Voices of the Stars

by Rowena Whaling

  When the Winds of gossip and espionage reached the ‘ears’ of Rome, it was inevitable that it would cause trouble... Trouble it caused! Vortigern’s lofty ambitions proved to be very threatening to the New Rome. The Caesar would not tolerate this. For you see, already had several loose confederacies of Teutonic forces attacked the city of Rome herself – most notably that of Alarick, King of the Visigoths. Then, too, did other “barbarian hoards,” as Rome called them, threaten the might of Roman Armies in ever more far-flung Roman Provinces – and betimes the “hoards” had prevailed.

  Vortigern knew that if he and his followers were to stand up to the might of Rome, they would need outside help – namely from his old friends, the Saxon mercenaries.

  So it was that when these political tensions had reached a boil, a mighty Roman army was sent to Briton.

  This imminent battle, which was to be staged on the morn of the Ides of December – the Full Moon of that month – was to be commanded by one Germanus of Auxaire who had been sent to Briton – funded by the Church’s Pontifus Maximus – under the auspices of The Caesar in Constantinople. At his command was the most feared and highly celebrated legion in the entire Roman world – Caesar’s Elite Guard – fighting under the royal banner of the Purple Dragon... Germanus’ directive was to thwart Vortigern’s campaign completely.

  From the Continent they came – along with those from the West and South of our own lands, and others from the Snowy Mountains within Vortigern’s own territory – all travelling or meeting upon the great Roman road Northward.

  Those Roman Briton loyalists’ forces were stealthy, for they had been notified of the Caesar’s Guard’s chosen field of battle long before Vortigern had got word of it and had therefore travelled the selfsame road three Days before Vortigern’s troops had. As far as I know, Vortigern never suspected their presence, for they had gone to great lengths to post Archers as lookouts along their way, lest someone warn Vortigern, and to sweep the road behind them with branches, so as to camouflage their passing.

  The so called “Britannian” troops, led by their Dux and Lords – most of whose families were former Clansmen – were called to service by Dux Ambrosius Aurelius, the Britons’ highest Battle Commander, at whose side was his younger brother Badraig, later to be called Uther the Pen Dragon. The combined Romano-Celtic-Gaulish troops were a force to be reckoned with!

  Ambrosius Aurelius and his younger brother had already come to fame far and wide as Champions of Warfare and staunch defenders of the Roman lifestyle. Their reputations were those of honourable men. Never had a charge of rape or unwarranted cruelty been laid against them by their defeated foes – or by their women. I was so very anxious to meet them – especially in light of the revelation from my Mother that we were half-brothers

  In retrospect, I must add here an aside:

  As I have previously written, the name Uther means ‘terrible, wonderful’ and ‘Pen Dragon’ means ‘Chief Dragon.’ But, this title was not given to him until after the upcoming battle, to commemorate his success in it. Uther’s baptismal name – for his parents followed the new religion – was Badraig Constantius. In later years, his birth name was forgotten altogether and Uther forbade the calling of himself by any name other than “Uther” or “The Pen Dragon”!

  Now you may wonder if my whole life was a wretched existence during those years. I assure you that it was not. For, any situation of life, regardless of how loathsome, can be tolerated – or may even, in some ways, be made to seem fair – if one can engender a positive attitude, that is – which I have always tried to do.

  I had made a few good friends in Vortigern’s camp who helped to brighten my circumstance. For them I was grateful. Notwithstanding this, my solitude has always been my best comfort. For you see, I am never really alone.

  Oh, it was not that I was ill-treated – in fact Vortigern provided many things for my comfort. The quarters allotted to me were far more spacious and luxurious than ever I needed or wanted. Always did I have plenty to eat – richer foods than I cared for, in fact. My clothing – vestments of my office, as Vortigern called them – were always made of the richest of fabrics.

  About my sixteenth year-turn he had had matching breeches and a cloak made for me out of the finest woolen cloth that I had ever seen. The breeches were of a practical weight, enabling me to move freely in them. The cloak was truly magnificent. He had said – when giving them to me – that “You are a man now and have grown half an arm’s length in height and filled out into your lean muscular frame since first you came to be with me. It is well overdue that you wear a man’s clothing. I had them dyed a blue to match your grey-blue eyes, Gwyddion. Also, as part of your Year-turn gift, I am giving to you a brooch of silver and Sapphires, crafted of the traditional knot work of two entwined Dragons. May they serve to remind all others of your insight in determining what had caused the crumbling down of my original fortress, and of your brilliance in designing the one that now stands. May they serve as a reminder to you of my great esteem for you.”

  I had thought this peculiar – a Commander of war forces, a haughty King, making note of and lauding my physical characteristics... Of course, to understand why he would care to dress me in such a manner, one must understand Vortigern’s predilections toward grandiosity.

  Not long before I left his company he had gifted me with a twisted golden neck torque with Wolfs’ heads on each of its ends – a beautiful thing it was. I had thought at the Time that I should have appreciated it. But its weight around my neck only served to remind me that no matter how he showered me with gifts and honours I was in fact and truth a captive enslaved to him.

  I had always suspected that his gifts to me were vainglorious attempts at showing the world of his contemporaries that he owned and ruled me, his great Magician. I wondered “Am I as an Idol in his Temple, to dress, feed, and flatter whilst binding me upon his personal Altar?” His gifts tasted bitter as weeds.

  Through my years in Vortigern’s service, I had learned by observation the ways of men. But somehow I had never developed their appetites and desires. I had lain with neither woman nor man. For, not only had I feared that somehow the power of my true fortress – my self – might be abdicated in favour of such base desires, but I simply had not had the Time to be involved in such things – for so busy had I been kept in Vortigern’s service.

  Then one Night came when Vortigern forced my hand by an act of great disrespect toward my body – even though he knew that I was not like other men in the ways of lust!

  This happened upon the Night before the battle. It was the last straw in the bale. I abandoned Vortigern to his defeat.

  The details of this encounter and of my abandoning him, I have shared with my Lady Morgan of the Woods. As I know that she keeps written a history of all who are entwined in this web of Arthur’s world – and because even now it pains me to elaborate, I will leave it at that.

  However, I have learned in my life that things in this world turn and change their colours like the seasons of the Trees – one year’s ambivalence becomes the next’s breathless desire.

  But perhaps, that is another story, for another telling, in another Time.

  The Night before the Battle...

  The Night before the battle, I walked the camp closest to where Vortigern’s pavilion was. Only he and the wealthiest Chieftains had covered areas in which to sleep – with the most influential of those camping closest to Vortigern.

  As I walked on I saw the banners of Gwynedd flying proudly above each of the great Chieftain’s tents. First was that of the house of Enniaun Girt. And over there, just beyond them – to the North of and closest to Vortigern – was the pavilion of Cunedda ab Edern and his sons. To his South were the three sons of Cadell Ddymllwg – whose names now evade my recollection.

  And on and on they went...

  Soon I found myself precariously close to Vortigern’s pavilion. I feared recognition so I pulled my cloak hood forward, hiding my face from onlook
ers.

  Smoke from a couple of hurriedly stacked Balefires that had been set with damp logs filled the chill Night Air, wafting through the surroundings like the tentacles of a giant Squid. Strange that this smoke should hold a beauty of its own, yet it did. All of these things were filling me with the eerie sense that, just beyond mortal man’s grasp of this world of form, lurked dark, hungry Spirits awaiting their harvest of dead souls from the killing fields of the morrow. Of a sudden the smoke overcame me – I choked. My eyes began to tear and burn. I realised that more aid was needed from my cloak – I pulled it up to cover my mouth and nose, cautiously breathing through it.

  I laughed to myself at that. I well knew this feeling of suffocation, although not in a literal sense, but in the sense of Vortigern’s overpowering presence.

  Ah, yes – Vortigern... and Vortigern’s pavilion. Always must this vain man have more and better of everything than all those around him. Here he was, about to go into a bloody battle, yet he must show his pretention by hauling to the camp luxurious accommodations for feast, audience, and reclining: Sumptuous bedding, floor and table covers from Byzantium, silver plate and golden goblets with Rubies encrusted upon them. Yes, I knew his pavilion well; for it was here that he had sealed his doom.

  Most of the other men, boys, and wives slept outside beneath the Night Sky – for there were always women who refused to let their men go alone into battle – foolish as that was. So, too, there were the whores who always followed armies – in hopes of plying their trade.

  Some of the men were trying to soothe and reassure their women. Some were bolstering the courage of their sons for what would be on the morrow. I looked around and saw them, shifting from side to side nervously trying to get some sleep.

  Listening to the sounds of whispered voices, fretful in prayer and supplication, the crackling of the Fires, the weeping of women and the restless whinnying and whickering of the Horses – who assuredly felt the mood of the Night – made me think that it must have been obvious to anyone who was at all perceptive that the camp itself was filled with foreboding and the static tension of fear.

  I saw their faces. They were forever branded upon my memory.

  Many of these men I had known for all the years that I had been with Vortigern. Some of the younger men, as old now as fifteen years, I had known as children playing with their toys when the world was to them a less mad and more beautiful place.

  Memories flooded into me from everywhere I looked. There was one-eyed Cadeyrn, son of Bryn, who had first reasoned with Vortigern not to sacrifice me but to listen to my words. He had been perhaps... thirty-five years then... and very handsome. Now he seemed much older, grey and battle scarred. His three sons would fight and perhaps die beside him on the battlefield.

  Over there was my friend, Gwynn ab Gwynn, shivering beneath the blanket which his beloved wife Meryl had woven for him especially for this Night to keep him warm. As for the morrow, it was to cover his Horse’s back, “So that,” said she, “he might sit more steadily on the Roan in battle.” He and I used to have long and interesting talks with one another about timber construction of houses and buildings and better ways of letting the smoke of hearth Fires escape, as well as of the possibilities of stacking chests and affixing them to the walls, so as to hold clothing and other precious belongings – and of many other such innovative ideas. I did enjoy those conversations… Might he survive tomorrow’s massacre? And if he did, what would he think of me for my deserting them at the last hour? Would he perceive this as the slinking away of a coward? Yes... just so would it probably seem to him.

  Lying peacefully in slumber upon his pallet was Baldric the Bard. He, of course, would remain well behind the lines, to chronicle this battle in such a poetic and biased way as to make it seem that all the glory had been on Vortigern’s side – regardless of the battle’s true outcome.

  There was sweet, young Gwendolyn, handfast only two months, weeping quietly in the arms of her beloved.

  And so it went, on and on. I wondered which ones would soon become ghosts? I comforted myself with the knowledge that all things pass with Time and that these memories would soon all become merely specters of my past. Or, so I tried to tell myself.

  This was to be no surprise battle. The old Clansmen and Saxons on Vortigern’s side, as well as the Romans and Britons on Ambrosius and Germanus’ side, all knew that, with the Dawn, rest would cease and the Day would turn to agony and Death – for if this Day did not bring Death to themselves, it surely would to their sons, brothers, friends, or lovers. This would happen even if the battle’s victory and honours went to their own side. Grief was inescapable.

  Even did I walk as far as the Saxon camp. At its entrance – serving as a boundary between themselves and the Clans – was erected a lintel of wooden post and beam construction. There were two huge, rough Tree trunks, still in their bark, serving as posts, with a heavily carved wooden beam laid across them. The carving was of two Horses rearing and facing one another. This was the device of Hengist and Horsa’s long and well-established family line. Two torches, their flames whipping in the Wind, stood on either side of it. I walked through.

  Inside the camp were many crude pavilions flying banners of Animal hides with standards of Boar’s and Wolf’s heads and cruel looking Dragons – identifying the other family divisions of these Teutons. Many of these had been intentionally splattered with blood. In the center of their camp was Hengist’s and Horsa’s pavilions, which were far more elaborate than the others. They flew their Horses standards, which heralded them as “Kings” – as they did by then proclaim themselves.

  I saw and smelled the evidence of blood sacrifices to the Germanic War Gods. Animal? Human? Who could know?

  I kept seeing men make the sign against Evil Enchantment or Black Magic as I passed them by. They feared me. I was no friend to these men.

  But friend and foe alike, all knew that with the Dawn their world would be cast into an orgy of maniacal Chaos – a great feast of Death and horror.

  Their camp was close to the path that would lead me out of sight to cross the Valley to the Roman army.

  The two great armies faced each other on opposing Hillsides across the great Valley. Both were alight with the red glow of camp Fires. The Hills faced each other North and South, so that neither side would have the advantage of the Sun’s rays in the other’s eyes on the morn.

  This Valley lay at the Northeastern corner of Gwynedd.

  There I was, creeping in the Night, under a Spell of invisibility to Uther and Ambrosius.

  “So, this is it, then,” thought I.

  Thus was my destiny irrevocably changed. Never again would I be Vortigern’s counselor, Magician, captive, or fetch.

  I slipped away from Vortigern’s encampment, knowing that he was doomed to fall in this battle, by my doing. Now would I have blood on my hands... not blood of sacrifice but blood of betrayal and murder. So be it!

  Truth was, I felt little guilt. Vortigern was a wicked and evil man. So I told myself. Yet, there was a sickness in the pit of my stomach. There was also great relief, to be rid of him.

  I had come to the edge of the Valley.

  Upon that pre-Dawn twilight, a heavy Mist was creeping along the Valley floor, as was common in these regions. It was hard to tell what kind of Day it would be.

  I crossed the Valley to the other side.

  Then I, Gwyddion, feared by many as “Vortigern’s Great Sorcerer,” hid behind the Trees, trembling. I did not declare my presence to a soul – for this side was, in essence, a Christian army. Although I am sure that history will tell it true – for so well known a fact it is – that most of the Warriors who were on the Roman army’s side were in actuality still worshippers of Mithras, or of other more ancient Gods – and were Christian in name only. Still, I felt that in this instance, caution was better than valor.

  Whilst I hid in the Wood, thinking of all these things, the sun began to peek over the horizon. I then observed the first cla
sh of battle that I was ever in my life to see – a life which would thenceforth hold no innocence from slaughter.

  The Battle...

  Germanus’ and Vortigern’s armies stood upon their opposing Hilltops, each facing the deep, dark Valley below.

  Germanus’ ranks were filed in perfect Roman formations – save for the conscripted peasants, strung out in front of his “official” army.

  This Valley had long ago been de-Forested for the sake of farming. It was rare indeed to find such an idyllic location – protected as it was from the Winds. Idyllic, that is, for farming – as well for battle.

  I will tell you how it was on Germanus’ and Ambrosius’ side upon that early morning.

  The Cavalry waited at the very rear – mainly on the left and right flanks, but some as well behind the Vanguard Foot Soldiers. They were donned in resplendent armour with fancy helms and outfitted with long swords and spears. Even their mounts were resplendent with their silver buckles and ornaments, which held together their leathern harnesses, ingeniously wrapped around them, securing their richly coloured, woven and tasseled riding blankets. Some even had what are called saddles, made from soft-formed leather. These, too, were fitted with silver and gold buckles. Why, I even saw a few Horses who had metal protectors around their eyes, to save them from easily being blinded by enemy lances and swords.

  In front of the Cavalrymen, in all positions, were the Foot Soldiers. They were dressed in what armour they had, with the wealthiest – mostly clad in what I thought to be ridiculously heavy, shiny armour – leading the hoard.

  All of this was intended to intimidate their enemies, I suppose.

  The Archers, in turn, stood just behind the Vanguard’s front line. Long Shield Carriers would protect them from the first three or four rounds of enemy arrows.

  The conscripted peasants positioned in front of the “official” infantry were weaponed with only axes, hoes, or wooden pikes for to defend themselves with – or so as to kill the enemy, should they prove so lucky. They awaited the onslaught of Vortigern’s Bowmen. These peasants, as always, would feel the brunt of the first call – as they were considered the “expendable ones.”