Shadow of the King

by Helen Hollick

Arthur was ready to send in the reserves, the last two turmae of Artoriani and the bowmen, their weapons exchanged for the sword and spear. He had Brenin gathered on a tight rein, his hand lifting to signal the move forward. A galloper burst from the trees behind, causing Brenin to rear and plunge, Arthur brought him around, cursed. A courier, face bloodied, an arrow quivering deep within his horse’s flank.

  “Sir!” he shouted, anxious, near to tears, desperate. “They are attacking Caer Morfa – three ships, many men. The stronghold is in danger of falling!”

  LV

  All timbers were of oak, the palisade, the Hall, dwellings, only the roofing, the reed thatching, burnt with a fury. They raked down what they could from the Hall and the more important buildings. Dwelling-places could be re-built, roofs re-thatched. Lives were the more important, and the need to secure the gateways. If the Saex broke through…

  Gwenhwyfar smiled encouragingly at Archfedd. Both knew the smile and the encouragement were false. Gwenhwyfar had seen enough of battle to know this one was desperate and that Caer Morfa was screaming its death chant. Her daughter had never seen fighting, not skirmish or raiding, close up. Aye, she had witnessed the aftermath, the pain of the wounded, the keening for the dead, but this, the desperation of having your home, your family, friends, your land, your life threatened by the attacking forces of savagery, this was new to her. New and terrifying.

  They were in the Hall – roofless, for the thatch of the highest roof had been among the first to catch beneath the fire-arrows. As with any stronghold under siege, it was to the Hall the women and children came, to the Hall the men brought the wounded. “Da will come, will he not?” Archfedd had asked, an hour or so past as she had patched a minor arrow wound to Natanlius’s shoulder.

  “If he can, he will,” her husband assured her, placing a light kiss on her forehead before he went out again to join his men at the palisade. “I have sent word, three of my best men, one will get through to the Pendragon, I am sure.” Comforting words of hope. For himself as much as her.

  Archfedd had glanced at her mother for confirmation. She had resented Gwenhwyfar coming from Caer Cadan so hurriedly yesterday, saying tartly she could look to herself and her family. Was so glad, now, she had her mother’s strength to shore up the sagging spirits of all those within the Caer. Including her own.

  “If he can,” Gwenhwyfar had agreed. “Aye, your father will come if he can.” Knowing he would not because he fought with Cerdic those few miles away, up where the marshes washed against the rise of high ground, up where the open sky dipped to meet the wind-browsed trees of oak and ash and elm and beech. Up where he might himself be lying dead.

  Gwenhwyfar finished tending a man’s leg. The arrow had plunged deep, but fortune had been on his side; it was a wound that would heal. Movement behind her, she knew it would be Ider. She turned, brushing hair from her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a bloody streak smeared along her forehead.

  “I need more bandaging,” she said, starting to walk to where the children were rolling strips of linen. She indicated he was to walk with her.

  “Well?” she asked after a while and a while.

  Ider’s hand was gripped tight on his sword pommel, his expression grim. He jerked his head towards another group of children, younger, sitting huddled with a few of the women. Among them, three boys, babes, the eldest a handful of weeks short of his second birthing day; for the second child, this was the day of his first full year in the world of men. They had planned a feasting for him, with honeyed cakes and pastries shaped into animals. The third, aye well, he was nought but three weeks into life, his only concern the milk that warmed his belly and the love of his mother’s arms. Grim, Ider said, “We must consider them. Look to their safety.”

  Archfedd’s sons. Arthur’s future heirs.

  Gwenhwyfar stacked a bundle of bandages in the crook of her arm, rubbed the cheek of the serious-faced little girl who had handed them to her. “Be brave, sweetheart.” The girl smiled back at Gwenhwyfar, trusting her. She liked the pretty lady with the soft, calming voice, did not like the noises penetrating into the Hall. Her Da was out there, Mam had said, fighting to keep them all from the knives of the Saxons. Gwenhwyfar made her way to the far end of the Hall to where wounded men patiently awaited the attention of the medical orderlies, Ider at her side. She wanted no one to think she was in earnest discussion.

  “Is it desperate?” she asked.

  He nodded. “It is. Half? One hour? If help does not come the gates will not hold.”

  She piled the bandages with others, asked where she might help next.

  What to do? Wait or go? Was there any choice? Gwenhwyfar knelt beside a young lad. He could be no more then ten and three summers. He had burns to the side of his face, his arms; most of his body was charred and reddened, the skin blistered and peeling. He was in great pain, yet he smiled at her. “The Pendragon will come soon, will he not? And when he does, I would like to see him beat the balls from their arses!”

  “When he has finished with Cerdic, aye, he will come to our aid.” Gwenhwyfar took his left hand in hers, held it, a small part of him that was whole and clean. She sat there for a few, long minutes, easing his pain by letting it flow into her. She was glad he would not know she had lied to him.

  Ider tore a tapestry from the wall, its edges charred, its bright-coloured hunting scene smoke-blackened and spoilt. His teeth bit into his lip as he covered the dead boy with its once splendid glory. No lad in the spring of his life deserved to die in such a way.

  Gwenhwyfar remained on her knees, looking nowhere in particular, looking everywhere around that Hall, at the wounded men and the frightened women and children. They would be safe, the Saxons were not generally known as mindless butchers. The able men, that would be a different matter, but a man knew his destiny when a fight began. For herself… She mattered not. She had lived her life and when death marched nearer, you almost came to welcoming its shadowed presence. Archfedd and her three born sons, though, what would Cerdic do to them? Gwenhwyfar closed her eyes, her hands clasped in brief murmur of prayer. What barbarism might be expected of a son who took an axe to his mother and to the woman who had borne him his son?

  “Can we get them out?” she asked. Ider held his hand to her, helped her rise. He nodded, once. “Natanlius wishes it. As do I. We will open the gates and allow you to run.”

  She wanted to scream, “No!” She wanted to insist her place was here, with these women and their precious families. Wanted to, but did not, for above being a woman and a mother, she was a queen, and her duties lay beyond the caring for one isolated stronghold. She need put the safety of the King’s grandsons above all else.

  “See to it,” she said. “We will be beside the gates, as soon as we can.”

  “Not long,” Ider answered, setting his hand on her arm, his anguished eyes meeting hers. She knew then the plan did not involve him coming with her. He repeated, “Do not leave it too long.”

  She touched his face with her hand, a caress that would say so much more than any word. “God keep you,” she said, and walked quickly away. There was too much to do, in too short a time. The grieving would have to come later.

  LVI

  They took the swiftest horses, Gwenhwyfar her grey, Archfedd a chestnut descended from her father’s Onager. With them, a turma of men, thirty in all. It would deplete the numbers holding the Caer, but it would not hold much longer. Thirty more men for Arthur, assuming he was surviving the fight those few miles inland.

  “No goodbyes,” Natanlius said to Archfedd. He reached up, ruffled his second son’s hair. The lad sat before his mother, eyes wide and frightened, his arms tight around her waist, ropes securing him to her as added precaution. They would be riding fast when those gates opened, they could not guide horses or fight their way out and also hold onto the boys. Gwenhwyfar had the eldest, Constantine. A Decurion sheltered the baby.

  The roar beyond the closed gates was increasing, the flames licking a
t the resistance of the oak timbers, billowing acrid smoke, spreading through the piles of brush and carcasses, both animal and man; the stink of burning covered everything.

  “No goodbyes,” Natanlius said again with a loving smile. He squeezed Archfedd’s knee, took a last look at her. They called her the Lioness, many of his people of Caer Morfa, as a term of respect. There were a few from further away who thought her too headstrong, too determined to stand firm for the things her father advocated; mostly, those of the Church. Those few used the title as a curse, but she did not object. It added to the remembering that she was daughter to the Pendragon.

  “No goodbyes,” she repeated back. She tried to smile but the tears would not stop coming. They had been so happy together, this short while.

  Natanlius would have swept her off that horse, called a halt to this whole, foolish idea. He turned, and went quickly to the head of the phalanx of men waiting this side of the gate with swords drawn, spears ready. This way, she had a chance. The other, for her and his sons there would be nothing except slavery or a cruel death.

  Ider took his place beside him. There would be fierce fighting when those gates opened; they would need the best men. He glanced around, only the once, at Gwenhwyfar. She had hurriedly dressed herself as they would expect a warrior queen to be. Her red cloak, white padded under tunic, with the thicker, protective leather and bronze-studded tunic above. Leather, doe-hide bracae. Boots. She had her sword out, a dagger ready in her belt, a shield. Her hair she wore tied at her neck, a thick single plait of grey-streaked copper. Around her neck, the royal torque. She caught Ider’s glance, raised her sword, touching the blade to her forehead in salute.

  And the gates were open, fast, hurling inward, the men leaping forward, screaming, yelling, to meet the Saxons who rocked backwards at the unexpected manoeuvre. They cut a swathe through, those brave British, scything a path through the formidable press of the Saex.

  Virtually every man from inside the stronghold formed a protective barrier, and, not understanding what was happening, the Saex reacted too late. The burst of horses thundered through and away. The Saex slammed their spears at them, tried to rush forward, cut them off; a few arrows were loosed. One or two horses were hit, brought down, their riders hacked, unmercifully, the horses butchered. But the rest got away, Gwenhwyfar and Archfedd. And two of Arthur’s grandsons.

  LVII

  What did he do? Damn it, what could he do! The Artoriani had broken through the shield-wall. One more heavy thrust and they would have them all running, or dying. But he could not let Caer Morfa fall, not while… Arthur thrust the protest from his mind. He was a soldier, a battle-hardened warlord, could not let personal love come into this thing. Gwenhwyfar and Archfedd had insisted on staying. They knew the risk they took, knew what could sit before them. All the same…

  He had the reserves and two turmae to send in up the hill. Yellow Turma and his own, King’s Troop. A good leader needed the ability to think quickly, to change plan, alter direction with fast-made decisions for the sway of battle could alter as swiftly as a peregrine’s dive. He yelled for Yellow Turma’s Decurion to come forward, told him briefly, concisely he was to ride to the stronghold, see what help he could reasonably give.

  “Reasonably,” Arthur repeated, ensuring his trusted officer understood. The Decurion nodded. If his small force would make no difference, if the stronghold had already fallen, the men were needed here, for it was Cerdic they must put an end to.

  Through the day, Arthur had been cursing that Bedwyr was not here with him. Bedwyr as second-in-command had been needed, but was it not ironic that even if he were here, he could not have sent him to the Caer?

  Arthur raised his arm, gave the command his men were waiting for. To charge the remaining solidity of the shield-wall, finish it.

  Bedwyr would have led his men into certain death for Gwenhwyfar.

  Whatever happens, she had said to Arthur as they lay together last night – Mithras! Was it only last night? Whatever happens, you must close your eyes and ears to what is around you; fight Cerdic, and only Cerdic. For until he is finished, this thing will not be ended.

  There is the boy, Cynric, he had pointed out.

  Cynric, she had answered obligingly, is Mathild’s son. Not Cerdic’s.

  Twenty yards from the shield-wall, Arthur released the tight hold on the reins, shifted his grip to his sword, used his heels on Brenin’s flank and let the stallion plunge forward into a gallop.

  He only hoped Gwenhwyfar was right, for it was Cynric who led the command down at the inland sea.

  Cynric who was besieging Caer Morfa.

  LVIII

  He stood before his father, enraged, his fists clenched, nostrils flared, jaw clamped. The passion of anger so overwhelming in Cynric that he could feel the desire rising up in him to take an axe and plunge it down into his father’s brain. The blood of war was still spattered on his clothing and skin, even his sword had not yet been cleaned.

  “They were good men,” he stated through clenched teeth. “And there was no need for the slaughter of women and children.”

  “Are you, then,” Cerdic spoke through one side of his mouth, the other being puffed and swollen, the eye black and disfigured, “disagreeing with the action taken by two of my most supportive allies?”

  For a wound, a blow to the face by a club was nothing glamorous, but for Cerdic the pain went deeper than anything marked on the surface. The broken bone of his nose would be permanently disfigured, and the blood that had gushed from him surely almost led to him bleeding to death? They had assured him it was all superficial, but what did these medical people, those imbeciles, know of the needs of a man who had Woden for ancestor? A known fact that kings had greater feeling than peasant folk.

  “I was in command!” Cynric hurled back at him. “Not Stuf and Wihtgar, your friends. I ordered the British men to be taken prisoner, the innocents to be treated with respect. Orders ignored by their men, your men!”

  “Innocents? Fah! They were poxed British. At least they met death swiftly. I would have let the men use the women and girls, first.”

  “Ja, you would have done.” Cynric began to turn away from his father, the disgust blatant on his face. “But then, you too are a bastard whoreson are you not?”

  Cerdic leapt to his feet, overturning the chair, knocking aside the table that had been placed at his right hand, scattering the wooden bowl of fruit, the wine. He ran the few paces separating them, caught hold of Cynric’s arm as he stepped away. “How dare you!” Cerdic roughly swung his son around, took a hurried backward pace, let go his spiteful grasp as he met with an expression that shouted contempt and hatred.

  “How dare I, Father? How dare I?” Cynric jabbed his father in the chest with his finger, pushing him back another pace, and another.

  “I dare because I know I will become King of the West Saxons when you are gone.” He jabbed again, harder. Cerdic came up against his chair, tripped, sat down heavily, his son leaning over him, breath spewing the fury on his face. “I dare, because it would not take much for me to decide to take my kingdom for myself now. This day – this moment!”

  Cerdic was quivering, struggling to contain his bladder. He never had much bravery, had not inherited his mother’s quick thinking, nor her ability to disguise thought or fear. He could lie, but his untruths were plain seen.

  “You promised your friends great reward for victory over the British, did you not? And for so thoroughly destroying the marsh stronghold, what do they get? The Roman Isle of Vectis? Wihtgar is even now taking the first ship to claim his land, sailing to establish for himself a burgh. What do I get from all this, then, eh? What is there for me?” Cynric’s hands tightened on the neckline of Cerdic’s tunic, his father gurgling some half-heard response.

  “Arthur, my grandsire, fought with you, fought an honourable battle. He set your troops running. How many did you lose, Father, six, seven, eight hundred men?”

  His courage returning, Cerdic
tried to prise the tight fingers away from his throat. Cynric would have drawn his dagger by now had he truly intended murder. “We slaughtered more than three hundred British this day at Caer Morfa!”

  “Caer Morfa is peopled with the rotting carcasses and charred bodies of the British dead. Where is the victory in that? Where is the honour in the killing of women and children?”

  “For every Briton dead, I gain another acre of land…”

  “We have gained nothing today, you foolish old man. You ordered your men to retreat. You saw the Pendragon coming for you, saw your death in his sword, shit yourself and ran. As you did the last time, at Llongborth. The Great Wood may be ours, because Arthur will not, now, be able to rebuild the stronghold that protects it. He cannot attack us, cannot take revenge, but our security and gain is nothing! We have penetrated inland no more than twenty miles, Father. And for every one of those tarnished miles we have the blood of innocents and heroes to carry with us – to our graves.”

  Cynric released his hold, almost tossed his father aside. “If you had fought as you had boasted, we would this first evening after battle have for ourselves a kingdom.” He turned on his heel, walked the length of his father’s Mead Hall, the eyes of those within staring after him. No one else would say all he had voiced, none of the hearth-guard, the thegns. Not elders or chieftains, not the ordinary man who fought in the shield-wall when Cerdic called him to battle, or felled trees, grazed sheep and planted corn when he did not. Only the eyes portrayed their thoughts. And every man in the Hall thought to himself, Cynric will be the better King when he is called to lead us.

  Hunched on his chair behind the high table, Cerdic saw those thoughts and the jealous doubts whittled through the hollows of his own dark mind. Cynric has more of his father in him than do I.

  “Boy!” He scrabbled to his feet, bellowed down the length of the Hall. “Boy, do not turn your back on me, your King!”