by Jack Whyte
The army had been assembled in its divisions—infantry, cavalry and Cambrian clansmen—for hours, and complete stillness fell over the entire assembly as the men waited for Uther to speak. He took his time, savouring the anticipation in the air, theirs and his own. Then, when he judged the moment to be exactly right, he removed his helmet and slung it from the bow of his saddle before standing up in his stirrups and loosening the clasp of his great red cloak with its emblazoned golden dragon. He swung the garment up and off his shoulders, swirling it around in a great sweep of colour and then catching the folds of it in the crook of his left arm and draping it across his saddle in front of him. Only then did he begin to speak, using his command voice, and his words were clearly audible to every man there.
"Well, lads, the weather's breaking. It looks like a fine day to go to war."
The sound that greeted his opening words was a low rumble, like distant thunder, swelling rapidly, then dying away to silence again. Uther swept the assembled ranks deliberately with his eyes, moving his head slowly from left to right, his gaze taking in every element of the troops massed in front of him.
"We'll be in Cornwall three days from now, and you all know why. There is a pestilence in that country, and we are chosen to stamp it out. Think you we're up to it?"
"Aye, Uther, that we are!" It was a single voice, shouted from an unknown throat, but it brought a bark of laughter and a swelling chorus of agreement.
Uther shouted into the sound as it died away, "That man has won a jug of ale for himself and all his squad mates in camp tonight. Who was he?"
A stirring among the ranks then and a small commotion marked the source of the first shout, and the man, a Camulodian cavalry trooper, raised one hand above his head. Uther pointed him out to everyone who had not seen him.
"What's your name?"
"Caseady, King Uther."
"Well, Caseady, present yourself this night to the camp quartermaster and collect your prize, but you had better bring a friend to help you carry it and prevent you from drinking all of it yourself." This brought another shout of laughter, cheers and jeers, and Uther waited until it had died away completely before speaking again, his voice now sober and serious.
"We are two thousand strong, lads. Not the biggest force that Camulod has ever sent to war, but by all the gods, we might be the strongest and the most agile. We have horse and foot, both, and the finest bows and bowmen in the world. Camulod and Pendragon, side by side. Lot of Cornwall has nothing that can stand against us, but our dearest hope must be that he will try the truth of that. If he does—and he will—he'll rue the day he ever saw us coming. Are you ready for him?"
A great shout of "Aye!"
"Aye, we are, but hear me clearly. We are not marching into Cornwall to stand there and tight in enormous battles. We—you, every one of you—are a striking force. Our objective is to move quickly and constantly, striking hard and fast wherever we encounter hostiles. We are going raiding, lads, and even if we fail to find oily King Lot, we'll smash his mercenaries and we'll kill his confidence. Now, are you ready for him?"
"Aye!"
"Is he ready for us!"
"No!"
"Good! Then let's go and show him the damnable blunder he made when he invaded Camulod and Cambria. Move out!"
He stood up straight in his stirrups, drew his long sword and waved it above his head in the recognized signal, and as the cheering began to die away, the first signs of disciplined movement began among the individual columns of men and horses. Uther watched them for several more moments, then turned to his companions and nodded to each of them in turn before dismissing them to their individual duties. After that he rode back up the hill to the high vantage point overlooking the campus, where his mother and his grandmother stood with Merlyn, Donuil, Titus, Flavius and several others who had assembled to watch another Camulodian army start out on a campaign.
From the centre of the assembly, in the middle of the vast campus, a full score of enormous commissary wagons began to move, slowly and ponderously, each of them hauled by a rough-matched team of eight huge horses and commanded by an expert teamster, who sat up high on the driver's seat, wielding the reins in one hand and a long, leather whip in the other and rolling on his high, swaying perch like a sailor in the mast lookout of a seagoing galley. Slowly and sedately the wagons rolled forward and arranged themselves into pairs to assume their place in the middle of the long column of Popilius Cirro's infantry, where they would be safest from attack and depredation. The commissary wagons were the soldiers' lifeline, representing food, drink and warmth, and no enemy would be permitted to approach them casually. Watching these majestic vehicles lumber slowly into motion, noting the size and number of them, their ponderous dignity and the enormous swarm of lesser cargo and supply wagons that followed behind in support of them, Uther could appreciate more clearly than by any other example the scope and duration of the adventure on which they—all of them, his Cambrian men and Camulod's best and finest—were now being launched. By the time they returned from this campaign, those among them who did return, these mighty wagons would be empty of supplies and their ancillary support vehicles long since emptied and set to service like the commissary wagons themselves as transportation for badly wounded men. That would be many months in the future.
Uther had made all his farewells to everyone, and he had been more aware than ever before that he might never see any of his beloved friends and family again. Of them all, the leave-taking that had pained him most was the parting from his Cousin Merlyn, who had smiled and hugged him close and wished him well with absolute conviction and sincerity—though the Caius Merlyn Britannicus with whom Uther had grown to manhood would have had to be tied down to his bed and then locked up in a barred cell before he would have permitted Uther Pendragon to ride off to war without him at the head of a Camulodian army.
As the main body of his infantry began wheeling and regrouping into their marching formations, Uther turned his head slightly and glanced again at his cousin. Merlyn was watching the troops closely, the expression in his eyes making it clear that he was enjoying the intricacy of their disciplined manoeuvres, but there was nothing there that reminded Uther of the Caius Merlyn of his younger days. He heaved a great sigh, filled with regret, then turned to his left and bent forward in his saddle, reaching out to where his Grandmother Luceiia sat beside his mother, close by him, in a light, one-horse cart that her husband Publius Varrus had built years earlier. Luceiia saw him lean towards her, reaching, and stretched her hand out to meet his. He kissed it, squeezed it gently, nodded to her one last time, blew a kiss to his mother, and then dug his spurs into his horse's flanks, kicking it down towards the departing army on the great plain.
Chapter THIRTY-SIX
Even before penetrating Cornwall, Uther had decided that he had no wish to waste time and manpower in besieging strongholds, so from the outset of his campaign he took evasive action every time his scouts identified a strongly held, fortified position. He preferred to send his army looping around the obstacle, rather than run the risk of being inveigled into a long, costly and unsatisfying siege that would tie up most of his resources. He took particular care, too, in not merely avoiding but staying far away from several of the largest and best-known strongholds, in particular Golant, Lot's own strongest holding and his most often used base, and Tir Gwyn, Herliss's White Fort. Herliss, he knew, was gone, and it would not have surprised him to learn that his stronghold had been seized by Gulrhys Lot. Until he knew one way or the other, Uther had decided he would be cautious and make no attempt to approach the place.
Passing it by on his first advance southward, however, he had dispatched Nemo alone on foot at the closest point of his approach to find out what she could about the situation in the White Fort. Nemo had gone willingly but slowly, in the guise of a homeless peasant and armed only with a heavy cudgel and a knife with a rusted but serviceable blade, and she had been clearly warned, however needlessly, about the potentia
l dangers in penetrating an enemy stronghold.
Nemo was gone for nigh on three weeks, and then returned bearing mixed tidings. Tir Gwyn had been confiscated, as Uther had guessed it might be, forfeited by Herliss as punishment for his continuing absence from Lot's service, and it was now garrisoned by a strong detachment of mercenary Outlanders. Nemo had entered the fort easily enough, finding it full of rootless people whose only common bond was that none of them was from Cornwall, and had immediately begun blending into the place, attracting no attention, but listening closely and waiting until she felt her face had become familiar to the people around her. That had taken ten days, Nemo estimated, and after that she had begun casually and indirectly asking questions.
It was common knowledge that Lot's fury on learning of the defection of Herliss and Lagan had been spectacular in its insanity: he had slaughtered the entire party that brought him confirmation of the disappearance, despite his full awareness that he himself had sent them out specifically to discover and report the truth of the situation. He had apparently seen no irony in having them killed for succeeding.
No one knew where Herliss and Lagan were hiding, Nemo reported, but rumours abounded that they had been joined by several other powerful Cornish Chiefs and leaders, and that they had raised and were training an army of Cornish clansmen outside the boundaries of Cornwall itself to invade their own homeland and overthrow Gulrhys Lot. As a direct result of these rumours, Lot had withdrawn most of his free-ranging mercenary forces and formed them into armies again, keeping heavy concentrations of them within the protecting walls of the score and more of hill forts, some of them ancient and unused for hundreds of years, that were scattered the length and breadth of Cornwall.
Uther was prepared to accept Nemo's news with relief, since, along with everyone else in his army, he had been finding it hard to accept that they had spent more than four weeks in Cornwall, marching openly from one end of the peninsula to the other and then back again, without ever encountering an enemy force large enough to fight. They had seen many small groups, but those were always small enough and clever enough to disappear into the nearest hills immediately upon catching sight of the Camulodian host.
Uther's Cambrian scouts, predominantly Pendragon bowmen, ranged as far as three miles ahead of the main army at all times, forming a moving, semicircular screen around the advancing troops, and they were the ones who monopolized such fighting as there was, surprising small, unsuspecting groups of enemy warriors, many of them hunting parties, and dispatching them swiftly and effectively from hundreds of paces away.
Despite the lack of a tangible, physical presence, however, it was plain to Uther's people that the enemy had been here recently, for the entire land lay ravaged in the aftermath of the Outlanders' revolt. Burned and ruined buildings lay everywhere they looked: huts, cottages, roundhouses and longhouses, many of them built of wood and recognizable now only by the shape of their charred remnants. They found larger settlements, too, where people had congregated in hamlets and permanent encampments, usually at a crossroads of some description, although the "roads" were frequently little more than well-worn tracks or livestock trails, and close to those settlements, all of them ruined and abandoned, the Camulodians could not fail to note, mainly because of the inescapable stench, the rotting corpses that hung from almost every tree.
Garreth Whistler brought it to Uther's attention that among the burned-out buildings, most of those that had been built of stone had had their walls pushed down after the fires, after the roof trees had fallen in, because the fallen stones of the walls invariably lay on top of the charred timbers and ashes of the thatched roofs. Plainly the damage had been more than a mere incidental by-product of war. These buildings had been demolished deliberately in order to deprive local people of shelter and living space.
Uther nodded and took careful note of the fact, filing the information away for retrieval later when he could think about it properly. For the time being, he had other matters on his mind, not the least of which concerned Ygraine's whereabouts. He had blindly expected her to contact him when he entered Cornwall. Now, after days of watching and waiting, he had to admit to himself that he had no idea where she might be and no way of discovering whether she was well or unwell, or whether she was free or being confined against her will in one of Lot's many scattered strongholds. The helpless frustration of not knowing dominated everything he tried to do.
Finally, sitting by his own small campfire on a cold night after a long and exhausting day spent ploutering about in fetlock-deep mud and pouring rain, Uther took Garreth Whistler into his full confidence and told him everything about what had happened between him and Ygraine. The King's Champion listened attentively, without attempting to interrupt the tale, and then sat staring silently into the fire after Uther had finished.
He had known, he said, that there was something going on in Uther's mind that was distracting much of his attention from the task at hand. Now that he knew what it was, he felt greatly relieved, particularly since he could tell that Uther was worrying needlessly. When Uther challenged him on that, surprised by such an offhand dismissal of his concern, Garreth merely shrugged and pointed out that the Queen was at the full term of her pregnancy, a cruel and demanding time for any woman, when her mind must be awash with fears and concerns over her own life and death, and with the entire spectrum of birth and survival and the health and welfare of both herself and her first-born child. Unrealistic, he grunted, for Uther to expect that she might make the time to sit down, empty her mind of her own concerns and write him a letter, even had she the freedom and a willing, trustworthy scribe to write for her.
He pointed out, too, that she had also told Uther openly in her last letter, by his own admission, that she was beset and surrounded by Lot's spies and was being closely watched, and that she had been able to write to him on that occasion thanks only to the god-sent, unexpected opportunity presented by the wandering priest who had visited her. Would she, then, be tempted to destroy herself and her child, the Champion asked, by entrusting any kind of message to the people surrounding her simply in the hope of soothing his troubled brow? Uther's fretting was pointless and illogical, since common sense could explain the Queen's silence. Besides, he growled, it was unworthy, womanish behaviour for a King at the head of an army that looked to him for manhood and leadership.
Uther's natural reaction to this was to bluster and object, but Garreth Whistler gave him no chance. Presumably, he continued, Ygraine had not yet come to the birthing stage. After all, had the birthing been successful and produced an heir born to his legitimate Queen, Lot would have had the tidings trumpeted from every dunghill in Cornwall. Had it been otherwise, had anything happened to Ygraine or to her child, be it male or female, that word would also be abroad in the land, whether Lot wished it or no. But word of neither event had been heard, so Garreth thought it safe to assume that there had been no birth yet.
Uther listened and was grateful, although he knew that nothing in Garreth's words spoke of Ygraine's welfare. The fate of the child's mother would mean less than nothing to Gulrhys Lot compared to the reality of having a son of his own. If there were the slightest question of choice, of the life and health of one over the other, Ygraine would die as soon as the question was defined. The birth of a daughter, on the other hand, would be unimportant to Lot, but it would remove both mother and child from danger.
Listening to the Whistler's words, Uther dismissed his anger and became convinced that he had been worrying needlessly and prematurely, for the hard-headed truths Garreth was uttering were exactly the kind of sensible, pragmatic direction and opinion he had come to expect from this extraordinary man. Garreth Whistler had now been Champion to three Pendragon Kings, having transferred his allegiance naturally and easily to King Uric upon the death of Ullic Pendragon, and Uther had been greatly pleased, when he himself had become King on his own father's death, that Garreth Whistler had agreed to serve as his Champion, in turn.
Uther was still thinking about the Whistler, smiling in appreciation of a loyal friend, as he lay down on his cot that night, and he slept better than he had in a long time.
Three days after that conversation, a letter arrived that changed everything, brought into camp at dusk by a messenger who carried Uther's own ring, the one he had left with the Queen, on a leather thong about his neck. The fellow carried Ygraine's letter securely bound at the small of his back, five large pages of fine papyrus covered in a strong but concise and clearly legible hand and folded lengthwise into a soft, narrow leather pouch.
Much news, little time to tell it. This must be completed and gone within the hour, a fleeting chance gained when least expected. I am speaking it aloud to Joseph, my priest and confessor, who has arrived at the perfect time to write this for me.
Your son is born and he is beautiful, the image of his father, save that he has shining, wondrous eyes of yellow gold, the like of which I have never seen. He came to us three weeks ago at the second hour of morning, and I have named him Arthur, since you were not here to advise me of any other name. He is glorious to behold, perfect in every detail.
May God defend us, for should this letter be found and read by unfriendly eyes, then we are dead, my babe and I. The man bringing it to you has been known to me all my life. He is Erse, his name is Calum, and he is one of my brother Connor's most trusted men, sent to me in secret, disguised as a mercenary, in order to find out if I am well. Connor wants to take me out of Cornwall, home to my father's Hall in Eire. Calum will return to my home when he leaves you, bearing the tale of my misery, although he knows naught of me and you, or of our son, and soon Connor will come to take me home.
In the meantime, I have my son. The Monster has not seen him and does not even know he lives, even after three long weeks of happiness for me. I am surrounded again by my own people, and have been so for several months, for which I thank God daily, and we have managed to achieve a miracle despite the presence of the Monster's creatures crowding around my doors. One of my serving women, Clara, had her child the night before I had mine, and we were able to conceal my birthing the following night. It was sudden and relatively silent, and the concealment was unplanned at first, until we found that no one outside my chambers had even been aware of the event. Now Clara suckles my child, although I do, too, when I can be unobserved. Another of my women has sewn me a girdle containing a pillow large enough to make me look as though my babe is still to come, and so we have been able to pretend that nothing has yet occurred. I know not how long we will be able to keep up the deceit, but as long as we can, we will.