The Winter King Part 3

Ligessac drew his sword instead. Then he turned and cupped an ear as though he had not heard Hywel properly.

"Shut the gate!" Hywel roared. One of Ligessac's men moved to obey the order, but Ligessac checked the man and stared at Norwenna for orders instead.

Norwenna turned to Hywel and scowled her displeasure at his order. "This is my husband coming," she said, 'not an enemy." She looked back to Ligessac. "Leave the gate open," she commanded imperiously, and Ligessac bowed his obedience.

Hywel cursed, then clambered awkwardly down from the rampart and limped on his crutch towards Morgan's hut while I just stared at that empty, sunlit gate and wondered what was about to happen. Hywel had scented some trouble in the summer air, but how I never did discover. Gundleus reached the open gate. He spat on the threshold, then smiled at Norwenna who was waiting a dozen paces away. She raised her plump arms to greet her Lord who was sweating and breathless, and no wonder for he had climbed the steep Tor dressed in his full war gear. He had a leather breastplate, padded leggings, boots, an iron helmet crested with a fox's tail and a thick red cloak draped about his shoulders. His fox-blazoned shield hung at his left side, his sword was at his hip and he carried a heavy battle-spear in his right hand. Ligessac knelt and offered the King the hilt of his drawn sword and Gundleus stepped forward to touch the weapon's pommel with a leather-gloved hand. Hywel had gone into Morgan's hut, but now Sebile ran out of the hut clutching Mordred in her arms. Sebile? Not Ralla? I was puzzled by that, and Norwenna must also have been puzzled as the Saxon slave ran to stand beside her with little Mordred draped in his rich robe of golden cloth, but Norwenna had no time to question Sebile for Gundleus was now striding towards her." I offer you my sword, dear Queen!" he said in a ringing voice, and Norwenna smiled happily, perhaps because she had not yet noticed either Tanaburs or Ladwys who had come through Merlin's open gate with Gundleus's band of warriors. Gundleus thrust his spear into he turf and drew his sword, but instead of offering it to Norwenna hilt first he held the blade's sharp tip towards her face. Norwenna, unsure what to do, reached tentatively to touch that glittering point. "I rejoice at your return, my dear Lord," she said dutifully, then knelt at his feet as custom demanded.

"Kiss the sword that will defend your son's kingdom," Gundleus commanded, and Norwenna bent awkwardly forward to touch her thin lips to the proffered steel.

She kissed the sword as she had been commanded, and just as her lips touched the grey steel Gundleus rammed the blade hard down. He was laughing as he killed his bride, laughing as he slid the sword down past her chin into the hollow of her throat and still laughing as he forced the long blade down through the choking resistance of her writhing body. Norwenna had no time to scream, nor any voice left to scream with as the blade ripped through her throat and was rammed down to her heart. Gundleus grunted as he drove the steel home. He had slung his heavy war shield so that both his leather-gloved hands were on the hilt as he pushed and twisted the blade downwards. There was blood on the sword and blood on the gra.s.s and blood on the dying Queen's blue cloak, and still more blood as Gundleus jerked the long blade violently free. Norwenna's body, bereft of the sword's support, flopped sideways, quivered for a few seconds, and then was still.

Sebile dropped the baby and fled screaming. Mordred cried aloud in protest, but Gundleus's sword cut the baby's cries short. He stabbed the red blade down just once and suddenly the golden cloth was drenched with scarlet. So much blood from so small a child.

It had all happened so fast. Gudovan, next to me, was gaping in disbelief while Ladwys, who was a tall beauty with long hair, dark eyes and a sharply fierce face, laughed at her lover's victory. Tanaburs had closed one eye, raised one hand to the sky and was hopping on one leg, all signs that he was in sacred communion with the G.o.ds as he cast his spells of doom and as Gundleus's guards spread into the compound with levelled spears to make that doom reality. Ligessac had joined the Silurian ranks and helped the spearmen ma.s.sacre his own men. A few of the Dumnonians tried to fight, but they had been arrayed to do Gundleus honour, not oppose him, and the Silurian spearmen made brief work of Mordred's guards and briefer work still of Druidan's sorry soldiers. For the very first time in my adult life I saw men die on spearheads and heard the terrible screams a man makes when his soul is spear-sent into the Otherworld.

For a few seconds I was helpless with panic. Norwenna and Mordred were dead, the Tor was screaming and the enemy was running towards the hall and Merlin's Tower. Morgan and Hywel appeared beside the tower, but as Hywel limped forward with sword in hand, Morgan fled towards the sea gate. A host of women, children and slaves ran with her; a terrified ma.s.s of people whom Gundleus seemed content to let escape. Ralla, Sebile and those of Druidan's misshapen guard who had managed to avoid the grim Silurian warriors ran with them. Pellinore leaped up and down in his cage, cackling and naked, loving the horror.

I jumped from the ramparts and ran to the hall. I was not being brave, I was simply in love with Nimue and I wanted to make sure she was safe before I fled the Tor myself. Ligessac's guards were dead and Gundleus's men were beginning to plunder the huts as I dived through the door and ran towards Merlin's chambers, but before I could reach the small black door a spear-shaft tripped me. I fell heavily, then a small hand gripped my collar and, with astounding strength, dragged me towards my old hiding place behind the baskets of feasting cloths. "You can't help her, fool," Druidan's voice said in my ear. "Now, be quiet!"

I reached safety just seconds before Gundleus and Tanaburs entered the hall and all I could do was watch as the King, his Druid and three helmed men marched to Merlin's door, I knew what was to happen and I could not stop it for Druidan was holding his little hand hard over my mouth to stop me shouting. I doubted that Druidan had run into the hall to save Nimue, probably he had come to s.n.a.t.c.h what gold he could before fleeing with the rest of his men, but his presence had at least saved my life. But it saved Nimue from nothing.

Tanaburs kicked the ghost-fence aside, then thrust the door open. Gundleus ducked inside, followed by his spearmen.

I heard Nimue scream. I do not know if she used tricks to defend Merlin's chamber, or whether she had already abandoned hope. I do know that pride and duty had made her stay to protect her master's secrets and now she paid for that pride. I heard Gundleus laugh, then I heard little except for the sound of the Silurians raking through Merlin's boxes, bales and baskets. Nimue whimpered, Gundleus shouted in triumph, and then she screamed again in sudden, terrible pain. "That'll teach you to spit on my shield, girl," Gundleus said as Nimue sobbed helplessly.

"She's well raped now," Druidan said in my ear with a wicked relish. More of Gundleus's spearmen ran through the hall to enter Merlin's rooms. Druidan had forced a hole in the wattle wall with his spear and now ordered me to wriggle through and follow him down the hill, but I would not leave while Nimue still lived. "They'll be searching these baskets soon," the dwarf warned me, but still I would not go with him.

"More fool you, boy," Druidan said, and he scrambled through the hole and scuttled towards the shadowed s.p.a.ce between a nearby hut and a chicken pen.

I was saved by Ligessac. Not because he saw me, but because he told the Silurians there was nothing in the baskets that hid me except for banquet cloths. "All the treasure's inside," he told his new allies, and I crouched, not daring to move, as the victorious soldiers plundered Merlin's chambers. The G.o.ds alone know what they found: dead men's skins, old bones, new charms and ancient elf bolts, but precious little treasure. And the G.o.ds alone know what they did to Nimue, for she would never tell, though no telling was needed. They did what soldiers always do to captured women, and when they had finished they left her bleeding and half mad.

They also left her to die, for when they had ransacked the treasure chamber and found it filled with musty nonsense and only a little gold, they took a brand from the hall fire and tossed it among the broken baskets. Smoke billowed from the door. Another burning brand was thrown into the baskets where I was hidden, then Gundleus's men retreated from the hall. Some carried gold, a few had found some silver baubles, but most fled empty handed. When the last man was gone I covered my mouth with a corner of my jerkin and ran through the choking smoke towards Merlin's door and found Nimue just inside the room. "Come on!" I said to her desperately. The air was filling with smoke while flames were leaping wildly up the boxes where cats screamed and bats flapped in panic.

Nimue would not move. She was lying belly down, hands clasped to her face, naked, with blood thick on her legs. She was weeping.

I ran to the door which led into Merlin's Tower, thinking there might be some escape that way, but when I opened the door I found the walls unbreached. I also discovered that the tower, far from being a treasure chamber, was almost empty. There was a bare earthen floor, four timber walls and an open roof. It was a chamber open to the sky, but halfway up the open funnel, suspended on a pair of beams and reached by a stout ladder, I could see a wooden platform that was swiftly being obscured by smoke. The tower was a dream chamber, a hollow place in which the G.o.ds' whispers would echo to Merlin. I looked up at the dream platform for a second, then more smoke surged out behind me to funnel up the dream tower and I ran back to Nimue, seized her black cloak off the disordered bed and rolled her in the wool like a sick animal. I grabbed the corners of the cloak and then, with her light body bundled inside, I struggled into the hall and headed towards the far door. The fire was roaring now with the hunger of flames feasting on dry wood, my eyes were streaming and my lungs were soured by the smoke that lay thickest by the hall's main door, so I dragged Nimue, her body b.u.mping on the earth floor behind me, to where Druidan had made his rat hole in the wall. My heart thumped in terror as I peered through, but I could see no enemies. I kicked the hole larger, bending back the willow wattles and breaking off chunks of the plaster daub, then I struggled through, hauling Nimue after me. She made small noises of protest as I jerked her body through the crude gap, but the fresh air seemed to revive her for she at last tried to help herself and I saw, as she took her hands away from her face, just why her last scream had been so terrible. Gundleus had taken one of her eyes. The socket was a well of blood over which she again clapped a b.l.o.o.d.y hand. The tussle in the ragged hole had left her naked so I s.n.a.t.c.hed the cloak free from a splintered wattle and draped it around her shoulders before clasping her free hand and running towards the nearest hut.

One of Gundleus's men saw us, then Gundleus himself recognized Nimue and he shouted that the witch should be taken alive and thrown back into the flames. The cry of the chase went up, great whoops like the sound of hunters pursuing a wounded boar to its death, and the two of us would surely have been caught if some of the other fugitives had not already ripped a gap in the stockade on the Tor's southern side. I ran towards the new gap only to discover Hywel, good Hywel, lying dead in the breach with his crutch beside him, his head half severed and his sword still in his hand. I plucked up the sword and hauled Nimue onwards. We reached the steep southern slope and tumbled down, both of us screaming as we slithered down the precipitous gra.s.s. Nimue was half blind and utterly maddened by her pain while I was frantic with terror, yet somehow I clutched on to Hywel's war sword, and somehow I made Nimue get to her feet at the Tor's foot and stumble on past the sacred well, past the Christians' orchard, through a grove of alders and so down to where I knew Hywel's marsh boat was moored beside a fisherman's hut. I threw Nimue into the small boat of bundled reeds, slashed the painter with my new sword and pushed the boat away from the wooden stage only to realize I had no quant pole to drive the clumsy craft out into the intricate maze of channels and lakes that laced the marsh. I used the sword instead; Hywel's blade made a sorry punting pole, yet it was all I had until the first of Gundleus's pursuers reached the reedy bank and, unable to wade out to us because of the glutinous marsh mud, hurled his spear at us instead.

The spear whistled as it flew towards me. For a second I could not move, transfixed by the sight of that heavy pole with its glittering steel head hurtling towards us, but then the weapon thumped past me to bury its blade in the punt's reed gunwale. I grabbed the quivering ash staff and used it as my quant pole to drive the boat hard and quick out into the waterways. We were safe there. Some of Gundleus's men ran along a wooden track way that paralleled our course, but I soon turned away from them. Others leaped into coracles and used their spears as paddles, but no coracle could match a reed punt for speed and so we left them far behind. Ligessac fired an arrow, but we were already out of range and his missile plunged soundlessly into the dark water. Behind our frustrated pursuers, high on the green Tor, the flames leaped hungrily at huts and hall and tower so that grey churning smoke rose high in the blue summer sky.

"Two wounds." Nimue spoke for the first time since I had s.n.a.t.c.hed her from the flames.

"What?" I turned to her. She was huddled in the bow, the black cloak wrapped about her thin body and with one hand clasped over her empty eye.

"I've suffered two Wounds of Wisdom, Derfel," she said in a voice of crazed wonderment. "The Wound to the Body and the Wound to the Pride. Now all I face is madness and then I shall be as wise as Merlin." She tried to smile, but there was a hysterical wildness in her voice that made me wonder whether she was not already under the spell of madness.

"Mordred's dead," I told her, 'and so are Norwenna and Hywel. The Tor is burning." Our whole world was being destroyed, yet Nimue seemed strangely unmoved by the disaster. Instead she almost seemed elated because she had endured two of the three tests of wisdom.

I poled past a line of willow fish traps, then turned into Lissa's Mere, a great black lake that lay on the southern edge of the marshes. I was aiming towards Ermid's Hall, a wooden settlement where Ermid, a chieftain of a local tribe, kept his household. I knew Ermid would not be at the hall for he had marched north with Owain, but his people would help us, and I also knew that our boat would reach the hall long before the swiftest of Gundleus's hors.e.m.e.n could gallop around the lake's long, reed-thick and marshy banks. They would have to go almost as far as the Fosse Way, the great Roman road that ran east of the Tor, before they could turn around the lake's eastern extremity and gallop towards Ermid's Hall, and by then we would be long gone south. I could see other boats far ahead of me on the mere and guessed that the Tor's fugitives were being carried to safety by Ynys Wydryn's fishermen. I told Nimue my plan to reach Ermid's Hall and then keep going southwards until the night fell or we met friends. "Good," she said dully, though I was not really sure she had understood anything I had said.

"Good Derfel," she added. "Now I know why the G.o.ds made me trust you."

"You trust me," I said bitterly, and thrust the spear into the muddy lake bottom to push the boat forward, 'because I'm in love with you, and that gives you power over me."

"Good," she said again, and said nothing more until our reed boat glided into the tree-shaded landing beneath Ermid's stockade where, as I pushed the boat still deeper into the creek's shadows, I saw the other fugitives from the Tor. Morgan was there with Sebile, and Ralla was weeping with her baby safe in her arms next to Gwlyddyn her husband. Lunete, the Irish girl, was there, and she ran crying to the waterside to help Nimue. I told Morgan of Hywel's death, and she said she had seen Guendoloen, Merlin's wife, cut down by a Silurian. Gudovan was safe, but no one knew what had happened to poor Pellinore or to Druidan. None of Norwenna's guards had survived, though a handful of Druidan's wretched soldiers had reached the dubious safety of Ermid's Hall, as had three of Norwenna's weeping attendants and a dozen of Merlin's frightened foundlings.

"We have to go soon," I told Morgan. "They're chasing Nimue." Nimue was being bandaged and clothed by Ermid's servants.

"It's not Nimue they're after, you fool," Morgan snapped at me, 'but Mordred."

"Mordred's dead!" I protested, but Morgan answered by turning and s.n.a.t.c.hing at the baby that lay in Ralla's arms. She tugged the rough brown cloth away from the child's body and I saw the clubbed foot.

"Do you think, fool," Morgan said to me, 'that I would permit our King to be killed?" I stared at Ralla and Gwlyddyn, wondering how they could ever have conspired to let their own son die. It was Gwlyddyn who answered my mute look. "He's a king," he explained simply, pointing to Mordred, 'while our boy was just a carpenter's son."

"And soon," Morgan said angrily, "Gundleus will discover that the baby he killed has two good feet, and then he'll bring every man he can to search for us. We go south." There was no safety in Ermid's Hall. The chief and his warriors had gone to war, leaving only a handful of servants and children in the settlement.

We left a little before midday, plunging into the green woods south of Ermid's holdings. One of Ermid's huntsmen led us on narrow paths and secret ways. There were thirty of us, mostly women and children, with only a half dozen men capable of bearing arms and of those only Gwlyddyn had ever killed a man in battle. Druidan's few surviving fools would be no use, and I had never fought in anger, though I walked as a rear guard with Hywel's naked sword thrust into my rope belt and the heavy Silurian war spear clasped in my right hand.

We pa.s.sed slowly beneath the oaks and hazels. From Ermid's Hall to Caer Cadarn was no more than a four-hour walk, though it would take us much longer for we travelled on secret, circuitous paths and were slowed by the children. Morgan had not said she would try to reach Caer Cadarn, but I knew the royal sanctuary was her probable destination for it was there that we were likely to find Dumnonian soldiers, but Gundleus would surely have made that same deduction and he was just as desperate as we were. Morgan, who had a shrewd grasp of this world's wickedness, surmised that the Silurian King had been planning this war ever since the High Council, just waiting for Uther's death to launch an attack in alliance with Gorfyddyd. We had all been fooled. We had thought Gundleus a friend and so no one had guarded his borders and now Gundleus was aiming at nothing less than the throne of Dumnonia itself. But to gain that throne, Morgan told us, he would need more than a score of hors.e.m.e.n, and so his spearmen would surely even now be hurrying to catch up with their King as they marched down the long Roman road that led from Dumnonia's northern coast. The Silurians were loose in our country, but before Gundleus could be sure of victory he had to kill Mordred. He had to find us or else his whole daring enterprise would fail.

The great wood m.u.f.fled our steps. Occasionally a pigeon would clatter through the high leaves, and sometimes a woodp.e.c.k.e.r would rattle a trunk not far off. Once there was a great crashing and trampling in the nearby underbrush and we all stopped, motionless, fearing a Silurian horseman, but it was only a tusked boar that blundered into a clearing, took one look at us and turned away. Mordred was crying and would not take Ralla's breast. Some of the smaller children were also weeping out of fear and tiredness, but they fell silent when Morgan threatened to turn them all into stink-toads. Nimue limped ahead of me. I knew she was in pain, but she would not complain. Sometimes she wept silently and nothing Lunete could say would comfort her. Lunete was a slender, dark girl, the same age as Nimue and not unlike her in looks, but she lacked Nimue's knowledge and fey spirit. Nimue could look at a stream and know it as the dwelling place of water spirits, whereas Lunete would simply see it as a good place for washing clothes. After a while Lunete dropped back to walk beside me. "What happens to us now, Derfel?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Will Merlin come?"

"I hope so," I said, 'or perhaps Arthur will." I spoke in fervent but disbelieving hope, because what we needed was a miracle. Instead we seemed trapped in a midday nightmare for when, after a couple of hours walking, we were forced to leave the woods to cross a deep, winding stream that looped through gra.s.sy pastures bright with flowers, we saw more smoke pyres on the distant eastern skyline, though whether the fires had been set by Silurian raiders or by Saxons taking advantage of our weakness, none could tell.

A deer ran out of the woods a quarter mile to the east. "Down!" the huntsman's voice hissed and we all sank into the gra.s.s at the edge of the wood. Ralla forced Mordred on to her breast to silence him and he retaliated by biting her so hard that the blood trickled down to her waist, but neither he nor she made a sound as the horseman who had startled the deer appeared at the trees' edge. The horseman was also to the east of us, but much closer than the pyres, so close that I could see the fox mask on his round shield. He carried a long spear and a horn that he sounded after he had stared for a long time in our direction. We all feared that its signal meant that the rider had seen us and that soon a whole pack of Silurian hors.e.m.e.n would come into view, but when the man urged his horse back into the trees we guessed that the horn's dull note meant that he had not seen us at all. Far away another horn sounded, then there was silence.

We waited long minutes. Bees buzzed through the pastures edging the stream. We were all watching the treeline, fearing to see more armed hors.e.m.e.n, but no enemy showed there and after a while our guide whispered that we were to creep down to the stream, cross it, and crawl up to the trees on its far bank. It was a long, difficult crawl, especially for Morgan with her twisted left leg, though at least we all had a chance to lap at the water as we splashed through the stream. Once in the far woods we walked with soaking clothes, but also with the relieved feeling that perhaps we had left our enemies behind us. But not, alas, our troubles. "Will they make us slaves?" Lunete asked me. Like many of us Lunete had originally been captured for Dumnonia's slave market and only Merlin's intervention had kept her free. Now she feared that the loss of Merlin's protection would doom her.

"I don't think so," I said. "Not unless Gundleus or the Saxons capture us. You'd be taken for a slave, but they'd probably kill me." I felt very brave saying it.

Lunete put her arm into mine for comfort and I felt flattered by her touch. She was a pretty girl and till today she had treated me with disdain, preferring the company of the wild fisher boys in Ynys Wydryn. "I want Merlin to come back," she said. "I don't want to leave the Tor."

"There's nothing left there now," I said. "We'll have to find a new place to live. Or else we'll have to go back and rebuild the Tor, if we can." But only, I thought, if Dumnonia survived. Maybe even now, in this smoke-haunted afternoon, the kingdom was dying. I wondered how I had been so blind as not to see what horrors Uther's death would bring. Kingdoms need kings, and without them they are nothing but empty land inviting a conqueror's spears.

In mid-afternoon we crossed a wider stream, almost a river, so deep that the water came up to my chest as I waded through. Once on the far bank I dried off Hywel's sword as best I could. It was a lovely blade, made by the famous smiths in Gwent and decorated with curling designs and interlocking circles. Its steel blade was straight and stretched from my throat to my fingertips when I held my arm straight out. The crosspiece was made of thick iron with plain round finials, while the hilt was of apple wood that had been riveted to the tang and then bound about with strips of long, thin leather that were oiled smooth. The pommel was a round ball wrapped with silver wire that kept breaking free and in the end I took the wire off and fashioned it into a crude bracelet for Lunete.

South of the river was another wide pasture, this one grazed by bullocks that lumbered over to inspect our draggled pa.s.sing. Maybe it was their movement that attracted the trouble, for it was not long after we had entered the woods on the far side of the pasture that I heard the hoofbeats sound loud behind us. I sent a warning forward, then turned, spear and sword in my hands, to watch the path. The tree branches grew low here, so low that a horseman could not ride down the path. Whoever pursued us would be forced to abandon their horses and follow us on foot. We had not been using the wood's wider paths, but taking hidden track ways that threaded narrowly through the trees, so narrow that our pursuers, like us, would have to adopt a single file. I feared they were Silurian scouts sent far ahead of Gundleus's small force. Who else would be interested in whatever had caused the cattle on the river bank to stir themselves in this lazy afternoon?

Gwlyddyn arrived beside me and took the heavy spear out of my hand. He listened to the distant footfalls, then nodded as though satisfied. "Only two of them," he said calmly. "They've left their horses and are coming on foot. I'll take the first, and you hold the second man till I can kill him." He sounded extraordinarily calm, which helped soothe my fears. "And remember, Derfel," he added, 'they're frightened too." He pushed me into the shadows, then crouched on the path's far side behind the upended root ma.s.s of a fallen beech tree. "Get down," he hissed at me. "Hide!" I crouched and suddenly all the terror welled back inside me. My hands were sweating, my right leg was twitching, my throat was dry, I wanted to vomit, and my bowels were liquid. Hywel had taught me well, but I had never faced a man wanting to kill me. I could hear the approaching men, but I could not see them and my strongest instinct was to turn and run after the women. But I stayed. I had no choice. Since childhood I had been hearing tales of warriors and had been taught again and again that a man never turned and ran. A man fought for his Lord and a man stood up to his enemy and a man never fled. Now my Lord was sucking at Ralla's breast and I was facing his enemies, but how I wanted to be a child and just run! Suppose there were more than two enemy spearmen? And even if there were only two they were bound to be experienced warriors; skilled and hardened and careless in their killing.

"Calm, boy, calm," Gwlyddyn said softly. He had fought in Uther's battles. He had faced the Saxon and carried a spear against the men of Powys. Now, deep in his native land, he stooped in the tangle of earthy root-suckers with a half-grin on his face and my long spear in his st.u.r.dy brown hands. "This is revenge for my child," he told me grimly, 'and the G.o.ds are on our side." I was crouched behind brambles and flanked by ferns. My damp clothes felt heavy and uncomfortable. I stared at the trees that were thick with lichens and tangled with leaves. A woodp.e.c.k.e.r rattled nearby and I jumped with alarm. My hiding place was better than Gwlyddyn's, but even so I felt exposed, and never more so than when at last our two pursuers appeared just a dozen paces beyond my leafy screen. They were two lithe young spearmen with leather breastplates, strapped leggings and long russet cloaks thrown back over their shoulders. Their plaited beards were long and their dark hair was bound behind by leather thongs. Both men carried long spears and the second man also had a sword at his belt, though he had not yet drawn it. I held my breath.

The leading man raised a hand and both men stopped and listened for a while before coming on again. The nearest man's face was scarred from an old fight, his mouth was open and I could see the gaps in his yellowed teeth. He looked immensely tough, experienced and frightening, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with a terrible desire to flee, but then the scar on my left palm, the scar that Nimue had put there, throbbed and that warm pulse gave me a jolt of courage.

"We heard a deer," the second man said disparagingly. The two men were advancing at a stealthy walk now, placing their feet carefully and watching the leaves ahead for the smallest flicker of movement.

"We heard a baby," the first man insisted. He was two paces ahead of the other who looked, to my scared eyes, to be even taller and grimmer than his companion.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have disappeared," the second man said and I saw the sweat dripping off his face and I noticed how he gripped and re gripped his ash spear-shaft and I knew he was nervous. I was saying Bel's name over and over in my head, begging the G.o.d for courage, begging him to make me a man. The enemy was six paces away now and still coming, and all around us the greenwood lay warm and breathless and I could smell the two men, smell their leather and the lingering scent of their horses as sweat dripped into my eyes and I almost whimpered aloud in terror, but then Gwlyd-dyn leaped out of his ambush and screamed a war cry as he ran forward.

I ran with him and suddenly I was released from fear as the mad, G.o.d-given joy of battle came to me for the very first time. Later, much later, I learned that the joy and the fear are the exact same things, the one merely transformed into the other by action, but on that summer afternoon I was suddenly elated. May G.o.d and His angels forgive me, but that day I discovered the joy that lies in battle and for a long time afterwards I craved it like a thirsty man seeking water. I ran forward, screaming like Gwlyddyn, but I was not so crazed as to follow him blindly. I moved over to the right side of the narrow path so that I could run past him when he struck the closer Silurian.

That man tried to parry Gwlyddyn's spear, but the carpenter expected the low sweep of the ash staff, and raised his own weapon above it as he thrust his weapon home. It all happened so fast. One moment the Silurian was a threatening figure in war gear, then he was gasping and twitching as Gwlyddyn rammed the heavy spearhead through the leather armour and deep into his chest. And I was already past him, yelling as I swung Hywel's sword. At that moment I felt no fear, perhaps because the soul of dead Hywel came back from the Otherworld to fill me, for suddenly I knew exactly what I had to do and my war scream was a cry of triumph.

The second man had a heartbeat's more warning than his dying companion and so he had dropped into a spearman's crouch from which he could spring forward with killing force. I leaped at him, and as the spear came at me in a bright, sun-touched lunge of steel I twisted aside and parried with my blade, not so hard as to lose control of the steel, but just enough to slide the man's weapon past my right side as I whirled the sword around. "It's all in the wrists, boy, all in the wrists," I heard Hywel say and I shouted his name as I brought the sword hard down on to the side of the Silurian's neck. It was all so quick, so very quick. The wrist manoeuvres the sword, but the arm gives it force, and my arm held Hywel's great strength that afternoon. My steel buried itself in the Silurian's neck like an axe biting into rotten wood. At first, so green was I, I thought he had not died and I wrenched the sword free to strike at him again. I struck that second time and was aware of blood brightening the day and the man falling sideways and I could hear his choking breath and see his dying effort to pull the spear back for a second thrust, but then his life rattled in his throat and another great wash of blood ran down his leather-covered chest as he slumped on to the leaf mould.

And I stood there shaking. I suddenly wanted to cry. I had no idea what I had done. I had no sense of victory, only of guilt, and I stood shocked and motionless with my sword still embedded in the dead man's throat on which the first flies were already settling. I could not move. A bird screamed in the high leaves, then Gwlyddyn's strong arm was around my shoulders and tears were streaming down my face. "You're a good man, Derfel," Gwlyddyn said and I turned to him and held him like a child clinging to a father. "Well done," he said again and again, 'well done." He patted me clumsily until at last I sniffed back my tears.

"I'm sorry," I heard myself saying.

"Sorry?" he laughed. "For what? Hywel always said you were the best he ever trained and I should have believed him. You're fast. Now come, we have to see what we've won." I took my victim's sword scabbard that was made of willow-stiffened leather and found it fitted Hywel's sword tolerably well, then we searched the two bodies for what little plunder we could find: an unripe apple, an old coin worn smooth, two cloaks, the weapons, some leather thongs and a bone-handled knife. Gwlyddyn debated whether we should go back and fetch the two horses, then decided we did not have the time. I did not care. My vision might be blurred by tears, but I was alive and I had killed a man and I had defended my King and suddenly I was deliriously happy as Gwlyddyn led me back to the frightened fugitives and raised my arm as a sign that I had fought well.

"You made enough noise, the two of you," Morgan snarled. "We'll have half Siluria on our heels soon. Now come! Move!"

Nimue did not seem interested in my victory, but Lunete wanted to hear all about it and in the telling I exaggerated both the enemy and the fight, and Lunete's admiration engendered even more exaggeration. She had her arm in mine again and I glanced at her dark-eyed face and wondered why I had never really noticed just how beautiful she was. Like Nimue she had a wedge-shaped face, but where Nimue's was full of a wary knowledge Lunete's was soft with a teasing warmth, and her closeness gave me new confidence as we walked on through the long afternoon until at last we turned east towards the hills of which Caer Cadarn stood like an outrider.

One hour later we stood at the edge of the woods that faced Caer Cadarn. It was late in the day, but we were in midsummer and the sun was still high in the sky and its lovely gentle light was flooding the western ramparts of Caer Cadarn with a green glow. We were a mile away from the fortress, but still close enough to see the yellow palisades atop the ramparts, close enough to see that no guards stood on those walls and no smoke rose from the small settlement inside.

But nor was there any enemy in sight, and that decided Morgan to cross the open land and climb the western path to the King's fortress. Gwlyddyn argued that we should stay in the forest till nightfall, or else go to the nearby settlement of Lindinis, but Gwlyddyn was a carpenter and Morgan a high-born lady, so he surrendered to her wishes.

We moved out into the pastureland and our shadows stretched long in front of us. The gra.s.s had been cropped short by deer or cattle, yet it was soft and lush underfoot. Nimue, who still seemed to be in a pain-haunted trance, slipped off her borrowed shoes and paced barefoot. A hawk sailed overhead and then a hare, startled by our sudden appearance, sprang out of a gra.s.sy hollow and raced nimbly away. We followed a path edged with cornflowers, ox-eyes, ragweed and dogwood. Behind us, shadowed by the sun's western slant, the woods looked dark. We were tired and ragged, but journey's end was in sight and some among us even appeared cheerful. We were bringing Mordred back to his birthplace, back to Dumnonia's royal hill, but before we were even halfway to that glorious green refuge, the enemy appeared behind us.

Gundleus's war-band appeared. Not just the hors.e.m.e.n who had ridden to Ynys Wydryn in the morning, but his spearmen too. Gundleus must have known all along where we would go and so he had brought his surviving cavalrymen and over a hundred spearmen to this sacred place of Dumnonia's kings. And even if he had not been forced to pursue the baby King, then Gundleus would still have come to Caer Cadarn, for he wanted nothing less than the crown of Dumnonia, and Caer Cadarn was where that crown was bestowed upon the ruler's head. Who held Caer Cadarn held Dumnonia, the old saying went, and who held Dumnonia held Britain.

The Silurian hors.e.m.e.n spurred ahead of their spearmen. It would take them only a few minutes to reach us and I knew that none of us, not even the swiftest runners, could reach the long slopes of the fortress before those hors.e.m.e.n swept around us with slashing steel and stabbing spears. I went to Nimue's side and saw that her thin face was drawn and tired, and her remaining eye bruised and tearful. "Nimue?" I said.

"It's all right, Derfel." She seemed annoyed that I wanted to take care of her. She was mad, I decided. Of all the living who had survived this terrible day, she had survived the worst experience of all and it had driven her to a place I could neither follow nor understand. "I do love you," I said, trying to touch her soul with tenderness.

"Me? Not Lunete?" Nimue said angrily. She was not looking at me, but towards the fortress, while I turned and stared at the approaching hors.e.m.e.n who had spread into a long line like men intent on flushing game. Their cloaks lay on their horses' rumps, their scabbards hung down beside their dangling boots, and the sun glinted on spear-points and lit the banner of the fox. Gundleus rode beneath the banner, the iron helmet with its fox-tail crest on his head. Ladwys was beside him, a sword in her hand, while Tanaburs, his long robe flapping, rode a grey horse close beside his King. I was going to die, I thought, on the day that I had become a man. That realization seemed very cruel.

"Run!" Morgan suddenly shouted, 'run!" I thought she had panicked, and I did not want to obey her for I thought it would be n.o.bler to stand and die like a man than be cut down from behind as a fugitive. Then I saw she was not panicking and that Caer Cadarn was not deserted after all, but that the gates had opened and a stream of men was running and riding down the path. The hors.e.m.e.n were dressed like Gundleus's riders, only these men bore the dragon shields of Mordred on their arms. We ran. I dragged Nimue along by the arm while the handful of Dumnonian horse spurred towards us. There were a dozen riders, not many, but enough to check the advance of Gundleus's men, while behind the hors.e.m.e.n came a band of Dumnonian spearmen.

"Fifty spears," Gwlyddyn said. He had been counting the rescue party. "We can't beat them with fifty," he added grimly, 'but we might make safety."

Gundleus was making the same deduction and now he led his hors.e.m.e.n in a wide curve that would lead them behind the approaching Dumnonian spearmen. He wanted to cut off our retreat for once he had a.s.sembled his enemies in one place he could kill us all whether we numbered seventy or seven. Gundleus had the advantage of numbers and, by coming down from their fortress, the Dumnonians had sacrificed their one advantage of height.

The Dumnonian hors.e.m.e.n thundered past us, their horses' hooves cutting great chunks of turf from the lush pasture. These were not the fabled hors.e.m.e.n of Arthur, the armoured men who struck home like thunderbolts, but lightly armed scouts who would normally dismount before going into battle, but now they formed a protective screen between us and the Silurian spearmen. A moment later our own spearmen arrived and made their shield-wall. That wall gave us all a new confidence, a confidence that veered towards recklessness when we saw who led the rescue party. It was Owain, mighty Owain, king's champion and the greatest fighter in all Britain. We had thought Owain was far to the north, fighting alongside the men of Gwent in the mountains of Powys, yet here he was at Caer Cadarn.

Yet, in sober truth, Gundleus still held the advantage. We were twelve hors.e.m.e.n, fifty spearmen and thirty tired fugitives who were gathered in an open place where Gundleus had gathered almost twice as many hors.e.m.e.n and twice as many spearmen.

The sun was still bright. It would be two hours before twilight and four before it was full dark and that gave Gundleus more than enough time to finish his slaughter, though first he tried to persuade us with words. He rode forward, splendid on his sweat-foamed horse and with his shield held upside down as a sign of truce. "Men of Dumnonia," he called, 'give me the child and I will go!" No one answered. Owain had hidden himself in the centre of our shield-wall so that Gundleus, seeing no leader, addressed us all.

"It's a maimed child!" the Silurian King called. "Cursed by the G.o.ds. You think any good fortune can attend a country ruled by a crippled king? You want your harvests blighted? You want your children born sick? You want your cattle to die of a murrain? You want the Saxons to be lords of this land? What else does a crippled king bring but ill fortune?"

Still no one answered though, G.o.d knows, enough men in our hastily aligned ranks must have feared that Gundleus spoke the truth.

The Silurian King lifted the helmet from his long hair and smiled at our plight. "You may all live," he promised, 'so long as you give me the child." He waited for an answer that did not come. "Who leads you?" he finally asked.

"I do!" Owain at last pushed through the ranks to take his place in front of our shield-line.

"Owain." Gundleus recognized him, and I thought I saw a flicker of fear in Gundleus's eyes. Like us he had not known that Owain had returned to the heart of Dumnonia. Yet Gundleus was still confident of victory even though he must have known that with Owain among his enemies that victory would be much harder. "Lord Owain," Gundleus said giving Dumnonia's champion his proper t.i.tle, 'son of Eilynon and grandson of Culwas. I salute you!" Gundleus raised his spear tip towards the sun. "You have a son, Lord Owain."

"Many men have sons," Owain answered carelessly. "What is it to you?"

"Do you want your boy to be fatherless?" Gundleus asked. "Do you want your lands wasted? Your home burned? Do you want your wife to be my men's plaything?"

"My wife," Owain said, 'could outfight all your men, and you too. You want playthings, Gundleus? Go back to your wh.o.r.e' he jerked his chin towards Ladwys - 'and if you won't share your wh.o.r.e with your men then Dumnonia can spare Siluria a few lonely ewes." Owain's defiance cheered us. He looked indomitable with his ma.s.sive spear, long sword and iron-plated shield. He always fought bare headed, disdaining a helmet, and his hugely muscled arms were tattooed with Dumnonia's dragon and his own symbol of a long-tusked boar.

"Yield me the child." Gundleus ignored the insults, knowing they were merely the defiance expected of a man facing battle. "Give me the crippled King!"

"Give me your wh.o.r.e, Gundleus," Owain retorted. "You're not man enough for her. Give her to me and you can go in peace."

Gundleus spat. "The bards will sing of your death, Owain. The song of the pig-sticking." Owain thrust his huge spear b.u.t.t-first into the soil. "Here the pig stands, Gundleus ap Meilyr, King of Siluria," he shouted, 'and here the pig will either die or p.i.s.s on your corpse. Now go!" Gundleus smiled, shrugged and turned his horse away. He also turned his shield the right side up, letting us know that we would have a fight.

It was my first battle.

The Dumnonian hors.e.m.e.n formed behind our line of spears to protect the women and children so long as they could. The rest of us arrayed ourselves in the battle line and watched as our enemies did the same. Ligessac, the traitor, was among the Silurian ranks. Tanaburs performed the rites, hopping on one leg and with one hand raised and one eye closed in front of Gundleus's shield-wall as it advanced slowly across the gra.s.sland. Only when Tanaburs had cast his protective spell did the Silurians begin to shout insults at us. They warned us of the ma.s.sacre to come and boasted how many of us they would kill, yet even so I noticed how slowly they came and, when they were only fifty paces away, how they stopped altogether. Some of our men jeered at their timidity, but Owain growled at us to be silent. The battle lines stared at each other. Neither moved.

It takes extraordinary courage to charge into a line of shields and spears. That is why so many men drink before the fight. I have seen armies pause for hours while they summon the courage to charge, and the older the warrior the more courage is needed. Young troops will charge and die, but older men know how terrible an enemy shield-wall can be. I had no shield, yet I was covered by the shields of my neighbours, and their shields touched others and so on down our small line so that any man charging home would be met by a wall of leather-covered wood bristling with razor-sharp spears. The Silurians began beating their shields with their spear-staffs. The rattling sound was meant to unsettle us, and it did, though none on our side showed the fear. We just huddled together, waiting for the charge.

"There'll be some false charges first, lad," my neighbour warned me, and no sooner had he spoken than a group of Silurians ran screaming from their line and hurled their long spears at the centre of our defence. Our men crouched and the long spears banged home into our shields and suddenly the whole Silurian line was moving forward, but Owain immediately ordered our line to stand and march forward too and that deliberate motion checked the enemy's threatened attack. Those of our men whose shields were c.u.mbered with the enemy spears wrenched the weapons loose, then made the shield-wall whole again.

"Edge back!" Owain ordered us. He would try to shuffle slowly backwards across the half-mile of gra.s.sland to Caer Cadarn, hoping that the Silurians would not raise the courage to make their charge while we completed that pitifully slow journey. To give us more time Owain strode ahead of our line and shouted at Gundleus to fight him man to man. "Are you a woman, Gundleus?" our King's champion called. "Lost your courage? Not enough mead? Why don't you go back to your weaving loom, woman? Go back to your embroidery! Go back to your spindle!"

We shuffled back, shuffled back, shuffled back, but suddenly a charge of the enemy made us stand firm and duck behind our shields as the spears were hurled. One whipped over my head, its pa.s.sage sounding like a sudden rush of wind, but again the attack was a feint intended to panic us. Ligessac was firing arrows, but he must have been drunk for his shots went wildly overhead. Owain was a target for a dozen spears, but most missed and the others he swept contemptuously aside with spear or shield before mocking the throwers. "Who taught you spear-craft? Your mothers?" He spat towards the enemy.

"Come Gundleus! Fight me! Show your scullions you're a king, not a mouse!" The Silurians beat spear-shafts on their shields to drown Owain's taunts. He turned his back to show them his scorn and walked slowly back to our shield-line. "Back," he called to us softly, 'back." Then two of the Silurians threw down their shields and weapons and tore off their clothes to fight naked. My neighbour spat. "There'll be trouble now," he warned me grimly. The naked men were probably drunk, or else so intoxicated by the G.o.ds that they believed no enemy blade could hurt them. I had heard of such men and knew that their suicidal example was usually the signal for a real attack. I gripped my sword and tried to make a vow to die well, but in truth I could have wept for the pity of it all. I had become a man this day, and now I would die. I would join Uther and Hywel in the Otherworld and there wait through the shadowed years until my soul found another human body in which to return to this green world.

The two men unbound their hair, took up their spears and swords, then danced in front of the Silurian line. They howled as they worked themselves into the battle frenzy; that state of mindless ecstasy that will let a man try any feat. Gundleus, sitting his horse beneath his banner, smiled at the two men whose bodies were intricately tattooed with blue patterns. The children were crying behind us and our women were calling to the G.o.ds as the men danced nearer and nearer, their spears and swords whirling in the evening sun. Such men had no need of shields, clothes or armour. The G.o.ds were their protection and glory was their reward, and if they succeeded in killing Owain then the bards would sing of their victory for years to come. They advanced one on each side of our champion who hefted his spear as he prepared to meet their frenzied attack which would also mark the moment when the whole enemy line would charge. And then the horn sounded.

The horn gave a clear, cold note like none I had ever heard before. There was a purity to that horn, a chill hard purity like nothing else on all the earth. It sounded once, it sounded twice, and the second call was enough to give even the naked men pause and make them turn towards the east from where the sound had come.

I looked too.

And I was dazzled. It was as though a new bright sun had risen on that dying day. The light slashed over the pastures, blinding us, confusing us, but then the light slid on and I saw it was merely the reflection of the real sun glancing from a shield polished bright as a mirror. But that shield was held by such a man as I had never seen before; a man magnificent, a man lifted high on a great horse and accompanied by other such men; a horde of wondrous men, plumed men, armoured men, men sprung from the dreams of the G.o.ds to come to this murderous field, and over the men's plumed heads there floated a banner I would come to love more than any banner on all G.o.d's earth. It was the banner of the bear. The horn sounded a third time, and suddenly I knew I would live, and I was weeping for joy and all our spearmen were half crying and half shouting and the earth was shuddering with the hooves of those G.o.dlike men who were riding to our rescue.

For Arthur, at last, had come.

PART TWO.