M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon

by M. K. Hume

  Fortunately, Bedwyr was ignorant of his son’s private thoughts. ‘Can you see now why I was so angry with you? Sooner or later, Arden will fall to these savages, or else we may find ourselves starving to death within its boundaries. Can you imagine your mother in the hands of men such as these? Your sisters?’

  ‘No, Father, I can’t,’ Arthur murmured. He hid his eyes in distress. ‘Surely we should bury these poor people. I will dream of their corpses for the rest of my life. Can we dig a grave for them?’

  Bedwyr shook his head and spurred his horse back into the forest until Spinis was a place of darkening shadows behind them, and the scavengers slunk out of the shadows to continue their feeding. Arthur was forced to follow.

  ‘We will come back and bury what is left with honour and respect when spring comes and the Saxons we now face are dead. They don’t respect us, you see. They deem civilised behaviour to be weakness, and their gods are devoted to courage, duty, war and strength. These attributes are not bad things, but taken in conjunction with their loathing for change and any culture other than their own they become very dangerous.’

  ‘They must have some weak points,’ Arthur reasoned. ‘Otherwise there’s no point in our struggle. Better we should leave for the wild places as the Picts did before our ancestors drove them out of Britannia. I don’t believe we should allow our entire culture to be destroyed in a pointless struggle to survive.’

  Bedwyr pulled his horse to a halt under a huge oak tree that must have first broken the soil nearly a thousand years earlier. Mistletoe and other symbiotic plants clung to its ancient branches and scarred trunk, but although it had been rent by storms and lightning over the centuries and was now withered by age, it was still strong, healthy and growing at its heart.

  ‘Look at this tree, Arthur,’ the old man said, his white brows furrowing as he spoke. ‘That’s us! I finally understand what Artor meant when he explained that all his struggles and all his battles were not in any expectation of winning ultimate victory, but because he wanted breathing space for the Saxons to grow and change.’

  ‘I can understand what he meant, but the warriors who attacked Spinis were just savages. Perhaps they’ve learned nothing in the last hundred years.’

  ‘I’d wager that many of the men involved in the attack on Spinis were recent arrivals to these shores. Did you see the corpses of the Saxon monks who were slaughtered with their brethren in the basilica? Those Saxons had changed their ways, as have many others. In this case, time is both our friend and our enemy.’

  ‘Then the battle for Calleva Atrebatum must be won,’ Arthur muttered. He put heels to his horse, his thoughts fixed on the army of Britons who would move towards the battlefield on the morrow.

  ‘Yes. The battle for Calleva Atrebatum must be won, or else the Britons are finished,’ Bedwyr muttered. His words were soured by anxiety but his heart was beating quickly with new hope, for Arthur’s eyes were no longer more green than grey. They were wintry now, alert and aware at last, and as pitiless as a shark caught in a net that still snaps and tears at the hands that are trying to kill it. And, in Arthur’s face, Bedwyr could see his reward for nourishing and loving the fruit of his wife’s shame and his own weakness.

  ‘Perhaps there is still some reason to hope,’ he murmured, and spurred his horse to follow Arthur into the darkening forest.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A TEST OF STRENGTH

  Militarism . . . is fetish worship. It is the prostration of men’s souls and the laceration of their bodies to appease an idol.

  R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society

  The army moved ponderously through the low mountain range that separated Cunetio from Calleva. Deep forest encroached on their path along the river, masking the movement of the cavalry from Saxon scouting parties, but causing problems for the foot soldiers, the healers and the huge carts of provisions. Bedwyr, Ector and Cadwy Scarface led the cavalry contingent, chosen because all three were experienced in battle and understood the movement of men and horses through unforgiving terrain. Bors, Pelles, Tewdwr and the king of the Atrebates, Artair, led the bulk of the army. Bran was the overall commander, a role won by his blood link with the Dragon King and his years of battle against the Saxons from one end of Britannia to the other.

  Old Calleva had been built on a long hill that commanded the surrounding countryside, the city walls enclosing the entire crown of the hill. This part of the countryside was blessed with plentiful supplies of underground water which flowed through beds of gravel. Perfectly filtered and unsullied by pollution, the precious liquid was sweet and clean in a world where water couldn’t be universally trusted. The necessary elements of security were here in abundance: clean water and all-round views that stretched far into the distance.

  The forest lay within a mile of Calleva’s northern wall and supplied charcoal and fuel for ovens, forges and kilns. The Romans had turned Calleva Atrebatum into an industrial and administrative centre boasting a large forum, public baths, and insulae built for the town’s workers, temples and basilicas.

  Unusually for a security-minded town, Calleva possessed seven gates. The northern gate gave on to the wide road that swept east to Londinium. The main western gate opened to a road leading to Corinium in the north-west and another road leading to Durnovaria in the south-west. A smaller gate, suitable only for foot traffic and positioned very low in the surrounding terrain, serviced the outer town that existed around Calleva’s flanks. Another small gate led to the east and the lower town, while an even smaller gate, the Water Gate, was positioned nearby.

  Outside the east gate, and to its left, was the amphitheatre, which was now being used as the headquarters for the combined force of Saxon and Jute warriors besieging the British defenders. A large tent housed Cerdic and Cynric at the very centre of the amphitheatre in an attempt to gain a bloodless victory over their cocksure ally, the huge Jute, Havar, who was new to this land yet conducted himself like the heir apparent to Cerdic’s throne. Havar had gone so far as to place his own campaign tent at the highest point of the amphitheatre, so that it overlooked Cerdic’s tent.

  ‘Havar has begun to style himself as the White Dragon, Father,’ Cynric snarled. ‘Who in the name of Odin does he think he is? You’re the bretwalda, not him. He’s a Jute oaf who’s been chased out of his homeland by the Dene and has now come to these lands with a cap in his hand to beg for a share of our victory.’

  Cerdic was old in Saxon terms, for these warriors longed for a short and glorious life. Well over fifty, he had lost half his teeth and suffered some nasty burns around his feet, calves and thighs that forced him to walk with a stiff gait, although he was still formidable in battle. Rumour suggested that he had tribal blood in his veins, but no one dared to speak such heresy aloud. Cerdic’s temper was quick and vicious.

  His son, Cynric, was a handsome, tall man with sweeping red-gold moustaches and eyes that were a particularly guileless shade of blue. Ultimately, his pleasing demeanour was a honey trap, for Cynric was cold, calculating and ruthless to a fault.

  When Havar had landed with his thanes and followers at old Venta Icenorum, Cerdic had seen the potential in having such a brutal, battle-hardened man to supplement his forces. Havar had survived a dozen dangerous raids and was accustomed to using his muscle rather than his brain to overcome any opposition. Cerdic and his son had decided, even before Havar had joined them, that he would be a perfect tool to break the hearts of the Britons and leave the Saxons to mop up the survivors. If Havar should die in the conflicts to come, Cerdic would be rid of a dangerous and ambitious interloper.

  ‘Havar obeyed my orders to the letter at Spinis,’ Cerdic pointed out. ‘He works well on a loose rein but, frankly, I’d rather not play such brutal games, even though I know the effect they have on our common enemy. Better he should learn to understand that the British tribesmen will not easily surrender. We’d not even be having this conversation if the Dragon King was still alive.’

  He began to co
ugh uncontrollably, a hacking, painful cough that came from deep in the lungs. Cynric fetched ale for him, concern softening his face, for he knew his father would soon be departing this earth.

  ‘Havar was unmoved by the passive resistance displayed by the monks,’ Cerdic murmured, when he could speak. ‘He didn’t understand their courage at all. Since he feels such scorn for tribal values, we’ll let him bear the brunt of the British cavalry. He might live long enough to learn that if old men die slowly and hideously without surrendering, then armed warriors will take their revenge.’

  Cerdic permitted himself a short laugh and began to cough again, and Cynric saw that the cloth he used to wipe his lips came away with traces of blood on it.

  ‘Let’s pray that Havar has a fatal introduction to British horsemen when they arrive here, Father,’ Cynric agreed. ‘He has much to discover about our enemy, and this lesson might be the death of him.’

  ‘I’ve told him already that the tribesmen make useless slaves. The most bitter of them will wait years to cut your throat when you begin to forget they’re there, and the women may beguile our men but can never be owned. Better to rape the bitches, and then kill them.’ Cerdic laughed again. Both men knew that the Britons would ultimately lose these pleasant lands, but they would never become a captive race. Some might live beside the Saxons for generations, as had been the case at Pontes, but they never relinquished their culture – never.

  As a talented commander, Havar had taken the precaution of inserting sentries into the forest along the approaches to Spinis and Calleva, but Bedwyr had no difficulty in finding them and diverting his horsemen along other routes. Ector would have preferred to kill the sentries outright and be done with them, but Cadwy Scarface watched Bedwyr’s upright back as his horse picked its way through the thickets towards a wooded hill that overlooked the Saxon army and put his finger to his mouth to warn his master to be silent.

  ‘I remember how Bedwyr set about hunting sentries many years ago in the forests of Moridunum,’ he told Ector later. ‘A special skill is needed if a scout is to kill men who expect to be approached by friends rather than enemies. Bedwyr lulled them into a sense of false security because he spoke their language like a native-born Saxon. Anyway, he believes that the time to kill them is when we decide to move. Meanwhile, the enemy won’t get close enough to attack us without warning, if I know old Bedwyr.’

  Cavalry and foot soldiers positioned themselves on the plain on the western side of the Saxon encampment. Like a well-oiled machine, they worked as one to raise their tents while the healers set themselves up on the highest point of the landscape. No sooner had the tents been erected than Bran and Ector ordered every man, regardless of station, to begin digging.

  ‘We’re back at that fucking ditch again,’ Arthur muttered under his breath to Germanus as he added huge piles of soil to the growing wall that faced the main camp of the Saxons. Canny as always, Bran had used Artair’s superior knowledge of the area to find two disused wells, which were quickly recommissioned. As in the old days of the Dragon King, pits were dug and disguised on the field and a supply of fish oil was collected to create nasty fire-traps that could crisp the unwary, while the cavalry occupied themselves with cutting down stakes from the forest to insert in the wall. Several of the kings grumbled as they took their undignified turns on the shovel-line, but no able-bodied man was exempt except for the archers and the healers, whose hands would prove vital in the coming campaign.

  ‘I don’t really mind digging,’ Scoular ap Seosamh of the Brigante said to Artair as they struggled with their shovels beside Causus of Deva and Deinol ap Delwyn of the Deceangli, for Bran had decreed that erstwhile enemies should work together to restore the bonds of yesteryear. ‘I’m just not very good at it.’ He rubbed his blistering hands together in his sheepskin gloves. ‘Then again, I’m also useless with a sword. But I’m quite effective, apparently, at organising supplies, so Bran gave me a list some time ago of the equipment we might need if Cissa and the Suth Seaxe decided to go to war with us. I don’t think he expected Cerdic of the West Seaxe to grasp the advantage when Cissa died. Fortunately, I managed to obtain most of the items that Bran asked for well in advance of his projected need for them.’

  ‘Cerdic of the West Seaxe has always had a brain in his head. He’s not an impulsive leader,’ Cadwy Scarface grunted as his ageing muscles hefted another shovel-load of the gravel onto the mound on the bivouac side of the ditch. ‘Unless something unpleasant gets under his skin like a burr beneath a horse blanket.’

  ‘Havar, the White Dragon, has managed to stir up the West Seaxe since he arrived. Our intelligence tells us he was responsible for Spinis, while Cynric was only an observer.’

  ‘That accounts for the barbaric nature of that raid,’ Arthur interrupted. ‘But the brains behind the torture were Cerdic’s. I wouldn’t absolve Havar, but he must be having his own problems with Cerdic if he is being used to deliver the message.’

  The young man quickly realised he was speaking out of turn, and should have remained silent in such exalted company, but he made such sense that the kings nodded in agreement and wondered silently what type of man was Bedwyr’s eldest son, this cuckoo who had been sired in a forest nest.

  ‘I don’t care what Havar is, because I’ve got a few surprises for him when he joins battle with our main force,’ Scoular said, looking very pleased with his prospects. ‘Taliesin’s brother has constructed a few little somethings that will spoil the plans of both Cerdic and Havar. The harper says they’re Roman in design but all Briton in practical use.’ All his life, the awkward, unattractive Scoular had been lacking in self-esteem, and half of his kingdom had now been stolen away by the Saxons of Mercia through infiltration. Yet Bran had looked beneath the outward appearance of the scholar to find an organised mind beneath the uncoordinated body. Anna, though now ailing and frail, had given good advice to her son over many years, and insisted that he should make good use of Scoular’s talent for organisation in the Saxon push which was certain to come.

  Actually, Scoular had enjoyed finding the peculiar items that Bran had requested, especially the salt, bitumen, pitch and saltpetre required for Rhys ap Myrddion’s special programme. Nasty little shards of metal and even broken pieces of precious glass had been obtained as ammunition for the strange iron contraptions that Rhys had constructed. Other terracotta containers that seemed to have no purpose had also been found, a purchase that left Scoular intrigued. But Bran’s list was mundane as well, for he instructed Scoular to collect a secret store of weapons and food, sufficient to supply an army of five thousand men for at least six months. Scoular had complied with his instructions and the supplies were currently sitting in secure storehouses. He could now sit back with wagons at the ready to answer a call that might never come.

  Perhaps, if Scoular could contribute to the destruction of the West Seaxe, he could forget the loss of fair Melandra, the jewel of the Brigante lands, which had been razed to the ground by the new breed of Mercian kings. The fortress would endure only as a song and a memory of great beauty.

  But I saw Melandra before it was destroyed, even though it was already in decline, Scoular thought as he hefted the shovel to move a large load of wet gravel. He grunted with the effort. Melandra was a fair dream, which has now gone. But it will survive in my mind for as long as I live. Why must the Saxons destroy everything that is beautiful?

  Scoular’s mobile, rather ugly face settled into lugubrious lines and the men around him fell silent. As a hopeless warrior with no strategic skills, and as the legitimate heir of Modred the Matricide, he should have been disliked by his peers, but few men could resist Scoular’s shaggy brows or the brown eyes that danced with fascination at the world and its wonders. He could have been a joke, for his coordination was abysmal and he constantly fell over his own feet, but his natural charm, generosity and kindness more than made up for his awkwardness.

  Arthur patted Scoular’s back, although to do so was a social solecism.
The Brigante king outranked him and was older in years, knowledge and experience. Fortunately, Scoular took no offence and smiled gratefully up into Arthur’s golden face.

  ‘Cheer up, my lord. I promise to make the Saxons pay for your distress. What I saw at Spinis precludes any leniency on my part.’

  Germanus kicked Arthur’s shin hard to shut him up and then, begging the pardon of the group, asked when battle was likely to be joined.

  Causus of Deva, a Gaul, smelled the wind and leaned on his wooden shovel, grateful for a brief respite from the back-breaking task of digging. ‘They could attack in the next five minutes, and if I were in their place I would. It depends on how confident they are, for they outnumber us. They have a hundred-odd of the largest Jutes I’ve ever seen, and most of the Saxons outweigh and outreach us. Except for this huge lump, of course,’ Causus added for Arthur’s benefit, although the white smile on his dirty face robbed the insult of any personal bite. He remembered the old Dragon King and his personal bodyguard of bastard sons, and was beginning to wonder who Arthur really was.

  ‘Aye. If the Saxons weren’t so sure of themselves, they’d attack earlier rather than later,’ Cadwy agreed. ‘They can see what we’re doing, but they have no idea what use we’ll make of it. Hades, I don’t know myself, so how can they?’ Cadwy was being uncharacteristically optimistic, judging that if his time had come to die, then this battle would be a memorable opportunity for a warrior to win renown. He genuinely wished to atone for his treason in the civil war, and his heart was light with the promise that the slate would soon be wiped clean.

  A shadow intruded between Cadwy and the setting sun. Idris ap Cadwy, his foster-son, was standing on the mound in front of a new crew of diggers which included Bors of Cornwall. ‘Shift change, Father . . . my lords. Bran has decided that we will work through the night so Scoular’s boxes of tricks can be prepared under the cover of darkness.’