Llacheu stared at his boots. They were muddy, he would have to clean them when they got back. He said in a quiet voice, “I do not like it when you argue with Mam.”
“By being in as many places as possible, I am showing defiance to those men who are against me.” Arthur took hold of the bridle, walked Hasta on, said to the sky, “I do not like arguing either lad, neither does your mam. It is a thing we seem to do of late.”
Darkness had come by the time they reached camp, and a fine drizzle had begun to fall. Gwenhwyfar said nothing as Arthur ducked into the tent, delivered the boy and immediately ducked out again.
“Was it interesting?” she asked as she helped remove Llacheu’s wet clothing, began to rub him dry and warm. He talked almost without pause through mouthfuls of steaming broth, Gwenhwyfar listening, asking the occasional question. Her eyebrows rose when he said, “Da has promised me a horse. I hope I can have one like Hasta.”
Tactfully, “Hasta is a stallion. A gelding for you, and something a bit smaller?”
Llacheu pouted slightly. Brightened. “The same colour?”
Gwenhwyfar laughed. “I expect that can be managed.”
By full dark, the boy was abed and asleep, curled with his two brothers, Gwydre four and Amr now almost two. Gwenhwyfar stood holding the tent flap open, staring at the night and the rain. It was not cold and the rain had scented the earth, grass and trees, the air was fresh and pleasant. Lamps glowed from inside other tents, the sound of men laughing or preparing for sleep drifting across to her ears. Arthur’s tent over the way was well lit. Laughter came from there also.
She sighed. The past months had been filled by petty squabbles over silly, meaningless things. They never seemed to talk these days, to laugh. Or to love.
She let the flap fall, wandered to her own bed, sat on the edge unfastening the pins and braiding of her hair. Was it her fault, this conflict between Arthur and his uncle? She removed her tunic, sat for a while in her undershift. His frustration and anger had to have an outlet, a vent, but it was so hard taking these constant blows. Arthur was not one to let things drop, to leave water unstirred. The argument that had sent him storming from Lindum had spread ripple upon ripple, creating waves that slapped angrily against the shore, and, as each season had passed risen into a darker storm.
He led a mounted force that could, if he so commanded, bring any man opposing him to his knees. His allies welcomed the strategy of his mercenary force. His enemies did not, but for all their opposition, Arthur remained Supreme King over all but this new-named Britannia Secunda. His men, quartered in the shore forts along the south coast, patrolled the borders of the English territories, effectively dissuading any newcomers. Allied with Gwynedd, they held the peace in the unsettled north. Arthur himself controlled most of the Summer Land and Dumnonia. The men had dug and built the great earthwork to separate his land from Ambrosius’s, built it to stride east from Aquae Sulis before bending south towards Venta. They had thrown up the earth banks and erected the wooden palisade along the top, patrolled the walkways or sat by night in the mile-apart wooden watchtowers. The Artoriani kept Ambrosius Aurelianus – Emrys – and his cronies firmly encased within a prison of their own making. From his guarded and patrolled borders, Arthur controlled what came out of and into Britannia Secunda.
Only the wild hills beyond the Roman Wall lay beyond his full control or influence. The rest, even Britannia Secunda, was, one way or another, his. But the price to retain it was becoming high. Almost too high.
Gwenhwyfar exhaled a long, weary breath. She was sick of living in a tent, of moving from place to place, camp to camp. They had nowhere to call their own, no safe, peaceful, protected place where there was no argument or conflict, no need constantly to watch over your shoulder or fear a moving shadow. Nowhere that did not permeate the threat of death stalking at your heels. The argument with Council at Lindum had ended all hope of settling somewhere.
Movement at the entrance flap. Gwenhwyfar’s head lifted, startled. Arthur stood there, looking tired and careworn like a man defeated. Wearing a smile, Gwenhwyfar went to stand a few paces before him. “Llacheu enjoyed his afternoon. He learnt much.”
“A boy any man would be proud to call son. You look lovely.”
Gwenhwyfar felt her cheeks blush. “Do you still think so?”
“Aye.” He reached forward, brought her to him but did not kiss her. His fingers played with her hair a moment, then he said, “You know why I cannot go to Gwynedd.”
She released a slow breath. “I know why.”
Arthur released her, swung away. Leaning against the tent pole he rested his head against his arm. “Then why argue?”
“I am aware of your reasons, Arthur, but knowing does not make me like them. You keep us with you to prove a point, to prove to Ambrosius that you are not afraid of what he might do. Well, I am afraid! I fear for my sons and I fear for you. It is almost as if we are on the run, as though we are criminals living outside the law. You pretend otherwise – but is that not the truth of it? Were you to stay overlong in one place, somewhere else might have the courage to rise up against you, go with your uncle. We move from camp to camp, ride north, south, east and west making your presence felt, reminding the people and your uncle and the Church that you are the Supreme King.” She wanted to go to him, touch him, hold him, but did not. This whole situation was running over-fast, like a river in winter flood. If the rise of water did not recede soon, the bank would burst. “I want you as a husband, as a father, not as a king. I want you to say damn the lot of them and ride away from it all. To come back to me and your sons.”
“You want too much, Cymraes.”
“I want you. Is that too much?”
He looked round at her, eyes pleading. “Do not ask me to choose.”
Gwenhwyfar slumped on the bed, her hands falling limp into her lap. “Let us, the children, go. Let us go to Gwynedd a while. We have trailed in the wake of the army too long – Amr knows barely anything except life on the march. We are sick of it, Arthur. Heart sick of it.”
He fingered a gold buckle at his waist, intent on tracing the ornate pattern. “You once wanted to be always with me, were once angry because I forbade you to ride with me. I was equally angry because you defied me.” He looked up, straight at her. “Have things changed so much between us?”
A tear slid down her cheek, splashed unnoticed onto her hand. “I was young then, Arthur, now I am tired. Tired of this bickering between you and Ambrosius.” Gwenhwyfar shut her eyes briefly, before saying with a sob, “And I am so tired of Winifred’s presence always behind me.”
Her look, when she turned to him was exhaustion, pleading for a respite. “I will fight Winifred until the day I draw last breath. For the sake of my sons.” She had to shrug. “Though she fights for the same reason. Her own son is no doubt as precious to her.” Gwenhwyfar ran her hands through her hair, the soft glow from the single lamp dancing gold among the strands of copper.
“I sometimes feel though, Arthur, that it would be best to leave it all; to go quietly with my three born sons and let Winifred have what she wants.” She looked up at him. “At least that way I need not always have the fear of her son killing mine some day.”
He was shaking his head. “Even were we to give Winifred my royal torque this very night she would still see to it that Llacheu, any of the boys, were not around to threaten Cerdic’s claim.”
Gwenhwyfar took a long, slow breath, said, “So you keep us with you for that reason also, to show Winifred what? That you do not trust me out of your sight or that we are a loving, happy family?” She stood, the movement portraying her defiance. “Hardly that, Arthur, are we?”
He took a deep breath, held it for a moment before exhaling. Although he returned her gaze, there was no emotion in his face, only a blank nothingness, shielding the feelings of panic and fear that were hurtling around his head and hammering chest. His voice was quite steady when he asked, “If I let you go to Gwynedd, how long woul
d you stay?”
Gwenhwyfar lifted a shoulder, let it fall.
He smiled, some of the hurt showing with it. “As long as that, eh?” He made to leave. “I cannot let you go, Cymraes.” He ducked through the entrance, was gone. She could not see his own tears, or read his thoughts. You may never come back to me.
Gwenhwyfar leapt to her feet, ran. He was already walking away, she followed, pulling at his tunic, but he did not turn, just kept on walking. The rain was a fine drizzle, drenching her undershift, moulding the thin material to her body, plastering her hair to head, neck and face.
“Arthur, please stay with me. Talk to me.”
Into the rain-swirled darkness he answered, “You want me to stay, yet you want to leave me. Make up your mind, Gwenhwyfar.”
Anger flashed in her eyes, swirling patterns of tawny gold against darkening green. It is you who must decide, not I.” She whirled, re-entered the tent. For a moment she thought he was going to come after her. As the seconds passed, she realised he was not.
The boys’ nurse, Enid, lay beside them. Disturbed by the flurried movement she raised her head, expression questioning. Gwenhwyfar motioned her back to sleep, began stripping off the saturated clothing, found a dry garment and something to rub her hair.
The sound of rain pattering on the leather of the tent was insistent, irritating, a relentless beat repeated over and over. She did not want to leave Arthur, but she could not stay much longer, bound within this wretched quarrel for pre-eminence that he was waging with his uncle. Is this what it was to be King? To make camp, break camp. March and march again?
If it was, she had had a bellyful of it.
XIX
Arthur did not return immediately to his tent. He went to the horses, a pretence of checking Cei’s chestnut. The horse had stumbled earlier in the day, cutting its knee. He peered at the cut, satisfied to see that the minor wound was already beginning to scab over. Further down the line of picketed horses, Hasta was dozing, one hind leg tipped, head down, ears flopping. He came alert with a soft whicker as Arthur reached to make a fuss of him.
Gwenhwyfar had bred the stallion from her own mare, had trained him to carry saddle and man, accept a bridle and bit. Arthur, in turn, had taught him to step over wounded or dead bodies, ignore the smell and carnage of the battlefield, stand unflinching if his rider were to fall… A good war-horse was worth more than any gold or jewels or finery, for a good war-horse could save your life. Arthur gently pulled the animal’s ears, stripping the wet hair between his fingers. You knew where you were with horses. There was an old story that one of the Caesars had made his horse a senator because he did not trust or like the men of his senate. Arthur patted Hasta’s neck. If Caligula had to deal with men like his own council, then well could he believe such a story! “Shall I make you a councillor my lad? Would that ease all this disagreement? Could you make those who owe me, pay their debts?”
Arthur’s sigh was bound with regrets and bitterness. He was in a web of tangled demands that he could not extricate himself from. Leave it all, Gwenhwyfar said, go to Gwynedd and let them get on with it! Give up being King, give up what he had fought for, believed in, all these years?
Is this what it means to be a king, he thought. To be continuously quarrelling, stamping and snarling? To feel I’ve not one loyal friend, not one person to trust implicitly?
His fingers moved to the velvet-soft pinkness of Hasta’s muzzle, the horse’s breath huffing warm on his skin. The animal began to lick contentedly at Arthur’s palm, relishing the slight taste of salt.
He had not expected it to be like this; as a raw lad when he aimed for the taking of Vortigern’s royal torque, he had exalted only in the dreams of leading a force of superb drilled men, of winning battles and bathing in the light of achievement and glory. It had never occurred to Arthur that other men might not share his vision, might not be content to follow in his shadow, nodding and smiling agreement at all he planned to do. The tedium of reality seldom sits amicably with the shine of hopeful, youthful, expectation.
Uthr had tried for the claiming of the same dreams – had he thought of what, by necessity, came in between the planning and fighting of battles, the thrill of campaign? Would the great Uthr, had he become King, have failed as miserably at the everyday routine of kingship as his son seemed to be failing?
“Ah, my father,” Arthur said with a deep sigh of regret, “you taught me how to fight but gave me no instruction on how to govern.” He patted Hasta’s neck, told the horse, “Fathers, tutors, all those who instruct your childhood with a myriad of information neglect to give counsel on how to hold a woman’s love.” He turned away. The one thing he needed to know: how to keep his Cymraes from leaving him. And there was no one to ask, save his horse. What was he to do? Take himself off into the hills? And do what? Become a farmer, a horse breeder?
She did not want that either, but he could not expect her to trail much longer in the wake of the Artoriani, on these endless rounds of tax collecting and loyalty gathering. They were all full to the back teeth with it. There was so much more he ought to be doing – finding a stronghold of his own, securing the sea-coasts from Saex and Hibernian raiders, watching the latest movement of Morgause and her weakling husband. Instead, he had to ensure and ensure again, the loyalty of petty lords and chieftains to the west and east and south and north of Ambrosius’s claimed land. Men who gave their pledge of alliance to his face and sent their young men to Ambrosius behind his back.
Laying his forehead against Hasta’s neck, Arthur closed his eyes. He was tired of it; tired of this wasting of time when there was so much of importance to be done. Happen Gwenhwyfar was right. Give it all to Ambrosius, let him deal with the dissidents who refused to send men to train for the local militias; let him demand the due payments of cattle and grain. Except, some of them would willingly give it to Ambrosius. Men of the Church for instance. That was why the Artoriani were here, camped beside the swollen waters of the Gwy river, because an abbot refused to pay taxes to his King. Three days they had been here, their tents sprawling across the meadows that ran between river and monastery walls, their camp fires built high, the men deliberately rowdy.
The Pendragon’s envoy had been refused entry to the monastery grounds, the gate remaining firmly shut even to Arthur’s personal demand of admittance. Having subsequently to shout up at high, stone-built walls, while standing in a swathing curtain of rain, to a defiant abbot had made Arthur look and feel ridiculous. But then, this morning, the second, and as Arthur had implicitly pointed out, last, attempt had altered the situation. The rain had ceased, leaving a blue-washed sky draped in great puff clouds that had trailed languid shadows across a sun-steaming valley. The abbot had realised the Pendragon was not going to go away, realised too, the King was not bluffing – “You are on my land. You pay me, or I burn down your monastery.”
The thirty head of red-and-white cattle were to be delivered on the morrow.
He would have to let Gwenhwyfar go. Why was he keeping her with him? For his sons to see the failure he was becoming? To lose even this last tentative strand of his wife’s love because of these endless, mire-bound, squabbles? He patted Hasta’s neck, walked away, his cloak and shoulders hunched. But if he let her go he would lose the woman who made him feel ten feet tall and capable of doing anything.
The guard on watch called a good-night, Arthur returned the salute. As well it was raining; lonely tears could not be seen in the rain.
XX
The river Gwy was high. Fed by rain-swollen tributaries it lapped over low-lying banks, swamping tracts of grass and reeds. A fallen tree, with tendril branches and half its trunk covered by swirling water, became an inviting place for the children to play.
Llacheu leant forward, clinging perilously to the exposed part of the trunk. With the tip of his tongue poking between his lips in concentration he prodded a stick into the debris caught between the submerged branches, raised a triumphant cheer as the current swirled away dead
leaves, twigs and the sodden body of a fledgling bird. On the bank, his feet squelching, Gwydre threw stones into the racing torrent making a challenge of aiming each further than the last. Amr, four months short of his second birthday, stamped his sandals in the mud, delighting in the delicious sucking noise and the cool squelch of mud oozing between his toes.
It had been a warm, pleasant day. Arthur was in a good mood; the cattle had been delivered and the abbot had sent a letter of apology. Words spoken in public would have been preferable, but Arthur realised those occasions when it was best not to push Fortuna’s help over-far. Tomorrow, the tents would be taken down and they would move on.
The sun was setting. A pink sky hung behind heavily shadowed trees ranked in solemn rows along the opposite bank, their reflections casting, black and distorted, onto liquid-gold water. Summer sounds: a chorus of evening song birds, unobserved little animals rustling their way through concealed grass tunnels, the rushing gurgle of flood water and the distant noise of camp. Men laughing, a dog barking, a horse neighing. Somewhere close, two men practised with their swords, their grunts heavy, accompanied by the clash of metal on shield. A sudden triumphant shout as one went down.
A contented, warm summer’s evening with time to relax tense muscles and ease the mind away from the brash business of the day. A quiet time for the passing of quiet pleasures.
Arthur felt happier with himself, in good humour. He threaded fresh bait to his line, cast. The fish were biting well.
At dawn, three Turmae of Artoriani had ridden around to the rear of the monastery. Whether Arthur’s men would have fire-arrowed the hotchpotch of scattered buildings if the abbot had gone back on his word was another matter. It was a bluff the good abbot was not prepared to call; the gates had opened, the beef cattle were driven out. The matter settled.
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