by M. K. Hume
The countryside was soft and sweet-smelling. Winds came fresh from the unseen sea in the west, and the low, undulating fields were green and golden with long grass, field flowers and gorse. On the nearby hills, heather flowered in pale drifts of pink and lavender and the wide river glinted in the perfect summer weather. The army could have been about a pleasant visit to an amicable ally, so lightly did the impending war touch the warriors as they made their bivouac.
Taliesin gazed at the far bank of the river and thought of Galahad’s obsessed pursuit of Gronw and the Bloody Cup. Both men were gone now, and part of the harpist’s reason hoped that the west would not see their like again. But Percivale’s wrapped corpse had also passed this way, and the wound of his absence was slow to heal.
With his usual skill, Artor had arranged his army on the river flatlands in the form of a deep crescent. Foot soldiers were spread thinly on the horns of his formation, covering a strong centre with ranks that were at least ten men deep. Artor’s strategy for this battle was to use the ancient Roman tactics of concentrated force, coupled with the defensive lessons learned at Mori Saxonicus. He expected the men at the centre to hold their position in the line or die. The infantry ate, practised and took their rest in their fighting ranks along the line. Artor’s troops could rise from their cooking fires and assume their defensive formations within minutes if necessary. Behind the horns of the crescent, the cavalry had set their picket lines.
There was a festive mood throughout the ranks. Perhaps the deep grass, the sweet air and the clear blue skies lightened every heart. Perhaps Artor’s troops were glad to be about the business they knew so well, the terrible and exacting business of killing.
Taliesin started in surprise when he realized that Odin had materialized at his side. For such a large man, the Jutlander was as quiet as a cat, even in old age.
‘You caught me out, Odin. How do you do it?’
Odin shrugged. His broad, craggy face showed no emotion at all.
‘I thought I was alone,’ Taliesin murmured. ‘A time to think, perhaps, before the battle begins.’
Odin shrugged again.
‘Aren’t you afraid?’ Taliesin asked. ‘You’re an old man, Odin, even older than Artor. How can you face another battle?’
The huge Jutlander rested an arm on his double-edged war axe.
‘I started fighting as a boy, song-master. It’s what I do. I’m a weapon. I’m a knife that is fitted to my master’s hand. The knife knows what it is, but it doesn’t choose its purpose. The master sets the knife to work.’
‘You give a grotesque explanation of your purpose in life,’ Taliesin muttered. ‘One that implies that you have no free will.’
‘Why do you insult me?’ Odin thrust his head forward aggressively. ‘What has free will to do with warfare? I’ve always been Artor’s man, and I thank the gods in Asgaad that my master is the greatest warrior in all these lands, even in his old age. How many warriors have been fortunate enough to live as gloriously as Odin? How many warriors earn such a good death as the one that will soon come to Odin, fighting with the greatest warrior of the age?’ He looked down at the young poet.
‘Targo and me, we were made from iron, and Artor fashioned us into his knives, even when we thought we were making him. Targo swore that he had been born to train the young king. Every wound he suffered in his youth and every hardship he endured was designed by his Mithras to help him shape the future king. In thanks for his honest labours, Artor lifted Targo up. Old Targo saw the whole world, and not just his little slice of it. I am the same. I have no wish to live if Artor is dead, for my world would be narrow, and I would have no purpose.’
‘I apologize for my stupidity, Odin,’ Taliesin admitted with humility. ‘Will you accept my hand in friendship?’
Odin extended his sword arm, letting his axe fall unheeded. He gripped the wrist of Taliesin’s sword arm and the two men stood for a moment, entwined as one.
At noon, Modred’s army arrived and began to set up camp on the far side of the shallow river. The disciplined ranks of older Brigante warriors, who had served in Artor’s wars, were in stark contrast to the younger members of Modred’s force, a whooping, shouting, ragtag drizzle of men. A solitary horseman in black attempted to impose some discipline on the camp.
Artor and his captains watched the enemy from a small knoll.
‘This is an army with three heads,’ Artor commented. ‘One head is Pictish, one is Deceangli and the biggest is Brigante. The heads barely understand each other, which is an advantage for us.’
‘That may be so, my lord,’ Bedwyr responded, ‘but Modred has collected an enormous horde of men to fight this battle for him. A whole contingent of Picts has just joined them on the left flank, and there are disciplined warriors among them.’
The arrival of the Picts sent a frisson of fear through the Celtic ranks. Although those bitter warriors had been driven out of the west many years earlier, the Celts had a healthy respect for the blue tattooed maniacs who rarely surrendered in battle, and who hated the Celtic invaders with a passion that was undimmed by the passage of many hundreds of years.
‘If Modred’s forces don’t cross the river,’ Artor said slowly. ‘I wouldn’t consider taking the battle to them.’
‘Of course they’ll come,’ Pelles Minor snapped. ‘Look at them.’
Several pairs of eyes turned accusingly and frowned at this discourtesy.
The short, dark archer was dressed in a gaudy tunic of yellow wool with a cloak of a particularly virulent green. Artor surveyed his vassal’s dress sense and wondered if Pelles was colour-blind.
‘I spoke roughly, my lord,’ Pelles apologized. ‘Hades, I’m a rough man! But how do you suppose such a rabble will hold together for an orderly approach?’
‘I don’t believe that Modred intends to cross the river at all. He wants to force us to go to him, where he holds a strong defensive position.’
Bedwyr’s jaw worked. ‘Surely not! Not even Modred would be so foolish as to believe we’d willingly put our heads in a noose. We’d starve him out.’
‘I’m not so sure, Bedwyr. If they simply sit where they are, and we sit here on our thumbs, we have an impasse. We’ll run out of rations, but he’ll receive supplies from the Brigante people who are at his back. What then? How long would we be prepared to camp on this river bank? Weeks? Months? Passivity has always been Modred’s way, and he’ll use it until we starve or choke on our own shit.’ Artor dragged his hands through his hair.
‘We must offer him an attractive target. We’ll feint a cavalry charge across the river and present him with an irresistible prize. I’ll let Modred think that I’m as stupid as Glamdring Ironfist was, that I’ll advance from a safe defensive position in response to taunts from my enemy. It worked for us at Mori Saxonicus. Perhaps, in reverse, it will work again.’
Across the river, Modred’s army settled down for the night around cooking fires, to eat, drink and hone their weapons. The dusk came to life with the firefly glow of hundreds of small cooking fires while the sounds of laughter and talk wafted across the river on the night air. By comparison with Artor’s quiet, disciplined bivouac, the Brigante and their allies were loud, raucous and over-confident.
In the centre of the camp, barely visible in the fading light, a huge blue tent was raised by a team of grunting, cursing warriors. Its grotesque size marked it as Modred’s resting place.
‘Modred is, as always, ostentatious,’ Artor noted. ‘All he lacks is a sign that says, here lies the king of the traitors. Please fire your arrows here!’
Artor turned his back on Modred’s army dismissively.
‘That huge army does not rest, does not sleep. They drink, dance, boast, gorge and even squabble in their separate companies. How can such a huge, undisciplined body of men fight together? There is our edge.’
At first light on the following morning, Bedwyr, Pelles and the other captains of the western army joined their king on the same low knoll. Across
the river, they saw an ant heap of furious activity that made the High King shake his head.
‘Squabbling warriors eating red meat in the mornings, women in the bivouac with the fighting men, children running through the cooking fires. Modred’s army is a rabble.’
Bedwyr looked upstream and saw a small contingent of Brigante warriors washing in the shallows, collecting drinking water and even relieving themselves in the river without concern.
‘They’re fouling their own nest!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes, and ours. Warn the men to avoid drinking river water.’ Artor’s face appeared almost serene under his oak-leaf crown. Uncharacteristically, he was dressed in gilded armour and he was carrying a brilliant scarlet shield, whose golden bosses and ornamentation glinted in the rising sun.
Artor faced his captains. ‘We spoke last night of a feint across the river to tempt the Brigante to attack us in force, and that is what we shall do. I intend to lead my personal guard in the feint, for Modred won’t stir off his arse for anyone but me.’
‘So that’s why you’re tricked out like a fairground whore,’ Bedwyr said. ‘You wish to make yourself a colourful target.’
‘Exactly. He must recognize me.’
‘But you’ll be in deadly danger,’ Pelles protested. ‘Allow me to take your place. I’m partial to golden armour, you mustn’t be at risk. It’s an audacious plan, and it could work, but not if we lose the Warrior of the West.’
‘I thank you for your offer, Pelles, but my mind is made up. Modred will not risk himself for anyone but the High King, of that I am sure. Even golden armour couldn’t disguise the fact that you’re close to a foot shorter than I am. And I shall need you with your archers. I predict that Modred’s undisciplined rabble will pour over the shallows to become part of the kill, once they have me on the run. Each of his warriors will want to capture me as their prize, alive or dead, and collect the price that Modred has put on my old head. A hail of arrows from your archers, Pelles, will add to the chaos and increase my chances of survival.’ He smiled at his companions. ‘Then, my friends, Modred’s forces can be crushed utterly. Once Modred’s men cross the river, our positions are reversed and his force will be vulnerable.’
Taliesin heard the thin, high cry of a bird and looked up. A barred peregrine hawk hovered high above Artor’s camp. The bird still wore its winter raiment, and its outspread wings were scarcely moving in the light breeze. Taliesin felt a cold sensation on the back of his neck, a superstitious recognition that the peregrine was the symbol of kingship. He raised one hand to shield his eyes from the sun, wondering if the gods had sent this bird as proof that Artor’s cause was just. But when he looked again to where the hawk had hovered, it had vanished.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING
The day glittered with a thin dusting of heat over the sky. The warmth wasn’t unpleasant, even in heavy armour, but men felt sweat bead lightly on their brows as they set about the many tasks that armies require to thrive. Foragers were about, seeking out game to augment their rations; other warriors cut grass for the horses or filled wooden pails, downstream, to water the beasts; wood must be collected for cooking fires, and for miles around the bivouac, the land must be forced to give up its bounty for the belly of the beast. The mundane task of digging latrines was so critical to the health of the army that a team of men was tasked with doing nothing else but oversee sanitation.
Artor’s captains, however, had other preoccupations. One by one, they volunteered to take Artor’s place as decoy. The High King simply smiled and shook his head.
‘You all have a role to play in this, and you must stay with your men. I could find a warrior to match me in build and height but the man in charge of this raid must think on his feet - or his horse - and I am that man. I don’t intend to sacrifice myself for Modred’s pleasure. We only have to engage and hold for a count of ten.
As always, Artor was coolly practical. His personal guard, consisting of fifty superbly trained fighting men, was utterly loyal to him, if for no other reason than their familial relationship with him. He had no illusions about what his planned feint would cost in the lives of his bastard sons. They were dear to him and he grieved at the sacrifice to come, but the cruel circumstances of civil war demanded implacable and unpleasant decisions. Besides, when he died, any new king was likely to kill all of his kin, illegitimate or not, to secure his position.
Artor gathered his captains in the campaign tent, and they were soon bent over a large vellum chart, scanning every detail of the strategy that Artor had devised.
A small scratching announced the presence of a red-haired boy in the tent’s entry.
‘Ah. Ector Minor.’ Artor smiled indulgently. ‘Come forward, young master, and join us. As we talk, I’ll explain to you how a map works.’
Bran’s son was a tall, sturdy boy who was blessed with a powerful upper body inherited from his paternal grandfather, Llanwith pen Bryn. His carrot-coloured hair curled in wild spirals and he possessed brilliant green eyes that seemed to see clear through anything, or anyone, that caught his attention.
‘I can sketch the position of the enemy companies on this vellum as if I was a hawk flying high above them. Can you see how a map gives us an advantage?’
The boy gazed at Artor with cool intensity. He nodded, and Taliesin knew the lad had immediately understood the concepts involved.
‘A map allows a war chief to plan what he might do,’ Ector said. ‘He can see where everyone is, on both sides, and he can change his mind if his enemy does something unexpected.’
Artor grinned delightedly. ‘Excellent, Ector. A leader need never be taken by surprise on the battlefield if he is clever.’
Artor introduced each of his war chiefs - including Bors, the dour Dumnonii king, who rarely smiled under his shock of thick black hair. He had strange, lambent grey eyes. Having only recently inherited his throne, and as a man who had avoided the courts of power, Bors was something of an enigma. Artor explained the histories of his captains to Ector, and acknowledged Bors as kin through the High King’s mother, the fabled Ygerne. Each man bowed seriously to the boy, as if he was an equal.
Ector blushed, but his eyes never dropped as he politely greeted each king and war chief by name.
Artor’s plan could be a triumph of calculated risk, Taliesin decided. Artor saw the whole pattern of the game, like the hawk, while his captains only understood their part upon the board.
Little happened during the course of that afternoon.
Across the ford, Modred’s large, sky-blue leather tent drew every eye but, other than exchanging catcalls and scornful insults, the enemies did not engage.
At dusk, all but the sentries were stood down to take their rest. Stars filled the clear velvet skies with little pinholes of white light, like holes stabbed in a blackened curtain.
‘For the time being, we’ll leave Modred to wait and worry,’ Artor explained. ‘Even that cold-blooded traitor is capable of anxiety while he waits for his destiny to unfold.’
Wrapped warmly in thick furs, the king fell asleep sitting bolt upright in his campaign chair. Ector slept in a pile of furs near the tent flap, while Gareth watched over him.
Gareth’s silver, uncut hair was bound with bands of plaited brass, so that it hung below his waist in a thick rope. His face was a little lined under his deep tan and his body had stiffened so that the limber elegance of his youth was a lost memory, but his appearance was deceptive. Like his grandmother, Frith, Artor’s first foster-mother, whom he now resembled, Gareth was as strong as an oak tree. And as watchful and wise.
Earlier, Artor had charged Gareth with his new and difficult duty.
‘You cared for Licia when our world was young, Gareth, and you still have some years left to you.’
‘Aye, King Artor, my god continues to spare me.’
‘I am entrusting my great-grandson to your care. In the years ahead, Ector will need you to guard his back and offer him sound
advice. His relationship with me, should he become High King, will put him under threat, so he will need someone who knows and understands the corruption of court life. He’s not a playful boy, so he needs someone who will treat him seriously, but love him for himself.’ Artor gripped Gareth’s shoulder affectionately. ‘Besides, you know all the old histories. You lived through them, so who better to make Ector into a man.’
‘But Artor, shouldn’t his father fulfil that duty?’
‘Of course, but his father will be too busy saving his lands to guide the boy’s path. Promise me that you will serve me for the rest of your life in this matter.’
Gareth had bowed his head in acquiescence.
Few Celts slept deeply that night.
The morrow promised blood, and any warrior who could count knew that Artor’s army was vastly outnumbered. Yet the air was sweet with the scents of early summer, and the rain that fell before dawn was light and soft. The warriors were convinced that they were embarked on a war hallowed by God, whoever that deity might be.
Artor rose before dawn stained the sky and was soon dressed in full battle gear. He immediately called on Odin to prepare for a special mission to humiliate and goad the enemy forces into taking precipitate action. Warriors began to wander just out of bowshot range and performed sundry crude actions towards the Brigante camp. They bared their backsides, or their privates, made rude gestures and shouted complicated descriptions of their enemy’s mothers.
The army of the west waited stiffly, utilizing the discipline of well-trained troops for most of that day until, late in the afternoon, a large Brigante warrior rode out into the shallows of the river and shouted out that he was the appointed envoy of Modred.