Their progress was painfully slow. It hardly mattered, thought Oesc grimly, since it was becoming increasingly apparent that he was lost. Even if he had known this countryside, the mists would have made everything seem strange. And yet to keep moving, even with no goal, was better than bleating like a lost sheep in hopes that someone would find him.
He could see nothing but the shadows of tree trunks in the mist, but downhill, he knew, the forest grew thicker still. His only hope was to struggle up to the bare open slopes that crowned the Downs, where he might strike the ancient track that crossed them. Local legend held that these hills had been well-peopled in ancient days, when the world was warmer and there were no iron ploughs to turn the heavier lowland soils. One still sometimes found the marks of ancient round houses in the soil. Even today, Oesc might hope to encounter a shepherd, or a pack-man trudging across the hills.
Once he found the track he could follow it back to the river, and have a good laugh at his escort, who must be quite frantic by now. But he had his bow, and had learned which of the spring greens could be eaten. He might be separated from his friends, but at least there were no foes hunting him. He was still better off than he would have been in Artor’s army.
The same storms that pounded Cantuware had drenched the north as well, saturating the soil and exposing Artor’s army to attack by the elements as well as the enemy. Rising waters lapped the raised Roman causeways, wagons bogged down in the sticky mud and animals went lame. Rain spoiled the rations they carried, and though water surrounded them, it was thick and foul. The fact that these hazards had been anticipated did not make them easier to bear. More than once men wished for Merlin to magic the clouds away, but the sorcerer was in the north on some errand of his own.
The Anglians, well aware of their danger, made good use of the country’s natural defenses. And yet, though bowstrings stretched and leather rotted, still the Britons came on. In a battle near the ruins of Lactodorum they faced the Eslinga Saxons and had their first victory. Artor took oaths and hostages from their leaders and sent them eastward to Durolipons to garrison the fens against their former allies. Two more muddy skirmishes, hardly worth dignifying with the name of battle, could be counted as victories, since it was the Anglians who retreated when they were done.
Artor led his army along the old legionary road beside the Blackwater. By the feast of Pentecost the royal forces could see the smoke of Anglian cookfires in Lindum across the marshes to the northwest, where the Blackwater, curving into the lowlands, had breached its banks and made a lake of the land. Even in high summer the country of the Lindenses was largely water meadow and marsh. In a wet spring, it seemed an inland sea, in which the scattered bits of higher ground stood like islands. To beseige the city, surrounded by marsh in the midst of hostile territory, was not an attractive prospect, given the problems the Britons had already experienced with supply. But perhaps Icel, unfamiliar with both cities and seiges, would not be aware of Artor’s difficulties.
Two days after Pentecost, the king sent one of his captured Saxon chieftains with a challenge. If the Anglians would wager all upon one battle, the Britons would abide by its outcome—to take back all the Lindenses lands if they won, and to abandon the campaign and cede the territory to Icel if their foes had the victory. When the delegation had gone, Artor ordered his army to make camp. The cooks began preparing the first hot meal they had had for a fortnight, and every warrior was set to repairing and preparing weapons and gear.
For three days they remained in camp, waiting for an answer. Then, leaving the baggage train on the high ground, they set out once more upon the road to Lindum.
“Be thankful, man—it could still be raining!” Gualchmai’s beard and mustache glittered with fine droplets as he grinned. The clouds still hung low, but the weather had warmed, and the earth was giving back its excess moisture in the form of patchy mists that drifted among the trees.
“What’s this, then? Liquid sunshine?” growled Betiver, shifting uncomfortably in the saddle. His thighs were chafed from riding in wet breeches and his nose was stuffy. But he was luckier than some, for the flux, plague of armies, was beginning to thin their line.
“Man, it would be counted a fine day in my own country!”
Betiver shook his head, wishing they had stayed in camp a day longer. But they might stay for a week and still be plagued by bad weather, while in the meantime the Anglians could be filling Lindum with supplies and men. Here, the Blackwater ran to their right, more or less paralleling the road. But soon, as he recalled, it would make a bend to the westward, where it flowed through the marshy valley. The Romans had made a ford there, so that the road could continue straight along the narrow neck of higher ground that led towards the town.
“Soon we’ll be over the river, and then a straight march to Lindum it will be!” said Gwyhir, peering ahead. The mist had thickened. Only the ring of hooves on stone assured them they were still on the road.
“If the floods haven’t washed the ford away,” grumbled Betiver. Artor’s companions headed the column, though the king himself had stayed near the middle to hearten the men. There were scouts out ahead somewhere. He hoped they hadn’t gotten lost in this gloom. His stuffed nose was turning into a headache, and his back and shoulders hurt as well.
“Nay, they went out to look last night, remember, and reported that it was still whole,” Gwyhir replied. He was, like his brother, exasperatingly cheerful in weather that made everyone else complain.
“If I were Icel, I would set stakes in it, or tear out the stones. He knows we must pass this way . . .”
“What’s that?” Gualchmai checked his mount, peering ahead. Betiver strained to see, wishing he were taller. A touch of damp air on one cheek was echoed by a shift in the intensity of the greyness before them.
“The fog is lifting—” he began. A flicker of light rippled through the mist. He stiffened as the wind strengthened, rolling back the mist to unveil the road before them, where morning sunlight gleamed from the well-honed points of a host of spears. With each moment the size of the army that faced them grew clearer. A British horn bugled alarm.
Betiver let out his breath on a long sigh. “It would seem that Icel has given us his answer, after all.”
Hooves clattered, and Artor pulled his big black horse to a halt beside them.
“Well. Now I know why our scouts did not return.” He was scanning the foe, calculating numbers and dispositions. The Anglians had formed up on the other side of the ford, on the last broad piece of solid ground before the land narrowed. “They’ve chosen well. The ground’s too soft for our heavy cavalry to flank them. Icel wants to force us into a slugging match. . . . we need some way to improve the odds.”
The king’s tone was detached, as if he were considering a board game. Could he really be that calm?
“Use your archers to soften them up, then,” suggested Gualchmai. “They’re mostly unarmored.”
“Not yet—” Artor frowned. “First, let’s try a parley.”
“Do you think it will do any good?” Gwyhir asked.
“No, but I need a better estimate of their numbers, and a check on the state of the ford.”
“I’ll go—” offered Gwyhir.
“Nay, that you will not! You’ve not the experience—” retorted his brother. The king shook his head.
“The task is for neither. Your eloquence is all in your sword arm, Gualchmai—” Artor grinned. “This requires sweet talk and flattery, so Icel won’t realize I’m playing for time.” He looked at Betiver, who sighed.
“I understand. Let me wear that white cloak of yours with all the gold embroidery and I’ll flatter him like an emperor.”
It was amazing, thought Betiver as he splashed through the ford, how the imminent expectation of a spear in the gut put other pains in perspective. He could hardly feel the aches with which he had begun the day.
At least the ford had not been damaged. Perhaps, he thought as he looked around him, the Angl
ians had considered that precaution superfluous. There were certainly a lot of them, drawn up in groups surrounding their chieftains. Icel sat his white stallion in the middle of the line. He was a big man with a fair mustache, glittering in a shirt of ringmail and a spangenhelm inlaid with figures of gods and heroes in gold.
Meeting that cold grey gaze, Betiver found that respect came easily. Icel’s homeland might be small compared to the empire, and poor, but he traced his descent, father to son, through a line of kings that went back to the god Woden, and that was an older lineage than either Artor or the emperor in Byzantium could claim.
“The king of the Britons has good warriors, but they are wet and weary. My men are fresh and strong,” said the Anglian king when Betiver had stated Artor’s terms. “It is not for him to demand surrender. This is our land now, and we will defend it. Eight hundred spears stand ready to prove my words—” He gestured. “We have heard much of Artor’s battles and are eager to fight him. Go tell him so—”
As Betiver rode back towards the British lines it occurred to him that the Eslingas and Middle Saxons had been eager too, and Artor had beaten them, but Icel had spoken truly, and his own side, battered and muddy, seemed a rag-tag excuse for an army next to the barbaric splendor of the warriors surrounding the Anglian king.
But though Betiver’s embassy had been fruitless, Artor had made good use of the delay. The British were armed and ready, their heavy cavalry in the middle, the archers positioned in the wings. The king was cantering along the lines, his red cloak bright against the black horse’s flanks, his armor gleaming dully in the sun. He listened to Betiver’s report with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
Then he wheeled the horse and came to a halt before the first line.
“Men of Britannia—” His voice was pitched to carry. “You have marched a weary way. But Lindum is in sight, and the Anglians have come out to make us welcome!” He waited for their answering laughter. “We have faced their kin three times already and beaten them. But Icel’s own warriors have not encountered our like before. We are the heirs of Rome and the children of this island. Draw up strength from this sacred soil, and we will prevail. One more battle, lads, and we will break them. The way to Lindum lies before us—win this one, and tonight we’ll lie in soft beds with roofs to keep out the rain!”
After the past few weeks, thought Betiver, dry beds sounded better than gold. He jerked the chin-strap of his helmet tight, wondering wistfully if the baths of Lindum were still usable. Artor was right. He would kill for the chance at a hot soak at the end of the day.
Artor lifted his hand and the air rang to the bitter calling of the horns. The enemy ran to meet them, intending to close the distance so there would be no room for a charge. A ripple of movement swept through the ranks of mounted men, and then the column was moving forward and Betiver’s awareness narrowed to the area above his horse’s ears through which he could see a glittering line of spearpoints that grew more distinct with every stride.
The air darkened as the archers let fly. The riders splashed through the ford. A horse went down on the right, where the bottom was treacherous, but the others kept their feet and labored up the far bank. An Anglian, outstripping his companions, cast a spear that sped past Artor’s shoulder and gashed the flank of the horse behind him. The animal squealed and lurched, but its rider kept it going. Gualchmai plucked a javelin from its loop and cast, and the Anglian went down.
First blood to us—thought Betiver, but now all his vision was filled with grimacing enemy faces. He dug his heels into the horse’s sides, striving for the momentum they would need to smash the Anglian line. More spears flew and he heard cries. One after another he reached for his own lances and threw. Then they were crashing into the first group of enemy warriors; for a moment the charge faltered, then they drove onward.
A spear jabbed up at him. Betiver swung his shield around to deflect it and pulled his sword from the sheath. It was all blade-work now, as their pace was slowed by crowding foes. But still they pushed onward, and then they were through. Artor called to them to form up again and hit the enemy from the rear. Light flared from his sword. In that moment of freedom Betiver heard shouting from the flanks. He blinked in confusion as figures rose up like ghosts from the misty waters. Then a familiar war cry shrilled above the clamor of battle and he laughed as Cunorix and his wild Irishmen emerged from the marshes and fell upon the foe.
Artor yelled again, and Betiver’s mount, catching the excitement, lurched into motion after the others. His sword arm swung up, and screaming, he charged back into the fray.
The bay horse lifted its head, ears flicking nervously, and Oesc stilled, listening. In another moment his duller ears caught the bleating of sheep. He let out his breath in a long sigh, only then admitting his fear that he might have wandered somehow into Nebhelheim, and would never find his way back to Middle-Earth again. Through the thinning mists a ewe gazed at him with a flat, disapproving stare that could only belong to the sheep kept by humankind. Then the herd dog caught his scent and dashed forward, barking.
“There, boy, down—I mean no harm—”
The dog, a brisk black-and-white beast with a plume of a tail, did not seem convinced. It continued to advance, growling, and he looked around for the shepherd.
He was waving his hands to repel the dog when something moved on the hill. He looked up, saw a blur in the air, and threw up his arm. There was a crack. He reeled, then gasped as pain flared through his arm like white fire. Someone was running towards him, whirling a slingshot in one hand and brandishing a staff in the other; Oesc stepped back, caught his heel in a root and went down.
The stick whistled through the air where his head had been. He rolled as it thwacked downward, and made a grab for his assailant. His good hand closed on a slim ankle and he pulled. The staff went flying and they grappled, rolling over and over in the wet grass.
His foe was wiry as a wildcat, but Oesc was a trained fighting man, and despite his useless arm, in a few moments his size and strength began to tell. It was only when he had got his opponent’s arm in a twist and the thrashing legs locked between his own long limbs that he realized his attacker was a girl.
For several moments neither could do more than gasp. He stared down into a heart-shaped face, flushed now with fury and surrounded by a Medusa-tangle of nut-brown hair. Her eyes were a gold-flecked brown, like amber, he thought, gazing into them, or honey-mead.
“A fine welcome you give to strangers here on the Downs,” he said finally.
“I thought you were a robber.” Her gaze fixed on the fine embroidery at the neck of his tunic, and the golden arm ring. “They’ve taken two sheep in the past week. I thought they’d come back again.” She tensed, trying to free herself, and he was abruptly aware that it was a female body that lay crushed beneath his own.
“It’s not mutton I would have from you—” He muttered, and kissed her, at first a light brush of the lips that held her still with surprise, and then hungrily, until she began to struggle once more beneath him and he came up for air, his heart beating hard in his breast.
“How dare you!” She got a hand free and tried to box his ear. He pinned her with his body, since he could not use his arm.
“You owe me some weregild—I think you’ve broken my arm—” he began, and felt her stiffen.
“You’re a Saxon!”
He stared at her, and realized they had been speaking in the British tongue.
“A Myrging, to be more precise, and your master—” he said then.
“Then you are a robber, after all! My grandfather was lord of this land!”
“You’re Prince Gorangonus’s kin? We’re well matched then, for my grandfather took Cantium away from him.” He grinned down as her face flushed with angry color once more. His body was urging him to take her, but this was no thrall to be tumbled on a hillside, even if at the moment she looked more like a troll-maid than the daughter of a royal house.
“Hengest’s bra
t—” On her lips it was a curse.
“Hengest’s heir,” he corrected softly, “and Cantium’s king . . .”
“How can you be the king, when you were born across the sea?” She had stopped struggling, and sorrow was extinguishing the fire in her eyes.
“So were the Romans, when they came here—” He released her and sat up, wincing as the movement jarred his arm. “And it was they who put your father’s fathers on that throne.”
“Perhaps, but it was my mother’s mothers who gave them the right to rule. That’s why I came back—” She gestured towards the misty sweep of the Downs. “Folk of my blood have dwelt here since before the Romans, even before the Cantiaci came. This land belongs to me!”
For a moment Oesc felt the moist chill of the shrine on the Meduwege once more and remembered how its spirit had spoken to him there. There was a sense in which her claim was true. Men ruled by right of conquest, but sovereignty came from the Goddess and the queens who were her priestesses. Still, he knew better than to admit that, or to point out that without the power to defend it, she might as well have been the wild child she appeared.
“What is your name, granddaughter of Gorangonus?” He winced as an unwary movement jarred his arm, the same that had been broken in Londinium.
“I am called Rigana, for my mother said I should have the name of a queen even if I spent my days keeping sheep upon the hills.”
“Very well, then,” said Oesc. “I will treat with you as a king does with a queen. Give me shelter. Bind up my arm and tend my horse, which has gone lame, and when my men come to find me you shall have gold.”
In a single supple movement she was on her feet, looking down at him.
“That is not the way you treat a queen, but an inn-wife. It is as a queen I will shelter you, for you are the suppliant. But the boy who helps us will go for your men as fast as he may, for I would not have the sight and smell of you in my house for one hour longer than hospitality compels.”
The Hallowed Isle Book Two Page 16
