The Road to Avalon (Rediscovered Classics)

by Joan Wolf

  In early June Arthur sent Valerius with two divisions of foot to garrison the forts along Ambrosius’ wall. He also sent Bedwyr with the entire cavalry. Arthur himself was staying with the main body of the foot at Calleva.

  “I am giving you the worst part of this battle,” he told his two commanders soberly. “I have little doubt that Offa will attack the wall. He will want to test our strength. It is up to you to convince him that he cannot break through the wall without tremendous cost to himself. And you must do this with only the cavalry and two divisions of foot. It is up to you to force the Saxons to take the option of the Badon pass.”

  Bedwyr’s eyes became midnight blue, but he said nothing.

  It was Valerius who answered Arthur. “What if Offa does not back off, my lord? What if he decides to make one great thrust and keeps on coming?”

  “Then,” came the king’s measured reply, “you must hold him back until I can get the remainder of the foot to you.”

  Bedwyr grinned. “Don’t worry, Arthur. We’ll hold the bastards.”

  Arthur’s eyes, so light in his deeply tanned face, met Bedwyr’s. He knew, and he knew that Bedwyr knew, that if Offa threw his whole army at the wall, Bedwyr would have to sacrifice his entire command to hold them. In a rare gesture of affection, Arthur put his hand on his cavalry captain’s arm. “Bedwyr the Lion,” he said. Bedwyr laughed.

  Ambrosius’ wall was always garrisoned; there was a series of manned forts running along the whole of its fifty-mile length. Bedwyr and Valerius did not try to protect the whole wall, but concentrated their forces along the sloping hill where the wall met the Roman road to Calleva. A week after their command was in place, the Saxon army made its appearance.

  Gareth, whom Bedwyr had taken under his wing at Arthur’s request, brought the news to the prince. Bedwyr’s white teeth flashed in a satisfied grin. “Good,” he said. “Now we shall see some action.” Gareth, who had never been in battle before, stared with wonder at Bedwyr’s pleased face. The report was that the entire combined forces of Offa, Cynewulf, and Cerdic were out there. And Bedwyr was smiling! It was a misty, foggy morning when the Saxons decided to make their move. The British foot soldiers, among whom were a number of Meliagrance’s men, who had not yet seen the Saxons in battle, were lined behind the protection of the great earthen wall. Many of them could not see the enemy, but they could hear the bloodcurdling yells of the Saxon warriors and then the sound of the horns. The noise began to move closer. The first line of men at the top of the wall raised their arrows. As soon as the Saxons were within range, Valerius gave the order and a murderous spray of death shot toward the oncoming Saxon ranks. Men fell but the oncoming wall of screaming warriors simply climbed over their own dead and continued their forward rush. Bedwyr gave the order for the cavalry to charge.

  He had all three kinds of horse under him today: his own heavy horse, so effective in smashing lines of Saxon foot; the medium horse under Peredur, faster than the great horses from Gaul, but lighter; and the light horse under Gwynn. All had followed Bedwyr into battle before, and all knew what to expect. In total they numbered just under a thousand horses and men. It seemed to Gareth, who was watching the oncoming horde with a dry throat and slamming heart, that the Saxons had ten times that number.

  Bedwyr saw immediately that this was not a tentative strike. This was dangerous, and if he did not turn it back almost immediately, they were going to be in very serious trouble. With a roar that carried even over the shrieks of the Saxon masses, Bedwyr launched Sluan down the slope of the banked wall, leapt the ditch beyond it, and charged straight into the wall of the oncoming enemy. His men followed.

  Bedwyr had always been awesome in the field; his great height and tremendous physical strength gave him advantages few other men enjoyed. Never, however, had he fought as ferociously as he did today. He almost decapitated the first man he swung his sword at, and he took the hand right off the man behind him.

  Gareth kept his horse close behind Bedwyr’s and prayed. Even in his worst nightmares he had never believed anything could be as awful as this. The noise . . . the smell . . . the blood. The only safety in the world seemed to be behind the broad back of the big blond man on the black stallion. Bedwyr himself seemed not to know the meaning of fear as he slashed through the line of Saxons, scattering them in panic with his slicing blade, bloody now up to its hilt. Gareth swung his own sword and fought to keep up with the prince. The rest of the cavalry, ablaze with their leader’s reckless, raging courage, came pouring behind him.

  It was not battle lust that was driving Bedwyr, however, but the clear, coolheaded conviction that if he did not turn the Saxons back in the first ten minutes of fighting, they could not be turned back at all. And there were only two divisions of foot to hold them once they got past the cavalry. So he drove men to their knees with his bloody sword, then trampled them underfoot with the equally bloody hooves of his stallion. He forged on relentlessly, a pitiless instrument of terror and death, and after five minutes the Saxon line began to waver. Then there came the sound of a horn. Offa was calling a retreat.

  It took the Saxons another five minutes to disengage. During that time, the British cavalry never let up its attack. Gareth watched Bedwyr continue to drive his sword through the remaining front line of warriors, killing, crippling . . . and then it was over. The Saxons turned their backs and ran, and Bedwyr called the cavalry to return to the wall.

  Once they were behind the welcome protection of the ditch and great bank, Bedwyr slid from his saddle. Gareth had a brief glimpse of blazing blue eyes before the prince turned away to speak to Valerius.

  “Send me a courier,” he said. “I have a message for the king.” Then, leaning against his stallion’s massive sweaty, bloodflecked shoulder, he began to laugh.

  The message Bedwyr sent to Arthur was brief: “They sent their whole force against us and we turned them back. All is well.”

  Arthur listened to the courier recite the simple words and then he turned to Cai. “Bedwyr the Lion,” he said, and his eyes were very bright.

  Cai grinned. “The Saxons say he is a demon.”

  “The Saxons may be right.” Arthur regarded his orderly camp of foot soldiers. “I do not think Offa would have pulled back so quickly if he did not have another plan in mind.” He thrust a hand through his thick, smooth hair. “We shall soon see. Lionel has scouts posted on the Corinium Road. If Offa makes a move, we shall know about it.”

  The scout they were waiting for came galloping into Calleva at noon the following day. The news he brought was that Offa and Cerdic had put three-quarters of the army on the road to Corinium, leaving Cynewulf to hold the line at the wall. Once Arthur heard this, he began to move his own men north. The British were at the Badon pass within hours.

  The pass in question was a deep valley that ran between the heights of Mount Badon and Mount Dal. It was extremely narrow and the sides of both mountains were steep; there were places where only two men could walk abreast. The entire pass, from beginning to end, was five miles long.

  Before dark Arthur had archers and crossbowmen hidden all over the heights of Mount Badon and Mount Dal. Their orders were to remain hidden until the king gave the signal to shoot.

  The British stayed on the mountainsides all night long. Arthur had stationed Cai at the beginning of the pass, on the Mount Dal side, while he himself was on the heights of Mount Badon, about two and a half miles into the pass.

  When the sun rose the following morning, Arthur’s men, who had huddled under their cloaks for warmth all night and who had only bread to eat for breakfast, came to attention. The sun illuminated the higher slopes of the mountains and moved slightly westward in the sky. It was two hours after sunrise before the Saxon army made its appearance, coming from the direction of the Corinium road.

  It was eight o’clock in the morning when the first Saxon entered the pass. The British archers lay still. Arthur wanted Offa fully committed before he opened fire.

  The Saxo
ns laughed and talked as they marched along. When the line of warriors first came into Arthur’s view, he recognized them as Cerdic’s men. The line passed below him and Arthur let it go. He looked at the sky, estimating time. Another half-hour, he thought, and they would be strung out nearly the whole length of the pass.

  When the sun told him it was time, Arthur rose to his feet and, with the voice trained by Merlin for just such a situation, called to his archers to open fire. On either side of him, up and down the valley, his commanders heard his call. The first arrow whispered through the air, and a Saxon fell.

  There were perhaps seven thousand Saxons strung out along the length of the pass and death was raining down upon them from out of the skies. They scrambled to find shelter, but there was no shelter. The overhanging rocks of Mount Badon could be penetrated by the archers stationed on Mount Dal. The Saxons were dying every inch of the way, climbing over their own dead as they tried to go forward to reach the safety of the plain beyond the pass.

  Once Offa realized what had happened, he had to make an immediate decision: pull out and save as many men as he could, or go on and try to break through the pass. If he could somehow get his army through this valley of death, he would be between Arthur and his supply base, between Arthur and his cavalry. The whole outcome of this ambush could be turned completely around.

  His men were dying, but he outnumbered the Britons by a significant margin. Offa ordered the provision wagons into the pass to give his men protection under them, and he continued to send his army forward. He also ordered his own scouts into the heights of the mountains to seek out and kill as many of Arthur’s archers and crossbowmen as could be found. Fifteen of his finest men he sent on a special mission: find the High King of Britain and cut him down.

  The British attack was murderous. Arthur had no intention of leaving Offa enough men to launch an effective counteroffensive from the plain beyond. When the king learned that Offa was using the supply wagons for shelters, he ordered fire arrows used on them. Soon the pass below was filled with smoke.

  The sun hit the floor of the Badon pass only when it was directly overhead. By the time its first rays shone down between the heights of the two mountains, the slaughter had been under way for several hours. While Offa’s scouts had accounted for some of the British bowmen, they could not seriously affect the steadiness of the murderous barrage. Arthur had thousands of bowmen hidden on the heights above the pass. The Badon pass was a charnel house beyond anything anyone in the two participating armies had ever seen.

  Offa, however, remained hopeful for almost another hour that he could reach the end of the pass and turn the course of the day. His own scouts scrambled back and forth across the mountains bringing him news of what was occurring below. At just about the exact time that Offa realized he had lost, that he would not have enough men left alive to mount an effective counteroffensive, one of his specially commissioned scouts was aiming his arrow at the unprotected back of the High King of Britain.

  It had not been difficult to find Arthur. His voice rang up and down the valley, seeming to the dying men below to be coming straight out of the sky. Offa’s man had tracked it easily enough, and now, hidden behind a boulder and unseen by the Britons who flanked their king, he raised his bow, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the blackhaired man before him.

  At the very last minute, Arthur sensed danger. He whirled to face it and received the arrow in his chest rather than in his back. The arrow, shot from so close a distance, penetrated his leather tunic. The king fell without a sound.

  Gawain, who had been standing at Arthur’s side, turned also and, without pause, drew his own sword and ran for the assassin. He killed him with vicious pleasure.

  There was a circle of men kneeling around Arthur when Gawain returned to the king’s side. They made way for him. “Send for Drusus,” Gawain said as he dropped to his knees beside his cousin.

  “Bors has gone for him,” came the instant reply. Then they all fell quiet as Arthur’s lashes moved on his cheek. They lifted, and pain-filled gray eyes looked up into Gawain’s. “Cai,” said the king. It was hard to hear him, so Gawain bent his head low, next to Arthur’s lips. “Tell Cai to finish this out.”

  “We will, my lord,” Gawain said strongly, and Arthur’s eyes closed once again. Gawain thought he was still conscious, however, as there were lines of pain between his brows and around his mouth.

  Someone ran to bring the news to Cai, and in a few minutes Drusus, the army physician, was at the king’s side. He looked horrified when he saw the prone figure of Arthur, with the arrow still sticking out of his chest. They had been afraid to remove it. Too many of them had seen that death often followed that particular procedure. But, of course, it had to be done.

  Drusus, muttering under his breath, took out the arrow. Arthur went, if possible, even whiter, but the terrible gush of blood they had all feared did not follow. Drusus said, with relief very evident in his voice, “It must have hit the breastbone.”

  There was a loud release of sound from the encircling men.

  Drusus looked up. “He must be got off this mountain.”

  The men exchanged grim looks. They were two and a half miles into the pass.

  It was Gawain who took charge. “Bind up the wound as best you can,” he told the physician. “We will make a sling out of a cloak and carry him out that way.”

  As Drusus began to assemble his bandages, Gawain dropped back to his knees beside Arthur. Once again the long lashes lifted. “I got the murdering bastard, my lord,” Gawain said fiercely.

  The faintest glimmer of approval appeared in the heavy gray eyes. “You are doing very well, little cousin,” Arthur murmured. And, mercifully, lost consciousness.

  They brought Arthur to Calleva, a Roman city that had been used most recently as a place to quarter troops. At one time Calleva had been a thriving market for the agricultural district that surrounded it; today it was merely a shell of its former self, its small permanent population spread out behind the walls built hundreds of years before by Roman legions.

  The county hall was in good repair and it was there they carried the injured king. Drusus cleaned and bandaged Arthur’s wound once more and then sat down to keep vigil.

  He was still there when Cai arrived in Calleva shortly after midnight. Drusus met him at the door of Arthur’s room. “How bad is it?” Cai demanded.

  “There has been some tearing,” Drusus replied in a low voice. “The arrow hit the breastbone and then veered off. But I don’t think any vital organs have been damaged, Commander. We must just hope that no infection sets in.”

  Cai nodded. “Is he sleeping? May I see him?”

  “Yes, you can see him. He hasn’t been sleeping. I think he’s been waiting for news from you.”

  Cai’s sunburned face was somber as he crossed the floor to the bedplace where they had laid the king. Arthur’s eyes were closed, but when Cai spoke his name, they opened.

  “The Saxons are finished,” Cai said. “The few who made it to the end of the pass were met by Antonius and the Sixth foot, as you planned, and were completely routed. Offa pulled out what men he could and retreated toward the coast. He left eighty percent of his army at Badon, Arthur. It will be many years before the Saxons fight again.”

  The heavy eyes registered comprehension. Then in a low but clear voice Arthur said, “Send word to Bedwyr that he is to remain where he is until Lionel is certain the Saxons have retreated from the wall as well.”

  “I will,” said Cai.

  The faintest flicker of a smile crossed the thin drawn face on the pillow, and then the gray eyes closed once more.

  Late the following afternoon Gwenhwyfar arrived in Calleva. Word was out that the king had been injured, but not seriously, and the mood in the country was jubilant. This was their day of deliverance. A whole generation of Saxons had fallen at Badon; for the first time since Vortigern had invited Hengist and his people to settle in Britain, the Saxon threat was lifted.

/>   Gwenhwyfar had not expected to find Arthur so ill. He was semiconscious when she went in to see him, and he did not seem to recognize her. She turned to Drusus, who was standing beside her. “They said it was only a flesh wound!”

  “We thought it best not to alarm the country, my lady. And, truly, the wound is not serious. But it will take time to heal.”

  Gwenhwyfar put a slim hand on her husband’s forehead and was relieved to find it cool. She smiled at Drusus. “I’ll sit with him for a little. You look tired, Drusus. Get some rest.”

  After the physician had left, Gwenhwyfar took her place in the chair that had been drawn up beside the bed. Arthur seemed to be sleeping and Gwenhwyfar studied his unconscious face with hungry eyes. He was unshaven and his suntanned skin looked sallow and his hair fell in a tangle across his forehead and, still, he was beautiful. She loved him so much. If anything should happen to him . . . Her throat ached and she reached out to pick up the hand that was lying lax on the blanket. She was alone and so she bent her head and pressed her cheek against the thin, strong fingers. “Don’t worry, my love,” she whispered fiercely. “You’ll get better. I’m going to take very good care of you, I promise.” The face on the pillow did not change.

  Chapter 25

  “I DON’T like it at all,” Drusus said to Cai as they conferred outside the king’s bedchamber three days later. “He is not improving.”

  Cai had forced himself to keep a cheerful face in front of others, but he did not like it either. “Has an infection set in?” he asked worriedly.