Shadow of the King

by Helen Hollick

  Eyes to the left, to Arthur now. To the Dragon Banner, fluttering white, red. The glint of spur, the flash of a sword. Quiet beneath the arrows, horses’ hooves moving through the grass, the jingle of harness, the creak of leather. Then the arrows ceased and Arthur lifted his sword, raised it high. The signalmen took up the order.

  Trotting, steady jogging. Riders firm, deep in the saddle; one hand on the reins, held behind the shield. Spears raised, the lightweight javelins. Thrown. The second spear coming easily into hand, heavier, more destructive. The horses. Held in, reins tight, checked. Necks bent, heads in, jaws taut, wanting to go; manes tossing, eyes white, nostrils red, flaring, snorting; mouths open, pulling against the hold of the bit, cutting, curbing. Blood-flecked foam.

  Arrows in shield, in flesh. Spears crippling, disabling. Death. Wounding. Pain. The shield wall, standing firm. Holding. Where one fell, another stepped forward.

  Cantering. Strides lengthened and stretching. Hooves galloping, the ground vibrating, thundering, drumming. Breath hot. The men, mouths open, voices, indistinct in the single, shouted war cry.

  From both sides, from British, from Saxon, released that terrible howl, defying death.

  The last few strides. Faces near enough to be seen. Clear beneath the protection of helmets. Eyes, blue, brown. Bright, excited, fearing. Breath gasping, quickened. Fingers gripping, palms sweating. Bodies taut. Legs, feet, braced, balanced. The reins slackened, let loose. Horses’ necks low, stretched, hooves pounding. Legs, manes, tails, blurred by speed and wind. The shield-wall standing firm. Met. Hooves, teeth. Plunging, screaming. Sword, dagger, axe. Crashing through, destroying. Man against man. Blood and terror. Men who did not flinch, slay or be slain. Bloody heads, limbs maimed, amputated, mutilated. Kill or be killed.

  The shriek of pain. The agony of bloody destruction.

  Battle.

  Dusk and the ending of a day that was long, sorrowful and bloody in its passing. Only the few were unwounded, with so many dead, British and Saxon. For neither side the victory; for both, the grieving of death. The horror of such terrible killing.

  The Saxons would write, later, in their chronicles: Port came with his two sons, Maegla and Bieda, in two ships, and killed a Briton of high rank.

  Geraint.

  The British? For him, for Geraint, they wrote: After the war cry. Bitter the grave.

  June 486

  XXI

  “I admit I know the Pendragon not well, but he seems quiet, withdrawn. As if some great trouble sits heavy on his heart?” Owain spoke carefully for he had no wish to offend his father’s sister, his aunt Gwenhwyfar.

  She was a wonder to him, twenty years his senior, at eight and forty she was a woman who had retained her strident looks. Was it her laugh that kept the youthfulness dancing around her? Or her wit, her understanding? She was slim, agile. He had seen her, only this morning, practising with his own three sons parrying with a blunted sword, casting a spear. God’s truth, even he, at eight and twenty, found an ache in his back and shoulders after strenuous exercise!

  And if Gwenhwyfar carried her age, what of the Pendragon? One and fifty, a man of wise years! To younger men, was not any age approaching two score seen as elderly? Arthur was young in years, however, when compared to two men of the past for whom Owain had much interest – he enjoyed the histories, especially those early years of the Empire. In particular, the careers both political and military, of Augustus Octavian and Vespasian. Grand, impressive men who had died at the ages of six and seventy and nine and sixty. Old? Hah! Arthur had a way to travel yet!

  They were walking, he and his aunt, along the firm, wet sand of the bay below Caer Arfon. The tide was ebbing, a sharp wind blowing across the strait from the Island of Môn. Behind, to the horizon, rose the mountains; snow-topped Yr Wyddfa caressing the summer blue of a cloud-scudding sky. Gulls wheeled overhead and away down the shore, the waders were scurrying for the exposing mussel beds.

  Gwenhwyfar bent, lifted a stick washed in by the tide, tossed it for the dogs to chase. The two of them raced off, paws scattering wet sand, tongues lolling, ears flapping, barking joyously. Arthur was ahead, walking alone, head down, hands thrust deep through the leather of his baldric his long stride taking him further away from the slower pace of his wife and her nephew.

  How could she answer Owain’s question? Four years it had been. Four years since that dreadful, bloody day at Llongborth, when so many, so many had died. So many, yet nothing had come of it for either side. No one the victor, a stalemate, an equal withdrawal. Save Llongborth was lost to them, now. That had come about later, more than one year and two seasons after that day, after the terrible deaths of that battle. None of the British cared return there for any reason and the place had become abandoned, left to the crows and the waterfowl, and the Saex. For the British, too many ghosts walked with too much pain at Llongborth.

  So many gone, that day. Of them all, the most painful, the most missed, Geraint.

  How long had he been friend to Arthur? He had been there fighting beside the Pendragon at the beginning, when Vortigern ruled, when Hengest’s shadow had darkened the land. Been there, seeming always, at Arthur’s shoulder. Without Geraint, what was left? More, without Geraint, who would be there with Arthur?

  “It was on this day we fought at Llongborth.” Need she say that? Ought he not know? But then, why would they remember a battle fought so long ago, so far away? Why ought they remember, here, in Gwynedd for they had their own many deaths to remember. Cunedda, her own father, killed so long, long ago, by Hibernian sea-raiders. Catwalaun, Owain’s eldest brother, slain last year by the kindred of those same men, but killed over there, on Môn. Môn, the Gwynedd island, where once the powerful druids, the Myrddin, the wise men, had lived and worshipped – and died under the brutal hand of Rome. After Cunedda’s passing, Môn had become Hibernian. Again and again, Gwynedd had attempted to send those unwanted and unwelcome settlers back across the sea or to their pagan gods. Enniaun, Cunedda’s son, Gwenhwyfar’s brother, had tried. Failed. But not his son, Catwalaun, Owain’s brother had the doing of it – but they, both of them, lay cold, buried beside the Lion Lord, Cunedda.

  Aye, Gwynedd had her own dead to remember.

  Now there was Owain, the second son of Enniaun left to rule. It ought be Maelgwyn, for he was Catwalaun’s son, but Maelgwyn was a boy of three and ten, too young to keep the sand-shore of Gwynedd empty of pirates. Too unsuitable. Maelgwyn would never make a good king for Gwynedd, they all knew that, save for Maelgwyn. Illtud was trying to teach the boy sense and morality, trying to thrash into him that greed and lust and cruelty were not traits to bring respect and pride. His was at good school, Llan Illtud Fawr. The pity so many students were not as good.

  And Arthur? Was it any wonder these last months he had seemed morose and ill-humoured?

  “We have trailed through a bad winter – did the snows come early here in Gwynedd?” As she spoke, Gwenhwyfar looked to the crown of Yr Wyddfa, the Snow Mountain. Even in early summer there was a thin shawl of white around its height.

  “The Strait between here and Mon froze. For the one night when the tide was at lowest ebb; I have never known a winter so cold as this last.”

  Gwenhwyfar nodded. Nor she.

  The dogs were back, growling and barking over the delight of the stick. Gwyn and Mel – one named for the white in his coat, the other for the honey-gold of her eyes, descended from Blaidd, the dog of Gwenhwyfar’s son, Llacheu. They were good dogs, though young and foolish. Mel especially seemed to have little sense in her brain. She was Archfedd’s, but Archfedd had gone hawking with Owain’s wife and sons. Mel was not a dog to take hunting; fool animal would try to catch the hawk, like as not.

  Arthur was half a mile or so ahead, too far to call out to him, attempt to catch up. Gwenhwyfar threaded her arm through her nephew’s, swung him around to return to the Caer. “Had there been a noted victory – for either side – at Llongborth, I think we would rest the easier. A battle with no ou
tcome leaves a wound that is open and raw, one that weeps pus and stinks of rotting flesh.”

  There would be fighting, but when it came it would be all the more bitter, all the more necessary, for fighting without settlement made each side determined to prove their worth. And Cerdic was not a man to shrug and let a thing pass. He had Llongborth, but had it by default. It was said – and aye, not by the British alone, there were Saxons who whispered around the hearth also, that Cerdic was not a man of worth and valour. He had been carried, bleeding and whimpering from the field at Llongborth. Wounded, but not deeply, he had left his men, commanded to be taken to a place of safety. Had he stayed, then happen the outcome at Llongborth might have ended different. For until Cerdic quit the field, the Saex were making the better of the day.

  That, Arthur dwelt on, these long months as time wheeled through the slow passing of the seasons. Cerdic, when he had replaced the dead and wounded, would come again. That and the other thing; that many of the weapons hastily collected had been of British crafting.

  Geraint had been slain by a Saxon using a British spear.

  Arthur had it, kept it in place of honour above his king’s chair at Caer Cadan. Kept it as a reminder to all who saw it; a reminder that one day he would discover who it was who sold the Saex superior British weaponry.

  And whoever it was would pay dearly for the death of Geraint.

  XXII

  The lake was calm, as if embroidered on a tapestry. The only movement the ripples that spread from a busy pair of grebe. In those places where the mountains cast their shadow, the water lay deep and black, almost menacing. In contrast, the rest of the lake sparkled bright and blue. White puffs of cumulus wandered somnolent across the greens and browns reflected from Yr Wyddfa’s lower slopes. A breathtaking view: the lake and the mountain horseshoe; sun-bright colour, shadowed darkness.

  Gwenhwyfar lay on her back, her arm behind her head watching the cloud shapes lazily change, imagining faces, animals: a dog, a tree, a wine amphora. As a young girl, this had been one of her most special places. Always, she and her youngest brother had looked forward to coming to the stronghold down along the valley. Dinas Emrys they called it now, although they had known it in childhood as Dinas Mynydd. Vortigern, the tyrant king, of all people, had ordered it built. He had been a young man then, the royal torque still new and chafing at his neck. That had been at the time when he had ordered Cunedda into Gwynedd from the north, from beyond the Wall, expecting him and his people to sink into the morass of oblivion. Hah! Vortigern had not known Cunedda! It was Enniaun who had, later, given it with its land and prestigious citing, to Emrys – in the days before he had adopted his Roman name, Ambrosius. Strange how the stories about the place had grown out of virtually nothing, regarding the two names, Vortigern and Emrys, the one reviled for his evil and alliance with Hengest the Saxon, the other revered for his goodness and service to God. But that was the way of stories, one small thing exaggerated into a mountain of untruths.

  The horses, hobbled, grazed nearby. The chink of harness and the steady tear and chomp of their eating accentuating the drowsing heat of the day. The dog, Gwyn, lay stretched out, panting, legs twitching as he dreamed of chasing hares. Mel was away with Archfedd, the girl too young and full of energy to waste a sun-hot day by lazing, sleeping, on the warm grass.

  “That is a good sign,” Gwenhwyfar said. “Look, a dragon cloud in the sky.” Dragons! They were the foundation of the story surrounding Dinas Emrys. The red dragon, the white. The British, the Saex. Good, evil. God, the heathen.

  Arthur lay on his stomach sprawled next to her, one arm flung carelessly across her, his hand cupping her breast. He had been drifting into sleep.

  “White or red?” He mumbled.

  “White, of course.”

  Stretching, shifting his cramped leg Arthur twisted around, sensuously caressing her as he moved. “Saxon, then. Bad omen.”

  “Oh nonsense! It’s a cloud!”

  Carried on the silence, amplified by the wide stretch of water came young laughter. Gwenhwyfar craned her neck. She could see the horses, grazing as hers and Arthur’s were, taking advantage of the lush grass on the far side of the lake. Of Archfedd and the lad, no sign. She was wearing kingfisher blue, should be easily seen, unless they were up among those trees.

  “If she is laughing then she is not in trouble,” Arthur stated, unconcerned, snuggling his face into the deliciousness of his wife’s hair. “When she screams, I’ll pursue her.” His hand had wandered to Gwenhwyfar’s tunic hem, was inching higher, beneath, enjoying the smooth feel of skin along the inside of her thigh.

  “He seems a reasonable lad, Natanlius?”

  Arthur noted the question in her voice. “Reasonable as in suitable escort for the day, or reasonable as in future son-by-law?”

  She batted at his hand. “Stop it. They will see.”

  “Who will see? My daughter and that young, rutting stag of hers?” To provoke her, Arthur rolled on top of her, pinned her arms with his hands. “I would wager my sword they will be too occupied doing what we are about to do.”

  “They had better not!” Gwenhwyfar thrust with her hip, toppling him off, sending him rolling slightly down the hill. She lunged to her feet, hand shielding her eyes from the brightness to scan the woods anxiously. Nothing, only Mel’s joyous barking.

  Arthur sat, legs crossed, chin cupped in his palm, elbow on his knee watching Gwenhwyfar, mystified. When she went to the horses, bent to start untying the hobbles from her mare, he said, “You allow a pair of ripe fruit to wander off together without muttering a word of protest, yet expect neither to have a nibble at the sweetness?” He shifted his chin to the other palm. “It is no wonder women puzzle men.”

  “It does not concern you this lad may be tumbling our daughter?” Gwenhwyfar’s outrage was forthright.

  “She is twenty years of age. About time someone tumbled and wed her.” He held up one finger stemming the torrent of indignation he knew was about to follow, “But aye, it concerns me.” Casual, he stood, scratched at an itch on his buttock, strolled towards her and grabbing her around the waist, pulled her to the grass. “It concerns me,” he quipped, “that on a beautiful day such as this, a lad more than half my age may be doing what I ought to be doing.”

  Gwenhwyfar made only a token show of protest. As Arthur slipped her unlaced tunic over her head, she surrendered to the pleasure of lying naked with him on the sun-warmed, sweet grass. His lovemaking, serenaded by the sound of droning bees and bird song was lingering and intense. Her response, passionate.

  XXIII

  Natanlius was fun to be with, Archfedd liked him, his company made all the more acceptable by the knowing her father and mother, too, approved of him. The last-born son of six brothers, he had joined with the Artoriani a moon-month after he stepped across the threshold from boy to manhood, for there was only himself and his next-eldest brother in his family. The others had been killed at Llongborth. His father too, had died soon after that dreadful day. To join the Pendragon and his Artoriani was a certain way to seek vengeance for they all knew, all of Britain, that one day Arthur would again fight with Cerdic. And on that day, Natanlius intended to be there, with the fighting, to help in the attempt to kill the Saxon whoreson, as his beloved father and brothers had been killed.

  Thoughts of battle and killing were far from both their minds this day, though, as the two young people abandoned Arthur and Gwenhwyfar to their own company and rode their horses through the shallows of the lake to the lush grass on the far side. Left them grazing there to explore the coolness of the river that tumbled down through the shaded trees.

  They climbed upward, Natanlius taking Archfedd’s hand to help her up some steeper part, or to steady her as she clambered over the occasional fallen tree. She did not need his help, but it was nice to feel her hand in his, to see the bright smile on his fine young face beaming at her.

  He was twenty years of age, with laughing hazel eyes set in a merry expression. A s
ure aim with a bow and spear, quick and nimble on his feet, he could ride even the most unmanageable of horses. It had not taken Natanlius long to be promoted to a higher officer’s rank within the Artoriani, even less time to gain the King’s trust and liking.

  Archfedd had noticed him before; there were many young and handsome men among the Artoriani, all of whom smiled at her, exchanged laughter and pleasantries, but for the journey to Gwynedd, Arthur had selected this one to be among the personal guard to his daughter.

  The path had risen quickly, steeply, the river cutting a deep gully to their left side. Below, the tumble of water pushed and buffeted its way over rocks and boulders, leaping and running on its mad, downhill rush. In places, the path was easy to walk, at others it narrowed precariously.

  “Take care, it is slippery here,” Natanlius advised, reaching out his hand. But too late, Archfedd’s foot slid on a tree root. He lunged for her, fastened his firm grasp around her arm, caught her before she tripped. Breathless, she held onto him, not daring to look down the drop to the waterway below, as he walked her a few paces to a safer, wider part of the path. Had she fallen… she had her fingers twined in his, their bodies close, could smell the exciting aroma of male sweat, the leather of his tunic, a faint odour of wine and strong cheese on his breath.

  It might have been wrong, but surely Arthur had known what might happen when he allowed a young officer to take his daughter into the seclusion of leaf-shading trees? The first kiss was brief, his lips light on hers, but she answered him, her arms going about his neck, drawing him nearer to kiss her again, firmer, more insistent.

  Happen it was a good thing that her dog, Mel, came bursting out from the undergrowth where the path divided, her tail wagging, tongue lolling, her insistent barking urging them to hurry, for there was the promise of better scent-trails ahead. Laughing, still breathless but not now from the danger of falling, Archfedd clutched the hem of her skirt into her hands and ran on up the right-hand path after the dog. Natanlius pounding after them.