she did. “Gwenhwyfar comes with us on the morrow, aye. It is her wish, and mine.”

  About to blurt some harsh word of disgust, Arthur stopped his daughter answering by placing a finger to her lips. “Do not say it, Archfedd. Do not form what is in your mind into voiced word. Your mother comes with me because I need her.” He held the finger up, reinforcing her silence. “And no, you cannot come. Not because you are woman-born, but because you are my daughter.”

  Because, unlike your mother, you have no experience of war; because you are six and ten years of age, at the dawn of your life; because if Cerdic wins you will only be safe here, within Geraint’s stronghold. He kept all that to himself, especially the last, which even he recoiled from thinking about. If Cerdic was somehow to take the victory when they met what would he do to Archfedd? Arthur swallowed a rise of foul-tasting bile. No, of that he could not, would not, think.

  “A man asked if he could marry with you a while past,” Arthur said, casually.

  “Oh?” Archfedd attempted not to look interested, but the flattery was obvious. Her mother had promised she would have say in the choice of husband, and as yet there was no acceptable contender. “Who?” she asked, several faces flitting through her mind. Handsome and courageous men.

  “Amlawdd.”

  “What! That ill-mannered, lecherous, toad-foot?” Archfedd’s wrinkled nose and expression of disgust replaced any need for further word.

  “I had a feeling that would be your answer.” There was laughter in her father’s voice.

  “You are teasing me!” Archfedd complained, flouncing slightly away from him.

  “About Amlawdd’s asking? Na, I am not.”

  Arthur relented as the alarm spread over her face, he put a finger under her chin. “Do not fret, my answer was similar to yours, only the language was somewhat coarser.”

  Her relief was extensive.

  “When I return,” Arthur altered direction, “we must consider finding you someone suitable.” She would not be safe from scum such as Amlawdd until she had a husband of her own. Not now she was of an age ready for marriage. And grandsons could be as useful as sons.

  Archfedd tossed her head, her contempt acute. “No old goats or unwhelped pups. If I agree to marry, I will not wed any but the strongest warrior!”

  Her father gathered her to him, held her possessively close, protective, urgent. Love of Mithras, she was so much like her mother!

  A sudden thought, unexpected, from the past. “If I marry, I will only wed with the strongest leader, a man who will unite Britain and drive out our enemies.” He had been a lad when Gwenhwyfar had boasted that. A bastard-born lad who had not known his father, had not known the great Uthr Pendragon was his sire. Later, when he had known, after Uthr’s death, when Cunedda had told him the truth of it, she had again said she would not wed with any but the best. “Would you consider a Pendragon the best?” he had asked.

  Obviously, Gwenhwyfar had, although how she came to that conclusion Arthur had often, since, wondered. Him, the best? Aye, the best liar, the best whore-layer, the best… the list rolled on.

  At that moment, Arthur glanced up across a cleared space where three jugglers were amusing onlookers with their skilled craft. She was there, enthralled, admiring; the rich, warm light from the torches burnishing her hair into the colour of beaten copper, the gold tips of hairpins glinting as she moved to applaud their talent enthusiastically. Whatever happened between them, whatever Arthur did, whatever flurried argument sprang up there was always this thing, their shared love, to draw the securing thread between them tight again. He loved her, his Gwenhwyfar.

  She lifted her head, saw Arthur cradling Archfedd to him. Watching her daughter, Gwenhwyfar smiled. She would know, almost, what he was thinking, for she knew her husband, knew his thoughts, his hopes. His fears.

  Knew as well as he what Cerdic would do to Archfedd if ever he managed the unthinkable. To beat his father in battle.

  XX

  Llongborth, once called Portus Adurni, the ship port where the galleons of the Roman sea legions, the navy, had put into harbour: the elite of shipping, the triremes, the quinqueremes, with their multi-banks of oars and their ability to manoeuvre with breathtaking skill; to turn within their own length, disabling the enemy by ramming or by smashing through the oars. Magnificent craft that could set fear scudding in the heart.

  They were gone, those awesome ships with their skilled oarsmen and superb ability. The harbour had succumbed to the sole use of traders, even before Vortigern’s time. With Saex pirates on the prowl from along the coast, even that use had dwindled. The wharves were no longer kept in good repair, the lighthouse not maintained. Llongborth was the eastward boundary of Geraint’s territory; to here, the ships that had carried Arthur and his men to Gaul had come, for the especially designed quays – even in poor repair – were better suited to load horses and cargo efficiently, without excess fuss.

  The inlets and marshland creeks dominating this stretch of the southern coast were impossible to patrol. With Saxon settlements established to the east and Cerdic entrenching himself on the west, this pocket of land with its puzzle of waterways to the north of Vectis was a last stronghold of British command. Cerdic had the temerity to offer part of it to his new allies, Port and his two sons.

  Scattered, isolated settlements springing up along the empty, windswept and desolate stretches of the coast could be overlooked. Natural, uninhabited inlets that were being transformed into Saxon harbours could be tolerated.

  The giving of what was not yours to give, could not.

  Llongborth with its past status, its potential for rebuilding and regrowth. Llongborth, with its position for trade, for the building of new craft and the safe sheltering of old, made it a prize worth the having. Both Geraint and Arthur had known that it was only a matter of time before the Saxons tried for Llongborth. The only surprise was that it had taken Cerdic so long.

  Marsh. The emptiness of rippling water, wind-brushed reeds and the mournful cry of the curlew. The ceaseless, steady pulse of the tide, the smell of mud, seaweed and the sea. A mist-hazed blue morning. The sun climbing, golden, to the east, trailing fingers of shadow over the emptiness. Two miles distant, the human encroachment, the wharves and half-derelict buildings of Llongborth itself. Just ahead, the mast of a single ship, her broken keel aslant on a sandbar, abandoned to the tide, the wind and the barnacles. Left to rot. As, at the end of this day, would be the bones of the dead.

  The shield-wall of Saxons, ranked bright-coloured and solid. Spear tips, helmets, swords, catching the first cast light of the sun. The banners and standards lifting lazily as an offshore wind sauntered past.

  The British horses, grey, bay, chestnut and dun. Harness jingling as heads tossed, feet stamped.
The snort of excitement through distended nostrils, a shrill whinny, an impatient kick. Grass-stained foam flecking from the bit. Restless shifting. Ears flicking. Muscles firm and strong, beneath coats that rippled with the gloss of fine condition. Horses with stamina and strength. Corn-fed, bold-eyed, strong-hearted.

  Between the two armies a careless silence. The sigh of the wind, a cry of a bird. Nothing more.

  The Saxon line, a blur of indistinguishable colour and shape. The horses walked, pranced, side-stepped; reins curbing the tension, the will to go. Forward. Legs swishing through the marram grass. Ahead, the archers, bows strung, the first arrow knocked ready.

  The Saxons. Standing. Shield linked against shield. Immobile, immovable.

  Individual thought of fear, expectation, and elation. A quickened heartbeat, a muttered prayer. Incongruous thoughts. The remembered taste of a good wine, a potent beer. The smile on a child’s face, the loving caress of a woman. The cry of the wolf on a winter wind, or the joyful, soaring song of a lapwing on a summer’s day.

  The archers. In line. Halted. Bows raised. Eyes to the side, to their lord, sitting on his horse, a chestnut, as red as a setting sun. Geraint.

  The horses. Their paced, measured walk, a few yards behind. Arthur’s arm fell. Geraint raised his spear – and the sky was black with the skimming, fearful hiss of death. One arrow, two, three. Archers, men who knew their craft. The arrows waiting, tips pinned into the soft mud, easily lifted, fitted, shot. Again and again and again.

  The horses came on, side-stepping around the archers, walking, still walking. Waiting for that moment when the terrible rain of death would end. The sound, as it shushed above the horse’s ears, tossing their heads, shortening their pent, tight-held stride. They knew what was coming. Man and beast knew what lay ahead.