by Mary Stewart
She showed me the door again, as if I could have forgotten it, and withdrew to wait.
My mother seemed a little better, and had rested well, she told me. We talked for a while; she had questions about the details of my story, and I filled them in for her. When I got up to go I asked, as casually as I could:
"The girl who opened the gate; she is young, surely, to be here?
Who is she?"
"Her mother worked in the palace. Keridwen. Do you remember her?"
I shook my head. "Should I?"
"No." But when I asked her why she smiled, she would say nothing, and in face of her amusement I dared not ask any more.
On the third day it was the old deaf portress; and I spent the whole interview with my mother wondering if she had (as women will) seen straight through my carefully casual air to what lay beneath, and passed the word that the girl must be kept out of my way. But on the fourth day she was there, and this time I knew before I got three steps inside the gate that she had been hearing the stories about Dinas Brenin. She was so eager to catch a glimpse of the magician that she let the hood fall back a little, and in my turn I saw the wide eyes, grey-blue, full of a sort of awed curiosity and wonder. When I smiled at her and said something in greeting she ducked back inside the hood again, but this time she answered. Her voice was light and small, a child's voice, and she called me "my lord" as if she meant it.
"What's your name?" I asked her. "Keri, my lord." I hung back, to detain her. "How is my mother today, Keri?" But she would not answer, just took me straight to the inner court, and left me there. That night I lay awake again, but no god spoke to me, not even to tell me she was not for me. The gods do not visit you to remind you what you know already.
By the last day of April my mother was so much better that when I went again to see her she was in the chair by the window, wearing a woolen robe over her shift, and sitting full in the sun. A quince tree, pinioned to the wall outside, was heavy with rosy cups where bees droned, and just beside her on the sill a pair of white doves strutted and crooned.
"You have news?" she asked, as soon as she saw my face.
"A messenger came in today. Vortigern is dead and the Queen with him. They say that
Hengist is coming south with a vast force, including Vortimer's brother Pascentius and the remnant of his army. Ambrosius is already on his way to meet them."
She sat very straight, looking past me at the wall. There was a woman with her today, sitting on a stool on the other side of the bed; it was one of the nuns who had attended her at Dinas Brenin. I saw her make the sign of the cross on her breast, but Niniane sat still and straight looking past me at something, thinking.
"Tell me, then."
I told her all I had heard about the affair at Doward. The woman crossed herself again, but my mother never moved. When I had finished, her eyes came back to me.
"And you will go now?"
"Yes. Will you give me a message for him?"
"When I see him again," she said, "it will be time enough."
When I took leave of her she was still sitting staring past the winking amethysts on the wall to something distant in place and time.
Keri was not waiting, and I lingered for a while before I crossed the outer yard, slowly, towards the gate. Then I saw her waiting in the deep shadow of the gateway's arch, and quickened my step. I was turning over a host of things to say, all equally useless to prolong what could not be prolonged, but there was no need. She put out one of those pretty hands and touched my sleeve, beseechingly. "My lord —"
Her hood was half back, and I saw tears in her eyes. I said sharply: "What's the matter?" I believe that for a wild moment I thought she wept because I was going. "Keri, what is it?"
"I have the toothache."
I gaped at her. I must have looked as silly as if I had just been slapped across the face.
"Here," she said, and put a hand to her cheek. The hood fell right back. "It's been aching for days. Please, my lord —"
I said hoarsely: "I'm not a toothdrawer."
"But if you would just touch it —"
"Or a magician," I started to say, but she came close to me, and my voice strangled in my throat. She smelled of honeysuckle. Her hair was barley-gold and her eyes grey like bluebells before they open. Before I knew it she had taken my hand between both her own and raised it to her cheek.
I stiffened fractionally, as if to snatch it back, then controlled myself, and opened the palm gently along her cheek. The wide greybell eyes were as innocent as the sky. As she leaned towards me the neck of her gown hung forward slackly and I could see her breasts. Her skin was smooth as water, and her breath sweet against my cheek.
I withdrew the hand gently enough, and stood back. "I can do nothing about it." I suppose my voice was rough. She lowered her eyelids and stood humbly with folded hands. Her lashes were short and thick and golden as her hair. There was a tiny mole at the corner of her mouth.
I said: "If it's no better by morning, have it drawn."
"It's better already, my lord. It stopped aching as soon as you touched it." Her voice was full of wonder, and her hand crept up to the cheek where mine had lain. The movement was like a caress, and I felt my blood jerk with a beat like pain. With a sudden movement she reached for my hand again and quickly, shyly, stooped forward and pressed her mouth to it. Then the door swung open beside me and I was out in the empty street.
4
It seemed, from what the messenger had told me, that Ambrosius had been right in his decision to make an end of Vortigern before turning on the Saxons. His reduction of Doward, and the savagery with which he did it, had their effect. Those of the invading Saxons who had ventured furthest inland began to withdraw northwards towards the wild debatable lands which had always provided a beachhead for invasion. They halted north of the Humber to fortify themselves where they could, and wait for him. At first Hengist believed that Ambrosius had at his command little more than the Breton invading army — and he was ignorant of the nature of that deadly weapon of war. He thought (it was reported) that very few of the island British had joined Ambrosius; in any case the Saxons had defeated the British, in their small tribal forces, so often that they despised them as easy meat. But now as reports reached the Saxon leader of the thousands who had flocked to the Red Dragon, and of the success at Doward, he decided to remain no longer fortified north of the Humber, but to march swiftly south again to meet the British at a place of his own choosing, where he might surprise Ambrosius and destroy his army.
Once again, Ambrosius moved with Caesar-speed. This was necessary, because where the Saxons had withdrawn, they had laid the country waste.
The end came in the second week of May, a week hot with sunshine that seemed to come from June, and interrupted by showers left over from April — a borrowed week, and, for the Saxons, a debt called in by fate. Hengist, with his preparations half complete, was caught by Ambrosius at Maesbeli, near Conan's Fort, or Kaerconan, that men sometimes call Conisburgh. This is a hilly place, with the fort on a crag, and a deep ravine running by. Here the Saxons had tried to prepare an ambush for Ambrosius' force, but Ambrosius' scouts got news of it from a Briton they came across lurking in a hilltop cave, where he had fled to keep his woman and two small children from the axes of the Northmen. So Ambrosius, forewarned, increased the speed of his march and caught up with Hengist before the ambush could be fully laid, thus forcing him into open battle.
Hengist's attempt to lay an ambush had turned the luck against him; Ambrosius, where he halted and deployed his army, had the advantage of the land. His main force, Bretons, Gauls, and the island British from the south and southwest, waited on a gentle hill, with a level field ahead over which they could attack unimpeded. Among these troops, medley-wise, were other native British who had joined him, with their leaders. Behind this main army the ground rose gently, broken only by brakes of thorn and yellow gorse, to a long ridge which curved to the west in a series of low rocky hills, and o
n the east was thickly forested with oak. The men from Wales — mountainy men — were stationed mainly on the wings, the North Welsh in the oak forest and, separated from them by the full body of Ambrosius' army, the South Welsh on the hills to the west. These forces, lightly armed, highly mobile and with scores to settle, were to hold themselves in readiness as reinforcements, the swift hammer-blows which could be directed during battle at the weakest points of the enemy's defense. They could also be relied upon to catch and cut down any of Hengist's Saxons who broke and fled the field.
The Saxons, caught in their own trap, with this immense winged force in front of them, and behind them the rock of Kaerconan and the narrow defile where the ambush had been planned, fought like demons. But they were at a disadvantage: they started afraid — afraid of Ambrosius' reputation, of his recent ferocious victory at Doward, and more than both — so men told me — of my prophecy to Vortigern which had spread from mouth to mouth as quickly as the fires in Doward tower. And of course the omens worked the other way for Ambrosius. Battle was joined shortly before noon, and by sunset it was all over.
I saw it all. It was my first great battlefield, and I am not ashamed that it was almost my last. My battles were not fought with sword and spear. If it comes to that, I had already had a hand in the winning of Kaerconan before I ever reached it; and when I did reach it, was to find myself playing the very part that Uther had once, in jest, assigned to me.
I had ridden with Cadal as far as Caerleon, where we found a small body of Ambrosius' troops in possession of the fortress, and another on its way to invest and repair the fort at Maridunum. Also, their officer told me confidentially, to make sure that the Christian community — "all the community," he added gravely, with the ghost of a wink at me, "such is the commander's piety" — remained safe. He had been detailed, moreover, to send some of his men back with me, to escort me to Ambrosius. My father had even thought to send some of my clothes. So I sent Cadal back, to his disgust, to do what he could about Galapas' cave, and await me there, then myself rode north-east with the escort.
We came up with the army just outside Kaerconan. The troops were already deployed for battle and there was no question of seeing the commander, so we withdrew, as instructed, to the western hill where the men of the South Welsh tribes eyed one another distrustfully over swords held ready for the Saxons below. The men of my escort troop eyed me in something the same manner: they had not intruded on my silence on the ride, and it was plain they held me in some awe, not only as Ambrosius' acknowledged son, but as "Vortigern's prophet" — a title which had already stuck to me and which it took me some years to shed. When I reported with them to the officer in charge, and asked him to assign me a place in his troop, he was horrified, and begged me quite seriously to stay out of the fight, but to find some place where the men could see me, and know, as he put it, "that the prophet was here with them." In the end I did as he wished, and withdrew to the top of a small rocky crag hard by where, wrapping my cloak about me, I prepared to watch the battlefield spread out below like a moving map.
Ambrosius himself was in the center; I could see the white stallion with the Red Dragon glimmering above it. Out to the right Uther's blue cloak glinted as his horse cantered along the lines. The leader of the left wing I did not immediately recognize; a grey horse, a big, heavy-built figure striding it, a standard bearing some device in white which I could not at first distinguish. Then I saw what it was. A boar. The Boar of Cornwall. Ambrosius' commander of the left was none other than the greybeard Gorlois, lord of Tintagel.
Nothing could be read of the order in which the Saxons had assembled. All my life I had heard of the ferocity of these great blond giants, and all British children were brought up from babyhood on stories of their terror. They went mad in war, men said, and could fight bleeding from a dozen wounds, with no apparent lessening of strength or ferocity. And what they had in strength and cruelty they lacked in discipline. This seemed, indeed, to be so. There was no order that I could see in the vast surge of glinting metal and tossing horsehair which was perpetually on the move, like a flood waiting for the dam to break.
Even from that distance I could pick out Hengist and his brother, giants with long moustaches sweeping to their chests, and long hair flying as they spurred their shaggy, tough little horses up and down the ranks. They were shouting, and echoes of the shouts came clearly; prayers to the gods, vows, exhortations, commands, which rose towards a ferocious crescendo, till on the last wild shout of Kill, kill, kill!" the axe-heads swung up, glinting in the May sunlight, and the pack surged forward towards the ordered lines of Ambrosius' army."
The two hosts met with a shock that sent the jackdaws squalling up from Kaerconan, and seemed to splinter the very air. It was impossible, even from my point of vantage, to see which way the fight — or rather, the several different movements of the fight — was going. At one moment it seemed as if the Saxons with their axes and winged helms were boring a way into the British host; at the next, you would see a knot of Saxons cut off in as of British, and then, apparently engulfed, vanish. Ambrosius' center block met the main shock of the charge, then Uther's cavalry, with a swift flanking movement, came in from the east. The men of Cornwall under Gorlois held back at first, but as soon as the Saxons' front line began to waver, they came in like a hammer-blow from the left and smashed it apart. After that the field broke up into chaos. Everywhere men were fighting in small groups, or even singly and hand to hand. The noise, the clash and shouting, even the smell of sweat and blood mingled, seemed to come up to this high perch where I sat with my cloak about me, watching. Immediately below me I was conscious of the stirring and muttering of the Welshmen, then the sudden cheer as a troop of Saxons broke and galloped in our direction. In a moment the hilltop was empty save for me, only that the clamor seemed to have washed nearer, round the foot of the hill like the tide coming in fast. A robin lighted on a black-thorn at my elbow, and began to sing. The sound came high and sweet and uncaring through all the noise of battle. To this day, whenever I think of the battle for Kaerconan, it brings to mind a robin's song, mingled with the croaking of the ravens. For they were already circling, high overhead: men say they can hear the clash of swords ten miles off.
It was finished by sunset. Eldol, Duke of Gloucester, dragged Hengist from his horse under the very walls of Kaerconan to which he had turned to flee, and the rest of the Saxons broke and fled, some to escape, but many to be cut down in the hills, or the narrow defile at the foot of Kaerconan. At first dusk, torches were lit at the gate of the fortress, the gates were thrown open, and Ambrosius' white stallion paced across the bridge and into the stronghold, leaving the field to the ravens, the priests, and the burial parties.
I did not seek him out straight away. Let him bury his dead and clear the fortress. There was work for me down there among the wounded, and besides, there was no hurry now to give him my mother's message. While I had sat there in the May sunlight between the robin's song and the crash of battle, I knew that she had sickened again, and was already dead.
5
I made my way downhill between the clumps of gorse and the thorn trees. The Welsh troops had vanished, long since, to a man, and isolated shouts and battle cries showed where small parties were still hunting down the fugitives in forest and hill.
Below, on the plain, the fighting was over. They were carrying the wounded into Kaerconan. Torches weaved everywhere, till the plain was all light and smoke. Men shouted to one another, and the cries and groans of the wounded came up clearly, with the occasional scream of a horse, the sharp commands from the officers, and the tramp of the stretcher-bearers' feet. Here and there, in the dark corners away from the torchlight, men scurried singly or in pairs among the heaped bodies. One saw them stoop, straighten, and scurry off. Sometimes where they paused there was a cry, a sudden moan, sometimes the brief flash of metal or the quick downstroke of a shortened blow. Looters, rummaging among the dead and dying, keeping a few steps ahead of the offic
ial salvage parties. The ravens were coming down; I saw the tilt and slide of their black wings hovering above the torches, and a pair perched, waiting, on a rock not far from me. With nightfall the rats would be there, too, running up from the damp roots of the castle walls to attack the dead bodies.
The work of salvaging the living was being done as fast and efficiently as everything else the Count's army undertook. Once they were all within, the gates would be shut. I would seek him out, I decided, after the first tasks were done. He would already have been told that I was safely here, and he would guess I had gone to work with the doctors. There would be time, later, to eat, and then it would be time enough to talk to him.
On the field, as I made my way across, the stretcher parties still strove to separate friend from foe. The Saxon dead had been flung into a heap in the center of the field; I guessed they would be burned according to custom. Beside the growing hill of bodies a platoon stood guard over the glittering pile of arms and ornaments taken from the dead men. The British dead were being laid nearer the wall, in rows for identification. There were small parties of men, each with an officer, bending over them one by one. As I picked my way through trampled mud oily and stinking with blood and slime I passed, among the armed and staring dead, the bodies of half a dozen ragged men — peasants or outlaws by the look of them. These would be looters, cut down or speared by the soldiers. One of them still twitched like a pinned moth, hastily speared to the ground by a broken Saxon weapon which had been left in his body. I hesitated, then went and bent over him. He watched me — he was beyond speech — and I could see he still hoped. If he had been cleanly speared, I would have drawn the blade out and let him go with the blood, but as it was, there was a quicker way for him, I drew my dagger, pulled my cloak aside out of the way, and carefully, so that I would be out of the jet of blood, stuck my dagger in at the side of his throat. I wiped it on the dead man's rags, and straightened to find a cold pair of eyes watching me above a leveled short sword three paces away.