Hawk of May (Down the Long Way 1)

by Gillian Bradshaw

  We rode up to Urien’s royal fortress, Yrechwydd, on a cold grey day in August in a heavy rain. The bare wood and stone of the walls were sharp against the sky, and the gulls called over the feast Hall, for Yrechwydd overlooks the Irish Sea as Dun Fionn does the North. I listened to the beat of the waves and remembered my father’s fortress, and my kinsmen, and Llyn Gwalch, and my heart leapt as though I were returning home. I looked at Agravain, and he too was grinning. We laughed and began to sing a sea song in Irish:

  “A tempest is on the ocean’s plain:

  Boldly the winds awaken it,

  Winter sweeps the fierce sea again,

  By wind and winter are we slain:

  Winter’s spear has overtaken it.

  When from the east the wind sets

  The spirit of the waves is free,

  They desire to sweep over all the west

  To reach the land where the sun sets,

  To the wild, broad green sea.

  The deeds of the plain, the ocean’s rush

  Have driven alarm upon me,

  But what, of all, is as tremendous,

  Wonderful and as momentous

  As its incomparable story?…”

  “Crazy Irishmen,” muttered Rhuawn, drawing his cloak higher about his ears. We laughed, and sang louder.

  Arthur had, of course, sent messengers ahead. We were expected. Servants waiting just inside the gates took our horses and a fire roared in the Hall. Urien himself was waiting by the gates, a great brown-haired bear of a man with a loud laugh. He welcomed us warmly, congratulated Arthur on the victory, and thanked him for coming to the aid of Rheged, then hurried us into the Hall, declaring loudly that no one should stay out in such weather. The warriors hung their sodden cloaks by the fire and sat down at the tables while Urien’s servants brought them mead. The Hall was crowded, although Urien had sent some of his own men out to make room for us—but after some of the mead everyone forgot this. After the welcoming cups there was a feast and a great deal more mead. The harp was passed around, and the warriors sang boastful songs of their prowess and made loud talk of how they would destroy the northern Saxons. Taliesin sang a song about the battle of Bassas river, and was loudly cheered. I felt light-hearted for the first time in weeks.

  After the song, Urien called for me and gave me a place at the high table on his left, on the grounds that I was his nephew. I thanked him, but pointed out that Agravain was also his nephew.

  “Of course!” said Urien, snapping his fingers. “That is the other one’s name: I kept thinking ‘Avairgain,’ and knowing it was wrong.” Urien called Agravain up to the high table as well. “Your Irish kings seem to have all the same names: it’s either Niall or Eoghan or Laeghaire for all the royal clan.” Urien took a deep drink of mead and shook his head sadly. “At least you have a British name, Gwalchmai ap Lot. And a name well-suited to you, if Taliesin’s song is true—and it always was before, so there is no reason to doubt it now. It must have been your mother’s idea.” Urien ignored the way Arthur, Agravain, and I went quiet at this mention of Morgawse, and poured me some more mead. “Sensible father you have, to marry a British woman, and my Morgan’s sister. How did this battle appear to you?”

  “I do not remember most of it,” I answered, hesitated, and added, “I go mad in battle, Lord Urien.”

  Urien looked momentarily puzzled, then shrugged the subject off. “Indeed? I wish some of my warriors would go mad in battle, then. I think, Dragon,” he said, turning to Arthur, “that you have stolen the finest fighters in Britain, and left the other kings with the dross—and that besides stealing my chief poet, alas for that! I will never find a bard to replace Taliesin—and I am fast becoming a toothless lion. No, don’t laugh. When you meet my war-leader you will see it is no laughing matter, and my son…” the king paused. All Britain had heard of Urien’s son Owain, who, it was said, could not tell the hilt of a sword from the point. “Now, if I had had better warriors or a proper war-leader a month ago when I fought the Scotti at Aber yr Haf…” Urien launched into a description of this fight.

  I sighed inwardly and only half listened. Urien sounded as though he wished to offer me a position in his warband. He was certainly no toothless lion, but he needed more warriors.

  From what I had seen of him, moreover, I liked him; and I liked Rheged. If I took service with Urien I could win some honor and still fight the Saxons; I could fight Aldwulf, a truly dangerous man and one much more my enemy than was Cerdic. And yet, it was Arthur who was fighting to make real a dream, and, as he himself had said, without the dream the war was pointless. I watched the High King as he began to discuss with Urien what should have been done at Aber yr Haf, using knives and serving dishes to show the land and the forces. The shifting torchlight gleamed on his hair and glittered on the gold of his collar. His face, intent on the rough plan of the battle, seemed to hold steady in the moving shadows of the hall. Beside him, Urien looked as dull and dense as the oak table. I took a long, hard drink of mead and set the empty horn down, still watching Arthur.

  We stayed at Yrechwydd for a day before setting out south-eastward, to raid the Saxon kingdom of Deira. Urien came with us, bringing twenty of his men. These were only an honor guard: he came to see how the Family fought. Most of his warband was left to guard the coasts.

  We moved swiftly, as always. The Saxons were not aware of us in the north of their land until we were gone, taking with us a few hundred head of cattle and sheep, a good deal of plunder, and leaving one of their chieftain’s fortresses and part of the countryside in ruins. When the news of our raid reached the king of Deira, Ossa Big-knife, he was angry enough to attempt to retaliate immediately. We were in Ebrauc when he marched on us with his warband and the few hundred men he had mustered by the fyrd in the short space of time since he had heard of us.

  We gave the Caradoc of Ebrauc the sheep we had driven off, and in exchange received the support of Caradoc’s warband. Arthur did not think we needed Caradoc, but the British king would have been insulted if we had won a victory on his land without him.

  The encounter—it could not really be called a battle—was brief and fierce. The infantry engaged the Saxons first, as usual—it was a good downhill charge, led by Cei, and left the enemy reeling—-and, as usual, the cavalry made a flank attack. The fyrd panicked and the shield-wall was gone, as quickly as that. Ossa and his warband, more skilled, managed to regroup and retreat, though with heavy losses, and we pursued them to the borders of Deira but no further. I cut down a Saxon chieftain and won a very fine mail-coat from him, with which I was pleased. The rest of the plunder, including what we had taken on the raid, we sent to Yrechwydd.

  Both Caradoc and Urien were surprised with the speed and completeness of the victory. There was a great deal of congratulating and gift-giving and Caradoc gave a feast. It was an especially splendid one, and used a large amount of the Saxon mutton we had given Caradoc, as well as great quantities of mead and wine. Taliesin sang of the recent encounter, singing the praises of the living and of the dead. He gave a stanza to me: “I will sing the praise of Gwalchami,/Whose sword was as lightning, a flash to the Saxon/Shining in the red tide, the ride of battle…” and so on. Urien beat the table at that stanza, and Arthur frowned. Agravain, seeing the frown, tensed angrily, and Cei grinned at him sardonically. The two glared at each other for the rest of the night.

  The following morning Caradoc sent a messenger to me and, when I had come to his rooms, offered me a position in his warband. I refused.

  He frowned. “I have heard stories which led me to expect this,” he told me in his dry, quiet voice. “Still, I had not thought…what do you hope to gain?”

  I leaned against the wall, fingering a gold brooch I had won in the fight. “A place in the Family.”

  Caradoc shook his head. He was a small, calculating man who looked more of a monk than a king. “I do not think you will get that. Arthur has something that he holds against you. I discussed it with him last night.”r />
  I dropped my hand and stood up straighter. “Did he say what it was?”

  “You do not know? No, he said only that he suspected you of witchcraft. For my own part, I think it absurd to suspect a warrior who has proved himself in battle of so weak and womanish a pursuit as that. I would be willing to give you second place under my war-leader, and the rank of tribune…”

  “Thank you, Lord; it is a noble offer and more generous than I deserve, but I will wait for Arthur. He may yet change his mind.” I bowed to Caradoc.

  He steepled his fingers, stared at me a moment, then smiled drily and nodded. “You can afford to wait, I suppose. Tell me, is it only the desire for battle and fame which makes men follow Arthur ab Uther? I ask this as a king, and one who needs more men and is uncertain how to get them.”

  I shook my head. “It is not only the battle and fame. Bran of Less Britain was willing to risk his life and his followers for Arthur before he was High King, when he was still a usurping bastard. It is because Arthur is Arthur…He says that he wishes to restore the Empire.”

  “You are not Roman: what is the Empire to you?”

  “Very little,” I admitted, smiling. “But the Empire that Arthur would create is a great deal, and I am willing to wait and hope until Arthur sees that.”

  He sighed, a short, sharp sigh of exasperation. “So others also have said, they would rather fight for Arthur and starve than have high advancement with another, and always it is because ‘he is a great emperor,’ or ‘he will restore the Empire’ or ‘preserve the Light.’ Very well, Gwalchmai of Orcade, good fortune attend your waiting!” He rose and saluted me. “But should you change your mind before Arthur changes his, and should you decide that you dislike Urien, the place will still be open. You are a brave man and a fine warrior, and I have said as much to the Pendragon. Now, I believe that your Arthur is preparing to leave again, so you had best go and join him.”

  I bowed deeply and left, closing the door behind me.

  Since Ossa could not expect a second raid so soon after the first we made a second, south of the first one, and concentrated on the newly settled border region. Ossa refused to make the same mistake twice and waited to gather his army before marching on us. In doing so he made a worse mistake, for he left his royal fortress, Catraeth (or Cataracta, as the Saxons call it) with only a light guard while he marched slowly up to when we had last been reported. But we circled around through Ebrauc as fast as we could press our horses, left the plunder from the raid there, and struck into the heart of Deira. We took Ossa’s fortress, removed all the hoarded plunder, and fired as much of it as we could before retreating again to Caer Ebrauc. We were surprised at the amount of plunder; Ossa’s raids had apparently been successful. Ossa had tried to follow us when he heard that we were again in Deira, but arrived in Catraeth too late, and had to disband his army for the harvest-season and try to repair the damage and appease his warband, who had also lost their goods.

  Urien was delighted.

  “By the sun and the hosts of Heaven,” he told Arthur when we were again feasting in Caer Ebrauc, “you’ll have them beaten by mid-winter!”

  Arthur shook his head. “It will be harder from now on. They know how quickly we can move now. And we are still unable to meet their army, and they know that. They have learned, I think, not to raid too deeply into British territory, or to fear retaliation if they do. But they will guard themselves now, and probably try more short raids. Still, at this rate—perhaps by midsummer.”

  Urien laughed. “Midsummer. I have been fighting for years, and have felt glad if I can manage to hold my own. Ach well, you have fine warriors, who know how a war should be fought. Your friend Bedwyr seems capable of leading the Family on his own.” (Bedwyr, near Arthur as always, smiled at the compliment but made a disclaiming gesture.) “And Cei ap Cynryr is a man who would be war-leader in any other warband. And Gereint and Goronwy and Cynan and my nephew Agravain have earned their fame as well, that is plain. I cannot hope to match them with any of my own followers. And then, I must guard my coasts, or those thrice-damned Irish would burn my fortress under me.” Urien paused, taking another sip of Caradoc’s wine, and looked at Arthur with a gleam in his eyes. “And Gwalchmai ap Lot, though not a member of your Family, fights in such a way as to make songs for the poets.”

  Arthur shrugged and changed the subject.

  Agravain glared at Arthur, then hacked savagely at the haunch of venison before him. Cei glared back at Agravain, then stared at Bedwyr, questioningly. Bedwyr was his friend and Arthur’s, and Cei expected the Breton to take their side in the debate which had grown up about Arthur’s continued refusal of my word. Many of the warriors, who admired my fighting and my refusal to serve any other, endlessly discussed Arthur’s reasons and frequently blamed him, which caused others to grow angry with them. Bedwyr alone tried to remain neutral, and Cei resented this neutrality.

  “Well, but it is true, Hawk of Battle,” Urien said, refusing to accept Arthur’s change of subject and turning to me. “How was it in that skirmish half a day’s ride south-east of the border? I missed that one.”

  Urien regretted it when he missed any good fight. I told him about the skirmish, and wondered when he would offer me a place in his warband. He was obviously awaiting his chance. I think that, like Caradoc, he had asked Arthur some questions in private, but did not believe the answers he had been given. Perhaps he was waiting for me to tire and leave Arthur before he made his offer. He had given me gifts, a cloak of embroidered silk, imported from Italy, and a very fine shield with an enamelled boss, far too fine to be used. He was a generous man, open-handed, courageous in battle, loyal, a lover of mead and music and women, a good man, a man to trust. But not a man I wanted to follow. He was blind to too many things. The only country he knew was his own clan, though he recognized a few vague responsibilities to the clans which owed him allegiance, and a few hazy duties to Arthur. He had nothing of Arthur’s transcendent vision, his brilliance, his habit of giving himself as well as his possessions to the cause, or his gallantry and gaiety. Urien’s warband, too, was not the Family. I knew the Family by then, that it truly was a family, a band of brothers. I thought that it must be like the Red Branch at the time of CuChulainn, a place where courage and honor were taken for granted, filled with glory and laughter: Even though Arthur was no closer to accepting me, I did not wish to leave.

  Urien would have stayed with us longer, for he was enjoying the campaign, but while in Ebrauc he received some bad news from Rheged. His war-leader, in a truly spectacular piece of idiocy, allowed himself and most of the warband to be trapped by a group of raiders whom they outnumbered three to one. They lost fifty men in escaping. Beyond this, the sea raids were increasing in frequency as the summer wore on. Urien was needed at Yrechwydd. We sent some of the plunder back with him.

  Arthur was very pleased with the plunder. It would support the Family for some time, and that we had been able to give so much to Urien and Caradoc would allow us to ask them for goods in return once our supplies ran out. Besides this, Urien and Caradoc had been enough impressed to promise to raise their armies whenever Arthur should request it, and the kingdoms, it was hoped, had been enough impressed to answer that call to arms. The Family was proud of itself, of its strength and reputation. But we were tired. It had been a hard summer’s fighting, and winter would be welcome for the rest it brought. Our weariness made us tense, and there were arguments, almost fights, between members of the Family. Arthur could always stop them, but they disturbed everyone.

  It was perhaps because of this weariness and tension that our next raid was a failure. More likely, though, we failed because we attacked Bernicia.

  Bernicia actually lies closer to Rheged than Deira, but Ossa of Deira had been doing most of the raiding, and so Arthur had wished to weaken it first. Now that Ossa was rendered temporarily quiet we turned our attention to Bernicia.

  We struck into the southern part of the country after riding at a fast pace
along the border of Deira and Ebrauc. We had a good road across the hills, a Roman road, since we were still south of the Wall. All the land which was uncultivated was heavily forested, full of lakes, an easy country to hide in. It is rich country, too: we took over two hundred head of cattle in the two days of raiding which brought us to the Wall. We were confident, certain that Aldwulf would not dare to attack us without first raising the fyrd, and that, at harvest time, even if he was alert to the threat of invasion it would take some time to do so.

  Then, on the third day of the raid, one of our scouts rode up to Arthur at a full gallop, reined in his worn horse and gasped out the news: Aldwulf was within half a day’s ride to our west, and had raised the fyrd.

  No matter how careful his planning or quiet his movements, we all knew that he should not have been able to do it. We had ridden from Caer Ebrauc too quickly; he could hardly have received even the news of our presence from reports more than a day before. And it took still much time to lead an army, at its slow pace, down from Gefrin in the north. To have done as he had he would have discovered our plans the moment we left Caer Ebrauc and have begun to move southward at once, collecting his army along the way. No messenger can ride so fast. We did not speak of it, but we could guess how Aldwulf Fflamddwyn had found out.

  We turned south, hurriedly. Aldwulf did not have all the men he could muster, but his army was still a large one, over five thousand men, and he had his warband as well. There were six hundred and twenty-three in the Family, since some were sick in Caer Ebrauc and some escorting Urien and the plunder to Rheged. We were accustomed to fight against superior numbers, but the Saxons now had the advantage of the land and of allies in the south as well. To the north stood the Wall, to the east was the sea, and to the south was Ossa. We preferred to leave. However, we had not gone far south when we discovered that Ossa was approaching with part of his army and all of his warband. Their numbers were such that we could have defeated them, but that would have left us a prey to Aldwulf, whom our scouts reported as following us southward, keeping to our west. The whole land had risen against us, and sprang ambushes at every turn of the road, so that our speed was cut down. The only way to escape, Arthur decided, was to take the stronger enemy, and pass through the Bernician army.