Pendragon's Banner

by Helen Hollick

  She smiled again, that half-smile, as she took another step from beneath the overhang of trees. “Oh I know you, Arthur the Pendragon. I have known you since… ” she fluttered her hand, tossing her hair back with a slight shake of her head. Her bright eyes were watching him, looking into him. “Since before the dawn of my time.”

  A whine came from within the trees, followed by a howl, picked up by others, rising almost instantly to wild baying. “They’ve found the cur-son!” someone shouted. There was a general shuffling, men adjusting their grip on their heavy boar spears, attention, anxiously searching the edge of the trees. Waiting. When Arthur looked again, quickly, over his shoulder, the woman was gone. Nothing to show she had been there, no movement of grass or branch, no footprint on the frost-wet ground. Then an outraged pig’s squeal and the pack baying the find. Snarling. Yelping. Silence. A Decurion exchanged a grim look with Arthur.

  “One’s gone in, he’s had it.”

  Arthur nodded. Damn the dog! Good hounds were hard to come by, and some of these used this day were of the best. And damn that boar. Hunting dogs were valuable animals.

  “Gwydre, step back,” Llacheu called to his brother. The younger boy waved him to silence. How could he see from back there? He wanted to miss nothing, see everything.

  “Gwydre!” Llacheu insisted, “step back.”

  Gwydre would be seeing his eighth summer this year. A lad with the likelihood of taking after his father in height, his mother’s colouring. A boy full of laughter and mischief. Who, like his da, would never do as he was asked.

  The hounds were giving full tongue. Something large was crashing about in the undergrowth, coming nearer. Arthur turned at his eldest son’s voice, saw Gwydre hopping from one leg to the other. He motioned with his hand, letting go his firm grip on the spear. “Get back, boy! This is no game!”

  The thicket of overgrown reeds and withies parted with a crash of splintering bark, a great blue-black creature erupted, sticks and twigs showering in all directions as he hurtled out, grunting, head low, jaws slavering. Blood of the gored hound dripped from his left tusk, covered the bristles of his snout. At sight of the men he faltered, small, pig eyes darting from man to man.

  With a gasp of indrawn breath, Arthur’s hands clamped on the spear. Mithras, the thing was big! For a fleeting moment he had to fight the overwhelming instinct to run. Boars, despite their bulk, were fast creatures, unpredictable and fatally dangerous if underestimated. The hold on a boar spear must be right, the charge met and challenged with the full force of the creature’s own weight, the spear driven clean through chest and heart. One hand too low down the shaft and it could be the hunter not the hunted who lay squealing with the death blood gushing.

  The boar’s attention diverted to Gwydre, the lad’s cloak swirling as he turned to run in sudden panic at the appearance of this great, bristling monster that stank of hot breath, blood and pig. Arthur screamed at his son to be still, keep still! No time to think – he leapt in the animal’s path, crouched, his spear braced against his hip. The grip wasn’t right – no time to change it.

  The boar saw the man and the thrusting spear. He knew all about spears. The jagged scars on his thick hide were testament to that. He swerved, meeting the blade at an angle, the pain bursting into him, piercing chest and lung; black blood spewed onto hoar-frosted grass. The shaft bent. Arthur’s body took the force of the slamming weight, pain ripping up his arm as the spear drove into the boar. He hung on, dragged along as others rushed to help, spears aimed, daggers drawn. The shaft broke, snapped in a shatter of splintered wood and Arthur fell, rolled, bruised and shaken, blood, his own and the boar’s, covering hands and thigh where a tusk had ripped through leather bracae and flesh. And the great boar turned to fight, his tusks thrashing, squealing defiance and rage.

  Free of the man’s weight the boar charged, heedless of injury, pain-maddened by the spear blade and taste of blood in his nose and mouth. A second spear plunged into his quarters. He did not even feel it.

  It was all happening so quickly! So much noise and confusion! Gwydre hovered, uncertain between running and standing still, frightened by the sounds and smells. The domestic farm boars were large creatures, not to be tangled with, but this creature was as big again as the biggest pig. Gwydre had never seen anything so grossly huge. He panicked, ran. Heard his father roaring, his brother screaming, vaguely saw a fluttered movement to his left, a woman running forward flapping her arms, waving her cloak, her mouth open, shouting something at him, but he could not hear over the belling of excited dogs and the incessant pig squealing that went on and on and on. Saw only the red, angry eyes of the boar.

  He felt nothing as the brute’s tusk drove into him and shook him aside with the ease of a spirited wind blowing a fallen leaf. Felt nothing as he was flung several feet into the air and crumpled to the ground, dead.

  Part Two

  The Banner Flies

  April 465

  I

  Caer Cadan, Arthur’s stronghold, was built on an isolated plateau of eighteen or so acres, rising two hundred and fifty feet above the vivid, fresh, spring colours of the new-growing Summer Land. Tall, unruly trees had encroached along and up the crumbling defensive works of the ditches and banks, the scrub and grass beneath their spread of foliage scrambling thick and tangled. Abandoned after the Romans had settled Britain, the Caer, for so many centuries a proud Dun of the Celtic peoples, had sat nodding quiet and lonely under the summer sun, or sleeping sound beneath winter-covered mantles of snow, unused until Arthur came to awaken its spirit and revive new life into its ancient heart. Caer Cadan blossomed as the Artoriani laid aside their shields and spears and took up instead axes and carpenters tools. From the slumbering vacancy of the abandonment, the complex building rose, phoenix like, to become the pride of her King; a stronghold to dominate the south-west, a royal place from where Arthur could finally become the ruling King that he had always intended to be. Britain was his, and they had, at least for a while, a unity of peace. Prosperity rose as rapidly as the timbered walls of the King’s Hall, kitchens, stabling, barns and dwelling places. Those trees had been felled, the spring cleared of choking debris and the ditches re-dug, the banks re-built. Timbered walkways trudged along the topmost, highest bank and double gateways secured entrance and exit beneath commanding watchtowers.

  Some of the building, the stone facing in particular, was crudely fashioned for already the craft of Roman ways was becoming lost, but there was enough memory to build strong, and the Hall, sixty-three by thirty-four feet, sighted along the axial ridge atop the central summit of the plateau, stood king-proud over stronghold and surrounding country. From here beat the heart of the place, and from here Arthur lived and ruled as king, father and husband, enjoying with his Queen, Gwenhwyfar, this first springtime settled in their own place, anticipating together the expectation of contentment.

  “You ride to Lindinis on the morrow then?” Arthur tossed the question at Gwenhwyfar from the table where he sat composing a letter to his ex-wife. They were in their private chamber to the rear of the Hall, and he had written one short sentence only, had no idea what else to write. The woman had the effrontery to offer her services to act as mediator between himself and Aesc of the Cantii. Hengest was dead and the son now King. Treaties would need renegotiating; the dance began again. The Pendragon felt quite capable of initiating such a meeting for himself – yet Winifred was Aesc’s niece, she could be, the gods forbid, useful.

  This was their private chamber, a quiet place aside from the daily bustle of family life. As with the Hall and most of the other buildings of solid timber posts, it had wattle and daub plastered walls and a reed-thatched roof. The chamber, warm and comfortable, adjoined the public place of the King’s Hall. Built in the British style, there was very little that was Roman about Caer Cadan, save the luxury of interior furnishings in this private, homely, dwelling place. Gwenhwyfar had her high-backed wicker chair, Arthur, his favourite couch – and their large bed
with the carved wooden headboard, rope and leather webbing, and wool stuffed mattress. The gay wall hangings were richly fashioned, the candle and lamp-stands silver and bronze. Gwenhwyfar’s pride was the valued red Samian pottery that, even when her mother had been young, was becoming a rarity to own.

  Arthur had allowed lavish wealth for his Hall and home. They deserved the pleasure of luxury after enduring for so long the mud-slush of marching camps and damp, cold tents.

  Smoothing the stylus through the last word he had written on the soft beeswax, Arthur looked across at Gwenhwyfar, quirked a smile at her extreme expression of irritation. She never was a woman who settled comfortably to a woman’s work. A memory of the past flashed into his mind, of her as a child, declaring hotly that she would rather learn to hunt than sew.

  She was standing at the loom, a vertical, wooden structure, bending slightly and grumbling to herself, unpicking a knot in the weave. Then she dropped the wooden shuttle, sending the stone weights dangling at the end lengths of the warp threads as it clattered, unravelling thread, to the floor.

  “Sod it,” she cursed.

  Stifling his laughter, Arthur came from his desk and helped her retrieve the wool, patiently unpicked the knot for her. “I do better at this than you,” he laughed. “Happen we should swap. You could write to Winifred for me?”

  His wife glowered at him. The reminder of Winifred was another addition to her sour mood. Flouncing to a stool, taking a goblet of wine from the table as she passed, Gwenhwyfar seated herself with a huff of indignation. “I hate weaving,” she announced. “Enid professes to enjoy it. I can’t think what’s wrong with the woman.”

  Returning to his desk, Arthur placed a quick kiss on her forehead. “Lindinis?” he asked again.

  “Aye, I intend to leave first thing, there is much I need. It will be easier to ride to the market than summon traders here.”

  Squinting at the few words he had written, Arthur said, “You will take Llacheu?”

  “Of course, he will enjoy it.”

  Arthur said nothing, sat staring at the wax tablet.

  He had taken Gwydre’s death so hard, shouldering the blame atop that of Amr’s cruel ending. Gwenhwyfar stood, crossed to him and from behind placed her arms about him. She was hurting too, some days it seemed as if the pain would never, never ease, but she had been strong this time, able to take Arthur in her arms and help him to weep, secure in the knowledge of her love. A love she gave without condition.

  Why the strength this time, why not last? Well, she was content now, settled and at rest. They had their own home, their own Hall, and there had been no fighting between Saex or British, no quarrelling with Ambrosius or the Council and Church for many months – nothing, save those little irritations that squirmed from Winifred’s rat-nest of course. When Amr had died it had been as a last straw added to her overbalancing heap of doubts and weariness. But now her doubts were gone – almost – and a bright, burning energy replaced her weariness, an energy that made the pain of Gwydre’s death easier to bear. No, it was Arthur this time who carried the weight of grief, him that she worried about.

  “Llacheu will be in no danger,” she pointed out. “We ride to our nearest town with adequate escort through our own territory.”

  Reaching his arms behind his head, Arthur clasped her neck, bringing her closer to him. “Who rides escort?”

  “Red Turma.”

  “Ah.” He let her go, started shuffling the several piles of unread correspondence about his desk; parchment scrolls and wax tablets, petitions and complaints. The tedious business of being a king.

  Gwenhwyfar returned to her loom; the plaid was wrong, she had missed alternating the colour four rows back. Oh well. What had he meant by ah? Happen she ought to ask, but then, it was probably nothing, just one of his irritating ways. She looked again at the weave. When she had made his banner, the red and gold dragon that writhed across a white flag, she had stitched well, making a thing that, even to her own eyes was well crafted and exquisitely done. But then, she had wanted to make that, had wanted to create something special for Arthur, and for Llacheu when he followed. Impatient, she began unpicking the wrongly fashioned weave. If only the threads of life could be so easily unravelled when something went wrong!

  II

  The courtyard lay in a rough-shaped rectangle between the stables, the Hall and the kitchens. It was small but serviceable; a place where the horses could be brought up for mounting or tending. Only recently cobbled, through the winter it had squelched with churned mud. The fourth side was open, giving way to a narrow track that wound down the rise of this, the highest ground of the Caer, to the southern gateway. The north and east gates had grander, wider tracks that strode their way through the complex of buildings to the large, public doors of the King’s Hall. This courtyard was a more private place, although it was often, as today, crowded with men, horses and the ever-present scrabble of dogs.

  Watching as Ider helped Gwenhwyfar mount, Arthur noticed how the lad’s gaze never left her face, and held a look of saturated adoration. The Pendragon shrugged, dismissed the uneasy feeling of jealousy that seemed to bother him so often of late. Most of the men adored Gwenhwyfar – who could blame them! Ach, he was seeking shadows on a cloudy day. The younger lads, aye and even the older men, fell over their own feet to take a chance at serving their queen, that was as it should be. Except it always seemed to be Ider who was there first, always Ider helping her to mount, or to fetch and carry.

  Gwenhwyfar was mounted, and riding with her escort towards the gateway. Llacheu was on his fine grey pony, chattering away to the Decurion, the officer in charge. Always talking, that boy, as noisy as a squawking magpie! Arthur turned back to the Hall, fighting an impulse to run after them, to say he would ride with them. What in the name of Mithras was wrong with him? All these dark fears and churlish doubts; some days, it was like living a waking nightmare. A nightmare where water swirled and a boy’s hand reached for rescue, rescue from a great boar with blood eyes and stinking breath.

  Fifteen men, half a Turma, rode with his wife and son, fifteen experienced, loyal men – this was ridiculous, there was much to be done this day, best to shrug nonsense thoughts aside and get on with matters that needed attention. Yet still he looked to where the last horse trotted beneath the wooden guard tower and out through the open gateway, listened to the sounds of hooves clattering down the cobbled lane. Morgause had set these dark forebodings, she with her high laugh and gloating eyes, Morgause who delighted in nurturing the belief of her witchcraft. If you come after me, Pendragon, none of your sons shall live…

  Yns Witrin. A place of the old gods and of the new. Of sanctuary and solitude. Where lived the Lake Lady. A place where Gwenhwyfar said she had found peace.

  Morgause’s threats were no more than that, threats. He knew the woman, knew the extent of her evil-minded ways. He called her witch as a derisive word – she held no power, no magic, not beyond the allure a beautiful woman had over a man keen for lust. He would have known if she had more, for he had suffered from her cruelties long enough as a child. Arthur chewed his lower lip, stood squinting across the distance at that hill. Yet she professed to be a priestess of the Goddess, had spent a while over there beneath the impressive Tor of Yns Witrin with the Ladies who lived by the Lake. The lake which even in the hottest of summers never dried. There was only one of the Ladies now, so folk said; a young woman, the last of her kind here in the Christian-dominated south. One Lady serving the Goddess, as Morgause professed also to do. Arthur thought he had seen her, this lone priestess, suspected she and the black-haired faerie-woman who had tried so gallantly to save Gwydre from the boar were the same person. One day he would ride to Yns Witrin and find out for certain, thank her. It had been a brave thing that she had done, to run as she had, attempting to divert that great brute’s attention. Arthur turned again, intending to make for the Hall, but stopped. Damn it, one day might never come. There were always so many things to be approached ‘o
ne day’.

  Impulsively, he shouted for his horse to be made ready. He needed something to ease this black mood from his throbbing head. Something to make him forget Gwydre, and Amr, to cease this incessant worry about Llacheu. And the Lady would know of Morgause. Would know whether she truly held the power of life or death over his sons.

  III

  The tavern in Lindinis was crowded. These bustling market days were always welcome to shopkeepers who needed the extra trade. Ider pushed through first, making way to the only table unoccupied. With his hand he dusted the bench and helped his Lady be seated. Llacheu scrambled beside his mother, who invited the other two men of her escort to sit also. Damos and Caradog shuffled along the opposite bench as Ider, swaggering to the bar, called loudly for wine.

  “Can’t you see I’m busy?” the little dark-haired man behind the counter growled, pouring a tankard of ale with one hand, busily stirring a ladle round with the other. Casually, Ider took the ladle from him, stirred a couple more rotations and scooped some stew from the earthenware jar embedded into the counter. He sniffed it, took a small taste. “This good enough for my Lady?” he asked.

  The bartender scowled at him. “Good enough for a queen that stuff.”

  Ider’s answering grin echoed the sarcasm in his voice as he leant across the counter and said, “It had better be—it is for the Queen and her escort that I buy it.”

  For a moment the tavern-keeper was tempted to match a similar scathing reply, but he glanced at the woman seated at the corner table, noticed her copper-bright hair, her rich clothing, then the golden torque around her throat. No ordinary woman wore such an item of value. She was talking to a boy fidgeting beside her.