Nell ducked her head and groveled. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t punish him. It was me, cleaning up for my lord Modred.” She straightened in order to give the officer her sweetest smile, thankful from the bottom of her heart that this wasn’t Beorhtsige, who would have recognized them both.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “What do you have there?”
“I was to take this to be laundered.” Nell held out the bundled blanket. She shouldn’t have kept the bracers, but she hadn’t wanted to leave any trace of their presence behind for Modred to find.
The man snorted and waved a hand. “Be off with you before the king returns.”
Nell obeyed instantly, hustling around to the back side of the tent. The sword was still there, but she didn’t bend to it yet. She wanted to wait to make sure Myrddin got away and she wasn’t needed again, but then she heard the captain say. “Move from this spot and I will have you whipped!”
“Yes, sir!”
Nell peered around the corner in time to see the captain nod his approval of Myrddin’s response before moving away. Unfortunately, he didn’t move away far enough and seemed to be waiting for something—possibly for Modred’s return. Nell couldn’t believe the speeches were ongoing, but maybe Modred was more longwinded than Arthur. While Myrddin would want her to return to the woods to wait for him, she couldn’t just run away when he was so close to being caught.
A roar went up from the center of the camp, and people began moving back towards their cooking fires. The meeting had ended. Dinner was next. It was possible that Modred would eat in the command tent with his captains, but it was equally likely that he would return to his own tent, a woman or two in tow.
Feeling like time was slipping away from her, Nell straightened her skirt, tucked the bundle more securely under her arm, and walked to where several soldiers had stopped to talk near the closest fire. One of them said, “It’s just as well Arthur escaped. Now we can kill him and his army in one go!”
The others laughed. She’d wondered what kind of brave face Modred would put on their escape, and now she knew.
She chose to speak to the youngest of them. “That captain there? What’s his name?”
The young man turned to look. “Leofric. Why?”
She ducked her head. “My lord Beorhtsige sent me to fetch him, but I feared to approach him, since I know he has a terrible temper and no patience with women.”
One of the other men laughed. “You have the right of it.” He looked her up and down. “You belong to Beorhtsige?”
“Yes, my lord.”
He laughed. “I am no lord, but I don’t mind helping Beorhtsige’s woman. I’ll tell Leofric. Where is Beorhtsige?”
Nell pointed with her chin to indicate the center of the camp. “Thank you so much!” And then to her horror, she really saw him. He was taller than most men and stood out even among Saxons, who tended to be taller than the British.
The man rose to his feet and sauntered over to Leofric, who looked sharply at him before glancing towards where Beorhtsige was conferring with some of the other captains. With a nod, Leofric marched away. As Nell’s new friend turned back to the campfire, Nell put up a hand in thanks.
Myrddin must have been waiting for any chance to depart, because he moved the instant Leofric’s back was turned and darted between two neighboring tents. Nell lost sight of him immediately.
Remembering the sword, Nell walked casually behind Modred’s tent. She stood over the sword for a moment before bending to pick it up and tucking it inside her cloak, pressed against her side under her left arm, which still held the wadded up blanket. Then she headed towards the eastern edge of the camp. Once she was a hundred feet away, she picked up her pace, weaving in and around the tents and fire circles, praying nobody stopped her and hoping she had such a look of purpose on her face that they wouldn’t.
Finally, she reached the edge of the camp and looked back. She didn’t see Myrddin, but there were hundreds of men within hailing distance in Saxon helmets. Myrddin would think that she’d done the sensible thing and left. Nell took in a breath, telling herself that she’d done what she could, and it would be foolish to continue to search for Myrddin when he might have already reached the safety of the woods. It was time for her to do the same.
Chapter Twelve
16 December 537 AD
Myrddin
The entire time the captain had been watching, Myrddin’s heart had been in his throat, fearful that he would be recognized or someone would notice his unusual bulk. Myrddin himself was on the tall side, but not freakishly so. Modred’s armor actually fit him quite well, which perhaps shouldn’t have been surprising since he and Modred were cousins. King Arthur was slightly broader around the waist than they were, being older, but Myrddin was confident that the armor would fit him too.
Then, in answer to Myrddin’s prayers, the captain turned his back. It was just the moment Myrddin had been waiting for. The key was to get out of sight as quickly as possible, so he slipped between two neighboring tents and kept going at a run, his head down, as if someone had sent him on an urgent errand. Only after he was several fire circles away and on the perimeter of the camp did he pull up and look for Nell. He didn’t see her.
Unfortunately, as he was gazing around, he caught the eye of another man who outranked him. “You there!”
Myrddin stiffened to attention. “Yes, sir!” Like Modred in the visions, Myrddin would have felt invincible if he wasn’t terrified that at any moment someone would recognize him. If that happened, armor or no armor, his head would be removed from his body.
“Who are you and why are you not at your posting?”
Myrddin looked straight ahead, not into the man’s face but at the space above his right shoulder. “My name is Cedric, sir. I am on watch on the perimeter.” He sent a silent plea for forgiveness to Lord Cedric for borrowing his name. It was the first Saxon name that had popped into his head.
“Then why are you not there?”
“I am headed there now, sir. Something I ate disagreed with me, but I’m better now.”
The man grunted. Myrddin still hadn’t gotten a good look at his face and didn’t want to. He had finally realized what the problem was: he was wearing a helmet. Only men on duty wore their helmets, and any true soldier in Modred’s army would know it. While his gear hid Myrddin’s features, it also called attention to him. It was too late to correct that mistake now.
The officer made a dismissive gesture. “Be off with you then.”
“Yes, sir.” Myrddin turned smartly on one heel. Hastily attempting to formulate some kind of plan and knowing without turning around that the officer was watching him, he set off across the empty space that formed a no man’s land around the camp. He was very close to the spot where he and Nell had come in. Unlike in Myrddin’s dream, Modred had not thrown up a palisade around this camp.
Myrddin decided that his best option was to relieve the soldier he and Nell had snuck past earlier. He marched straightforwardly there, as if he knew what he was doing. It was only when he approached to within fifty feet or so, however, that he noticed that a second man guarded the perimeter, this one standing farther down the hill from the sentry, right on the edge of the trees.
Myrddin hesitated at the sight of him, but the first sentry had heard him coming. He turned, a finger to his lips, and whispered. “You’re my relief?”
“Yes.”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t know you.”
“Cedric.”
“Aelfric.”
They nodded at each other in the companionable way soldiers of equal rank do. Aelfric didn’t leave, however, because at that moment the man who’d been relieving himself on the edge of the trees turned towards them. As he approached, his face showed clearly in the torchlight behind them.
It was Modred himself. The sick ball of fear that had been Myrddin’s constant companion up until now solidified into a solid rock in Myrddin’s gut. At any moment, Modred would recognize h
im, and he would die, and everything they’d done would be for naught. Still, like mummers in an Easter play, Myrddin resolved to see this through. As long as there was life, there was hope, and he refused to lose faith at the last pass—even if it was the last pass.
Myrddin and Aelfric bowed and said, “My lord.”
Modred nodded. “As you were.”
When the two men straightened, Modred pointed with his chin at Myrddin. “And you are?”
“Cedric, my lord.” Myrddin choked out the words, and perhaps because he was so nervous, the name came out guttural with little relationship to his natural voice. Modred seemed to think nothing of it, and Myrddin allowed himself a thin, shuddering breath. He was intensely grateful that his back was to the light, so all Modred could see of his face were faint features and shadow.
Then Myrddin’s heart started beating faster at the realization that not only had Modred not recognized him, but this could be an opportunity to drive his knife into Modred’s heart. With only one other guard present, Myrddin could kill him too and be off into the wood before anyone was the wiser.
Unfortunately, Myrddin’s arms were stuck straight down at his sides and refused to move. He could barely bend his arm at the elbow, never mind reach for his knife and pull it from its sheath.
Thankfully, Modred had no notion of the turmoil going on inside Myrddin. “Where are you from, soldier?”
With no alternative, Myrddin stood beside the Saxon guard like he was carved from wood and answered Modred’s question. “Shrewsbury, my lord.”
Modred bobbed his head in a nod, knowing the town since it was only a few miles from Wroxeter. “Keep an eye out, Cedric. We don’t want any surprises tonight, do we?”
“No, my lord.”
Modred lifted a hand but, terrified that the king was about to clap him on the shoulder, at which point he would feel Myrddin’s all too solid underpinnings, Myrddin bowed again. Modred settled his hand on Aelfric’s shoulder instead. “Time to eat, son.”
“Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.”
The pair began to walk across the grassy expanse between the edge of the woods and the first ring of torches. Myrddin stayed where he was until they’d passed the first of the tents, and then he started walking towards the woods. Just as he reached them, he looked back. Nobody was watching.
So he ran, thankful that even if his arms couldn’t move, his legs weren’t so constricted. Thirty yards into the woods, he crossed a trickle of a creek running along the bottom of a gully, and then Nell appeared from behind a tree so suddenly he almost ran her over.
She caught his arm and gave a slight squeak. “You’re so solid.”
“I could take offense that you think I’m soft and fat otherwise, but I won’t.” He looked down. “What are you carrying?”
“Your bracers wrapped in an old blanket I almost forgot I still had and—” she laughed under her breath, “—Caledfwlch!” She held up a sheathed sword. Even in the darkness the finely wrought adornments were evident.
“My God. You’re a wonder.”
She accepted the aid of his hand, and they scrambled up the hill out of the creek bed and out of the woods too—he far more awkwardly than she as it turned out. They’d left their horses across a field on higher ground a good two hundred yards from Modred’s camp. Now that they were well away from the lights, Myrddin’s night vision returned. The moon had risen, and they were able to run without need of a torch. Their feet crunched through the snow and frozen grass that made up the field, leaving footprints that a blind man, much less one of Modred’s trackers, could easily follow. There was no help for it if they were to get away quickly.
Just as they reached their horses, a great shout came from the camp. Myrddin managed to raise his arms enough to grasp the horn of his saddle and pull himself up, sprawling awkwardly on his stomach before righting himself in the saddle. Side by side, he and Nell raced their horses for the road that skirted the Lawley to the west and then down it towards the safety of Caer Caradoc.
It was near midnight by now, but many men were still out and about, preparing for the battle tomorrow. A dozen wary guards greeted Myrddin and Nell at the first gate, the entrance to Caer Caradoc’s extensive earthworks. One of them leaned down to look at them from the top of the gatehouse. “Who goes there?” The man had a bushy beard and eyebrows of an indeterminate color, which was all Myrddin could see of him in the torchlight.
“It is I, Myrddin ap Ambrosius, and my wife, Nell.”
“Father!”
Myrddin twisted in his saddle, though any movement was difficult wearing so much armor. Huw rode at the head of a company of twenty men, descending the path from the Lawley.
“Son!” Myrddin moved his arm a few inches, which was fortunately enough to clasp Huw’s forearm. “Many men have come!”
Huw gave a slight shake of his head, his brow furrowing—possibly at the size and solidity of Myrddin’s arm. “Not enough.”
“But the fires—” Nell said.
“They are a ruse to dismay Modred and his army, that is all. We are short of numbers.”
“Geraint has not come?” Myrddin said.
“Not Geraint, Gawain, Gareth, Edgar, nor Cedric. Not yet.”
Myrddin closed his eyes for a moment. He and Nell had been riding on joy and relief at their escape from Modred’s camp, and now the reality of what they were facing settled over him again.
“We will face Modred with what we have,” Nell said, staunchly faithful, “and that will have to be enough.”
The gatekeeper had overheard. “More men come every hour, lords. We’ll have enough by morning. You’ll see.”
“I’m sure you’re right. The men of Wales know our need.” Huw raised a hand to the guard, the lines around his mouth smoothing into something resembling a smile. Myrddin cursed at himself under his breath for allowing any sign of doubt to show. He could be doubtful to Nell or Huw, but not in front of the men who would be called in a few hours to lay down their lives for Arthur. But he was glad to see that his son was growing up.
Then Huw canted his head at Myrddin. “Father, why are you holding yourself so stiffly? Are you injured?”
“I am wearing armor purloined from Modred. I’ll show you once we’re inside,” Myrddin said.
Caer Caradoc’s ramparts wended their way back and forth across the face of the mountain, a distance that couldn’t be traversed with any speed. Myrddin and Nell took the opportunity to update Huw on all that had happened, though Myrddin noted that Nell made no mention of Caledfwlch, tucked as it was along her horse’s side by the saddle bag.
Huw returned the favor of information. “The king is prepared. I think he hopes that Modred calls him out, and the fate of the battle decided by single combat, to spare us the loss of many men, but I hope it won’t come to that.”
“It will come to that, Huw,” Nell said. “We’ve seen it.”
“You’ve seen other things too that have not come to pass, or not in their entirety,” Huw said.
“That is true,” Myrddin said, “and since neither of us has been visited by a vision in the last hour, we have no insight into what will happen now that we have absconded with Modred’s armor.”
Huw reached out a hand and knocked on Myrddin’s chest. It resounded hollowly. “You are like a beetle.”
“Hopefully, one not easily squashed,” Myrddin said.
“Will armor be enough to turn the tide? To ensure the king can defeat Modred?” Huw said.
“In our visions, Modred hid his armor beneath garments, as I am. But King Arthur can wear it openly so Modred can see what we have done and what he has lost,” Myrddin said.
“Battles are won by men, it’s true, and Modred has more men than we do, especially with Urien’s defection,” Nell said. “But this is about fostering doubt and about men questioning Modred’s right to lead. It’s about Modred questioning himself. He felt invincible in that armor, and now his enemy will be wearing it.”
They arrived
at the fort itself and were admitted through the gate. Either King Arthur had seen them coming, or he’d been crossing the courtyard on business of his own, because he was there to greet them when they dismounted. He stood looking from Myrddin to Nell, shaking his head.
“What?” Myrddin said.
“Every time I lose hope along this path that God has led me, my faith is renewed—usually as the result of something unexpected. God has aided us time and again—by the turn of the tide, by the weather, by His own archbishop. And again, here you are, not unlooked for, but unexpected nonetheless. Several of my captains were skeptical that you would return since they believe Urien will betray me.”
“Oh, he’s doing that, my lord.” Myrddin’s faith had always had a fine vein of fatalism running through it, but with everything that had happened in the last month, he had to admit that the king had a point. Still, Myrddin wasn’t convinced they wouldn’t lose. Like every Welshman, he’d been raised on poetry and song. His blood hummed with the music of the bards. But almost every song, even as it celebrated the heroism of their leaders and their warriors, ended in defeat, sorrow, and loss. Other than the story of Arthur’s victory at Badon, the glory was in the attempt and in the fight, not in the outcome.
“Perhaps this will help ease the pain of that betrayal.” With a shy smile, Nell pulled the king’s beloved Caledfwlch from where she’d secured it and held it out to Arthur. “Myrddin and I don’t feel all is lost quite yet.”
Rarely had Myrddin seen King Arthur undone, but there was awe in his face as he took the sword from Nell. Then he laughed.
They might be outnumbered and outmaneuvered, but as the king’s laughter echoed around the courtyard, Myrddin felt his own hope renewed.
Chapter Thirteen
17 December 537 AD
Huw
Dawn was imminent. Huw stood beside King Arthur, taking account of the numbers of men who had come and accepting their obeisance and pledges.
Frost Against the Hilt (The Lion of Wales Book 5) Page 9