by Andre Norton
The Dragon, the armlet, Modred—How those fitted together the boy did not know. But there was evil here, like black smoke curling from a fire.
“—to the west. Show him this and bid him land where the four torches move right to left before full moonrise.” Modred was speaking.
“You.” The Prince turned then to Argwain. “Take the signal to Maegwin, to Caldor. We shall so cut the land apart before they can drag themselves out of their fields and take up sword to front us. And with that”—he nodded to the bagged Dragon banner—“and such news as we can proclaim, there will be few swords left to them. Men shall not be sure what is true or false until it is too late!”
“No man can say that you do not plan well, Lord King,” Argwain nodded.
“This has been long in planning, but now we act. Let us go.”
Artos had only time to push away from the door, dodge into one of those empty rooms. He stood in the gloom within, his heart pounding, rubbing sweating palms against his breeches, trying to make sense of what he had heard.
Modred had the armlet and the banner, and Argwain had called him king. He spoke of torches to signal a landing. And this talk of peace-making with the Winged Helms—their ships reported offshore—All made so ugly a pattern that Artos could not believe it added up as he feared. He must tell Kai!
The men were surely gone from the arms room now. He crossed the hall to the closed door of the commander’s chamber, pushing it open only wide enough for him to slip through. The moon shone through a window to show a low bedstead, and he could hear the rumbling snore of the sleeper who lay there. Artos laid a hand on the man’s bare shoulder.
Kai had the warrior’s trick of waking instantly, his wits alert, and as he raised himself on his elbows Artos crouched by the bed, spilling out what he had seen and heard. There was a muffled exclamation from Kai, and he sat fully up, his feet meeting the floor with a thud.
“What this may mean,” he said, “is not to be judged hastily. But that the High King must know goes without arguing.” He rubbed fist against fist, and in the moonlight Artos could see the scowl on his face.
“Listen, you,” he spoke then directly to the boy. “This must not be done openly. A known messenger riding forth would give away that they had been discovered, if he were not also followed and cut down.”
“I ride light and I ride as Marius taught,” Artos dared to say.
“Ay, and the High King lies at the hill camp near Fenters Hold. The Roman Way runs north to the Wall, and it is cut by a traders’ track to the sea. It is a clear way.”
“And I have ridden part of it,” Artos was proud to say. “I went to the Wall two summers ago when my father held truce meeting with the Painted People.”
“So you did. Which is another piece of fortune.” Kai pulled at his thumb, turning the circlet there around and around to free it from its long grip on his flesh. It was a giant’s ring to look at, broad and heavy, with a queerly shaped red stone showing the head of a man with horns. Paulus said it was evil, but Kai said that it had belonged to his father, and his father, and that it had come overseas in the far-off days, before the Legions set foot in Britain.
He worked it free with an effort. “This is known, boy. Do not take any horse from the stable here, you would be marked and questioned. Slip into town and on to the post of the first hill watch. They keep messenger mounts. Show this and take the road north. Change at any hill fort when your beast begins to fail. For it is time which draws sword against us in this matter. Now—let us go.”
Artos slipped from shadow to shadow across the streets of Venta. He wore a tunic and cloak now, as well as his own sword belted heavy against him. Marius had traded for that sword two years ago at the meeting with the Painted People. It was a Legion sword, Marius said, loot from some long-ago battle along the Wall perhaps. But the blade was good and Artos’ father had haggled for a long time to get it. It was shorter than the swords the Companions favored, but it was just right for Artos. He had a pouch of rations, too. And Kai’s ring was slung on a thong around his neck for safekeeping.
He might have been questioned if he had not had the ring to show when he reached the hill watch. The horse they brought him—stripped to a light saddle pad for speed—though undersize in comparison to the chargers of the Companions, was picked, he knew, for the steady, mile-eating pace it could keep. And he pounded off along the road thankful for the smooth pavement the Legion had built.
The road ran due north, and though more years than Artos was old had passed since it had been repaired, it was still good footing. Sun rose, and midmorn came. He changed mounts at another of the hill forts. The men here were from one of the tribes, as their plaid tunics made plain. They rained questions upon Artos as he leaned against the log wall, gulping down mouthfuls of bread with just enough barley beer to make it swallowable. To all he only shook his head and said he was on the High King’s business and the message he carried was not of his understanding.
Once more, after noon, when the sun was hot and he had to fight against nodding in the saddle, he changed mounts. This time the watchers were in a crumbling Roman tower. They wore no armor, nor even the brilliant dress of the tribes, but rather had tanned hides on their small, dark bodies marked with blue tattoos. They had bows and arrows, and they spoke in a soft, clipped speech to one another. But their leader—who had a cloak of wolf skin in spite of the heat, the wolf’s head with its upper jaw resting on the man’s head, dozens of ivory fangs necklaced about his throat—spoke Latin, though in a strange singsong.
Though Artos had never seen these people so closely before, he knew them to be Picts from over the Wall—who served not the land of Britain but rather one man alone, the High King. For Artos Pendragon had in some way won their favor and they came to his call.
Tribesmen, Picts, and a small handful of men who, like Marius, still called themselves “Roman” with harsh pride—these made up the High King’s army. Among themselves they would have been sword against sword, knife against arrow. But under Artos Pendragon they were one. His greatest gift was that he could make a victorious army out of such normally divided forces.
Soon after he left the watchtower, Artos swung into the west way. Here he had to slacken pace, since this was no paved road but a wandering track which turned and twisted with rough footing. There were no grain fields to be seen and here the King’s peace was more often broken than kept.
The moon was once more up when the boy saw the scarlet leap of campfires. He slid from his mount, so stiff he could only walk with his hand laid in support against the shoulder of the stumbling horse. His throat was dry with dust as he croaked an answer to the sentry. And he was never quite sure how he came into the High King’s chamber.
“It is young Artos! But what do you here? Call Marius.”
“Lord King.” This time Artos managed better than the croak, found a horn pushed into his hand, and drank some of the bitter beer before he went on. “Lord King”—he fumbled for Kai’s ring—“Legatus Kai has sent me.”
“To come in such a plight smells of trouble. What manner? Do the Winged Helms—But then the alarm torches would have flamed across country to warn us long since. What is it?”
Then those big, strong hands lay gently on his shoulders, drawing him closer, supporting him. Artos spilled out word after word of what he had seen and heard. There were confused voices about him, but they meant little. Then, somehow, he was lying on a camp pallet, and his father’s dark, clean-shaven face, surmounted by a plumed helm, was close to his. He knew he had done what he had come to do.
So the dark time began, and afterward Artos sometimes wondered what might have happened had some small chance led them in a different way.
He was not the only messenger Kai sent, but his forewarning gave the High King some precious hours, which he used well. Other riders went out with the warn-call. Harvest time—Modred had chosen the time for his treachery well.
As men straggled in, a handful here, a better-discip
lined war band there, they learned that Modred had indeed raised the Red Dragon and taken a blood oath with the Winged Helms. Ten ships had the fisherman reported off the coast, but now came tales of twenty, more at sea edging in. It would be such a bloodletting to come as would crush all the High King had fought for, unless he could hold the invaders to the coast.
“But Modred is mad—!” Artos, now his father’s trumpeter, watched Marius bring his bronzed fist down upon the table, setting the drinking horns shaking with the force of his blow.
“No, far from mad,” the High King replied. “Remember Vortigen? Modred is of his line, and so sees himself more truly King of Britain than I. By the reasoning of half the tribes I have no right to this.” His hand twitched forward a fold of the purple cloak draped across the back of his seat. “Until Aurelianus gave me power I was no more than a man with a plan and a dream. Though now that seems long ago. However”—now he spoke more briskly—“no matter how royal Modred deems himself and is hailed by those deluded enough to believe that this time they can play Vortigen’s game with the Saxons and win, I am not about to let the axes of the Winged Helms bring down what is left of life and light in this land.
“Therefore—” He began to talk briskly of men and the movements of an army, those about him listening carefully. Artos saw his father nod once or twice, heard an assenting grunt from Gawain, who ordered the left wing when the Companions charged.
In the end the High King made a small gesture and the serving men hastened to fill the drinking horns, not with the usual thin beer but rather with the strong-smelling mead of the northlands. Then did Artos Pendragon raise his horn high, get to his feet, the others scrambling up to join him.
“Comrades, it may be that this time we go into dark ways. But if that be so I will say it now—we cannot go in better company! If Modred would buy the kingship, and the Winged Helms this land, then let the price be high!”
There was an answering growl as men drank and threw the horns from them, to roll empty across the table.
When Artos and his father went back to their own quarters, Marius stood for a moment eying his son.
“I would have you ride now to Glendower.”
“No!” For the first time in his life Artos found the courage to say that to his father, and in spite of the other’s deepening frown he hurried on. “Is this army so great a single sword can be spared?”
“A boy’s sword? You are no man to ride—”
“And if—if Modred’s men come to Glendower? What of our neighbor Iscar? He has long wanted our lands. You can send me forth only bound and gagged and under guard!”
Marius must have read his son’s determination, for suddenly he looked very tired and gave a small shrug. “So be it. But if you stay you are under my orders.”
Artos drew a deep breath. “That I know.”
Thus he was one of the army that marched south and west. Army? It was hardly a full troop to begin with, though men continued to gather and add to the number as they went. More messengers arrived with ill news of the Saxons pushing inland and of Modred setting up a camp to which came men of the tribes, swearing blood oaths of loyalty under the stolen Red Dragon.
The High King laughed harshly when he was told of this.
“Blood oaths, is it? Do they remember that in the past such oaths were also given to me?”
“But the priests say that they are absolved of them, since they were given to one who did not hold the true church in reverence,” observed Gawain with a twist of lip. It was well known that he was one who followed the old gods, and that the High King had many times been urged by the priests to turn him away for that very reason.
“Men cannot be absolved from treachery so easily,” was all that Pendragon answered.
But it seemed that traitor or not, Modred was gathering the greater host. And only half of it marched under the horse-tail standards of the Saxons.
Artos rode as Marius’ trumpeter and messenger, always at his father’s back as he cantered alone at the head of the troop. Most of them were of the old Roman breed. They used the shorter swords of the Legions, and their faces, overshadowed by the old crested helms, differed from those of the tribesmen. Their standard was an Eagle, mounted on a pole, its wings outspread.
Caius carried it, and his place, too, was behind his commander. Artos envied him that honor. The war horn bumping at his own hip was not nearly as fine a symbol as that Eagle.
There came a time when at last they could see the fires of the enemy camp. But between lay a swampy, broken land, unfit for horses.
“Modred has chosen well,” Artos heard his father say to the first Centurion, Remus, as they looked down from a hillock.
“Traitor though he be, he is still a fighting man. But then he has not yet met Caesar in battle.” There was confidence in Remus’ answer.
They had further additions to their force. Kai came out of Venta with what was left of the defenders there. Artos saw among them a sprinkling of his in-training comrades, so the old and the very young had closed ranks together. Yet no Red Dragon led the van now.
The High King would not let them use the pinion symbolic of his rulership. Instead he gave orders that each man break a handful of barley in stalk from the fields as he marched (so many fields were left without reapers now) and bind it to his helm in sign that he fought not for any king’s honor but for his own land. So it was that a large tuft was on the haft of a spear carried behind the High King as he rode, and a twist about the Eagle carried by Caius.
That night came a sounding of horns for parley across the broken land, now well lighted by torches. Then came a band not of fighting men but of priests, craving speech with the King. They were led by Imfry, one of those who had argued in the past with Pendragon because he would not give more power to the church. Yet the High King had ever treated him with courtesy.
Of that meeting Artos heard only what his father told later—that the churchmen urged a truce wherein Modred and the High King might meet face to face, and perhaps the land escape a bath of blood.
“What of the Saxons?” Artos asked.
Marius laughed harshly. “Ay, the Saxons. But the priests are ever hopeful for the winning of their souls. Their leader, Bareblade, has listened to Imfry, it seems. Well, Caesar will grant them their truce meeting. That will gain us more time, which is our greatest need. There is no trusting in the promises of either Modred or Saxon. Each is to bring an armed following of ten, but with strict orders not to draw blade for any reason. To show steel is to break peace.”
“Do you go?” To Artos’ relief Marius shook his head.
“Caesar takes only two of his captains, Kai and Gawain. If it be a trap he must not lose all of us. And meanwhile, truce or no, we shall be battle-mounted when they go.”
The sun was well up when the High King and his selected followers rode out from the lines of his war host. From those other ranks, where the horse tails of the Winged Helms were insolently planted and the Dragon shaft stood, came others.
“Their Dragon sulks,” Caius murmured to Artos.
That was true enough. The red banner was not proudly bellied out in the wind but hung limp as a tattered rag about its standard. Perhaps it was an omen that the banner of the High King would come to life for him alone.
As the two parties met, the priests to one side chanted a hymn, which reached the watchers as a faint murmur of sound. The sun grew hotter as they waited. Now and then someone in the company spoke in a low voice to his neighbor. But the stamp of a horse because of the flies, the grate of armor as someone shifted position, broke the silence more noticeably.
The ground before them was heath, bog in some patches, ill footing for mounted men. There were some scattered clumps of stunted firs, but mostly coarse grass, sun-browned until it was near the color of ripe grain.
Artos saw a flash of light. One of Modred’s men had drawn sword, was stabbing down at the ground. His steel was bare.
“Truce broke! Truce broke!” The cr
y began low, but swelled into a roar as man after man took it up.
Below was a tangle of men, swords out, clashing—
“Sound!”
Artos did not need that order, the war horn was already at his lips. Its harsh call was lost among other sounds. And then began the charge the High King had planned, the men of the company shouting “Ave, Caesar!” as they rode.
The rest of it was a madness which Artos could never remember except in small snatches. For he was swallowed up in it, swinging the Roman sword. There were distorted faces which came into view and vanished, then once or twice a breathing space when the men of the troop came together and re-formed, to be sent to charge again.
Artos saw Caius go down under a Saxon ax and grabbed the Eagle before it was lost, using its pole to drive against the head of the man who had killed its bearer, knocking him from his feet so that the horses went over him. Each time the troop re-formed the lines were thinner, more men in them were wounded, some clinging to their saddles only by force of will.
The sky darkened, but yet there was light enough to see about them. The High King, his Caesar’s purple cloak a ragged fringe; his shield, its garnet-eyed dragon’s head half shorn away, still on his arm; and that great sword about which there were such awesome tales, red in his hand—the High King, Artos of Britain!
Fronting him was Prince Modred, all his royal finery spoiled by this day’s foul work.
“No!” The Prince’s voice rose in a great cry, as if to see that the King still lived was more than he could bear. He rushed forward, his sword ready. The King prepared to meet his charge.
Modred struck first at the horse and it reared screaming, while the Prince dodged those flailing hoofs. Artos Pendragon came out of the saddle, but he landed badly, stumbling, so that Modred, low like a serpent, thrust around his shield. His blade caught on the rent rim and he could not withdraw it quickly for a second stroke. The High King struck in return, a mighty blow across the other’s body where neck met shoulder. Modred staggered to one side, dead before his body crumpled to the ground.