The Lantern Bearers (book III)

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  On the third day that they were at Aber, they had been out with Dogfael the Chieftain and some of his warriors, trying their horses against each other on the hard, wave-rippled sands that stretched towards Môn; and now they were heading back towards the dunes that fringed the coast. The wind blustered in from the sea, setting the horses’ manes streaming sideways, and the gulls wheeled mewing against the blue-and-grey tumble of the sky; and Aquila, riding a little aside from the rest as usual, caught for a moment from the wind and the gulls and the wet sand and the living, leaping power of the young red mare under him, something of the joy of simply being alive that he had taken for granted in the old days. He still wasn’t certain how he came to be there, one of the inner circle, one of Ambrosius’s chosen Companions; it was a thing that had grown naturally through the winter. But suddenly for that one moment he was glad that it was so.

  As they swept inland, a gap widened in the dunes where the stream came down. He could see the bracken-thatched huddle of the village now, at the mouth of the valley that licked like a green flame into the dun and grey and purple of the mountains; and beyond it the Legion’s road that came plunging down from the high mountain saddle. And far up that road he could see a puff of dust with a seed of blackness at its heart; a seed which, even as he watched, became a horseman riding at full gallop.

  The others had seen it at the same moment. Ambrosius spoke to Dogfael riding beside him, and urged his black stallion into a canter, the rest following. Aquila, driving his heel into the red mare’s flank, found himself riding beside Brychan—Brychan of the two great hounds, who could take the harp from old Finnen and charm a bird off a tree with his playing, but whose chief joy in life was the picking of quarrels. Brychan had come to him, a while after their first encounter, and asked his name with an elaborate show of deference, long after he must have known it perfectly well, and Aquila had longed to put the puppy across his knee and teach him manners with the flat of his hand. But he was used to Brychan now, and there was a kind of armed peace between them, within which they got on well enough together. Brychan cast a quick glance at him over his shoulder, and grinned. ‘If it is news that must travel at that pace, then surely it is news to melt the snows of Yr Widdfa!’

  They lost sight of the road for a few moments among the dunes, and when they swept through on to the landward side, the wild rider was already past the village and coming on towards them at the same tearing gallop. A few moments later he had brought his rough-coated pony to a plunging halt, and dropped from its back; a young, round-faced warrior, looking from Dogfael to Ambrosius and back again, his breast panting.

  ‘My Lord Ambrosius—Dogfael the Chieftain—there is a band of men on the road from Canovium. They were past the Mark Stones when I saw them, and I have galloped all the way to bring you word.’

  ‘It is not the first time that men have come down the road from Canovium,’ Dogfael said.

  But Ambrosius looked at the panting young warrior. ‘What is different about these men?’

  ‘My Lord Ambrosius, the three who lead them carry green branches like an embassy that comes in peace, and the heads of all three shine red as foxes’ pelts in the sunshine!’

  He checked, almost choking with the hugeness of the thing he had to say. ‘My Lord Ambrosius, it is in my mind that it is—the Young Foxes!’

  For a moment there was absolute silence save for the crying of the gulls. Then Ambrosius said, ‘I wonder if you are right,’ and turned to the others about him. ‘Well, we shall soon know. Valarius, Aquila, follow me.’

  ‘I also, and some of my warriors,’ Dogfael said quickly.

  ‘Neither you, nor any of your warriors, I think.’

  But Valarius seconded the Chieftain, his watery eyes full of urgent trouble. ‘Sir, you should have more of us with you. It may be a trick!’

  Before Ambrosius could answer, Brychan flung up his head and laughed. ‘Valarius the cautious thinks maybe of his own skin! Best take me in his stead, sir.’

  The old soldier swung round on him with his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Why, you—you young whelp! Let you say that again—’ His face was darkly mottled and he breathed through flaring nostrils with a rage that seemed to Aquila, watching, to be out of all proportion to what had called it up. Surely the fool had known Brychan long enough to understand that this was merely Brychan being himself!

  ‘If you want to fight me, I am most joyfully all yours, when we ride back again,’ Brychan said lightly. ‘Don’t drink any more before then; it makes your sword hand unsure.’

  Ambrosius’s voice cut quietly into the flaring quarrel. ‘Peace, my brothers! I have other things to do than beat up your swords, either now or later. Brychan, your manners grow worse as the days go by. Valarius, have you not sense to make allowances for a half-broken cub?’ And while Brychan shrugged, and Valarius sat gnawing his lower lip, he turned to Dogfael. ‘If these men come in friendship, I should do ill to ride to meet them with a swarm of armed men about me.’

  But it was Valarius who answered, grimly sticking to his point. ‘And if they do not in truth come in friendship?’

  His voice was shaking, and Aquila, glancing at his bridle hand, saw that it was shaking too, and realized that there was something here that he did not understand.

  Ambrosius was already wheeling his horse towards the road; he looked round at them. ‘One man with a dagger under his cloak would be as like to succeed as three men with a war band behind them … If it is God’s will that I am to lead Britain, then I shall not die as my father did at a murderer’s hand, with my work undone. If I die so, then you and Eugenus and old Finnen with his harp had all your pains for nothing, when you carried me off that night, and after all it is not God’s will that I should lead Britain.’

  He struck his heel into the black stallion’s flank, and the great brute broke forward from a stand into a canter; and he was away, his dark cloak lifting and spreading behind him. Aquila and Valarius heeled their own horses to a canter after him, and so, with only his two chosen Companions, Ambrosius rode up towards the mountain pass, to meet the three red-haired riders.

  The road swept on and up, the great mountain mass that thronged about Yr Widdfa towering dark as a gathering thunder storm on either side. Presently they were in a different world from the green valley and the white sands of Aber left far behind, a high, wide-skyed, empty world, with no sound beyond the beat of their horses’ hooves save the wind through the tawny mountain grasses, and the sharp cry of a golden eagle that hung circling above the crags. Then the road lifted over the mountain shoulder, and the next long, looping stretch lay clear ahead, with a distant knot of horsemen sweeping towards them along it.

  ‘So, here we meet our guests,’ Ambrosius said, and striking his heel again into the black’s flank, broke forward into a full gallop, Aquila and Valarius behind him. And so the two knots of horsemen thundered towards each other, with the dust of early summer rising behind them. Aquila saw three men riding ahead of the stranger band; three men whose flying cloaks made points of vivid colour in the pale mountain air, one saffron, one emerald, and one, whose wearer rode at the very point of the arrowhead of wild riders, glowing violet; and the heads of all three shone red as a fox’s pelt in the sunshine. Nearer and nearer they swept, until the two dust-clouds were almost one, and Ambrosius reined the black stallion back on its haunches, in full gallop, plunging and snorting, the great round hooves scraping along the ground. There were a few moments of trampling chaos as the sweating horses plunged under their riders, fighting for their heads; and then the dust sank a little, and the two knots of horsemen were facing each other with a spear’s length of road between. The man in the violet cloak wheeled his tiger-spotted mount with superb horsemanship, and brought him out from among his companions, almost with a dancing step; and Aquila, still soothing his own red mare as she fidgeted under him, recognized the white, proud face under the flaming crest of hair, and the hooded falcon he carried on his fist, just as he had carried it in
Hengest’s Mead Hall a year ago.

  ‘I greet you, strangers. Who are you that come over the mountains with green branches in your hands?’ Ambrosius asked, as the last of the dust-cloud drifted away.

  Vortimer lowered the spray of birch leaves that he held in his bridle hand, and sat for an instant lithe and haughty in the saddle, looking Ambrosius full in the face; and, watching him, Aquila thought suddenly of a purple saffron crocus—the same pride, the same silken sheen. Then he said, ‘We three are the sons of Vortigern the High King, and we would speak with Ambrosius Aurelianus, Lord of Arfon.’

  Ambrosius, sitting his fidgeting black stallion, looked back with a quieter and cooler pride. ‘I am Ambrosius Aurelianus, Prince of Britain,’ he said; and then, ‘To all who come in friendship, I give welcome; to a kinsman most of all.’

  Aquila looked at them quickly. He had forgotten that they were cousins, the dark man and the red ones.

  Vortimer bent his head in acknowledgement of both rebuke and welcome. ‘My Lord Ambrosius, Lord of Arfon and Prince of Britain, we come to lay our swords at your feet and be your men if you will have it so.’

  ‘Deserting the standard of Vortigern your father, to serve under mine?’

  There was a low, angry muttering from the men behind. The two younger brothers stared straight before them, frowning. Vortimer spoke for them again, his head up and the mountain wind lifting the red hair on his forehead. ‘My Lord Ambrosius will maybe have heard that our father has put aside Severa our mother, to take in her place the golden Saxon witch who is Hengest’s daughter. My lord will have heard also that he has given much land east of Tanatus to the Saxons for a bride-gift. Therefore with our mother’s wrongs burning upon us we come to lay our swords at your feet. Also we do not come alone and empty-handed. With us here are seven Chieftains who were our father’s men; they will bring over their clans; and there are others besides, more than half of those that followed him—for the sake of our mother’s wrongs and for the sake of British lands given over their prince’s head to the Saxon kind.’

  So Vortigern had gone too far, Aquila thought. Hengest, that giant with the shifting, grey-green eyes, had over-reached himself. Between them they had split the Celtic party from top to bottom, and sent more than half of them to Ambrosius. If Ambrosius would take them—and Ambrosius must take them; it would be madness to refuse; but they might be a weakness as well as an added strength.

  ‘Are the Saxon kind, then, become yet more hateful to you than Rome has always been?’ Ambrosius said levelly.

  The silence held for a long moment, broken only by the soughing of the wind through the heather and the jink of a bridle-bit as a horse flung up its head. Then Vortimer spoke again for his fellows. ‘My Lord Ambrosius, we are a free people, taking hardly to any yoke; but for us, now, the Saxon yoke is unthinkable above all others. Therefore we stand with you against the menace of the Saxon kind. Let you speak one word, and we will ride back with it by the road that we have come, to gather all the fighting men we may. Then, before summer’s end, look for our spears against the sunrise.’

  ‘How may I be sure that all this is not a trick to bring an army through our defences?’

  ‘One of us three, whichever you choose, will remain here in your hands as a hostage for our good faith,’ Vortimer said proudly.

  Ambrosius shook his head. ‘Nay, I ask no hostage.’ He had come to his decision, and he was smiling. Aquila, close behind him, could hear both the decision and the smile in his voice. ‘I speak the word, Vortimer my kinsman; let you ride back with it to those that follow you. But not yet. First there are many things on which we must take counsel together. I have no need of more men here in the mountains, nor space, nor fodder; my need is to know that I can call upon them when the time comes. All that we must speak of. Meanwhile come back with us now, and feast among my Companions tonight, that we may seal the covenant in mead from our mountain heather honey.’

  Vortimer looked at him a moment, not speaking. Then he thrust the spray of birch leaves into his belt, and swung down from the saddle, and with the bridle over his arm and the tiger-spotted horse pacing beside him, came to set his hand on Ambrosius’s thigh, and take the oath of allegiance on him.

  ‘If we break faith with you, may the green earth gape and swallow us, may the grey seas roll in and overwhelm us, may the sky of stars fall on us and crush us out of life for ever.’

  It was an ancient oath, well suited to the mountains and the wild scene. The two younger brothers, who had also dismounted, came and took it after him. They would keep faith, the Young Foxes, Aquila thought; but what of those who followed them? Out of the knot of Chieftains, another face looked back at him, a dark, reckless face as dangerous as a dagger-thrust; Guitolinus somebody had said his name was. His eyes were dark blue, and the sun made raw turquoise flecks in them, the eyes of a fanatic, beyond the binding of any oath.

  That evening Ambrosius with his Companions and the Young Foxes with their following feasted side by side in the bracken-thatched hall of Dogfael. The fire cast a web of leaping, tawny light over the ring of alert faces; over fine wool the colour of jewels, and pied and dappled sheepskin, the blink of Irish gold from the hilt of a dagger, the green, unwinking eyes of a hound, the fiercely flecked breast of the hooded falcon secured by its jesses to the back of Vortimer’s seat. And all round the long hearth ran a kind of shining, jagged thorn garland, where every man had drawn his sword and laid it before him in full view of all the rest. By ancient custom no man should bring his weapons to such a gathering, but on the coast in these days no man went unarmed.

  Aquila’s neighbour was a middle-aged man, Cradoc by name, with sandy hair like the ruffled feathers of a bird in a high wind, and a face full of old regrets. He was a Chieftain from farther south, and found all things here in the north of Cymru to be less good than in his own mountains.

  ‘In Powys,’ he was saying, ‘where I have my hall, the turf is richer even at mid-winter than this valley is now; and the soil is red and strong. I have an apple orchard running to the river, and in the autumn every tree in it bows to the ground under its weight of apples.’ And then, looking regretfully into his cup, ‘Our mead is better than this, too.’

  Ambrosius rose in his place, that on other nights was Dogfael the Chieftain’s, holding high his golden cup, and turned to Vortimer beside him. ‘I drink to our friendship, and the new bond between us.’

  He drank, and gave the cup to the Young Fox, who took it from him with a bend of the head, and stood for a moment spear-straight in the firelight with the great cup shining between his hands. Then, almost in the act of drinking, he checked, and his head whipped up, as, clear in the hush that had fallen on the hall, from somewhere seaward beyond the village rose a long-drawn cry.

  There was a moment’s tingling silence, while the men about the fire looked each into his neighbour’s eyes, and then a scatter of shouting broke out in the village itself.

  ‘It is in my mind that the Scots wind blows again from Erin,’ Ambrosius said, and stooped for his sword.

  As though the action had broken a spell of stillness, a splurge of voices burst up in the hall; and every man had sprung to his feet, catching up his weapons, when a man burst through the doorway into the firelight, crying, ‘The Scots! They’re close in shore, heading for the bay!’

  Ambrosius whirled about on them, his light eyes blazing, his sword naked in his hand. ‘We are to fight our first battle together sooner than we thought! Come, my brothers!’

  The big, silver-fringed clouds were drifting overhead before a light sea wind as they headed for the shore, joined as they ran by every man and boy in Aber of the White Shells, and the moon rode high in the deep blue of the sky between. The tide was in, covering the sand where they had raced their horses a few hours earlier, and out on the tossing, quicksilver surface of the bay three vessels showed dark: low amidships, high at stem and stern like venomous sea creatures with head and tail upreared to strike: many-legged creatures, for the sail
s were down and they were creeping in under oars.

  ‘Down into the cover of the dunes,’ Ambrosius ordered. ‘Let them not see you until the ships are fairly beached and I give the word. So maybe there shall be three Scots ships the less to come raiding our shores in another summer.’ And the order ran from man to man. ‘Get down—keep out of sight!’

  As he crouched in the lee of the furze tangle, Aquila’s view of the shore was cut off by the shoulder of the long dune where the stream came through, but that made no odds: there was nothing to do but wait until Ambrosius gave the word … He found that Cradoc was still at his shoulder, suddenly much happier and with the superiority of the south quite forgotten.

  ‘Sa! This is better than feasting!’ Cradoc said softly.

  Aquila nodded, shifting his hand a little on the grip of his buckler. Better than feasting; there was not much pleasure for him in feasting, these days; but in that moment of waiting there was a keen, cold pleasure as sharp as the blade in his hand. The moments passed, silent save for the sea wind in the furze and the creamings of the tide beyond the dunes. Then, very faintly, his straining ears caught the dip of oars; and a shiver of expectancy ran through the waiting men. A few moments more, and there came, faint but unmistakable, the light splash of men slipping overboard and the grating of a keel on the beach. A pause, and then the sounds were repeated as the second galley was run up the sand, the third following so close that Aquila could not tell where one ended and the other began. There was a grumble of orders, and a low, daring laugh. He could hear men splashing ashore through the shallows now; and he drew a deep, slow breath, his body tensing under him like that of a runner in the instant before the white garland falls. And then, on the very crest of the dune before him, Ambrosius rose with a yell, his sword above his head.