The Sorcer part 2: Metamorphosis cc-6

by Jack Whyte

  Thanks to the foresight of Tetra and his fellow quartermasters, however, we had been at pains to annul the impact of our arrival from that viewpoint, at least; I had sent organized hunting parties out to scour the land for game in the last five days of our approach, and we brought wagons laden with fresh meat and even grain, gleaned from the granaries of those new garrisons we had passed by. Heartened by the new strength offered them in those outlying areas, and encouraged by the prospect of a new, safe and bountiful harvest within the month, the farmers in three communities had been grateful and happy to supply us with their surplus at summer's end.

  Another, unforeseeable aspect of the chaos arose from the number of guests in the Colony who had been, with differing degrees of patience, awaiting our arrival. I learned immediately that Connor Mac Athol was in residence, having arrived mere days earlier to find his brother Brander already there, also awaiting me. Ambrose and Arthur had returned the previous month from Northumbria, too, expecting to find me already returned from Cambria, and Ambrose had brought several of Vortigern's senior advisers back with him. They had come, ostensibly, to meet and confer with me about the expedition I would lead northeast the following year, but in reality Ambrose's intent was to demonstrate to these powerful men—and through them to their king—that Camulod, which no one among them had ever seen, was indeed what we had said it was: a prosperous and self sufficient colony and a source of allies far richer than the five hundred Scouts Ambrose had led forth. Finding me still from home, Ambrose had been playing host to the Northumbrian leaders ever since, and those duties had expanded to include Brander, from the moment of the Scots king's unexpected appearance with a full retinue that included his wife, Salina, her niece, Morag, and a round score of the Scots chieftains who were his counsellors. And as though that were not enough, an entire delegation of eleven bishops had then arrived under the leadership of the elderly Bishop Enos, who had ministered to my Great aunt Luceiia. They, too, had come seeking me.

  I discovered all of this from Dedalus, whom we found awaiting us at the head of a magnificent honour guard when we reached the boundary of Camulod at the great north south road. The protocols of welcome and entry to the Colony quickly taken care of, Ded and I rode knee to knee while he warned me of how many people would try to claim my attention. When he had done, I laughed at the irony of my thoughts of Tressa and the wishes I had had so recently. I shared my thoughts with him and he laughed with me, his laughter softer than mine and rich with sympathy.

  Moments later, we rounded the last bend and saw the walls of Camulod ahead of us, crowning the hill, and we were immediately caught up in a whirlwind of welcome and felicitations that swept all of us away.

  A succession of images and partial memories is all that remains to me. I know I met and greeted Brander and his wife, Salina, and Bishop Enos, but I can barely recall the separate groups that escorted each of them. Those faces, all strange to me, blended into a welter of inconsequential greetings. I do remember thinking that since the Eirish Scots were recognizable by their bright colours, and the clerics by their homespun, ankle length robes, then the others who were strange to me must be the Northumbrians who had arrived with Ambrose.

  Ambrose was the first to reach me, and as I embraced him, hugging him close, I looked about me for Arthur, and I remember the keen disappointment I felt when I saw that he was not among the crowd who surged to greet me as I stepped down from my horse. Then Tressa moved forward shyly, and my heart soared with delight as I released my brother and turned to her with open arms, drinking in her beauty. She was dressed all in green, her gown a drape of some fine, soft material that moulded to her every curve and closed my throat up tight with love and longing. The noise of the surrounding crowd fell away in my ears and I lost consciousness of all who surrounded us, my entire attention focused on the glorious young woman who had come to take me to my home and to her bed. She approached me quickly, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling, but then she stopped short, her hands grasping my elbows as she leaned slightly backwards, gazing up at me with eyes suddenly awash with unshed tears. I stooped to place one arm about her waist, and all at once my arms were full of her and I lifted her high, as though she were weightless, to bring her mouth to mine, and all about me I could hear the strangely distant sounds of laughter and applause. Thereafter, from the moment when I set her back upon her feet, I held her tightly by the hand, keeping her by my side as I passed among the throng of well wishers who crowded the courtyard.

  The hours that followed seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, punctuated only by entreaties from each of the people waiting for me that his need to speak with me was more urgent than anyone else's. In each instance I smiled and promised to meet with him at my first opportunity, while behind my smile I wondered how and when I could find, or make, time for any of them when my overpowering concern was focused upon my own burning need to be alone with Tressa.

  At last there came a moment when the three of us were almost alone for the first time since my arrival. I took my brother aside, holding him by one elbow and keeping Tressa close to me with my other hand as I requested the few others in the room to pardon us. Then, as soon as we were alone, I released Ambrose's arm and stepped away to lean against a wall, draping my arm across Tressa's shoulders. Ambrose watched me as I did so, his eyes crinkled in a smile.

  "I am at your service," he said, bowing slightly, his eyes amused. 'Tell me what you want."

  "I want to spend some time alone with Tress. That's what I want, first and above all else, and I'll be disappointed if you're not already aware of that. Then I want to know where Arthur is and why he is not here. And then I want your insight into the reasons why so many people want to talk to me, because I have to find some order in which to meet with them. I can't sit down with all of them at once, and each of them seems to think his need is paramount Connor has news I want to hear, I have no doubt of that, and I'll speak to him first. But until I know what all the others want, I can make no decisions. So, what do you know?"

  His smile did not waver. "In order of importance? Very well. Your first urgency should be your own. Take Tress and disappear until this evening. I will make apologies for your... tiredness. Your second urgency is Arthur. The boy's in love, and that is the only thing that could ever seduce him into being away when you arrived. In his defence, we had no idea you would arrive so soon. The word we had was that you would arrive tomorrow, at the soonest. Then your messenger reached us yesterday with the news that you were ahead of expectations, but by then Arthur had already gone, with Shelagh and young Morag. They have gone hunting, and will be home this afternoon. Arthur will be sick with disappointment to have missed your coming. He's been talking about it for weeks now. You'll see great changes in him, don't you agree, Tress?"

  Tress nodded, smiling at me. "Aye, he will that," she whispered.

  Ambrose continued. "Connor you've decided to see already, and you can do that as soon as you come back up from the Villa. As for the others, Brander has been waiting longest and must leave immediately, once he has spoken to you, but his request is of no great or worrisome moment— I mean, it is to him, but should not be to you. It's not even you he wishes to speak to, really, but Huw Strongarm. He is seeking Huw's permission to move Liam Twistback and his cattle breeders back onto Pendragon land for a time. It seems the clime in their new island home does not lend itself sufficiently to such operations. I offered to pass on his request and assured him I could see no difficulty in the granting of it, but he feared that perhaps Strongarm himself might have come to grief in the war, so he wished to speak to you in person. But you have been long in coming and now he is fretting, wishing to be gone again, back to his own duties. .. " He paused then, reflecting, before he went on. "My Northumbrian guests can await your pleasure. They are in no particular hurry. Bishop Enos, on the other hand, I cannot speak for. I have no idea what his mission consists of, or what time constraints may press upon him. You will have to be the judge of that. That's all I can
tell you. My suggestion would be Connor first, then Brander, since he is a king, then Enos, and then the Northumbrians. "

  "So be it. That's the order I'll adopt. Now, can you get us out of here without our being seen?"

  Before Ambrose could answer, Tress turned in my arm and brought one hand up to lay her fingers over my lips, pressing me to be silent. She pointed out that neither she nor I could be so rudely selfish. She had waited half a year for me to come home to her, she said, blushing to be speaking so openly in front of Ambrose; another half day would be sufferable. I attempted to interrupt her on several occasions, but each time the insistent pressure of her fingertips against my lips kept me from speaking out, and as I listened, I reluctantly acknowledged the truth of what she was saying. Ambrose stood silent, throughout all of it, watching us intently. Finally I nodded, mute. Tress read my submission in my eyes and removed her hand. I stooped and kissed her briefly, then straightened again to look at Ambrose over her head.

  "Well, " I said, "such willing self sacrifice demands respect. Where will we find Connor?"

  We met with the admiral in Ambrose's day room, where we closed and locked the door behind us to ensure that we would be undisturbed. It was cool, almost cold, with that hint of winter that insinuates itself into all places unlit by the sun on short, bright autumn days. Ambrose lost no time in lighting the fire that lay ready in the brazier, and while he did so I went directly to the chest in which he kept his mead and poured a small cup for each of us, gently bidding Tress to sit and let me wait upon her. By the time I turned around with the mead for Connor and Tress, the two of them were already deep in conversation, talking about the new Scots settlement in the islands of the far northwest. I handed each of them a cup and then held one ready for Ambrose when he rose from in front of the brazier, rubbing pieces of ashy grit from his knees. I saluted each of them with my raised cup, and we drank together. After I had sat down, I looked inquisitively at Connor, who then immediately launched into what he had come to tell me, half story, half report.

  As I had suspected, he had intercepted Ironhair's fleet on its way to evacuate the Cornish mercenaries. The meeting was accidental, just after daybreak on a windless morning, when the surface of the seas was obscured by drifting fog. When the fog cleared, the two fleets were in plain sight of each other, and Ironhair was disadvantaged by being between Connor's vessels and the too close, rocky shores of a wide bay. The fleets were almost evenly matched, Ironhair with his bireme and twenty galleys and Connor with his own bireme and eighteen galleys. But Ironhair was also saddled with an enormous fleet of smaller vessels, mainly fishing boats and shallow draft barges, destined for the shore where he had planned to meet his levies upon their withdrawal from the interior and Dolaucothi.

  Ironhair surprised Connor by attacking at once. His massive bireme heeled hard over as its oarsmen put their backs into angling the huge craft out from the shore towards the Scots admiral's vessel, building up quickly to something approaching top speed almost before Connor had had time to assess what was happening. Once he saw what his enemy intended, however, Connor took immediate evasive action, swinging his bireme to the right and then angling back immediately, hard left, as the approaching ship changed course to meet his first feint. As he did so, he released the attack signal to his fleet, turning them loose against the assembled shipping that stretched in an undisciplined sprawl along the coastline, and from that moment on he gave all his attention to the task of dealing with the other bireme.

  For more than an hour, he said, the two great vessels swept and cavorted in a dignified yet deadly dance, each captain seeking to outmanoeuvre and out sail his opponent and to put his own vessel into the winning position. From the outset it was clear that Ironhair's plan was to ram Connor's ship, crushing its hull beneath the waterline with the huge, metal clad ramming horn that projected from his bow. Connor's plan, on the other hand, was to bring his craft alongside his enemy's and capture it, and this desire forced him into a defensive, evasive role. He would await the enemy ship's forward rush and then sweep clear of its path , to one side or the other, before cutting back across its wake and positioning himself to await its next attack. In this, Connor had one massive disadvantage, for his desire to capture the enemy vessel, rather than simply destroy it, exposed him to a hazard that he could not match.

  At each pass, the catapults on Ironhair's raised rear deck hurled pots of blazing oil towards Connor's sails, and although most of these missiles fell harmlessly into the sea, the fire fighting parties on Connor's decks were hard pressed to smother and contain the flames from the three that did land on the fighting platforms, smashing against the dry, pitched wood and throwing streams of blazing oil in all directions to ignite timber, cordage and human beings alike. These fire fighting duties were carried out grimly and in double jeopardy, since the danger of the flames—and there is no greater danger on a ship at sea—was enhanced by the danger from flying arrows. Bowmen on both vessels exchanged heavy volleys, every time they came within range. Connor told me that he had wished passionately for a contingent of Pendragon bowmen on his rolling, pitching decks, since he could see plainly how the superior speed and strength of the Pendragon longbows would have sharpened the edge for him in such a conflict.

  Connor's principal strategy, however, involved a manoeuvre on which his crew had been working for some time, one that he carefully held in reserve until the time was right. Connor Mac Athol played a wily game that made his efforts to evade attack seem ludicrous and cowardly. At first, each sideslip away was without design, save that whichever way he avoided the enemy's charge, he cut immediately across their wake and withdrew to a safe distance. Soon, after several of these flights, his men could hear the jeers from the enemy vessel as they passed by. But that was what they had been waiting for; they had been working hard to earn the enemy's scorn. Now they began to work their master strategy, aiming each lumbering evasion to move themselves subtly closer to the shore. Finally one swift attack, as it went hissing by them, took the enemy vessel into the confines of the bay itself and directly towards the shallow coastal shoals. This time, as soon as the enemy ship had passed, Connor gave the signal and the driving drumbeat of the overseer changed immediately. The rowers on the left all shipped their oars for one long stroke, while those on the right dug deep and heaved, spinning their massive vessel so that its prow now lay towards the enemy's stern, within half a bowshot's distance. The left oars dipped, the tempo of the drumbeat escalated, and Connor's ship went leaping in pursuit of the other bireme, which found itself, for the first time, in the role of prey and in rapidly shoaling water.

  The enemy ship's captain was now practically helpless. He had grown careless, convinced of his own superior ship handling skills, and had underestimated the man against whom he was pitched; it was a fatal error. Beneath his hull the water was growing shallower with every stroke of the oars, yet he could not break to either side without exposing himself broadside to Connor's ram. Instead, showing great courage and determination, he attempted to alter the inevitable by stopping his ship dead in the water. In the space of a single oar stroke, all his sweeps started back paddling, cutting his vessel's headway so abruptly that Connor's bireme seemed to leap forward, closing the gap between the two craft so suddenly that Connor himself was almost completely taken by surprise. It was a brilliant move, and Connor found himself admiring it even as he moved to counteract it, changing his own craft's heading so that it would sweep alongside the enemy instead of ramming it directly in the stern.

  As the two vessels closed, Ironhair's oarsmen struggled to ship their oars, swinging them up and inboard, and they might have succeeded had Connor's bireme not been one oar stroke too close, moving too swiftly, and one beat ahead of them in reacting. Connor's left banks of oars swept up towards the vertical moments before the other bireme's right banks attempted to do the same, and the overtaking vessel swept along the slower one's right side, shearing the rising oars like icicles hit by a stick, smashing them to kind
ling and creating havoc, carnage and utter destruction among the rowers, who, chained to their sweeps, were cut down by jagged flying splinters and flailing oar stumps. Only a few benches of rowers towards the bow of the stricken vessel were able to ship their oars in time, but even they fell victims to the chaos behind them.

  While the left banks of oars were high out of the water, the front right quadrant of Connor's rowers stroked again, driving their bireme sideways into their quarry. As they did so, the two vertical gangway towers fore and aft slammed down to drive their holding spikes into the other ship's decking, creating bridges to the other ship, and Connor's Scots surged forward in a screaming tide.

  Ambrose, Tress and I sat spellbound as Connor described the encounter. The ensuing fight was short and decisive, he said, and he was aided by the fact that his men were not slaves and all could fight. Connor took the bireme into his possession and threw its crew, save only the slaves and leaders, overboard, to drown or swim.

  Only then did he give his attention to what was happening with the remainder Of his fleet. The entire shoreline was littered as far as the eye could see with the wreckage of the smaller vessels that had sailed up from the south in convoy with the fighting ships. Eventually, he would learn that his Scots had won a great victory, inflicting huge losses on the enemy, sinking nine of their twenty galleys and crippling and capturing five others. Only six managed to escape completely. The price of the victory was three Scots galleys sunk with all hands, and two set afire. There were many survivors picked up from all five of these vessels.

  I was glad to hear of the victory, but I was afire to find out about Ironhair and Cardiac, and Connor's news on that topic stunned me. Neither man had been aboard the bireme. The man who had captained the ship was captured and he told Connor that Ironhair had not been with the fleet, nor had he been with the armies in Cambria. He was not even in Cornwall and had not, in fact, been seen by anyone in more than two whole months. He was away, the man said, with Carthac, replenishing his armies.