Shadow of the King (61 page)

mead-hall, from father to son, to son, to son.

The rain came in cold, vicious squalls lashing from the northeast, and the

English saw no reason to leave the safety of their camp, the warmth of their

tents, and the comfort of their women. It was a time of feasting. They drank

their mead and ate their fill of ox and deer, boar and fowl, toasted their gods,

and told their tales of heroes past and adventures achieved. When the winds

eased and swung to a more benign south, they would be ready, with cleared

heads and high hearts. Aelle of the South Saxons would call to his brothers, and

they would march. When the feasting was done, when the mead had run dry,

and when the tales were all told.

Despite the failure to dislodge any of the Saex whore-sons from their encamp-

ment, the British were of good morale, eager to fight—and to fight well. They

had not expected to achieve much in that previous attack, had attempted the

idea more as a challenge, a warming-up, a flexing of muscles. Did not look

upon the incident as defeat or loss, seeing it merely as an exercise, a chance to

explore the Saex strength and seek out weaknesses. After all, few fortified places

could be taken with ease.

Sunrise, the third day of the Roman month of Janus. An appropriate month,

Ambrosius thought, if you disregarded the pagan element. Two-faced Janus, the

pre-Christian god who looked ahead and behind. Behind, the failure. Ahead,

the victory. It was time for battle.

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After the Nativity and midwinter feasting, more men had arrived, not

many, but every extra man was welcomed and valued. Powys had sent fifty,

Rheged another thirty or so, the mid-land tribes over two hundred between

them. The mild weather helped, and the eagerness for a fight. After that

short bout of cold wind, the sun had shown through spindle thrift clouds for

most days, persuading the birds to sing for their mating territories over-early.

Even the buds of the elderberry and hazel were bursting into too early,

spring-worn green.

Briton and Saxon spent that night straddling the Ridge Way, camped no

more than two miles apart. Dawn saw the Saxons dividing into two forces,

Aelle of the South Saxons commanding one, Aesc of the Cantii Jutes the other,

holding the advantage of deploying on slightly higher ground. The British saw

no reason to make private complaint, drew a similar stand. Ambrosius and his

own men, the infantry of Britannia Secunda taking the northward division,

Amlawdd with the militias and tithe-bound men the southern. Battle-lines

drawn, division facing division astride the ancient track that led south to north.

A pause, waiting for the last few stragglers to make their way into the rear, a

chance for individuals to make a last peace with their own god.

Ambrosius bent his knee to pray, head bowed, lips silently moving the intoned

words. Coinciding with his Amen, the sun rose, filtering a pale, subdued glow

onto the winter-bare ground—and the Saxon lines rippled and shifted, their

spear tips and swords gleaming faintly in the weak burst of new light. Ambrosius

called his horse forward, mounted, settled himself into the saddle, and raised his

arm, commanded his column to advance at the run. There came a great shout,

and the British rushed forward to meet the slow-advancing Saex. The crash and

clash of weaponry, the yelling and shouting and cursing reverberating across the

lower lands that fell away to each side of the high ridge, sending winter birds

into wild, raucous flight. As wild, the furious melee of men.

Although they held the higher advantageous ground, the uprush of the British,

so determined, so intent, allowed the Saxons not one pace forward from their

first-drawn lines. With Amlawdd and the tribes’ warriors beating and hacking

at Aesc’s Jutes, and Ambrosius himself leading against the Bretwalda, Aelle, it

became an even match as more and more of the Saex, peasant men many of

them, poorly clothed, ill-armed, fell dead or dying. Twice more. The sun rose

to the zenith, slid westward, the gather of winter-dark clouds bringing dusk

early. The Saxons broke, began to fall back, steadily, pace by pace, fighting still,

but drawing back. Night enveloped the Ridge, with a sudden-come bluster of

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wind-driven rain, and the Saxons turned and ran for the sheltered safety of their

fortified place at Radingas.

Dismounting his horse, weary, blood-grimed, battered and aching, Ambrosius,

again that day, bowed his head in prayer. They had seen off the Saex; it was a

victory, but such a small one. Such a very small, temporary one.

Sixty-Seven

Gwenhwyfar tugged her fingers, sensuous, through Arthur’s thick,

dark, hair; on down over the naked, rapidly cooling skin of his back,

running across the haphazard pattern of scars. More than she remembered, her

touch lingering over the newer, unfamiliar disfigurements. Many of them, too

vicious. “If ever, at any time, I grow tired of you, remind me of this. Remind

me of what we have just shared,” she murmured.

He quirked a light smile, one that tilted the side of his lips; nuzzled his

face deeper into the softness of her body. They had made love several times

on the long, slow, journey home, kindling each other’s needs, rediscovering

each other’s body, but those few uncertain explorations had been bound by an

unspoken hesitation that harboured flickering doubts and wary apprehensions.

Wounds heal, but the pain can take a while to cease its blistering throbbing,

and the scars remain, red and evil before paling, puckering white against a dark,

healthy, skin.

Now they were home, or near enough. They had rested a while at the first

town—Antessiodurum, Gwenhwyfar’s least favourite place—giving Onager

time to gain strength and recover, giving themselves time to be certain of their

decisions. But Arthur had never looked back over his shoulder, and the boy,

Medraut, made no murmur of returning to his mother. Hard, those first few

days, for Gwenhwyfar to accept the child, another woman’s born son; harder

still to sit quiet and calm as Arthur had told her everything of Morgaine, of her

birthing, of her father. His. Unexpected, she had shown no anger or recoiling

horror; Gwenhwyfar had accepted the fact. Arthur had sired a son on his own

half-sister. What was done was done, threads in the multi-coloured tapestry

of life were too close-woven to be unravelled. The dark knotted too tight to

unravel within the gold.

“I remember her,” Gwenhwyfar had said. “A ragged, poorly child with scalds

and hand-marks bruised on her skin.” Morgause had not cared for the girl, had

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abandoned her, left her for the other elderly priesthood women to see to her

upbringing. “While I was waiting for you, that time at Yns Witrin, to come to

me, Morgause was there with the child.” Gwenhwyfar remembered the sadness

of the girl, the pity she had felt for her.

Watching the boy, sleeping curled as a babe, thumb stuffed between his teeth,

she had remembered her own sons. They had seen troubles and sadnesses, even

witnessed fear and the dark shadow of death. But never had they known the

loneliness of the uncherished, the unloved.

“I could not leave him,” Arthur had said, that first night together. “I could

not abandon him to an echo of my own childhood.”

And Gwenhwyfar, the mother in her, had understood. Understood more.

She could perhaps birth Arthur more sons, but they would be too late, too

young. Cerdic was grown, a man with a son of his own. Cerdic would most

certainly come if he knew he could claim his father’s land with the ease of

taking a choice bone from a new-whelped pup. Medraut was not hers, but then

nor was he Winifred’s. That was the importance, the difference.

After leaving Antessiodurum, they had ridden north along the road that

became more travelled the further they journeyed. Stayed a while at Lutetia,

on the island town of the Parisii, Arthur in no great haste to follow the last few

miles to the coast and find a ship home. Gwenhwyfar in no great urgency to

hasten him.

He had been sleeping badly. Restless dreams tossing with perspiration and

sharp, fearful cries. The enveloping blackness of memories, galloping with the

hard-forced pace of those unbidden night-riders, hostile on their red-eyed,

black-coated mares. The sound of battle, the clash of sword on sword, the

scream of men killed and dying. The red of blood, the black of death! Horror

and fear revisiting, returning. Gwenhwyfar, warm and safe and strong. Her

arms around him, comforting, reassuring, hand soothing the stark sweat of

fear, closeness easing the ragged breath of drowning, suffocating, beneath that

returned stench of the past.

It had to be faced, had to be done: they had to return to Britain. But it was

so hard, so dreadfully hard!

On to the coast; the craft they had found had battled her way steadily through

the strong winds. It was the wrong time of year for the sea, but she was a game

little ship. Again, she raised her prow with the uplift of the heavy sea-swell the

surging wind from behind, shadowing like a swooping king eagle, flecks of salt-

spray keening into the breathless air. Arthur stood on the foredeck, legs spread,

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 3 7 3

hands gripping the rail as if there was no tomorrow. Ahead, a grey-misted hint

of something that was not sea nor sky. Rising higher, clearing, coming nearer

as the ship kicked her way forward.

Britain. Home. Almost home.

Gwenhwyfar had come behind him, her tread muffled by the shout of

waves and wind, her cloak and hair billowing as excitedly agitated as the single,

square, bleached-blue sail. He had jerked as her arm slid around his waist, his

hand flying, instinctive, to the pommel of his sword. Covered his disquiet with

a laugh.

Gwenhwyfar rested her head on his shoulder, warming into his returned

embrace; stood, silent a while, watching the shape-changing grey mist congeal

into the more solid shape of land. He was afraid, she knew that. Every muscle

was tense, every nerve-end screaming, jagged. Afraid of going home, returning.

Afraid of the fighting that surely would be waiting.

She linked her fingers through his. “You will be at ease,” she comforted,

“once you are back.”

He answered, betraying himself with a shaking huskiness to his voice. “What

if they no longer want me?”

Her answer was succinct. “For those who once followed you, it will be as if

you had never been away. For those who did not,” she chuckled, kissed him,

light, reassuring, on the cheek, “well, they did not want you in the first place.

It did not bother you then. Ought it bother you now?”

He supposed not, but for all her flippancy, this was not going to be easy. For

too long had he been gone. Ambrosius was the Supreme now. Hard enough to

have fought for, and won, a kingdom once. To retrieve it after so blindly letting

it go? He closed his eyes, let his weight sink against Gwenhwyfar’s solidity. To

fight again, knowing he had once failed; knowing he had irresponsibly killed

so many men?

Sixty-Eight

I’ll not fight for that incompetent imbecile!” Bedwyr slammed his

clenched fist onto the table, his expression as conscientiously fierce as the

action. “Ambrosius has brought this mess upon himself, must get himself out

of it, or die.”

Patient, Geraint choked down the temptation to match Bedwyr’s blazed

anger. “Ambrosius is a good man, has done only as he thought best. You

cannot censure a man for pursuing his beliefs.”

“Pah!” Bedwyr thumped onto a stool, sat opposite Geraint, leaning his arms

onto the table, his eyes glowering, mouth pouting. “You censure me? I believe

in the Artoriani. Want to ride with them, take back what is ours!”

Disciplining his hands to relax along the carved arms of his oak-wood chair,

Geraint inhaled three deep and slow breaths. “No, you want to become king.

That I cannot condone, not yet. Not while the Saex have risen under one leader.

There are times when, for all our hatreds and disappointments, we cannot afford

to fight among ourselves. That,” he leant significantly forward, one finger raised,

“that was always the Pendragon’s belief. It ought be yours also.”

Bedwyr eased forward, the weight of his upper body taken by his tight folded

arms. “I fight in the Pendragon’s name, for Arthur, for when he returns.”

The man opposite did not intend it to be audible, but the sigh was stronger

than he realised. Geraint rested his head against the high back of his chair,

closed his eyes. For how many days now had they been sparring with this

self-same argument? These same words, round and around and around? In the

name of the good God, was it not blindingly obvious Arthur was not coming