Ider rubbed his neck. His body was stiff and sore from days of riding at a fast pace. He trundled on with his report. “A week or so back, we saw the smoke, black smoke on the horizon, curling up into the sky. Raids are a part of living so close to the Wall. Most folk insist on keeping to their farms; they know that risk and accept it.”
“So what happened that was different this year?” Arthur prodded carefully for information, aware that the lad’s exaggeration was a deception to hide the stark fear. Arthur had noted how his hands were trembling.
“Those folk fleeing into Eboracum – Saex folk as well as British – spoke of a great army approaching down over the northern moors. That bastard whoreson Lot. He has joined with the blue-painted people.”
Arthur raised his eyes from the intent scrutiny of Ider, squinted at Cei. The Picti? With Lot? Slowly he sucked in his breath, released it as slowly. How in the Bull’s name had Morgause managed that?
Cei’s returned look was as meaningful. Why in the name of God had they not heard of this? What had happened to their paid spies, the lines of communication so carefully set up between the north and south? Damn them all to hell, Arthur had received not a single word of Morgause allying with the Picti!
Arthur stood, brooding. Things had been quiet these past months. Last winter, and the one before that, had been hard throughout the country, particularly in the north, and then Morgause had been busy with a girlchild, and that was all he had heard, nothing more. Mithras! How had she joined with the Picti?
Ider reached forward, grasped Arthur’s wrist, his large hand gripping tight, clutching, as if he needed to cling to some tangible reality. “We laughed, said it was only another raiding party.” Quietly he added, “It wasn’t.”
Earlier, Arthur had said he was jesting by considering the possibility of ignoring Ambrosius’s plea. Eboracum had refused to pay any tribute to the Pendragon these past years, had solidly gone its own way. A sense of revenge was urging him to let his uncle and those idiot men of Council drown in their own muck. But he could not do that. Not if Lot were allied to the Picti.
Who was it who said he would never resist the call to battle? Ah, Gwenhwyfar. She had said that to him, some time, some place; Arthur could not remember where or when. He turned away from Cei and Ider, walked slowly across the tent, lifted the flap, stared out across the trampled grass of the ground before his command tent. Opposite, the standards were placed in a cluster of proud brilliance. Red Turma’s flag, Blue’s, Green’s… his own dragon, the tubular shape stirring slightly in a light breeze. Gwenhwyfar.
There was an ache inside him, like the throbbing, persistent moan of an unhealed wound. A raw, empty pain that would not, would not, ease. It was ten months now. Ten long months had they been parted, since Amr had drowned.
Beyond the standards stretched lines of tents, eight men to a tent. And beyond those, rising to meet the grey-blue of the afternoon sky, the great ditch and embankment Arthur had ordered built. The defined border between his land and Ambrosius’s. He observed the man on watch; the unhurried surveillance of a designated guard set every quarter of one mile, Arthur’s eyes following as the man turned, walked back along this side of the high, imposing palisade that topped the great turf bank towering over the ditch on the far side. How many had Morgause harnessed? Were hundreds on the rampage? Thousands? Was the entire north about to go up in flames?
Morgause. Youngest sister to his own mother, and his father’s whore. Morgause. A woman who created power through the infliction of fear and pain. The only living person the Pendragon feared. For years he had borne her cruelties, enduring a childhood of hidden tears and silent-suffered hurting. And then he had discovered his true identity, and lost the man he had loved within the same knowing. Uthr had been his father, and the boy had not known it. Neither had Morgause. She had held plans of her own: to bear Uthr a son and become his queen when he defeated Vortigern. Only Vortigern had slain Uthr and Uthr already had a son. Morgause would never forgive the boy for being Uthr’s cub. And Arthur could never forgive Morgause her evil.
Again, the Pendragon scanned the defensive structure that sat guard over Ambrosius’s territory. His uncle was an idealistic fool but no more than that. A fool with a dream. Were they not all fools where there was a dream to follow? He had cherished his own dreams when he was a boy, raw spirited and with the world seemingly at his command. That summer when he had become Pendragon was the last he had seen of Morgause. He had been in Gwynedd with Cunedda. And Gwenhwyfar.
Gwenhwyfar.
He swung round, decision made. It was time old wounds were healed – before the bitch Morgause inflicted new ones. “The Artoriani will ride direct to Eboracum under your command, Cei.” He crossed to a tent pole, took down his baldric and sword from where they hung, began to buckle them on. “Though I doubt there is anything you can do for them now, save bury the dead. I’ll meet up with you as soon as I can.”
Cei opened his arms, puzzled. “Why, where are you going?”
Arthur was leaving the tent, he whistled the pup, who came instantly awake and bounded to his side, tail and rear end wagging.
“Gwynedd.”
Blustering, Cei rushed a few paces after him. “Gwynedd? What in God’s name for?”
Arthur’s long, energetic strides had taken him beyond the tent, he stopped, retraced his steps, met Cei’s exasperated expression. “There are men in Gwynedd who know more of those northern hunting runs up beyond the Wall than Lot ever will.” He nodded at Ider. “You have done well, lad. There may be a place for you within the Artoriani. We will see how you make out.” And he was gone.
Ider swelled with pride. The Artoriani! Was that possible? He thrust the suggestion aside, he would never be good enough, Arthur took only the best for his Artoriani. “I heard,” he said to Cei, “that Lady Gwenhwyfar’s been in Gwynedd some months now.” He dropped the words casually into the ensuing silence.
Cei answered absently. “Aye, she has.”
“I heard, too, that things are not so good between them, that they parted with harsh words.”
“Lad,” Cei snapped, striding away from the tent, “your ears hear too much and your mouth flaps too wide.”
XXIV
Arthur was assisting with the final assessment of horses. Although each mount was thoroughly checked morning and evening for injury and lameness, the Pendragon insisted on extra examination before a march. He straightened from feeling the heat in a young stallion’s swollen fetlock and found Elen standing waiting patiently before him. She was an attractive young thing, dark-haired and doe-eyed. She was also his cousin, last-born daughter to Uthr’s sister and Ambrosius Aurelianus’s niece. Arthur’s guest: a polite term for hostage.
“I understand we are leaving,” she said. “To where do we go?”
Arthur nodded to the cavalryman holding the horse indicating he might be led away. “Stand him a while in the river, cold water may bring the swelling down, though he’ll not be fit to work for some days.” He rested his left hand on his sword pommel, answered her with a curt, “I go north.” He began walking in the direction of the hospital tent. There were always a few men loitering there, he needed to see how many had genuine illness or injury.
Tossing her proud little head, Elen fell into step beside him. Her fingers brushed and caught his, drawing his hand secretively into the folds of her skirt. “And I? Where do I go?” Her voice rippled as smooth as fine, eastern silk.
Arthur saw no reason to make an answer. Elen had come into his keeping by an accidental miscalculation – a mistake he had quickly exploited. Her mother had died and she was to pass into Ambrosius’s wardship until marriage – unfortunate that she had ridden through Arthur’s territory to reach him. As son to the eldest brother, Arthur was legally head of the family, not Ambrosius. He had decided to exercise his rights and control the wardship himself. His uncle had been furious, but then, that was Arthur’s intention.
Elen was pouting. “You could have left private word th
at you are leaving on the morrow. I found out from the servants.”
“The right and proper way for you to hear.”
They were entering a narrow way between the fodder storage tents, the grain kept rodent and weatherproof in barrels raised from the ground on wooden pallets. Stepping swiftly before Arthur, Elen blocked his path, stood close, her breath sweet on his face, breasts brushing his chest. “Until this day, you have not bothered yourself with the right and proper way of things, my Lord.” She stretched up, kissing him sensuously on the mouth, her body pressing closer. He did not respond. Pouting, she pulled away.
“Yesterday, and for all the days before, you would have kissed me back.”
Arthur placed a hand on each of her arms, attempting to move her aside. “That was yesterday. Today I am busy.”
Elen stood firm, irritation setting on her face. “Then shall I come to you tonight? I need more of your… ” she fluttered her lashes, “tutoring.”
Arthur persisted, tried again to move past. “You knew enough before knowing me.”
Her hand was creeping along the inside of his thigh. She said suggestively, “Any fool can learn to read and write, my Lord, it takes practice to do so well.”
Smoothing her gown, running her hand over breasts and hips, Elen drew attention to her slim figure. That would, to her recent discovered annoyance, soon be thickening. She dreaded the prospect. Pregnant women looked so ungainly and ugly. So old!
“I have much to do, Elen. I am sorry.” Arthur lifted her and swung her around, set her down on the narrow pathway behind him and strode on.
“Not as sorry as you are going to be!”
Arthur stopped short and turned back to her. “Are you threatening me?”
“Telling you the facts.” Her slit eyes and pinched nose corresponded with her venom, looked every inch a snake about to strike. “Our uncle is already angered that you hold me as hostage, but he believes I have been kept safe. He will be outraged when he learns of our bedding together.”
“And is he, then, likely to learn of it?” Arthur’s sarcasm gave away nothing of his anger, his voice was low and calm, eyes iron hard. He stood very still.
“When the child I bear becomes apparent, he will.”
Then the Pendragon laughed, head tossed back, his collar-length slightly curled brown hair ruffling with the movement. “Bull of Mithras! You expect me to fall for that time-worn trick?”
Her dark eyes blazed. Childishly she stamped her foot. “This is no trick! I carry your child, Arthur. He will be born come September.”
Elen stared, defiant, at the man before her. Arthur was in his twenty-seventh year, she, barely ten and six. These months within a military encampment could have been as a living death to a girl who loved dancing and chatter and clothes, the frivolities of a noble-born young woman’s pampered life. The other women were soldiers’ wives – or whores – the lower classes, beneath her accustomed quality of friendships. As the King’s cousin she was offered every honour, every courtesy, but were she ever to try riding her horse unescorted through the gateway, were she to climb out and over that massive defence work… except, she had not tried it because she was in love with Arthur. Were the gates to be held wide and her manumission given, she would not leave. Not while she had Arthur.
He was a rugged, handsome man, his expression and temper strikingly fierce, with a passion for his men and horses, and for the sharing of love, that cavorted and soared with the needs of the day or night. His dark hair framed wind and sun-tanned skin, heightening those brown, all-seeing eyes. Their loving had come about unexpectedly, unplanned, a thing that had happened as naturally as the moon follows the sun. She had been angry, confused – frightened – when the Pendragon had refused to allow her to join their uncle. She had raged, pleaded, cried, not eaten, and then Arthur himself had come into her allotted tent to speak with her. He had not intended to bed her, but she had wept on his shoulder and begged to be set free. A young girl, with only a maidservant among the hostile environment of battle-hardened men and enduring women. Arthur had given in, his point had been made to Ambrosius anyway. She could go, he told her; had held her close with the intention of giving comfort, nothing more.
That had been six months past. A man who had a wife he had not seen since the last spring, who had lost her loving and care, and who grieved for his sons needed the tender touch of gentle hands, the heat and careless breathlessness of lovemaking. But while Arthur used Elen to fill a need, she had loved him from that first night, and love can become possessive for a girl too young to know the difference between that and physical passion.
As a new spring approached she had begun to suspect Arthur’s mind was not as attentive as his body. He showed a restlessness of spirit that, until this morning, had puzzled her. Now she understood.
“You are going to Gwenhwyfar, aren’t you?” The scorn in her voice was scalding.
Arthur had no answer. With a shock of discovery he suddenly realised he felt nothing for this girl. Nothing, not even pity. It was as if he had been dwelling in some timeless faerie world of unreality. Elen had been there, had not resisted, so he had taken her. It was as simple as that.
“I have not lied or deceived you, Elen. You know I have a wife.”
She clenched her fists and pressed them hard against her temples before holding her delicate hands imploringly out to him. “I believed your honeyed words of endearment, believed you wanted and needed me. I thought you would think enough of me to set her aside, to take me with you as your new wife when time came for you to go.” She lunged forward, clutched at his arm. “You must take me, Arthur, where else can I go if I am not yours?”
Arthur laughed at her absurdity, her naivety. “How can I take you with me?” He took her chin between his thumb and finger. “Where would I take you? You would not fit well with army life on the march, my bright painted butterfly.”
Lamely, pleading, “Then where will I go? I have nowhere unless I am with you.”
Arthur jerked one shoulder, flapped his hands as if he did not know, or care. “To where you were originally meant to go. Ambrosius was, after all, named as your official guardian.”
“Uncle Ambrosius?” she squeaked. “I cannot go to him, I carry your child!”
“Mine?” Arthur’s tone was heavy with sarcasm.
“Our uncle assumes I am maiden pure,” she replied, defiant. “He assumes you have treated me with all honour. He will be furious when he discovers what has happened.”
“You could persuade him yours is the second Virgin birth,” Arthur said unkindly. “He’s holy enough to believe it.”
Elen knew Arthur did not follow the faith of a Christian, his was the soldier’s god, Mithras, the slayer of the White Bull. But even with that knowing his blasphemy shocked her. She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide with horror. Then her face crumpled into tears.
The Pendragon felt a sudden impulse to laugh, an imagined, lurid scene unfurling in his mind. The saintly uncle, so passionate for his beliefs and ideals, so devoted to his religion. Arthur could see him on his knees before an altar – with Elen, the whoring niece, lying atop of it, pleasuring any who cared to sample her wares.
His amusement invoked a hurl of abuse from her. “You seduced me, lured me to your bed with false promises. What could I do to resist you, the great Pendragon?”
“I seduced you! What? With those large eyes of yours expressing a message as clear as a summer sky?” He moved suddenly and took sharp hold of her wrist, twisting it roughly. “You knew what you were doing, Elen, you came easy to me. Too easy. Not for one moment do I suppose I was the first to take you, nor was mine the only bed you have burrowed into these past months.”
“No!” she screamed, attempting to pull away. “That is a lie, an outright lie!” She snatched her hand free of his grip and attempted to rake his face with her nails. He blocked the move, held her at arm’s length, her kicking feet striking harmlessly at the air between them.
“Ah,
my dear,” Arthur let her go and she stumbled backwards, fell against the tent. He began to turn away. “If you play with a burning brand, you must be prepared to get your fingers scorched.”
Panting, her hair escaping its carefully dressed style, Elen sagged against the unsupportive leather of the tent. “You are disowning me,” she gasped as realisation finally became clear. “You are denying me and your child!”
Arthur strolled away.
“I intend to tell him!” Elen shuffled to her feet, hitched her skirts and ran a few helpless paces after Arthur. “I shall tell our uncle you raped me, he will believe me because I am his loving, innocent niece and you – you are a lying bastard!”
Arthur ignored her, strode on.
“Arthur,” she pleaded, sinking to her knees, genuine tears now falling. “You cannot do this to me! Take me with you as your mistress, your whore. I ask nothing more. Ambrosius will disown me when he learns what we have done, when he knows about the child!”
Arthur had reached the end of the narrow way, swung left and out of sight.
XXV
Nightfall. The men were ready to move at first light. Never content with the daily routine of barrack life, whether within an encampment or housed between turf and stone walls, they celebrated the prospect of forthcoming action enthusiastically with strong ale, fine wine, dancing and song.
A central mound of wood and furze blazed on the parade ground, with smaller fires scattered like chicks around the mother hen. Gathered to the blazing warmth of their fires were the nine hundred men of Arthur’s elite Artoriani; with them the spear-bearers, smiths, leather workers, the armourers, medics, unsung recruits and the three centuries of permanent infantry. Men laughing, exchanging tales or boasting of conquest in battle and bed, their breath clouding white against the chill of frost. The roasted meat had been good. The drink even better.
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