Uther cc-7

by Jack Whyte

  "Ah, Herliss, now I understand your error, even though you do not. Time and distance can warp even the truth of truth, it seems. It was my cousin, Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod, who dreamed up that escapade and made it happen, earning the reputation you now attribute to me. Merlyn's your Trickster, not I. And he became the Trickster simply by being cleverer by far than anyone and everyone else who dealt with him, including myself."

  Uther drew himself up until he was sitting arrow-straight, and at the same time he raised his hand in the prearranged signal. Behind him, immediately, he heard the sounds of movement as his people began to pull away, leaving him alone with Herliss in a circle of men who watched, but were too far away to hear what was being said. He watched Herliss's eyes narrow as the Cornish leader tried to understand what was happening, and then recaptured the veteran's attention with a question.

  "Where did you learn to speak the Roman tongue? You speak it very well."

  "I should. I learned it among the Romans years ago." Herliss was frowning, plainly wondering about the sudden, unexpected departure of Uther's escorting party. "Where are they going and why?"

  "They moved away because I told them I might want to talk to you without being overheard. You saw me give the signal. They obeyed it. There's no trickery involved."

  "Mayhap not, but you are a trickster, nonetheless. You won this victory here by trickery."

  "Aye, perhaps I did. but trickery is legitimate in warfare, and I know you know that well. From what I have heard, you have been famed for your own deceits at times. Besides, your point is moot. All I did in this instance was set a trap. You were the one who walked into it in the full light of day. No trickery involved there, Herliss. Carelessness, perhaps. Negligence . . . one might perhaps propose an argument in favour of such a thing. But trickery? No, not on my part. Had your scouts paid attention and scouted properly, they would have found us, or at worst found signs of our preparations. We had hundreds of men concealed in these pits, Herliss . . . impossible to hide so many without trace. But your people found nothing, and that was mainly because they did not look closely, or closely enough."

  Faced with such incontrovertible logic, Herliss could make no response, but Uther spoke right on through the silence that ensued.

  "I know your brother, Balin, and his wife, Mairidh. We have been friends for years, the three of us. I like them both immensely." He waited briefly for a response and received none.

  "Your son, Lagan," he continued. "Is he yet well? I never met him, but years ago your brother used the story of Lagan, his favourite nephew, to convince me that my overwhelming hatred of all things Cornish was foolish and ill advised, and so I have grown to manhood with the strange feeling that I have a friend whom I have never met among your people." He paused, his eyes fixed on his enemy, and then continued.

  "I can see you are confused and taken aback by hearing things you might never have expected to hear, so I'll ask no more of you for now than this: try to contain yourself in patience for a while and to accept the restraints I will put upon you as my prisoner. Were I to set you free now and alone, your life would not continue long once Lot had heard of your survival at the cost of his Queen's freedom. In holding you, therefore, I merely hold your life in safekeeping. If your Queen is to continue living, be it in freedom or in servitude, then she will need someone—some man, strong and used to authority—in whom she can confide and in whom she can place her trust with confidence. You will be that man. So be it you offer no trouble to the men I set to guarding you, your conditions of confinement shall be light and in no way onerous. I promise you this, however: cross me in this, and I will have you trussed like a captive cockerel bound for the stewpot." He stopped and gazed at the older man. "Will you consent to this?"

  Herliss pursed his lips and nodded briefly. "Aye, I will, so be it you do not ill-treat my men."

  "Their treatment depends upon their own behaviour. Good will beget good, ill, ill." Uther glanced towards the senior of the two men who had brought up the prisoner and waved him forward. "Take the Lord Herliss back to the others, but when we stop tonight to make camp, keep him apart and see to it that he is well fed and well quartered."

  He glanced once more at Herliss and nodded in dismissal before hauling on his horse's reins and straightening his back, standing up in his stirrups again to look about him. He saw immediately that Huw Strongarm was returning, walking quickly and intently. Uther sat silent and waited for Huw to reach him, knowing that the only thing that could have caused such a precipitate return on Huw's part was the nature of the wagons' contents. When Huw arrived, he paused for a moment to gather his breath, and Uther forestalled him.

  "What have we captured? Weapons?"

  Huw jerked his head in a nod. "Aye," he said. "Weapons of a kind, anyway. Great balks of timber, grey and well seasoned, huge wheel sections and miles of hempen rope. You had better come and look, see for yourself."

  Less than an hour later, his inspections of the wagons complete, Uther, still mounted, sat waiting once again for Herliss to be brought to him, but this time, when the veteran commander arrived, Uther wasted no time on pleasantries and gave the grizzled Cornishman no chance to speak until he had spoken his mind.

  "Siege engines," he began, an edge of incredulity in his voice. "You are carrying siege engines? Where would Gulrhys Lot find such things? And why would he want them? No one has had any use for those things here in Britain since the Romans left almost thirty years ago, and even they used no siege engines in Britain for a hundred years before that." He did not wait for Herliss to respond. "But if Lot is moving them, taking the trouble to shift them, then he is thinking of employing them, so where? He can't have need of them here in Cornwall. The fortifications here are primitive- hill forts, all of them, even his own Golant. Excellent strongholds and highly defensible, but steep slopes and deep ditches, Herliss. No stone walls or towers. Hill forts can be invested, encircled and cut off and then starved out over time, but they cannot be taken by artillery or siege engines. Primitive they may be, but they're also nigh on impregnable and impervious to every weapon except time, thirst and starvation." He paused and looked hard at Herliss. "The only exception that I know about in all this land of Cornwall is your own place, Tir Gwyn, the White Fort. Balin told me it is strongly fortified, high on a defensible ridge with great, glistening walls of snow-white, glassy stone that blazes in the sun, visible for miles. Lot could besiege your Tir Gwyn and probably take it from you if he lusted for it. But why, then, would you be taking him the means to do that to you? That makes no sense at all . . .

  "The only thing that does make any kind of sense to me is that your lord is dreaming of attacking us again in Camulod, carrying the war into our bourne yet again, hoping to force us to recall our armies from Cornwall and keep them immured thereafter in our own lands, away from his and yours. But who would undertake that task? Not Lot himself, that much is certain. He hasn't got the guts or the balls to try a thing like that, where he might get hurt. Twice now, he has sent armies up to our lands in treachery, killing, looting and marauding without any provocation, and on each occasion his people died swearing that he was there with them. When it was over, however, and the remnants of his armies had been sent running for their sorry lives, it transpired each time that the mighty monarch, King in Cornwall, had elected not to accompany his armies after all and had remained safe at home."

  Herliss stood silent, making no attempt to speak.

  "Those two incursions into our lands have cost me dearly. Gulrhys Lot will someday pay the price to me in person, and he will pay in blood. The first attack, led by two foul, sorcerous creatures, both of whom lie dead in Camulod, cost me a favourite uncle and a lifetime friend, dead by envenomed arrows. The second, less than a year ago as you well know, cost me my dear cousin, Merlyn Britannicus, still alive in body but dead inside, his wits driven from him by a blow to the head.

  "I learned long ago that Lot has no stomach at all for fighting personally. He would never dar
e come into Camulod in person. He would far rather send a warring group of underlings to squabble endlessly and achieve nothing, as they did the last time, than put himself in any danger. And that, Herliss, is why I am here in Cornwall. I have no interest in laying your land waste, but I will tear the heavens and all of earth apart to reach that foul toad's guts and rip them out of his stinking carcass while he still has eyes to watch me do it."

  Now he swung his eyes to meet Herliss's gaze head on. "So, if he plans to march on Camulod again, with siege engines this time, he will send an underling. But it must be an underling who understands the principles of siege warfare. You?"

  Herliss shrugged his enormous shoulders. "Not I, not now. Besides, I know nothing about fighting that way. I fight with my hands."

  "Yes, quite. Who, then ? Would you tell me if you knew?"

  "No. Is it important ?"

  Uther grinned—a small, tight, ferocious snarl—and shook his head. "No, it is not. Not now and not ever, now that I have the engines. Where did they come from?"

  "From my own holdings. I had them stored in several of my places along the south coast. They belonged to Lot's father, the Duke Emrys, and he obtained them openly years and years ago from the Roman garrisons along the Saxon Shore in the far southeast, while the coastal routes were still open. On the death of the old Duke, they passed into the nominal possession of King Lot under my continuing guardianship. He has always known they were there, and recently he asked me about them and made arrangements to have me bring them to him. He made no mention of where he would use them, and none of my being put in charge of them after they were in his hands."

  "Just as well, because he'll never use them now." Uther turned to a mounted trooper who sat close behind his right shoulder, and then he stopped, plainly on the point of issuing an order. Instead, he turned slowly back towards Herliss. "Wait you, though. You were on your way to Lot to deliver the siege engines, is that not so?"

  Herliss nodded, plainly considering the answer obvious.

  "Then whence came Lot's Queen? Was she with you in the south?"

  Herliss felt his face flush red, but all he could do was curse himself for a fool and nod abruptly in an attempt to brush this off as unimportant. Already, however, he knew his face had betrayed him.

  "Aye," he growled. "She was staying with me, as my guest in Tir Gwyn."

  "Your . . . guest."

  "Aye, my guest. You find that strange? My youngest wife and she are good friends, close."

  "I see. And how long had she been there? I promise you I shall find out the truth, so don't start lying to me now, Herliss."

  The other man shrugged and looked away, mumbling an inaudible response.

  "Your pardon, I missed that. What did you say?"

  "I said she had been with us for some months."

  "I see. Then she must be pining for her husband, and he for her by this time."

  "Aye, mayhap she must."

  Uther turned back to the trooper. "Nemo, go straight to Huw. Tell him to burn everything in the wagons except food and any portable equipment we can use easily. Tell him to burn the wagons, too, and not to fret about the smoke being seen. If anyone comes looking for the source of all the smoke, we'll give them far more to worry about than a mere fire. Go."

  As the trooper wheeled away, Uther nodded again to Herliss. "My thanks for being honest, although there was nothing else you might have done. You may return to your men."

  He glanced at Herliss's escort and waved them on with a tiny gesture of his fingers. And then, as they moved away, he tapped the pad of his index finger against his pursed lips, making small, sibilant kissing noises as he thought about what had happened and what remained to be done. Finally he reined his horse around and kicked it into motion.

  Uther rode until he reached a blazing cook fire, where several of his party had dismounted and tethered their horses as they waited to be fed. Uther climbed down for the first time since mounting his horse that morning, some six hours earlier, and moved to pick up a broken loaf of hard-crusted bread, ripping off a large piece and taking a great bite of it. By the time he had chewed it for long enough to moisten it. Huw Strongarm had reached his side again, and Uther looked at him with one eyebrow raised.

  "Is there something amiss?"

  "No, everything's in hand. I simply wanted a drink of water."

  "Good. Drink, and take something to eat. Then, as soon as the fires are blazing too fiercely to be put out, let's get everyone on the move and up into the safety of the hills. You know what to do—have the prisoners' wrists tied behind them, then string them all together by the neck in single file like slaves. Let them think they're all going to die, but don't let any of our people abuse them unnecessarily. We'll let them go eventually, once Lot and his people know exactly where and who we are. By that time, they'll no longer be a threat to us, since everyone will know our whereabouts. In the meantime, keep them under close guard. Who did you leave in charge of firing the wagons?"

  Huw grunted and spoke around a mouthful of half-chewed bread. "Hard-Nose."

  "Good." Uther took off his heavy helmet and placed it carefully beside him before he lowered himself and stretched out full length on the ground close to where the horses were tethered. "Half an hour. Wake me when we're almost ready to go."

  He was asleep in moments.

  Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

  Ygraine had no words to describe what she saw among the enemy forces that day. She watched with horror as the Camulodians, with organized efficiency, set fire to the wagons and their contents and then quit the scene of the ambush, with its blazing beacons and towering pillars of black, roiling smoke. They wasted no time in clearing the area, their mounted troopers serving as guards for the long lines of prisoners who were strung together, neck to neck, twenty-live men to a file, and then almost literally dragged behind trotting horses.

  Untroubled by any responsibility for the prisoners, the long- legged bowmen moved away quickly too, in large, lightly organized groups, travelling on foot and maintaining regular formations. From where she sat watching them, Ygraine marvelled at how quickly they swept upwards and away, in connected bodies, rank and file, until from a distance they appeared to move across the hillsides like cloud shadows, their bows and quivers slung across their shoulders to leave their hands free for climbing. It was clear to her that they were moving well away in anticipation of reprisals and pursuit, but she could have told them that they had no reason for concern. There was no body of Cornish troops close enough even to see the enormous towers of smoke that marked the place, and it would be many days before Lot took the time to notice that Herliss was late in arriving. But of course, she said nothing.

  Ygraine and her women, each riding behind one of their captors and constrained to clasp him around the waist for fear of falling from the horse's rump, travelled fast and hard for more than three hours, pausing only briefly, from time to time, to give their horses time to rest. And the bowmen, to Ygraine's great surprise, kept pace with them.

  Eventually they arrived in another valley, a pleasant, shallow place with an ample stream running through it and a large, well- established encampment already in place. Heavy commissary wagons were set around a broad, open area that was scattered with blackened fire circles, all surrounded by logs for seating, and beyond that lay acres of cleanly laid-out horse lines and tent sites. Ygraine was astonished to realize that there were more horses and horse troopers camped there than there had been bowmen in the ambush that had captured her. Uther's force was a raiding party, she could see, but it was a large one and well equipped. She and her party attracted great curiosity among the troopers close enough to see that they were women, but they were lowered from their horses courteously enough, and then grouped together and loosely guarded while their captors transformed their end of the peaceful valley into a hive of activity, adding their own dimensions to the layout of the camp and setting up their own bivouacs.

  A short time later, a trooper, whom she identi
fied from his armour as some kind of officer, approached the women, leading a ten-man squad and a heavy wagon pulled by four heavy horses. He scanned the ground around them and then chose a spot halfway between where the women were standing and the edge of the river. He then began issuing orders and indicating where and how he wanted certain things done, and his troopers moved quickly to do his bidding.

  None of the other women paid much attention to what was happening at the outset—there were far too many other interesting sights to attract their attention—but Ygraine was fascinated to see the straight-faced concentration shown by the troopers toiling in and around the big wagon. She walked closer to where they worked, unnoticed by any of them or by anyone else, and leaned against the gnarled trunk of an ancient hawthorn as she waited to see what they would do. And there for two hours she remained as they unloaded from the wagon a bewildering number of poles of various sizes, bale after bale of leather, bundles of metal pins or pegs and wooden pulleys and what seemed like miles of rope. Out of all that chaos, the troopers created a soaring edifice of roped leather sheets, the sight of which was breathtaking. It was a tent unlike any other that Ygraine had ever seen, larger, more spacious and more carefully crafted. She guessed that it might be a Roman command tent, but only because she had heard of such things and had listened skeptically as others had sought to describe their virtues and dimensions. The panels were of the finest, hand-tanned leather, sewn with double seams and then carefully waxed for weatherproofing, increased durability and extended use. She noted that the sides, and even some of the roof panels, were vented with hanging, overlapping flaps that could be opened to the weather in clement times, either rolled up and tied in place or propped open on long, thin sticks that slotted into pockets sewn to receive them. She knew that her husband would have shrivelled with envy to see such a thing.

  Ygraine counted twelve tall structural poles around the outer perimeter of the tent, each of them an arm's length longer than the height of a tall, helmeted man, and there was an additional, inner square of four more, each of those thicker than the exterior poles and set four full paces from its neighbours. These raised the roof fully half as high again, and then finally, in the very centre of the edifice, was one enormously tall, strong pole that was almost as thick as her waist through its base. This central pillar was constructed to break down into manageable lengths, so that it could be quickly assembled or dismantled and carried in a single large wagon. When it was erected, a suspended, circular collar of some kind ringed the lop of this pole, and to that were attached the leather panels that formed the highest sections of the roof. Everything, it seemed—all the stretched skins of the walls and roof and all the poles themselves—was secured with ropes wound through pulleys and attached to heavy iron pegs hammered deep into the ground.