Gone was the untidy urchin with dirt-smudged nose, ripped tunic and scraped knees. Her hair, shining copper-gold in the sunlight was neatly braided and looped. She wore a robe of palest green, the colour of spring and eternal life. In her hand, the chalice of welcome. A faint smile flickered to her father and brothers, thankful at least for their safe return. Cunedda stepped forward, sipped the red wine, handed the drinking vessel on to the son beside him.
Enniaun was the last to drink. He touched his lips to the red liquid and then spilt the rest on the threshold. “In honour and remembrance of those not with us,” he murmured. “May the blood of their killers one day stain as this wine stains.”
They stood, heads bowed, grouped around the spreading red puddle, watching as it soaked into the wooden boards of the steps, seeing again the blood of the battlefield.
“Welcome home, my father and brothers.” Gwenhwyfar stammered over the words, her throat aching with sorrow. She wanted to cry, great gulping sobs, but held back her tears for the sake of her father and for the memory of Uthr, the Pendragon. She looked into Cunedda’s grave eyes, saw the emptiness of grief there and spoke the words that pressed on the mind of every man and woman: “Da, will Vortigern come?”
Briefly, Cunedda cradled his daughter’s chin in his cupped hand. “Who knows, lass? Probably. I would, if I were he.” He forced a crooked smile for her and suddenly pulled her close, holding her so tight she thought she would be crushed. Then his eye fell on Arthur, waiting with Etern a few steps within the Hall.
The two days of waiting for the hosting’s return had been two days of bitter tears and lonely desperation for the lad. His eyes were red-rimmed, puffy and sore, his cheeks drawn hollows of wretched misery. Arthur had loved Uthr, loved him as he would never love Ectha, the man who fostered him, who might be his sire. It was Uthr who had given the boy his first sword, who had taught Arthur to fight, to use spear and shield, to ride, to hunt. Uthr who had taught him all he knew of battle and war, for Uthr had favoured Arthur, had never objected to the lad’s constant questioning, his eagerness to learn. Arthur had never seen anything unusual in the attention, had assumed his lord was pleased to teach someone so enthusiastic – until Morgause had soured the dream, until she had planted seeds of doubt and disgust. Had Uthr tolerated a boy trotting constant at heel because he intended one day to use him in his bed? Now, Arthur would never know.
The Lion Lord released Gwenhwyfar and walked up to the boy, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come with me, lad, there is much to tell.”
Arthur went with Cunedda. He would be sent home, back to Less Britain, back to dull Ectha and the banality of the estate. Gone were the hopes of an army life; shattered the dreams of becoming War Lord. Not now, not without Uthr. Cunedda led him through the silent Hall, past servants who stood uncertain of the future, through to his private chambers beyond.
Gwenhwyfar watched them go, stood staring blankly at that shut wooden door, feeling Arthur’s sorrow as if it were her own pain. So many dreams left in ruins. So much blood spilt, and more yet to come. A tear dribbled down her cheek. Arthur had wanted so much, and one sword blade had taken it from him. Still she looked at that door. The death of one man – affecting, now, the lives of so many.
A hand settled softly on her shoulder. Surprised, she gasped, and turned around, her heart thundering. It was Osmail. Of all her brothers, Osmail offering comfort?
He stroked a finger around her face. “We’ll be safe enough, lass,” he said, a tenderness in his voice that she had never heard there before.
She smiled at him, at his own sad eyes, but he turned from her and walked away, that brief offer of love fading. All the same, she heard the thought he spoke aloud.
“I wish to God I had been there with the others.”
Now that Cunedda had departed, a trill of conversation rippled, as if they were all released from a hag’s binding spell. Slaves darted to pour wine and serve food for hungry men; wounded were ushered to medical aid, comfort and rest. The war host, for better or worse, was home.
XIII
Ceredig climbed the steps to the rampart walk with a heart as heavy as his tired feet. The night seemed very still, almost at peace. The cloud-dabbed sky was pocked with stars, and a crisp mountain smell, mingling with the sharp tang of sea, threatened rain. Reaching the top, he turned sunwise along the walkway, nodding acknowledgement as the night watch snapped to attention. They had doubled the guard, though this night they would not be needed. Come tomorrow, and tomorrow…
The settlement, spreading below the rampart, gave the impression of normality; a light came and went in a doorway, a child cried. A man’s voice called good night. The darkness cloaked an uneasy waiting.
Padding footsteps behind him, a light touch on his arm. A face, pale in the starlight, with eyes wide and anxious.
“You ought to be abed, little sister,” Ceredig said, then shrugged noncommittally as she begged to walk his rounds with him. All the same, he shortened his long stride to match her slower pace.
They stopped to speak here and there with the sentries, exchanging a jest, sharing the grief of loss, enquiring after a bandaged wound.
Halfway along the eastern walkway, Ceredig halted to stand before the palisade, looking out and beyond to the mountains, their familiar outline black against the dark sky. Companionably, Gwenhwyfar leant beside him, her elbows just about reaching the top of the wooden fencing. She folded her arms there, rested her chin, gazed with her brother into the night.
A hunting owl called, her mate answering. A dog-fox barked. All the normal sounds of night. Stars twinkled, clouds sailed by overhead. Normal. Save that Vortigern would be somewhere out there beyond Eryri.
A star trail fell across the sky, glimmered a while, faded.
“An omen sent for the Red Dragon of Uthr, or the White of Vortigern’s Saex?” Ceredig wondered aloud, shifting his weight to the left leg that seemed not to ache so much as the right.
Gwenhwyfar shrugged. “Without the Sight of a Myrddin, who can say?”
“Tck, those old Druids. What knew they, beyond mumbled charms and drug-induced prophecies?” Ceredig followed the Christian faith, though not as devoutly blinkered as his eldest brother.
They fell silent again, each sharing silent company with their own thoughts.
“I wonder why stars fall as omens?” Gwenhwyfar mused.
“The problem with omens, sister, is that interpretation depends on which view you look from.” Ceredig altered position to lean his shoulders against the fencing, gazed down into the torch lit courtyard below. Men were moving about, loading wagons, tending horses, seeing to armour and weapons. They would move out on the morrow to defend the passes, barricade the ways through the mountains. Vortigern would not find it easy to march into Gwynedd.
“We see a star’s portent one way, sister; Vortigern’s rabble another.”
“Da said once that stars fall when a person dies or a child is born, marking a sorrow or greeting.”
Ceredig made no reply. The whole sky would need to fall to mark this great sorrow.
Gwenhwyfar had not been able to sleep. This restless unease that swaddled the Caer pressed on her mind, setting her tossing and pitching in her bed. In the end, she had risen, dressed, and gone to find solace. The mountains always called when fear or sorrow battled against her heart. It was too dark to ride to their protective comfort, but the rampart walk gave a good view of their slumbering presence. Coming up the steps, she had seen Ceredig walking his rounds.
Into the stillness she asked, as she had of her father, “Will he come – Vortigern?”
Footfalls behind her, two men approaching. Gwenhwyfar whirled, her hand flying instinctively to the dagger in her tunic belt. She laughed in relief at the sight of another brother and her cousin.
“Who knows with Vortigern?” Enniaun said, coming up to lean his broad hands on the palisade.
Meriaun, shorter by a handspan and thinner, breathed in the night air, said as he exhaled,
“He will have to come up the passes, or go the long way around the coast.” Both their faces were shadowed with lines of apprehension, and a tiredness that went deeper than a lack of sleep. “Either way, he will lose many men.”
The three men leaned together along the fencing, staring outwards. Ceredig gripped the wood between large, strong hands. Enniaun seemed more at ease, though it was the careworn relaxation of an experienced warrior. Worry about tomorrow when it comes, take today for what it offers. Difficult to set worry aside, but possible, with practice.
Meriaun stood next to Gwenhwyfar, his hand fiddle, fiddling with the rounded pommel of his sword. A babe newly born when Cunedda left the north, Meriaun had grown from boy to man beneath Gwynedd’s sheltering mountains, had never known the desolation up beyond the Wall; nor his father. He knew the terror Vortigern aroused, though, and the hatred he had for him. His fingers tightened, the knuckles white against the iron. He thought, Let Vortigern come! Let him and I will kill him, here beneath the watching eye of Yr Wyddfa!
Enniaun spoke his thoughts aloud. “Vortigern goes as the impulse takes him. Our King is no brave-hearted seeker of blood. He prefers his comfort, the warmth and luxury of a palace, not the mud and slush of a tent and an army on the march. Is he satisfied with Uthr’s death? Will he be content with the taking of a few hostages and the payment of a heavy fine? Or will he want a greater revenge – as he did at Dun Pelidr? Either way, Gwynedd will not escape lightly.”
“Who is to secure the passes?” Ceredig asked. He had missed the orders, feeling the need to walk these ramparts.
“Dogmail the Beris pass; Dunaut and Rumaun head down to the Tremadog coast; myself, Aber Glaslyn ready to fall back towards the Black Ford if necessary; and Abloyc up to secure Llyn Ogwen. It ought to be enough, with men watching the northern coastal road.”
“Safe. But for the sea.”
“Even Vortigern’s Saex cannot whistle up boats from nowhere.”
Silence drifted again. The mountains ringed Caer Arfon as securely as this palisade protected the Caer; but no defence was sure. Wood burnt. Passes could be breached.
“I am thinking there are two ways of approaching our passes,” Ceredig said into the quiet, waving a hand out to the dark, waiting mountains. “With wisdom or foolishness.” He patted his sister’s shoulder and made ready to resume his rounds.
“Go to bed, sweetheart, there is nothing to be done until morning.” He walked some yards, stopped and turned to face his kin, hand tight around the pommel of his sword. His voice was calm, but had a fierceness born of the certain knowledge that the deaths might not yet be ended. “I dislike Vortigern, but I freely admit he is not the fool.”
XIV
In the encampment set within the crumbling stone walls of the old Roman fort, Uthr’s men sat weary and uncertain beside their night fires, talking softly or dozing fitfully. Some nursed wounds that throbbed and ached; most cradled their weapons, sword or spear close at hand, ready. Waiting. Bewildered, confused and bereft, each man wrapped in his own memories of loss and shattered hope. Leaderless men in a foreign territory, with the fear of Vortigern at their backs.
Cunedda needed to put an end to this black mood before it got out of hand. Men afraid could so easily follow a mistaken path. He needed calm, and new heart. Come dawn’s first light, word to rally before the Caer’s Sacred Stone had spread through the camp, and rumour surged with a force like that of the Hafren’s bore tide.
Uthr’s men broke their fast with barley bread and porridge, sharing conclusions reached during the interminable night. What had Cunedda in mind? Each held an idea as they assembled beside the men of Gwynedd before the hallowed Stone, the symbol of a warrior’s strength and the chieftain’s right of leadership. The whetstone, with its spiral carvings and score marks from many a warrior’s blade, had come with Cunedda from the north. An ancient thing this Stone, given, it was said, by the gods to the first of the Votadini. It was here, with a hand upon this sacred, carved rock, that loyalty was vowed, promises exchanged and oaths sworn; here that Cunedda had proclaimed Gwynedd as his own. It was before such stones, in the time before and before the coming of the Romans, that kings were made.
Muttered theories passed back and forth from soldier to soldier, group to group. Emotion was running high, with anger directed at Vortigern. Talk ceased as Cunedda, Lion Lord of Gwynedd, and his family approached. Standard-bearers carrying the two banners of the Lion and the Red Dragon took up positions on either side of the Stone. A ragged cheer broke out as the first stirring of a morning wind lifted the Dragon. Gwenhwyfar sensed the pride her father’s men felt in her family. She had chosen to dress resplendently for Uthr – a gown the colour of a summer’s green-blue sea, and a plaid cloak draped almost to her ankles and fastened by two huge gold and garnet brooches. Her hair hung loose, and at her throat glinted a torque of twisted gold.
They stood beside the Stone, before the men, to honour the passing of a noble lord. How Gwenhwyfar wished it could have been to honour his victory. The waiting men looked on with mingled hope and doubt as Cunedda took a single step forward and raised his hands for silence.
“Friends: I grieve with you for the loss of our beloved Pendragon. As children he and I grew together at my father’s stronghold; as men we fought our enemies – aye, and each other over a pretty girl.” Chuckles, a few cheers; the tension had eased. “It grieves me to realise never again will that valiant lord thunder his battle cry.” Cunedda’s voice cracked; for a moment he could not speak, so great was his sorrow. Somehow he managed to go on. “I say to you, Uthr is not gone. His spirit remains among us. With us, his hopes, ambitions and dreams live on. He wished a Pendragon to sit on the throne of all Britain. Ha!” He barked the word, startling the few murmurs into stillness. “Do I hear some of you muttering that now this will not be?”
Cunedda paused, stared fiercely at the sea of faces. His stern gaze blazed out from beneath his bush of red hair, quelling dissent. The Lion would be heard.
“This banner,” he touched the Dragon reverently, “symbolises all we believe in, binds us together as one, and the Dragon is ours!”
An uncertain cheer drifted into the damp morning air, then a gruff voice rose clear above the others: “What good a banner if the name it leads be empty?”
The thin cheering died, fading to nods and mutterings of agreement.
Gwenhwyfar knew her father’s ways, realised he was playing with these men, preparing them. But for what? She glanced from Etern’s blank expression, along her brothers’ frowns. Did they follow their father’s thoughts? Arthur stood impassive to one side beyond Cunedda, pale-faced and oddly lost, a little uncomfortable. It would be hard for him with no one to stand between him and Morgause. Would the woman take herself away now her lord was dead? Gwenhwyfar caught a fluttered glimpse to the edge of the crowd, of Morgause’s bright clothing, imagined she heard the loud jangle of bangles and necklace. Sa, she had come to listen then.
As they had snatched a hasty dawn meal, Etern had confided to his sister the opinion that the Pendragon’s Banner was expected to pass into Gwynedd’s keeping, with one of the sons taking it as his own. It seemed plausible. Had Uthr named Cunedda as heir, or was it to pass to Osmail, the eldest brother? Surely not to Osmail, who disliked war, who professed to putting love of God before the killing of men?
Enniaun then, a red-haired giant, taller by half a hand span than their father. Or Ceredig. Kind Ceredig, whose soft eyes could fill with sad tears at the telling of a harper’s tale; Rumaun and Dunaut the twins, alike as two seeds. Abloyc, the humorous – always laughing, rarely serious save for occasions like this. Meriaun, the grandson; or Dogmail, at eight and ten a handsome man, loved by all the women, servant or high born. He doubted he would marry – “Over many beauties to choose from!” Etern? Impatient for manhood.
And Arthur. Gwenhwyfar wondered about Arthur. Traces of his tears were still visible. What future had he to face now?
Cunedda allowed the rumble of voices to
circulate, to swell, then interrupted, his powerful voice carrying. “The name of Pendragon is not finished! Uthr’s murder by a Saex-loving tyrant is not the end. Were we not all impatient to topple Vortigern from power? Uthr tried once and was forced into exile, to wait. This second time, we have rocked the foundations. Vortigern will fall, but we have to wait again, wait to put the final boot to his backside. We are not defeated. This is a new beginning, my friends, a new beginning.”
“How so?” The man who had questioned earlier spoke a second time. He had a loud, carrying voice that quickly attracted attention. Thrusting forward, he touched the mask of his wolfskin cloak in a gesture of respect, but for all that, stood defiant before Cunedda. “How can it be a beginning when the body of the lord we have served – some of us for many a year – lies mangled in Vortigern’s hands? We cannot serve a memory, Cunedda.”
A ripple of assent.
“What is your name, soldier?” Cunedda asked in a kindly voice.
Waiting, thought Gwenhwyfar. He is waiting like a cat watching its prey, judging the right moment to unleash his claws and pounce.
“Mabon. I served Lord Uthr for nigh on twenty year, from when I was still but a whelp, green behind the ears; I fled with him from Dumnonia,” he swept an arm behind him, indicating other men, “as did many of us here.”
Cunedda pulled at his moustache, one hand cradling his bent elbow. “It was a Mabon, I recall, who raised the alarm that night when Vortigern’s paid men came to murder Uthr in his bed.”
The Kingmaking Page 10