For King & Country (44 page)

"You are most well come, Ancelotis, most well come, indeed! But is Artorius not with you?" he added, peering at the
cataphracti
officers at Ancelotis' back.

"No, he rides with the bulk of the army, including the infantry, which will slow him considerably. He is perhaps a full week's march behind me, maybe as much as eight or nine days, given the condition of the roads in this weather."

Cadorius frowned. "Then he will reach us well after the Saxons do. We expect the Saxon army to lay siege within five days, at most. Refugees are flooding into Glastenning ahead of them."

"The sentries tell me Emrys Myrddin has gone to Glastenning Tor?"

Cadorius nodded, gesturing to a servant, who brought hot stew and wine. As Ancelotis tackled the meal with enthusiasm, Cadorius brought him up to date.

"Melwas and I didn't want him to leave Caer-Badonicus, but he insisted. Covianna was afraid for her kinsmen, who would be unprepared if the Saxons broke through here. Myrddin agreed to ride with her to the Tor, to offer his suggestions for defenses. My greatest worry for his safety is the bandits on the roads, taking advantage of all this turmoil, looting empty villages and abandoned farmholds. Such cutthroats care nothing for which set of masters they rob. And we win this war, I'll be after cleaning them out with fire and hangmen's ropes."

"What of our defenses here? Are we ready to meet the enemy?"

Cadorius nodded. "We've laid in a good supply of food. Water," he added with a snort of wry humor, glancing at the ceiling where rain rattled and danced, "is not a problem. A week to nine days, you said, before Artorius arrives? We could hold them off at least ten times that long, and we've deliberately built of stone and brick, as much as possible, so they can't burn us out with fire arrows. We could use some of our shelters, for there wasn't time to roof
everything
in stone shingles. But we're nowhere nearly as vulnerable as the defenseless villages they've used that tactic against."

"I've some ideas of my own, to add to the defenses." Stirling nodded toward the officers of his
cataphracti,
men with Asiatic features, who watched and ate in alert silence, many of them wearing the Sarmatian tribal badge embroidered on their tunics, a naked sword thrust through a stone. "There's no force in all of Western Europe to match my Sarmatian bowmen. Come the dawn, I'll work out a few nasty surprises for the Saxons, to teach them the damage Sarmatian archers can inflict."

The officers grinned, several of them lifting fingers to brow in a jaunty salute. "It will be a pleasure," one of them chuckled, "a very distinct pleasure."

"There's little more to be done, tonight," Ancelotis nodded in satisfaction, mopping up the last of the stew with a hunk of bread. "If you've spare cots someplace, my officers and I need to steal at least a few hours' sleep. We've been riding hard these last few days, and the lack of rest is catching up to us."

Cadorius had a servant guide them across the wind-blasted summit toward the barracks. The
cataphracti
officers were shown to quarters with others of their rank and Ancelotis left them making plans to check on their men, to be sure the rest of Gododdin's forces had found a good spot to bed down and had found plenty to eat. Ancelotis and Stirling were escorted to another building, where the royalty of half a dozen Briton kingdoms had taken refuge for the duration. Ancelotis recognized several princes, sent by harried fathers to direct the troops lent to Glastenning for the coming conflict. There was even a scattering of royal daughters and queens who preferred the safety of the hill fort to the uncertainty of the Lowlands. Ancelotis halted in dismay when Ganhumara gave a glad little cry and rushed forward, flinging herself into his arms.

"Thank God, you've come in time!"

He placed firm hands on her shoulders, forcibly moving her a step backwards. She peered up through long, coppery lashes, feigning hurt with a masterful pout. "Is this any way to greet the queen of Caer-Guendoleu?"

"What are you doing here?" Ancelotis demanded bluntly.

She tossed her long hair across one shoulder. "If you must know, I was kidnaped."

"Kidnaped?" he echoed, disbelieving.

"By Melwas! Cadorius rescued me. Oh, he was so gallant!"

Ancelotis glowered down at her. "I refuse to believe that King Melwas was so great a fool as to kidnap you, Ganhumara. Let the story stand as a salve to your reputation, if you must, but do not attempt to fool
me
with it. I would strongly suggest you find some way to beg your husband's humble pardon for your continued foolhardiness when he arrives."

Ganhumara's eyes flashed, defiant and proud. "I will beg
nothing
from Artorius!" she hissed. "He is nothing but the son of commoners and whores! Never will I forgive my father for binding me in marriage to a half-blood bastard of a
Sarmatian
!"

She whirled and stalked away, stiff with rage.

Ancelotis scrubbed his face, too weary to deal with her tempers and peccadillos.

"Is she always like that?" a quiet voice at his elbow startled him.

He found a troubled, grey-eyed gaze locked on the retreating queen of Caer-Guendoleu, a quiet gaze which turned to meet his forthrightly. Ancelotis didn't recognize her, but she wore a torque of royalty, so he supposed her to be of the royal house of one of the southern kings.

"Unfortunately, yes. She is. And often worse."

"Then I pity Artorius. The Dux Bellorum has enough to worry him, without a wife like that to damage the peace even further."

"I must beg your humble pardon," Ancelotis murmured, "but I do not know you, dear lady. I am Ancelotis of Gododdin," he added.

Her lips twitched into a slight smile. "Yes. The news of your arrival spread like wildfire through brambles. It gave us heart, when all has been gloom for so long. I am Iona, last survivor of the royal house of Ynys Weith."

Ancelotis' eyes widened. "Dear God, I thought the whole family dead! I thank God in heaven that you were spared. But how?"

Tears welled up in her eyes. "The Saxons came in the night, led by traitors among the fisherfolk. They slaughtered my whole family as we slept. A servant, one of the old men from the stables who had seen the Saxons arrive, dragged me from my bed, threw old clothes across my nightdress, hid me in the kitchen. I crouched for hours in the hearth, covered with ash and shaking with terror. The Saxons came through the kitchen, guzzling wine and ale until they could scarcely stagger to the cesspits."

Princess Iona was trembling. The look in her eyes chilled Ancelotis' blood. "Just before cockcrow, the stableman led me down to the strand, where loyal fishermen hid me beneath their nets and took me to safety in Caer-Durnac. When the Saxons came across the border into Caer-Durnac, I fled into the marshes, where I hid for months, eating raw fish and learning to survive by my wits." She gazed down at her hands, visibly roughened and red, even by lamplight. "It took more courage than I thought I had left, to come out of those marshes and seek asylum with Cadorius and Melwas. But I had to come, to warn the other royal houses of Britain what the Saxons are capable of, when they set their sights on a victim."

Ancelotis reached up with gentle fingertips to wipe tears from her cheeks. "Thank you, Iona, for your courage. And for reminding us that creatures like Ganhumara are the rare exception, among Britain's royal ladies. I sorrow for your losses. Please consider Gododdin a place of refuge for you, should you ever need a home."

The tears came faster, but she managed a tremulous smile. "I am honored, Ancelotis of Gododdin. Thank you. And I fear I have kept you too long from your bed. If there is anything I can do, on the morrow, to help you and your men prepare, please ask it of me."

He offered her a formal bow, then found an unoccupied cot and collapsed onto the straw-filled tick, asleep within moments. Morning found him outside the circumvallation, walking the steep, muddy hillside in the company of the Sarmatian commanders of Gododdin's
cataphracti.
Stirling pointed down the lee side of the hill. "According to Cadorius, Emrys Myrddin expects the bulk of the Saxons to camp along here, protected from the weather. Frankly, I agree. What I want is for someone to pace off known distances from the outermost wall, beginning with the farthest range of a bowshot and coming back toward the wall in stepped increments, three paces at a time. Put up small wooden posts to mark the known distances."

"For what purpose?" one of his officers asked, brow furrowed in puzzlement.

Stirling grinned. "You'll see shortly. Put several men in charge of the work out here. Then join me inside the walls again."

As they hiked in through the mazelike passages between the walls, Ancelotis muttered silently,
Just what
are
you up to? I don't understand it, either.

Stirling explained. The Sarmatian cavalry archers are very good for our purposes. The flight of an arrow is very much akin to the flight of a bullet or cannon ball—and artillery ballistics is something I bloody well know. What I'm going to do is teach our Sarmatians some drills, things I know that will increase their effectiveness, a way of shooting at targets they can't see.

What sort of drills?
Ancelotis asked, unsure what artillery and firearms might even
be;
despite the memory images in Stirling's mind, it was difficult for the sixth-century king to grasp the concepts and distances an ordinary rifle or mortar could throw a projectile, never mind the speeds such projectiles could reach. Before he could answer, the officers of his
cataphracti
joined him inside the wall, so Stirling explained it to everyone at once. "How many bowmen are with us?" he began.

"Seventy, at least," one of the officers answered.

"And they shoot at individual targets, one at a time, from horseback?"

The officers nodded, expressions puzzled. "It's the way Sarmatians have fought for centuries."

"Very effectively," Stirling agreed. "But there are other ways of firing a bow than aiming directly at a target, especially since we'll have battlements to use as shelter."

Puzzlement turned to utter bafflement.

"May I?" Stirling asked, nodding to the nearest heavy compound bow, made of horn and wood and requiring a strong man, indeed, to pull it. The Sarmatian handed over his bow and a quiver of arrows. "Very good. What I'm going to teach you is a way to hit something you cannot see, do so without exposing yourself to enemy spears or javelins, by coordinating your shots."

He notched an arrow and pulled the powerful bow, drawing the string back to his chest, rather than his ear, in the older style of shooting that Sarmatians and other ancient archers had used—a technique that would remain in force until the advent of the Welsh longbow. Rather than aiming directly at the wall, three paces away, Stirling aimed high above it, eyeballing the angle and projecting the parabola of the arrow's flight.

He released the bow with a
whap!
and watched the arrow speed skyward. It arced upward and out across the walls, the curve descending steeply at the end of the foreshortened parabola. The arrow vanished somewhere downslope, well beyond the wall.

He turned to find the officer unimpressed.

Stirling chuckled and handed the bow back to its owner. "Shall we see how far it flew before landing?" They found the arrow several yards downslope, sticking up like a spike in the muddy ground.

"How can a man control it, though?" one of the officers asked, staring from the wall to the arrow embedded in the mud. "How would you know how high to aim, to have the arrow drop precisely where you wanted it to go?"

"That's what the posts out here are for, to mark known distances from the wall. I'll want several tall wooden poles erected inside the walls, with bands marked on them. And I'll want marker stones inside the walls, as well, so that if a man stands on the stone and aims past one of the painted rings on a pole, he'll know exactly how far that arrow will travel and where it will come down, with close approximation, relative to the marker posts out here. Then we'll drill to make sure we can hit those marks every time."

"Even so, it will be impossible to hit your enemy with any real accuracy if we can't see them because we're behind the walls!"

"Ah, but we'll have one man up top, a forward observer acting as the eyes for all the rest of us who'll be shooting at exactly the same time and exactly the same place."

Understanding dawned. "God above, it's
elegant
!"

They put every archer in Gododdin's
cataphracti
to work, cutting and setting poles every few yards along the innermost wall, painting narrow bands every few inches along the poles, setting stones in a line with those poles, and cutting marker posts which they placed beyond the walls to mark the farthest and nearest ranges of arrows when shot past the upper- and lower-most bands. Once the markers had been placed, the archers began practicing, with Stirling once again demonstrating.

"If I aim just to the left of the white band at the top, my arrow will fall very close to the post nearest the wall." He let an arrow fly and had a boy leap onto the outermost wall to call where it had landed. The boy shouted, "You're a foot beyond the post!"

Three more arrows and Stirling had put the shot within six inches of the post he could not see, nearest the outermost wall. "Mark this spot with a stone," he nodded in satisfaction, "and do the same for every pole we've put up along the line." He gestured. "Devise a shooting order, so that every man knows his place beside his comrades and always shoots from the same spot, whether he stands on a stone or to the left or right of the markers."

Stirling promised a keg of ale and a gold coin to the five archers who, at the end of a week, placed their shots consistently closest to the outside marker posts. The contest spurred the Sarmatians to a friendly competition of skill that sharpened their accuracy with amazing rapidity. Ancelotis was delighted, while Cadorius and Melwas regarded the king of Gododdin as a military genius.