Pendragon 02 Pendragon Banner (65 page)

§ XXIII

The tracks were easy enough to follow, two
horses, galloping.
Arthur’s horses, war stallions
that had been painstakingly
trained and taught, a bay and chestnut.
Where the trees had
thickened into denser
woodland and the frost-rutted track
divided, the horses had slowed,
halted a moment, then been
pushed on again,
uphill, deeper into the woods. Ridden.
Bolting
horses did not stop to decide in which direction to run,
they went fast
and straight.

Dawn had been thick with the heavy reek of
smoke. All the stored hay and grain was gone. The gathered grain harvest for
the steading. Two men had been killed, one hit by
falling
beams, the other caught by flame as he bravely tried to save
some of that precious grain. Gone also were two of Arthur’s horses – and two
boys.

By mid-morning Cerdic and Vitolinus had not
been found, and then the tracks were discovered. Arthur himself, mounted on
another horse – for Onager was still shivering, his coat
scorched and blackened in places, his tail singed
– followed the
trail of hoof prints, his men, grim, silent behind.
Occasionally
they checked, where the ground
had frozen too hard to betray a
print, but Arthur was a soldier, and his
men were experienced
scouts and hunters.
Always they found the way again, following
at a jogtrot or walk, but
following. Silent, angry.

A stream twisted its way
between steep-sided earth banks
that
gouged a path through the close-growing trees. The woods
were
silent, no sound of bird song, no mournful call of a wolf.

Only Arthur and his
Turma of Artoriani, the rustle of grass and
fallen
leaves beneath the hooves, the occasional jangle of bit and creak of leather.
The tracks of two horses were plain here
beneath
the trees on the layers of leaf mould where the frost had
not yet come.
Down the steep bank, the earth was scoured and crumbled where the animals had
slid into the water.

A
rthur drew
rein at the top of the bank. There were no tracks
on the far side. He
studied the double line of disturbed pebbles and floating weed beneath the
sluggish water. They had gone
upstream then.
He pushed his horse to follow, rode on a
hundred or so yards, then his
horse snorted, plunged, as a boy, with dirt- and tear-smeared face, clad in a
muddied, wet tunic and boots, appeared suddenly from around the bend ahead. A
rthur cursed. The boy, wading down through the
water,
intent on re-trailing his way home, was as startled to see the
men. He bit off an exclamation, stood, hands clasped into fists
at his sides looking up into the cold eyes of
Arthur, the
Pendragon.

The man returned the look with searing
contempt. The boy’s
skin was ash-pale
beneath all the grime, that first startled horror
of unexpected meeting becoming masked, steadfastly
thrust
aside into a show of defiance. The boy’s legs were shaking and
his stomach churning. He wanted to run, wanted to
shout that
it had not been his fault, that he was not to blame. It had
been the other boy’s idea, not his. He had only meant to scare the
horses, not start a fire. But Vitolinus did not
run, or blurt out his
protests. He faced the Pendragon and lifted his
arm to point upstream.

‘Cerdic is hurt. He fell.’
Arthur said nothing, continued that awful,
contemptuous
stare, then kicked his horse into a trot, bending low
beneath
sweeping branches, riding past
Vitolinus, ignoring him.
Another
rider, towards the rear of the column, lifted the boy
and set him before his saddle. No one had spoken,
not one
single man uttered a word.

The bay stood beside a
clump of alder trees, head down, hide
stained
with dried sweat, his near-side foreleg hanging limp. The stream narrowed here,
the banks reared steep. The second horse, the chestnut, lay up against the
earth bank, body half
covered by water, the
ugly twist of his head showing his neck to
be broken. To the left,
propped against a tree, lay Cerdic, his
skin
white as chalk dust, sweat pricking on his forehead. He saw
Arthur ride around
the bend of the stream, tried to move, his face contorting in pain, and fear.

Arthur reined in, slid from his horse,
leaving the animal to graze, and walked past the injured boy, paying him not
even a cursory glance. Approaching the bay with extended hand and soft words,
he petted the miserable animal, smoothing the wrinkled coat where sweat had
dried, talking all the while in
low nonsense
words while he moved down the shoulder past the
knee to the swollen,
misshapen fetlock joint. Straightening, he
drew
his sword, again patted the horse’s neck, fondled his ears,
and quickly,
before the animal knew it to happen, brought the
blade through the throat. The horse dropped, blood gushing,
the life left within the muscles and veins
twitching and jerking.

They had been good horses.

The chestnut’s rider, Arthur’s Decurion, a
man whose father and father’s father had bred horses, slipped from his borrowed
mount and walked towards the grotesque body. He stood a
moment looking down at the lifeless hulk and the sightless eyes,
remembering
the pride that had been there only yesterday. He turned quickly away, walked
back to his borrowed horse and mounted with a stiff back and erect head. Their
horses meant much to the Artoriani.

Many eyes swivelled from the dead chestnut to
Arthur, to
Cerdic, back to Arthur, wiping
his bloodied sword blade on the
grass. Aye, they all knew it was wrong
to become attached to
their mounts, knew that
sentiment had no place beside a
warrior’s sword, but the knowing did not
ease the doing. Not one man there, watching as Arthur walked towards the boy
huddled against that tree, made any attempt at objection, or
frowned, or even cared, as Arthur kicked out, his
boot
connecting savagely with Cerdic’s fractured thigh. The bones
grated, blood spurted. Cerdic screamed.

Vitolinus, standing
uncertain at the rear where his escort had
dumped
him, darted forward. His hands grasped at Arthur’s
tunic, pleading, tears spurting down his face. ‘It was not
Cerdic’s
fault! The chestnut slipped, it was an accident. An accident!’
Arthur whirled, his hand sweeping back and down
across the boy’s cheek, the blow sending the boy tumbling, blood spurting
from
his nose. Nostrils flaring, the Pendragon hauled Vitolinus to his feet, held
the boy by the collar.

‘
Accident?
Was the bay, too, an accident? Was it an
accident that set ablaze your sister’s barn where my stallion was
stabled?
Was it accident that has destroyed the stored harvest, killed two men and two
horses?’ Vitolinus cried out, as Arthur’s fist again hit him. No one attempted
to interfere. They watched, silent, blank, with no pity.

Cerdic, the pain intense,
teeth chattering, sweat soaking
into
his eyes, shouted, ‘Leave him be!’ He attempted to rise.
The
world spun red and black. ‘Leave him, you murdering bastard!’ The red rage that
had seized Arthur at this senseless waste calmed. He flung Vitolinus from him,
swung around, fists clenched, breathing hard. Cerdic flinched, expecting blows
to fall on him, but Arthur stood where he was.

‘
Murdering
bastard is it?’ Arthur could barely talk for the raw,
burning anger that
filled his throat. ‘You think that of me now,
boy.
Na. You have not yet seen how much of a murdering
bastard I can be.’
He went to his horse, mounted, heeled it into a
trot, rode
away. Behind him, without
a backward glance, rode his
Artoriani.
A lone bird glided silent on spread wings to a nearby branch, black eyes cold
as death, eyeing over the pickings. The
scavengers were coming, drawing
closer, their harsh, excited caws breaking the silence of the woods.

Arthur kicked his mount
into a canter. He had a meeting
with Aesc and already
the day was half wasted.

Cerdic watched him go, through a hazed blur
of tears and pain, watched his father ride away and leave him there.

Vitolinus
crawled to his feet, spitting blood from his mouth along with a broken tooth.
He would have to walk back to the steading, fetch help. It would be a long
walk, but even so, the undamaged side of his face formed a smile of relief.

‘Jesu,’ he
said, ‘I thought he was going to kill us!’ Cerdic made no answer, but his
thought showed.
I’ll be killing him
first!’

§ XXIV

Vitolinus made his way
back to Winifred’s steading, stopping as
he
stumbled to the edge of the oak woods, breathless, hurting, angry and
humiliated. Arthur was surveying the remains of the barn. The blackened timbers
were sticking obscenely upright;
the burnt,
charred rafters, hanging, fallen, one still resting
across the supports.
Smoke still drifted here and there, and the
acrid,
choking smell wafted even as far as these trees. He
watched Arthur step through what had once been the
huge
double doors – only the doorposts remained – watched as the
Pendragon bent, picked something up. It must have
been
metal, for it glinted, caught by the afternoon sun.

Summoning courage, Vitolinus
took a step out from the
shaded
protection of the trees into the cloud-scuttered sunlight,
ready to cross down the slope into the steading. A bird,
a kestrel
he thought flew low
over his head and he lifted his eyes to watch
its
passing, saw the autumn blueness of the sun-glistened sky, and the majesty of
the trees, tinged with the first stirrings of
colourful
splendour. And suddenly freedom seized him. He had
never known what it was like to stand entirely
alone beneath
the shade of an oak tree and feel the smart slap of sun on
his face. Always, when he was young, his mother had been beside
him or behind or before; his mother with her
stifling possessive
loving that had
swamped him, engulfed him, so that his
stomach
heaved and his throat choked, clawed to be free of her.
But he was a small boy, he had not the knowledge
or
understanding to run from her. Then Arthur had rescued him. Oh, that
glorious day when he realised he was no longer to remain with his doting
mother! They had been living with hisgrandsire, old Hengest, and Arthur had
beaten him in battle. Part of the price of surrender had been the handing over
of the boy Vitolinus. But it had turned out to be a brief happiness, for he was
put into Ambrosius Aurelianus’s care, that dour-faced, God-praising bore, and
from him, to the monastery. Where his sister, the so revered and oh so
hypocritical, two-faced bitch could keep eye to him.

Freedom! He held his arms wide, let his head
fall back, and smelt and tasted its feel. Ah, it was good! Drunk on the heady
intoxication, he stepped back into the concealing shadows and waited. He saw
Winifred’s men hurrying up the trail into the woods, watched them returning
later with a boy lying on a
stretcher, his
mother running in a flurry of high-carried skirts to
tend him. He waited
and watched as the afternoon shadows lengthened and the two leaders, the
British Pendragon and the Jute Aesc, came together in Council, sitting out in
the open,
gathered circular around the
huge-built fire, to make their
peace
and promises of treaty. Watched and waited for the long,
cold-nip night to turn through the darkness into
the pink-
fringed dawn. Watched, with a sneering grin of hatred, as the
Pendragon mounted and rode away. Waited for Aesc to make his way to the river
where his two ships lay moored.

And then he cut himself a staff, hitched his
cloak tighter around his shoulder and started eastward. He would follow the
coast, would walk to Aesc’s country, make his own way, in his
own time and his own freedom, to return to his
kindred. He
could have gone down to the river, waited by the boats and
begged his uncle to take him on board. But Aesc might have refused; Winifred,
the old sow, might have been there, or the po-faced Ambrosius.

Na! He would make his own passage to Aesc’s
territory, for then he could present himself truly as free-born, and no man
could mock or jeer him, or accuse him of a cowardly running away.