“Stand with your weight on your left leg,” Gwalchmai said, after a while, “and shift it to your right as you throw. That’s it. But stop trying to throw with your arm. The force comes from the shoulder. Don’t move your wrist at all; it only makes the spear wobble…there.” My hurled spear finally flew levelly and struck straight into the wall. I felt elated until I noticed how far it was from the designated plank. Gwalchmai went and drew it out, came back, and then sent all three spears into the plank, just by the knot hole, with really astonishing speed. He collected them again and set them against the wall before turning back to me. I knew that my face was red, and I said nothing.
“You really do know how to throw things,” the warrior said. “It took me months before I could throw that well. I was a slow learner—though I can throw spears from horseback as well, which may compensate. If you’d been properly trained, you’d’ve made an excellent warrior.”
I looked at the plank I had hit. “How much training does it take?”
Gwalchmai shrugged. “In the Orcades—the Ynysoedd Erch, that is—we start when we are seven. The training lasts until we are fourteen or so, and then boys of high rank can begin to go raiding, though they still need some practice for the rest of their lives. And then, fighting from horseback is another matter entirely.”
I’d heard it before, of course. Warriors begin training at seven, fighting at fourteen or fifteen, and, usually, die before they are twenty-five. Gwalchmai was over that. I was too old to begin. I had known it, but I had never really realized how much that training meant without that accursed plank staring at me. I glared at it.
“I never said I was a warrior,” I told him. “And perhaps I would get skewered in a battle. But I know that warriors have servants, and their servants do not fight, and other warriors do not harm the servants.”
“No, they don’t. Servants are valuable property, if sold to the right buyer,” Gwalchmai observed dryly, then, in a serious, tired voice, added, “You are your own man, and of a free and prosperous clan. Your family can only be called a gift from Heaven. Why, by all the saints, would you wish to cast all that aside, be subject to another man’s will, and wander about Britain with every man’s hand against you?”
“I know it is mad, I know.” I stood there, groping for words. “I know. I only…Lord, Rome has fallen, and the Emperor in the east left us to defend ourselves. My grandfather told me of it when I was a child. I…” I struggled with myself, trying to explain something I didn’t understand myself. “And your lord is defending us. Yes, and we are the last Christian land in the West, the last fragment of the Empire—and the Church does nothing, and the kings of Britain do nothing but pretend that the world will go on for ever as it is now, when already it has changed so that the last Emperors would not be able to recognize it.” At this something seemed to give, and I found that I could speak quickly. “Lord, the West is in Darkness. The Emperor Arthur has given the Saxons one great defeat, but still we are fighting a war, the battle is still continuing, isn’t it? Is Britain at peace, Lord? Is the world?”
“The world never will be,” murmured Gwalchmai. But he watched me with a quiet intensity.
“Ach, no, of course not. But now less than ever. Now we have a war between the law and chaos, between Light itself and Darkness. And perhaps Arthur is, as they say, a violent man, but even if he were as corrupt as the king of Gwynedd paints him, it is something to go out and fight against death and ruin, better than sitting up in Arfon like a vulture waiting for the end, or working on a farm near Mor Hafren and pretending that the world’s at peace!”
Gwalchmai’s face was expressionless. I drew a deep breath, not really knowing what I’d said and feeling weak and exhausted. “Well,” I said, trying to calm myself, “is it a reason?”
“It is. You sounded exactly like my lord the Pendragon.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair while I gaped. “It is a good reason. Something of that was my reason, as well.” He sat down on the straw and gestured for me to sit next to him. I sat.
“You have reason to join with the Family, Rhys ap Sion.” Gwalchmai laid one arm across his knees, the hand limp. Chain mail glinted at his wrist where the mail-shirt projected from under the tunic. “Though I suppose it is for every man to fight for my lord the Light in some way, still it is true that my lord and the Family fight in a way special to this age. If you cannot be a warrior, then, you must be someone’s servant. I have never wanted a servant, but there is sure to be someone else who will, someone who knows that he fights for the Light of Heaven. There is only one matter that is against you.”
“My family,” I said. I was trembling. He had agreed, I was going.
“I owe them a great deal.” Gwalchmai picked up a piece of straw and began splitting it. “I am indebted to your father for more than a few nights’ lodging, I think. He is a wise man, your father. It would not be just of me to steal his son. And I think he does not want you to go.”
“I think the same. But if he agrees to let me go, you will take me?”
“If he agrees, and willingly lets you come, I have no choice.”
I put out my hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, Gwalchmai took it.
When I went to look for my father I felt neither exalted nor utterly lost.
My whole family was by the hearth, with dinner nearly ready.
“There you are, Rhys,” said my mother. “Did you bring the salt?” (That had been her latest errand.) “You did take your time at it!”
I gave her the salt without comment and turned to my father, who was sitting by the hearth. “Father, I need to talk to you.”
Something in my voice made both my parents go still and glance at each other.
“If you have need to talk, I must have need to listen.” My father walked to the room he and my mother shared with the youngest children and opened the door. I went in and he shut it behind me and sat on the bed, looking at me expectantly. I felt even less inclined to speak than I had under Gwalchmai’s eyes.
“Well, what is it?” asked my father.
It was best to say it quickly. If I delayed, I did not know that I could say it at all. It is a terrible thing to part from one’s own clan, and worse when it is plain that the parting is not a light one. “I have asked the lord Gwalchmai to take me with him when he leaves here. I told him that I wanted to be servant to some man of the Pendragon’s. Gwalchmai has agreed to take me with him, if you will freely let me go.” My father’s hands clenched into fists, and I added, “Father, he didn’t want me to come at first. He tried to talk me out of it. He said he didn’t want to ‘steal your son’.”
The fists relaxed. My father looked at me for a long moment, then, suddenly, put his hands to his face and turned his head away. “How could he steal what I had already lost? You went to ask him.”
There was a horrible roughness to his voice, and it cut me as nothing had done before.
“I am asking you,” I said, “to let me go freely.”
“Is there something more you wanted here?” he asked, in a quiet voice unlike his own. “Is there anything we should have given you and held back?”
“Father,” I said, and I was shaking with the hurt of it, “you’ve given me more than I needed, you know that as well as I. But it’s that I myself wish to give more.”
“There is the land, and the clan. You can give all of yourself to them, and they need more. It is no easy thing to run a householding, especially in these times, and it is no small thing to run one well.”
“But I want to go to Camlann,” I said. “That is a bigger thing. It is the greatest thing in all Britain, and I want to be part of it. I want to serve God…”
“You can do that anywhere.”
“But in a special way at Camlann.”
“They will fail,” my father said, his voice shaking, but still quiet, angry. “They are
trying to fight darkness when they have too much darkness in themselves. Not so much Gwalchmai, nor the Pendragon, either, but do you think the Family is made up of such men? Warbands in general care nothing for the fight to preserve civilization or for the Light—oh yes, I know what you’re after, I’ve felt the pull myself—but warbands care for plunder and for glory. Civilization is here, in the order and peace of this householding, and not at Camlann. Look at Gwalchmai. He is a fine man, sensitive and honorable, and even in so pure a warband as Arthur’s he’s dragged into a crime and made to wear himself away with suspicion and doubt. If he had given himself to land and a clan, and kept them in order, and if the Pendragon had done that, they could have made a place where the crime could never have occurred.”
“Which the Saxons would have destroyed,” I said. “Father, I must go. Maybe you are right, but still, I must go.”
He jumped up, caught my shoulders and shook me. “Do we mean so little to you?”
“Oh no, no.” I could barely speak, and I was appalled that despite it all I still wanted just as much to go. “You mean so much. But I must go. Give me your blessing on it.”
He looked at my face, and I looked at his. It was a strong face, as I remembered. But there were lines about it, and the blue eyes were tired. He was getting older. I had not noticed.
“If I did not let you go willingly, you would run off on your own, wouldn’t you?” he asked.
It made me grow cold. I had not even thought of that. But I nodded. He was quite right. Once I had explained why I must go, it had become impossible to avoid.
“Well, then. Go, with my blessing. You are a good man, Rhys, and the desire is, in the end, honorable and just. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps we are not strong enough here. Perhaps the sun rises at Camlann.” He put his arms around me and gave me one of his bear hugs. “But remember that we are here,” he whispered, “and if ever you can, come back.”
He let me go and strode abruptly to the door to call my mother.
My family was astonished and appalled. They clamored with questions which I didn’t know how to answer. Gwalchmai arrived from the stable into the midst of it, and they clamored at him as well. All through supper, all the evening it was the same—“But why, Rhys?” and “What will you do, Rhys?” I couldn’t say to them the fine words I’d said to Gwalchmai, nor could they understand without my saying anything, as my father had.
My mother cried quietly. I think she did understand my reasons, though, because she asked me no questions, only went about the house packing things for me. She did it quickly and deftly, not missing a thing I might need, and carefully considering space and weight, all the while brushing away the tears. My sisters were anxious and plaintive, my cousins vociferous, with a tendency—restrained by my father—to be accusing. My brother Dafydd was unhelpfully thrilled, grabbing a broom and threatening to spear everyone about him.
I don’t think anyone slept well that night. I know that for my part I lay awake long after even the rest of the house had settled. I listened to the logs drop in the fireplace, the wind in the thatch, and to my brother’s even breaths beside me. I thought of my whole life, and wondered if I would ever come home again. I prayed a bit, as one does. But I did not cry. There were no tears in me for that departure, greatly though it hurt; and that I had no tears perhaps hurt most of all.
The next day was damp and cold. The clouds hung low, pale and swollen, and in the distance the hills looked like ledges of gray stone. The sun was not fully up when we left, and the earth was hushed. The entire holding huddled outside the barn to see us off. My father saddled our mare’s three-year-old foal Llwyd, a shaggy little gray gelding, and handed me the animal’s bridle without comment on the gift. Gwalchmai bound most of our baggage behind Ceincaled’s saddle, and readjusted the strap that held the shield across his own back. He wore his crimson cloak again, and in the early light looked as strange and otherworldly as he had at that first moment by the river. He turned to my father.
“I am sorely in your debt, Sion ap Rhys,” he said in his soft voice. “Any thanks I may offer you are shallow and useless indeed.”
My father shrugged, scratched his beard. “I’ve done no more, Lord, than provide common hospitality.”
“You have done a very great deal more than that.” Gwalchmai hesitated, then, drawing his sword, dropped to one knee in the snow, graceful as a hawk swooping. He held out the sword, hilt first, to my father. “If ever this sword may be of any use to you and to yours, Sion ap Rhys, if I should then refuse it, may the sky break and fall upon me, may the sea rise up and overwhelm me, may the earth gape and swallow me. Witness it.”
My father, staring at him, slowly lifted his right hand and let his fingertips rest upon the ruby in the sword’s pommel. The blade glowed as though some bright light were reflected from it—but there was no light. And that picture took hold of my mind, so that now it sometimes leaps before me at things that have nothing to do with either Gwalchmai or my father: the warrior in his gold and crimson, kneeling, and my father in his gray homespun accepting the pledged trust, half in embarrassment, and half in assurance; a proud humility and a humble pride, and the sword burning with light between their hands.
Then my father dropped his hand, and Gwalchmai stood and sheathed the sword. “Use it to protect my son,” my father said, a little hoarsely. Gwalchmai nodded and mounted his stallion. He began adjusting the spears tied alongside the horse, checking that they were in easy reach. I swallowed and tried to say goodbye to my family. I did a sad job of it, and was glad to scramble onto my horse. It had all taken too long, I thought, this farewell. Such things should be done as quickly as one is able to say the words.
Gwalchmai gave one final half bow from the saddle, turned Ceincaled’s head, and rode down the hill and away from the holding. I gave Llwyd a kick, and the horse started, shied, and trotted after the stallion. I did not look back at my family. Not until we had gone over the next hill and left the house out of sight did I look back. Then I turned just long enough to take it in: the slope of the pasture land, the pale stubble of the snow-covered field, the gray of the forest beyond the river under the leaden sky, and the streaks of smoke hanging motionless on the damp air. Smoke I had seen so many times before, coming home from a day’s labor, eager for the hearth. I turned my eyes to the gray morning ahead of me. Gwalchmai’s cloak was a splash of crimson against the heavy sky.
“Makes himself damnably conspicuous,” I muttered, to distract the gloom from my heart.
The warrior stayed silent. We rode on towards the old Roman road that leads southwards, to Ynys Witrin, and beyond that, runs onward past Camlann.
FIVE
We reached the Roman road about mid-morning. Gwalchmai drew rein as we turned onto it, and looked down the length of it. Ceincaled tossed his head, breath steaming about him, and then was still. I stopped Llwyd and looked down the road as well. I had seen it before, and it seemed even less worthy of observation than usual. It followed a straight line through the curve of the hills, and had once had a cleared space around it which was now grown over with scrub. It looked cold and deserted, and there were no tracks in the snow that covered it, but it was a good road. Gwalchmai, however, continued to look at it.
The wind was cold, and I saw no reason simply to sit in it and suffer. “Lord,” I said, after a while, “this is the road.”
He glanced at me quickly. “Oh. Indeed, it is. Only…would you object to making another day’s journey north, before turning to Camlann? It would be good to check one more road she might have taken.”
I looked southward down the road and rubbed my hands together, understanding why no one traveled in the winter. “We go where you want to, my lord.”
“I am not your lord. You are a free man yet. Only…” He looked to the north.
I looked south again. “We’ll go north then, lord.”
He turned C
eincaled north and urged the horse into a trot, eagerly, and I followed with a great deal more reluctance.
We rode north for some fifteen miles with no other occurrence worthy of note except that it began to snow. I had a good warm cloak and warm clothing, but my ears and feet and fingers froze. Llwyd, who was used to better treatment than this, became stubborn and bad-tempered, shying at nothing and trying to slip away and go back home. I had my hands full to control him. Gwalchmai seemed not to notice the cold and rode easily, setting a fast pace despite the snow.
We reached Caer Ceri in the early afternoon. It is an old Roman town, walled, one I had been to once or twice before when our holding had some trading to do and the market at Baddon was closed because of the Saxons. Caer Ceri was deserted when we came to it, though, and the market square was occupied only by a flock of sheep. I expected that we would stop and buy a meal by some warm hearthside. I had been looking forward to it for the last five miles, to getting off the horse I hadn’t ridden since autumn, and sitting down by a warm fire to eat warm food and drink hot ale. But Gwalchmai rode straight through the town without pausing, and turned left onto the west road to Powys. When the walls fell away behind us and he urged Ceincaled into a trot again, I realized that he had no intention of acting in a rational fashion, and I must resign myself to the cold sausage and oat cakes my mother had supplied for lunch. These were half frozen. I offered some to Gwalchmai, who took them with thanks and some surprise, and we chewed the food slowly as we rode.
Llwyd was growing tired, since he was as much out of the habit of being ridden as I was of riding, and, while it made him less troublesome, I began to worry. If he went lame or grew overworn, where could I get another horse?
“Lord,” I said to Gwalchmai, “how much farther do you want to go today?”
“To Caer Gloeu, above Saefern Hafren. It’s another ten miles or so, I think.”
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