by Jack Whyte
The Cornishman was there and clasped hands with him briefly before giving him a few final instructions, pointing him towards the main gates and telling him about the group that would ride out with him. They were his own best men. Lagan said, chosen for this task because of their loyalty and their often demonstrated ability to follow his commands without question or debate. He had told them only that Uther was an important personal ally to his father and to him, and he assured Uther that none of them would speak to him or even pay him much attention. However, should any outsider seek to approach the party or to interfere with them in any way, including an outright attack, they would fight for him as they would fight for Lagan. He himself would follow them alone within the hour. He would catch up with Uther sometime later that morning, a safe distance from the Crag Fort and from prying eyes belonging to any of Lot's spies who might be prowling about.
Moments later, Uther was outside the main gates and approaching the group of horsemen who sat there, already mounted, awaiting his arrival, holding the sturdy and unremarkable garron he would ride. They were an ill-matched group of varying sizes, and their weaponry was as diverse as their appearance. The only element they had in common was that they all wore long, grey cloaks like the one Uther himself had been given by Lagan.
One man sat slightly apart from the others, tall and upright on his garron's back, and his helmet, more ornate than any of his companions', marked him as the leader of the party. Uther ignored him and went directly to the main body of the group, nodding to them briefly in a general greeting and being careful to catch no one's eye. He took the reins of the extra horse from the man who held them out to him and vaulted cleanly onto the animal's low, broad back, holding the reins easily and gripping the stocky beast tightly with his knees, reflecting with some amusement that it had been many years since he had straddled a similar mount and thanking the gods that the Camulodian horses were all far bigger than the Celtic garrons, for his long legs almost touched the ground on either side. The garron raised its head, and its ears swivelled from side to side as it assessed the presence of the stranger on its back. It snorted and shook its head, preparing to question his authority further, but found itself quickly curbed and mastered, its head dragged downward and held there by the strength of the arm controlling the bit in its mouth. Uther glanced towards the man in command and nodded almost imperceptibly. The fellow nodded briefly and swung his mount around, kicking its barrel with his heels.
Their outward ride was uneventful and, as far as Uther could tell, unnoticed by anyone. As Lagan had promised, none of his companions made any attempt to speak to him, and in fact none of them seemed to pay him any attention at all, so that he was aware of only three of them who had glanced in his direction since they had moved away from the Crag Fort. Their route led them northwards at first, until they had crossed the humpback spine of the narrow peninsula that was little more than a score of miles wide at that point, the sea lying slightly more than ten miles ahead of them, northwest of the Crag Fort. As soon as they were beyond the ridge of high land, they headed downward into a tree-filled valley and waited there for Lagan to catch up to them. It took a little over an hour, and Uther spent the time making up for some of the sleep he had forfeited the previous night.
Once Lagan had arrived, however, they wasted no time on civilities. He dismounted and adjusted Uther's stirrups back to their proper length, which was clearly indicated by the deep-grooved buckle marks on the leather straps. Uther watched him, smiling but saying nothing, then swung himself up into his saddle and leaned down to clasp the other's hand one last time. A brief word of thanks and a wish to meet again soon, and he turned his horse around and headed northward, taking care to remain well below the skyline of the high land on his right, since on the other side of it, some score of miles again northeast of the Crag Fort and close to the seacoast, lay Gulrhys Lot's home stronghold of Golant.
Almost four hours later, two of which had been spent cursing uselessly at the bitter, gale-force wind that had sprung up from nowhere and had several times battered him with gusts strong enough to threaten to blow him off his horse, Uther caught sight of the long, transverse ridge that swept inland and upward from the estuary of the western river the local people called the Cam. The ridge concealed his own encampment from the southward, but nothing could have concealed the enormous, wind-torn clouds of black, heavy smoke that swept along the horizon. Fighting against the alarm that flared in his breast, he put the spurs to his horse and drove forward in a flat-out gallop, wondering what had gone wrong this time.
What had gone wrong was soon clear. A raiding party of seagoing marauders, Ersemen or perhaps Franks—Uther had no way of knowing what they were, other than Outlanders—had sailed up the small river estuary and landed looking for plunder. They had seen the cavalry encampment with a single double squadron in residence, and estimating their own strength against the party they could see, they had guessed that the wind blowing from their backs would give them a fine advantage and decrease the odds they would be fighting against. And so they had fired the long grass, thinking that the grazing horses would scatter in fright and be lost, and that they themselves could then charge right into the enemy encampment under cover of the smoke that would be blowing ahead of them. What they had failed to see was the second double squadron of Dragons riding back towards them from a patrol to the northwest, over their shoulders, and the camp of Popilius Cirro's thousand men in the bottom of a well-watered but narrow valley just beyond the cavalry encampment.
The fight had been short and sharp, and Uther, who was still some distance away and approaching rapidly, watched with approval as Garreth Whistler, in command of the returning cavalry, called off the chase that would have put an end to all of the surviving raiders. Uther doubted that they had enough men left to man their craft, and Garreth plainly had more urgent matters on his mind. The raging grass fire that the Outlanders had started was burning out of control, sparks and whirling embers blown everywhere by the wind so that the conflagration was spreading faster than a man could run. It had already crossed the Hat plain of the ridge's top and swept down into the narrow valley behind, where the wind funnelled it and led it directly to the rows of infantry tents that lined the hillsides.
The fire lasted only moments, but the damage it did in that time was appalling. More than half of the infantry's leather tents, all ranged in perfect formation and clean lines, were destroyed, along with everything in them. And two of their four remaining commissary wagons had been badly burned, the bone-dry wooden bodies and wheel spokes catching fire instantly and blazing fiercely before the vehicles could be run out into the bed of the stream that wound through the valley bottom. Everything that they contained, all the provisions and supplies, was either destroyed completely or rendered unfit to eat.
It was one more example of Uther's Luck, and the only grounds Uther had for gratitude lay in the fact that their hospital tents and wagons had been laid out and drawn up on the flat, gravelly bottomland of the bend on the far, north-facing bank of the stream. Four more large commissary wagons, long since emptied of provisions, had been turned over to hospital duties, and these were completely unharmed. There was little growth of any kind on the inhospitable ground there on the other side of the stream, for it was the flood lands of the little river, so although the storm of flying sparks and embers had swirled across the stream bed easily, the sparse grass that was there had been trodden down too thoroughly to burn fiercely.
Looking at the scene and visualizing the carnage that might have taken place had his wounded been trapped on the side of the stream nearest the fire, with its thick, dry grass, Uther sucked air sibilantly between tight lips and reminded himself that they were at the end of the campaigning season and due to go home soon anyway. Masking his disgust, he met with Popilius Cirro, Garreth Whistler, Huw Strongarm and the other officers and issued orders to break camp and form a column for one final march, to stamp out a crawling enemy column in passing, and then to head ho
meward to Camulod and a winter season of well-earned rest.
The march homeward was straightforward and presented them with no difficulties, despite the shortage of supplies caused by the fire. Even the enemy column, almost a thousand heavily armed men, caused them little trouble, for Herliss had been specific in his instructions, and his intelligence regarding the mercenary expedition was flawless. All of that, combined with the veteran Cornish- man's comprehensive knowledge of the terrain over which the enemy would be moving, virtually guaranteed a victory for the Camulodians.
Uther set his trap in a long, narrow, steep-sided defile that provided the only easy route between two neighbouring valleys. The place was an obvious setting for an ambush, of course, and the enemy commander scouted it thoroughly before committing his troops to advance, but Uther had anticipated that and planned for it. His own scouts lay in slight depressions on the open ground above the defile on both sides, covered by nets woven with grass torn from neighbouring clumps. From more than twenty paces, they were invisible to the enemy scouts, who were looking only for large parties of warriors. They were invisible, too, to Uther's own advance guard on both sides of the defile, until they stood up and signalled that the enemy scouts had withdrawn, satisfied that the way was safe.
Uther's Pendragon bowmen then launched themselves at the run, quickly covering the half mile from where they had lain concealed while the scouting progressed. As they approached the lip of the defile on both sides, they dropped to their bellies and remained there, concealed from everyone in the narrow passageway below until the signal came to bring them to their feet. As the bowmen sprang into view of the enemy, Uther's cavalry charged both ends of the passageway, blocking advance and retreat, and the hapless mercenaries, most of whom were on foot, rapidly fell into a confused piled of maimed men and corpses under the hissing, deadly accurate rain of long Pendragon arrows, against which they had no defence.
When it was over, Uther was well satisfied. His men had ended the campaign on a high note, with a victory that would soon resonate from one end to the other of Lot's domain. He sent men to collect the enemy baggage-and-supply train—a rich and valuable haul—and to count the slain, and he was unsurprised that they brought back a tally in excess of seven hundred dead, not one of whom was Camulodian or Cambrian. Not all of the slain had died of arrow wounds, and many had been slaughtered out of hand upon surrendering. Uther knew that well, but he made no attempt to question the report. The hundreds of wounded now left alive, he knew, would be sorely injured and would provide no further threat to him or his. The less badly wounded, who might have been inspired to fight again someday, had all been inspired instead, by their captors, to succumb to their injuries. That was the way wars were fought. Neither side had time nor resources to handle large numbers of prisoners. Local warriors, native to the land in which they fought, might reasonably expect that they would be spared to return to their own homes. Not so mercenaries. Mercenaries understood their own risks when they hired themselves out.
After leaving the scene of the ambush, they encountered no other hostile activity along the way. They were able to keep hunting parties ranging ahead of them at all times, and to everyone's surprise and pleasure, the hunters were invariably successful. The marchers dined on venison almost every day, and in the early stages of their journey, in what appeared to be a reversal of their bad luck, they even found a burned-out farmstead with a pair of granaries that were almost full, one of them holding oats and the other wheat. They found them by accident, for the small buildings had been cunningly hidden in a dense copse more than a hundred paces from the farm buildings by a farmer clever enough to anticipate that it might be to his benefit to have a hoard that was not plainly visible. Unfortunately, it had done him and his family little good, for the marauders who came upon his farm had burned the place down about his ears anyway, evidently killing him and his whole family, without discovering the hoard of grain.
Eight days after that, lit and healthy, the returning raiders reached the point of their journey closest to Camulod, and the following morning Popilius Cirro and his thousand men split away from the Cambrian contingent and made their way without ceremony north by west for the last short stage of the journey home. Uther was sorely tempted to interrupt his own ride home in order to go with them, even for a brief visit, for the young boy in him still tended to think of Camulod, uneasily, from time to time, as his true home. He told himself that it was important that he visit the Legates Titus and Flavius, or whoever was in charge in Camulod nowadays, in order to pass on his news about the impending spring invasion, and for a time he almost yielded to the urge, but his common sense would not allow him to deceive himself that thoroughly, and so he grudgingly steeled himself against the lure of Camulod and its luxuries. Instead he spent an entire evening with Popilius Cirro, first outlining and then detailing and emphasizing the crucial instructions he wished the veteran commander to pass on to the authorities in Camulod.
Uther knew that his relationship with Ygraine, Herliss and Lagan Longhead was still a secret, and that Popilius Cirro knew and suspected nothing. He knew, too, that in order to safeguard that relationship, since the lives of his new friends depended upon it, he must be extremely careful in what he said about Lot's planned invasion the following spring and in the way he presented the idea, because he could not afford to provoke any curiosity about his advice or to suggest to anyone, even indirectly, that he might be in possession of secret or privileged information about Lot's plans. He could not even acknowledge the truth to his own people, simply from fear that any one of them might let the secret slip in a careless moment, not out of malice but out of sheer human fallibility.
He decided that he would have to conceal his knowledge and present his convictions as a set of strongly worded reservations and suggestions based upon opinions and insights that he had gathered during his campaign in Cornwall. His task would lie in presenting them with sufficient authority to elicit an immediate and positive response from the Camulodian high command. If he could word it properly through Popilius, he knew that would suffice, for once the initial work was begun, he himself could add further details and substance to what was happening when he visited Camulod himself at a later date.
He spent hours talking to Popilius, and when he was convinced that he could not improve upon the other's understanding of the situation or increase his awareness of the urgency and strength of his convictions, Uther nodded, indicating his satisfaction. Then he asked the older man to pass along his love and filial affection to his grandmother, Luceiia Britannicus, and his promise to ride back and visit Camulod as soon as he could, in hopes of finding his Cousin Merlyn restored to full and active health. Only then did he allow the Camulodian detachment to strike out for home, carrying their few seriously wounded in their remaining wagons. Then, not even waiting to watch the infantry column until it was out of sight, he signalled to his trumpeter and set his own Dragons and his large contingent of bowmen back on the road for Cambria and Tir Manha.
Even in Tir Manha, however, Uther's Luck remained in force. They arrived back to find themselves the healthiest group in the entire countryside, and before they had been at home for three days, they themselves were beginning to succumb to the pestilence that had swept all of Cambria with the onset of autumn that year. It was not a fatal disease, whatever it was, but it was debilitating, frustrating and painful. Its symptoms were a high fever accompanied by vomiting and loose bowels, and a painful rash that itched unbearably as it began to heal -which it seemed to do after a period ranging from four to six days. The rash then scabbed over as the result of the scratching, and afterwards left small but permanent pits in the skin when the scabs had fallen away.
Uther himself was one of the first of his party to come down with the sickness several days before the Samhain equinox, and because he was the King, he had all the wisdom of the local Druids, and all of the lore they had garnered collectively about the sickness, directed towards his well-being. He was constantly
reminded not to scratch the itch, unless he wished to disfigure himself and endanger his own kingship, since it was a matter of law that a King must be physically whole and completely unblemished. And so for the duration of his sickness Uther remained in his private quarters and submitted to the gentle baiting of Garreth Whistler, whose health was, for the time being, in flawless perfection, and to the gentler, more considerate ministrations of his mother and her women as they bathed him in a mixture of oatmeal and cold water to combat the unbearable itch that covered his arms, shoulders, back and torso.
Time passed, and so did the sickness, but the Samhain celebrations were poorly observed that year because their occurrence coincided with the worst of the outbreak, and even by the time the Roman holiday of Saturnalia came by, towards the end of December, Tir Manha still had not returned to normal.
That changed with the new year, and Uther found himself thankful that January arrived with a mildness that was most unusual. He had regained his strength by that time and was lit again, ready for the task that faced him, so that when Aelle of Carmarthen arrived at Tir Manha, Uther was pacing the floor impatiently, fretting to get to work.
Aelle was the closest thing the Pendragon Federation had to a seagoing warrior. His father had been a ship-builder, and Aelle himself had studied the art, but had soon discovered that he would far rather sail ships than build them. He had handed his interest in the shipyard over to his younger brother in return for a galley of his own, and had then assembled a crew and begun sailing up and down the coast, trading for whatever he could find. Because he and his crew had had to fight for what they held, Aelle of Carmarthen had earned himself a reputation over the years as a doughty fighter, and now he captained a trio of formidable galleys.