by Gwen Rowley
The king nodded. “Go back to your post, boy. I doubt they will be on the move tonight. I will inform the captain. By dawn we shall be at war, holding Cornwall in the battle for Britain.”
“Will King Arthur arrive in time?” Geraint asked, staring off south into the darkness, feeling the Saxon threat like a cold chill.
“His army is still some days’ distant. I hope when he arrives we will be able to give him news of victory.”
Chapter 26
DROWSILY, Enid rolled over on her pallet when Geraint entered the pavilion. She smiled up at him as he began to undress. Sometimes, she still could not believe that every night he would return to her, and they could share simple conversations.
“I looked for my maidservant, Fryda,” she told him, “but she returned to Castle Cornwall with Wilton. It seems in her brief time with me, she was quite bereft at the thought of my death.”
“I heard Lovell shed tears.”
“Do not tease my squire,” she said, playfully tossing a cushion at him.
He smiled in a distracted fashion, and when he sat down beside her, she put her hand on his knee and said simply, “The Saxons are near?”
“Aye. Our scurriers could see their camp, although not well enough to estimate their numbers. I imagine they will at least match our own.”
“I have great confidence in your father. He will lead us to victory.”
He glanced at her, then away.
Enid cocked her head. “Since you cannot possibly doubt your father’s ability at battle, it must be something else.”
In a low voice, he said, “He was not as warm to you today as a father by marriage should be.”
She bit her lip, tense, but not surprised. “He has had time to hear the stories of our journey. He must fear for your happiness with me. We shall prove his fears groundless, I promise you.”
He gave her a slow smile. “You are fearless, even in the face of a king’s anger.”
She leaned up to kiss him. “Just wait until you see me against the Saxons.”
It was not the wisest thing to say, for his smile fled. He looked at her with such a fierce expression of worry that she wondered if he would yet try to forbid her participation in the battle. Instead he kissed her, and made love to her with a hungry intensity that left her sated, exhausted, and grateful that she’d found her true mate.
WELL before dawn, Enid was dressed for battle. She had agreed to wear a brigandine, but she was too unfamiliar with armor to fight properly while wearing more than that. And so Geraint did not want to leave her side.
Amid torches holding back the night, she put her hands on her hips and scowled at him. “Your place is at your father’s side. I will be with Toland and Tyler right behind you.”
He glared at the twins, who faced him solemnly. “You will not allow any harm to come to her.”
“It will be as if she attended mass, milord,” Toland said.
She rolled her eyes, but said nothing. She didn’t want Geraint to worry about her instead of himself.
He turned his ferocious frown on her. “And you will remain with them at all times.”
“Aye, my prince.” She kept her face expressionless, knowing how important this was to him, but how hard it would be once the battle had begun.
She couldn’t understand her own confidence, especially now that her unearthly strength was gone. But she’d always been the best fighter, and that ability would see her through the fight.
And besides, the shock of facing a woman across a sword on a field of battle always caused an enemy to hesitate a second too long.
As she moved into position behind Geraint, she stared down both lines of the Cornish army, most of them foot soldiers. She had never seen so many men in one place. Banners flew and trumpeters sounded a glorious march. Behind the lines were the Donella archers, ready to take out as many oncoming Saxons as possible before the two armies met.
Geraint and his fellow knights were a vision in blinding silver armor. Their horses were equally protected, and she couldn’t imagine anything more deadly to face on a battlefield.
At last, across the open moor, the Saxon army rode up from below the plain. They were well over a thousand strong, and their voices were raised in deafening cries of victory and the promise of bloodshed.
King Erbin gave the signal, and the horses, reined and furious, were set free by their riders. Thousands of men rode straight at each other, and over their heads the archers sent their deadly arrows. Dozens of the enemy fell dead in the rush forward. It didn’t seem as if it would help in the face of the ferocity of the long-haired, bearded Saxons, who wore padded leather armor rather than the shining suits of the British knights.
The last Enid saw of Geraint was that he was in the lead with King Erbin. Then the two armies broke upon each other with a crash of weapons and the shriek of men dying. Toland and Tyler’s good intentions to guard her quickly turned into a fierce battle for their lives. And Enid faced her first Saxon warrior. He saw her from the side, grinned, and pulled on his horse until the animal reared in a turn and came at her.
And then he was dead, his head hanging to the side from a blow of her sword. She wheeled her horse about and looked for her next opponent.
She’d worried that the strength she’d given up would affect her abilities, but she’d had that so briefly. Her own skills took over, and she moved with the fluidity of long practice.
The sun was high overheard before the two armies retreated to regroup. For several long minutes she rode among the men, the wounded and the merely scratched, as they drank from their skins of ale and assessed the damage.
She saw Geraint from a distance, his helmet beneath his arm as he searched among his battalions. Her relief made her wave furiously. He grinned and returned the gesture, then composed himself and glanced around coolly. She wanted to laugh. They rode up to meet one another, clasped hands, and regardless of the horses, leaned sideways for a quick kiss. Both horses neighed and shied away.
“You were magnificent,” he said, handing her his horn.
She drank deeply. “So were you. How does your father feel the battle is going?”
He shrugged. “They might have lost more than we did, thanks to your archers.”
“Ever the diplomat,” she said, shaking her head.
He smiled. “We were not forced to fall back. It is a good sign. Already there are Saxons retreating toward their ships. Father has sent a battalion to destroy their vessels, trapping the entire army. To defeat both attacks, they’ll have to split their forces.”
“And thereby weaken them.”
“Which could happen to us as well.” He narrowed his eyes as he scrutinized her. “Speaking of weakening—”
“I am not weak, my husband. You of all people know my strength and my talents.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
He sighed. “This is not a place for jests, Enid.”
“It is when someone needs to stop worrying so much. And I have noticed that you are no longer riding the same horse you began the day with. Do you see me panicking for you?” she asked sweetly. But on the inside she was.
He rolled his eyes.
King Erbin’s trumpet sounded, calling them back to battle. Enid gave her husband a jaunty wave and guided her horse behind him, looking for her bodyguards.
The second battle lasted well until dusk. The Saxon line had weakened and finally folded, and the Cornish army was beginning to surround them. Hundreds of Saxons fled toward the rear, to ships that would no longer be able to take them home.
Enid had become separated from Toland and Tyler hours before, but she continued to roam the field, fighting an ever-dwindling enemy.
In a lull between battles, she let her horse pick its way among the fallen men and horses, toward the southern lines where a few Saxons still fought. All around her men and horses moaned and shouted their agony. An evening breeze swept along the moor, chasing away the heat of battle. But the stench of the dead and dying lingered.
&
nbsp; “Enid!”
She heard her husband’s voice, and she lifted her head to look for him. His horse came thundering across the battlefield from her left, jumping whatever obstacles lay in its path.
She waited for him, but he started motioning furiously.
“Behind you!” he shouted.
She wheeled her horse about and saw two Saxon warriors, still mounted, charging at her. A deadly calm came over her, and every battle instinct rose to replace her exhaustion and fear. She hefted her shield on her left arm, her sword in her right hand, and prepared to do what was necessary to survive.
But she forgot about Geraint. At the last moment, he came galloping between them, and she was forced to veer aside rather than hit him. She wheeled back to find him furiously battling both men at once. She screamed in terror as he was knocked from his saddle. He went down in a crash of armor, yet rolled to his feet and killed the horse from beneath one soldier. The rider went down, and Enid left him to Geraint, kicking her horse into a gallop to meet the still-mounted Saxon.
Her arm shook as their swords met and held. Their horses continued to gallop past, and they were forced to disengage. They wheeled back to face each other, and at the last moment of the charge, Enid saw Geraint rush in to take out her opponent’s horse, too. The Saxon tumbled forward, but before he hit the ground, he thrust his sword at Geraint, piercing him at his weakest point, beneath his armpit where only leather protected him.
Enid cried out, and she barely remembered striking the killing blow against the Saxon who would dare wound Geraint. She vaulted from her horse and fell to her knees beside her husband, who lay still. The sun completed its final descent in that moment, and its beam, which had washed orange and red across Geraint’s face, went out like a premonition.
How deep had the sword penetrated? Was he even breathing? She frantically pulled his helmet off. His precious eyes were closed, his face pale and haggard. Even when she lifted his arm to assess the bleeding wound, he did not stir.
Oh gods, she had once feared that he might have to choose between her and his kingdom—and he’d chosen. He’d saved her at peril to himself.
Frantically she began to tug at the straps that held the front and back plates of his armor together, but they were sticky with blood. Was it all his? She was kneeling in a morass of mud and blood, surrounded by the dead and the dying—and she vowed that her husband would not be one of those.
“My lady!”
It was Lovell, galloping over the battlefield. A cut streamed blood from above one eyebrow, but he looked whole and well. At his rear rode several mounted knights, and for a moment, she didn’t recognize the king.
“Help me, Lovell!” She frantically pulled at the armor straps. As dusk began to settle, it made everything seem grayer. “Gods, please help me,” she whispered.
Lovell knelt beside her, and he had to use his dagger to start releasing the straps. Then suddenly they were surrounded by men.
“Take her from my son!” King Erbin thundered.
She was pulled away from Geraint, and she screamed a denial. No one listened. Two knights, strangers to her, held her back. Lovell was pushed aside.
“Sire, let me go to him!” she cried, tugging to no avail. “I know exactly where he is wounded.”
“As do I!” the king said, rounding on her in such fury that she shrank back. “I saw everything. He took a blow meant for you!”
She opened her mouth, but she could not refute it.
“A woman does not belong on the battlefield, and the fact that my son allowed it proves that you have bewitched him!”
How could she explain that she had been prepared to defend herself against the Saxons? Then Geraint had rushed in, disrupting everything, taking on the fury of two warriors because of her.
She sagged in the grip of her captors, watching helplessly as King Erbin ripped apart the last buckles that held his son’s armor together. The plates came apart, and he used his dagger against the padded tunic beneath.
“By the saints, there is so much blood!” he cried.
The despising look he cast at her made her shrink away.
Tears ran unchecked down her face. “He’s not dead! He cannot be dead!”
“Bring him to the pavilion and send for the healers,” the king ordered.
Four men lifted his son.
“Gently, gently,” he urged. Then he turned back to Enid. “Keep her restrained. I want no sorcery near my son.”
When she tried to follow the procession, the two knights held her back. She struggled violently.
“He said to restrain me, not to take me away. I must be with my husband.” She raised her voice in a shout. “I could be carrying Cornwall’s heir!” Though it was a lie, she knew such a proclamation would receive attention.
The king came to a halt and slowly turned about. Facing the Saxon fury was easier than staring down this man’s hatred. What had he heard that would so turn him against her? She’d done nothing but protect his men.
“She may come, but do not release her,” the king said in a low voice laced with fury and contempt.
Back at the encampment, torches were lit and fires were built high against the coming night. There would have been shouts and the celebration of victory, but all the soldiers held an uneasy silence in the face of their prince’s grave injuries.
Enid saw sympathetic glances as she passed, but no one would dare to gainsay their king. Lovell walked near her, his shoulders slumped, and his face blotched white and red.
“Lovell, go to my husband,” she ordered. “Tell me what they do to him, how he is.”
The boy nodded and sprinted away, toward the cluster of people surrounding Geraint’s still form. He lay on the ground by the fire. They stripped him of his armor and padded tunic and leggings. She could not see whether his chest rose and fell with breathing. Men were gathered over him, perhaps stanching the blood beneath his shoulder, or looking for signs of life. She didn’t know, and it was killing her.
Lovell returned at last, and beneath his wide eyes, dark shadows of despair had appeared. “They say he is not breathing, my lady. They say he’s—”
“Nay!”
She drove an elbow into one knight’s side behind his armor, then used her knee in the lower back of the other. Breaking free, she flung herself into the horde of men all around Geraint. Many fell back in astonishment, and she was able to put her hands on his chest. She closed her eyes and concentrated. In that frozen moment, she heard the slow beating of his heart.
She was ripped away again.
“Bind her!” the king ordered.
“But he lives!” she cried, eluding first one man, then another. “His heart yet beats.”
“You made sure my son is gone from me forever—now you make a mockery of my grief!”
“Sire, there is no need yet for grief. Why will you not listen to me?”
Still gathered around Geraint, men in long robes sadly shook their heads. They put away their bandages, their potions, and backed away from their prince. Geraint looked still and pale, and if she did not hurry, their statements would be fact.
“You witch!” King Erbin cried. “I have heard tales of your dark magic from my loyal knights: your granting of blessings as if you yourself were God, your powers to cheat death itself.”
“I have never cheated death. But Geraint might yet! He is alive!” She sobbed the last words, standing alone, surrounded by men who watched her as if she were the devil’s handmaiden.
Great tears ran down the king’s face. “You bewitched him from the first, forcing a marriage in haste. Was this your plan all along, to take my son from me?”
“I want him to live! Whether he chooses to keep me as wife will be up to him. The power to give a warrior courage runs in my veins. I know I can help him take back the will to live. Would you rather let your only son die than take a chance on my love for him? What could be worse than his death?”
By torchlight, the king’s face was stark with grief a
nd indecision.
From the crowd, a young man’s voice cried, “She helped me, sire! I lacked the courage for battle, and she shared hers with me.”
Bless Severin. All around them a chorus of murmurs rose. The king turned about like a child’s toy, not knowing which way to turn.
Lovell stepped to her side. “She helped me as well, sire. And did you not hear how she healed your son when he was wounded from his fight with the mercenaries?”
Enid pushed past the king and fell to her knees at Geraint’s side. She was afraid to call on her abilities as a warrior woman, for fear that without magic, she would deplete her strength just when he needed her most. She needed the magic again, needed the strength of ten men, so that her warrior woman ability might be magnified.
“We can burn the wound, giving him time until I am ready,” she said, turning to look up at the king. “Will you let me help him?”
The king stared for only a moment at his son’s pale face. And then he nodded.
She sprang to her feet. “Prepare your instruments,” she said to the healers. “I hope I can give him the strength to last.” She turned to Lovell. “Where is the source of water from which the army drinks?”
“A pond at the base of a spring, my lady. It is on the other side of this pavilion.”
“Take me to it.”
Chapter 27
GNID knew she was followed by dozens of men, but she no longer cared. She was of the Donella—with access to magic beyond herself.
But was she too late to ignite her powers? She’d spurned the moon, spurned the Lady’s gifts.
As she walked, she stripped off the brigandine, her jerkin and shirt, her boots and braies. She was one with nature, with the night sky and stars.
“Give me your dagger,” she said to Lovell, as he jogged at her side and gaped at her. She had somehow lost hers in battle.
Without a word, he did as she commanded. When she reached the pond, she stared in dismay. It had been almost totally drained to slake an army’s thirst. In the bottom of the basin, inches of water puddled amidst muddy earth.