The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Of course he does,’ I protested.

  Galahad shook his head. ‘He knows Arthur’s an honest man,’ he allowed, ‘but Arthur’s also an adventurer. He’s landless, have you ever thought of that? He defends a reputation, not property. He holds his rank because of Mordred’s age, not through his own birth. For Arthur to succeed he must be bolder than other men, but Tewdric doesn’t want boldness right now. He wants security. He’ll accept Gorfyddyd’s offer.’ He was silent for a while. ‘Maybe our fate is to be wandering warriors,’ he continued gloomily, ‘deprived of land, and always being driven back towards the Western Sea by new enemies.’

  I shivered and drew my cloak tighter. The night was clouding over and bringing a chill promise of rain on the western wind. ‘You’re saying Tewdric will desert us?’

  ‘He already has,’ Galahad said bluntly. ‘His only problem now is getting rid of Arthur gracefully. Tewdric has too much to lose and he won’t take risks any more, but Arthur has nothing to lose except his hopes.’

  ‘You two!’ A loud voice called us from behind and we turned to see Culhwch hurrying along the ramparts. ‘Arthur wants you.’

  ‘For what?’ Galahad asked.

  ‘What do you think, Lord Prince? He’s lacking for throwboard players?’ Culhwch grinned. ‘These bastards may not have the belly for a fight’ – he gestured towards the fort that was thronged with Tewdric’s neatly uniformed men – ‘but we have. I suspect we’re going to attack all on our own.’ He saw our surprise and laughed. ‘You heard Lord Agricola the other night. Two hundred men can hold Lugg Vale against an army. Well? We’ve got two hundred spearmen and Gorfyddyd possesses an army, so why do we need anyone from Gwent? Time to feed the ravens!’

  The first rain fell, hissing in the smithy fires, and it seemed we were going to war.

  I sometimes think that was Arthur’s bravest decision. God knows he took other decisions in circumstances just as desperate, but never was Arthur weaker than on that rainy night in Magnis where Tewdric was drawing up patient orders that would withdraw his forward men back to the Roman walls in preparation for a truce between Gwent and the enemy.

  Arthur gathered five of us in a soldier’s house close to those walls. The rain seethed on the roof while under the thatch a log fire smoked to light us with a lurid glare. Sagramor, Arthur’s most trusted commander, sat beside Morfans on the hut’s small bench, Culhwch, Galahad and I squatted on the floor while Arthur talked.

  Prince Meurig, Arthur allowed, had spoken an uncomfortable truth, for the war was indeed of his own making. If he had not spurned Ceinwyn there would be no enmity between Powys and Dumnonia. Gwent was involved by being Powys’s most ancient enemy and Dumnonia’s traditional friend, but it was not in Gwent’s interest to continue the war. ‘If I had not come to Britain,’ Arthur said, ‘then King Tewdric would not be foreseeing the rape of his land. This is my war and, just as I began it, so I must end it.’ He paused. He was a man to whom emotion came easily, and he was, at that moment, overcome with feeling. ‘I am going to Lugg Vale tomorrow,’ he finally spoke and for a dreadful second I thought he meant to give himself up to Gorfyddyd’s awful revenge, but then Arthur offered us his open generous smile, ‘and I would like it if you came with me, but I have no right to demand it.’

  There was silence in the room. I suppose we were all thinking that the fight in the vale had seemed a risky prospect when the combined armies of Gwent and Dumnonia were to be employed, but how were we to win with only Dumnonia’s men? ‘You have a right to demand that we come,’ Culhwch broke the silence, ‘for we took oaths to serve you.’

  ‘I release you from those oaths,’ Arthur said, ‘asking only that if you live you stand by my promise to see Mordred grow into our King.’

  There was silence again. None of us, I think, wavered in our loyalty, but nor did we know how to express it until Galahad spoke. ‘I swore you no oath,’ he said to Arthur, ‘but I do now. Where you fight, Lord, I fight, and he who is your enemy is mine, and he who is your friend is my friend also. I swear that on the precious blood of the living Christ.’ He leaned forward, took Arthur’s hand and kissed it. ‘May my life be forfeit if I break my word.’

  ‘It takes two to make an oath,’ Culhwch said. ‘You might release me, Lord, but I don’t release myself.’

  ‘Nor I, Lord,’ I added.

  Sagramor looked bored. ‘I’m your man,’ he said to Arthur, ‘no one else’s.’

  ‘Bugger the oath,’ ugly Morfans said, ‘I want to fight.’

  Arthur had tears in his eyes. For a time he could not speak, so instead he busied himself ramming at the fire with a log until he had succeeded in halving its warmth and doubling its smoke. ‘Your men are not oath-bound,’ he said thickly, ‘and I want none but willing men in Lugg Vale tomorrow.’

  ‘Why tomorrow?’ Culhwch asked. ‘Why not the day after? The more time we have to prepare, the better, surely?’

  Arthur shook his head. ‘We’ll be no better prepared if we wait a whole year. Besides, Gorfyddyd’s spies will already be going north with news that Tewdric is accepting Gorfyddyd’s terms, so we must attack before those same spies discover that we Dumnonians have not retreated. We attack at dawn tomorrow.’ He looked at me. ‘You will attack first, Lord Derfel, so tonight you must reach your men and talk to them, and if they prove unwilling, then so be it, but if they are willing then Morfans can tell you what they must do.’

  Morfans had ridden the whole enemy line, flaunting himself in Arthur’s armour but also reconnoitring the enemy positions. Now he took handfuls of grain from a pot and piled them on his outspread cloak to make a rough model of Lugg Vale. ‘It’s not a long valley,’ he said, ‘but the sides are steep. The barricade is here at the southern end.’ He pointed to a spot just inside the modelled valley. ‘They felled trees and made a fence. It’s big enough to stop a horse, but it won’t take long for a few men to haul those trees aside. Their weakness is here.’ He indicated the western hill. ‘It’s steep at the northern end of the valley, but where they built their barricade you can easily run down that slope. Climb the hill in the dark and in the dawn you attack downhill and dismantle their tree fence while they’re still waking up. Then the horses can come through.’ He grinned, relishing the thought of surprising the enemy.

  ‘Your men are used to marching by night,’ Arthur told me, ‘so at dawn tomorrow you take the barricade, destroy it, then hold the vale long enough for our horse to arrive. After the horse our spearmen will come. Sagramor will command the spearmen in the vale while I and fifty horsemen attack Branogenium.’ Sagramor showed no reaction to the announcement which gave him command of most of Arthur’s army.

  The rest of us could not hide our astonishment, not at Sagramor’s appointment, but at Arthur’s tactics. ‘Fifty horsemen attacking Gorfyddyd’s whole army?’ Galahad asked dubiously.

  ‘We won’t capture Branogenium,’ Arthur admitted, ‘we may not even get close, but we shall stir them into a pursuit and that pursuit will bring them down to the vale. Sagramor will meet that pursuit at the vale’s northern end, where the road fords the river, and when they attack, you retreat.’ He looked at us in turn, making sure we understood his instructions. ‘Retreat,’ he said again, ‘always retreat. Let them think they win! And when you have sucked them deep into the valley, I shall attack.’

  ‘From where?’ I asked.

  ‘From behind, of course!’ Arthur, energized by the prospect of battle, had regained all his enthusiasm. ‘When my horsemen retreat from Branogenium we won’t go back into the vale, but hide outside its northern end. The place is smothered in trees. And once you’ve sucked the enemy in, we’ll come from their rear.’

  Sagramor stared at the piles of grain. ‘The Blackshield Irish at Cod’s Hill,’ he said in his execrable accent, ‘can march south of the hills to take us in the rear,’ he pushed a finger through the scattered grains at the Vale’s southern end to show what he meant. Those Irish, we all knew, were the fearsome warriors of Oengus Mac A
irem, King of Demetia, who had been our ally until Gorfyddyd had changed his loyalty with gold. ‘You want us to hold an army in front and the Blackshields behind?’ Sagramor asked.

  ‘You see,’ Arthur said with a smile, ‘why I offer to release you from your oaths. But once Tewdric knows we’re embattled, he’ll come. As the day passes, Sagramor, you will find your shield-line thickening by the minute. Tewdric’s men will deal with the enemy from Coel’s Hill.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’ Sagramor asked.

  ‘Then we will probably lose,’ Arthur admitted calmly, ‘but with my death will come Gorfyddyd’s victory and Tewdric’s peace. My head will go to Ceinwyn as a present for her wedding and you, my friends, will be feasting in the Otherworld where, I trust, you will keep a place at table for me.’

  There was silence again. Arthur seemed sure that Tewdric would fight, though none of us could be so certain. It seemed to me that Tewdric might well prefer to let Arthur and his men perish in Lugg Vale and thus rid himself of an inconvenient alliance, but I also told myself that such high politics were not my concern. My concern was surviving the next day and, as I looked at Morfans’s crude model of the battlefield, I worried about the western hill down which we would attack in the dawn. If we could attack there, I thought, so could the enemy. ‘They’ll outflank our shield-line,’ I said, describing my concern.

  Arthur shook his head. ‘The hill’s too steep for a man in armour to climb at the vale’s northern end. The worst they’ll do is send their levies there, which means archers. If you can spare men, Derfel, put a handful there, but otherwise pray that Tewdric comes quickly. To which end,’ he said, turning to Galahad, ‘though it hurts me to ask you to stay away from the shield–wall, Lord Prince, you will be of most value to me tomorrow if you ride as my envoy to King Tewdric. You are a prince, you speak with authority and you, above all men, can persuade him to take advantage of the victory I intend to give him by my disobedience.’

  Galahad looked troubled. ‘I would rather fight, Lord.’

  ‘On balance,’ Arthur smiled, ‘I would rather win than lose. For that, I need Tewdric’s men to come before the day’s end and you, Lord Prince, are the only fit messenger I can send to an aggrieved king. You must persuade him, flatter him, plead with him, but above all, Lord Prince, convince him that we win the war tomorrow or else fight for the rest of our days.’

  Galahad accepted the choice. ‘Though I have your permission to return and fight at Derfel’s side when the message is delivered?’ he added.

  ‘You will be welcome,’ Arthur said. He paused, staring down at the piles of grain. ‘We are few,’ he said simply, ‘and they are a host, but dreams do not come true by using caution, only by braving danger. Tomorrow we can bring peace to the Britons.’ He stopped abruptly, struck perhaps by the thought that his ambition of peace was also Tewdric’s dream. Maybe Arthur was wondering whether he should fight at all. I remembered how after our meeting with Aelle, when we made the oath under the oak, Arthur had contemplated giving up the fight and I half expected him to bare his soul again, but on that rainy night the horse of ambition was tugging his soul hard and he could not contemplate a peace in which his own life or exile was the price. He wanted peace, but even more he wanted to dictate that peace. ‘Whatever Gods you pray to,’ he said quietly, ‘go with you all tomorrow.’

  I had to ride a horse to get back to my men. I was in a hurry and fell off three times. As omens, the falls were dire, but the road was soft with mud and nothing was hurt but my pride. Arthur rode with me, but checked my horse when we were still a spear’s throw from where my men’s campfires flickered low in the insistent rain. ‘Do this for me tomorrow, Derfel,’ he said, ‘and you may carry your own banner and paint your own shields.’

  In this world or the next, I thought, but I did not speak the thought aloud for fear of tempting the Gods. Because tomorrow, in a grey, bleak dawn, we would fight against the world.

  Not one of my men tried to evade their oaths. Some, a few, might have wanted to avoid battle, but none wanted to show weakness in front of their comrades and so we all marched, leaving in the night’s middle to make our way across a rain-soaked countryside. Arthur saw us off, then went to where his horsemen were encamped.

  Nimue insisted on accompanying us. She had promised us a spell of concealment, and after that nothing would persuade my men to leave her behind. She worked the spell before we left, performing it on the skull of a sheep she found by flame-light in a ditch close to our camp. She dragged the carcass out of the thicket where a wolf had feasted, chopped the head away, stripped away the remnants of maggoty skin, then crouched with her cloak hiding both her and the stinking skull. She crouched there a long time, breathing the ghastly stench of the decomposing head, then stood and kicked the skull scornfully aside. She watched where it came to rest and, after a moment’s deliberation, declared that the enemy would look aside as we marched through the night. Arthur, who was fascinated by Nimue’s intensity, shuddered when she made the pronouncement, then embraced me. ‘I owe you a debt, Derfel.’

  ‘You owe me nothing, Lord.’

  ‘If for nothing else,’ he said, ‘I thank you for bringing me Ceinwyn’s message.’ He had taken enormous pleasure in her forgiveness, then shrugged when I had added her further words about being granted his protection. ‘She has nothing to fear from any man in Dumnonia,’ he had said. Now he clapped me on the back. ‘I shall see you in the dawn,’ he promised, then watched as we filed out from the firelight into the dark.

  We crossed grassy meadows and newly harvested fields where no obstacles other than the soaking ground, the dark and the driving rain impeded us. That rain came from our left, the west, and it seemed relentless; a stinging, pelting, cold rain that trickled inside our jerkins and chilled our bodies. At first we bunched together so that no man would find himself alone in the dark, though even crossing the easy ground we were constantly calling out in low voices to find where our comrades might be. Some men tried to keep hold of a friend’s cloak, but spears clashed together and men tripped until finally I stopped everyone and formed two files. Every man was ordered to sling his shield on his back, then to hold on to the spear of the man in front. Cavan was at our rear, making sure no one dropped out, while Nimue and I were in the lead. She held my hand, not out of affection, but simply so that we should stay together in the black night. Lughnasa seemed like a dream now, swept away not by time, but by Nimue’s fierce refusal to acknowledge that our time in the bower had ever happened. Those hours, like her months on the Isle of the Dead, had served their purpose and were now irrelevant.

  We came to trees. I hesitated, then plunged down a steep, muddy bank and into a darkness so engulfing that I despaired of ever taking fifty men through its horrid blackness, but then Nimue began to croon in a low voice and the sound acted like a beacon to beckon men safely through the stumbling dark. Both spear chains broke, but by following Nimue’s voice we all somehow blundered through the trees to emerge into a meadow on their farther side. We stopped there while Cavan and I made a tally of the men and Nimue circled us, hissing spells at the dark.

  My spirits, dampened by the rain and gloom, sank lower. I thought I had possessed a mental picture of this countryside that lay just north of my men’s camp, but our stumbling progress had obliterated that picture. I had no idea where I was, nor where I should go. I thought we had been heading north, but without a star to guide me or moon to light my way, I let my fears overcome my resolve.

  ‘Why are you waiting?’ Nimue came to my side and whispered the words.

  I said nothing, not willing to admit that I was lost. Or perhaps not willing to admit that I was frightened.

  Nimue sensed my helplessness and took command. ‘We have a long stretch of open pasture ahead of us,’ she told my men. ‘It used to graze sheep, but they’ve taken the flock away, so there are no shepherds or dogs to see us. It’s uphill all the way, but easy enough going if we stay together. At the end of the pasture we come to a wood
and there we’ll wait for dawn. It isn’t far and it isn’t difficult. I know we’re wet and cold, but tomorrow we shall warm ourselves on our enemies’ fires.’ She spoke with utter confidence.

  I do not think I could have led those men through that wet night, but Nimue did. She claimed that her one eye saw in the dark where our eyes could not, and maybe that was true, or maybe she simply possessed a better idea of this stretch of countryside than I did, but however it was done, she did it well. In the last hour we walked along the shoulder of a hill and suddenly the going became easier for we were now on the western height above Lugg Vale and our enemies’ watch-fires burned in the dark beneath us. I could even see the barricade of felled pine trees and the glint of the River Lugg beyond. In the vale men threw great baulks of wood on the fires to light the road where attackers might come from the south.

  We reached the woods and sank on to the wet ground. Some of us half slept in the deceptive, dream-filled, shallow slumber that seems like no sleep at all and leaves a man cold, weary and aching, but Nimue stayed awake, muttering charms and talking to men who could not sleep. It was not small-talk, for Nimue had no time for idle chatter, but fierce explanations of why we fought. Not for Mordred, she said, but for a Britain shorn of foreigners and of foreign ideas, and even the Christians in my ranks listened to her.