The Shadow of a King (Shadowland Book 2) (6 page)

It was the rain that finally woke him. The soft sounds of it splashing and splattering onto the stones below the small window and echoing up into his cell. Once his mind had identified water, then it was the nagging thought of it, a drink of water so incredibly precious, because his neglected body was so, so thirsty that he was dragged up and out of his dreams.

Returning, surfacing back into the world of man demanded that he had to claw and pull himself upwards as if from a deep, dark well. He struggled through thick veils of consciousness that needed to be parted and pushed away as dreams and distractions sought to hold on to him, to lure him back into their deep, warm, languid embrace. But the thought of sweet, cool water drew him on, each effort to reach the surface taking him closer and closer until…

'Water… water…' He heard voices, he couldn't tell what they were saying, and his eyes remained stubbornly closed so he couldn't see who was close to him. He felt his head lifted gently, and a rough, cold object touched against his lips. Water spilled, dribbling down his cheeks into his beard and he opened his mouth, desperate to feel it enter, and then he felt the cold bite of it pass his teeth, flow over his parched tongue and then trickle down into his throat. Which of course made him cough and splutter, and sent his head spinning.

Once he had recovered, he drank again, this time managing to swallow some without coughing it back up. All too soon it was taken away, and his head gently laid back down. He was exhausted. There were still voices, but he couldn't tell what was being said. His head hurt, it was pounding, and his eyes seemed to be glued shut, he couldn't open them. He reached up with trembling fingers and teased first one and then the other open. Light exploded in his head, and he snapped his eyes shut again, rubbing at them with clenched fists, a low moan escaping his cracked lips. As his head was lifted a second time, he managed to open his eyes, just a little, to see the proffered cup.

'Drink my Lord… please.'

Uther sipped a little more and glanced up into the face of Maude. He stared at her mouth, which was a thin hard line of concern; it was strangely fascinating.

'I shall tell the Abbess that you have awoken, my Lord. They have been praying for you; there always seems to be a few here,' - she glanced about her at the empty cell - 'they must have stepped out. I prayed to the old Gods,' she whispered, 'I knew you would return.' She smiled down at him and lowered his head once more. Uther closed his eyes, the efforts of drinking having already taxed his strength.

As his mind sought rest, his head filled with images of battle and the memories of his humiliating final days, riding tied to his horse as a figurehead for his warriors, and of Maude ever at his side. That his life had come to this, a life that at one time had felt so blessed and charmed as he undertook to bring the tribes together under the single Pendragon banner. Tribes that for years had existed in peace yet had been held apart under their separate identities and subject to the rule of Rome. And then one day, the Romans had departed, just packed up their carts and gone, but Saxons from the continent had been quick to recognise the opportunity. Firstly they had raided, attacking the small settlements close to the coast, killing, raping and burning before taking to their boats and the safety of the sea. But then, once they found so little resistance, they began to arrive in greater numbers upon the shores of what the Romans had called Britain, what Uther and his friends had simply called home, and the Saxons, and then the Jutes, and Angles, began to settle in greater numbers.

Uther had just been a boy, leading a happy, easy childhood in an Iceni village, until through a series of events that still seemed somewhat of a blur, he had found himself rising to become leader of the united tribes. He had gone on to spend many years clashing with the Saxons, trying to force them back towards the eastern coast while the Saxons sought to push the Celts back towards the west while they took full control and settled the fertile lands, first of the Iceni and then the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni. To the frustration of the tribes, more and more boats had arrived every year after the winter storms, each longboat carrying more Saxons, Jutes and Angles from across the sea, - desperate, aggressive people that not only made war but were greedy for the tribal lands. Yet, for the most part during Uther's reign, the tribes had managed to slow and often halt the spread of Saxon rule. They had managed to keep the western part of their lands free of settlers and Arthur still had a Kingdom.

'You are smiling. When I was called to attend you, I thought I might arrive to find you dying, not smiling. You look as though you just kissed the Beltane Queen.'

Uther surfaced from his thoughts and slowly managed to part his eyelids. Morgana was sitting close to his side, wringing out a wet cloth. She must have just wiped his face, but he hadn't felt it.

'Welcome back to the land of man, you have slept for quite some time. I have sent your puppy, Maude, out on an errand. She fusses over you while you sleep and has been spending far too much time in here getting in the way of my nuns, but she will be upset that she was not here when you finally awoke. Where have you been, where have your dreams taken you while you have been away from us, Uther?'

Uther's head was swimming, and his head was pounding. 'I was…' his voice felt weak in his raw, dry throat. 'I was… thinking about Arthur. Thinking… thinking how, despite everything, that he might still have a Kingdom after all this is done. That maybe it wasn't just another battle that will mean nothing, the same as so many of the others seem to have been for nothing when we cast our minds back. I was daring to think that this time, we might possibly have done as Merlyn proclaimed and stopped the spread of Saxon rule, stopped their settlers long enough to…' a fit of coughing took him and pain lanced up his side and pounded in his head as his wounds came back to remind him of their presence.'

'Rest Uther. I have faith that you will heal with our help, but I am a great believer in sleep to aid in that healing. If your body tells you to rest, then do as it asks and sleep. Here, drink this.' She gently lifted his head and held a clay cup against his lips. It was warm and aromatic with the smell of summer pastures and warm, soft hay. He looked up at her as he sipped feeling the warmth spread through his body as it slipped down his throat.

'This is a herbal infusion of my own making,' said Morgana smiling down at him. 'It is a blend of camomile and feverfew to bring you rest, some mint and yarrow to aid in the healing of your wounds and the essence of a few other plants to help loosen the secrets from your mind. Rest and sleep will assist in the healing of your body. However, we must also place no little concern for the healing of your mind and of your soul, and for this we must talk. You will tell me the truth of your life so that we can unravel the mysteries and make you whole, both within this life and also in the eyes of our Lord. You are going to say of how you first met my mother, the truth of what transpired and why she would never tell me what truly happened to my father. This shall be your real healing, Uther, and I shall be your confessor so that you may heal without any guilt upon your soul… are you, perhaps, ready to bear your testimony?'

Uther Pendragon gazed up into the stern black eyes of Morgana and tried to order his thoughts. It felt strange that he would tell all to Morgana le Fey, yet strangely he also felt somewhat compelled. She tilted his head, and he drank a little more of the brew. It continued to warm him, seeping down inside him to send a glow out through his body, and felt good. He glanced up into her kindly face and felt a growing urge to explain everything, all his thoughts and dreams, his schemes and confidences. It suddenly felt that it would be such a relief to purge his mind and body of all the secrets that he carried… and so he drank more.

'What should I tell you? What would I say? You know I do not follow your nailed God. I am a Pagan in the eyes of many.'

'You are the son of God and a good man, Uther. I want to know more of you. You knew my mother of course, but you also knew my father, and I still do not truly know what happened to him, except I am told that he was one of your staunchest allies and was with you when you all took ship to the Isle of Erin to bring back the stones. I was very young then, but I remember on a warm sunny day, waving and shouting as part of the crowd of onlookers as the ships made ready to sail away. It was late in the year, so although the sun was warm, there was a cold breeze tugging at my hair and making all the pennons and banners flutter and flap as the people and warriors gathered on the beaches. I remember you there too. Walking through the crowds talking to people, smiling and making jokes so they wouldn't worry about the journey you were going to make.' She smiled and closed her eyes as she remembered that day so long ago. 'Do you remember seeing me? I was just a little girl back then, of about eight summers. You ruffled my hair and said I was as pretty as the day. All around us sacks and provisions were being taken out to the boats through the surf, it was a wonderful day that I remember so well.' She stopped smiling, her face becoming stern again as she gazed down into Uther's face. 'Yet something terrible happened on that voyage, I know that. You must tell me everything; you will tell me, Uther Pendragon. I need to know, and you need to tell. We have as long a time as is necessary to bleed the poison from your soul, and you will begin by answering an extremely simple question, why was it that you all sailed to the Isle of Erin?'

 Chapter 6 
A Cleansing of the Soul

'It was Merlyn who called for the voyage to Erin, the quest, and I too remember it well.' Uther sipped the last of the infusion and let his head be lowered to the sleeping cot. He was tired, but his mind was also back at the seashore on a sunny day with his feet crunching through the stones of the beach, watching as weapons and the last supplies were being carried through the surf and placed into small skiffs so they could be paddled out to the larger boats that were waiting some distance off shore. He could remember the high feeling of excitement, the people as they laughed, sang and danced. There had been drums beating and the reedy tones of horns and pipes; it had been more like a festival rather than the beginning of a dangerous raid against a hostile people.

'It was all at Merlyn's insistence,' muttered Uther, 'it was all to enable a healing, a healing for the land and for the spirits that were lost. Years before my brother Ambrosius began to gather the tribes, when the King called Vortigern ruled, the Saxons committed a terrible massacre upon a group of our people. The story as it has been handed down and told around the fires during the cold nights of winter, has been named by the bards as
The Night of the Long Knives
. It carries this name because all that those few who survived could remember were the long Saxon knives slashing and stabbing, murdering all, men, women and children, all as they sat and feasted with the Saxons as friends. Those Saxon warriors were led by Hengist with his brother Horsa by his side. Horsa was the same Saxon that led the Picts as they destroyed my village and killed my parents when I was a boy.'

Morgana nodded and sighed. 'I've heard both the story of your village being attacked and, of course, the telling of,
The Night of the Long Knives
, it has been told many times over the years. Also, the story of how you killed Horsa after the battle of Agelsthorpe, they are all well told and often repeated. What I want to hear, is the story that is not well told, I need to hear this, and you need to tell it. Your soul is troubled, Uther, you need to open up to our Lord and me and say what happened, why you went across to the Isle of Erin as the winter season was closing in and on what many thought to be a perilous journey with no hope of success, and I want to know what really happened to my father. I will make another infusion for you, and then you will impart your story, a story in which I might play some small part.'

Uther nodded and watched as she retreated to brew her herbs. Perhaps it was indeed time to lighten the load that burdened his soul, Morgana might not like the story he would tell her, but the Druid could not demand his silence forever, surely. He would begin by explaining of Pendragon Tor, the fortress upon the hill and how the idea of questing was first conceived by Merlyn…

In its seventh season back then, in the year that the priests now tell us has been given a number of four hundred and forty-three, because it is that many years after the death of their nailed God, the hill fort was already becoming quite a formidable construction, although still a shadow of what it would eventually become. Built high upon a previously unnamed hill, it overlooked a great bend of the river Eden on its eastern boundary, while to the west far below was the expanding village of Outhgill.

Uther gazed out, the fresh wind carrying with it the sharp smell of rain of which there had been a lot at that time. He looked up and saw the clouds were still running fast over the high mount that they had named
Wild Boar Fell
. It was named that amongst the warriors because just two summers past, Uther and his men had killed a huge wild boar upon the summit.

The animal had led them a spirited chase, firstly flushed out by the dogs from the lower forested southern slopes, they had run their horses through the trees driving it towards open ground. As the slope had become too steep for the horses, they had dropped down and moved higher on foot, driving the beast on ahead of them until they emerged from the trees onto the higher, open ground and saw their quarry approaching the summit. At the crest of the hill, it turned and regarded them with its small beady eyes. They walked towards it, circling around the huge beast while it fought for breath, its enormous chest heaving to draw in air after the exertion of its run. Its head was tossing angrily from side to side as it turned in a circle trying to see all of the danger around it, slashing its sharp tusks in warning as they approached.

The animal had ended its life high up on the Tor with Uther's spear through its chest moments after it had turned and ran straight at him seeking to break the circle and return to the protection of the trees. For Uther, it had been terrifying and exhilarating all at once. As the memory came back to him, he could still hear the jubilant screaming of his men and the smell of the huge boar's dying breath while it snorted its anger and blood into his face, the spear still twitching and jumping in his hands.

Uther dropped his gaze to the lower part of the wooden palisade that he was standing on, then to the thatch of the long meeting house which was just below him. Pendragon Tor had been constructed in the northern tribal lands of the Brigantes; the site had been chosen shortly after the decisive battle of Mount Badon. Uther had needed somewhere to base himself and this site was far enough away from the newly settling Saxons and was conceived to be neutral ground for the stronger southern tribes, who, he knew, would be quick to anger should their new High King show any sign of favouritism. It was also just a few days of travel from Ynys Mon, or Mona as it was known to most, the island home of the Druids, which of course made Merlyn happy.

The construction of the fortress had been made from wood, and wood had been the main material used in its construction as it continued to evolve and grow. Three formidable palisade rings surrounded the central huts and halls; each pieced together out of huge tree trunks that had been sunk into the earth, their tops sharpened to points. It had been cold and muddy in the first few winters, as Beryn and his men had begun the construction of the first defensive ring, and then eventually, the first of the halls. Improvements had continued and as more room was needed, a second and then third palisade ring were constructed. It now made a comfortable dwelling for several hundred members of Uther's court. As he stood high atop the inner wall, Uther was considering the newest addition to the fortifications. Beryn, he could see, was taking the expansion to a whole new phase, a high wall of stone was being built much lower down the slope on the top of a newly dug line of steep earthworks.

'Do we plan on remaking the whole of Pendragon Tor in stone, Master Beryn? Will we ever finish? I must say that this new line of defence is very impressive, yet I fear there is no end to your designs.' Uther watched as Beryn blushed red through his thin straggly beard. The little man had been waiting patiently for Uther as his King studied the landscape of his Kingdom and was visibly relieved to be talking about his new project rather than having to trade pleasantries.

'I merely wish to offer protection, my King. Wooden walls serve well, they have done so for many hundreds of years, yet a wall of stone is surely a better line of defence, worthy of a King and one that can surely never be burnt or broken.' He indicated towards the wall and the masons as they heaved the massive stones up and into position. 'The wall will be two strides thick and will have a gatehouse there, at the road crossing, and two small towers at either end.' He indicated the selected positions with a sweep of his hand. 'No Saxon raiders will ever pass; they will fall against this strong wall and be beaten before we loosen one single arrow, just as the Picts and Scots fell against the great wall the Romans built in the north. This method of building is not, in fact, new, rather it is something the Romans brought to our land and then took their secrets of construction with them when they left, but we have been studying how they cut the stones and how they lay them together and bind them; we have learned much.'

'It is a fine wall, Beryn,' said Uther smiling, 'I shall sleep inside its confines secure in the knowledge that your construction is protecting us and that no Saxon will come to disturb my dreams.'

'Thank you, Lord. With your leave, I shall go to assist the men in selecting the main beams for the gateway and instruct how best to shape them, please excuse me.'

Uther waved him away and then turned at the sound of a shout.

'Uther!'

Merlyn was clambering up the grassy slope of the earthwork towards him, smiling as always as if the world had just made him privy to the best kept of secrets. The old man's hair and beard were both long and now almost entirely white, the breeze blowing them into a cloud of wispy abandon about the Druid's head, which didn't seem to be bothering him in the least. Uther could see him grinning through it, the shine of his blue eyes catching in the morning sun as he strode along, lifting his dark robes up to give his bony knees ease of movement. In his left hand, the old Druid clutched his staff, which was adorned with shells, bones and all manner of animal and bird parts, he thumped it, rattling it down, planting it heavily with every step.

'Uther, I've been looking for you everywhere, what are you doing staring out at honest men working when there is a Council meeting taking place that you are meant to be attending.' He started up the wooden ladder to the walkway, the staff now landing with a
clonk, clonk, clonk,
as he climbed, he was still talking. 'We have plans to make and decisions to take and…' He finally arrived standing beside Uther to look out at the view and had glanced down to see what had been drawing Uther's attention. 'Oh, and why is Beryn building that new wall, is that your idea?'

'Are you telling me you hadn't seen all the work being done down there? I thought you Druids were supposed to be incredibly observant.' Uther grinned at Merlyn's obvious discomfort.

'We see much of what needs to be noticed. Possibly some of the smaller, unnecessary details get past us. Are you so worried about a Saxon attack that you thought a big stone wall was necessary? Though probably not a bad idea, I suppose.'

'It wasn't my idea. Beryn is mostly left to his own devices; he conceived this all on his own. He had some notion to build with stone and so he is, to protect us. We live in dangerous times, and I for one am glad that he is constructing this new wall. A wall that we might live behind in safety, or that we can retreat behind should it ever become necessary. Our people must have a heart that they can focus upon and protect, Pendragon Tor is the heart of our people, and so Beryn is making it a heart that no enemy can strike and kill. Now, tell me, what of this great Council meeting. I don't think I am late… it does seem rather important to you, which gives me cause for worry. What plans are you making now Merlyn? You are not normally so distracted by the meetings of us mere men, what surprises are you going to spring upon us, will you not give me some warning? I am your King after all.'

Merlyn waved his hands about as if swatting at troublesome flies. 'I have no surprises, Uther, fear not. There are, you are right, one or two points that I would like to discuss at some length. This is the first meeting in some time that representatives have joined us from nearly all of the twenty-seven tribes. We even have Gerlois from the Cornovii, a rather troublesome man, so I understand, calls himself Duc of the Cornovii, though in truth, he rules both the Cornovii and the larger Dumnonii tribe to their north. Duc… just as they call their Lords in the tribes across the water… anyway, he arrived at first light. I have been waiting for this Council for some time, and I know you have as well.'

'Of course, I have, it has always been so difficult to bring all the leaders together for Council meetings. However, I wonder if both you and I are seeking the same outcomes and agreements. When we move into the new raiding season after the winter storms, we must be prepared for the Saxon's attacking and prepared as a unified people. They will be in even greater force this year; we know that longboats have been arriving since the winter storms of last year finished, swelling their numbers. I want our people prepared to throw them back and send them running to the sea.' Uther laid a hand on the old man's shoulder and looked deeply into his eyes, a practice he had copied from Merlyn in order to gain another's undivided attention. 'You know that I shall be proposing the structure of our Council as we sit at my new table, we have spoken of it many times, and I hope you will present no surprises for me, Merlyn?'