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by Helen Hollick

  Gwenhwyfar was plucking at her husband’s sleeve, her fingers twitching desperate concern. “You called the men worthless last night, Arthur, and worse. Ider would have been so hurt.” She moved her hand, laid her long, slim fingers on Arthur’s chest, her expression willing him to understand and not be angry. “He is a good cavalryman. In years to come he will be one of your best, but for now he is fresh from youth and angry over the death of his friends.”

  Arthur had heard enough. Abruptly he moved her aside. “So, am I not angry over the death of my men? An attack on my family? Did this whore’s whelp think I intended to do nothing? Expect me to let Amlawdd get away with this insult from his son?” He did not wait for an answer, was already swinging towards the steps, barking orders to make the men ready. “It is not for a young pup to take matters into his own hands. When I give orders I expect them to be obeyed!”

  Gwenhwyfar bit her lip. She had not succeeded in keeping her husband’s temper in check then. At the first step he finished, “I was intending to let Amlawdd sweat for a few days. If Ider, the fool, has gone to slay him we could have a full bloody war on our hands.”

  He did not pause as he ran down the two flights of steps and out into the grey-cloud daylight. “Amlawdd will kill him.” He snarled over his shoulder, “which will save me the bother of stringing him up myself.”

  “Let me come with you?”

  It had taken less than an hour to make ready. Three Turmae of Artoriani, ninety men and officers, were mounted and lined in rank ready to move out. The colours of their standards fluttered in the skirmishing wind beside the Dragon, Arthur’s new banner that Gwenhwyfar had made. Red upon a white background, the proud battle colours of the Artoriani. The sore fingers and short tempers that had gone into the thing! It looked grand, fluttering and tossing from its wooden cross-pole, impatient to be off and doing with the men.

  Arthur swung up on his stallion, ignored Gwenhwyfar, holding the horse’s reins while he mounted. Again, she repeated, “Let me come.”

  “No.” His answer had sounded too sharp, too much a reprimand. Softening his tone he explained his reason for denying her. “I know not what we shall find, Cymraes. If Amlawdd was behind this, he is to be punished, but I cannot risk a war with him, not while Hueil threatens to run the hills tinder-dry in the north. This attack,” he gestured at the stiff body of Rhica bound across a pack mule, “may be as much of a surprise to the father as it was to us.” He sniffed sardonically. “Although I doubt it.” He settled himself in the saddle, tossed his cloak comfortable and gathered the reins.

  “What do you intend to do?” Gwenhwyfar had not let go her hold on the reins.

  Arthur shrugged his shoulders. Do? He had no idea, hoped something would come to mind before he reached Amlawdd’s fortress. “I’ll talk and be polite and politic. An exercise in diplomacy. Assuming Ider hasn’t buggered things up too much.”

  Gwenhwyfar smiled up at him, eyes sparking triumph. “Then, if you ride in peace, there is no reason for me not to come with you.” She put her hand on his thigh, her eyes desperately pleading. “Ider fought well for me, Arthur, were it not for him I would now be a stiffening corpse.”

  “Were it not for him, I would not be riding to stop a war before it starts. I am King, Cymraes, not Ider.” He reached out to run his finger down her cheek, under her chin. “Or do you harbour thoughts that you would rather have him instead of me?”

  She caught his hand in her own, laced her fingers with his. “I know Ider has a love for me, but it is only a cub’s raw feelings for an ideal. He will soon find a woman of his own and beyond his duties, forget all about me.” She kissed Arthur’s palm, placed the hand on the stallion’s reins and met her eyes to his. “For my part, I feel a fond responsibility for the lad.”

  Arthur leant forward, touched her lips briefly with his own. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” A second kiss and held her a moment. He wanted to believe her. Had to believe her, for he could not exist without Gwenhwyfar’s love. With sudden movement, he raised his arm and signalled to move out.

  Not stopping to watch them leave, Gwenhwyfar ran to her chamber and seized up a cloak and the sword that Arthur had ordered especially made for her. Some inches shorter than his own, a blade of thirty-six inches, this had a carved ivory grip fashioned of a size to fit her smaller woman’s hand, and a biting-sharp edge. She buckled on the bronze-studded leather baldric and scabbard, had no time for changing into bracae and tunic. She could always discard the hampering swirl of skirts and fight in under-tunic if necessary, or naked. She laughed cussedly as she ran for the stables. That would stir the men!

  She flung a bridle and saddle on the nearest tethered stallion, and mounted. Arthur was already down the hill, riding at a steady jog westwards. His expression was black thunder as Gwenhwyfar, urging her horse at a reckless speed past the ranks, drew level with him and reined in.

  “I said no!” he roared. He kicked Onager on, causing the bad tempered animal to bound forwards, ears back, neck snaking.

  Gwenhwyfar kept pace. “The insult came to me also, Arthur. You cannot stop me from coming.”

  His hands jerked the reins, causing his stallion’s ears to flatten in protest. Snorting, Onager lashed out, his hind leg shooting out at Gwenhwyfar’s black, teeth bared in response.

  “Bull of Mithras!” Arthur bellowed, hauling his stallion aside. These were war-horses, temperamental, often savage; trained to fight. Then he laughed, ran his hand soothingly down his stallion’s neck and jerking his head for Gwenhwyfar to ride beside him, moved off at a trot. “Damn you, wife, you and your bloody independence!”

  Gwenhwyfar responded to his laughter. “Independence is it? I’m coming along to give Ider a damned piece of my mind before you take the opportunity from me!”

  IX

  Ider pushed his horse on, alternating between a steady trot and the occasional loping canter. The Artoriani war-horses were corn fed where possible. It gave them stamina and muscle, an edge, that essential turn of speed. When he had set out from Caer Cadan, hot with rage and humiliation, he had no idea what he was going to do when he reached Amlawdd’s stronghold. The idea had come slowly, working into his mind and ripening as he rode. It was a good plan. Aye, a good plan!

  He waited under the cloaking shadow of rain-dripping trees until dawn, dozing a fitful, dream-riddled sleep, dreaming of frogs. Several times he woke startled, afraid. He squatted then, hunkered down, afraid to sleep, mindful of the rain-wet long grass hiding the bodies of those repulsive creatures. Waited and watched the night surrendering to the inevitability of day. He could still hear them, the frogs that lived in this eternally wet estuary where the Summer Land marshes drained into the sea. Not for nothing was Amlawdd’s fortress, rising as a dark shadow against the day-bleaching sky, commonly called the Mount of Frogs. Ider detested the things.

  The gates were opening as he walked his horse, head low on a loose rein, up the steep, muddied track. From the vantage point of the watchtower, the keeper looked down through suspicious eyes at the approaching rider. Ider halted, looked up to him, nodded good day. The keeper sniffed disdainfully, indicated the lad’s sword while ostentatiously knocking an arrow into his own held bow. “You come well armed.”

  Easing his buttocks in the saddle, Ider kept his hands well sighted on the reins, away from the sword pommel. “A lone traveller must be prepared for danger on the road.” He smiled congenially. “Even here, beneath the gaze of Amlawdd’s imposing Caer, a man may not be safe.”

  The gatekeeper sniffed again, wiped his nose on his tunic sleeve, did not lower the bow. He ducked his head backwards. “My Lord welcomes only those guests who come with good cause.”

  Ider nudged his horse into the darker shadows that stretched from the gate-tunnel entrance. Raising his hand, said mildly, pleasantly, “Oh, I come with a bloody good cause, don’t worry on that score.” He trotted through, beneath the watchtower, fought the desire to glance back, to see whether the man had lowered his bow.

/>   The clustered, ramshackle dwelling places, as with most forts, were built in a scatter radiating from the heart of the place, the Lord’s Hall. From the escape holes in the reed-thatched roofs, came curling wisps of smoke, dark and sulky against the lead-grey sky. Several women were already about their daily business, one in particular, a dark-haired woman, smiling at him as he passed, the smile beneath her eye suggesting more than that of a simple greeting to a stranger.

  A gaggle of children, mostly boys, milled around Ider’s horse, to escort him up the steep incline to the Hall. Chattering and laughing, asking questions, patting his horse, touching his sword, shield and war spears. He reined in before the Hall, dismounted, handed the reins to the nearest boy. “Take care of him.” He felt in his waist pouch, found a bent and battered bronze coin, tossed it to the boy. Coins were a rarity, the rich economy of the Romans giving way to a return to the old system of barter and trade; minted coins were for the wealthy, and Arthur’s men were well paid. Ider needed to make an impression and the boy’s whoop of delighted thanks suggested he was treading the right direction. For all that, his hand slid to feel the security of his sword, needing the small reassurance as he took a breath and walked into the none too welcoming, gaping mouth of the open doorway, hoping his story of desertion from the Pendragon’s incessant foul-tempered reprimands would be accepted at least long enough to be able to get near Amlawdd. Beyond that, Ider had not planned, but then, there would not be much beyond the killing of Amlawdd. He stepped through the door. A second, fleeting hope, almost a prayer. That his own death would be quick.

  X

  Morgaine sang as she cooked her supper of gathered root herbs and a fat young partridge, a gift left by those who remembered the Goddess. Her pleasant voice rose high above the rain-shimmering trees, echoing her intensity of happiness. She ought not to sing, ought not to be so gay, for soon she would need to find a stylus and wax tablet – and the courage – to write to her mother. She dare not disobey, for Morgause had many bound spies to ensure the words on the wind reached her hungry ears, for all that she was a prisoner of the King and shut away at Caer Luel. Morgaine would have preferred him to have killed the evil bitch. It was a terrible thing to say about your own mother, but the truth was often terrible.

  She would have to write that he had come; that Arthur had come to her… she ceased her song, the words trailing into a silence as she sat back on her heels, her hands going tight around her drawn knees. Morgause had sent her orders, some written, passed through trusted hands, others whispered on the lips of travellers. “Arthur will come, to you,” she had said. “I pay traders to talk of you, and one day his curiosity will make him come. You must get a child from him, for such a child will be useful to me. And then you will kill this Pendragon, for me to raise his child for my own.”

  A single tear slid down Morgaine’s cheek, she let it trickle unheeded across her skin, let it drip. Arthur had come and they had sat together sipping her sweet fermented wine, eating goat’s cheese and fresh baked barley bread; they had talked companionably to each other. Talked and laughed together as friends, a new and wonderful experience for Morgaine, she had never talked for conversation’s sake, or shared laughter with a friend. Nor had she ever loved with a man – nor had she still, for she could not do as Morgause had ordered, could not lie with a man with spite and hate as her reason. She loved Arthur, could not bring about their union by wickedness and greed.

  He had slept, sprawled on her bed of meadow hay and sweet smelling herbs, he had lain back and slept. And she had sat, as she sat now, beside the hearth-fire squatting on her heels with her hands gathered around her knees, watching him sleep. Watching as the strain of tiredness eased from his body.

  How could she tell that hag woman, who so unexpectedly and so menacingly had returned again into her sheltered, peaceful life, of something as precious as love?

  He had woken as day began to fade into evening, his face relaxed, body eased and mind mended. She was a healer, Morgaine, a healer, not a murdering, torturing bitch like her sow-bred mother! Morgaine would not spoil her love for this man with her mother’s cruel spite. Would not!

  More tears slithered down her skin, the fat from her supper dripped on the flames and hissed, the partridge flesh scorching and burning, but Morgaine did not see or hear. Her head bowed to her knees and she began to cry, the great enormity of happiness gone, and in its place a void of lonely despair. She would not betray the Pendragon, not for all the fear and punishments threatened by her mother, because one day, one day, he might find it in him to come to her again, and love her.

  XI

  Delays lengthened the ride to Amlawdd’s fortress for Arthur, Gwenhwyfar and the men from Caer Cadan. The wind had shifted round from the north-east and the clouds shed their load in a downpour that sent the puddles and muddied ruts hissing and boiling. The men tightened their cloaks around their necks and the horses, with ears flattened, tried to turn their rumps into the needle-pointed, stinging rain. Already agitated, a horse shied violently as a bird took sudden flight from beneath its hooves. It was one of those accidents that are unexpected and unavoidable. The horse squealed, ducked sharply to the left, his head lowering, back humping and the rider tumbled across his shoulder, landing awkwardly.

  They stopped to assess the damage, standing drearily in the pouring rain, found a broken collarbone. The Decurion fashioned a sling, one man was detached from the ranks to escort the injured man back to the Caer. Delay. The ground underfoot, already well marshy, sucked and squelched beneath hooves. They could travel only at a walk, any faster and the horses would flounder. More delay.

  Midday. The light was little more than that of early evening. It was growing colder, the rain falling in a steady sheet, the horses’ coats steaming. The view ahead was obscured by the slush of rain and the binding mist that seethed and curled from the flood levels to join the low, menacing cloud. Then, an hour’s ride west of Yns Witrin, they found the bridge down. The river had risen four hand-spans and was gushing in a mass of white foam through the fallen, twisted timbers, swept aside by the raging current.

  Arthur halted, sat morosely regarding the jagged ends of wood that gaped like wolf’s fangs above the fast flow of the river. He sniffed dripping rain from his nose, turned in the saddle, eyed a squalid settlement clinging miserably to the higher ground a quarter of a mile off. A haphazard clutter of decrepit wattle huts squatting between scrubby rectangular fields divided by hawthorn hedges, the plots resembling the staggered pattern of a mortared brick-built wall. The hawthorn, once cut and twisted into an efficient barrier for keeping stock in or out, was escaping its enforced lacing, its seedlings growing up like boar’s bristles, unchecked, unkempt. The outer fields were untended. Come harvest, thistles would choke what little corn grew. A despondent place for a pathetic community of people who no longer cared.

  A man nursing an axe stood watching the men ride up from the river. Ragged sacking covered his head, crude leggings and grass-stuffed boots adorned his legs. His beard was unkempt, his hair unshorn, fleas and lice shuffled and hopped about his clothing and unwashed body. As Arthur approached, he waited, holding that great, sharp-honed axe across his folded arms, the blade bright, glistening among the dark rattle of rain.

  The dwellings, appearing decayed from the kindness of distance, turned out to be worse than that. Two were burnt-out remains, gutted, with only a few pathetic reminders to show a building had once stood there. Another had only its front wall standing, nothing else; a fourth, no roof. Among it all lay the black, heat-twisted remains of bodies. Women, young children, a cow, two goats, and even a skinny, mange-furred dog. Beneath the shelter of a partially collapsed wall of the fifth, a bedraggled woman squatted with three round-eyed children, huddling cold, wet, hungry and miserable.

  “When, how, did this happen?” Arthur asked, appalled, as he approached and reined in. He had seen squalor, seen the ruin left behind an invading army or victorious rout. But this? The Summer Land was peaceful, re
latively prosperous.

  The man took his time to answer. He looked directly at Arthur, assessing him, chewed on toothless gums, spat. “Day afore yesterday.”

  The Decurion beside the Pendragon asked, “When did the bridge go?”

  The man studied him and glanced almost with a sneer at Gwenhwyfar, some paces behind. He spat again into the ankle-deep mud. “Don’t rightly know, nor care.”

  The Decurion leant forward in his saddle, impatient. He spoke loudly, slowly, as if talking to an idiot moon-calf. “Has a lone rider passed this way during the night?”

  “Don’t know that either.”

  “Imbecile! Do you know anything?”

  Arthur motioned for his officer to be silent, brought his right leg over his horse’s withers, casually hooked it over one of the two front saddle horns.

  He looked around at the overgrown hedges, a gate-less gap in the wall. The place had been raided and burnt, but had there been anything worth the looting?

  He indicated the poorly kept walls. “Your village is undefended.”

  “Not much worth defending.” The man was becoming irritating.

  Arthur smiled, enforcing good nature, slid from his horse, his feet sinking in the ooze. “Is it not worth defending them?” He gestured at the children, the dead.

  “What chance did we have against armed men?”

  “Where are the rest of your menfolk?”

  The man scratched behind his left earlobe, eventually nodded towards a piled heap of timber and rubbish that had been burnt. “They killed ‘em. Tied ‘em up, burnt ‘em.” Arthur decided against pursuing further questions. The answers were too sickening.

  “You are alive,” the Decurion observed with a snarl. The man did not rise to the bait, stared a moment, shrugged, spat, answered, “I were not ‘ere.”

  Again, Arthur waved his officer quiet. They had not the time to stand bickering. “Where do folk cross the river when the bridge is down?”