Shadow of the King (7 page)

course of the river here to Juliomagus, their base camp for now. Manoeuvres

that had taken weeks, not days to complete. If Euric had decided on taking an

immediate defensive position, all this land would be blackened ruins by now.

The town of Juliomagus, one mile or so distant, had been engulfed by the

night, only a few scattered watch-tower lights glimmered in the darkness. The

stars were different here, too. Bolder, sharper, a few down on the horizon he

remembered seeing as a boy at his father’s estate downriver near Condivicnum.

Only he had not known the great Uthr Pendragon to be his father then, for his

identity had been hidden until it was safe to announce him for the son he was.

Juliomagus had survived one bloody attack already, a few years past. The

Saxons had been raiding along the river, building their homesteadings on the

numerous islands, and, growing bolder, had tried for something more than

holding a few scattered villages. The fighting had been bitter, but in the end

Odovacer, their leader, had been driven out, running.

The whole of Gaul was a simmering cauldron. If watched it would bubble

away without harm, but if left to its own there was every possibility the heat

would grow too high and the thing would boil and spurt over like a volcano

blowing its top.

Arthur wandered back to his tent. It was that which niggled him. He did not

much like being a pot-watcher

Ten

October 468

The remnants of an autumn dawn lay over the levels of the Summer

Land. The Tor, eleven miles distant as the raven would fly, sat like a faery

island rising solid amid the white, shape-shifting mist, and as the sun rose, deep,

black shadows lengthened away from the ramparts and ditches of the king’s

stronghold of Caer Cadan. The heart-place of Arthur, the Pendragon. Finger

shadows stretched out across the moving mist, shadows cast from tree and bush

and scattered copses of alder, ash, and willow, the tumble of uneven ground.

Another morning, another day.

Gwenhwyfar shivered, drew her cloak nearer around her shoulders. It was

chill this morning. Summer had faded into the sharp tang of autumn; already

the colours had altered from pleasant green to the fire-bright bursts of red and

yellow and orange. With the lifting sun the mist, too, was turning gold. How

this great welt of loneliness and despair gripped her, clutched at her, like the

unrelenting numbness of a frozen winter! Arthur was gone, ridden away with

the laughter and hopeful excitement of his men. Gone to chase the lure of a

promised fight. Gone, not knowing when—if—he would be back. As he had

been gone so many, many times before.

Why then, this portent of dread within her stomach? Because he had

taken ship across the sea? Because, already, he had been gone longer than

he had intended? Because the crows circled the Caer each night before

going to their roost, the wind blew from the east, the old apple tree had not

borne fruit…so many nonsense reasons to explain the questions that held

no answers.

The mist lifted, evaporating with the new-risen burst of sun-warmed day,

leaving the Tor once again stranded in the mortal world of the Christian God.

Gwenhwyfar, seeing the magic of the whiteness disappear, had the thought it

was not so easy to chase away the fears that lunged through her night dreams,

that muttered so persistently at the back of her waking mind.

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

Nail-studded boots scraped on the wooden stairway, emerged out onto the

rampart walkway. She recognised the step, the heavy tread, turned with a smile

to greet Ider, the Captain of her personal guard.

“My Lady?” His voice showed concern, a question, aware of her sadness

and fears. No sign though in his words or eyes of the unutterable devotion

that he felt for her. He had a wife of his own, and a family, but still he loved

his queen. As did nigh on every man of Arthur’s elite cavalry of nine hundred

men, the Artoriani.

“I have come for this day’s orders,” he said. The daily routine of a stronghold

went on, king present, king absent.

She managed a wide smile, brighter, appearing content, knowing she did not

fool Ider.

He stood as strong and tall as an ancient oak tree, his heart and kindness as

gentle as the willow. He crossed to the palisade fencing, stood next to his lady,

rested his arms along the top of the wooden fencing, and gazed outward as

Gwenhwyfar had. He breathed in the dew-wet smells of this new day. A rich

aroma of earth and marsh, of water and autumn withered grass, a distant tang of

the sea. Arthur’s summer land.

“It is in my heart,” he said at length, the northern burr of his accent

pronounced even after all these years in service to the Artoriani, “to be with

my comrades, my brothers, across the sea in Gaul following the Dragon

Banner. A soldier needs the pull of a battle to keep an edge to his sword. But

then,” he turned with a barrel-wide grin and an exaggerated inhalation of

wafting smells, “then I catch the aroma of the remains of last night’s supper of

ham cooking for breakfast down there, and change my mind!” He nodded to

the scatter of wattle-built dwelling places and huts that made the Caer into its

life-place, chuckled.

Gwenhwyfar laughed with him, laid her hand for a moment on his chest,

against the leather of his tunic. “Glad I am that you did not go with my husband;

you have always had the wicked ability to make my heart smile.”

Ider stepped back a pace, his expression displaying hurt. “And I thought you

valued me for my good looks, strength, and skill with a sword!”

Amused, the heaviness of heart, for a while at least, lifted, Gwenhwyfar teased

back, “Those come without question, my lad!” She made her way to the steps,

began to descend, the sun striking the brilliant copper-gold of her braided hair.

For all the affection he held for his wife, Ider felt a knot tighten in his stomach.

She was an attractive woman, Gwenhwyfar, her figure slim, despite the bearing

3 8 H e l e n H o l l i c k

of children, her skin fresh, unmarked, teeth white, all her own. Her thirty years

leant nothing but maturity and poised wisdom to her being.

If Ider were her husband he would not have been so eager to leave, to go to

fight for a foreign cause. But then, Ider was not a king. The role of husband, he

supposed, had to come second behind that of being the Pendragon. Even with

a wife as lovely as Gwenhwyfar.

Eleven

December 468

Sorrowfully, Ambrosius surveyed the ragged, incomplete building

before him; the half-height walls, the tumble of stone, a scatter of timber,

the rutted wheel and foot-churned ground. Half-built, abandoned for the other

work, the other construction up on the hill where, it was said, the great Vespasian

once made a stronghold, back in those times when Britain was being harnessed

to Rome’s superiority. There was to be a fortress again there. Ambrosius’s

fortress, his place of command, his stronghold from where he would refasten

those loosened straps and chains. The men were up there, labouring to dig

the defensive ditches, toss up the huge ramparts, build the stone and timber

palisade. Inside would come the dwelling places for the men and their families;

the principia, the administration offices. He was determined to have a Roman-

built praetorium for his own house, not the British-built timbered Hall.

He sighed, long and loud. He would have preferred this half-complete

building finished rather than have a fortress saddled on him. Council wanted

a stronghold, wanted preparations ready, in hand. He did not, but Council

would have their way. He turned away, resigned, and saw his son hobbling

with his cumbersome crutch and dragging, lame leg. Another thing that must

be accepted, but stuck like a fish-bone in the throat. His only son was limp-

legged and useless.

Cadwy tried a cheery expression, aware he was a constant disappointment to

his father. He pointed with his crutch to the building works up on the hill. “It

goes well, father! Soon it will be finished.”

Ambrosius returned a forced smile that did not reach the eyes. Aye, soon it

would be finished and then Council would be pressing for him to use it, to

take over the permanent leading of this God-forgotten damn country. He did

not want that either, but who else was there to do it? Who else could herd this

lost and weary province back into Rome’s protective pastures? He gestured

at the abandoned building behind him, said, the sadness all too obvious in his

4 0 H e l e n H o l l i c k

voice, “I would rather it had been my school for teaching God’s word that was

nearing completion, not this place of war.”

“War?” Cadwy stayed determinedly cheerful. “Surely Father, the fortress is

a precaution only, a standby in case Arthur…”

“Does not come back?” Ambrosius finished for him. Added, in a loud, slow

voice, as if he were talking to a child not a man of ten and eight, “Arthur will

not be back. Council will not allow him back.”

Abandoning the pretence of a smile, Cadwy shook his head, pleading with

his eyes for his father to accept that although the leg was twisted and wasted

there was nothing wrong with his head and mind. “Can Council stop him?”

he asked cautiously. “Arthur has many men, he is a warlord unparalleled in

battle.” Difficult for Cadwy, for he liked the Pendragon, admired and respected

him, but the loyalty had to go to his own father. A father who gave all to his

Christian God and spared no love for his son.

Ambrosius twitched his hand, dismissive. He was a man who believed firmly

in the ways of Rome, the old ways of law and order and justice. It was Council,

the British equivalent of the Senate, who should have the voice of power, not

kings or princes. Command should be by an appointed governor. If Council

decreed he ought to be that governor, then who was he to go against the will of

the Council? His nephew frequently did exactly that, but then his nephew—aye

and his nephew’s dead father, Uthr Pendragon—were in Rome’s eyes almost

barbarian. Ambrosius took a patient breath. What had become of Rome, to

allow such men the respect of recognition?

“Arthur’s men are across the sea and he fights with horses. His cavalry is what

makes him good. Take away the horses and you are left with nothing.” He began

walking up the sloping ground in the direction of the rising fortress, pacing with

deliberate long strides, making it hard for Cadwy to keep up. He knew what he

had just said was not true, but he could not admit that, not even to himself. He

had to believe what Council said and decreed was the right of it, the only way of

it. Had to. “Arthur’s men,” he stated, “may find a way to return, but he will not

be able to transport the horses.” He added no more, for this part of it—huh, if he

were truthful, all of it, but this part in particular—left a sour taste in his mouth,

left behind a putrid smell of poison and treachery. Council was already seeing to it

that the ships would not be available to bring Arthur’s valuable war-horses back.

Horses that cost much in time and gold and experience to breed and train.

Resentful, for Cadwy could smell that stench of naked treason, the young

man almost snapped a sharp retort, but dutifully swallowed the thought that

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 4 1

his father sounded pleased. It was no secret these two, the Pendragon and

Ambrosius, nephew and uncle, had little liking for each other. Opposites in

nature and mind. Instead, Cadwy steered a safer course, asked, “You would

not use horse then?”

“Not like Arthur does, no.”

More disappointment, although he had already known the answer. Cadwy

could ride a horse; could, if he were shown how, fight from a horse. It had been

the one thing that had pulled him through the burning, paining illness that had

crippled him at the age of seven years; the hope, when he was grown, he could

ride a horse and join with the Pendragon’s cavalry. Arthur had become king

that month, as Cadwy began to surface from the horrors of those long months

of agony and near-death. A great battle there had been, over on the east coast,

against the mighty Saxon warlord, Hengest. Arthur had won his sword in that

battle, taken it from an ox-built Saex and slaughtered the sea wolves with its

shining strength. Cadwy’s nurse had told him the tale of the battle—as many,

many others had been retelling the same thing throughout the land of Britain.

He had so wanted to be a part of that glory, the hope and excitement. He

could be still, if his father would only let him ride a horse suited to war. No use

regretting. It would not happen; he was a lame-leg, a nothing. And his father

intended to take the Pendragon’s place.

He hurried his awkward steps to stay apace of Ambrosius, the thought

flashing like a stabbed spear into his mind, that he did not want to fight Arthur.