In Winter's Shadow

by Gillian Bradshaw

  It was thirty-five miles to Ynys Witrin. We set out in the early morning, before the sun rose, and arrived after dusk. We met others on the road, bound on the same errand as ourselves, some by ones and twos, others in large clan gatherings like Sion’s. They were armed with everything from ancient, rust-eaten Roman swords to pitchforks and ox goads. They all welcomed company, and even those who had never met one another on a market day were soon discussing taxes and the prices of cheese and ale since the markets closed. No one said anything about the war, which was strangely comforting. I did not speak much, but walked or rode among the others, listening to the steady voices and so longing for peace, for victory, that at times I thought I could not breathe.

  When we arrived at the town of Ynys Witrin, Sion insisted that I remount Sword-dancer, so as to make myself known to the guards as stylishly as was possible for someone with as much mud over her as I had. So we went through the town of Ynys Witrin, in a party that had now grown to over thirty men, and began to climb the hill to the fortress. The night was already heavy over the marshes, and it was the dark of the moon, but even if it had been clear daylight it was, I knew, impossible to pick out Camlann from the hunched hills to the southwest. Impossible, though I looked again and again.

  The fortress gates of Ynys Witrin were closed and bolted, but torches were set thickly about them, and our party was hailed long before we reached them.

  “We are subjects of the Emperor Arthur,” Sion replied on behalf of the whole party, resting one hand against my horse’s shoulder and breathing heavily from the climb. “We have come to join Sandde, to fight against Medraut.” And the torchlight fractured on the makeshift weapons as the gates were opened.

  I did not have even to tell the guards who I was. While I was yet riding through the gates I was recognized, hailed, and taken apart from the others. When I confirmed that I was, indeed, Gwynhwyfar daughter of Ogyrfan, and that I wished to speak with their lord, I was given little time to take leave of Sion before I was escorted to Sandde.

  The lord of Ynys Witrin was worrying over accounts with his clerk when I was shown to his room, and when he saw me he leapt up, nearly knocking the inkwell over onto the parchment. “Lady Gwynhwyfar!” he exclaimed, staring, then flushed, bowed, grabbed my hand, and held it awkwardly, smiling. “Most noble lady, I had heard of what that tyrant meant to do to you, and I had heard that you escaped; I am very glad, my lady, to see you. Cuall, fetch some wine! They say that your husband is near mad with fear for you, lady. But I am very glad to see you, I remember your grace well, even from when I was a boy. Cuall! Ah, here he is again. Have some wine, noble lady.”

  Cuall, the clerk, poured me some wine and offered me his seat at the desk. “There are another thirty-six just arrived with the lady,” he told his lord. “A quarter of them have no supplies.”

  “Oh. How many does that make?” asked Sandde. “Numbers, I mean, not supplies.”

  Cuall whisked the parchment off the desk. “Three hundred and sixty-four today. Two hundred and twelve yesterday. One hundred and sixteen the day before. In total, including those that came the first days, before we made the proclamations, an army of seven hundred and forty. Your own forces, with the other noblemen who joined us, now amount to sixty-three.”

  “Seven hundred and forty!” exclaimed Sandde. “What shall we do? How many brought their own supplies? I wish I had told them to bring their own supplies—how can we feed seven hundred and forty, to say nothing of sixty-three noblemen, and all the servants? Most noble lady,” Sandde abruptly fixed on me again, “it is a miracle, it is the mercy of God that you have come. I have so often heard of your skill at managing fortresses and finding supplies; my father always cursed you for it. And I do not know what to do. Until three months ago I had never run anything, and this rebellion is more complicated than I expected, not at all like running a small fortress. My lady, if you came here to help—you did, didn’t you?—please advise me how to feed this army!”

  I began to laugh, and choked on the wine. “I thank you, Lord Sandde,” I told him, when I finished coughing. “Are you sure you want me to help?”

  “Most noble lady, how could you doubt it? Why wouldn’t I?”

  “This war might be thought my fault,” I told him. “For running off with the lord Bedwyr.”

  He looked away from me, turning crimson. “What does that matter?” asked Cuall the clerk. “There is a war now, and from all I have heard, your loyalty to the Empire was never in question.”

  “Exactly,” said Sandde, looking back. “Exactly. And as to how to feed seven hundred and forty—the monks in the village have been helping, not much, but still, a little, which is a mercy, for Cuall here is the only one in the fortress who can read—but what supplies we have, and how to get more…Most noble lady…” he took the piece of parchment from Cuall and gave it to me, looking at me eagerly. I pressed my hand against my forehead, feeling my skin hot, wondering whether what I felt was shame or fear at taking up authority again. But I looked at the figures on the sheet and tried to make sense of them, and, as I did so, felt a strange fierce gladness. The war had begun and I once more had a place in the struggle.

  I stayed up till after midnight that night, trying to sort out Sandde’s affairs, and might have stayed up later except that, tired as I was from the day’s ride and the long waiting, after a time I began adding fifteen to twelve and getting fifty-two. At last Sandde noticed that I was weary and still mud-bespattered, leapt up with apologies, and had me shown to the house that had been his mother’s. There I found Eivlin already installed and asleep, and I was too tired to even wash off more than a little of the mud before I followed her example. The next morning I found it more difficult than I had expected to get up, but it was essential to get back to work. I had learned from Sandde that Medraut’s forces had retreated from their position near the Saxon border, though at the moment they did not seem to have gone far, and that they were expected to return to the neighborhood of Camlann. It also appeared that Cerdic’s support of Arthur would not extend beyond the boundaries of his own kingdom. Saxon and Briton had fought each other too often to feel confident about marching in company into British territory, and the Saxon warriors had only the haziest of loyalties to a British emperor. If my husband wished to pursue Medraut, he would have to do so with nothing more than his forces from Gaul. He badly needed the army Sandde was raising. But by this time, Medraut must have heard of Sandde’s rebellion. He would certainly wish to crush it before Arthur could join it. Indeed, I could not see why he was waiting near the border, and expected him at any minute.

  Sandde, who had many surprisingly sensible ideas, if little experience, had sent messengers to Arthur as soon as he learned that Arthur was actually in Britain, but he had, as yet, received no reply. It was crucial that Arthur and Sandde should arrange some method of joining their forces, and Sandde was worried whether he should leave Ynys Witrin before Medraut arrived to besiege it. If he did so, however, it would be more difficult for Arthur to contact him, so he contented himself with my suggestion that he designate places for men who wished to join the army to meet, so that if Ynys Witrin were cut off by a siege, Arthur would not be entirely cut off from support. The problem of arranging for a possible siege was in fact more urgent than the problem of food supply for the army. That was quite easy to sort out, at least for the time being. I appointed Sion ap Rhys and some others as supervisors of food distribution, so that those clansmen who had brought supplies for themselves provided equably for those who had not. Appointing men like Sion was one of the better things I did, as the farmers were willing to accept measures from another farmer which they would have rejected from a noble. We had supplies to last for a while at least, and began to send messages to the meeting places which had replaced the markets, requesting more food—but we would not have enough to endure a siege.

  As that first day passed, I continually expected to hear that Medraut’s army was approaching. But no news arrived, and Sandde’s scouts r
eported only that the countryside was quiet. Another five hundred men arrived to join the army, some coming from as far away as Elmet and Powys across Mor Hafren, and the number of our army was raised above a thousand. All the space within the fortress was filled, and most of those who had arrived the day before were already sleeping on the ground, under carts or shelters of firewood, straw, and thatching. I had working parties sent down to the town to repair the old municipal defenses as best they could, and billeted men on the town and in the monastery. And I had others cut reeds from the marshes, and others use them in constructing slightly better shelters for the army. And still there was no sign of Medraut.

  The following day we heard wild rumors of Arthur: he had gone with Cerdic back to the Saxon royal fortress; he had ridden north of Medraut’s army by night, and was hurrying toward Maelgwn’s kingdom of Cwynedd; he had passed Medraut’s army on the south, and was trying to make his way to Ynys Witrin or to Camlann. The only certain thing seemed to be that he was no longer by the Dumnonian border.

  “Should we send men north?” Sandde asked me anxiously.

  “He will have to pass through Caer Ceri if he is taking the road to Gwynedd,” I said. “It is only a town, not a fortress, and there should be no warriors there. It would not take many men to hold it for a few days. Perhaps you should send a force there.”

  Sandde agreed to this, and we discussed whether to send another force to Baddon. This city, however, was fortified and guarded, and we decided that we could not spare the men to take it, for if Arthur did come to Ynys Witrin we would need every man we had. This decided, I went down to the town to see if any of the monks were willing to work in the hospital I was establishing in the fortress. The monastery was, of course, a far more obvious place for a hospital, but I had little faith in the town’s defenses, and would not like to see our wounded come into Medraut’s hands if the town fell in a siege.

  Another five hundred or so men arrived that day. And still there was no sign of Medraut.

  I went to rest late that night. I was very tired: more tired than I ought to be, I thought, as I combed out my hair. But I would be thirty-eight on my next birthday, in a few weeks. I was growing too old to run about like a girl. I remembered the girls I had played with when young, trying to imagine what they might be now. Married to landholders and farmers in the North, keeping a small house in order or a minor holding in peace. They had never walked the sword edge of power. They would have children—I thought of one or two I knew who had died in childbirth. Perhaps their sons would fight, were fighting, in this war. But how would they have lived over the years? Arguing with a few servants, singing over the loom, spinning, cooking, gossiping with the neighbors—and now the war was howling like a black storm beyond their doors. They would be women grown wide-hipped and long-breasted from childbearing, and their faces would be worn and tightened by the land and its concerns, by time and by peace. I paused, then went over and picked up the mirror which lay on a table in the corner. The room was dim, lit only by one lamp. Eivlin and the two other girls whom the crowding of the fortress had pressed into the house were sleeping in the adjoining room; I could hear their quiet, even breathing. I lifted the mirror to catch the lamplight, and the soft flame hung in the polished silver, casting light back onto my face, making my eyes look very dark. My face was worn, but not by the land and certainly not by peace. My sick weariness seemed stamped upon the bone, and in that light I thought I might already be old.

  I set the mirror down. God or Fate had chosen me from among those others to step from beside the loom to the heart of the storm. I had been caught in the lightning flash and the black wind. Once, I remembered, I had spoken to Bedwyr about our Empire being a thorn brake against the wind. And I had been the weak point in the barrier, the place where it had given: now all peace was broken, and the storm had come screaming in.

  It was no time to think of such things. If I survived there would be time for repentance, but now…now there was much to do. I lay down, listening, before I fell asleep, to the girls’ breathing and the wind outside in the eaves.

  ***

  I was woken from a deep sleep by someone shaking my shoulder and saying softly, “My lady! My lady!”

  I struggled awake and sat up, and Eivlin dropped her hand. “My lady,” she whispered, “they say there is news—a messenger. They say to come quickly.”

  I shook my hair out of my eyes, jumped up and pulled on my gown without putting on the under-tunic, then slipped on some shoes. “Come quickly where?” I asked Eivlin.

  She handed me my cloak. “The hospital, my lady. They say that the messenger is dying.”

  I had established the hospital in Sandde’s guest house, which was large and well heated. At this time it was, of course, partly occupied, but it could be cleared, and it adjoined a storeroom which could be heated if more space became necessary.

  “I will go, and stay as long as needs be. No, don’t come: go back to sleep. The man who told you this is outside?”

  He was huddled against the door so that he had to stumble back hurriedly when I opened it. There was a fierce wind that left the stars blown brilliant and cold at mid-heaven, though the west was filled with a haze that promised snow. I judged that it was about four hours till dawn, and shivered. We hurried to the guest houses, nearly running to keep warm.

  Sandde was sitting in the dimly lit room on which the door of the house opened, while a few members of the army lay on pallets by the wall, trying to sleep. The lord of Ynys Witrin looked very glum, but leapt up in his usual fashion when I came in, waved at the door to one of the other rooms, stammered a greeting, then hurried to the indicated door and opened it. I stepped through into a glare of torches and saw Gwalchmai, lying very still on the one bed, his head wrapped in a bandage stained crimson with blood. A surgeon was bent over him.

  I stopped, staring, filled with horror. “What…” I began, then saw Rhys kneeling beside the surgeon; he had turned and was looking at me. “Rhys. What has happened?”

  He stood rapidly, looked down at Gwalchmai a moment very grimly. The surgeon nodded to him and he came over, urged me back through the door and into the other room, then closed the door behind him.

  “My lady,” said Rhys, then caught my hand and held it very hard. He was pale, and his face and hand were damp with sweat. “They said that you were here, and they would send for you. I could scarcely believe it. The surgeon here says that my lord is dying. Is he likely to know?”

  “He…he is a monk from Ynys Witrin. They say he is very skilled. But what has happened? How…Arthur sent Gwalchmai here as a messenger?”

  Rhys let go of my hand, rubbed his palms over his face and through his hair, stood with his face hidden a moment, then dropped his hands and nodded wearily. “There was nothing else to be done with him. He would not rest, and he wished to ride into battle as soon as he was well enough recovered to ride at all. It was better while we were journeying back to Britain—he had to keep quiet on the ship. But since we arrived—my lady, the surgeons said that he must not become excited. So the emperor sent him here with a message, to keep him out of the fighting. But today—yesterday—well, the country northward is full of armed men, fighting for any lord you care to name, or simply for themselves. We met some who tried to kill us for our horses. Gwalchmai killed some of them, and the rest were frightened enough to let us ride off. But half a mile along the road he fell off his horse and went into a faint, just as he is now, and his head began bleeding. I couldn’t wake him, and couldn’t stop the bleeding. I tried to cauterize it; that helped a little, and your surgeon here has just done it again. Sometimes on the road he woke up enough to talk, but mostly to people who weren’t there. So I brought him on here. But they have told me he will die, and probably in a few hours; that he is dead already from the waist down.”

  After a pause Sandde asked, “What is the message?”

  Rhys stared at him. Sandde stared back, chewing his moustache and fidgeting with his baldric. After a mom
ent, Rhys shook his head. “You never knew him—and it is what we came for, after all.” He fumbled at his belt, drew out a letter. “Here. I took it from him after he fell.”

  Sandde took the letter eagerly, looked at the seal, then handed it to me so that I could read it to him. I stared at it numbly. It was sealed with tallow and lamp black, but Arthur’s dragon seal was firmly imprinted on it.

  “Please, my lady,” said Sandde. “We must know what to do.”

  I broke the seal, moved closer to the lamp to read. “‘To Sandde, Lord of Ynys Witrin, from Arthur Augustus, emperor of Britain: greetings,’” I read out, then stared at the bold familiar hand and lowered it. “Sandde, Lord Gwalchmai ap Lot is my friend. Do you know why he is dying? Is there any hope?”

  Sandde made an awkward gesture. “They simply told me he was dying.”

  “It is a splinter of bone,” Rhys replied, “It broke when he was first wounded, but did not come loose; it might have grown together again—so your surgeon says. But now it is cutting the brain apart. The surgeon says it is too deep for him to get out. There is another wound, too, from the fight on the road, but your surgeon says that one does not matter. A few hours, he says. He did not wish even to try to help.” Rhys drew a deep breath and rubbed his face again.

  “I see,” I said, then, not knowing what to do, lifted the letter again. “‘—from Arthur Augustus, greetings. My friend, I do not know how to thank you. I beg you not to move from Ynys Witrin, but wait there and gather as large a force as you can. Send any messages to the places my emissary will inform you of. He is a man of great skill and experience, and you can trust his words as you would my own. He will inform you of my plans. If you can, send supplies, especially grain, to the places he will tell you of, for we may have to abandon our own supplies to gain speed. When next you hear from me, take all your forces to the place I will tell you of, and there conceal them, for I hope to set a trap for Medraut and Maelgwn. More I cannot trust to ink. God give you aid!’” I hesitated, noticed some additional words smudged across the end of the scroll. “‘If…’” I began, then stopped.