by Jack Whyte
Uther took Aelle into his own chambers, where they would not be disturbed, and told him openly all that he knew of Lot's invasion plans for the months ahead. Which of the spots along the coast, he asked, would be most suitable for landing an army and would also be most likely to attract the eye of an invading general?
Aelle listened soberly and sat staring into middle distance as he reviewed in his mind the possible sites. Finally, the seafarer sat up and sucked in a great breath.
"I have five places, all within a day's march of here, north or south—chosen out of a possible half score, mind you—but they're all this side of the Severn. Think you the Cornish whoresons will strike for you here in Tir Manha?"
The King shook his head. "I know not, Aelle. I've been told that they'll hit Carmarthen, and while I would like to rely completely on the truth of that, it's hearsay at this time and I can't be sure of it, so your opinion would probably be better than mine on that."
"Aye, there's a pity, then. See you, it would be much easier if we knew they'd come for you. Not knowing that, why, man, we have ten leagues of northward-facing coast to look at on this side of the river mouth itself, and the same on south-facing Cambria, across the water from you here, with five hundred bays to every league . . . bays, mind you, not beaches."
Uther knew it was the absolute truth. A Celtic league was a distance somewhere between two and a half and three Roman miles.
Aelle was making faces, screwing up his features and shaking his head. "Look you, d'you need this answer from me now, today? Can you give me three days or a week? I'd like to sail up and down and see things through a raider's eyes, instead of my own. I've seen all the bays a hundred times and more, but never once did I think to look at them as if I might land an army there in any of them . . . d'you see my meaning? Big difference there, King Uther. So I'd like to look, and think, as I might well think of something different than e'er I thought before, if ye take me."
Uther agreed, albeit reluctantly, and conceded that Aelle might take as long as was needed.
The seafarer gazed at him with eyes that were mere slits from staring at horizons in all kinds of weather. "Look you," Aelle said gruffly, "I know what you have in mind here and what you have to do. You have massy decisions to make, for all of us, so I' m not going to waste your time. But how can time be wasted if it saves you time? Ask yourself that. King Uther. If I can come back to ye with word of where I'd land my army, were I looking to invade these lands, then you can take my word and make ready to fight off a landing there. If I can't choose between two or even three places, then you'll work on those. But if I tell you nothing or if you never send me out to look, then you'll know nothing more than you know now, and you might well end up with ten or a score of good places to try and choose from, and that would be a waste of time, if you take me."
Uther nodded, grinning. "You're right, Aelle, and I take your meaning perfectly. Go you and do what you must do, and I shall be the more happy to see you when you return."
The man was gone for a week and a day, but when he came back, his normally sombre face was wreathed with smiles, and Uther felt better simply looking at him. Aelle did not keep him wailing long for his tidings, but came right lo the most important point ahead of all others: "Beer, King Uther. . . something long and cold and wet to cut a thirst, there's what I need, if you take me." The beer, still cold from the cellar, was served instantly, and Aelle drained his mug and refilled it and drank a quarter of it again before he even looked as though he might be ready to speak. Then he belched and leaned back in his chair.
"Three spots," he said. "I found three spots that I would use, each of them lovely. One of them's here on the southern coast and two are across the water on the Cambrian side. The one here's the only one that makes any kind of sense on this whole side, and it's four leagues farther up the coast, towards the river mouth. It's a clean beach, almost flat, in a well-sheltered bay behind a headland, so the men can leap overboard and wade in easily without having to struggle against great waves. Then, beyond the beach itself, there's a wide meadow of some kind, surrounded by a thick bell of trees. Land a whole Roman legion there, ye could, and lose them in the woods with no one ever suspecting they was there. I went ashore myself, just to have a look, and I'll wager mine was the first human foot to walk there in a hundred years. An army could land there in comfort without fear of being seen or attacked. It's far enough away from Tir Manha to allow the landing fleet to arrive unseen, even from the fort up on the headland there, and yet an army, once landed and organized, could be here about your ears within half a day of reaching dry land. It's perfect. The only place along the whole damn coast that a man with a brain would choose for purposes of warfare, if you take me."
"What about the other two spots?"
"Neither one as good as the first one, but they'll do in a pinch. But a leader, a what-you-call-it, a legate or a general, looking for a place to fight you . . . no question in my mind he'd choose the first one, here on the southern shore. Mind you, that all depends on what he wants to gain or who he wants to hit, and whether or not he really wants to fight. He might not be interested in prodding you at all. If he wants to attack Caerdyff instead, he'll take the easternmost beach and land three leagues to the north, and then march back south and west. That could be done, too, without much trouble. But if he wants to go against Carmarthen, as you said he might at the outset, then he has no option but to choose the western beach, and that's a long way from where you sit here. But again, it's a fine landing beach and close enough to the town to land an army and then set it to encircling the town. That done, he could then come in by night and try to seize the docks. But if he tries to land there, mind you, he'll have all of Carmarthen down around his ears, and no way to escape other than heading west again or east back towards Caerdyff. As I said, it all depends on what he wants to achieve, this fellow in charge, whoever he is."
Uther sat silent for a long time, mulling over all that Aelle had told him, and then made his decision. Aelle himself was from Carmarthen, so it was only natural that he should regard that as the strongest position in the Cambrian alliance, the place most naturally suited to repelling any invasion in strength. Uther was more doubtful of that. To his eyes, Carmarthen was looking more and more attractive by the moment as a launching spot for Lot's latest mischief. Lagan and Herliss had seemed absolutely sure that Cerdic and Tewdric, the German generals who were the joint leaders of the campaign, would launch their attack against Carmarthen, and the more Uther thought about that, the more convinced he became that his allies were right, for a number of reasons. A western invasion of Cambria would offer the invaders many advantages: it would force Uther, as King, to move far away from his own home base in order to conduct the campaign, and it could conceivably create friction between the allies of the Pendragon Federation, since the initial fighting would all take place in the deepest Griffyd territories, and the local chieftains there were likely to look with little favour on being commanded by someone who had not a drop of Griffyd blood in his veins. King of the Federation or not. Besides that, Uther's necessary presence in the region around Carmarthen during the invasion would keep him and his Dragons, and even more important, his bowmen, far away from Camulod and the other invasion—this one with two separate armies involved—that would be taking place there simultaneously. For all of those reasons, Uther was leaning more and more certainly towards Carmarthen as the site of the Cambrian strike.
He had three months of preparation time remaining to him, he estimated, and half of that would be sufficient once he knew the where and when, and providing that his information was as current as it could be. He decided to take Aelle's recommendations as presented, but to concentrate his own attention for the time being upon the Carmarthen landing place as the most likely target. He estimated that he could fortify the Carmarthen holdings with levies from Tir Manha and Caerdyff, while leaving both of those spots at half strength, but alert and on the defensive, which was better, he estimated, than
being somnolent and unsuspecting at full strength. That way, even if the enemy commanders changed their plans, all would not be lost, and the force from Carmarthen could move quickly to relieve whichever of the two remaining spots was hit. In order to increase his advantage as far as was possible, however, he decided also to send a letter to Lagan, asking for any additional information that might now be or might become known. His decision made on those matters, he asked Aelle, then, if the seafarer would take him the following week to visit the site he had selected at Carmarthen. The seaman looked at him and nodded, then volunteered to do not only what Uther had asked, hut to show him the other prime sites as well and explain why he had not chosen those. Well pleased, Uther thanked him and permitted him to return home for a few days' rest.
Uther spent a number of long, frustrating hours that evening with ink and paper, working far into the night by the light of a cluster of tapers as he struggled to find and then set down the words he wanted to address to Lagan Longhead. It was one of the most unpleasant and demanding tasks he had set himself in years, since it involved intense mental effort without physical release from the cramped constraints of writing, head down, for hours . . . everything, in fact, that he found least pleasing . . . but eventually it was done, and he had a fair copy, free of blemishes, of what he wished to say to his Cornish ally.
The following morning, he summoned Nemo and explained to her what he required of her. She was to ride to Lagan, carrying the stone about her neck to present to him, and once she had been received by him, she was to deliver Uther's letter and then return home to Tir Manha. Any response to the letter would be sent back by another messenger at a later date.
Nemo listened, nodded, saluted and left immediately to carry out her commission, and Uther, resigned, settled in to wait and to hold himself in patience.
Chapter THIRTY-FOUR
In late January a messenger arrived from Cornwall, bearing a letter from Lagan Longhead, its three pages dense with information. Uther greeted the messenger with grave courtesy and thanked him for his time and effort, then sent him off with Garreth Whistler to be made welcome in the kitchens.
As soon as he was alone and could expect to be undisturbed for a time, the King went into his own quarters and sat close by a burning brazier to read what Lagan had to say. He read slowly, concentrating fiercely on forming the sounds made by the block letters that Lagan had inscribed in a firm, bold hand, and listening internally to the music of the Latin words as he formed them, haltingly at first, and then more confidently once he began to catch the sense of what he was reading and saying aloud.
The Queen, Lagan reported, had worked hard to ingratiate herself with the two German generals, Cerdic and Tewdric, and had learned that their plans were well advanced—far beyond the initial stages. Their attack would be launched from Cornwall as close as possible to the middle of April, around the time of the Roman Ides, and the landing place would be Carmarthen, on the other side of the great estuary from Tir Manha. The reason for the mid-April timing was one of co-ordination. The other invasion, involving the twin armies of Issa and Loholt, neither of whom the Queen had been able to approach in any way, would begin moving northward, overland towards their attack points, some time in the first week of April, weather permitting. Their departures would be separated by a week in order to enable the first army, which had much farther to travel, to make the great, looping movement required to turn and attack Camulod from the east. In order to ensure that all three attacks combined should generate the greatest impact and preserve the element of surprise, Cerdic and Tewdric would contain their seaborne army in Cornwall for a full two weeks after the departure of the first of the two land armies. Only then, when both of those were close to being in position, would the naval invasion set sail.
The initial attack from the sea into Cambria would be a two-part thrust. The Cornish fleet would strike land initially in a large, shallow and sheltered bay with a gently sloping beach approximately three leagues to the west of Carmarthen, unloading its army during daylight, after which the newly landed force would move quickly against the town itself. They would spend the night on the hills behind the former Roman fort at Carmarthen and attack with the dawn, hoping to surprise the defenders and overwhelm them before they could organize any resistance.
According to Ygraine's report. Lagan wrote, the leaders of the planned assault were confident and self-assured. They had accurate information about the defences of Carmarthen itself and about the lie of the land in the immediate area surrounding the walls, and they had two contingency plans governing the outcome of their initial attack. If their surprise was as successful as they anticipated, they would simply take possession of the town and use its wharves and warehouses to unload and store their supplies. If, on the other hand, their initial surprise fell short of expectations, their vanguard would fall back in time to conceal the full strength of the attacking force and would then draw itself up in battle lines on the flat land outside the town walls, from where they would taunt the Carmarthen Griffyds until their warriors went out against them. As soon as that happened and the Griffyds were committed outside the walls, an arranged signal would be sent and half a score of Cornish galleys that had not unloaded their cargo of men with the rest of the invading fleet would swoop in and attack the wharves and docks along the waterfront, spilling sufficient warriors into the town from that side to attack and capture the town gates.
That was all Lagan had to report, but he promised to write again as soon as he came into possession of any other information. He ended his letter by mentioning that Gulrhys Lot had been seen smiling recently, since he had learned that his wife, Queen Ygraine, was with child and would give birth sometime in June, just in time for his victory celebrations.
Uther sat gazing open-mouthed at the letter in his hand, his face gone blank, the colour draining from his cheeks, his awareness of the world around him suddenly suspended as he found himself reeling on the edge of an abyss called Fatherhood. He had joked about the possibility with Ygraine. but he had never really anticipated for a single moment that it might be possible for such a thing to happen. Casual by-blows as the result of pleasurable but meaningless coupling occurred all the time, seldom drawing notice, but the fathering of an heir, fatherhood with responsibility . . .paternity as he remembered Merlyn calling it . . . was for other people— people who were ready for it. It was for men who sought it; men who had an eye to their mortality; men who were married and besotted with their wives. He was a King, still very young and untried, with grave responsibilities. He did not have time to be a father . . .
At that moment, he caught himself and remembered that this paternity would be no burden on him here, for Gulrhys Lot seemed happy to accept and acknowledge the child, if it should be a boy, as his future heir. . . his first-born legitimate son . . . But this would be Uther's first-born, not Lot's . . . most certainly not Lot's! And suddenly he was deeply, viscerally angry that Gulrhys Lot should dare lay claim to a Pendragon child. Bad enough that he already had half a dozen sireless bastards all of whom he claimed were his, but that he should now seek to use a Pendragon, a blood descendant of Ullic and Uric, as a false crutch to prop up his sorry claims to manhood— it was too much!
"In the name of the lame god, what's wrong with you?"
The words brought Uther back to himself with a start and he turned to blink in surprise at Garreth Whistler, whom he had not heard entering the room. Owain of the Caves stood behind him, gazing calmly at the King over Garreth's shoulder. Uther gathered his wits and sat up straighter, responding to the unexpected question with false bluster.
"What d'you mean, what's wrong with me? There's nothing wrong with me. Good day to you, Owain."
Owain nodded wordlessly as Garreth Whistler grinned and held up his hands in mock surrender.
"Oh, then I'll ask your pardon. I simply happened to see the look on your face and the death grip you have on that parchment you're holding, crunched up into a ball. . . Lagan's news was good,
then? I confess, from the look on your face I thought it might be disastrous."
Uther looked down at the crumpled missive in his hand and shook his head ruefully. "I . . . I was not aware of doing that. Here, sit yourselves down and listen and judge for yourselves whether or not I should be angry." He smoothed the letter out and then read it to them, leaving out only the mention of the Queen's pregnancy. When he had finished, Garreth sat quietly for a while, staring into the brazier, while Owain of the Caves sat gazing straight at Uther.
Finally Garreth spoke. "Where did that come from? It's specific. And it's not the kind of information given to the average grunt."
Uther nodded. "You're right, it's not. It came from my informant in Lot's camp."
"Your informant. I see. In Lot's camp. Of course, where else could it have come from? How long have you had one of those?"
Uther sighed and signalled to both of them to be seated, and when they were, he told them everything about his dealings with Herliss and Ygraine. They listened without interrupting until he had finished, and then Garreth Whistler asked, "Why did you not tell us sooner?"
"Because we didn't need to know about it." This was Owain, and his response, and the readiness of it, caused both men to look at him in surprise. "Well, it's the truth, isn't it? What we didn't know we couldn't let slip in our cups. Now, it's clear that you want us to know, so what happens next?"
"I'm not sure," Uther said. "That's why I'm asking for your advice." He glanced inquiringly at Garreth Whistler.
Garreth shrugged his broad shoulders and looked away, pursing his lips before responding. "I know we'll be able to make life rough for the seaborne invaders coming into Carmarthen," he said eventually, his eyes fixed on the glowing coals. "The terrain will work for us there and we'll have the advantage of surprise, so I'm confident we'll hammer them and throw them back to where they came from . . ." He turned and looked back at his protégé, the King. "But what can be done against the other two armies, the ones hitting Camulod? That's what I'm wondering . . . and I can see you are, too. There's no terrain advantage there for Camulod to use . . . nor us, either. A mile out of Camulod itself in any direction except straight along the high road, you're in deep forest, and deep forest works as much against you as it does for you. Can't use cavalry in there, and bowmen are useless most of the time. Too many trees and not enough space to shoot cleanly." He stopped and looked at Uther shrewdly. "Do you have anything at all in mind, or are you waiting for the Camulod people to work out their own salvation?"
